A follow up to last year's successful "Masses" cd, on which UK electronica duo Spring Heel Jack edited and manipulated the raw improvisations of a host of Downtown NYC (and beyond) jazz musicians, in what was one of the the best and most original entries yet in Thirsty Ear's pretty great "Blue Series" of happenin' now jazz. Like that disc, this one also fortunately eschews the obvious "let's add some techno beats to this trumpet solo" kind of thing you might expect from an electronica remix project, and really approaches the music from within, SHJ using their computers carefully to meld disparate performances together into something that definitely remains jazz -- but with an undercurrent of glitchy crackle and drone. It's kind of like a free jazz version of Radian or Pluramon (to cite two computer-aided post-rock/electronica projects, both faves around here). The SHJ fellows are really listening and reacting, like improvisors do, and there are some great musicians on here for them (and us) to listen to. There's two returnees from the "Masses" line-up: legendary British saxophonist Evan Parker and Blue Series curator Matthew Shipp (on Fender Rhodes). And then there's also the likes of trombonist Paul Rutherford, drummer Han Bennink, violinist Ed Coxon, bassist George Trebar, trumpter Kenny Wheeler, bassist John Edwards, and, the oddball in the bunch, guitarist Jason Pierce of Spiritualized fame (who must be responsible for the distorted guitar noise found on "Maroc" and elsewhere).
With that kind of talent on hand, SHJ had a lot to work with, and they did a great job, creating layered compositions that retain the player's voices even as they are juxataposed into unimagined new situations. The results are moody, melodic but abstract, rarely (but sometimes) abrasive, nicely noir-ish...android jazz for some Blade Runner coctail bar. Dark, dense, lovely.
Jazz purists might scoff, but actually we'd rather listen to this than a lot of straight improv stuff done by the above musicians -- the combination of the instrumentalists' unfettered expression and SHJ's editing and structuring (and sonic additions) really works well here. Recommended.
Imagine Snakefinger playing drum -n- bass and you're almost there.
The longtime British drum & bass artistes who collaborated with stark indierock minimalists Low on the recent stellar Tugboat ep, here continue to explore the dramatic (emphasis on drama) electronica that they do so well. As usual, with one foot in d&b and one foot in a noir netherworld of soundtrack tech...more of the same, although we kinda wish they had gone even further rather than releasing more of the same, no matter how good.
Recently, the Spring Heel Jack duo of John Coxon and Ashley Wales took their amazing "Masses" / "Amassed" jazz-meets-electronics project on the road, and we've now got this aptly-titled disc to prove it. Yep, live performances recorded at two shows in England this past January featuring several of the veteran jazz players who appeared on "Masses" and "Amassed" -- Matthew Shipp, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, William Parker -- alongside electric guitarist Jason Pierce of Spiritualized (who contributed to "Amassed") and the Spring Heel Jack guys themselves adding their two cents with electronics and live sampling and so forth. If you're not familiar with the two albums by this project already, basically SHJ recorded a bunch of awesome jazz musicians improvising (not necessarily together), fed that into their computer, edited and manipulated and juxtaposed, and came up with a pretty great jazz/electronics hybrid, that's neither wholly improv nor pre-composed. And it's definitely NOT drum and bass overlaid with jazz samples, fear not. Imagine a jazz version of Radian, if you know that band (another parallel would be to Pluramon). How would it work live, though? A bit differently, but with players of the calibre they've gathered here, it's still gotta be good. SHJ's opportunity for structuring and editing done in post-production is obviously lessened or eliminated, but the duo remain in their role as facilitators, and there's definitely a lot of electricity present, in all senses. The two long tracks here (75 minutes total on the disc) can get really wild and messy with the guitar distortion of "J Spaceman" vying with E. Parker's tenor for supremacy amid a bed of hectic Bennick drumming and SHJ electronic effects. Yet at other times W. Parker's bass and Shipp's Fender Rhodes groove right along with Bennink laying back. The music ebbs and flows, different groupings of players and soloists taking their turns. As a group, everyone seems to be revelling in freedom yet stays responsible to the music the group is making. This would seem a good bet for fans of Sun Ra, Supersilent, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, and Evan Parker's previous experiments with live electronic accompaniment.
