Le Tigre gets the vinyl-only remix treatment. While somehow the cut 'n paste, deliberately lo fi punk attitude to the making of the band's particular brand of electronic music is somehow endearing, these remixes, while similarly lo-fi and amateurish, don't pass muster. They're just mediocre. With other Le Tigre albums, there's some heavy political content going on, and that makes the
With Analog Tara, Swim With The Dolphins (Johanna Fateman of Le Tigre), DJ Ham & Cheese on Rye, Reid Speed, Tim Goldsworthy (ex-UNKLE), James Murphy, and Lauren Flax.
Hey Le Tigre fans, there's a chance you might already have these eight remixes as they were apparently originally released on two 12"s a whiles back, but if you missed 'em the first time (or don't have a record player), they've been released altogether on one cd. First up is Junior Senior's remix of "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" (later on in the cd there's two other remixes of this song by Craig C and Arthur Baker), then starlet Peaches comes in with her raunchy treatment of "TKO" -- once again makin' y'all feel more than a little bit soiled. The song "After Dark" get's the most attention with four different remixes by the likes of Morel (one vocal and one dub), NDB and A Touch Of Class.
Note: to confuse matters further two 12"s -- This Island Remixes Volume 1 and 2 with four tracks each -- were also released at the same time, but there seems to be some slight variances with the track selection and running order. Please see each release's respective review for their track listing.
Hey Le Tigre fans, there's a chance you might already have these four remixes as they were apparently originally released on an earlier 12", but if you missed 'em the first time here they are again.
On one side, Morel offers up two treatments (one vocal and one dub) of "After Dark". On the other, "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" gets a remixing by Craig C and Arthur Baker.
Note: a cd collecting together eight This Island Remixes was also released at the same time, but there seems to be some slight variances with the track selection and running order. Please see each release's respective review for their track listing.
Hey Le Tigre fans, there's a chance you might already have these four remixes as they were apparently originally released on an earlier 12", but if you missed 'em the first time here they are again.
On one side, Junior Senior offers up two treatments (one remix and one instrumental) of "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo". On the other, Peaches takes aim at "TKO" and NDB dishes out a vocal disco remix of "After Dark".
Note: a cd collecting together eight This Island Remixes was also released at the same time, but there seems to be some slight variances with the track selection and running order. Please see each release's respective review for their track listing.
Belgium 1982 or Brooklyn 2009? Dust On Common is one of those albums that could herald from either time and space with its dark-eyed synth-pop aesthetic complete with a wardrobe of black jackets and skinny ties. Yes, Led Er Est are New Yorkers of today, reclaiming the forgotten future with considerable aplomb and fitting in very nicely next to Cold Cave and fellow Wierd recording artists Xeno & Oaklander. The Led Er Est trio are quite deft at the synth melody, building terse and catchy, if minor key, tunes out of repetition & difference, and grafting those melodies onto uptempo mechanoid rhythm tracks. Guitars, bass, and vocals also make themselves known throughout the album, but the synths are the dominant machines at hand, marching along with icy detachment, primitive sparkplug buzzing, and occasional bursts of cinematic grandeur. Fad Gadget, Xymox, early Skinny Puppy (i.e. Bites), Dark Day, Chris & Cosey, and Cabaret Voltaire are all within the sonic vocabulary of Led Er Est. Another excellent release from Wierd. Vinyl only!
We can't blame Cold Cave for everything, but someone has to take the blame (or credit!) for the seemingly endless supply of cold wave / new wave / minimal wave that seem to be pouring out of the woodwork. Where were these bands a couple years ago, did they not exist? Or did they just exist in some radically different form? Thankfully, at least a handful of these bands, are doing more than aping their predecessors, and are taking the elements of those 'waves and turning them into something, if not wholly original, at least dark and catchy and kick ass.
The latest additions to the NU-new wave onslaught are this trio from NY called Led Er Est, we have their full length record reviewed elsewhere on this list as well, and it too is killer, but this is definitely the sort of band who sound perfect on a 7"s, two short hook filled gloom pop gems, 45 rpm, the sort of songs you play over and over and over, skittery clipped drum machines, swoonsome minor key guitars, throbbing joy division synthesized basslines, looped synth melodies, subtle guitars, a killer main riff, echoey vox, it's pretty irresistible.
The flipside is more spacey and psychedelic, with chiming guitars, crooned vocals and a woozy off kilter rhythm, like some lost eighties new wave gloom pop ballad. Led Er Est are balanced right between old school eighties new wave, and the current wave of Captured Tracks revivalists: Blank Dogs, Gary War, Girls At War, Silk Flowers, Mayfair Set, etc� which is not a bad place to be as far as we're concerned.
These mysterious funk nomads are back for round two of collaborations, after last years superb Clutch Of The Tiger. Multi-instrumentalists Shawn Lee (who has lately taken to being photographed wearing a tiger mask) and possibly imaginary character, Clutchy Hopkins, expand on the organic desert funk they are known for, but add a whole lot more to their sonic arsenal, including orchestral elements, strings, Mellotron, vibes, sitars and gongs, sounding often like a thrilling lost seventies soundtrack. Definitely a chill vibe if somewhat darker than their usually sunny jams. The track "Root Trees", features an appearance by UK soul group the Superimposers. If the schtick of their mysterious identities has long worn off, the quality of the music they make is still pretty solid!
