Been a while (8 years?) since we've heard from Nettle, or DJ /Rupture for that matter. Nettle is the live band project of DJ /Rupture, the amazing mix master (and self-described "border-crossing bass visionary") responsible for, as we put it, "plunderphonic dancehall turntable mashups" on his various rad mixes (2001's Gold Teeth Thief being THE classic). We know he's got a show on WFMU, still does music and mixes, but we didn't know that his band Nettle was still active, or rather that it had been reactivated. So this new Nettle album is unexpected, but nevertheless awesome.
El Resplandor is a concept album, the quite cool concept pretty much revealed in its subtitle: The Shining In Dubai. Yes, we're in imaginary soundtrack territory here - what if, Stephen King's The Shining were set in an abandoned luxury hotel in the Arabian emirate of Dubai, on the Persian Gulf? Musically, this turns out to be an excellent idea... you keep the spooky psychological horror stuff (family moves into isolated empty hotel, things get weird, dad loses his shit, etc.) and add an ethnic Middle Eastern music element as well.
DJ /Rupture, credited with "electricity, mudd", works with an ensemble of musicians, including guitarist Andy from The Ex. So there's guitar, cello (x2), violin, and guembri (an African 3-stringed skin-covered lute) - along with lovely, wordless female vocals, something that's always perfectly suspense soundtrack worthy!
While in the past, this outfit sounded something like a beat-heavy, uber-distorted Muslimgauze, with hiphop elements even, El Resplandor is more restrained, atmospheric, and eerily evocative, in keeping with the concept. There's much somber shimmer and string pluck, and of course tape manipulation and electronic glitchery, with DJ /Rupture applying his mixing/editing skills to what may have been improvised solos from the various instrumentalists - we're not sure of the compositional method, but it certainly involves some measure of computer processing. The eleven varied tracks all individually contribute to the haunted, alienated, edge-of-the-desert vibe of The Shining in Dubai idea... From the stately exotic dance of "Espina" to the buzz, crackle and chaos of "Simoom (Wasp Wind)", this is a beautiful and dramatic disc. One that makes for a good late night listen, excepting the presence of that "Simoom" track, where thing get a bit... disturbed... that might wake you up from your reveries!
The digipack packaging features scene-setting liner notes by none other than imaginative architectural essayist Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG fame (great blog, check it out if you haven't before) and equally appropriate photographs by Lamya Gargash. Quite recommended!
It was a teasing single, that one-sided picture disc which showcased one hell of a darkwave track enriched by the sonorous baritone from Never Knows architect and principal Marc Kate. That voice and those synth-pop aspirations / devolutions run throughout the much anticipated debut album from this former aQ staffer as well. Ink does feature a different mix of the aforementioned single "Still Life" buttressed by a myriad of tracks rich with solemnly Numanoid downbeats, Violator-era miserablism, goth-dub grooviness, and a smattering of witchy / dark-eyed techno overtures. Two instrumental tracks bookend the album, leading with "Into" a dour track of sunken electro-clad breaks and closing with the black-clad, minimal-techno wash "Exeunt" with its thoughtful nods to Monolake and Regis. Between this, Kate takes a deep breath and exhales with a voice that we likened in the past to Dave Gahan; and yes, he still croons with an impassioned vibrato of equal portent. Along with the zombie-sect hymn of "Still Life," "Becoming" is one of the more dramatic numbers on the album with a slow build of maudlin half-melodies transforming into an urgent surge of basslines and drum programming to match Kate's quickened delivery. The skittering (dare we call them 'Amen'?) breaks of "Awake" brighten the overall mood towards the end of the album, making us wonder what the hell happened to Andrea Parker after she made a couple of particularly dark albums for Mo' Wax in the late '90s. We could research it, but we didn't; and in any case here we have an opulent gem of dark atmospheres, spilling from Ink.
Get ready ... to do what?! To flee from this disappointing cd, that's what. Appallingly schlocky rhymes abound... "You're everything to me, the sweetest symphony" and "What I mean to say is you keep the wolves at bay" Oh dear. Oh dear dear dear!
Electronic "nintendo metal" from Norway.
A perfect fit for Raster-Noton, Nibo is the moniker of a Japanese audio-visual artist who has been articulating sound through mathematically tight digital-click repetitions and pure sinewave tones, that end up sounding virtually identical to the post-techno rhythmic tendencies of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, and to a lesser extent Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio.
One of two new releases on the Ge-stell label, run by aQ pal Cameron, who was also the man behind the Merzbild and Merz Tapes labels, the other is the latest from Chris Douglas, aka Dalglish, and then this one, a new 12" from another aQ pal, Brandon Nickell, who previously recorded as Aemae, and runs the Isounderscore label. On Skyline, Nickell explores a moody netherworld of pulsing industrial beatscapery, fractured avant hip hop deconstruction, post rave grooves and acid drenched rhythms, laying down fields of deftly programmed beats, and swaddling them in hazy swirls of melancholy shimmer, a series of strangely reflective backdrops for a constantly transformational rhythmic palette, churning and robotic one second, skittery and stuttery the next, the surrounding sounds though, strangely human, darkly melodic and almost cinematic, the beats less of a driving force oddly, and more a framework for Nickell's moody broodscapes, whether it's the lonesome raga like buzz of "Norvig Trajectory", the keening high end shimmer of "Quartz", or the pulsating retro-cold wave kosmiche of the title track. And even within these various permutations, Nickell manages to evolve and sculpt, transforming the opening droned out skree of the aforementioned "Quartz", into a gorgeously serene, hushed lowercase drift, or the beautifully blissful beats of closer "Tessellate" which lays out a slow motion rhythmic crawl over a background of rapidfire pulse, a darkly propulsive core, to what is otherwise languorous and strangely tranquil, a gorgeous, hypnotic closer, that leaves us wanting more more more.
Pressed on 150 gram transparent vinyl, mastered by Rashad Becker, housed in a silkscreened PVC plastic cover, with die cut slit, along with a printed transparent insert.
