A short while back we reviewed an lp from legendary bluesman Washington Phillips, called What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?, released on the amazing vinyl reissue label Mississippi. As much as we love vinyl, we know a lot of folks out there don't have record players, so thankfully, all of the tracks on that Mississippi lp, are also contained on this here cd, and then some! The lp featured 12 tracks, this cd collects all 16 recordings from Phillips, his entire recorded output, and as a bonus, you also get 4 tracks of early religious music from Mamie And A.C Forehand (Forehand had a track on another recent Mississippi comp called Fight On, Your Time Ain't Long). Here's what we had to say about Phillips when we reviewed the lp:
Very little is know about Phillips, other than he was from Texas and only ever recorded sixteen songs. That's it. Sixteen songs, all of them totally gorgeous and mysterious. Phillips vocals are intense and world weary, but it's the accompaniment that really stands out.
The cover shows an illustration of Phillips playing what looks like a toy piano, but the sound is stranger than a toy piano, much higher and more resonant, chiming and tinkling, like little bells, like Christmas carols, a sort of joyous effulgent sparkling shimmer. The liner notes suggest that it may or may not be a Dolceola, an extinct late nineteenth / early twentieth century instrument that looks like a hybrid of a toy piano and a zither. But as there is only one confirmed recording of the Dolceola, on a Leadbelly track from the forties, it's hard to prove just what Phillips' instrument could be. According to a 1961 interview with Frank Walker, who recorded Washington Phillips, the instrument Phillips used was homemade and was something "nobody on earth could use except him". Online sources speculate that it could be a fretless zither or a phonoharp. Whatever it is, it sounds somewhere between a hammered dulcimer, a spinet (baby harpsichord) and an ice cream truck (minus the sound system), all beneath a warm fuzzy patina of dusty crackle. The notes tumble and twinkle while Phillips weaves them seamlessly into a warm glowing backdrop for his testifying, creating a gorgeous and haunting angelic gospel blues, that is truly unique.
Another awesome archival release from the folks at Mississippi records. Not only is their catalog slowly being re-pressed, but there are a whole slew of new releases, the first being this collection from the enigmatic Washington Phillips.
Very little is know about Phillips, other than he was from Texas and only ever recorded sixteen songs. That's it. Sixteen songs. Twelve of which are here, all of them totally gorgeous and mysterious. Phillips vocals are intense and world weary, but it's the accompaniment that really stands out.
The cover shows an illustration of Phillips playing what looks like a toy piano, but the sound is stranger than a toy piano, much higher and more resonant, chiming and tinkling, like little bells, like Christmas carols, a sort of joyous effulgent sparkling shimmer. The liner notes suggest that it may or may not be a Dolceola, an extinct late nineteenth / early twentieth century instrument that looks like a hybrid of a toy piano and a zither. But as there is only one confirmed recording of the Dolceola, on a Leadbelly track from the forties, it's hard to prove just what Phillips' instrument could be. According to a 1961 interview with Frank Walker, who recorded Washington Phillips, the instrument Phillips used was homemade and was something "nobody on earth could use except him". Online sources speculate that it could be a fretless zither or a phonoharp. Whatever it is, it sounds somewhere between a hammered dulcimer, a spinet (baby harpsichord) and an ice cream truck (minus the sound system), all beneath a warm fuzzy patina of dusty crackle. The notes tumble and twinkle while Phillips weaves them seamlessly into a warm glowing backdrop for his testifying, creating a gorgeous and haunting angelic gospel blues, that is truly unique.
As always, pressed on thick vinyl, housed in a gorgeously screened jacket, includes an insert on thick textured paper, with very minimal liner notes (appropriately enough) on one side, and and on the other an ad for the Dolceola out of some old time catalog. Cool!
The second album from Gareth Mitchell (ex-Amp) of hermetic guitar alchemy on which the quiet guitarist toiled for over 9 months to master the drone rock equivalent to Raster's blip bleep minimalism. A much more successful piece than his previous outings.
One of the many pseudonyms for Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic, �, Tekonivel, etc) is Philus, which is his outlet for a very clinical display of pure electronic pulses which he intended to parallel the charged signifiers of hospital life support equipment within an electronica framework. Another excellent release by the Finnish label Sahko.