Andrew Lagowski is a man of many hats, from his earliest post-punk work as Nagamatzu (reissued by Dark Entries) to brilliantly paranoid sci-fi concrete compositions as S.E.T.I. (the best of which came out on Ash International) and the muscular electronica under his own name from the early '90s that bridged the practices of Autechre and Clock DVA. Lagowski is not the first to use the name Legion, and there's no doubt somebody else will pick up the moniker somewhere along the way; but for this project, he propagates a dark ambient agenda similar to the one he helped Lustmord craft on the seminal Heresy record, through long-form electronic tones and undulations scattered with psychologically charged samples and bursts of white noise. Originally released in 1992 on the German imprint Hyperium, False Dawn was a grim parallel to much of the ambient techno offerings that were spawned from the post-rave culture, with a handful of other likeminded artists delving into the deep cosmology of an industrially minded ambience. The album's central tracks - "Colossus" and "The Plasma Pool" - are aptly named with a liquid gravity that ripples through echoing, abysmal drones, bookending a shorter rhythmic track akin to the sequenced techno that he produced under his own name.
This reissue of False Dawn is full of bonus material, much of it unreleased. There are two versions of "Tunnelvision" which was recorded about the same time, with one of the versions being released on a super limited 7" single, and the longer version making its first appearance on this collection. Both sport much of the same deep sound design with stretched / blurred / echoed liturgical chants that weave in and out of the shadowy electronics and buzzing static. "Komarov" loops a slow feedback pulse with synthetic orchestrations and snatched shortwave radio conversations, leaning a bit more towards the S.E.T.I. recordings. And Lagowski revists a handful of the original cassettes for two of the tracks which were produced in 2008 and 2012 respectively, with both keeping true to the deep dark extended gasping of Legion's earlier sounds. The collection ends with three remixes from other artists that feel tacked on, but certainly don't diminish the power from Lagowski's aesthetic.
Of all the 'electronica' labels out there, we're beginning to think Planet Mu might be our favorite, certain the most relevant. For a while Warp were unbeatable, Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Squarepusher, Plaid, Autechre, and while that stuff still rules, Warp definitely seems like old guard, whereas Planet Mu has been moving forward, pushing boundaries, even the old school artists on Planet Mu seem to be similarly progressive. So compare the Planet Mu roster to the above Warp one: Venetian Snares, Shitmat, Distance, Vex'd, Pinch, Boxcutter, Neil Landstrumm, Eero Johannes, Milanese, Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble... Planet Mu is always on the cusp of whatever new sound surfaces, the home to most of the kick ass dubstep released in the US, but still supporting it's older artists, who in turn support the label by changing and transforming and progressing. All that said, we still were totally blindsided by Legion Of Two.
With a record title like Riffs, we were already prepared for something different, and a record called Riffs on Planet Mu definitely had us intrigued, but still we would have never expected this. Imagine Neurosis doing dubstep, or some ambient doom band dabbling in electronica, or a heavier, more modern and avant Tortoise, thick sheets of distorted buzz, plenty of bleeps and bloops, that awesome hoovery dubstep bass buzz, but with REAL drums, big drums, pounding and punishing and massive, just take the opening one two punch. The first track, a sort of intro, is a swirling cloud of hiss and whir, streaks of feedback, layer upon layer of gauzy distorted thrum, peppered with bursts of big booming drums, until the song finally kicks in, and it's like Black Boned Angel or something, but a bit stripped down, and instead of downtuned riffage, it's a sea of undulating synths, and rumbling low end, and shards of melody and feedback swirling all around the pounding lumbering doomic crush. We almost wish that track was the whole of the record, but then we would have missed out on the second track, which is where we got the dubstep Neurosis thing, that's not quite accurate, but for an 'electronic' record it definitely doesn't get heavier than this, a loping drum part, over deep throbbing low end, laced with little space-y squelches, and some woodpecker clicks, as well as intense bursts of in-the-red bass fuzz, and finally some techno synths laced over the top, the sound getting thicker and thicker and heavier and heavier, eventually building to a full on glitched out effects drenched psychedelic electronic freakout, the rhythm never faltering, finishing off with a fierce almost metallic dirge. Holy shit. How did these guys end up on Planet Mu, and how the hell did they come up with this bizarre sonic hybrid?
The whole record is sort of a series of rhythmic workouts, from crushing metallic dubstep, to blissed out post rock, to mathy techno jams, to deep listening laid back grooves, but all anchored by the incredible drumming, and the sound of real drums, which is probably what makes this stuff sound so fresh and organic, live drums and electronics end up creating something dense and blown out, heavy and 'live' sounding.