English duo's album has been called 'the Loveless of drum&bass' but we think that's just a 'savvy' marketing scheme to make two-years-MBV-deprived fans try out this album, when the right folks are gonna buy it anyway cos, y'know, it's good. If you're fond of the smooth jungle goin' on behind Tracey Thorne on the last Everything But the Girl record, you'll like this. Can anyone confirm that the first piece samples the theme to X-Files.
John Coxon & Ashley Wales do have a history with experimental / academic musics that predates their better known ventures into drum & bass as Spring Heel Jack. "Oddities" is a presentation of their more out-there experiments full of oblique electronic twiddle replete with dramatic electronic swells and Parmegiani / kosmische references. The addition of WS Burroughs voice makes perfect sense here. This unusual album will certainly surprise die-hard Spring Heel Jack fans with its lack of drum & bass breaks.
UK electronica artists Spring Heel Jack go up against the avant-jazz artists of Thirsty Ear's Matthew Shipp-curated "Blue Series". The players here include Shipp, Evan Parker, Tim Berne, Mat Maneri, William Parker, Daniel Carter, Roy Campbell, and several other
John Coxon and Ashley Wales (aka Spring Heel Jack) have really got a good thing going with the several electronics-abetted jazz experiments they've been brewing up for the Thirsty Ear label's Blue Series: Masses, Amassed, Live, and now this one, The Sweetness Of The Water. Their usual procedure is to get a bunch of A-list avant improvisers together in various combinations, record, and then create via their deft editing and processing something more constructed and composed, using the computer to do so without obscuring the original spark and feel of the live improviations. In fact it's quite unclear at what point in the recording/mixing process the entirely respectful, subtle electronic elements have been introduced. On this album we hear the talents of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, sax man Evan Parker, drummer Mark Sanders, and bassist John Edwards, alongside the contributions of the Spring Heel Jack duo. There's some scritchy sonic scribbling, and spacious note-lush drone, and lyrical melodicism (often accompanied by that lovely electronic crackle of which we here at AQ just can't get enough) and all kinds of gorgeous playing to be found here, on what's definitely a 21st century jazz album, in a vein sorta similiar to Supersilent or Trapist. As with the others from Spring Heel Jack and their heavy jazz friends so far, recommended!
Deluxe 77-track career retrospective.
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With Boss mania in full swing once again and a rare appearance on AQ's list a few weeks ago with his split 10" with Suicide, we thought why not offer up a few words on his latest album, Working On A Dream? Truth be told Springsteen has made some really fine music in the last several years. His 2005 album Dust & Devils was his most bleak and dark affair since Nebraska, and his Seeger Sessions, We Shall Overcome which came out a year later displayed Bruce at his stripped down best. This record finds the boss being his biggest, most arena ready and triumphant self. It almost sounds like the 2nd disc of a greatest hits collection, which is to say it's so familiarly Springsteen for better and for worse. Lots of midtempo songs ready for high rotation on commercial radio and then there are some full on fist in the air anthems as well. Big time Springsteen fans will find lots to like on here but for sure it's not his greatest or most adventurous outing.
We seem to be in the midst of another round of Springsteen mania, with The Boss recently wowing the crowd at the Super Bowl, coming out with a brand new record and once again flexing his muscle as one of rock n roll's strongest shepherds. While we all have our own favorite Springsteen document (Nebraska, Greetings From Asbury Park, etc.) we have to say we were pretty thrown off in a pleasant way a few years back when we caught a YouTube clip of The Boss doing an incredible live rendition of the Suicide classic "Dream Baby Dream." Made us have way more respect for the Boss and also made us realize that no matter how much of an underground sensation those first two Suicide albums were, underneath it all were totally brilliant and long lasting pop songs.
So with The Boss in the spotlight once again we thought we'd get around to listing this 10" that's part of Blast First Petite's series of Suicide splits with the other bands all doing their own versions of Suicide classics. We listed the Lydia Lunch/Suicide split a little while ago. We're not sure if it was the unexpected delight of when we first saw the clip of Springsteen playing "Dream Baby Dream" that made it seem so incredible but it's not quite as mind blowing here. Still pretty cool to hear him doing it. The flipside finds Suicide performing their track back in 1979 for an NBC late night show and then another Suicide cover by a contemporary group called Beat The Devil with their take of "Mr Ray." We just found out that all these Suicide splits have been released in honor of Alan Vega's 70th birthday, how cool!