Over the course of a handful of releases, San Francisco electronic artist Brandon Nickell has revealed to us a number of facets to his sound, typically landing on the psychonautical side of digital abstraction and bitcracked noisemongering. The Art Of Memory finds Nickell eschewing much of the DSP-systems and laptop codeslinging in favor of modular synthesizers that reflected his infatuation with the rhythmic / IDM-inspired electronic music from the late '90s and early '00s. Tundra Dubs had approached Nickell on the strength of a tape he released concurrently with Holly Herndon's Car cassette on Third Sex a couple years back; and whether intentional or not, there are some parallels to the atonality, precision, sci-fi dystopian vibes, and compositional complexity between Herndon's acclaimed album Movement and Nickell's The Art Of Memory. The title track to this long ep bangs through a shuffled techno rhythm alternating taut step sequencing with glacially dark drones falling between Sandwell District's industrial reclamation project and early Alec Empire rhythm explorations. The 8 minute long workout "Progenitor" laces a skittering Coh / Thomas Brinkmann rhythm with witchy vocal elongations and bellowing drones, punctured with dry, whipcrack snares. The closing track "Sutro" takes after the monophunk of Reinhardt Voigt reprising the spiralling step sequences and arpeggiations from the title track as fractal patterns that splinter, dissolve, and blossom into infinity. Limited to 150 copies!
First release from this groop of kosmische synth-float dream-space drifters, who normally spend their time kicking up more of a sonic ruckus in local space rock combo Carlton Melton, but in Night Flights, all of that rock is ejected through the airlock, and left to drift weightlessly amongst the stars! This new 12" perhaps the soundtrack to that transition. Equal parts Cluster, Eno, Tangerine Dream, this is all abstract, ambient bliss out. Psychedelic new age for the new age, long tones float and shimmer, melodies unfurl lazily, expanding and then drifting apart, textures shift in slow motion, thick billowing clouds of sound roil softly over a hushed backdrop of barely there thrum, it's chilled out and gloriously laid back, the music from some long ago planetarium show, a show presented in slow motion, the various planets and stars swirling slowly, the contrails making all manner of prismatic patters that ebb and flow, pulse and fade. Imagine the trippiest parts of Carlton Melton (of which there are plenty), but then slow them down, and stretch them way out, let them drift skyward, spreading out across the stars like some weird sonic filter, channeling the strange broadcasts from the furthest reaches into chiming guitar shimmer and swoonsome chordal whooshes, moody murky synthiness and tripped out atmospheric dronemusic, everything blurred and smeared into a fantastically mesmerizing slab of gloriously free form minimal space music, that should hit the spot for both psych nerds and drone lovers alike.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, on clear yellow vinyl. Includes download code too.
Wow, just a bit different from other stuff we've heard from Australia's Homeless label, who usually specialize in gutter-dwelling punk noize (Cuntz, Bits Of Shit, etc.). The Night Terrors aren't punk, they're prog, being all about instrumental suspense film soundtracky synthscapes and spacey theremin vibes - in fact, they supported Goblin on the recent Australian tour by those Italian soundtrack-prog maestros. So, yeah, this is one for fans of artists like Umberto, Zombi, Steve Moore, Majeure, and The Oscillation. Again it's a bit surprising this came out on Homeless; it sounds more like it belongs on Death Waltz!! But while quite cinematic, The Night Terrors are undeniably a (post)rock band, albeit one with more lead theremin than lead guitar.
Sometimes gently atmospheric (someone mentioned Sigur Ros), sometimes noisy and distorted (someone mentioned MBV), always compelling and evocative, The Night Terrors almost seem specifically designed for aQ appreciation. Plus, this is one of the song titles: "Existential Revelation In The Circle Pit At Slayer"!
So yeah, pushing all our buttons: there's lots of lovely moody moments on this record, with the theremin suggestive of wordless female vocalizing, as well as plenty of heavier parts too - the majestic melodic synth swoosh going toe to toe with the churning rhythm section, all heaving Magmoid bass burble and propulsive drumming.
It's import, gatefold, numbered, colored double vinyl, remastered from the original cd release circa 2009. Includes download. We've got the last 5 copies we could get of this record (the label is sold out), but if you miss snagging one, don't despair entirely 'cause they DO have a brand new album, Spiral Vortex, on the way quite soon, we're told.
A far cry from the Sheffield bleep techno that Nightmares on Wax, Sweet Exorcist, and LFO were forging to make Warp the seminal label that it is today... Carboot Soul wouldn't be out of place on Mo' Wax or Ninja Tune with a VERY mellow trip hop album loaded with jazzy vibes and downtempo beats.
Funky breaks, slightly uninspired mix. It's a Studio K7 DJ Kicks release, wherein artists basically perform their dream DJ set and then it gets released as a cd. Nightmares on Wax includes in his set: himself, DJ Paul Nice, A Tribe Called Quest, Freddy Fresh, and more. If you're a fan of N.O.W., you'll like this mellow hiphop infused groove.
Oh man, why isn't Nightmares on Wax totally famous? This is the most "radio ready" of NOW's albums thus far, which in lesser hands could be a turnoff or a disaster... yet I find this record utterly entrancing. It's just so good, a nicely executed take on KMEL-style R&B, albeit *super* stripped down but still complete with diva vocals, hip hop flavor, and a slowed up pace. Super pretty, hook-filled chord progressions -- articulated via pastoral basslines and blunted, easygoing beats -- dominate practically every song here. Occasional excursions into dub and 'trip hop' are similarly well-handled. It's all very accessible and unassuming, with no weird juxtapositions or noisiness to interrupt the reverie you'll fall into while listening. And that's a good thing, mind you -- this isn't sonic wallpaper. I can't remember the last time I liked a "downtempo" record, with no 'difficult' IDM affectations, this much! Maybe that Kid Loco album, A Grand Love Story... Highly recommended!!!
The first 10,000 copies have a free extra disc which features Mr Nightmares on Wax himself, George Evelyn, a.k.a. E.A.S.E., mixing older NoW tracks.
Finland's self-proclaimed Undisputed Kings of Lasermetal are back! Note that 'Lasermetal' as a genre exists ONLY in connection to Nightsatan, and is definitely NOT actually metal, though these guys do look pretty metal - you've got one guy, Inhalator II, wearing all sorts of studded gear, including studded headband; another guy, Wolf-Rami, who has a scary skull face inside his motorcycle helmet; and a third, Mazathoth, who wears a Boba Fett style helmet, and a cape, and has antlers inexplicably growing out of his back. But they're an instrumental synth trio, not metal in the slightest, except conceptually perhaps.