"Palace (Dub)" isn't so much dub, as a tangled bit of complex looped drumming, beneath a repetitive synth line and some buzzing bass squelches, and diaphanous sheets of high end shimmer in the background, tense and dramatic and cinematic, almost like a more twisted avant mathy electronic Goblin or Zombi. "Legion Of Two", is a loping almost eighties sounding groove, with some of the buzziest heaviest synth sounds ever, and plenty of tweaked effects, and soaring faux strings, and tinkling late night glimmer. Much of the second half of the record is more laid back, soporific, almost jazzy, hence the Tortoise comparison, looped and hypnotic, the drums and bass locked into totally mesmerizing jams, while all around keyboards chime and ring out, the melodies haunting and minor key, occasionally slipping into jagged bursts of stuttery noise drenched stop start riff heavy math rock, before slipping back into the groove. The lengthy "Handling Noise" finds the band doing so just fine, crafting a long slow burning creepfest, all otherworldly swells, strange electronic sounds, creepy ambience, jazzy drum skitter, all wreathed in static and crackle and hiss, exploding in the last few minutes in a full on Nadja style shoegaze, noise rock psychdrone blow out. "It Really Does Take Time" is the most electronic of the bunch, a bit house-y, with dubbed out effects, weird loops of children's voices, haunting and trippy, but this track too finally exploding in a frenzy of tribal rhythms and wild psychedelic synths.
The record finishes off with the 10+ minute "Cast Out Your Demons", which is like a dubby space rock jam, big loping drums, sizzling space-y synths, whirling effects, but within all the blissedout stargazing mesmer, subtle bits of dubby guitar, the drums really driving the track, to a gorgeous hazy drone drenched outro, definitely reminds us of White Hills or one of those modern psych combos, but infused with some weirdly abstract space dub.
Really cool stuff, and even with the preceding lengthy review, hard to describe, or at least hard to do justice to. This record has been on repeat play since the day it showed up, in the store, at home, on the headphones, at once groovy and dark, hazy and heavy, druggy and psychedelic, electronic and metallic, a gorgeous confusional chunk of psych-dub space doom free jazz noise rock. Or something. Whatever you call it, most definitely one of our new favorites...
Skam Records 001. Lego Feet. In the realm of electronica, this is a recording that few have heard, yet many have dug through crates seeking (and never finding). Back in 1991, Sean Booth and Rob Brown, the duo later to be known as Autechre, released the Lego Feet 12" on their own Skam Records imprint, predating their first Autechre single "Cavity Job" released later that same year. In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of that ridiculously rare single, Booth & Brown have revisited the single, extending what was about 25 minutes of music into four massive suites clocking in at a full 70 minutes, which appear to be conveniently broken into possible side-long passages suitable for vinyl. Where the extra material came from is not really clear, perhaps these are the longer tracks that became so many of the extracted snippets that made their way onto the single, perhaps they are unreleased trax from back in the day. What's very clear is that this is definitely of the era, as a new form of electronica morphing through the nascent rave-culture in England at the time with a keen eye on acid house in Chicago, cybernetic techno on the Detroit / Berlin axis, and the hip hop beats from both American coasts.
For the decade of the '90s, rhythms were crucial to Autechre's sound, becoming all the more slithering, contorted, and algorithmically complex before the two ultimately jettisoned a fundamental rhythm for their more cerebral work in the next decade. Booth & Brown's breakbeats (as they were almost always breakbeats) were always some of the most interesting of the IDM producers, fragmenting alongside weird machine-dreamt ambient melodies and shape-shifting polydactyl sequencing. On Lego Feet, the two laid the rhythmic foundation for much of what would come; and fuck, they were onto something really incredible.
The first cut sports a number of classic breakbeats that would have fit in with the Gescom singles (Gescom being another Autechre side-project focusing more on dismembered hip-hop beats and breaks), with plenty of great percolating electronic blorp, tone-glide ambience, and melody throughout. Track two opens with a frenzied acid-techno number with wildly squiggling sequences jitteringly starting and stopping along a hi-hat riddled 808 techno 4/4 rhythm, but this slides into a breakbeat track with the metallic snares that became a signature for Autechre on their groundbreaking debut Incunabula. Elements of track three take their cues from Juan Atkins' classic Model 500 project with whip-crack snares amidst darkly churning electronics and caustic breakbeats. Track four glides through the acid trax with some sublime melodies upon the ride-cymbal emulating drum machinations. So, damn good.
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The deal here is you've got two musicians from Cologne, Germany who met while playing in Keith Rowe's M.I.M.E.O. group, collaborating on a analog/digital synth and computer -based disc that takes Lehn's improv experience and melds it with Schmickler's expertise in electronic studio post-production (Schmickler being responsible for the excellent studio-based neo-krautrock Pluramon project, remember). "Bart" features dynamic abstract electronics, lots of zaps, squeaks and growls, like listening to a roomful of dysfunctional robots "talk" to themselves, with rapid interruptions of silence and distortion.
For RVNG's third installment in their archival series (the other two being the great Harald Grosskomp and Sensation's Fix collections), the focus is on lesser known American ambient visionary, Kerry Leimer (or, K. Leimer, the abbreviated initial a nod to Kafka's Joseph K from The Trial). Hailing from Seattle, where he began his Palace of Light imprint in the late seventies (one of the first experimental labels in the region), Leimer had an almost savant-like obsession with generative music largely spurred on not only by the influences of Dada and Surrealism but also the works of Cluster, Eno, Terry Riley and Robert Fripp of which he saw a musical corollary, in that the tape loop became its own instant but fatalist structure. Realizing the potential to compose his own music with little background or training, Leimer used second-hand tape machines, a mini-moog and other cheap instruments and developed a vast archive of recordings. He took cues from the DIY cassette culture of the burgeoning new wave and punk scenes of Seattle and began carefully packaging and releasing his own records as well as cultivating a scene of experimental artists and releasing their works as well.