During his time with Ohio's Guided By Voices, Tobin Sprout wielded his pop songwriting pen and four-track studio with sweet skill, but unfortunately all too often he was overshadowed by mainman Robert Pollard. Since his departure from GBV in '97, Mr. Sprout has been quietly continuing his lo-fi popcraftsmanship on his own in Michigan. As the title states this cd compiles some of his demos
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Second solo turn from guitarist for Guided By Voices.
Well, if you've been in mourning about the demise of beloved band Guided By Voices (who played their final show this past New Year's Eve), you can take some solace in the fact that its individual former members haven't stopped making music... nor playing it live! This is a double cd of a complete Tobin Sprout performance in Toronto last year. From the very first unmistakable guitar strum, it's a definite fan pleaser filled with lots of old Sprout/GBV favorites and plenty of crowd hoots and hollerin'. Added bonus: demo versions of even more old faves "And I Wonder", "Inside Your Serious", "Over Then, and Back Again".
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Second full-length from Guided By Voices guitarist.
Pretty-pop from the non-Bob Pollard mainstay of Guided by Voices. A seven song teaser for his upacoming full length. Dreamy and lush and kind of eighties sounding but really good. Fans of GBV obviously need this!
No, it's not an album of dubs that Sprung Aus Den Wolken wrangled out of their Cassettencombinat studio; but these stripped down recordings represented the first officially released work from the seminal art-punk / industrial outfit, originally released back in 1981 on ZickZack as an eponymous album. That said, these were not the first recordings for Sprung Aus Den Wolken, as their Cassettencombinat studio / tape imprint had been recording a prodigious amount of material which actually warranted a 3lp boxset for Vinyl-On-Demand, much of it through the Sprung Aus Den Wolken moniker. Alexander Hacke and Kiddy Citny were the principal agents of Cassettencombinat in the day, and here on Dub & Die, Hacke was still in the band at the time, having not fully committed to the Einsturzende Neubauten cause. He proves once again to be an excellent foil to Kiddy Citny's punk poetics.
Compared to the sparkplug frenzy of the Faux Pas collection, Dub & Die is downright minimalist with lots of room spacing strangulated guitar and the loping basslines amidst the primitive electronics with Citny rambling as loose as ever but with considerable restraint. None of this is a bad thing, especially when the title track comes across like a German version of Young Marble Giants. There are other tracks tracks whose jittery funk mutations allude to a junkyard mish-mash of Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, and a few which do hold worthy comparisons to the early Neubauten spring-loaded Industrial numbers. Klanggalerie once again has unearthed a great record, which is limited in this cd reissue to 500 copies.
Sprung Aus Den Wolken came out of the Berlin underground in the early 80s, right alongside Einsturzernde Neubauten and Malaria, producing their own claustrophobic rhythm and noise out of junked electronics and instruments. Just as Neubauten built their own studio to serve their metal bashing purposes, Sprung Aus Den Wolken had their Cassettencombinat studio in which to tinker around with mutant grooves, sparkplug guitar scratchiness, and yelping vocals. Given the lo-fi material produced through Cassettencombinat, the studio was probably little more than a tangle of 1/4" cables, a 4-track, and whatever gear the various participants could cobble together. Yet out of these constraints, Sprung Aus Den Wolken had managed some truly inspired post-punk tunes, which sort of come across as a weird hybrid of Neubauten, The Ex, and Gang of Four. The Neubauten connection may be obvious as a very young kid named Alexander Hacke had found his way into the Sprung Aus Den Wolken camp at about the same time he began scraping infernal noises alongside Blixa Bargeld and crew. Where Neubauten was all about a bleak destruction of sound with darkly serious connotations, Sprung Aus Den Wolken were considerably more playful in their slop and sonic debris, often working in catchy grooves, basslines, and guitar bursts that tease with the notion of a pop hook into their danse macabre. Faux Pas was their first LP, recorded back in 1982, with some of this material appearing on the Vinyl On Demand boxset of Cassettencombinat material. But none of this has been on cd, until now. Klanggalerie has also included a couple of tracks from a few years later when Sprung Aus Den Wolken actually went into a proper studio (or maybe Cassettencombinat got a really fancy upgrade) for the "Pas Attendre," which earned the band a wider audience through its inclusion on the Wings Of Desire soundtrack.
