On his third full length, the spotlight is fully on Maximillian Hecker's voice. It brings to mind a drowsy Joe Pernice or David Gates from Bread. Y'know, it's that sort of voice that just starts the hearts a-melting as soon as he opens his mouth. Hecker's backed by the full elegant pop assemblage of piano, strings... soooo lovely! Lady Sleep captures the deep ache of lovelorn yearning and loss. It's a box o' tissues listen. He'll probably also draw many comparisons to the grand swooping likes of Radiohead or Coldplay, and fans of those bands (particularly the latter) would do well to check Hecker out. The only song that steps outside of the hushed beauty comes late in Lady Sleep. "Yeah, Eventually She Goes" is the tenth of the album's eleven songs, and it jars with it's sudden barrage of guitars which push it into that tired ol' quiet/loud camp. Really, it's somewhat disappointing, coming across more as a Radiohead knock-off that this album could've done without. That said, setting that brief exception aside, we can say this album is absolutely haunting and heartbreaking.
It's been almost two years since the last proper full length from Canadian soundscaper Tim Hecker, and while tons of other artists have spewed out cd-r after cd-r after limited cassette in that same time, one listen to An Imaginary Country is all it takes to illustrate the difference. Why it took so long, why it was worth the wait, how the 'noise' and 'drones' and 'sounds' Hecker produces are so much more then just the words that describe them, it's all evident in every single second of this record, in fact, 10 seconds in, it's already obvious that this is indeed something special.
As demonstrated on numerous past recordings, Hecker is a master sonic alchemist, who with a handful of effects, a computer and a guitar and who knows what else, is able to construct this, a time machine of sound, a set of recordings that while simply pleasing to the ear, are also transcendent, they soothe, they entrance, they mesmerize, but more importantly, and more magically, they transport. Hecker and headphones is pretty much a ticket to some otherworld, not of sights but sounds, and not just sounds, but streaks and blurs and buzzes, soft layers and blinding crystalline shimmers, thick whirring textures and barely there delicate melodies, a sound that slips from breathless whisper to caustic roar, but each end of that spectrum fully infused with elements of the other, at its heaviest, the sound still manages to be darkly delicate, dreamy and ghostly, and at its most minimal and abstract, the sound is still imbued with some weight, a sense of import, of sounds and perhaps worlds hidden behind and within the actual music.
If anything, the sound of An Imaginary Country is heavier, and thicker, more lush, and with more heft, altogether more powerful, the sort of sound that performed live, through a massive P.A., could summon angels, or perhaps demons. But for all this added sonic weight, nothing is lost, the sounds are not just loud, they are multihued, every note, every chord, every bit of sound is alive with energy, it's as if Hecker has created a living breathing sound sculpture, made of transparent spheres, from afar, it's a gorgeous assemblage, the spheres shifting and dancing, playing out some elaborate composition, but pick one sphere, get up close and look inside, and there is a whole 'nother constellation of smaller glass spheres, engaged in a similarly beautiful and elaborate dance, and so on and so on. The magic is that every single set of movements, whether consciously or not, is visible and audible even with the slightest glance, which is what makes Hecker's sound so dense and deep and emotional and lush and utterly breathtaking.
A closer examination of each song reveals the presence of thick warm whirring organs, or some instruments and sounds transformed into organs, thus much of the record sound choral, the music of some crumbling empty church, left to play on into eternity, long long tones, blurred into slow motion epics, other tracks play out like watching some old filmstrip come to life, the newly living things still surrounded by grit and hiss and buzz, but that distorted haze that surrounds them seem to have come alive as well, moving like some organic living thing, the lives and actions of the newly living things inexorably tangled up with the movements of this other newly living things, a blurry ballet of soft sound and of mysterious sonic events. There are a few moments of relative tranquility, where the sounds are tamped down, wrangled into manageable shapes, allowed to shimmer and rippled and billow, held in check by an atmosphere of reverb and delay, but even then, off in the distance, a storm seems to be coming, and the closer it gets, the more our ears want it, and as the next song swallows the song before it, we can't help but close our eyes, open our ears, and let ourselves drift off into some other place, like walking into a warm waterfall and emerging on the other side, in a world made up entirely of warm waterfalls, our whole existence there, wreathed in torrents of sweet buzz and washed out soft focus sound, the headphone cord a tether, the only way home, if we ever felt the need to return home at all.
Revisiting the recently reissued Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again album from sonic sculptor and hazy dronescaper Tim Hecker made us realize just how long it's been since we'd heard any new music from this long time fave. And how badly we wanted, nay NEEDED more. Well, actually, it's only been a year or two, but for all the groups who kick out release after release at a ridiculous clip, why is that folks like Hecker, who we actually would want a new record every few months, forces us to wait years? The obvious reason is that unlike the legion of hack drone outfits who just tape down a key on their keyboard and run it through a delay pedal, Hecker's music is carefully crafted and meticulous, deep and lush and layered, it not only sounds beautiful, but it sounds alive, infused with emotion and energy, soft noise that manages to sound both organic and melodic, a deftly assembled landscape of crumbling distortion and processed guitars, smeared samples blurred into woozy expanses of whir and haze and buzz and shimmer. In a scene that now seems to be overflowing with wannabes, it's easy to see who they all wanna be, cuz Hecker still makes it sound so easy, and magical, and mysterious.
On this welcome new (and quite limited) 7", Hecker made a 9 minute track called "Apondalfia" and split it in half, spreading it out over two sides. If you're a fan, you already know what to expect, if you're not yet, this will definitely convince you, and yeah $15 is pretty intense for a single song 7", but when you consider that you'll most likely listen to this about a million times, well, $15 divided by a million is not so bad after all is it?
Price tag aside, Apondalfia is a gloriously washed out sprawl of warm fuzz and softly swirling melodic squalls, all of the edges smoothed out, but leaving plenty of grit, the guitars way more obvious than in the past, but it's hard to tell exactly what they're doing, they seem to be unfurling stange little woozy warped melodies, that seem to loop and layer and shift constantly, ringing out and bleeding into the various sounds around them, all beneath the thick sonic swells and a glacially churning shimmery sonic gauze. So beautiful and deliriously hypnotic, we've already listened to it 4 times just writing this review, so it's already down to less than $4 a spin, but we're not about to stop now!
WAY recommended. We just wish there was WAY more than 9 minutes...
By now we shouldn't have to go into too much detail about our undying love for the mysterious music of Tim Hecker. Just have a gander at the AQ website for much gushing over Hecker and his gorgeously gauzy sonic soundscapes. This new 10" is no different. One single epic, split into two movements, two sides, both dramatically different, but both absolutely beautiful.
Part one, side A, is the more intense of the two. Looped and processed guitars overlapping and all tangled up into gloriously softly roiling swirls of sound, melodies like snakes squirming and slithering and wrapping themselves around each other. Sitar like buzzing keening metallic high end, swooping backwards then drifting forward again. Here and there gentle lilting bits of finger picked guitar surface as do thick washes of distant crumble, everything deftly woven into a blurred slow moving dense and detailed sonic drift. At times it almost sounds like a symphony for tuning orchestras, a soft cacophony melted down into something, gauzy, dreamily indistinct and otherworldly.