We've been in a constant state of glowing bliss ever since we first pressed play on this collection of beautiful psychedelic folk songs by Oakland's (by way of Canada) Phipps Pt. Glistening vocals drenched in sheets of intoxicating reverb melt perfectly into majestic guitar shimmer and subtle keyboard textures. We're reminded of one of our favorite UK psych folk artists Pantaleimon, as Lovage (aka Phipps Pt.) has the same kind of voice, all dreamy but with a distinctly dark disposition. It's easy to imagine Current 93 joining forces with Phipps. Pt., the sounds on Kiss melting in a haze dripping with endless warmth. This is such a rewarding and engulfing listen. We could go on and on about how much we love this, but we got the last 8 of these in existence, so chances are this will likely be gone before you've finished reading these words. We can't wait to hear what she does next!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A new brief blast of bizarre brilliance from AQ pal Ergo Phizmiz. The centerpiece of this EP is an Ergo-ized version of a song by another AQ favorite, People Like Us. The already silly, and chopped up musical metaverse of People Like Us gets even more sliced and diced, stuttering and hiccupping, like an outer space, junglized, countrified and funkified dose of acid fried exotica. The other two tracks continue in the demented exotica vein, with carnivalesque loops, kazoo melodies, burping faux horns, cricket like rhythms, and clankety clattery almost industrial chimes and percussion that mutate into slippery slide guitar and woozy melodiousness. Good stuff.
The best radio station in the world, WFMU, turned us on to young Mr. Phizmiz, a multi instrumentalist, writer, inventor, musician and all around crazy guy who makes some really weird cool music. Only 23, Ergo has already written several operas, recorded 20 albums, almost all of them unreleased, invented tons of musical instruments, created a 12 hour multi media project, done radio programs for Resonance FM and WFMU, recorded tons of soundtracks for TV and the stage as well as made hundreds of animated films and numerous sculptures and installations. Phew. So here it is. The first of those 20 albums to see the light of day. It's weird -- that's the first thing you'll notice. The opening track is a demented toy instrument cabaret, with mumbling vocals buried in the mix, wailing kazoos, warbling music box melodies and lots of maniacal shouting! The record unfolds a little more subtly after that, shifting from stuttery, hiccupping rhythms under toy xylophones and programmed beats to moody, almost Boards Of Canada-ish melancholy electronica to creepy crawly Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones-esque late night loungy murk, to strummy, whispery Brit rock balladeering. Weird but quite cool.
- MPEG stream: 2
- MPEG stream: 3
- MPEG stream: 4
The return of the truly genius and truly wild and weird Ergo Phizmiz. You may have read about him in the most recent issue of the Wire. Or you may have picked up one of his cd-r's that we listed here in the past, including a disc of interpretations of The The songs. Well, if you dug that one here's another one for you. Tweaked and twisted versions of songs by nu metallers System Of A Down! Fear not, the songs are barely recognizable, in fact a couple of times it made us laugh out loud these "versions" were so bizarre. Jungle rhythms, soaring soundtrack strings, skipping exotica records, creepy holiday music, and bleating trombones are smeared wildly over sliced and diced chunks of the original songs. Sounds like something that would be right at home on Tigerbeat 6 or Violent Turd.
Solo work from a member of Uncle Wiggly.
Holy mission to Mars! What a fantastic discovery, the first we've heard from Phobonoid, a one man black metal / industrial / noise outfit from Phobos, and yep, that's one of the moons of Mars, and the music on Orbita is a high concept soundtrack to the end of civilization on Mars, as viewed from Phobos, and also BY the god Phobos, culminating in the eventual meeting between Phobos and his brother Deimos, on the scorched surface of the ruined red planet. And sonically, that's sort of what it sounds like, opening with a dense cloud of blacknoize, darkly billowing, ominous and sinister, eventually frenzied riffing begins to emerge from the blackness, a roiling sonic chaos, that instead of bursting into blasting black buzz, blurs and swirls into a grinding, almost orchestral buzz, a lurching doom-drone creep, wreathed in electronic fuzz and glitched out crumbling distortion, before erupting into a blown out Godflesh style industrial dirge, the sounds mutated and on the verge of collapse, electronic flecked heaviness, that buried blackness bleeding over the mechanized rhythms and the insectoid riffing. And that's just the first track! From there on out, Phobonoid paints a bleak sonic picture of Mars' ruination, achingly melancholy guitar buzz blossoms into blackened industrial blasts, the vocals a demonic rasp, the programmed drums relentless and robotic, inhumanly fast at times, but constantly slipping back into a monstrous, crushing plod, the sound almost psychedelic, dense and lushly layered, noisy and super distorted. Throughout the 7 songs here, the sound is in constant flux, a dizzying barrage of black tarpit creep, churning atonal blasts, mechanized metallic buzz, with one gorgeously austere stretch of blurred, almost blissed out industrial ambience, before one final blast, of majestically epic mechanoid black buzz. So good!
