"The Robotic Girl Next Door" is certainly an apt title for this playful IDM album from the Canadian knob twiddler Spark. Saturating chipper 8-bit melodies with reverb and tone-bending tricks, Spark offers an upbeat revision of the standard IDM melancholia as a means of generating romantic odes. In a lot of ways, the end result sounds like Boards of Canada at 45rpm.
MPEG Download: "Devine Nursery Rhyme" [/audio/sparkdevinenursery.mp3]
Here we go, another seven inches of skweee from Lo Dubs subsidiary Losonofono, a label devoted to that very special Scandinavian electro subgenre we love so much. Previously they hit us with the "apocalyptic skweee" soundz of Sweden's Daniel Savio, now it's The Spartan Lover's turn to pump some squelching, sizzling skweee our way. Like Savio, this Finnish artist, his name a tribute of course to electro/hiphop legend The Egyptian Lover, is a key skweee producer, you've already heard him on the Museum Of Future Sound Vol.2, Skweee Tooth, and The Internalization Of Massy compilations amongst other appearances.
Two trax here, both great, with lotsa fat funky low-end.
Dark, grim, dubbed out Spectre is letting some light into his music. Dominated by murky loops and funky samples, Psychic Wars is not nearly as extreme nor darkly monolithic (and thus possible less impressive) as previous efforts. The samples are culled from french cinema, noir clips, japanese film, indian female vocalists, and are altogether more varied and interesting than Spectre has ever allowed himself before, reminding me of Funki Porcini or other Ninjatune artists, right on down to the generic girl diva vocals -- why do so many artists feel the need to use this element, much less use women whose voices always sound the same, like Sinead O'Connor. Sigh. Your mileage may vary. Guests include Honeychild, Sensational, Black Chameleon, Space Poet.
MPEG Download: "Love" [/audio/spectrelove.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Love" [/audio/spectrelove.m3u]
We Aquarians have long been into Spectre, the undisputed master of, grim, dark, dubbed out instrumental hip hop. And we can never seem to get enough. So here's a comp that serves two purposes, a primer for those of you who are new to the sounds of Spectre, and a compilation of some of the best and loads of the rarest stuff for those of us who just need more. Including a handful of previously unreleased tracks. All remastered and even more BASS HEAVY than ever. Lots of murky loops, slowed down vocals, throbbing basslines, bizarre film music samples slowed down and twisted up, big phat beats, all cobbled together like some mad scientist, into some of the most potent druggy, late night hip hop EVER. Guests on the comp include Sensational, whose lazy, stoned flow perfectly suits Spectre's sound, Torture, M. Sayyid, Guess, Mr. Dead and of course God Albino from the Hawd Gankstuh Rappuhs MC's Wid Ghatz!
2nd album (duh) of dark dub hiphop, an AQ-fave. Mostly "instrumental", though one highlight is the guest spot by rapper God Albino. Pretty much everytime we play this in the store, someone buys a copy--it's that good.
The Ill Saint's third album is easily his best, as the subterranean production on the first two albums has been fleshed out a bit in this hip hop elegy for demented thoughts and sounds. Spectre's carnivalesque horror hip-hop tracks (that on "Ne Cede Malis" sounds like the Mickey Mouse theme song played in a minor key) are loaded with brash noir strings, dubby passages of schizophonic reverb, and slow motion beats. Damaged lyrical content provided by Sensational, Mr. Dead, and the white-boy-on-crack rants of God Albino. This is underground hip-hop at its best.