Instead of reissuing Leimer's Palace of Light recordings, RVNG digs deeper into his archives to highlight unreleased works from as early as 1975 to reveal a wide range of styles and forms: billowy, delicate and glacial as well as pensive, rhythmic and nervous, but all of an elegant unified voice. It never seems like Leimer is trying on hats, but rather investigating the possibilities of sound given limited parameters. This is an amazing release that is sure to bring Leimer's work out of the shadows. Highest Recommendation!
This is a reissue of one of those deep "in-the-know" records that we're perplexed that we had somehow never heard of before now, especially given its pedigree. It seems to be one of those weird anomaly recordings that when it's not acting as a "proto" example of genres that now exist today (dub-step and minimal techno), it works as a bridge between genres we never imagined being connected before (new age and industrial music, minimalist composition and new wave, minimal synth and ethno-folk music). It's a rare six-degrees-of-separation record that bafflingly connects Suicide to John Fahey, and it's utterly gorgeous to boot.
Craig Leon may not be a well-known name to most, but he was the producer or co-producer behind many of the bands of our youth including Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Suicide, The Weirdos, DMZ, The Zero's. The Bangles and 45 Grave. But he's also a classically trained composer and orchestrator who has worked with Lucio Pavoratti, Sir James Galway and The London Symphony Orchestra. Nommos was the first album of his own material, originally released in 1981 on John Fahey's Takoma label and there really is just nothing quite like it.
With evocative titles like "Donkeys Bearing Cups", "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife" and "She Wears A Hemispherical Skull Cap", Leon uses minimal synthesis to explore repetitive rhythm and texture in hypnotic trance inducing compositions. The opener, "Ring With Three Concentric Circles" explores a kraut-y kosmiche sound employing cosmic synth washes over skeletal mechanical rhythms, but it's the second track, "Donkeys Bearing Cups" that prognosticates many of the production tropes of modern dubstep and minimal techno, the shuffling almost dance-y mechanized rhythms, as well as the squelched siren noise that opens it. Many of the tracks could be paired down backing tracks for Suicide songs, minus Alan Vega's vocals and Martin Rev's knack for propulsion. Instead Leon seems to dwell on the nuance of his robotic rhythms, tweaking the reverb and decay in bass pulses and cymbal clangs, but encasing them in a beautiful floating stasis.
The longest track at nearly 12 minutes, "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife", seems to have the least going on. It's plodding hiccupping rhythm stretching for minutes before we notice a woman's voice almost operatically singing way off in the background. Her voice almost feels like another synthetic texture in the composition and we at first had to turn the volume down to see if we were hearing things, but it's just another impeccable detail that Leon is carefully layering and weaving into seemingly bare-bone compositions making us ever conscious of the meditative nature of the work. This is definitely a producer's record, and an incredible one at that! If you are a fan of modern techno composers like Vladislav Delay, Andy Stott, Demdike Stare, anything on the Dead-Cert label, or even outlier composers like Moondog, Julius Eastman or Barton Smith, this is essential!
Download card included!
The weird and wonderful Trunk records who in the past has brought us unreleased soundtrack music from Dawn Of The Dead, the Psychomania soundtrack, the Flexi-Sex compilation of X-rated flexi discs as well as a handful of archival recordings from the amazing Basil Kirchin, returns with another amazing, and totally bizarre collection, this time it's all sorts of creeped out ambience, demented sound effects, chopped and spliced mood music, haunting drones and all manner of spooky swirly spacey soundtrack music. Originally issued as super limited acetates just for friends, later licensed and re-released on 78rpm library discs, these recordings remained mostly unheard, outside a few science fiction and mystery programs, including Dr. Who!
The story of Leslie's life was about as weird and fascinating as his music: grew up in an Irish castle, became a fighter pilot, wrote one of the earliest new age / UFO books, recorded this here music, quit music, opened a nightclub in a castle, punched out a reviewer who gave a scathing review to his wife's one woman show, wrote some spoof science fiction, finally developed a huge interest in meditation and spirtualism, pursuing both until his death in 2001.
These tracks recorded between 1955 and 1959 are so demented and ahead of their time, they could very well be some dada-ist sound collage from Nurse With Wound or some modern experimental music concrete. Being as this is taken from one of the original acetates, the whole thing sounds warm and fuzzy and slightly distorted, adding to its alien otherworldliness. Lots of primitive tape manipulation, strange found sounds, sped up and slowed down, bathed in reverb and echo, the sounds of flies and wind and whatever else he could get his hands on, all jumbled together into slow moving slabs of ominous creep and freaked out buzz and scuttle, droning and haunting and dark and demented. It's a bit hard to believe music this dense and weird and wonderful could remain lost for so long, or that it could be the product of a man dabbling in music, rather than a musician who had dedicated his whole life and being to sound. Includes Leslie's music for Music Of The Voids Of Outer Space, The Day The Sky Fell In, Death Of Satan and Sacrifice B.C. 5,000, as well as Leslie's original notes on each, and a brief overview of his life and history.