The second half, which takes up all of side two, is much more glistening and effervescent, sparkling glimmery high end, little melodic trills fluttering and pulled apart, allowing the notes to drift and settle , the various elements gradually blurring into one another, the streaks and smears like slow burning comet tails of sound. Plucked guitars pepper the night sky like twinkling stars, all viewed through a cracked kaleidoscope, a washed out fog of hushed shimmer and slow moving blurs of indistinct beauty. Absolutely gorgeous.
Canadian dronescaper and ambient deconstructionist Tim Hecker's most recent record, Ravedeath 1972, was, as we proclaimed in out review of that record a few lists back, probably our favorite yet, which is all the more notable for belonging to a body of work that impossibly seems to consist of nothing BUT favorites, but there it is, Hecker has tapped into a unique sound that manages to evoke feelings of loss and memory, of some otherworld, some othertime, a music both modern and experimental, but still classic and timeless, deftly casting ambient music as something so much more than simple ambience. Lush and textural, haunting and emotional, the rare sort of sounds that the listner can't help but get gloriously lost in, this latest manages yet another remarkable feat, offering a glimpse into the process Hecker goes through to create his record, the most recent in this case, and offering those 'sketches' as just that, sketches, while presenting what is essentially, to these ears at least, another fully formed Tim Hecker record, one that had it been presented as just that, we most certainly wouldn't have batted an eye. Which again speaks to Hecker's sublime mastery over sound. That these tracks are 'works in progress', not the finished product they so appear to be.
As the title suggests, the focus here is on the piano, the sound minimal and spare by Hecker's standards, trading the often think gristly walls of buzz and crumbling thrum, for something much more stately and sparse, washed out and delicate. But even so, this is not a collection of raw piano recordings, the sounds are already blurred and bleary, sun dappled and crystalline, seems impossible these could be untouched original recordings, but even with a minimal amount of processing, the tracks here have already been transformed, gauzy soft focus squalls of swirling piano, give way to haunting funereal ballads, rife with creaks and thumps and various other room sounds, the low notes stretched out into deep resonant rumbles, laced with the subtle swoop of muted backwards melodies, hazy old timey shimmer drifts on the tinkling of music box like melodies, the notes heavy with effects, the sound seeming to melt under a warm summer sun. There are what appear to be solo piano pieces, but close listening reveals all manner of subtle sonic weirdness just below the surface, in many cases, those strange subtleties taking over completely, swallowing the piano whole, while other times the notes seem to bleed into one another, blurring into dramatic swirls of sound, tense and dark and very cinematic.
Most of the pieces here are brief, all of them could have been stretched out to fill up the whole record, and we would have happily blissed out to any or all of them, but even so, Dropped Pianos does not sound fragmented, the various pieces, even in their 'sketch' form, woven into an album in its own right, culminating in the final sketch, which is probably the most fully formed proper Hecker piece, the piano, maudlin and mournful, buried in buzz, a crumbling distortion that comes in swells, those heaving washes infused with their own melody, the sound shifting dreamily from blurred muted crunch, to ethereal drift, occasionally fusing the two into something darkly divine.
Vinyl version forthcoming, maybe later this month.
Imagine the most beautiful music in the world. Then with an old thrift store camera, take a super grainy snapshot of that music. Fold up the photo and place it in an envelope and mail it to an address that no longer exists. 20 years later, happen upon an old abandoned post office, and discover that letter unopened, but browned with age, remove the photo and place it in your pocket. Lose those pants on a camping trip, only to discover them the next summer, all wadded up in a corner, sprinkled with a years worth of dust and cobwebs. Wash the pants, and only afterwards discover the photo. Prop in up in the window of the cabin to dry, where it sits soaking up the sun for the whole summer. Right before you leave, grab the photo of the most beautiful music in the world and place it in your book to mark your place. Place the book back on your shelf and forget all about it. Move several times over the course of the next several years, finally unpacking a dusty old trunk filled with books. Leaf through several of them, when suddenly the most beautiful music in the world flutters to the floor, dusty and tattered, worn and nearly transparent. Finally, tear it up into tiny pieces and drop them one by one into the speaker of an antique victrola, wind it up and what comes out will be Tim Hecker's Harmony In Ultraviolet.
We often reference Hecker when reviewing records by other practitioners of a similar soundmaking process, but there's something so pure and organic about the way Hecker composes and creates, how he deftly assembles and degrades his sounds and songs and melodies. Managing to sound modern but antiquated at the same time, viewing the world through sleep filled eyes, everything soft and fuzzy, sometimes intense and ominous, sometimes even dark and downright scary, but always suffused with a shimmering radiant warmth, making all of his sounds glow from within. Each song a weather worn snapshot, frayed and dusty, comfortable and lived in sounding. It's a music that requires close listening, a subtly immersive sound, but once inside it, once the sound is all around you, only then can you pick out all of the details, hear the hidden melodies, only then can you let go, and get completely lost in Hecker's gorgeous world of mysterious sound. Some of the most beautiful music in the world indeed.
With a couple of recordings under his belt as Jetone on Force Inc, Tim Hecker has temporarily shelved his Chain Reactive, techno-minimalist pseudonym to experiment with sonic abstraction. "Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again" is easily Hecker's best album
THIS ALBUM FROM AQ FAVE HECKER, ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME, VIA KRANKY!!! Here's what we wrote about the now out of print Alien8 cd version back in 2004:
Yet another gorgeous missive from the ether, courtesy of AQ fave Tim Hecker. Hecker, along with Philip Jeck, Christian Fennesz and a handful of others, crafts the kind of music we here at Aquarius think is absolutely perfect. Lost transmissions from another world. Dark ambience pregnant with the possibilities of wide eyed discovery and fleeting glimpses into the beyond. Fuzzy and scratchy and indistinct. Gorgeously haunting soundscapes crafted from the sounds often discarded by "more discerning" musicians, fuzz, amp buzz, distortion, record static, radio interference all lending the proceedings a foggy, dreamlike hue. This is the sound of our dreams. We watch other lives, and other people, move in slow motion, drifting through a staticky haze, while we are left to peer as if through a frosty window, at once safe and warm, but also wishing we could step through the looking glass and feel the warm ambient blur wash over us like a spring shower, or feel the shards of sound gather on our coat like snowflakes. Fuzzy melodies drift through the grey skies like ribbons loosed from their moorings and left to twist lazily in the breeze. Occasionally storm clouds gather, unleashing squalls of crumbling digital decay, obscuring the afternoon tranquility with a fine layer of dusty crackle. An absolutely stunning world of sound.