If you recall, we made Nightsatan's debut album Midnight Laser Warrior an aQuarius Record Of The Week a few years back, blown away by their brand of "crazy, futuristic, electro prog", a soundtracky, synth-heavy sound inspired by John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream, not unlike Zombi or Umberto, but taking that into a ridiculously fantastical Finnish realm of over-the-topness. Well, with this new release they somehow go even FURTHER over the top, 'cause instead of just sounding like a soundtrack, it IS a soundtrack, to a real movie that's included here on its own dvd disc packaged with the cd. And the movie stars Nightsatan, playing themsleves, as surreal sci-fi superheroes wandering a futuristic wasteland encountering (and slaying, or having sex with) strange characters. It's an homage of sorts to Italian '80s post-apocalyptic exploitation cinema, complete with dialog dubbed in Italian (English subtitles are provided). It comes across like a mix of Mad Max and Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, truly bizarre and absurd, full of gory special FX and nudity. Sex, violence, and synthesizers! Basically, an extended, insane music video for Nightsatan. It's a professional production, including some impressive special effects (it's worth watching the 'making of' bonus feature to see how they did it - 'cuz we didn't think they had deserts in Finland), with a plot involving, yes, 'loops of doom' - we can't explain it but it does sort of make sense. it's really a bit disturbing at moments, and twistedly funny too, and of course the music is pretty rad, and you can enjoy it alone on the soundtrack cd, which is twice as long as the movie, consisting of 14 tracks, 48 minutes of Nightsatan's retro-futuristic synth-splorations, droning and glistening, often underlaid with propulsive beats via Inhalator II's 'laserdrums'. Mood-wise it ranges from sinister suspensefulness, to exciting electro-rock, to maudin, melodic 'love theme' moments.
Fans of Umberto, Trans Am, Blizaro, Emeralds, all ought to dig - imagine a mix of all those, but with an added element of pure Finnish WTF?-ness. It's hard to believe that Nightsatan are NOT one of the so-called NWOFHM bands put together by the guys in Circle, like Steel Mammoth. But nope, they're just friends, apparently this sort of thing just what they do in Finland these days. Ah, Finland. Ah, Nightsatan!
They're from Finland. They're called Nightsatan. Their record is called Midnight Laser Warrior and features on its cover some helmeted ghoul with a knife, and a sawblade, and a bullet belt, and tons of spikes and studs on the leather jacket that barely obscures his rotting zombie flesh. They have song titles like "Four Eyed Cyclops", "Death Chess 2000", "Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)". The record was mastered by two members of aQ faves Finnish hypnorockers Circle. We saw a YouTube clip of Nightsatan performing, where a certain member of the crowd got so worked up he decided to sing along, that person was none other than Albert Witchfinder of the mighty Reverend Bizarre (and The Puritan, among others). Their drummer is credited with player "Laserdrums". And most importantly, they play "LAZERMETAL". Which is in fact, not metal at all, nor even "NWOFHM", instead it's some sort of crazy, futuristic, electro prog, like Goblin or John Carpenter, or any of the current crop of Carpenter worshipping retro futurists (Majeure, Umberto, Zombi, Blizaro) but filtered through some ELP, or Yes, or even more obscure prog faves like Il Balleto Di Bronzo or the New Trolls. Sure the sound is synthy, and retro and electro and will no doubt appeal to those folks, but it's also twisted and proggy and FINNISH, which makes this something else entirely.
The cool thing about these guys, ONE of the cool things, is that they're a proper band, this isn't just a studio project, assembled at a desk with a computer, no these guys are a BAND, and there's tons of footage of them playing live, and most notably, they have a DRUMMER, who plays drums, electronic drums sure, but they give the sound a sweaty, urgent, human element missing from lots of similar stuff, not to mention, these songs are epic and complex and again PROGGY.
Opener "Four Eyed Cyclops" begins with a bit of Tangerine Dreamy synthiness, accompanied by some growled cookie monster vox, but it doesn't take long for the track to get going, with some awesome syncopated rumming, locked tight with the synths, then another buzzing bit of low end synth swoops in, and while it's not metal, we can definitely feel the same sort of power and energy and intensity. All the synths drop out, leaving just the buzzing low end one to unfurl a serious slithery riff, the drums come back in, and it's like some weird electronic electro-doom, the metal vibe, more in the vibe than the sound, but it's definitely weird and heavy and electronic, with lots of bent notes wound into electro leads. Awesome.
"Death Chess 2000" starts off with more buzzing low end synth riffage, some "Iron Man" style kick drum, before slipping into another bit of electro-doom, only to have everything suddenly speed up, and transform into a car chase Autobahn soundtrack that returns briefly to that opening electro doom, before stripping down to just minimal synth and a skeletal rhythm, and more of those weird raspy vox, finishing off in a blaze of swirl and buzz.
"Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)" might be the proggiest of the bunch, another swirly Logan's Run sounding intro, all arpeggiated melodies underpinned by thick wheezing synth buzz, while the snare drum drives the rhythm, before blossoming into a hazy, futuristic soundscape (which more than one customer mistook for the Tron soundtrack! If only!), that warbles woozily, and eventually switches tempo and becomes the perfect score for some lost eighties VHS tape horror movie futuristic dystopian city montage. Throughout, the song offers up some strange detours, intense super dynamic stop/starts, with pounding drums, and some gorgeous woozy video game soundtrack balladry (which again has us thinking how much better these guys would have been for scoring Tron).
"Ninja Apocalypse" is creepy, and haunting, with the sound of fake rainfall, deep bass swells, and a main keyboard melody that would most definitely not be out of place in a Halloween or Friday The 13th movie, but like all the songs, the track continually shifts and transforms, minimal and hauntingly creepy one second, supper progged out and propulsive the next, soaring and majestic the next, and druggy and psychedelic the next. "Steel Diamond Part 4" (parts 1 and 2 are on the 7" reviewed elsewhere on this list, not sure where part 3 is though), is another electro prog workout, that features a super soundtracky main melody wreathed in layer after layer of synth buzz, the drums dense and intricate, the sound swirling and shimmering, evoking images of alien planets, of crashed starships, of subterranean lairs, of strange creatures chained up and walking into the depths, of the blackness of space, which leads right into the final track "Stars, Our Destination", which takes that space synth sci-fi sound even further out, pulsing and throbbing, the melodies tangled and intricate, hypnotic and totally mesmerizing, the sound dramatic and emotional and epic, and so totally cinematic, every track in fact here plays out like the music to some climactic scene from some lost eighties sci-fi adventure epic, with "Stars, Our Destination" being the perfect culmination, the drums less rhythmic, and more dynamic, pounding alongside the synths, the vocals more breathy exhalations, soon joined by thick rubbery low end pulses, everything growing more and more intense before fading into a swirling drift of warbly synths, swirling FX and whispered urgent voices. There's a short hidden track, another sort of Halloween gone electro synthwave, with a pulsing house-y beat, creepy raspy vocals, and a main melody that sounds like it had to be created for some horror movie, tense and intense, this final coda brooding and moody, but also propulsive and weirdly motorik, the perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock finish to a pretty much perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock record!