Self described as 'industrial doom', the French outfit known as P.H.O.B.O.S. take the industrial pummel and clattery chaos of classic Godflesh, the serpentine song structures of Voivod and the grim grating brutality of the most bizarre black metal, and wind it all into a dense, hateful, slow motion black hole beast, plodding and pounding mercilessly, like some sort of unstoppable behemoth, crushing everything in its path, sucking life, spitting fire, spewing jagged shards of metallic blackness. The sound of a million monstrous jackboots, marching endlessly toward some unspeakably bleak final destination. The stretched out feedback soaked abstract doom of Khanate, given an industrial makeover, throbbing Teutonic rhythms, never even coming close to midtempo, instead pounding out impossibly slow rhythms, the whole thing wrapped in white hot sheets of feedback, and churning tarpit riffage, with the occasional melody tossed in, surviving only briefly, like a cow thrown into a river full of pirahnna, the whole thing exploding in a churning, bloody froth before settling back into the relentless machine like crush. And despite all that brutality, it's also amazingly hypnotic and listenable, with some of the beauty of the post-Godflesh outfit Jesu wethinks.
Originally released on the Appease Me label, run by Phobos' French metal brethren Blut Aus Nord.
Phoebes Dough is a new SF singer/songwriter duo and their debut cd-r release capture a lo-fi, coffeehouse intimacy. At times it's very K Records / Olympia, WA folk-pop-ish. Singer Dianne Epstein-Porter's vocals ring with a warble and lilt that recalls early 10,000 Maniacs' Natalie Merchant. With their barebones guitars, banjo, harmonica and "wicked tambourine" (their words, not ours!), she and husband Ken Porter weave eleven warm down to earth folksy tunes. They're sound is fleshed out by guest player Alex Baum on bass, drums, "a killer triangle and curious jokes" (again, their words!).
The highly anticipated, long overdue, new full length from Miami, Florida's cinematic IDM duo Phoenecia was well worth the wait. Finely crafted and mood-altering, it achieves a successful melding of seeming opposites: claustrophobia and expanse. Fragmented,
Not to be confused with the "Odd Jobs" remix cd, this new 12" of remixes sees Florida's IDM wunderkind Phoenecia get tackled by the likes of Adult., Matmos, Prefuse 73, Dino Felipe, Otto Von Schirach, and Jeswa. Nicola of Adult. replicates the vocal samples that Phoenecia took from "Me And My Rhythm Box" (from the film soundtrack of Liquid Sky) with icy determination.
Back in stock! Seven outstanding remixes mutating Phoenecia's super-rubbery beats into even more rhythmically complex IDM from Autechre, Richard Devine, Push Button Objects, Ectomorphm Takeshi Muto, Soul Oddity (actually, this is one of their alter egos...
Here's the thing about Phoenix...every record they make has a least 2 or 3 songs that are great! totally charming, unique and irresistible. The kind of songs you can't leave off of mix tapes, the kind of songs you are always excited to find in jukeboxes, or hear in a good movie (Sophia Coppola knew that as she helped give the band a new lease on life by including their great song "Too Young" in her film Lost In Translation). For every great song Phoenix writes, unfortunately they have a couple duds to go with it, which has made all their albums pretty uneven listens. This newest outing sounds like their most consistent yet. With obvious hits like "Consolation Prizes" and "One Time Too Many" this French band is the kind of fun and smart listen we wouldn't mind hearing on the radio or MTV. The kind of band that's perfect to blast while you're on a carefree drive with the windows down and your best friends by your side.