Extra sonic contributions from le Fly Pan Am, Christof Migone, David Bryant and Oren Ambarchi.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We're starting to feel the same way about Tim Hecker as we do about Philip Jeck. We wait anxiously for the next musical offering, not wondering IF it will be amazing, just HOW amazing. And pretty much every time, it's even better than we could have imagined. Where Jeck employs customised turntables to imagine sepia toned fuzzy soundscapes, antique and blurry at the edges, Hecker, with his mysterious soundmaking methods, takes those same sonic snapshots, only later in the day, sometimes at dusk, when everything is cloaked in grey, the evening mist obscuring and blurring everything we hear and see, streetlights struggling to penetrate the gloom, and sometimes in the dead of night, thick with mystery and the unseen, clouds parting occasionally to paint the town with a light dusting of muted starlight, where every passing car or neon sign is a burst of incandescence, briefly pushing back the inky blackness, until it is all subsumed again by night's black cloak. As always, an absolutely sublime, gorgeously otherworldly collection of droning beauty! As with all Mort Aux Vaches releases, VERY LIMITED!
This is either totally fucking stupid, or absolutely brilliant. Like a lot of records we love, it's really tough to tell sometimes. And we do love this record. The last Hecker record was one of our favorite post-Oval cd-manipulation/glitch record ever. Dense, thick soundscapes made up of damaged, manipulated and chopped up discs. 'My Love...' follows the same modus operandi, only this time all of the source material is Van Halen. That's right, Van Halen. Your first clue was the pen and ink sketch of David Lee Roth on the cd cover, your second clue is the Van Halen-lyric title 'My Love Is Rotten To The Core'. And of course if you know Van Halen, it's easy to pick out the riffs that surface in bits and pieces amidst all the stutter/shuffling/skipping/skittering. The record itself is gorgeous. Super dense, with the VH guitars lending themelves perfectly to being manipulated into thick slabs of SOUND, shifting ever so slightly, changing the ebullient VH party melodies into stretched out minor key dirges. The songs are separated by collages of VH interviews and radio snippets. We're tempted to dismiss this record as a silly gimmick, with all the clever allusions to Van Halen (without ever actually fessing up to stealing all the songs): the between song collages, the song titles and the cover art! It would've been way more intense and effective to just let the music speak for itself (like COH's metal album 'Iron') because the music, in Hecker's hands, becomes a wholly unique and original sound. But maybe Tim Hecker just really loves Van Halen and this is the best way he knows how to show it!! Either way, this is definitely one of the most fun and creative, and fucked glitch/drone/cut-up/plunderphonic records of the year.
Unlike the majority of other soundmakers, Canadian Tim Hecker takes his sweet time with releases, a 10" here, a full length there, rarely more than a single release a year, which makes the appearance of a new Hecker record a huge deal, even if it's just a live ep, like this one.
Recorded in Sweden, this ep covers more ground in 20 minutes than most other artists cover over several records, in fact, much of these parts, in lesser hands would be milked and stretched out to fill up a whole album. But Hecker lets the sounds dictate the direction. Almost as if the sounds were alive, growing, blossoming, dying, changing shape transforming, endlessly shifting with Hecker there simply to nurture and guide.
The sound is one that has become familiar to us, gauzy, blurry, buzzy expanses of muted digital glitch, disembodied melodies, sepia toned ambience, organic and electronic woven into swirling shimmering soundscapes.
Here what begins as an Oval like sweep of glimmering chimes and washed out whir, quickly develops into something much more weighty, the chimes swallowed up by a warm whirring blur, a softly churning, slowly crumbling wall of blissed out guitar buzz, the buzz very gradually dissipating, leaving just the hiss and the whir, to drift like gossamer clouds in a deep blue sky. The sounds become softer and softer, muted and murky, underwater sounding, allowed to pulse and ebb and flow and sway softly back and forth, under a delicate patina of electronic crackle, an ultra distorted guitar way down in the mix unfurling ribbons of gnarled prismatic crunch, spread out over the hushed shimmer below, like the icy crust on a dying sun. Finally the hiss takes on a life of it's own, pushing all of the other sounds under the surface, the hiss made up of all manner of skipping static and layered white noise, impossible musical in its own right, the perfect climax to a surprisingly bracing expanse of buzzing blissful ambient sound.
As commonplace as glitched electronica is these days (even rock bands are now 'glitching things up' to sound more avant garde), a handful of these abstractionists have dedicated themselves to understanding the parameters of their tools and attempting to improve upon that which has come before. For several years now, this elite has included Fennesz and Stephan Mathieu, with Ekkehard Ehlers often exhibiting glimmers of similar electronic brilliance; however, Canadian electron wrangler Tim Hecker has come into his own with an equally strong aesthetic and a series of amazing releases. Outside his microhouse moniker Jetone, Hecker has released three records to date under his own name, beginning with the exceptional Fennesz worship of "Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again" and the shellshocked obliteration of Van Halen (quite literally!) on "My Love Is Rotten To The Core", however, "Radio Amor," Hecker's third album, may be even his best yet. Through an immensely rich set of reverb and granular synthesis patches, Tim Hecker has rendered the digital blip into a blissed out field of electric drones and warm, white noise. Throughout "Radio Amor," Hecker has ripped apart clustered notes from a piano and suspended them in the ether of an electricity, and occasionally the warm buzzings of analogue distortion emerge from the rippling, digitized vibrations. Half melodies, algorithmic ping-pong tones, and hard disc skips are all bathed with a radiant luster of electrified golds and coppers. Totally gorgeous.
MPEG Download: "(They Call Me) Jimmy" [/audio/timheckertheycall.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "(They Call Me) Jimmy" [/audio/timheckertheycall.m3u]
MPEG Download: "I'm Transmitting Tonight" [/audio/timheckerimtrans.mp3]
Tim Hecker might be one of THEE most referenced artists on the aQ website. Whenever we need to describe something fuzzy and gauzy and washed out and blurred and bleary, smeared and shimmery, woozy and mesmerizingly dreamlike, we tend to always look to Hecker, whose gorgeous crumbling otherworldly soundscapes manages to transcend their constituent parts. When listening to Tim Hecker, it's practically impossible to hear samples, or instruments, or anything really, other than the amazing organic soundworld that Hecker has created, the constituent parts rendered wholly unrecognizable, instead, they are layers, or colors, or pieces of the new whole, a sound that's transformative and transcendent, evocative as always of other times, and other places, lost worlds, lost loves and forgotten memories, conjuring up many of the same emotions as folks like Leyland Kirby and Indignant Senility. But whereas those folks' sounds are distinctly old fashioned, the sound of Hecker's music is timeless. It does of course have elements of a forgotten past, in its crumbling decayed sound quality, and washed out ethereal ambience, but it also manages to be melodic, and active, and alive it its own way. It has energy, and vitality, as if some bit of glowing modern sound, was left in a corner to collect dust, and fade a bit, before being rediscovered, brushed off, only to find it's glow, while not diminished, has definitely been altered by the passage of time. Like the most magical of musics, Hecker's is hard to describe, and even harder to imagine how it was created, even if we know the instrumentation, whatever arcane sonic alchemy Hecker employs makes even that knowledge useless in trying to understand how his music works. But then, like magic, not knowing how it works is part of the joy of experiencing these sounds, it's as if they were created from the elements, conjured up from the spirit world, beamed in from another dimension, it's not knowing, or understanding, but feeling, and experiencing, and enjoying, letting the music work its magic, and transport you to whatever imaginary other world they were intended to invoke.