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"Illbient" aQ-fave producer Spectre brings us (literally, he brought these in himself, on a visit to SF) another album of dark, bass-heavy, mostly instrumental hip hop, smoke-hazed & paranoid; this latest one, his ninth, being a vinyl-only release on his own label WordSound. The True & Living begins positively yet ominously, with "inspirational" spoken word samples taken from the movies Waking Life and The Matrix, eventually joined by echoing maniacal laughter that segues into track two, the aptly titled "Impending Doom", which is a dizzying collage of end-is-nigh soundbites, of all varieties (some scarily plausible, others not as much) over loops of strident strings and horns, layered with beats and scratches. That sets the mood for the whole record, an apocalyptic, suspenseful hip hop soundscape. For example, the track "Destroyer", which is built around someone (a concerned citizen-scientist? demented doomsayer?) explaining one "nightmare scenario" in particular. One quote from that panicked fella sums it up, and made us chuckle: "We're about to have a solar system come though the middle of OUR solar system; this can't be good." Of course, we won't we laughing if/when that guy is proven right. Again, this inconvenient information is suitably set to music sourced from the climax of some old sci-fi thriller or something.
All that apocalyptic shit sets the stage for the title track, on which Wu Tang's Killah Priest drops science in grandiose, mystical fashion. We're primed to believe his hype after all that we've been through on the record already. The album's other rapper cameo comes on the track "Triumph", featuring the unique flow of frequent Spectre associate, and another aQ fave, Sensational. So those are a few of the highlights, but we're digging the whole damned doomed and dubbed-out thing. Oh, and regardless of whether the world is ending soon or not, this record IS limited - to just 250 copies!
Perennial AQ-staff fave Spectre (otherwise known as WordSound label honcho Skiz Fernando) has wisely left his tried and true formula alone, and thus come up with a fourth full length of scary, incredibly dark and heavy dub. I can't think of anyone this good that is this, well, apocalyptic about it. Scary scary stuff. Where's my mommy? Mostly instrumental, although four awesome tracks include guest rapper Sensational. Pling plong random piano, noir film brass samples, grunts, alarms, arpeggiated strings. Must be heard to be believed.
We'd long been a fan of Aaron Spectre, a DJ who specialized in heavy ragga jungle, and in particular, mixing in all sorts of metal and grind into his jungle DJ sets. A bunch of his 12"s featured killer mashups, like a wicked junglized Bad Brains tune among others. The 12"s all disappeared before we managed to get our hands on any of them, but a while back we did manage to get the cd by his 'band' Drumcorps, a mind blowing, speaker shredding blow out of metal guitars, grindcore blasts, and insane hyper kinetic drill and bass. Pretty much the ultimate AQ record...
We have been listening to that disc NON-STOP since we first got it in, so we were super psyched to get a bunch of these, a collection of less, 'abrasive' work from the man responsible for one of the most gloriously abrasive dance-metal releases in forever. And from the first track, it's not hard to tell this is a whole 'nother beast entirely. "Dulcimer" seems to in fact be the sounds of a dulcimer, spread out amidst wide open expanses of space and reverb, allowed to drift and shimmer, while in the background, soft swells swirl delicately, it would be easy to think this was some modern nu-folk combo blissing out in a druggy haze...
The whole record is not quite so tranquil, the follow up "Half Silver" is a loping midtempo skitter, with the tonal color provided by bits of crackle and hum and whispery bursts of static, and beneath it all, a gentle lilting minor key melody. Somewhere right between Autechre and Pole, a dubbed out slow moving glitchy groove...
The rest of the record is pretty much all over the map sonically, but still hovering within the genre confines that might perhaps be classified as IDM, held together by the thread that is Spectre's deft programming, clever arranging, and knack for slipping in dreamy catchy hooks amidst all the stuttering beats and chopped loops. From soft-grinding ambient trip hop, to a super stripped down, 8bit sounding jungle workout, to a gorgeously languid acoustic guitar and glitched beat drift that would be right at home on Morr music, too warm thick washes of rumbling ambience and crunchy muted beats, to sun dappled dreamy soft focus glitchpop (with sweet sweet soft boy vocals)...
Not necessarily for you Drumcorps fanatics, although man can't live on grindcorejunglemetal alone, but definitely for folks who love them some Boards Of Canada, Autechre, Chris Clark, Aphex Twin, Funkstorung and the like...