A very impressive debut from the strangely wonderful Norwegian quartet known as Spunk. Unearthly rock and jazz structures and improvisations, simultaneously dark and childlike. Also check out the follow-up release 'Filtered Through Friends' which features remixes by Kim Hiorthoy, Phonophani, Martin Horntveth, Upper Rooms, Svalastog, (X, Y, Z), Andreas Meland, Jorgen Traeen, Sun Demon, Risto Holopainen, Lasse Marhaug, Andreas Mjos and Spunk's own Kristin Andersen.
The four ladies of the Norwegian group Spunk know about the possibilities of playful improvisation done right. Since their formation in 1999 they have been experimenting with the combination of the instruments they are well trained on like cello, trumpet, french horn ands mixing those with toys, electronics, percussion and the distinct voice as instrument that Maje Ratke provides. This album finds them in top form. Going from manic outbursts to dreamlike elegance at the drop of a hat. While so much of what bills itself as "free jazz" is actually so far away from actually being free or original, Spunk tap into the right kind of improvisational spirit. You could imagine playing this after early Matmos, Don Cherry's "Mu" and then Bjork's most experimental instrumentation. For seekers of adventurous spirit, once again Spunk have got your fix.
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Remixes of the strangely wonderful Norwegian quartet, whose impressive debut "Det Eneste Jeg Vet Er At Det Ikke Er En Stovsuger" fused modern classical composition (member Maja Ratkje is a renowned young composer in her native Norway) with their unearthly
Finally available on vinyl! After a tape and a couple 7"s, comes the much anticipated debut full length from this new crew of SF psych rockers, who by now should be quite familiar to fans of other Bay Area psychedelic space rock and garage rock, cuz if you dig Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Sleepy Sun, Carlton Melton and all the rest, as well as Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees and the like these guys should be right there in your space/psych pantheon. And while the spacier of those other bands tend toward the more droned out and krautrocky, these guys are much more classically rocking, melding a love of Spacemen 3 and other dronier drug rock with the classics, the Velvets, the Doors, even the Stooges, their songs simple and trancelike, plenty of jangle and simpler stripped down drum stomp, the vocals wreathed in reverb, and nestled in the mix, the guitars alternately chugging and crunchy, chiming and melodic, transforming simple pop songs into something more mesmerizingly hypnotic. Even album opener, Lonely Eye on the surface is simple and spare, but over the course of its nearly 5 minutes, it gets to the point where it could go on forever, and we'd sit there glassy eyed and blissed out.
Some of the other tracks are more garagey, like "Disguise", which should totally have Oh Sees fans flipping their lids, although the sound here hews much closer to old garage classics like the Fuzztones or the Lyres, which is most definitely not a bad thing. In fact if anything, much of this new record definitely leans toward that more stripped down garage rock sound, with fuzzy guitar, wandering basslines and fuzzy organs, but here and there, like on "Calling Out Your Name" the band unleash a riff that KILLS, in the case of "COYN", it's a dead ringer for the Stooges, one that the band could have ridden hard, but instead of getting all swaggery, the band sort of blisses out, applying multiple layers of guitars and upping the psych quotient considerably, not to mention some cool rhythmic weirdness, which lurks throughout the record, and reveals itself on repeated and closer listens.
And so it goes, the whole record, a killer collection of super hooky, spaced out psychedelic garage pop gems, the sort of sound we can't get enough of, and the sort of sound that should definitely position these guys alongside other garage/space/psych rock luminaries, and again if you dig Crystal Stilts, Thee Oh Sees, Wooden Shjips, or any of the other above mentioned bands, and have not checked these guys out, do yourself a favor...
A brand new batch of tracks the latest addition to the SF psychedelic space rock pantheon, with just a single 7" under their belts, and now this 5 song cassette, these guys are definitely poised to be another next big thing. After all, folks are so gaga for Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Sleepy Sun, Carlton Melton, the Lumerians, hell, we can't imagine those same folks wouldn't flip for these guys too.