And all this talk of soundtrack and cinema is not just us, the artwork on the back cover, which features a modular synth, with the various patch bays altered to read as song titles, also includes various inputs for things like "Doom & Gloom", "Heavy Pounding" and maybe most tellingly "Extra Giallo". So good. Easily our favorite of this new batch of synthy soundtracky sci-fi sounds. There is vinyl, but it's not out yet, a few weeks still. And if you dig this, be sure and grab one of those 7"s too!!
If you found your way here without reading about and most likely buying the full length Nightsatan record, best to take a second and go check out that review, we get WAY more in depth there about the band and their fantastic futuristic sounds. And if you already added the cd to your cart, and just need MORE, then heck, skip the rest of this, and throw one of these in your cart too.
But for those who need to know more. Nightsatan are from Finland, and play "Lazermetal" which is in fact less metal, and more futuristic soundtracky sci-fi synth wave prog.
"Steel Diamond" parts 1 and 2 make up the bulk of the 7" (part 4 is on the full length, no idea where part 3 is), and is a sprawling synthscape of fat, fuzz drenches electro future prog, swirling synths, propulsive electronic drums, sweeping arrangements, epic swells, the bass buzzy and blown out, all wound into some sort of electronic krautspacefunk soundtrack. There are some breakdowns and interludes that are so thick and heavy, the bass SO buzzy, that it almost does sound metal.
The second part of the "Steel Diamond" quadrilogy offers up a plodding super dramatic space opera lazer prog workout, wild tangles of synth leads, evoking the final march up to the castle, the final battle, knights versus aliens, the vibe is definitely doomy, but synth-doom, building to a wild proggy break, that gets all electro-metallic before slipping right back into that spaced out synthy futurism.
The other track here, "Space Revenger" (awesome title!), is a pounding Teutonic bit of synthy electro prog metal, but with all the metal guitars replaced by MORE SYNTHS, epic and dramatic and intense and cinematic, with some surprisingly crushing parts that remind us a bit of MIDI metal (those cheesy electronic versions of classic metal sounds, YouTube it) but cranked WAAAAAY UP!
The cover art here is cool too, the band in metal T's and studded wristbands, huge black shades, obscured by red lights, looking very metal, with a shiny silver sticker that says "Finland's No#1 Nightsatan - File Under LAZERMETAL", while the back boasts two different legends, one reads "No guitars played on this record", the other "DEATH TO FALSE LASERMETAL". Fuck Yeah. Pressed on LAZER-RED vinyl too...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've long been fans of this mysterious NY outfit, whose past records found these guys brewing up a dizzying concoction of warped electro wave, haunting witch house-y minimalist creep, fuzzed out shoegazey ambience, and home brewed big beat crunch, all blurred and smeared into something way more abstract and psychedelic that its constituent parts. But here on their third and most recent, the band dial things way back, and craft a dark, gorgeous slab of introspective, electronic soundscapery, opening the proceedings with thick swaths of gristled, pixelated Tim Hecker like sonic haze. All washed out and dreamy and woozily lysergic, perfectly leading into a stunning Marissa Nadler cover, the already dark original transformed into an even darker lament, all swirling churns of mumblecore drift, heaving swells of black blurred fuzz, over skeletal rhythms, and moaned barely there vox, smeared and subtly processed, a plaintive whispery croon becomes a lush landscape of layered drones drifting dreamily and druggily, a ghostly and spectral electro-ambient threnody, that builds to a near squall of roiling riffs and tangled black melodies, the result still somehow warm and soft and utterly trancelike.
Elsewhere, the group unfurl smoldering cinematic soundscapes, strange slivers of shadowy sound, moaning fragmented melodies, all over a haunting heartbeat like pulse, a sort of slo-mo electronica, laced with strange hummed/sung vocals that remind us a bit of country weirdos the Reveries, who sing with cell phone speakers in their mouths, the same effect here, a wordless warble that ebbs and flows, slipping from near insectoid buzz to deep softly dramatic, barely there croon, and back again, all over slow swooping backwards guitars, and disembodied fragments of guitar melody.
Some tracks, like "Eisenbahnstrasse, January 1st 1946" shed some of the darkness, and blossom into dreamily prismatic swirls, all tinkling chimes, clean guitar jangle, soft psychedelic shimmer, all interwoven with random samples and brief blurts of FX heavy skree, but the sound always seems to drift back into the darkness.
As the record progresses, heavy machine like industrial beat, lumber through fields of clang and clatter and thump, all constructed into a dense driving blast of junkyard groove, the whole thing swaddled in a distant buzz, and slowly building swells of layered static drones, a sort of ultra minimal hypno-hop, like something you migh have heard on an old DHR record, or on one of those Electric Ladyland comps alongside Techno Animal, Spectre and the like. Eventually, the sound slows to a crawl, still beat heavy, but this time a tar pit drag, a lurching, looped lumber, all downtuned thrum, and disembodied voices, and some buried shuffling skitter.
"Sun Shatterer" is a heady sprawl of minimal gloom pop, minor key guitars, chiming through a cloud of woozy sonic warble, weird clipped whispers, tense strings, keening high end tones, what sounds like Hermann Nitsch like brass, which resolve into soft whorls of crumbling distortion and lush waves of fuzzed out feedback, before unexpectedly exploding into something much more in keeping with their old sound, big beats, a sort of post industrial electro wave downer dirge, with clean, dramatic new wave vocals, big melodies, buzzing synths, but all still wreathed in the weird droned out sounds that started the track off, like a noiser, more abstact Interpol maybe...
After a couple brief tracks of creepy, psychedelic ambience, the 30 second "Campfire Ashes" way too short, sounding like it could have blossomed into some dark Demdike Stare style epic, which thankfully is in a way what happens, as that track leads directly into the closer, a nearly nine minute sprawl called "Hymn Division". that lays down a simple pulsing beat, over which Nihiti lay thick swaths of black buzz, dense swirls of ribcage rattling low end reverberations, and finally deep, dramatic minor key melodies, that infuse the song with serious pathos, it's not hard to imagine this as the sound track to the denouement of some twisted, modern, avant indie film, a dizzying expanse of moving, emotional, electronic minimalism, but here drifting towrd maximalism, the tones expanding and exploding in slow motion, the melodies, bright, and eventually blinding, the tones strecthed way out, tense and intense, the coda a sort of Hecker / Nadja dreamdronedrift, but more soft focus here, heady and heavenly.