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Kick ass 12" of distorto breakbeat junglism from one of our favorites. Two slabs of blown out beats, in-the-red amen breaks, thick crusty buzz drenched basslines all wound into some seriously fierce, dancefloor destroying destruction. Awesome.
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After the incredible "Welcome to Execrate" cd by this maverick electronica duo, Speedranch & Janksi Noise manifest themselves in a live recording, presenting a full volume Merzbow-esque noise assault that disintegrates into piercing horror house collages of slasher screams, laughing clowns, and creepy proclamations from mad scientists.
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This is probably a compilation rather than a proper Speedranch & Jansky Noise EP, although the contributors of Somatic Responses, Marco Passarani, Jega, and Hrvatski all facture a rather brutalist assualt of very noisy beats, breaks, screams, and basslines quite similar to V/VM (Jansky Noise's other project). While this is not the vinyl version of the mixed CD also entitled "Execrate", these tracks did make their way onto the disc. Highly recommended.
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A mixed CD of sorts from Manchester's DJ Speedranch and Jansky Noise (who were prominently displayed on the cover of the Wire a couple months back). Screaming Scotsmen, the Halloween score, and marching bands are the few recognizeable points in this dizzying blur of heavily distorted breakbeats and belligerent usage of noise. It's almost a moot point to mention that Mixmaster Mike, DJ Olive (of We), Stock, Hausen, & Walkman, V/VM (which is Jansky Noise's other project), and Hrvatski all make contributions... as you can hardly decipher where their noises and beats begin in relation to Speedranch & Jansky Noise's. Fucking intense and highly recommended.
After several records of beat heavy brutality, Speedranch and JanskyNoise, now apparently a single entity, return with their 'ambient' album. But be warned, the term 'ambient' here is definitely relative. This is the sort of ambient record Merzbow would make, or the sort of relaxation record that would come out on RRR. The bulk of the record is a thick, chaotic, face melting Masonna-ish skree. The noise is broken up occasionally by...well...er...other noises. Dark clouds of rumbling murmur, swirling sonic whirlpools of distorted voices, random snippets from movies and television, and industrial clatter, all run through a bank of effects until it sounds like the whole record is crumbling into digital bits. Not so many beats here (when they do show up they are crushed into a sonic paste), but when almost rhythms surface, the 'beats' are mostly produced by the random pulses and chopped samples. This one is a pretty difficult listen, as most Speedranch records are, but there is so much going on here, repeated listens reveal all sorts of bizarre, noisy, and funny gems hidden throughout the deafening GRZZZBBBSSSHHTTTTT!!!!!!!!!
A wonderful collection of works composed between 1970 and 1983 from this obscure, criminally overlooked American composer and electronic music pioneer. Instrumentation involves analog electronics (both manual and computer-controlled), electronic tape,
- RealAudio clip: Drums
- RealAudio clip:
It seems in the past couple of years, electronic music pioneer Laurie Spiegel has gone from an obscure cult-figure to a championed celebrity right before our eyes. Thanks in part to a key sound design role in this past summer's blockbuster movie, The Hunger Games, but also to this incredible, and indeed expanded reissue of her 1980 debut release, The Expanding Universe, complete with an extra disc of bonus material from the period and extensive liner notes by Spiegel herself. Following key archival releases from fellow female electronic innovators Daphne Oram, Maggie Payne and Suzanne Ciani, we're finally seeing Spiegel getting her due for her stellar accomplishments as both captivating composer and inventor.
While The Expanding Universe was released in 1980, it was made up of musical experiments Spiegel made throughout the seventies in her off time as a research scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratories where she developed unique modes of combining interactive and algorithmic computer logic to the compositional process. Originally released on folk label, Philo, Spiegel's organic compositions had more in common with folk music than one would initially suspect. A trained banjo, lute and mandolin player, Spiegel's first released recording, "Appalachian Grove I" was included on the groundbreaking compilation of female electronic composers, New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, where she applied the idea of an open tuned string instrument to her electronically created composition. The entire Appalachian Grove suite is included here and is an unlikely mix of John Fahey and Philip Glass, where banjo-like tonal arpeggiations become a rhythmically organic and pulsating layered stream of undulating sounds. With each piece Spiegel seems to strive to explore the boundaries of the compositional process with a determined zen like focus on how sounds interact and overlap. But this is not an academically minded process of willful bleeps and bloops. This is instead a carefully realized beautifully layered intuitive sonic constructions that rewards deeply concentrated listening. Easily some of the best and most effective second generation electronic music we've ever heard, which gives this reissue our highest recommendation!