With every Hecker record, we seem to proclaim, 'best one yet!' and it looks like we'll have to again with Ravedeath, 1972, recorded in a church in Iceland, and with a pipe organ as its main instrument, augmented by synthesizer, piano, microphone and feedback, this is the richest and most lush Hecker record yet, not just atmospheric, but emotional and infused with a definite pathos, even moreso, than on past records.
The record opens with a super corrosive bit of blurred ambience, the sound decaying and crumbling, the melodies pulsing and undulating just below the surface, a gorgeous balance between warm melodic drift, and caustic psychedelic haze, but woven together, they create something impossibly gorgeous.
From there on out, the sound and the songs sprawl and shimmer, epic expanses of warm whirring melodies, of lush layered ever shifting textures, the organ, while not always distinctly organ like, does lend the sound a certain choral gravitas, that makes all the sounds here darkly cinematic, the score for some lost art film, all deep shadows and strange shapes, of empty streets and abandoned cities, it's almost like the sound of Super 8 film if that film had 'a sound', all the lens flares, and warm distorted flutter, the fuzzy out of focus over saturated colors, all translated into sound, a sound that slips deftly from murky and moody and muted to blown out and sun blasted, from under water woozy melodic thrum, to super crunchy distorted buzz, to music box like tinkle to epic almost liturgical majesty, the whole record, so perfectly and uniquely Tim Hecker, again the reason we refer to him so often, when describing the often futile attempts of others trying to evoke sounds this powerful and moving, fuzzy, gauzy, washed out, blurred, bleary, smeared, shimmery, woozy, mesmerizing, dreamlike, crumbling, otherworldly, and so utterly and breathtakingly gorgeous.
We dug up an old review we wrote for another Hecker record, where we managed to describe Hecker's sound about as perfectly as we'll probably ever be able to, and reading it over again now, it applies to Ravedeath as much as any of Hecker's other records:
"Imagine the most beautiful music in the world. Then with an old thrift store camera, take a super grainy snapshot of that music. Fold up the photo and place it in an envelope and mail it to an address that no longer exists. 20 years later, happen upon an old abandoned post office, and discover that letter unopened, but browned with age, remove the photo and place it in your pocket. Lose those pants on a camping trip, only to discover them the next summer, all wadded up in a corner, sprinkled with a years worth of dust and cobwebs. Wash the pants, and only afterwards discover the photo. Prop in up in the window of the cabin to dry, where it sits soaking up the sun for the whole summer. Right before you leave, grab the photo of the most beautiful music in the world and place it in your book to mark your place. Place the book back on your shelf and forget all about it. Move several times over the course of the next several years, finally unpacking a dusty old trunk filled with books. Leaf through several of them, when suddenly the most beautiful music in the world flutters to the floor, dusty and tattered, worn and nearly transparent. Finally, tear it up into tiny pieces and drop them one by one into the speaker of an antique Victrola, wind it up and what comes out will be the music of Tim Hecker."
Easily his best yet, and one of our new favorite records, and for sure, a contender for record of the year, even just a little over a month in...
Canadian soundscaper and noise sculptor Tim Hecker might be one of THEE most referenced musicians on the aQ list. Whenever we try to describe something that's gristly and pixelated, blown out and noisy, yet somehow still impossibly lovely and lilting and warm and lush, Hecker is the man we point to. And why not, record after record, Hecker performs impossible sonic alchemy, harnessing often harsh noise, and somehow transforming it into lush, layered dreaminess, weaving all manner of textures and fractured drones, warped samples and manipulated recordings, into something stunning and fantastical - including at one point a whole record using nothing but Van Halen records as source material! That in particular sounds like one of those instances where the process is more interesting than the music itself, but nothing could be further from the truth, that disc was in fact utterly and heartbreakingly gorgeous, and even with no knowledge of the music's provenance, you'd have to be dead inside to not be totally blown away.
With every record, we found ourselves more and more in awe of Hecker's ability to create these impossibly pretty dronescapes, to constantly conjure up worlds of sound that evoke truly deep emotion in the listener, a rarity in music for sure. And then even beyond that, every record is quite different. Sure some of the sounds and processes remain the same, but each album, most definitely stands alone, even after a dramatic sonic shift. That said, Virgins might be the most dramatic shift so far in Hecker's catalog, utilizing what seems to be an entirely new sonic palette, which includes live, intimate recordings of woodwinds, pianos, synthesizers and electronics, and working together with other musicians, including another aQ fave, Ben Frost. The results are dramatically different, so much so, that on multiple occasions, someone would be playing this in the store, and we'd have to go see what was playing. Which not only speaks to the uniqueness of the sound, but also to the fact that whatever it was playing, was so good we felt compelled to find out what it was. And every time, once we discovered it was Tim Hecker, we were somehow simultaneously surprised, and not really all that surprised. So after all that, what exactly does Virgins sound like? Like all great records, it's really difficult to describe, it still sounds like a Tim Hecker record, sort of, but this time around, much of the music has a modern minimalist vibe, the influence of both Terry Riley and Steve Reich loom large, especially in the opening salvo, the brief almost psychedelic sounding loopscape of "Prism", which sounds like a strange Philip Jeck / Steve Reich mash up. Repetitive and hypnotic, with subtle (and not so subtle) pitch shifts, making the whole thing woozy and slightly off kilter, but still lush and prismatic, and that sonic template set up in the first song, is elaborated in "Virginal I", which brings the piano to the fore, reminding us of Melnyk and Batagov and the Necks, all our favorite modern minimal pianists, but here, the piano is layered and looped and accretes into a seriously dizzying jumble, which is soon joined by what sounds like cello, and then the tape speed begins fluctuating, and it gets noisier and noisier, and soon, it's not that far removed from past Hecker efforts as we thought, a swirling, dense squall of sound, that manages to be both impossibly tangled and intricate, and at the same time totally mesmerizing and dreamlike.
Some tracks here, like "Radiance", definitely harken back to the Hecker sound of old, airy and ethereal, warm and lush, a dreamy bit of manipulated sound, a smeary sonic blur that's softly psychedelic and utterly mesmerising, but others, like the two part "Live Room" suite, deviate dramatically from what we're used to. The title obviously referring to the room in which the piece was recorded, the sounds wreathed in natural reverb, a haunting melody pecked out on a prepared piano, over a lush swirl of strings and synths, the sounds gristly and distorted, even some seemingly inadvertent feedback, the sound here reminiscent of Ben Frost's more harrowing sound design for sure, but again, Hecker and his cohorts manage to wrangle the disparate and often caustic sounds into something that sounds strangely composed, atmospheric, haunting, moving, emotional, it seems impossible that these sounds could be harnessed into something so lovely, but the sound ends up being truly, and impossibly lovely. A sort of fractured chamber music, that for the second part of the 'suite' slips into something much more hushed and heavenly, symphonic sounds wreathed in tape hiss and static, with seemingly no effort to remove the various non musical sounds, voices, conversations, the effect is quite intimate, and again, strangely moving.