You probably already heard a lot of the hype surrounding this record, and you know what? It's all totally true! Phoenix have created one of the best and most infectious pop records to come around in a very long time. We're talking start to finish every single song having hooks and melodies that sound so fucking great and are both breezy and catchy as well as so totally immaculately crafted.
This is one of those rare pop records that is both so smart and so fun. Imagine Saturdays=Youth era M83 covering the Strokes!!! Although comparisons seem a bit silly here as Phoenix have really made a super unique record, that kind of perfect summer pop jam that most bands only dream of and often spend their whole lives trying to make, only to fall flat over and over again. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when you listen to this record you're totally transported, it's a refreshing rush, the world seems sunshinier, the skies bluer, everything just sparkles and glistens. So cool and suave and slick in the best way, it's impossible to not fall in love with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. So many folks we know, who are into experimental music or electronica or other branches of more esoteric minded sounds, have just fallen head over heels for this new Phoenix record which is truly a testament to its undeniable universal appeal.
While past Phoenix records always had at least a few totally standout tracks, none of those records can possibly compare. Some of us here, pop fanatics for sure, were pretty skeptical, having not been that impressed with past record, and not believing the hype, but after hearing just the opening track, naysayers were silenced, and almost immediately transformed into rabid fans, playing this to death, in the store AND at home. Sparkling, hook laden, well produced power pop bliss. This one's gonna be a bigtime contender for pop record of the year!
The Phoenix Cube is the latest blast of glorious underground weirdness from the always reliable UK micro-label Barl Fire, and offers up our first taste of The Phoenix Cube, a varied collection of beautiful sounds. Some folky and dreamy, some spacey and psychedelic, which makes sense when you realize that the man behind the Phoenix Cube is a writer for psych rock bible Ptolemaic Terrascope...
The first track pretty much sets the tone, dark and dolorous, spaced out dreamlike and unpredictable, a lengthy abstract collage of the opening track, all distant drones, fluttering flutes, tribal drumming, spoken word snippets, tinkling piano, murky swirls of FX which eventually and quite unexpectedly breaks into some sort of skittering rhythmic workout. From there on out, the record drifts from morose balladic folk, to blissed out Hawkwindy space rock, to crumbling expanses of dark ambience, to shuffling hippy strum, to warm whirring organscapes, to the creepy final track, all rumbling didgeridoos and simple hand drums, a droning and divine pagan musical ritual.
Packaged in a full color sleeve with a printed full color cardstock insert.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
Like the aforementioned Bola album Fyuti, Phonem's Ilisu represents one of the finer moments of IDM based electronica from the past couple of years. Ilisu finds Phonem remembering what made Autechre, Mu-Ziq, and Reload so special when they first hit the
Phonia's recapitulation of IDM brings together the persistant phase-shifting & flanging of Pan Sonic with stocatic breakbeats built out of a clatter of compressed metallic percussion found on the likes of Autechre, Funkstorung, and the Schematic people.
Espen Sommer Eide of Rune Grammofon-label post-rock-electronica act Alog presents his second solo disc of sampled live instruments and electronic manipulations. Mostly a non-beat-oriented mellow, moody, soupy soundscape, with gentle loops and Tarwater-ish
Another excellent album from Rune G recording artist Phonophani, experimental electronica glitch n' drone that's got an edge but is very listenable. Though it's Phonophani's third (at least) for Rune G, it was actually recorded back in 1998, now released (reissued?) with bonus tracks.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Kinda along the lines of El Stew, this is the Scratch Piklz' DJ Disk performing live with a band including Les Claypool and Brain of Primus, Buckethead, MCM, and Ektrakd. Japanese import.