The Andy Votel-affilated Finders Keepers label rarely, if ever, disappoints. They've brought us "Welsh Rare Beat", Jean-Claude Vannier, The Yamasuki Singers, etc., etc. Yep, Finders Keepers dig the crates like nobody's business, coming up with some incredible, unheralded psych/prog/funk gems to reissue. That brings us to Gluckskugel, a very interesting n' entertaining first-time-on-cd collection of music by Germany's Bruno Spoerri, whom we're told is an electronic, musique-concrete composer with Can connections. He certainly made a whole bunch of far-out, fun sounds in the '70s, ranging from rejected TV themes to experimental film soundtracks to industry demos, as documented here. Weird, wild, kinda kitschy! Sometimes augmenting his arsenal of electronics and tape loopings are live jazz/funk musicians, resulting in plenty of percolating, analog-synth laden grooves that recall the work of Goblin or John Carpenter (without the fright factor). Or, Spoerri would work alone at home with his musical gizmos, producing, for instance, the aptly titled "Drillin'" from 1971, using an early-model Japanese drum machine to great effect (and to the annoyance of his family). This comes packaged with cool photos and track-by-track liner notes by Spoerri himself, who promises that more unreleased music of similar vintage might be forthcoming, if he can find the tapes!
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A split 10" with two tracks from each. Spooky does hyper kinetic blunted drum & bass followed by a weird little downtown jazz / electronica / illbient number, while Spectre keeps up the doom and gloom with his morose style of hip hop.
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Spooky's very own album of breaks for adventurous DJs. Still retains respect to the old school battle records, but has creepy repetitions we would expect from DJ Spooky. For battling with goblins, phantoms and the like.
(darn we're out of this new Spooky remixing Shadow label stuff thingambob, and I had so many nice things to say about Mr. Miller.) (actually now supposedly we have one) (oh, crap. do i really have to?) (yes, now go do as you're told, and listen to dj spooky) (of all of the horrors that could be thrust upon me, did it have to be spooky?) (quit whining) (hey, i'm just saying... why don't you go fuck yourself, and while you're at it go fuck spooky) (you can't talk to me that way) (oh yeah?) (yeah!) (bif) (bang) (pow) (thwap) (slam) (thud) (ouch, no biting allan!) (thup) (crak) (bam) pant, pant, pant, pant (so will you review that spooky record?) (never! i quit) (no you can't quit, you're fired!) (go screw, jerkface) (right back atcha!)(who said that?!)
An interesting project -- DJ Spooky, resident illbient black boho issuing missives to the masses from NYC (eeuw, I'm starting to talk like him), enlists the talents of excellent avant / free jazzmen: shimmering piano courtesy Matthew Shipp, cakewalkin' groovy bass from William Parker, squeals and cries from Joe McPhee's horns, athletic, careful drumming from Guillermo E. Brown. And of course, Spooky on laptop / turntables / kalimba etc. I was all set for this to suck, but it doesn't suck. It's "jazzy" trip hop that works. It's actually some of the most accessible work I've heard from these jazz virtuosi, so it's a nice introduction to them if you find truly free jazz too abstract to enjoy. Once in a while some sadly predictable breakbeats cheapen the music, but those segments don't occur too often. Augmented with the vocal flow of Carl Hancock Rux, Napoleon, High Priest (Anti-Pop Consortium). Pauline Oliveros even makes an appearance. If you like the clips below, you'll like the album.