The rest of the record unfolds in an equally unorthodox manner, slow somber piano pieces are flecked with scrapes and shuffles, the notes slightly detuned, plenty of pitch warble, and subtle sonic tweaks, while elsewhere the previous plinked piano sounds are piled atop one another, along with bleating horns and woozy synths, resulting in a warped chamber kosmische that really sounds unlike anything we've heard. The record closes with a dreamlike sequence, that begins with fluttering flutes blurred into an ethereal drone-like shimmer, before splintering into what sounds like a Steve Reich piece broadcast through a malfunctioning transmitter, accompanied by pointillist piano and wrapped in gauze-y hiss and hum, only to shed the hiss and hum, and unfurl a dreamily hypnotic sprawl of slowly cascading pulsations, and finally, one last abstract blowout, all moaning strings, metallic buzz, keening high end, buried melodies, sitar like shimmer, all gradually blurred into an abstract smear of prismatic sound. Stunning!
Longtime aQ favorite Tim Hecker, who might be one of THEE most referenced performers on the aQ list, who for us has set the bar for all things fuzzy and gauzy and dreamily washed out, teams up here with another aQ fave, Daniel Lopatin, the man behind the psychedelic space-synth outfit Oneohtrix Point Never, for a fantastic songsuite of smoldering cinematic ambience, and heavily textured psychedelia, the resulting collaboration one of those rare occurrences where it's nearly impossible to tell who contributed what, where Hecker's sounds end and Lopatin's begin, and vice versa. The resulting sounds seem to land more toward Hecker's side of the sonic spectrum, everything ghostly and spectral, laced with squalls of glitch and squelch, underpinned by warm swirls of chordal thrum and swoonsome stringlike shimmer, the one/two punch of the opening tracks "Uptown Psychedelia" and "Scene From A French Zoo" set the stage for the rest of the record perfectly. Opening with a swirling field of zig zagging melodies, zipping from speaker to speaker, draped over mysterious Eastern melodies, everything wreathed in a fuzzy layered haze, and peppered with constantly shifting blasts of synth buzz and fragments of strange stringed instruments, the whole thing gorgeously bleary, and seeming to slowly ooze into one pulsating and prismatic whole. It's another case, where had that opening track been 60 minutes long and filled up the whole record, we definitely would have been perfectly happy. But there's much more to discover here, as "Scene From A French Zoo" reveals, ditching much of the distorted glitchery of the opener, for something much more lush and serene, a tranquil landscape of long smooth, soft tones, undulating over a bed of crackling static, struggling to break through, but inevitably sinking back below the softly swirling surface. Much of the record plays out like variations of those two tracks, slipping easily from dark brooding moodiness, soaring, swoonsome and melodic, almost choral and symphonic in places, to blurts of gristly static, and sculpted short wave interference, noise deftly transformed into melody, often swaddled in soft focus squalls of blurred buzz, just as often nestled in a bed of dreamlike melodies, and smeared shimmer.
We do hear hints of Oneohtrix on tracks like "GRM Blue II", with Lopatin unfurling a mysterious sprawl of kosmische synth melody, but if that is indeed the work of Lopatin, Hecker seems to be crafting an alien aura in which to place Lopatin's more melodic sensibilities.
Much of the sound here is downright soundtracky. "Racist Drone" sounds like some classic Hollywood score mangled and mutated, while "Grey Geisha", sounds like it was plucked straight off some old VHS tape, and run through Hecker's mysterious bank of alien FX. The record plays out like some perfect hybrid of Lopatin's psychedelic synth melodies and Hecker's master of moody texturalism, the title track sounding almost like a Oneohtrix jam remixed by Hecker, while "Ritual For Consumption" takes some mad scientist exotica, and melds it to some heartbreakingly lovely and lilting melodic drift, and then finally, "Vaccination No. 2" finishes things off with a slow building buzz, a dreamy drift that gradually grows more and more dense and distorted, culminating in a gorgeously blown out sprawl of dreamdrone shimmer.
What do you get when you take members of Gong, William Burroughs, Robert Wyatt's 5 year old son Sam and probably some pretty amazing drugs and mix 'em all up? The answer is THIS, Obsolete, a lost psych/prog masterpiece from 1971. Dashiell Hedayat's second record found him recruiting Daevid Allen and Gillie Smith from Gong to round out the lineup of his band, and began work on what would turn out to be a crazy twisty and turny cosmic psych/prog epic, from start to finish. There are moments of structure and actual fleshed out songs and melodies but there are also of course a non stop litany of amazing outbursts, squeaks, rantings, yells, and cutups. But what makes the record so great is how it can go from manic acid soaked freakout to stunning beauty in the blink of an eye. There are guest appearances from William S. Burroughs, the the cooing of Sam Wyatt (Robert's son who was 5 years old at the time), but ultimately this record is fueled by the great pairing of Gong and Hedayat, whose vocals run the spectrum from beautifully sung, to subtly spoken to wild and deranged.
The LP was originally released on the legendary avant-garde label Shandar, an amazing label out of France in the '70s who put out records by folks like Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Sunny Murray, Pandit Pran Nath, Cecil Taylor, and more. Obsolete is such a perfect snapshot of early 70's free rock exploration. There are moments that are confusing, moments that are absurd, moments that are HEAVY and moments that are utterly profound. Hedayat sums it up perfectly in the original liner notes: "This record must be played as loud as possible, must be heard as stoned as impossible..." And whether or not you are actually taking his words to heart, when you listen to Obsolete, it's pretty impossible not to feel like you're on some kind of wonderful and deranged trip. Recommended!
Mitch Hedberg is the kind of comic you either get or you don't. He's not immediately "ha-ha" funny on the surface, but like a junkie version of Jerry Seinfeld, he's truly one of the few comics we could listen to over and over again and still laugh at the�inane�brilliance of his stoner observations. It's not so much what he says but how he says it; focusing on the small mundane details of�colloquialisms�and popular culture and mining them for�epiphanies�of absurd logic. It's hard to say had he lived longer (he died in 2005) if he would have had a bigger following, as attempts to groom him into a sit-com starring comedian didn't quite pan out. His strength was stand-up, and even then his best shows were the ones where they teetered on the brink of all-out failure (see his HBO special!). Thankfully, this killer set was recently salvaged from material that wasn't on the first two Hedberg discs. Arguably, the best recording from this sadly missed comic genius.