Longtime readers of the aQ list will no doubt remember our undying love for some thing / group / person called Lesser. If not have a look at the website and revel in our Lesser love. Heck, our own Andee even sports a Lesser tattoo. Briefly signed to Matador, and an auxiliary member of Matmos, Jay Lesser is responsible for some of our favorite weirdo electronica EVER, and yet, has always been about the most reluctant artist we can think of. Seemingly driven since day one to stop making music, yet, with every new thing we heard, we marveled at the amazing shit he could conjure up, whether it was wildly twisted drum and bass, or pure what the fuck experimentalism, few could rival his warped vision, and it's still a travesty that the world at large didn't embrace him the way we did. We like to think it was because it shit was just too weird, too next level, an opinion which seems to be furthered by this unexpected return.
While we assumed that Lesser was done, apparently, he got super interested in building his own synths, and this is the result, a pretty stellar chunk of heady, rhythmic electronic experimentalism that sounds so good, we're again wondering why the fuck Lesser isn't still making music on a regular basis, and why this is self-released, this would fit perfectly on Spectrum Spools or Ideologic Organ or Root Strata or Digitalis, and if any of the folks who run those labels are reading this, buy one of these and put out a fancy pants vinyl version.
Two sidelong sprawls that manage to be impossible varied, but somehow hold together as single epic pieces, beginning as a dizzyingly dubbed out field of percolations, the track soon mutates into, a thick chunk of crunchy beat heavy stutter, underpinned by woozy swooping low end, the sounds all crumbly and raw. Before too long the sound shifts again into a sort of super raw electro, all wild sonic squiggles and a beat constructed from squelches and static, the beats gradually fading into a murky minimalism, before blossoming into a strange sort of glimmering field of bleeps and bloops.
The second track/side starts off all minimal pulsations and dense chordal swells, laced with strangely soundtracky sonic filigree, before the beat drops and it becomes a strange sort of cinematic electro shuffle. Elsewhere, the sound grows serene, and becomes a dreamily melodic drift, all tinkling melodies and chiming tones, but wreathed in constantly swirling spaced out psychedelic synth squiggles, that soon gives way to some minimal squelch, before the track bursts into some seriously Perrey And Kingsley worthy bleep blorp playfulness, but edges with a slightly sinister undertone, before finally winding it up with a brief blast of primitive academic synth.
So here it is. The new Lesser record. On Matador no less. We were all a little afraid, that not wanting to blow his big chance (it's quite a leap from Vinyl Communications to Matador), Jay Lesser was going to soften his attack, blunt his weapons, and make a 'nice' record (one the Plaid/Plone/Boards of Canada crowd could get into) which probably would be okay, but lacking the confusional chaos that we here at AQ love so much but which most people have trouble getting their heads around. Fear not. This is THE record Lesser has been trying to make for years. It all comes together just right. Gone is most of the drum 'n bass dabbling of the last record, and in its place a tangled mess of skittering beats (like a malfunctioning Autechre), funky hiccupping beats patched together from a thousand skipping cds, long stretches of ambient noise, radio interference and just completely random sound. Probably the most difficult Lesser record yet. Certainly the most difficult thing you've heard on Matador. But it's worth the work, because underneath all this mayhem and confusion are some amazing songs, catchy melodies super funky beats, hilarious (usually unrecognizable) samples, and some of the most unique amazing 'sound' you've ever heard. Imagine an Autechre / Merzbow soundclash on New Years Eve, in Central Park, and for some reason their rig is intercepting thousands of cellular phone calls / radio transmissions / crowd sounds, and then it begins to rain, and the whole thing short circuits, causing an ungodly assortment of sizzle and crackle and white noise and total mayhem. It's kind of like that, but with a few pretty parts.
I mean, any record that gets a review calling it "a detriment to humanity" (Stanford Intermission) has got to be great. Most musicians, kings, presidents, criminals and supervillains work their whole lives towards that end and still don't make it.
Hopefully this record will steal some of the Kid606 / Matmos / Blechdom / Kit Clayton thunder and put it back where it probably belonged all along.
Fucking essential.
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One of the most innovative and most overlooked electronic musicians... Intense jagged soundscapes that alternately slip in and out of beat heavy dance, painful noise, tranquil ambience, and occasional jungle. For fans of Aphex Twin, Merzbow, Scanner, Photek, Oval, Gate, Locust, Dead C, Autechre... it's that good!