On the recent aQ Record Of The Week For Ostland, by mysterious NY electro-rock alchemists Nihiti, they started things off with a fantastic cover of Marisa Nadler's "Ghosts And Lovers", which ended up being one of our favorite tracks on that record, and which we described like this: "The already dark original transformed into an even darker lament, all swirling churns of mumblecore drift, heaving swells of black blurred fuzz, over skeletal rhythms, and moaned barely there vox, smeared and subtly processed, a plaintive whispery croon becomes a lush landscape of layered drones drifting dreamily and druggily, a ghostly and spectral electro-ambient threnody, that builds to a near squall of roiling riffs and tangled black melodies, the result still somehow warm and soft and utterly trancelike."
This new 12" offers up four remixes of Nihiti's Nadler cover, and all of them are pretty excellent. National Park Systems (whose Lo Bit 12" we still have in stock), add some rhythmic propulsion, and some swirling noise, processing the vox a bit, transforming the song that sounds more like some lost M83 jam, all prismatic and big beat-y, while Mark Verbos give Nihiti's version a skeletal electro makeover, with a bit of a house-y twist, drenching the vocals in reverb, and stripping away most of the rest of the song, and draping those vocals over their own beats, and giving the whole thing a sort of retro-futuristic sci-fi vibe to boot, especially the second half, that definitely reminds us a bit of Majeure or Zombi.
The flipside starts off with Hrdvrsn, who strip the song down to something very Kompakt sounding, chopping the vocals and creating a haunting stuttery melody, over a simple handclap rhythm, and wreathing the whole thing in glimmering swirls of synth, eventually letting the beat take over, before fading out and leaving just a pulsing ethereal swirl. And finally, Zebrablood adds some step sequencing and adds some robotic melodies, and transforms the song into something way more cybernetic, a super minimal electro-pulse minimal-house groover, that's both spare and skeletal, but also weirdly melodic and impossibly lush and layered. Super cool. And the perfect sonic addendum to Nihiti's amazing For Ostland...
A bizarre missive from this mysterious Texan producer of modern pop pulverizations who repurposes the likes of Britney Spears and Justin Beiber into nearly unrecognizable witchhouse-y goth dance remixes. Takes us back to the likes of Princess Tinymeat, March Violets, Danse Society and other wasted shards of our eighties gothic youth.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, we only have a few and might be awhile before we get more. On dark pink and white swirled vinyl!
The first three records from BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa were a trilogy dedicated to alcohol, and wintery drones, as semi-fictions about getting really drunk sometime in December and nearly passing out in a snowbank while gazing up at the northern lights. Goda Nott is something of an extension of these ideas, except maybe for the alcohol part. Sometime in the winter of 2011 / 2012, this trio found themselves snowed in at Stilluppsteypa's Icelandic studio with no food or water; and no way of getting out until the snow began to melt away. While they did sleep as much as they could to pass the time, they also busied themselves with recording the sounds of the snow, ice, and wind, attempting to monitor what - if any - activity may exist beyond their frozen enclave. The possibility of any existence beyond their own became uncertain, where any rustling of the snow could be a footstep or a resonant tone could be a snowplow. Through their indeterminant amount of time in that studio, they smeared these field recordings into rumbling drones and static tones that mirrored the onset of their collective madness, made audible in the crazy sounding whistling that one of them fastens to the blustery isolationism of the first side of Goda Nott. The second side is even more desolate than the first, rivaling Kevin Drumm's Imperial Distortion for the most empty, most gasping, most claustrophobic slab of audio bleakness we've ever heard. This is a radical turn away from the melancholy kosmiche electronica of their previous two albums Space Finale and Big Shadow Montana; but they are also rendering something wholly new to the bad-ass dronescaping they mastered early on. So fucking good.
Another awesome electronic oddity from the fine folks at Hospital Productions, this one the work of a duo called Ninos Du Brasil, who, true to their moniker, traffic in a strain of Brazilian music - but a warped, experimental version, the likes of which you've likely not heard before. Brazilian carnival music is definitely a reference point but so too is Southeast Asian gamelan music, as well as various strains of techno and electro, we hear shades of fellow modern experimental techno-technician Cut Hands for sure, and heck, they even have a song called "Sepultura", which is apparently in fact an homage of sorts to that Brazilian metal band, and their later records on which they did in fact incorporate traditional Brazilian percussion into their music. Weird stuff, but sonically, it all meshes into something super mesmerizing and hypnotic, and something not altogether removed from some of the other Hospital releases, like Vatican Shadow, Ron Morelli, Christian Cosmos, Silent Servant, etc.
After a brief bit of straight up Brazilian percussion over a bed of birdsong, the record quickly slips into some murky house, all deep muted pulsations, over which, wild percussion comes tumbling, and then also some synth bass, and martial snares, the result is a strange hybrid of Brazilian funk, drum corps and avant minimal house music, with the Brazilian percussion WAY up in the mix, and driving the sound. The song is also peppered with plenty of FX and subtle dub-isms, and once they lock in, barring some subtle fluctuations, it's totally looped and tranced out and endlessly mesmeric.
The more minimal tracks, like "Legios De Cupins", definitely sound right at home on Hospital, again, murky and a little bit muddy, strangely sequenced arpeggiations, the Brazilian influence much more subtle, but still groovy and darkly funky, with occasional bursts of more traditional percussion, the coolest bits are when they all blur and bleed into some fantastically heady hybrid. The "Sepultura" track, perhaps predictably, is the fiercest, the drums and percussion, blown out and super distorted, sounding very much like a Brazilian marching band, we could easily have listened to a whole album of this, but it soon slips back into something more traditional sounding, "Miragem" sounding like Brazilian street music, underpinned by some super subtle techno filigree, before blossoming into maybe the most 'party' sounding of the bunch, with distorted call and response vocals, more wild percussion, all anchored by a four on the flour techno pulse, before finally finishing off with the gorgeous sprawling "Novos Misterios", a low slung, downtempo creeper, sounding a bit like a Brazilian Tom Waits, all steep drum melodies, wreathed in record crackles and warm swaths of tape hiss, the rhythms here laid back and subtle, woozy and weary, and the perfect comedown, at least until the final few minutes, when the sound quickly builds to a noisy, psychedelic, heavy house, stutter rhythm / droned out finale!