WARNING: Just for heavens sake *don't* read the liner notes -- Spooky's so frickin' pretentious he ruins the experience. Let others do the critical analysis, no one wants to hear you analyze your own work, man! It's as if he thinks we won't "get it" unless he takes us by the hand and explains. The guy needs an editor:
"Check the vibe as jazz for the gene-splicing generation. An echo of the here and now put through the hard drive... It's a voodoo economics of the sound waves rolling across the basilar membrane... It's a post-rational thing... It's a synaethesia [sic] thing...Use your eyes to hear and your ears to see -- check the rhythm reality." Aaargh! Is he stoned or something?
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Surprisingly excellent album from Spooky, full of kickass hip hop (with Sir Menelik and Kool Keith), non-boring drum'n'bass, and obvious-yet-not-irritating influences from bhangra to dub to ketjak to electric-1970s-era Miles Davis. Even the "filler" bits are interesting. Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth guests on one track. The cd has a few more tracks than the vinyl version.
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7 songs that completely kick ass and surprise even people like me who have never been all that impressed with the Subliminal Kid. He's cut out all the whooshy filler and noodling, leaving only actual pieces with beginnings, middles, and ends. This even gets AQ-designer Mark Wasserman's full on seal of approval. The best song is a collaboration with Panacea -- that should give you an idea of this record's power. Recommended.
Gap poster boy (in good company, I must say: Tina Fey! Will Farrell! etc.) Paul "DJ Spooky" Miller turns up on the world music leaning electronica label Six Degrees with a DJ mix cd for their "Under The Influence" series, showcasing his influences (natch) rather than current faves... So we hear from Moby, Carl Craig, State of Bengal, Ryuichi Sakamoto/Talvin Singh, Antipop Consortium,
While we might not always like DJ Spooky's output (both musical and, uh, academic) we'll always at least give it a try. Working here with the a string ensemble called the Freight Elevator Quartet, Spooky weaves a mostly dubby illbient score (broken occasionally by a funky junglist break or a droning turntablist collage with The Conet Project) for the already haunting Victorian violins, etc. Actually this is pretty good!
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Don't know if you've been keeping track, but this is the fifth in DJ Spooky's series of "Elementz DJ Toolz", and sees him teaming up with noted Japanese electronica experimentalist Takemura. PowerBooks set on "fucked". Limited.
Solipsistic is the only to describe this. It's unfortunate that Spooky (after making some fairly interesting records) would return to the sound of his first recordings which were nothing more than Bill Laswell ripoff - an "illbient" concoction of plodding bass heaviness with a boring display of electronic squiggles. Scanner's samples (which include a less than inspired 'remix' of The Conet Project's numbers stations) don't amount to much on the record. Well at least the packaging is sorta neat with its diecut digipack.
Kool Keith and Sir Menelik rap SF hallucinations over wonky, spacey beats. Six versions on heavy vinyl. Really surprisingly good.
Edition 2 (studio version) of the Spoonbender 1.1.1 Stereo Telepathy Academy trilogy...
Simply put, this is a weird-as-hell, warped, late night, difficult-listening 'trip' for all you AQers looking for truly strange atmospheres... Okay, first things first; Spoonbender 1.1.1 is not a side-project of I Am Spoonbender. The duo of Dustin Donaldson and Cup consider Spoonbender 1.1.1 to be a self-contained project that ventures outside the 'populist avant-tronics' of I Am Spoonbender into the realms of sidereal soundtrack music, the transmission of ideas through subliminal means, manifestations of 'third mind' techniques, and the non-logic of chance operations. Not so different on paper, but put another way: there are no drums, singing, or 'songs' in the 1.1.1 project. The material for Stereo Telepathy Academy was debuted during a live performance in which Spoonbender 1.1.1 performed with (appropriately enough) Psychic TV; however, for the second edition of Stereo Telepathy Academy, Spoonbender 1.1.1 recomposed all of the material in the studio -- expanding and elaborating on their live performance, and making for a distinctly new and different listening experience that stand on its own with or without the visual accomaniment. That said, as in the first edition, Stereo Telepathy Academy features "text taken from one film, overlaid on images from another, and the audio score was written around a different, third film... the results appear to be intentional" for a sort of 'Wizard Of Oz/Dark Side Of The Moon' for telekinetics.