They definitely have a similar sound, Velvets, Spacemen 3, etc., although here, they open up with a way more straight ahead chunk of sixties style psychedelic pop jangle, stripped down, a little fuzzy, but not buzzy or droney or druggy so much as just hooky and jangly, it's not until the second track that they kick on the pedals, opening with a blast of crumbling distortion, only to fade away leaving just some strummed acoustic guitar, and then bam, the song kicks in, fuzzed out guitars, ear whirring organ, washed out reverbed vocals, motorik drumming, totally blissed out druggy droney psychedelic garage rock.
But then they switch right back, and offer up another slab of classic sixties style psych pop jangle, before launching into a track that manages to mix both, that sort of Doorsy / Velvetsy style druggies, wrapped around some swaggery pysch pop shuffle, there's even some harmonica, that manages to make it all sound that much droopier and druggier.
Finally the band wrap it up with a short sharp blast of fuzzy drone rock bliss, all hazy and hypnotic, the Spacemen 3 vibe looming large, drawled vox, crunchy guitars, looped and hypnotic and mesmerizing, with some serious hooks hidden throughout, the sort of song that definitely deserves a multi minute psychedelic freakout tacked on the end, but instead winds down after just three minutes.
Killer stuff, another ep length tease, but just enough to tide us over until these guys finally get together a proper full length.
Like the 7", these babies are pretty limited, so grab one quick before they're gone...
Okay, all you Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo obsessives. There's some new kids in town, vying for your psychedelic space rock dronekraut affections, and they're called The Spyrals, and they traffic in the same sort of droned out post Velvets, post Spacemen motorik fuzz drenched psychedelic garage kraut mesmer. Which means, pretty much anyone who digs WS or the slightly less rocking Moon Duo, are probably gonna go nuts for these guys too.
With songs that sound like they should go on forever, and lord knows we certainly wouldn't complain if they did, the Spyrals manage to pack plenty of blissed out hypnotic drug rock droniness into a matter of minutes, so much so that you'll likely find yourself flipping this single over and over and over and over again. The organs are thick and fuzzy, the guitars chime and churn and jangle and ring out, the drums simple and solid, the melodies are mesmerizing, a little bit of twang here and there, it's pretty much everything you could hope for from this sort of thing, cyclical, repetitive, motorik, propulsive, druggy, dreamy, fuzzy, buzzy, psychedelic and still most definitely catchy.
We'd be awfully surprised if these guys didn't blow up big time soon. Which means, you better act fast, these 7"s are CRAZY limited, as in only 30 copies, each one hand numbered, and hand screened. And most likely gone before you know it.
Latest full length from these SF psychedelic garage rockers, who unlike many of their more spaced out and droney compatriots, don't so much drift druggily as stomp bloozily, fusing modern day fuzzed out garage rock with classic sixties style jangle pop and seventies psychedelic blooz. In reviews of past records we mention the usual modern suspects, Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Moon Duo, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, and no doubt fans of any and all those groups are gonna still dig the Spyrals, but on Out of Sight, the band have pushed their already retro sound even further, again channeling the Stooges, the Doors, the Velvets, but now sounding like they could actually BE some lost sixties/seventies band, and like Out Of Sight could in fact be some obscure reissue, the sound echo-y and reverby, the guitars and drums simple and stripped down, the vibe a sort of groovy garagey stomp, with some cool psychedelic leads, lots of fuzz, even some harmonica!
Fans of the last self titled record will feel right at home, as it pretty much takes up right where that one left off.
Let's leap to the title track first, as it might be our favorite here, and it's easy to see why they chose that one to name the record, starting off like some vintage baroque pop, all backwards swirls and sitar like guitar buzz, the vibe promising an eventual blossoming into some early Bee Gees style lush pop majesty, but instead they get right back to rocking, more garagey fuzzy bliss, although throughout there's a definite Eastern vibe and that sitar like melody, which surface here and there, which helps make the track super distinctive. Crazy and catchy, and while this is the track we find ourselves returning the more we listen, the more new favorites emerge, "Now You Know What I Need", with its super fuzzed out main riff which sounds a bit like "Spirit In The Sky", or "Tell All The World" which sounds like some straight up skiffly sixties Beatles style rock, albeit with a bit of a noisier, garagier chorus. Then there's the slithery moody groove of "Down In The Hole", the twangy folkiness of "Easy Now", and "Such A Pain" which gets seriously Stones-y, with a gorgeous main riff, and some super emotive vox, not to mention a big fuzzed out crunchy chorus, and a heavy psych final almost-space jam outro, and garage rockers should definitely dig" Lying", probably the garagiest jam of the bunch, definitely one for the Ty Segall / Oh Sees set.