Yay! It's pretty cool that Norway's Smalltown Supersound has put this out, a disc collecting two previously released (in Japan only) eps by this Japanese all-girl avant-rock unit. We'd found out about this band a while back, and had wanted to stock their stuff, but sometimes importing cds from Japan is a daunting task. So our procrastination paid off, as now we have this handy disc, easily available. (It's also pretty cool that the Heartworm Press label has also just issued this on vinyl!) So what's the deal with this band? A mostly instrumental guitar/bass/drums trio who are psychedelically skronky, generating massive walls of distortion underpinned by propulsive no-waveisms. They're not a Japanese "noise" band like Merzbow or Hijokaidan, but certainly get plenty noisy. We could compare 'em at times to the likes of Afrirampo, Lightning Bolt, Melt Banana, Deerhoof, (early) Blonde Redhead... actually Nisennenmodai makes the reviewer's task a bit easier by naming several of the tracks of the Neji ep (2004) which begins this disc after some of their musical heroes, which to a degree they emulate: "Pop Group", "This Heat", "Sonic Youth". The "This Heat" track definitely has the nervous tension and percussive percolations we love about that band, whereas "Pop Group" is ultra-angular and extra-noisy...
The Tori ep (2005) that occupies the second half of this collection continues those themes - in fact, they do one of Neji's songs again, the densely rhythmic "Ikkkyokume", probably a signature track for the band as it so well represents their trance-inducing intensity, love of volume and minimalist song structure. Tori's first track "Kyuukohan" is tightly wound, repetitive number full of crashing cymbals, chiming guitar, and bass throb... building, building, building relentlessly to a massive climax. The next song, "Kyaaaaaa", incorporates yelping vocal shrieks and even more noisy feedback guitar. And so it goes, getting ever noisier, more throbbingly repetitive, a distorted, enthralling onslaught of explosive splatter/scatter rock indeed! We'd love to see 'em live someday, apparently there's crazy costumes and stuff, but that seems hardly necessary given the sheer energy of their music.
The limited double LP version is a handsome gatefold, on white vinyl. It's already sold out at the label, apparently we got their very last copies... act fast!
New Mexican Summer 12", from our favorite lady of late night dance floor slow burners. Nite Jewel continues to write really infectious songs that seep into your body and soul, making your body move in such loose and languid ways. We love both the new tracks on this 12" but we may even be blasting the B side more as the Dam Funk club dub of "It Goes Through Your Head" has summer jam of the year written all over it! Samps also does a great remix of "Natural Causes", and it's cool to go back and forth and hear the more organic sounding versions on the A side and then step under that hypnotic disco ball on the B side. Limited to 1000 copies, each hand numbered.
Nite Jewel's album Good Evening is shaping up to be one of our favorites of the year, so we were super excited for these new bedroom jams on her second 12", released on the always great Italians Do It Better label. Taking her hazy lo-fi spaced out slow jam sound to even greater heights of smoky delight. "Want You Back" might just surpass "What Did He Say" as her most infectious song yet! Still somehow infusing a shoegazey and dazed vibe into her coming down from the dance floor grooves. The B-side "All Out Of Order" finds her using a vocoder for maximum slow burn effect, and it's pretty rad that she also included a version of the song in Spanish. As much as we've been playing this we also can't take our eyes off the 12"s cover with its saturated colors and faded image that reminds us of the classic look of 12"s by groups like the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine. All the way around, an awesome release!
The latest slab of wax, brimming as always with tasty sensual seduction from the fine folks at Italians Do It Better comes courtesy of a Los Angelino who has been creating a well deserved buzz with her slow burning and wholly satisfying take on old school 8-track dance music. With nods to Debbie Deb and classic '80s and '90s R&B as well as a total shoegaze sensibility, this is how we imagine Grouper might sound if she ever made a dance record. The woman behind Nite Jewel is a multimedia artist who dabbles in many worlds (video, performance, installation) but damn we are loving the sultry jams she is whipping up in her bedroom most of all, sounds that are perfect for dancing in OUR bedrooms. So nice!
It's a little difficult to consider Noisegate a metal band. Although their live persona, which features lots of slow motion headbanging while they hold down various keys on their samplers, clearly gives reason to peg them as metallers, a careful
Stefan Senf, founder of Suburban Trash Industries and longtime veteran producer of many, many fucked up hardcore d'n'b/gabba/fuckstep singles on labels like Zod, Appareil, SixSixtySix, Brutal Chud, etc., has been picked up for a long overdue full length by London's king of brutal hardcore mashup DJ Scud and his Ambush imprint. Clocking in at just under a half hour, "Deferred Media" is a unrelenting onslaught of distorted beats, ripping shards of harsh noise and bass -- tons of bass! Certainly for fans of Ambush, DHR, Praxis, Brooklyn Beats, et al.
The elusive Swedish songstress Stina Nordenstam is back with a new album. Fans will rejoice to hear that The World Is Saved has been released on the readily available V2 label, as opposed to most of her past recordings which have been next to impossible to get! For those of you as yet unacquainted with the loveliness of Ms Nordenstam, now's as good a time as any to indulge yourself a lingering gaze at her sweet wispy childlike vocals as they perch gracefully atop hazy, frosty evening peaks. Enchanting!
Aside from its awesome cover photo (love the red leather gloves!), most folks are probably most excited about this reissue because of its status as a legendary collection of early '80s synthesizer / computer music, which of course we find exciting as well, but truth be told, we were even more intrigued by the fact that Doris Norton was a member of mysterious Italian prog-psych-proto-metal doomlords Jacula, whose In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum record from supposedly the late '60s, we once made a Record Of The Week, a disc that still confounds and fascinates. She also was apparently sponsored by Apple during the '80s!