The J.G. Ballard-esque text was taken from David Cronenberg's 1969 student film 'Stereo', a faux-documentary detailing the work of a Dr. Luther Stringfellow, which concerns surgical procedures for the advancement of telepathic communication, while the visuals came from 'Crimes Of The Future' (another Cronenberg film, which transpires in an urban dystopia populated by pedophiles and oozing victims from a female-eliminating cosmetics related catastrophe). As creepy and sterile as the images were, we have to say that its Canadian-ness was positively charming, somehow. In their score, Spoonbender 1.1.1 lunges ominously forward with an otherworldly radiance of slow motion electronic pulses and melodies that retain an even darker hue than that of Klaus Schulze, Coil (e.g. Coilans / Time Machines), and Alan Splet, who are probably Spoonbender 1.1.1's closest sonic neighbors. Given the nature of their intense, masterfully detailed sea of electric sound, Spoonbender 1.1.1 hedged their bets that Cronenberg's pseudo-scientific spoken text would situate nicely against their audio. And indeed, this freakish document of prepared-chance context, atmosphere and appropriation works exceptionally well.
PLEASE NOTE: In keeping with the numerological-binding-of-3 theme, there will be 3 released versions of Stereo Telepathy Academy, all with different packaging. The first version arrived as a cd-r edition of 111 copies sporting a white glove as an allusion to 'Crimes Of The Future.' (only a few remaining in stock!!). This is the second edition, a proper disc that comes with letterpressed artwork in an edition of 333. The final edition will be in an edition of only 3 copies!
Simply put, this is a weird-as-hell, warped, late night, difficult-listening 'trip' for all you AQers looking for truly strange atmospheres... Okay, first things first; Spoonbender 1.1.1 is not a side-project of I Am Spoonbender. The duo of Dustin Donaldson and Cup (of AQ!) consider Spoonbender 1.1.1 to be a self-contained project that ventures outside the 'populist avant-tronics' of I Am Spoonbender into the realms of sidereal soundtrack music, the transmission of ideas through subliminal means, manifestations of "third mind" techniques, and the non-logic of chance operations. Okay, not so different on paper, but put another way: there are no drums, singing, or 'songs' in the 1.1.1 project. The Stereo Telepathy Academy cd-r documents Spoonbender 1.1.1 live in SF while performing with (appropriately enough) Psychic TV.
The J.G. Ballard-esque text was taken from David Cronenberg's 1969 student film 'Stereo', a faux-documentary detailing the work of a Dr. Luther Stringfellow, which concerns surgical procedures for the advancement of telepathic communication, while the visuals came from 'Crimes Of The Future' (another Cronenberg film, which transpires in an urban dystopia populated by pedophiles and oozing victims from a female-eliminating cosmetics related catastrophe). As creepy and sterile as the images were, we have to say that its Canadian-ness was positively charming, somehow. Spoonbender 1.1.1 composed a musical accompaniment for these texts and images to a third film whose identity is both unknown and irrelevant. As Donaldson announces in the introduction to this performance / recording (a sort of 'Wizard Of Oz/Dark Side Of The Moon' for telekinetics), Stereo Telepathy Academy features "text taken from one film, overlaid on images from another, and the audio score was written around a different, third film... the results appear to be intentional". In this score, Spoonbender 1.1.1 lunges ominously forward with an otherworldly radiance of slow motion electronic pulses and melodies that retain an even darker hue than that of Klaus Schulze, Coil (e.g. Coilans / Time Machines), and Alan Splet, who are probably Spoonbender 1.1.1's closest sonic neighbors. Given the nature of their intense, masterfully detailed sea of electric sound, Spoonbender 1.1.1 hedged their bets that Cronenberg's pseudo-scientific spoken text would situate nicely against their audio. And indeed, this freakish document of prepared-chance context, atmosphere and appropriation works exceptionally well.