Oops, we meant to review this ages ago, but somehow it slipped through the cracks, and wasn't called to our attention until someone from the band recently dropped off their brand new release which hopefully won't take us 2 years to review. Sorry guys! So this is not new, but then again it's not like this ambient kraut-prog outfit with local and international ties will be easily found anywhere, so better late than never, right? Hedersleben may sound like some obscure krautrock group from back in the day but it's a relatively recent group that features seasoned members from British punk legends UK Subs (!) who formed after working with Nik Turner from Hawkwind on a music project a few years ago (and indeed, Nik Turner makes a guest cameo on flute here). Rounded out by local San Francisco musicians, members of Hollow Mirrors and Dragontime, together they channel the fluidly amorphous spacerock jams of Brainticket, Embryo, Gong, Hawkwind and Temple. With tripped out proggy instrumental interludes woven throughout with druggy whispered female vocal passages, Hedersleben pay such devotional tribute to their influences that it's difficult to decipher that this wasn't recorded in some German commune 40 years ago. In fact, the group has gone on to become the touring band for Nik Turner as well as the studio band for the latest incarnation of Brainticket under the leadership of founding member Joel Vandroogenbroeck. How 'bout that. Very cool dreamy and spacey kraut-psych stylings!
We're liking this Nordic notion of 'jazz fusion', all right. The heavy duty debut from the Hedvig Mollestad Trio comes to us from Norway's Rune Grammofon label, who specialize in such things - the 'death jazz' of Supersilent, for instance, and also the likes of Scorch Trio, Ultralyd, and Bushman's Revenge - the latter of whom even covered Motorhead on their latest disc. Well, not to be outdone, the Hedvig Mollestad Trio cover the Melvins, here! That ought to give you an idea of where they're coming from, jazz-wise.
These guys - actually, two gals and one guy, on electric guitar, bass and drums, respectively - are a skronky power trio who rip it up instrumentally, their tunes twisty, turny, and full of distortion and feedback. In other words, they rock, rollercoaster style, reminding us of AQ instrumental faves Stinking Lizaveta at times, and eponymous guitarist Hedvig Mollestad has a dash of Nels Cline in her playing.
Though the band members are all jazz-trained musicians, their brand of fusion is heavy on the grungy rock side of the equation, though they tone it down for the moody meanders of "Doom's Lair" and "The Valley" amongst a few mellower moments. Not to be counted among those moments, of course, is that Melvins cover (the chunky, rockin' "Blood Witch" from A Senile Animal), the only song here to feature vocals.
All in all, this is catchy stuff, as far as noisy noodling jazzrock goes! Recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubs, capturing a lot of raw energy and jaunty glee indeed. Available as a digipack cd, or on lp w/ download code.
One of two great Afrobeat finds this week, unearthed by the awesome Soundway label (see the Sweet Talks review elsewhere on this list too). Hedzoleh Sounds were (and still are!) one of the most original "Afro" bands from the early seventies in Ghana, combining West African highlife with funk and western rock sounds. Famously recruited by jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela ("Grazing In The Grass") as his backing band after a recommendation from Fela Kuti for Maskela's 1973 Afro-jazz rarity "Introducing Hedzoleh Sounds" (which we're hoping will also get a reissue!), this self-titled release from 1972 is even rarer, documenting the band from their beginning singles and their stint as the house band at the Napolean Club. Known later in years as stalwart performers of more traditional sounds and horn-fueled highlife, this self-titled release not heard for over forty years is more remarkable for its lack of the horn section that later defined them. Making it a more lean, stripped down excursion, heavy on swinging funk rhythms and gorgeous sweet vocal harmonies. Killer!
A while back we reviewed a mysterious lp that had just showed up in the mail one day. It was sort of tough not to notice, a plain black sleeve with an upside down cross, crafted from old twigs, affixed to the front. As we mentioned in that review, of Clint Heidorn's Atwater, we were expecting some super grim kvlt black metal, but instead were treated to some dark, haunting dronefolk, a gorgeous collection of minimal guitar ambience and field recording flecked abstract Appalachia.
So we were super excited to get this new release from Heidorn, an extremely limited tape, available in three formats, two of which we have, more on the third in a second, but first the music. The title is mostly a handful of numbers, obviously a latitude and longitude, the location of what we assume is the oak tree that the piece here is about, a tree near where Heidorn grew up, an anomaly in his suburban existence, and one that came to be symbolic of many things, most importantly of what the future might have held for a young Heidorn, but now, also as a place to return to, with Heidorn musically musing on having his ashes spread there, a return of sorts to a simpler time, to the beginning.
The sounds are appropriately wistful and melancholy, stately and darkly dreamy, somber acoustic guitar and fluttering woodwinds over a drifting drone, lots of reverb, hushed and minimal, a bit twangy, but also a little abstract, the sound intimate and loose, as if the musicians were set up right in front of you, just sort of improvising, unfurling a dark tapestry of thrum and skitter, of muted sputter and washed out shimmer, the sounds do eventually coalesce into something much more song-like, a washed out dreamily doomy dirge, driven by a simple pulse, female vocals joining the instruments for a gorgeously languid ebb and flow, a sweetly psychedelic coda, that then gives way to a hushed, haunting outro. So lovely.
The flipside of the tape contains a field recording captured at the titular oak tree, and is a strangely moving sonic analogue to Heidorn and Co.'s piece, the sounds of a neighborhood, of lives, of Heidorn's past, and perhaps future.
The packaging it equally lovely. There's a standard cassette version, limited to 154 copies, housed in a silkscreened cardboard case. There's a deluxe version, the cassette in a canvas bag, that bag along with six photographs, housed in a hand stained and silkscreened wooden box, along with oak leaves, that one limited to just 92 copies, of which we have very few. And finally, there IS a third version, and it's a doozy, which requires the listener to download a map, and dig up one of four copies, located near the Salton Sea, beside a 19th century cemetery outside Onyx, in the Los Padres National Forest and behind the abandoned cages of the old LA Zoo. For more info on those, go here: http://clintheidorn.blogspot.com.
This record just showed up in the mail one day, and before we even listened to it, we were totally blown away, a black lp, hand stained, with an upside down cross made out of branches attached to the front, with a sticker bearing a very black metal looking logo, that simply said Atwater. We were obviously expecting some super grim, cult black metal, but instead were treated to some gorgeous blackened dronefolk, haunting and hushed, mysterious and quite lovely. After a brief intro of dense billowing drones, beneath field recordings of a train, and the occasional birdcall, the sound shifts to a dark, droney, drifty, super minimal folk, simple melodies plucked out on a guitar, over a subtle swirl of creaks and groans, of moaning strings and streaks of feedback, not to mention subtle bits of percussion, a dark, brooding, haunting loveliness that is black metal only in spirit, the sound reminding us more of Earth, Barn Owl, Ulaan Khol, Godspeed and the like, the recording super intimate and intense, every sound in the room picked up by the mix, feet shuffling, fingers sliding on frets, the buzz of the snare drum, but it all is perfectly woven into Atwater's mournful dreamlike isolationist Appalachia, the subtle strum, and spare fingerpicking, occasionally wreathed in tendrils of distorted electric guitar, the sound shifting dreamily from twang flecked slowcore, to glacial bluegrass shimmer, from spare skeletal ghostfolk to washed out droneguitar thrum, the guitar is the focal point throughout, spending much of the record hovering in black expanses and unfurling dark skeletal melodies, but the recording, the ambience, all play a huge part, as do the strings, the very occasional drumming, there's even saxophone at one point, everything woven into an ominously gorgeous songsuite of ghostly mesmer and dolorous drift.