I slipped this cd into the player thinking it would be more quality turntablist scratching and stylin' from Disk, founding member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, but... my bad. I should've remembered that Disk is so creative he's got his skilled fingers in a
When Brooklyn's White Hills was here last week (they played a rad instore, hope you made it), they brought us some copies of this new compilation on which they appear, alongside the likes of Mammatus, The Heads, Kawabata Makoto, Residual Echoes, Plastic Crimewave Sound, Fuzzhead, and a couple others (many of whom are depicted in the cover drawing montage, done by Plastic Crimewave, whose art you may know from his Galactic Zoo Dossier 'zine). Heavy duty, fuzzed out, psychedelic stoner rock nirvana here, folks! But it's NOT exactly a comp, actually. It's the follow-up to an out of print disc called Jamnation that we reviewed (thumbs up) a few years back. And that's the catch, kinda. Both Jamnation and now Phosphene River aren't just various artists collections, they're spoken word projects from the fevered mind of one Dan McGuire, who lays down his gritty beatnik poetry overtop the instrumental spacey effects laden bliss and/or throbbing distorted guitar riffage being pumped out by these bands. We've said it before, we'll say it again, we're not so big on the spoken word thing. You'll never catch us at a poetry slam. BUT, we gotta say, first off McGuire's rambling Lizard King orations, we can deal with, usually. His subject matter is surreal and sinister enough to somewhat make up for the sheer self parodic silliness of the whole spoken word thing. And, his words don't really get in the way of the music, which is really why we're listening. He slips right in there like he belongs, instead of being a total distraction. He's got a cool, gritty voice (we compared him to turned on, dropped out John Wayne / Henry Rollins hybrid before) and sorta sounds like the hardboiled detective doing the voiceover in some '50s noir movie, except with the drug fueled, fear & loathing laden, imagination of a Hunter S. Thompson. Even when he's getting Biblical, as he does on the PCS track "Are You A Dragon". His streams of consciousness can be sort of hypnotic - we'll admit to listening less to what he's saying and more to the heavy sound of the whole thing. And as we said when we reviewed Jamnation, McGuire has a knack for knowing when to back off and leave space for the music. He'll let a track play halfway through sometimes before opening his mouth - and the tracks he's selected for this disc are of course good 'uns, as you might have already guessed from the quality lineup who contributed. It's pretty well done for what it is!
So, if you like stoner psych -and- spoken word, this is for you for sure. If just stoner psych, well we'd say that this comp is rad enough to withstand the inclusion of all that jawing. And think about it, McGuire's purple flow of deviant verbiage is really not that different from what these band's guitarists are doing with their axes, wailing away, off on their own freaky trips...
Phosphor is German magazine that is "searching for the edges of progressive, experimental and electronic music and experimental dance theatre," and also appears to be quite active in promoting a number of cool events and radio broadcasts in their native country. There aren't any features, interviews, or articles; rather, Phosphor is jam packed with informative reviews of The User, Ken Ikeda, Pole, T. Raumschmiere, KK Null, Komet, Glenn Branca, etc. Touch Records was also kind enough to supply Phosphor with a sampler cd-r from their exceptional catalogue with tracks by Ryoiji Ikeda, Locust, Fennesz, Hazard, Oren Ambarchi, Philip Jeck, Chris Watson, and more.
Certainly a misnomer of a title, as the name of the first two Photek singles were called "Form & Function" vol 1 & 2, yet none of those tracks appear on this album. Instead, this album collects tracks from the following three singles "Water Margin", "Seventh Samurai", "UFO / Rings Around Saturn" (one of Marc's favorite 12"s ever), two new tracks, and remixes from J Majik, Digital, Peshay, Decoder, and Doc Scott. Sparse yet tense drum & bass with occasional Pharoah Sanders samples.
"Oh boy, new Photek!" we thought. But, sad as it is to report...there's just about NO WAY a fan of Photek is going to like this album. Sure, there's some decent moments of his dark tech-noir self, but mostly this is a bad house record, with vocals! And I'm sorry, but if this guy Photek hired is really a "legendary house singer", well...dunno about house music then. He's awful, and this record is a big, big disappointment. Painful. Maybe Virgin Megastore will do well with this. We've already got 4 or 5 used copies brought in, and that's before it even came out! Avoid.
Phthalocyanine is Dimitri K. Fergadis, who also runs the Phthalo label, known as cdr label of some of the most abstract electronica to come from America. "Navy Worship", pressed as a regular cd, attains a 'somewhat improvised' feel through the spastik drum programming clustered around dark electronic noodlings that harmonically sound all 'wrong.' Pretty unbelievable stuff.
