It's fun to look back at reviews we've written and see how we feel about them after some time has passed and we've spent more time with the record in question, records that we sometimes had to write about way too soon after first hearing. While we gave the latest outing by Australia's Cut Copy a favorable review we didn't gush and really rave about it as much as we might now. It's a record that became and still is one of our big pop addictions of the year. We've lost count of how many times we've listened to that record and it's looking like label mates The Tough Alliance are on their way to achieving that same state of pure dance pop bliss. Hailing from Sweden, where they've always known a thing or two about producing pleasing pop perfection, this is a record that channels eighties sounds from the Happy Mondays to OMD to The Human League. Breezy and infectious equal parts Manchester scene, indie pop, nu-rave, electro-pop and hi-energy, it's a whole album that sounds a little like some of our favorite songs stretched out into a whole record, like the Vaselines cover of Divine's "You Think You're A Man" or Death Cab For Cutie's most infectious song ever "Soul Meets Body". A New Chance doesn't reinvent the wheel but it sure makes us jump and spin and swirl in pure bliss and you can't ask for much more than that in a pop album. So fun and and so good!
Cheesy remixes, unfortunately.
This has the Casio-tinged sweetness of Takako Minekawa with a Mouse on Mars sense of playful melodicism. (Not that we're saying Toyen are quite on the level of MoM or Takako, of course.) From the eclectic Blackbean and Placenta record label. All tracks
Remixes by Dan The Automator, Prefuse 73, John Herndon (Tortoise), Dabrye, and Jonathan K (Trans Am's sound guy). Three songs off of Trans Am's last studio album, TA, get the treatment ("Cold War", "Infinite Wavelength", and "Different Kind of Love") from these five remixers. That means, in the case of Herdon and Jonathan K's "Cold War" and Dan the Automator and Prefuse 73's "Different Kind of Love", you can compare and contrast the different styles of remix, from dark electro to party-hardy hiphop.
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We neglected list this record for a while because somebody had told me that it wasn't that great--well when I finally took a listen to it, I suppose with my expectations suitably lowered, I was surprised to find that this recent Mille Plateaux release was quite excellent. Kind of a combination of Squarepusherish drum'n'bass programming and Restgeraeuschian drone, this seems to be either a compilation or a collective that goes under the name of Trash, all participants hailing from Bristol, England and perhaps recording for a label called No Future--regardless, DJ Decay, Matt Yee-King, J. Lidell, H. Spymania (Spymania? hmmm) and the others credited here have crafted a rewarding listen.
The latest missive from this sinister spectre, broadcast from whatever shadowy corner of the netherworld this guy calls home. Like the previous two tapes we reviewed, Prefection & Permanence is an exercise in blackened ritualism, extreme minimal dronemusic fused to grim black ambience, an unholy hybrid spawned from the deep, a sound that is both malevolently mesmerizing and deeply sonically terrifying.
This Swedish sonic shaman who we most recently observed collaborating with local blacknoise terrorists Sutekh Hexen in the woods at Stella, conjuring up one of the most intense performances of that entire festival, delivers here an equally intense experience, one that along with the usual tropes of black ambient music, delivers a lots of sonic surprises, like on "Black Egg", wherein the grim black noise is sculpted into a pulsating, murky rhythmic throb, an avalanche of rumbling, whirring synths, accompanied by hellish vokills, the end result surprisingly musical, and in its own unlikely way, strangely catchy. And that's actually a template that many of the other songs hew to, rhythmic, hypnotic, a sort of hypno-grimnity, with some of THEE sickest vocals we've ever heard, gargling, demonic, monstrous bellows, alien murmurs, all over beds of grinding noise, clouds of static, of swirling black shimmers, and all manner of muted/mutated rhythms, a strangely mesmeric black industrial that sans vocals, could very well be are new favorite minimal blackened techno record, but with all the noise and vokills mixed in, it's transformed into something else entirely. But seriously, check out a track like "Alone/A/Cross/Abyss", it's like an impossible collaboration between some obscure grim black metal band, and some minimal techno producer, fans of some recent aQ faves like Record Of The Weekers Akkord, might find much to love here, and might find themselves lured to the (even) dark(er) side. That said, let's not downplay how dark and sick the sounds are here, this is suffocating, abject, miserable and bleak, harrowing and hellish, the vocals alone are the stuff of nightmares, but approached as some weird black industrial techno record, or at least understanding there's a strange, and to a degree out of place rhythmic element, which is how we've decided to, it becomes something even more avant / experimental / unique / bizarre, and is most definitely one of the coolest records we've heard in ages.