Special handmade packaging comes with a single white glove (as seen in the film) for your edification.
PLEASE NOTE: In keeping with the numerological-binding-of-3 theme, there will be 3 released versions of Stereo Telepathy Academy, all with different packaging (versions 2 and 3 will be non-cd-r, and on a proper label, with pressings of 333 and 3 copies respectively). Available here at AQ exclusively, this first version is limited to 111 cd-r copies only, so you know what to do!
A follow up to last year's successful "Masses" cd, on which UK electronica duo Spring Heel Jack edited and manipulated the raw improvisations of a host of Downtown NYC (and beyond) jazz musicians, in what was one of the the best and most original entries yet in Thirsty Ear's pretty great "Blue Series" of happenin' now jazz. Like that disc, this one also fortunately eschews the obvious "let's add some techno beats to this trumpet solo" kind of thing you might expect from an electronica remix project, and really approaches the music from within, SHJ using their computers carefully to meld disparate performances together into something that definitely remains jazz -- but with an undercurrent of glitchy crackle and drone. It's kind of like a free jazz version of Radian or Pluramon (to cite two computer-aided post-rock/electronica projects, both faves around here). The SHJ fellows are really listening and reacting, like improvisors do, and there are some great musicians on here for them (and us) to listen to. There's two returnees from the "Masses" line-up: legendary British saxophonist Evan Parker and Blue Series curator Matthew Shipp (on Fender Rhodes). And then there's also the likes of trombonist Paul Rutherford, drummer Han Bennink, violinist Ed Coxon, bassist George Trebar, trumpter Kenny Wheeler, bassist John Edwards, and, the oddball in the bunch, guitarist Jason Pierce of Spiritualized fame (who must be responsible for the distorted guitar noise found on "Maroc" and elsewhere).
With that kind of talent on hand, SHJ had a lot to work with, and they did a great job, creating layered compositions that retain the player's voices even as they are juxataposed into unimagined new situations. The results are moody, melodic but abstract, rarely (but sometimes) abrasive, nicely noir-ish...android jazz for some Blade Runner coctail bar. Dark, dense, lovely.
Jazz purists might scoff, but actually we'd rather listen to this than a lot of straight improv stuff done by the above musicians -- the combination of the instrumentalists' unfettered expression and SHJ's editing and structuring (and sonic additions) really works well here. Recommended.
Imagine Snakefinger playing drum -n- bass and you're almost there.
The longtime British drum & bass artistes who collaborated with stark indierock minimalists Low on the recent stellar Tugboat ep, here continue to explore the dramatic (emphasis on drama) electronica that they do so well. As usual, with one foot in d&b and one foot in a noir netherworld of soundtrack tech...more of the same, although we kinda wish they had gone even further rather than releasing more of the same, no matter how good.
Recently, the Spring Heel Jack duo of John Coxon and Ashley Wales took their amazing "Masses" / "Amassed" jazz-meets-electronics project on the road, and we've now got this aptly-titled disc to prove it. Yep, live performances recorded at two shows in England this past January featuring several of the veteran jazz players who appeared on "Masses" and "Amassed" -- Matthew Shipp, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, William Parker -- alongside electric guitarist Jason Pierce of Spiritualized (who contributed to "Amassed") and the Spring Heel Jack guys themselves adding their two cents with electronics and live sampling and so forth. If you're not familiar with the two albums by this project already, basically SHJ recorded a bunch of awesome jazz musicians improvising (not necessarily together), fed that into their computer, edited and manipulated and juxtaposed, and came up with a pretty great jazz/electronics hybrid, that's neither wholly improv nor pre-composed. And it's definitely NOT drum and bass overlaid with jazz samples, fear not. Imagine a jazz version of Radian, if you know that band (another parallel would be to Pluramon). How would it work live, though? A bit differently, but with players of the calibre they've gathered here, it's still gotta be good. SHJ's opportunity for structuring and editing done in post-production is obviously lessened or eliminated, but the duo remain in their role as facilitators, and there's definitely a lot of electricity present, in all senses. The two long tracks here (75 minutes total on the disc) can get really wild and messy with the guitar distortion of "J Spaceman" vying with E. Parker's tenor for supremacy amid a bed of hectic Bennick drumming and SHJ electronic effects. Yet at other times W. Parker's bass and Shipp's Fender Rhodes groove right along with Bennink laying back. The music ebbs and flows, different groupings of players and soloists taking their turns. As a group, everyone seems to be revelling in freedom yet stays responsible to the music the group is making. This would seem a good bet for fans of Sun Ra, Supersilent, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, and Evan Parker's previous experiments with live electronic accompaniment.