Everyone knows Aquarius loves Lesser. I mean, Andee even has a Lesser tattoo!!! And how could you not love him. He's a musical madman/genius, turning everything he touches into some mutated, 6 headed, 3 dicked, spastic, unpredictable crazy mixed up
Not as willfully cacophonic as the "Gearhound" album for Matador, "Mensa Dance Squad" finds Jay Lesser making an overachieving concept record which rails against the pretenses of IDM (aka 'intelligent' dance music) and all of its self-congratulatory
You know how much aQuarius loves Lesser don't you? Andee even has a Lesser tattoo for chrissakes! And you should too. Everyone should be branded with the symbol that marks them as someone who recognises the sound of genius! Lesser is one of the few punks out there that manages to make the boring world of electronic lap toppery exciting. Whether he's removing his pants live, dancing maniacally amidst a terrified crowd, growling out his best cookie monster vocals in front of a very unmetal audience, or infusing his electronic music with soul and humour and the occasional metal riff, he manages to come up with amazing and beautiful sounds, wrapped in completely confounding rhythms. Speaking of confounding, the first track will make you think you put the wrong disc in the cd player, as a blast of grinding riff heavy death metal spews forth, with barely discernable glitches and robotic vocals buried in the mix that subtly betray the metallic pummel as being less(er) than the sum of it's parts. The rest of the record is an exercise in rhythmic restraint, especially for someone whose past efforts are designed to hurt your brain and your ears. Gone is the spastic glitchery and the purposeful annoying sonic invective of past Lesser outings and in their place, smoother, more hypnotic beat oriented downtempo rhythmscapes. It's not a bad thing either. The sounds are still wrong, and the rhythms are completely erratic and insanely programmed, it's just less punch in the face and more bear hug, less knee in the nuts and more hand in your back pocket squeezing your ass. Skittery glitch, crunchy rhythms and barely recognizable samples throb and pulse making for what could perhaps be Lesser's "funkiest" record to date. Like Autechre playing the Boards Of Canada songbook through a PA that keeps cutting out, adding even more rhythmic variance to the proceedings. There are also moments of surprisingly dreamy drone-y tranquility tempering the controlled chaos. Maybe he's mellowing with age, maybe it's the personal subject matter of this record (the death of his father), or maybe he's just tired of all the sound alike crap in modern electronica, but whatever it is, it only makes Lesser, and every record he makes that much more appealing. Also features a bunch of MP3's by the mysterious group known only as THE ROBOTIC as well as some amazing Lesser videos by AQ pal Dave Cerf!
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Aquarius' favorite "techno" artist...his recent 12" now on cd, with bonus tracks! The only junglist we know of who also plays lead guitar in a Metallica cover band!
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One of our favorite electronic musicians, Mr. Lesser makes his last foray into drum'n'bass and boy, what a way to go. Imagine Nico or Ed Rush spinning a mix of Merzbow, They Might Be Giants, Alec Empire, and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and you might be getting close. Song title of the week: "Markus Popp can kiss my redneck ass." Easily one of the best drum'n'bass 12"s of the 1998.
For me (Andee), this record brings back terrifying memories of driving across the United States with Lesser. Everytime it was his turn to drive (driver controls the stereo, you know the rule) he would play Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 music full blast. It got so no matter how tired we were, we would still drive, just to keep control of the stereo away from Lesser! So years later, some of that stuff sees a proper release on Kid606's Tigerbeat 6 label. And out of the context of being exhausted and hungry in Nebraska, this stuff sounds pretty darn good. While still mildy irritating (as all video game music is to a certain degree) this is cool and kitschy and pretty fun stuff. Sounds like a Mario Brothers rave or a Sonic The Hedgehog dance party. We love Lesser.
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Super limited colored vinyl 7" from AQ's favorite electronica posterboy Lesser and some dude called Pisstank. On Stuart Boyracer's label!
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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.
Awesome collection of many of the jams Larry Levan would play (and many he mixed) at the legendary garage in the heyday of the New York disco scene. Everyone from Talking Heads to Gwen Gutrhie, Teen Gardner to Patrice Rushen. Carefree, groovin and so much fun!
An "electronically charged reconstruction of organic sound matter" reads the preamble from Klara Lewis' debut for the righteous electronica label Editions Mego. Lest you think this slides into the territories of Small Cruel Party, :zoviet*france:, G*Park, or even Matmos with their snapping shrimp and balloon popping adventures, Lewis thoroughly renders those unspecified organic sources into murky loops that snap into place along a spine of minimal techno. The darkly chiming repetitions of Ett wistfully recall the early days of MIDI sequencing, without any of the headaches that came from all of the mathematical engineering in order to trick those samples to align themselves properly against a rhythm and vice versa. There are molten rumbles, granitic scratches, feral screeches, disembodied voices, and ventilator gasps which adhere to Lewis' dub-klang swipes at op-art repetitiveness. "Untitled" thrives in the medical-supply factory of various blips and bleeps, grafted onto a punchy techno underbelly that could have been constructed by the likes of Coh or Ryoji Ikeda. With some of the more abstracted pieces - like the dreamily aquatic "Shine" and the ectoplasmic shuffle found on "Altered" - she settles into an eerie spaciousness which decontextualizes the source material further by situating these patterned squiggles and sonic mark-making onto deep-space backdrops of nothingness. An impressive and beguiling album!
The tongue-twistingly monikered Lexaunculpt, who certainly has more possible awkward (mis-)pronunciations than Autechre, is one Southern Californian 'technical electrician' Alex Graham. An admitted 'Skinny Puppy retard' with a taste for bodyrockin' hip hop breaks, Graham has situated himself in the IDM genre of electronic music, populated by the likes of Autechre, Aphex Twin, and early Mu-Ziq. Despite having worked in the genre since 1996 with a couple of singles on Isophlux and Orange, "The Blurring Of Trees" is his first full album. On this album, Graham struggles to break free from the redundant mimicry that most IDM suffers from, with a modicum of success. In loosening his grip on the polyrhythmic whirrings and dense programming, Graham focuses on a rich, though occasionally heavy-handed melodrama of orchestrated samples that reference alienation and human anguish through a tightly restrained use of minor chords stretched out as pointillist smears of emotional resonance. In essense, Lexaunculpt stands for the gothic aesthetic of an anachronistic future, weeping in PVC leather and jet black hair about the addictions that humanity has to technology.