Dimitri Fergadis' Phthalo label has developed from a pioneer of DIY electronica as one of the first CD-R labels into a proponent of the most forward thinking electronica that America has to offer in releasing records by the likes of Wobbly, OST, and his own Phthalocyanine project. Furthermore, he encouraged artists like Dntel and Daedelus by putting out their earliest works before they jumped into more populist waters. No One Said You Didn't is the second album that Fergadis has outsourced from Phthalo to the venerable Planet Mu, another label not especially known for its sensible take on electronica. Intentional or otherwise, Fergadis seems to take much of the metallic melodies from Mu-Ziq's Tango N' Vectif (which happens to be an early record from Mu Planet label boss Mike Paradinas); and he forces these melodic clusters onto double-time Rotterdam techno stabs of big dum-dum 909 beats and splattered electronics. As cacophonous as this might sound, this is actually the most well-rounded and enjoyable record he's produced to date!
Originally released on vinyl in 1995 on Plug Research and then again as a super limited CDR on Phthalo, this early work from Phthalocyanine is now available as a pressed CD! Strains of the romantic electron-pulse dreams of Aphex Twin (Polygon Window-era) are common in Dimitri's early work before heavy drum-machine-gun fire erupted on his messy and confrontational recent output.
If the Aphex Twin is too sensible a sound and Mouse On Mars is too melodic, then the mad scientist ethos of Phthalocyanine is what you are looking for. This is the electronica sound of a tooth extraction. This early Phthalo release is economically packaged without any artwork or information to distract you from enjoying the spasmodic clatter of dense walls of arrhythmic drill speed breakbeats.
Ever wonder what a SUNNO))) record might sound like if instead of guitars and amps, it was just vocals? Well wonder no more. This new record on Ideologic Organ, a new label run by SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley, offers up an incredible collection of ritualistic Tibetan vocal music, from a Russian group called Phurpa, and is easily the darkest, heaviest, most intense and breathtaking record we've heard in ages.
Anyone who has heard Tuvan throat singers live, or experienced the chanted prayers of Tibetan monks, know the power of the human voice, the mysterious harmonies, and strange overtones, with Tuvan's adding an extra tone, each vocalist creating his own harmonies, or Tibetan monks creating specific overtones, much like the sounds captured here, but these voices while similar to classic Tibetan Buddhist rites, are actually unike any monastic chanting we've ever heard.
If you edited out the breaths, this could be some fucked up Lustmordian drone record, a thick near static wall of rumbling, reverberating sound, but the voices here are so organic, so pure and emotional, so much more intense and moving than any sort of synthesized sound, and with all five members singing, it creates this deep, lustrous, impossibly dark and downright scary, rib cage rattling harmony, a low end thrum that is so powerful, but not just sonically, these sounds connect on a much deeper level because of their pure humanity, no instruments, no effects, no amplification, this is some deep and primal soundmaking, similar sounds have been created and used for worship and mediation for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, it's the first instrument, the human voice, here pushed to its limit, creating a sound few can conceive of, a sound conjured up from the lungs, the heart, the soul, devastatingly powerful, and impossibly massive. The pieces here augmented with traditional Tibetan instruments, but usually only to introduce a song, otherwise, it's a symphony of rumbling tones and deep vocal thrum, the sound darkly meditative, and mysteriously mesmerizing, occasionally building into a sound heavier than ANY metal record you've ever heard, and when the chants finally stop, it's like a vacuum, all the air sucked out of the room, the utter and inevitable silence that follows such deep devotional sound.
So utterly gorgeous, totally and breathtakingly mesmerizing, consider this a should have been Record Of The Week. Absolutely a new favorite, and again, just about the most amazing sounds we've ever heard...