But regardless of the Jacula connection, or the Apple one too, Norton's 1983 Nortoncomputerforpeace lp is in fact a fantastic chunk of vintage new wavy electronic music, and it's easy to see why folks have been freaking out over it, cuz it's exactly what all the kids are trying to pull off these days, to varying degrees of success. Pulsing synths, cascading melodies, simple robotic programmed drums, vocoder-ed machine like vocals, but even amongst similar sounding records, Norton lets her psychedelic prog flag fly, peppering her compositions with occasional wild squalls of shredding synths solos, especially on the first few tracks, which really gives the sound a serious PROG vibe. Much of the record finds itself in that eighties VHS synthscape sci-fi soundtrack territory, all pulsing and motorik, minor key and hauntingly cinematic, seriously retro soundtracky, but again, Norton laces her compositions with dense melodic squiggles, or almost disco-y breakdowns, check out the end of "Don't Shoot The Animals", crazy funky! The rest of the record slips easily from 8 bit sounding video game music, to synthprog freakouts, to creepy droned out ambience, to full on Carpenter / Goblin style synth workouts, to rad cheesy lo-fi disco synth pop jams. Fans of Umberto, Zombi, Gatekeeper, Majeure, Innercity, Axxess, Roll The Dice, Dylan Ettinger and all the rest, grab one of these before they're gone!!
The looming electronic fragments on this new album from Not Breathing (aka Dave Wright) gave us twinges of nostalgia for the sounds of... oh, about six years ago! Really, as we listened to this disc, it struck us that this particular vein of shadowy jagged circuit bending sort of fell off the map for a few years. Actually it's been that long since the last Not Breathing release Itchy Tingles. Now he's 'back' so to speak with the finely crafted Carrion Sounds. A densely packed assemblage of manipulated rumblings and disfigured utterances wrested and coaxed from yesteryear's synths, drum machines and toys, Carrion Sounds aggressively immerses the listener in its dank, slippery, arachnid-infested atmospheres.
Joseph Nothing is the pseudonym for Japanese electronica artist Tatsuya Yoshida, who is half of the excellent Aphex-ish collaborative project Rom=Pari (and happens to have the same name as the ringleader of the Ruins, but isn't him). While Joseph
Some of us around here have become a little obsessed with Ke$ha, and that song "Tik Tok". The song is crazy addictive, and the fact that she's kind of a babe and has that whole haughty trampy rockstar thing going on, what can we say? But if we were gonna be totally honest, THIS is what we really wish Ke$sha sounded like, it's still sexy and slutty and a little bit filthy, but musically, it's way more dark and fractured and fucked up. A sort of Missy Elliot meets Glass Candy electro thing, but with plenty of T. Raumschmiere or Motor mixed in. Big stuttery beats, squelchy synths, woozy loops, twisted and tweaked effects, thick buzzy bass, and some sultry vocals that here and there are definitely a dead ringer for Ke$ha, but again, it's so much darker and more sinister, less singing, than sort of mewled and whispered and spoken, a sex kitten sort of croon, but the vocals often doused in effects or weirdly sped up, and screwed with in some way, which perfectly mashes with the constantly shifting sonic mashup in the background, all woozy and washed out and Portishead-y one second, deconstructed sliced and diced Art Of Noise the next, synthy Daft Punk euro groove the next, but always groovy, funky, and sexy, and yeah, this is the sort of shit they should be playing on the radio, even though it's probably way more suited to some dark and dingy danceclub in Berlin, way on the wrong side of the tracks.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The September release in the 20' to 2000 series of experimental/minimalist/electronica is from Noto. What has been so surprising of this series is the exceptional quality... I mean is there going to be a dud in the lot? Not yet! Carsten Nicolai - aka Noto and label boss for Noton/Rastermusic - presents perhaps his best best work of minimalist clicks and electronic pops emerging rather unassumingly at first, but later structuring themselves against slow moving rhythmic bass pulses.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Supernice packaging (three die cut holes in the booklet cover so you can see the three dots on the cd) and minimal electronics.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Musically, Noto's "Telefunken" is merely an oscilloscope modulating a headache inducing buzz for 16 minutes and test-tones for 3 minutes. To give Noto credit, "Telefunken" is cool in one respect, that it was designed to be hooked up to your TV through a VCR for a primitive multimedia experience! We haven't watched it yet (no such capabilites in the store), so perhaps the visuals, made from the same electronic signals as the audio, make up for what's lacking in the "music". But if you want to hear some really really great work by Noto (who just won top honors at this year's Prix Ars Electronica festival) definitely check out Alva Noto (one of Allan's favorites of the year) or Noto's 20' to 2000 contribution.
For those of you hungry for more of The Notwist, here's a half hour long ep of three remixes, a 'version' and one soothing new instrumental song called "Red Room". Starting things off are two remixes of "Neon Golden" and "Pilot" by band member Martin Gretschmann (aka Console). Disappointingly they're somewhat watered-down versions of the original songs that don't really bring much more to the already groovy Notwist picture. In the remix process, they've lost a lot of the Notwist charm and distinction. The basis for the "Different Cars And Trains" version by Loopspool (a member of Notwist brethren the Tied & Tickled Trio) is actually a pleasingly stretched out and dubbed out song segment you might recognize from "Pilot". Of the five tracks, the strongest is definitely the stuttering remix of "This Room" by Four Tet and Manitoba. Certainly not essential unless you're a diehard fan.
This is the long-awaited follow-up to the wonderful AQ-staff-and-customer-fave Milk Cult album! Since this time just 2/3 of Milk Cult participated in the making of the record, they're calling themselves Novex. But it's the very same delicious combination of
This album is also much more traditionally "pop" than the Milk Cult record, complete with real songs, choruses, Beatles-y hooks, indieboy vocals (sorta like the Apples in Stereo, sorta like Robyn Hitchcock) and a relatively sweet tone throughout, which when combined with the electronic and breakbeat stuff, makes for a keenly charming combo. Thus the record will appeal not only to fans of Milk Cult, but also Land of the Loops and other purveyors of looped fun.
(While supplies last, get a free set of three "Maxine" trading cards drawn and produced by Agent Nova / Dale Flattum of Milk Cult / Novex.)
This is the debut full length from Floridian experimental blacknoize / psychedelic drone technicians NRIII, it just showed up in the mail one day, we weren't sure what to expect, we did dig the strange two-headed-horse-and-sigil on the cover, but the second we threw it on, we pretty much knew that folks into the sort of abstract ambient blackness conjured up by folks like Sevile Sect, Locrian, Ural Umbo, Gog and the like, NRIII could very well have just found their favorite band.
That said, NRIII's sound definitely hews closer to the noise side of the sonic spectrum, the vibe very industrial, and at times reminding us of SF outfit Sutekh Hexen, the same sort of grim blacknoise vibe, but NRIII definitely have their own thing going on, taking weird blasts of almost metallic sounding percussion, strange sampled voices, dense blackened shimmers, super distorted blasts of psychedelic noise, or alien sounding processed vocals, and transforming them into something super atmospheric, darkly terrifying, and strangely and very abstractly rhythmic.