LIMITED TO 148 COPIES!!! Each one hand stained, numbered and silkscreened, with an upside down cross made from branches affixed to the front, includes a thick printed cardstock insert, with a color photo on one side, liner notes on the other. Also includes a download coupon. WARNING: these are very fragile, and there's a good chance that the branches/cross may come loose during shipping, if that happens, it can be easily reaffixed with a hot glue gun.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In the constant search for the 'new', electronica runs the risk of dating itself with failed sampling abilities and the bandwagoning of sounds that may have been exciting at one time but lose their explosiveness after one or two listens. Drum'n'bass is one of the most guilty subgeneres of this self destruction. So it is certainly a rarity in which an album defies the laws for the half-life of electronica. Heinrich at Hart's debut is one of those anomalies. A good portion of the sounds could have been found on an early Doc Scott single or the first Panacea album, but the attention to production details and the stalking menace of the breakbeats make the album as good as it is.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another mysterious black metal horde, this time from the Netherlands, brought to our attention by the seemingly infallible Total Holocaust, who in the past have brought us discs by Heresi, Sortsind, Malcuidant, Hell Militia, Make A Change... Kill Yourself, Blodulv, The One and of course Nortt and Xasthur. That is one seriously brilliant black elite for sure. Hekel have no problem measuring up though. They too traffic in that Burzumic buzz punctuated by EXTREMELY tortured vocals, a la Weakling, Sortsind, Bethlehem, Silencer and the like. And like those bands, we're talking -seriously- tortured. Total Holocaust's website describes the singing here as "painfully performed vocals" and that pretty much nails it. Utterly anguished, damned and tormented, howling demonic screeches, like the sound of flesh being flayed, or of being burned alive. That tortured. All sprawled bruised and bloodied over a haunting sound world of minor key buzz. Mostly midtempo, everything wreathed in suffocating doom, lots of that mournful arpeggiated guitar, huge layers of fuzz and buzz, a loping, lurching depressive blackness. And those vocals. So intense and emotional. If there was some sort of designation for 'emo' black metal, this might qualify. You hear old stories about Rites of Spring rocking out, and getting so into it, that the band members actually broke down and cried. You can almost imagine Hekel doing the same. Blasting and buzzing in utter darkness, tears streaming down their faces, corpsepaint smeared into streaks of black and grey, guitars and drums drenched in blood.
The disc starts off strangely, with simple martial drumming, haunting forest sounds, wolves, owls, wind, while a raspy voiced demonic invocation is spewed out over the top. From then on, it's a super expansive seasick swirl swinging from buzzing blasts of black blur to plodding mournful doom drenched buzz.
A harsh and harrowing, super emotional, ultra depressive exploration of a truly tortured black metal soul.
"Sketchbook" is an apt title for the debut recording for Swedish lowercase composer Johannes Helden, as this album is an earnest collection of fragmented and processed field recordings, which originated during Helden's travels from his native Sweden through Norway and into Russia. There's an up and coming school of travelogue field recordists operating under the broad banner of 'phonography.' While it's possible to qualify this album as a travelogue, Helden has composed these field recordings as a series of empathic impressions of the environment's desolate beauty and numbing cold; furthermore, "Sketchbook" shares little of that aforementioned aesthetic's specificity of references (i.e. rain, cars, market sounds, etc.). This album very comfortably situates itself within the parameters of the Trente Oiseaux label and the productions of Bernhard Gunter: slow moving structures bracketed by pronounced silences, muted tonalities and blurred sounds as if the sounds were 'out of focus' (to use a visual analogy), and pointillist digital markings that don't quite manifest as the granular based glitch-electronica. Somatic pulsations flicker, and drones evolve into symphonic swells resembling Feldman's handling of woodwinds more than any given field recording. Makes for good headphone listening.
2nd album from this seminal French electronic rock act lead by Richard Pinhas (Guitars, ARP, VCS 3, Mellotron and tapes). With Pinhas on this record is
Georges Grunblatt (Mellotron, Guitar and ARP). Features the Pinhas composition "In The Wake Of King Fripp" -- tells you his big influence, don't it?
The first and third Heldons as one double cd.
Fourth album (of course) from Heldon. Great cover, great album.
This unanimous store favorite has been newly reissued on vinyl with a beautiful gatefold sleeve. Come on, who could resist that classic cover of a mysteriously sexy lizard alien in a retro space helmet? Surely not us!
Ok, anyone into Magma and/or Moogs pay attention! Pretty much anything by Heldon, the pioneering French electronic rock act from the '70s comes highly recommended by us, but Interface perfectly combines Pinhas' Frippertronics guitar obsession with (what are now) vintage synth sounds into some of the best psych-prog sci-fi jamming EVER. Interface was Heldon's sixth LP, dating from 1977, and features the latter-day Heldon trio line-up of Pinhas (guitar, various Moogs, electronics), Patrick Gauthier (later of Magma, on the Moog bass and Minimoog) and Francois Auger (drums and synthesized percussion). Tracks like "Jet Girl" and the nearly twenty minute title cut are kinda like King Crimson meets Suicide or something like that. It's at once both hectic and contemplative, filled with dynamic energy and industrialized nervous ambience. Essential!
This triple cd set in a fat ol' jewel case combines two previous Captain Trip releases of rare live Heldon material that we'd previously reviewed -- those were the Live Elektronik Guerilla: Paris 1975-1976 cd and Well and Alive: Live in Nancy 1979 2cd. It's a lot cheaper to get 'em both together in this 3cd package, though you're missing out on the miniature lp style sleeves.
Here's a conglom of our reviews of the two:
The disc that collects the 1975-'76 live recordings consists (in contrast to the rhythmically precise spaciness of the later '79 material) of looser, stoned, rockin' jamming. Indeed. Of course, still pretty darn spacey. This wasn't recorded by electronic robots by any means. Sounds more like mellow Hendrix-digging freaks doing drugs and getting off on droning acid rock guitar. We can't exactly argue with that, though. Be warned that sound-quality-wise, this is fairly hissy and lo-fi. Not a pristine studio recording, that's for sure -- but it really works with all the fuzz, effects, and feedback, akin to a Rallizes boot. Still, not the place to start if you're utterly new to Heldon.
Then on to the two discs from '79...what a difference a few years made! The '79 stuff kicks so much precision ass. Awesome! On the first disc, the band effortlessly locks into hypnotic rhythmically complex cycles driven by Francois Auger's incredibly tight yet dexterous drumming. Some stretches are austere, atmospheric and almost soothing, while others possess a mysterious dark force that'll thrust you back in you seat, and still others' synthed-out spaciness might have you tripping your pants off. Mind-melting. The second disc is less kinetic, more along the lines of frontman Richard Pinhas' later solo guitar and synthesizer drone explorations (think: more Tangerine Dream, less King Crimson). Please note: be forewarned that the recording quality is less than stellar (somewhat murky at times), but also keep in mind that these are previously unreleased tracks. Personally we feel the pros outweigh the cons in this situation, but of course you'll have to decide for yourself.