English duo's album has been called 'the Loveless of drum&bass' but we think that's just a 'savvy' marketing scheme to make two-years-MBV-deprived fans try out this album, when the right folks are gonna buy it anyway cos, y'know, it's good. If you're fond of the smooth jungle goin' on behind Tracey Thorne on the last Everything But the Girl record, you'll like this. Can anyone confirm that the first piece samples the theme to X-Files.
John Coxon & Ashley Wales do have a history with experimental / academic musics that predates their better known ventures into drum & bass as Spring Heel Jack. "Oddities" is a presentation of their more out-there experiments full of oblique electronic twiddle replete with dramatic electronic swells and Parmegiani / kosmische references. The addition of WS Burroughs voice makes perfect sense here. This unusual album will certainly surprise die-hard Spring Heel Jack fans with its lack of drum & bass breaks.
UK electronica artists Spring Heel Jack go up against the avant-jazz artists of Thirsty Ear's Matthew Shipp-curated "Blue Series". The players here include Shipp, Evan Parker, Tim Berne, Mat Maneri, William Parker, Daniel Carter, Roy Campbell, and several other
John Coxon and Ashley Wales (aka Spring Heel Jack) have really got a good thing going with the several electronics-abetted jazz experiments they've been brewing up for the Thirsty Ear label's Blue Series: Masses, Amassed, Live, and now this one, The Sweetness Of The Water. Their usual procedure is to get a bunch of A-list avant improvisers together in various combinations, record, and then create via their deft editing and processing something more constructed and composed, using the computer to do so without obscuring the original spark and feel of the live improviations. In fact it's quite unclear at what point in the recording/mixing process the entirely respectful, subtle electronic elements have been introduced. On this album we hear the talents of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, sax man Evan Parker, drummer Mark Sanders, and bassist John Edwards, alongside the contributions of the Spring Heel Jack duo. There's some scritchy sonic scribbling, and spacious note-lush drone, and lyrical melodicism (often accompanied by that lovely electronic crackle of which we here at AQ just can't get enough) and all kinds of gorgeous playing to be found here, on what's definitely a 21st century jazz album, in a vein sorta similiar to Supersilent or Trapist. As with the others from Spring Heel Jack and their heavy jazz friends so far, recommended!
The Squarepusher collection features all of the tracks from the "Big Loada" ep, the "Port Rhombus" ep, half of the "Vic Acid" ep (not the tracks also on "Hard Normal Daddy"), and a kick ass video as a cd-rom bonus. To repeat: KICK ASS VIDEO -- a minature movie in fact -- fully worth the price of the disc itself, although if you don't have "Port Rhombus" etc. this entire package is pretty essential anyway.
Yet another example of why Tom Jenkinson is one of the most creative musicians in drum & bass. This album compiles all the old Spymania (Jenkinson's label) 12" singles and compilation tracks, plus 3 unreleased tracks. More jazzy than the newer stuff, but still peppered with the most illogical and manic beats around.
Following on the heels of his "My Red Hot Car" single, Tom Jenkinson has blessed us with an additional 9 tracks of Squarepusher salvation. Though the single is by far the best track on the album, you can be rest assured that fretless bass licks, Miles Davis
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