Killer stuff! Retro garage fuzz psychedelic jangle radness that we can't seem to get enough of!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Pressed on red vinyl!!
Second 7" from these Bay area psychedelic space rockers, featuring a redone version of one of the tracks from their Clouds cassette and a brand new B side, and both kill. As we mentioned in our review of the first 7"s, fans of Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo should be al over these guys, as they traffic in a similarly minimal spaced out hypnorock, borrowing liberally from Spacemen 3, the Velvets, not to mention various kraut and space rock forebears, but they definitely have their own sound, both sides of which are represented here.
The A side title track is fuzzy and heavy and distorted, the drums are driving and propulsive, the vibe is swaggery and almost Stooges-y, the guitars wild and psychedelic, the main riff a monster, plenty of reverb and echo, it's the kind of jam that should have other local space/psych rockers shaking in their boots.
The flipside, "Long Road Out" is way more retro, the drums stripped down and low slung, the main riff all surfy and reverby, the vocals a laid back drawl, the melodies all buzzy and a little sitar-y, there's even some harmonica, all very fuzzy and dreamily druggy and not a little bit hippie. Great stuff, another couple songs to tide us over until these guys finally release a full length.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Pressed on clear yellow vinyl.
Finally! After a tape and a couple 7"s, comes the much anticipated debut full length from this new crew of SF psych rockers, who by now should be quite familiar to fans of other Bay Area psychedelic space rock and garage rock, cuz if you dig Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Sleepy Sun, Carlton Melton and all the rest, as well as Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees and the like these guys should be right there in your space/psych pantheon. And while the spacier of those other bands tend toward the more droned out and krautrocky, these guys are much more classically rocking, melding a love of Spacemen 3 and other dronier drug rock with the classics, the Velvets, the Doors, even the Stooges, their songs simple and trancelike, plenty of jangle and simpler stripped down drum stomp, the vocals wreathed in reverb, and nestled in the mix, the guitars alternately chugging and crunchy, chiming and melodic, transforming simple pop songs into something more mesmerizingly hypnotic. Even album opener, Lonely Eye on the surface is simple and spare, but over the course of its nearly 5 minutes, it gets to the point where it could go on forever, and we'd sit there glassy eyed and blissed out.
Some of the other tracks are more garagey, like "Disguise", which should totally have Oh Sees fans flipping their lids, although the sound here hews much closer to old garage classics like the Fuzztones or the Lyres, which is most definitely not a bad thing. In fact if anything, much of this new record definitely leans toward that more stripped down garage rock sound, with fuzzy guitar, wandering basslines and fuzzy organs, but here and there, like on "Calling Out Your Name" the band unleash a riff that KILLS, in the case of "COYN", it's a dead ringer for the Stooges, one that the band could have ridden hard, but instead of getting all swaggery, the band sort of blisses out, applying multiple layers of guitars and upping the psych quotient considerably, not to mention some cool rhythmic weirdness, which lurks throughout the record, and reveals itself on repeated and closer listens.
And so it goes, the whole record, a killer collection of super hooky, spaced out psychedelic garage pop gems, the sort of sound we can't get enough of, and the sort of sound that should definitely position these guys alongside other garage/space/psych rock luminaries, and again if you dig Crystal Stilts, Thee Oh Sees, Wooden Shjips, or any of the other above mentioned bands, and have not checked these guys out, do yourself a favor...
For now, only on cd-r, but with possible vinyl version to come.
The Squarepusher collection features all of the tracks from the "Big Loada" ep, the "Port Rhombus" ep, half of the "Vic Acid" ep (not the tracks also on "Hard Normal Daddy"), and a kick ass video as a cd-rom bonus. To repeat: KICK ASS VIDEO -- a minature movie in fact -- fully worth the price of the disc itself, although if you don't have "Port Rhombus" etc. this entire package is pretty essential anyway.