MPEG Download: "Drowning Cricket Quartet" [/audio/lexaunculptdrowning.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Drowning Cricket Quartet" [/audio/lexaunculptdrowning.m3u]
This is the first we've heard from this local synth pop combo, who manage to mix the lilting indie jangle of that Slumberland Records sound with old school classic eighties new wave into a sweet electro pop confection. Programmed drums, buzzing crackling synths, ethereal female vocals, occasional boy/girl harmonies, all sort of hazy and softly psychedelic. The sound is alternately crunchy and fuzzy and surprisingly aggressive, and wistful and dreamily shimmery. The A side title track is the A side for a reason, hooky as hell, and the sort of song former aQ staffer Irwin would claim would be just the thing to get your body moving. While the B side takes the same elements and crafts something a bit broodier, and almost ballad, that creeps and drifts darkly, but is peppered with bursts of wild squelching synths, and is laced with chiming melodies, reminding us a bit of Stereolab, and like minded retro-poppers. The included download adds another track, which fuses some seriously gristly rhythms, to acoustic guitars, and some wild, noisy synth splatter, but weaves it all into a driving electro-synth jam that's got some heft to it, while still managing to be dreamy and divinely poppy!
Another great reissue from the Hit Thing label! Joining the Georges Montalba pipe organ cd on their catalog is this mysterious European minimal industrial album from the very early '80s.
Liaisons Dangereuses were primarily two individuals, Beate Bartel (who in later years went on to form Malaria!) and Chris Haas (a founding member of DAF). They were accompanied on vocals by Krishna Goineau who sang in French, German and Spanish (a few customers have mistaken his flamboyant delivery for that of Falco). Very much akin to Einsturzende Neubauten, The Normal, Suicide and DAF. Edgy, dark and throbbing, the programmed nailgun-like beats are punctuated by Goineau's impassioned singing/speaking, some high pitched female backing vocals, squidgy electronic belches, an occasional saxophone run, and much metallic clanks and thuds. It was all mixed at Conny Plank's studio. The one track here that may be familiar is their dance 'hit' "Los Ninos Del Parque", however L.D.'s impact goes beyond this one song. Indeed they were/are highly regarded and very influential in techno, house and yes, electroclash circles. Fans of present-day electro, EBM, post punk and no wave should definitely check this out as it's the real deal - solidly kicking ass on many of the current crop. This album sits quite perfectly next to the Teutonik Disaster compilation that we recently reviewed as fine historical documents of the early '80s European sounds. May leave you reeling.
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Liar Ball is a dandy collaborative project by AQ pal Wobbly and Ball 2000! Right from the get go, it's made perfectly clear that they're not gonna let you get all comfy listenin' to this disc. No, just when you think they might be settling into a followable rhythm or playful melody, a sonic bump in the road pops to toss you out of your smooth head-bobbin' roll, and sometimes they even derail completely. Sorta the musical equivalent of a shopping cart with a gimpy wheel... in the best possible way! But things aren't all off-kilter kookiness, by the fifth track "You Are A Dolphin", Liar Ball has transported the listener into darker, more mysterious territory, only to re-surface in funland for the closing two tracks. Note: don't be alarmed by the packaging... it appears that they recycled cut-out jewelcases (hence the melted nick in the spine) and festooned them with assorted stickers and labels.
In the interview / temper-tantrum given by Kid 606 to The Wire, the Kid complained that with each album he sold, he inevitably gets a demo in return, and thus offered proof of the growing aesthetic culture of juvenile cyberpunks. The sound of Libythth is more than likely what the majority of those demotapes must sound like, with drum machines and MIDI patches triggering modulated
Libythth is the wacky electro-percussion project from the same sick mind who came up with the Guy Albino persona in Hawd Gangstuh Rappuhs MCs Wid Ghatz. "Dissolve A Diamond" is the first recording for the Libythth project, being a spasmodic spluttering of car-crashed electronic rhythms and bango jangle. Think Matmos attempting to collaborate with Atom & His Package... so silly it borders on the painfully moronic.
8-bit, Nintendo, thrash metal. We're putting those keywords up at the start of this review to grab your attention, just in case you've never heard of Lich King before. Or even if you have, 'cause this ain't anything like the usual record by 'em. Massachusetts' zombie-lovin' Lich King are a New Wave Of Old School Thrash band, one of many these days (there's quite a glut), and they're pretty good. Although we've never felt compelled to actually review any of their albums before, some of the metalheads here do own a couple Lich King discs themselves. Even moreso than some other current retro thrash revivalists like Gama Bomb and Municipal Waste, Lich King are probably best known for their overt sense of humor. They write songs with titles like "Black Metal Sucks", "Behaver", and (they deserve an award, or at least a chuckle, for this one) "Attack Of The Wrath Of The War Of The Death Of The Strike Of The Sword Of The Blood Of The Beast". There's a tradition of fun and humor in '80s thrash metal after all (Anthrax! S.O.D.!), so their silliness makes 'em all the more authentic, especially since it doesn't stop 'em from spitting out some totally legit riffage, in the vein of Slayer and Nuclear Assault and Exodus, et. al.