If you're new to this group, allow us to simply proclaim: late '70s Heldon = psych-prog / electronic rock at its finest. Prior to entering the live Heldon arena, we'd highly recommended checking out 1977's Interface and 1979's Stand-By. Fierce, menacing and propulsive.
OK, all you dedicated fans of the French synth prog act Heldon, here's the other live document of Richard Pinhas' band recently released by the Japanese label Captain Trip, alluded to in our review last list of the double cd Well and Alive: Live in Nancy 1979. We mentioned that while the 1979 set was both rhythmically precise and wonderfully spacey, this single-disc collection of earlier live recordings from the 1975-'76 era consisted of looser, stoned, rockin' jamming. Indeed. Of course, still pretty darn spacey. This wasn't recorded by electronic robots by any means. Sounds more like mellow Hendrix-digging freaks doing drugs and getting off on droning acid rock guitar. We can't exactly argue with that, though.
Be warned that sound-quality-wise, this is fairly hissy and lo-fi. Not a pristine studio recording, that's for sure -- but it really works with all the fuzz, effects, and feedback, akin to a Rallizes boot. Still, not the place to start if you're utterly new to Heldon.
52 minutes, seven previously unreleased tracks, limited to 1000 copies, packaged in a nice Japanese mini LP styled sleeve.
Ok, anyone into Magma and/or Moogs pay attention! A couple lists back we got our friend Loren Chasse to write some nice things about Tranzition, the latest album from cult French musician Richard Pinhas, the guy who masterminded the pioneering electronic rock act Heldon back the '70s. That made us realize: hey, we really should get some of those old Heldon records up on our website too! So if you look you'll see we already stuck a few up there with real brief reviews. However, Cuneiform happens to have just brought these two Heldon albums back into print on cd and that gives us a perfect excuse to further sing the praises of Pinhas and his band, as these are two of our faves (though all Heldon comes recommended by us), perfectly combining Pinhas' Robert Fripp guitar obsession with (what are now) vintage synth sounds into some of the best psych-prog sci-fi jamming ever.
Interface was Heldon's sixth LP, dating from 1977, and features the latter-day Heldon trio line-up of Pinhas (guitar, various Moogs, electronics), Patrick Gauthier (Moog bass and Mini-Moog) and Francois Auger (drums and synthesized percussion). Tracks like "Jet Girl" and the nearly twenty minute title cut are kinda like King Crimson meets Suicide or something.
Then there's 1979's Stand By which was Heldon's final studio outing and sees the Pinhas/Gauthier/Auger trio augmented by several additional musicians, including vocalist Klaus Blasquiz of Magma fame. The three tracks here (two of them quite lengthy) will definitely appeal to fans of Magma's "zheul" style. But the Fripp and Suicide allusions above also apply. One track is an extended space-rock opus loosely based on "Bolero"! Even judged by their covers alone, Stand By and Interface both possess a lot of the future-retro cool that's so hip nowadays, while being legitimately classic albums that anyone who digs krautrock or Circle or that kind of thing should investigate. Both discs have been reissued with two bonus live tracks apiece, by the way. So if you aren't already hip to Heldon, either or both of these would make good starting points!
From 1976, the 5th album by Richard Pinhas's classic band. This one's super dark and dense, Magma gone industrial? Proto-industrial French electronic rock anyway. With 2 bonus live tracks. Heldon on this recording features bassist Janick Top (Magma).
What a difference a few years made! Of the two live Heldon albums that we just got in, this one from '79 kicks so much precision ass (while the other from '75-76 is looser, more straight-forward jam rock). Awesome! On the first disc, the band effortlessly locks into hypnotic rhythmically complex cycles driven by Francois Auger's incredibly tight yet dextrous drumming. Some stretches are austere, atmospheric and almost soothing, while others possess a mysterious dark force that'll thrust you back in you seat, and still others' synthed-out spaciness might have you tripping your pants off. Mind-melting. The second disc is less kinetic, more along the lines of frontman Richard Pinhas' later solo guitar and synthesizer drone explorations (think: more Tangerine Dream, less King Crimson). Please note: be forewarned that the recording quality is less than stellar (somewhat murky at times), but also keep in mind that these are previously unreleased tracks. Personally we feel the pros outweigh the cons in this situation, but of course you'll have to decide for yourself.
If you're new to this group, allow us to simply proclaim: late '70s Heldon = psych-prog / electronic rock at its finest. Prior to entering the live Heldon arena, we'd highly recommended checking out 1977's Interface and 1979's Stand-By. Fierce, menacing and propulsive. Limited to 1000!
Local early ought's all-casio group with songs about Colors, Margot Hemingway and Mysterious Disappearances. Fans of Marine Girls, Young Marble Giants and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, take note!
Oh yes, we're always happy to discover something new from Keith Kenniff! He's the Boston based gent behind the postrocktronic gauzy gazes of Goldmund and Helios. Whenever a new customer asks for something relaxing, meditative, massage-suitable, of course we'll first say "Brian Eno", but chances are we'll then steer them in Kenniff's direction. We've just received the latter's third album (as well as a new Goldmund album titled Two Point Decimation too... yeesh, does this guy ever sleep?). It's definitely got a few new twists and takes on his usual light-touch instrumental approach. For one thing, Ayres features Kenniff utilizing his voice as another sound source -- murmuring, whispering and otherwise haunting the proceedings in dreamy, shimmer-shiver fashion. As well, the half dozen tracks seem to materialize and form slightly more solid presences than the drifting, shifting layered ambience of past releases. May be quite appealing to those who love Mum and The Album Leaf. Psst, included is a cover version of "In Heaven", the awesome Lady In The Radiator song from the soundtrack of David Lynch's cult classic Eraserhead!
You can't always judge a record by its cover. But after one look at the cover of Caesura, disc number four from Boston's Helios, we could pretty much tell this would be a wondrous escape into some heavenly realm of ambient goodness. Between the latest Grouper release and the cosmic psychedelia of the recent Alps disc, Type seems to have tapped into some infinite well of dream pop specialists. And Helios is one of the most outstanding members of this cast of dream weavers. Boston's Keith Kenniff, the man behind Helios, has crafted an album of delicate, gorgeous compositions shrouded in winter's haze. Light and somber guitar passages stepping along side sparse electronic beats and percussion to create a lush wreath of pop ambiance. Unlike some pop ambient records that too easily meander into the dreary corners of space, Caesura remains anchored to earth. Invoking images of quiet pines and blissful isolation, there's a captivating relationship between the more industrial, electronic backbone of the record and the droning, organic melodies that hover above. Caesura is the perfect soundtrack for gazing out at the morning fog on lonely winter mornings. Need we say much else?