Yet another example of why Tom Jenkinson is one of the most creative musicians in drum & bass. This album compiles all the old Spymania (Jenkinson's label) 12" singles and compilation tracks, plus 3 unreleased tracks. More jazzy than the newer stuff, but still peppered with the most illogical and manic beats around.
Following on the heels of his "My Red Hot Car" single, Tom Jenkinson has blessed us with an additional 9 tracks of Squarepusher salvation. Though the single is by far the best track on the album, you can be rest assured that fretless bass licks, Miles Davis
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It states quite clearly on the sticker Nothing applied to the outside of this record, that this is Jazz. Mr. Jenkinson has reinvented his approach to music, having more in common with Miles Davis' "Dark Magus" or even "On the Corner" than with the drill & bass excesses of his previous outings. No drum programming... instead, complex ever shifting live percussion with hammond organ and fretless bass. Either you'll love it or hate it--some here feel that this is possibly Squarepusher's best release yet.
This ep is a comeback of sorts for our Tom Jenkinson, after a few weak (to our ears) records of breakbeats set to smooth jazz. "My Red Hot Car" is arguably Squarepusher's best dancefloor thumper since Big Loada's "Come On My Selector". Topped off with a catchy vocal line throughout, it's the perfect soundtrack to cruising with the windows down on a warm summer evening. Let's just hope
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Jazzy jungle with really freaky rhythms programmed by Tom Jenkinson a.k.a. Squarepusher, current darling of the idm-list (idm, you know -- what they insist on calling INTELLIGENT DANCE MUSIC). Smooth yet wacked. Challenging not boring. If you like Wagonchrist/Plug/Luke Vibert then this will meet your high standards. Also usually available: the full length, Feed Me Weird Things. Both English imports.
Four new songs and three remixes from our favorite drill and bass turned jazz funk artist...yep, this is still '70s Miles Davis-inspired jazz as per his great Music Is Rotted One Note album, but there are reminders of the crazy noise beats of old Squarepusher too--especially in the remixes, by Autechre, Matt Yee-King (of the Trash collective), and Wagonchrist. Great stuff. Mr. Jenkinson (with some help from his friends) still impresses.
Hot on the heel of the coolest/funniest rumour we've heard in a long time, that Squarepusher aka Tom Jenkinson is in fact actually Richard D. James perpetrating a mighty hoax, comes the latest, and greatest in quite a while, full length Squarepusher album. Track one brought us all the way back to Feed Me Weird Things, his debut that blew us all away at the time. An opening salvo full of hyper spastic skitter, funky burbling basslines, minor key soundscapes, relentless and insane, with a recurring melody that -almost- sounds like the theme from Beverly Hills Cop! But that track is a bit misleading as the next track finds us back in more recent 'jazz' Squarepusher territory, all spaced out and noodly, dark electronic fusion and shuffling late night acid jazz. Cool, but doesn't quite have the same impact. But hold tight, after a few tracks of some serious wankery, the bass noodling gets more and more manic, more and more distorted before things fracture and splinter and become very heavy and very noisy and very very fucked. Hyper complex rhythms careen wildly between bursts of static and pink fuzz, oddly placed rapping is chopped and deconstructed, heavy metal guitars are sped up and smeared into fuzzy melodies, blasting beats blur into buzzing Merzbow style white noise, and the whole thing takes on the sound of some long lost abstract DHR recording. Some of you may want to skip past the lighter portions, but give it a chance, taken as a whole, Ultravisitor is a really disorienting, perplexing, challenging but ultimately super ass kicking ride!
One sided - one track stunner from Sir Jenkinson, fresh off the tail feathers of "Go Plastic". Like his previous pop hit "My Red Hot Car", this is sooo good, it doesn't even have a name - and it's the only track on here! Vocoded raps and fucked up catchy rhythms in the bent Squarepusher fashion.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Latest blast of jungly goodness from Squarepusher and boy is it old school. You'd almost never guess this was Squarepusher. The beats aren't insanely spastic and there is nary a funk bass to be found. Side one is a classic blast of drum n' bass, very early nineties but if you're like us, you can never get enough of that stuff. Side two is a little bit more mellow, a couple blissed out dreamy ambient tracks with occasional bleeping outerspace sound effects stuttering blithely through the tranquility messing up everything quite nicely and eventually turning the ambience into a stuttering jungle workout. Good stuff.