With this release, for their own amusement mainly, the boys in Lich King decided to get even sillier, and recorded a bunch of their own tunes 8-bit chiptune '80s video game style!! Perhaps they were inspired by the internet-only fan band 8 Bit Mayhem's black metal covers (whose "De Mysteriis Dom Supernes" album is well worth Googling). Or maybe AQ fave Xexyz (if you liked that, you want this!). Certainly they were inspired by their own childhoods, playing Nintendo. In any case, a cool idea. With Super Retro Thrash, it's revealed just how catchy Lich King's songs really are. Stripped of vocals and guitar distortion, here it's all about the "riffs" and rhythms. And they're relentless, mind numbingly mesmerizing, we're lovin' it.
There's 9 songs here, including two unreleased as yet tunes from Lich King's next, upcoming proper album. And yes, among the "hits" they've selected, you get an 8-bit version of "Attack Of The Wrath Of The...", along with chipped-out takes on "ED-209" (their Robocop themed song), "Combat Mosh", "Toxic Zombie Onslaught", and more, including also the aforementioned "Black Metal Sucks".
The ironic thing is, not only is this the first Lich King album we've ever reviewed, we're also honestly more into it than any other of their "actual" albums, having listened to it lots more already (it's addictive!), AND surely will sell lots more of these than we would of any other Lich King release ever. We pretty sure it will be a big AQ hit like the Xexyz, or the Iron Maiden electro album. Meanwhile, it's something THEY thought only a few fans would want, it's limited to just 299 numbered copies!!! We got a bunch, but dunno if we'll be able to get (m)any more. The graphics are great, parodying an actual NES cartridge (we love the little lo-res Lich King guy depicted on there, rushing around Mario-style), photographed like it's sitting on a shaggy green carpet in someone's family room back in the '80s.
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Skittery, dreamy electronica, kind of like a cross between Bords of Canada and Aphex Twin. Featured on the Emanated compilation from a few lists back (an amazing compilation of local-ish electronica, still in stock, $10.98)
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The "illbient" trio (Danny Blume, DJ Olive, & Lloop) and guests (including usual downtown NYC suspects Marc Ribot and John Medeski) unleashes second stunning effort. Think Golden Palominos with excellent breakbeats! Lloop and Olive are members of Aquarius drum'n'bass faves We, by the way.
An ultimate skweee entree here folks!! The head honcho of flagship skweee label Flogsta Danshall, Frans Carlqvist aka Limonious (also aka Pavan), drops his debut, vinyl-only full-length. Eight tracks of dope skweee from a master of the form... and if you're unfamiliar with skweee, Limonious will school you. You can also look up "skweee" on our site for more info in other reviews, like those of the Museum Of Future Sound comps on Carlqvist's label (the blocky b&w cover art of this album is in the style of those comps). Suffice to say that skweee is a (mostly) Scandinavian subgenre of fucked up and funky Electro soundz, computery blip bloop zip zap meets hip hop, done DIY, with distortion and glitch, like what you'd feverishly imagine could be jammin' at an '80s video arcade / dancehall. On House Of Usher, the skweee simply slays, with queasy beats knocking against squelching synth bass, the results being warped, percolating instrumental grooves that are earworm-catchy. And in keeping with the "House Of Usher" theme, there's a suspenseful spooky moodiness to some of this that Poe himself might have appreciated. This album includes a version of the Limonious classic "Swedish Pommak" (as heard on Museum Of Future Sound Vol. 2), here titled "Swizz Pommak", along with 7 brand new cuts of hardcore skweee, though it'd be worth it for the "Pommak" one alone!! Seriously. Anyone into skweee needs this record, and if you're not yet into skweee, maybe this will do the trick, check it out!
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Calling all skweee-jays! Or would-be skweee-jays. We've got four new 7" singles of fresh skweee straight from the source, imported from Flogsta Danshall in Finland. They're in plain white sleeves, the only art to be found here on the labels. If you've followed our other skweee recommendations (both Museum Of Future Sound comps, the more recent Skweee Tooth collection) then you know all about this Scandinavian DIY electro b-boy instrumental 8-bit phenomenon, and you'll also already be familiar with the strange names of the artists on these four singles.
Flogsta boss Limonious' slinky "Swedish Pommak" already wormed its way into our ears via the Museum Of Future Sound Vol. 2, though the jittery yet spacey b-side "Hurri Up!" we hadn't heard before. And all the tracks by Mangrove, Mrs. Qeada, and Joxaren (all three artists hailing from Sweden) are new to us as well. Suffice to say, if you like skweee, you'll like these cuts, presented here in skweee's ideal format.
Joxaren's "Ritam Bluz" is a chiming, exotic, slightly sinister groove. Mrs Qeada's laidback "Post-Pubertal" bleeps and bloops nicely along aided by robotic handclaps and digital hisses (oddly, her MySpace page lists Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum as her only influence). Maybe our fave of the batch, Mangrove's "Angry Animals", is a bit of a fractured funky banger, bringing down some rigid buzzin' beats. The flip is pretty solidly crunchy / catchy too. The various other A- and B- sides on these 7"s are all pretty darn skweelicious as well! Seriously, if you're a DJ, just throw one of these on in your set for instant skweee cred. Listening at home is fun too.
Go here: http://skweee.com/ for a lot more interesting skweee info, including interviews with some of the folks we just mentioned.