One of THEE most gorgeous cover designs we've seen from O'Malley yet, one that perfectly suits the music, a faded out image of a hand, holding some sort of mysterious ritualistic implement, an instrument perhaps, in front of a barely visible hooded figure, a truly haunting image, with Cyrillic characters printed over the top in a clear reflective spot varnish, the records housed in printed inner sleeves with stark black and white images of the cloaked members of the group, all seated on a stage, surrounded by their instruments, so completely visually breathtaking.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With last year's artistic triumph "Low Birth Weight" (avant-rock nursery rhymes doused with macabre Victorian antiquity), Piano Magic delivered on the promise of their stunning debut, the updated-for-the-nineties Young Marble Giants-influenced "Popular Mechanics." So we had high hopes for the third album. But it's records like "Artists' Rifles" that propagate the myths of certain musicians as morose pasty whiners who sound as if they can't do much but shoot heroin, barely get out of bed, and be self-proclaimed geniuses. The record completely falters in stepping well beyond the boundaries of self-pity to encompass a sound that wouldn't be far from King Missile if they wrote funeral dirges (and not charmingly dorky pop ditties) for 4AD all the while convincing Kramer to add that shimmering reverb excess. Oh well.
Hurrah! something new from Piano Magic! The only unhappy thing about it is that it's an all too brief four song ep. We found ourselves hitting the 'play' button again every seventeen minutes. Never know quite what to expect whenever a new release from Glen Johnson & Co. crosses our threshold...
Delicate shimmering whimsical art pieces? Brooding heady molasses-rock? Wall o' guitars? Sparkly electronic chamber pop? We can attest that whatever they've offered up thus far though has seldom disappointed. They seem to be moving in a more straightforward guitar driven rock direction these days that we certainly didn't anticipate. The title track and the final one both threw us for a loop. Very very slow with an almost goth gloominess, sinewy and Doors-esque even! It also drew some comparative musings to the darkest side of The Go-Betweens. The two songs in the middle are far more familiar. "Stations" is a velvety languid number sullenly sung by Johnson, and "Vacancies" is the dreamy pop surprise treat on the cd. Sung sweetly by Angele David-Guillou, it'll surely also please fans of the sadly defunct UK band Delgados! Lovely!
Moments on this ep hint at the lovely wonder that was Piano Magic's "Low Birth Weight" album but falls just a bit short of reaching the sparkling splendour of that release. However, if you loved "LBW" but were sadly disappointing by their most recent
For the first song on this new Piano Magic cdep, the British group takes a turn into more of a Euro-pop direction. Imagine a more sullen Saint Etienne. Much to our delight, Angele David-Guillou's charmingly soft, wistful vocals are presented front and center for the first two numbers.
They're followed by one gorgeous instrumental and one sung by mainman Glen Johnson. That adds up to four sumptuous moody beauties! Aaaah, in terms of the Piano Magic of yesteryear (well, 1999 to be exact) that we hold so near and dear to our hearts (namely their very out-of-print Low Birth Weight album), it seems like they've found their way back to that enchanting/enchated place. More please!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With such a visual grasp on the surreal puppets of Jan Svankmajer, Piano Magic invokes the musical equal to a Victorian cabinet of curios - carefully arranged avant-pop songs filled with macabre nursery rhymes that shimmer & sparkle in spite of the dust, dimly lit spaces, and eerie moodiness. Quite similar to the early incarnations of His Name Is Alive or the later days of Tear Garden. Quite possibly Piano Magic's best, most focused work. Stunning!
The Important Records sticker that's plastered to the shrinkwrap of this album plainly states that "this is the most purely electronic record Piano Magic has ever made." Yes, that is certainly true; although the mood and atmosphere of Opencast Heart is no different hear than on previous Piano Magic records, as Glen Johnson (who's Piano Magic's chief songwriter / producer and only returning member of each incarnation for the band) continues to spin delicate, precious songs whose fragility hint at something slightly dark and wintery. With the icy electronic whirrs and naked vocals from both Johnson and chanteuse Angele David-Guillou, Opencast Heart has more in common with the Mark Van Hoen / Locust recordings than with the archetypal 4AD sound that Johnson had reified on the Piano Magic classic album Low Birth Weight.
The British outfit Piano Magic have always walked the fine line between post-rock and electronica. With this 4-track 12", they receive the remix treatment courtesy Isan, Future 3, Ensemble, and Opiate, thus demonstrating how PM might sound if they went full steam in that e-music direction. It's burbly, delicate and serene like a Boards Of Canada or To Rococo Rot record.