The sound shifts dramatically from brittle shards of hiss and skree, to churning, rumbling blackened rumble, both sides often peppered with strange jagged fragments that seem to act as vocals, but sound more like steam escaping from fractured vents, or blasts of white noise, those 'vocals' seeming to ooze into drifting clouds, or blurring into thick crumbling layers, the tracks driven by simple dubbed out machinelike rhythms, sometimes sounding like the churning chug of a train, other times the lumbering crush of ultradoom, and still others like a skipping jazz cd (which is the only track to feature some wild sax skronk). But even there, that skittery stuttery chaos is underpinned by ominous moans and bizarre demonic vocalizations.
Here and there the sounds do seem to coalesce into a sort of abstract black metal, twisted into strange and -nearly- unrecognizable shapes, but still retaining that a hellborn grim black energy and abject demonic fury. But just as often, the sound seems to collapse into strange tangles of churning speaker shredding low end and thick corrosive industrial crunch, often accompanied by those same sick vokills creating a strange sort of industrial black psych crush that KILLS.
Needless to say, WAY recommended.
Just like the Animal Collective has their side-project Jane, Jackie-O Motherfucker has Nudge as the stoned, organic little brother, a hybrid between freeform, post-rock improvisations and the structural ideals of electronica. This Portland based trio features Honey Owens (one of the many musicians to pass through the revolving Jackie-O membership door), Brian Foote (who hails from Fontanelle), and Paul Dickow (who performs with Foote in Fontanelle and solo as Strategy). Like Gang-Gang Dance, Nudge doesn't really settle into any particular style, but rather adopt an "adventurous for the sake of being adventurous" flirtatiousness that smugly interjects electronic squiggles and bleating sax lines onto super-blunted dub bass lines and primitive drum machine phrases. Richly sloppy, or sloppily rich, you be the judge.
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Numbers, all by themselves, have a firm handle on taking the tools of punk rock and using them as instruments of total dancefloor destruction, making them prime candidates for re-interprations of their songs that highlight, rather than obliterate, their inherent status as dance tunes. Some of the tracks on this new remix album do just that, some don't, and as is to be expected from a remix album I guess, some of these tracks work a whole lot better than others, although overall, "Death" is really pretty solid. Most of the mixes here are in the hands of the good-humored glitchmeisters of the Tigerbeat 6 roster, many of whose aims seem to be more idiosyncratic than the simple forging of club-friendly tunage from the Numbers raw material. The best tracks, like Dymaxion's mix of "What Is The Product?" and Caro's take on "Intercom," fracture and extrapolate cold neo-disco from the already thumpin' Numbers beat. Gold Chains inserts himself, friendly and joshing like, into the musical dialogue on his take on "Prison Life" through the additional vocals; the party jams are duly delivered by Kid 606; controversial faux-teutonic trio Zeigenbock Kopf turn "I Like Having These Things" into, uh, a Zeigenbock Kopf song. It's a tribute to all the mixers that it's not immediately noticable that a couple songs are tackled more than once (or twice). Other remixers include Electronicat, Stars As Eyes, Dwayne Sodhaberk, Original Hamster, Kit Clayton, GD Luxxe, Dat Politics and Uprock.
MPEG Download: KID 606 "We Like Having These Things (Williamsburg Rmx)" [/audio/numberskid606rmx.mp3]
MPEG Stream: KID 606 "We Like Having These Things (Williamsburg Rmx)" [/audio/numberskid606rmx.m3u]
The late great singer Nusrat (and collaborator Brook) get their work remixed by the leaders of the new "Asian-electronica" scene: Talvin Singh, Asian Dub Foundation, Fun^Da^Mental, and others. Warning: the remixers appearing here have all put out much better material.
Now this is high concept. Or low concept. Not sure which. This record is composed -entirely- of the sounds of Aaron Funk (Venetian Snares) and his lady friend Rachael Kozak (Hecate) having sex while on their most recent tour! Not sure if they are a proper couple or if they just came up with this project as a way to fend off boredom on the road, but either way, you can now hold the results in your hot and sweaty little hands! Outside of the occasional moan, or bit of heavy breathing, this doesn't sound all that different that what you would expect from a Venetian Snares and Hecate...um...coupling. Chaotic, splattery break beats, hyper complex drill and bass, buzzing and clattering, pounding and skittering. Pretty amazing actually, that all this violent, noisy electronic pummel was born from the gentle act of lovemaking. Or was it? Gentle, that is.
There are those of us at this fine institution who wish to declare open season on Jim O'Rourke, and start blasting shotgun shells at him, his bunny suit, his 'post-irony' (whatever the fuck that is), and his chameleon-like approach towards all forms of music.
Promoted as his electronic glitch album, "I'm Happy, And I'm Singing, And A 1, 2, 3, 4" has been conveniently released on the Austrian electronic glitch label Mego. Just like Mego's uber talented Christian Fennesz, O'Rourke fuses elements of antique melodic signatures within a Powerbook generated disfiguration into complex networks of sound that retain the timbre and colour of the original sounds in spite of the digital glitch manifestation. Initially, this album is nothing more than another pleasantly playful recombination of the current glitch aesthetic. He applies the Supercollider treatment to an accordion to dislocate the souce material with a fluctuating system of interlocking repetitive samples sounding like a digitized update of Frippertronics or even Terry Riley's time lag generator. Nice, but is completely overwhelmed by the same idea found on the Keith Fullerton Whitman album "21:30 For Acoustic Guitar" He follows this up with some fey dinner jazz piano lines and summertime guitar picking run through gossamer digitalized syncopations. Again, nice but nothing that Stephan Mathieu, Ekkhard Ehlers, or Fennesz haven't done better.
*However* if you were to stop listening to these two tracks, before getting to the 20-plus minute finale, you would have missed one of O'Rourke's finest moments alongside the criminally overlooked "Disengage" and slowly antagonistic "Happy Days." "And A 1, 2, 3, 4" (it appears that the song titles are just fragments of the album's title) is beautiful digital threnody with sombre violins passing through a Feldman like alternation through a harmonic series of notes. While it could be said that O'Rourke is *again* mimicking another artist, he does apply an ample amount of digtal signal processing (lots of warbled tremolo, granular dispersion, etc.) offering that which I've rarely heard from Jim O'Rourke: something "new."