Originally released way back in 2007, and available only to attendees of the two Thrill Jockey 15th Anniversary shows in Chicago and London, we're listing this now 'cause one of our distributors got a handful of these killer mixes, a collaborative DJ mix from Girl Talk and Trey Told 'Em, constructed exclusively of tracks culled from the Thrill Jockey archives, and including a couple of mega mixes which make the whole thing kind of essential.
The proper mix includes tracks from Bobby Conn, Gaunt, Pit Er Pat, Eleventh Dream Day, Giant Sand, Dolomite, Trapist, John Parish, Nobuzaku Tekemura, The Fiery Furnaces, Califone, Chicago Underground Duo, Mouse On Mars, Freakwater, Frequency, Sam Prekop, The National Trust, Extra Golden, Arbouretum, Radian, The Sea And Cake, Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake, Lithops, Directions In Music, Aki Tsuyuko, Howe Gelb, Tunng, Isotope 217, Archer Prewitt, The Zincs, Sue Garner & Rick Brown, Adult., Exploding Star Orchestra, Brokeback, Town And Country and Microstoria (what, no A Minor Forest?!). And it's not just the song selection, the way they're mixed, results in an awesome, ever shifting soundscape, that is so good, we found ourselves even digging the tracks that we didn't think we liked. Out of context, some of the songs here have us all fired up to revisit some of the groups we may have ignored or just missed.
But if that wasn't enough, there are three megamixes, the record opens with a killer Trans Am mix that reminds us why we love those guys so much, and then finishes with a Tortoise megamix, and then an Oval megamix, that purports to contain EVERY single Oval song ever recorded. Pretty cool. And crazy limited. Only 4000 copies made way back in 2007, and we only got a tiny handful, so act fast if you want one.
Perhaps his best album? While he is credited as the founder of "trip-hop" with Portishead and Massive Attack, there is little to be found of the tropes of that genre here. Instead, broken hip hop beats are filtered through his dub infused production... But what makes the album, as with all of his albums, is the dualism between his voice and that of his female vocalists (one of which is PJ Harvey), which evolves into a increasing psychosexual tension.
When we first put this on, Jim and Jeff immediately thought to themselves "Hey! This sounds just like later period Einsturzende Neubauten!" And that it does, Blowback is also a highly polished smooth electronic downtempo funk record guested by the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cyndi Lauper and Live's Ed Kowalczyk. Need we say more? Should we tell you that one song sounds like
Four long awaited new songs from everyone's favorite trip hop icon. Dark drama not unlike Barry Adamson's recent work, with urgent beats made to enjoy with martinis and a sense of foreboding. One wishes the music was more challenging, instead of so obvious, cos Tricky's got the talent to do better. Anyway, each to his own -- many of you are certainly fans, so here's a sound sample for you to decide for yourself.
Rose de Shiraz is the lovely Deluxe-label debut for Vienna's Ulrich Troyer, who previously released a 3" cd on Mego. Troyer's "experimental electronic pop" music is a blend of quirky, downtempo electronics and actual live instrument playing (guitar, bass, clarinet, sax, percussion, etc.), with occasional vocals from friends in Persian, Kurdish, Italian and other languages. The exotic, globetrotting aspect is enhanced by the inclusion of field recordings from such diverse locations as a bazar in Cairo and a market in Mexico. Some Matmos-like weird sound sources (1000 mg calcium dissolving, for instance) are utilized along with the dance-floor beats and romantic melodies... Cut-up but not chaotic, this is a very appealing album, to file with your Tarwater, Mouse On Mars, Amon Tobin, Matmos, etc. discs.
The jurors for the 2000 Ars Electronica competition were so generous to Carsten Nicolai that they handed down an honorable mention to his aesthetic twin Uli Troyer. "Nok" is the first release by Uli Troyer and is dominated by a simple incremental building of crystalline sinewave tones, quick algorithmic glitch sequences, and slow moving bass booms -- offering a near complete mimesis of Carsten Nicolai.
Jonny Trunk is a true tastemaker. With his Trunk label he has unearthed gems from the likes of Basil Kirchin, John Baker, Sven Libaek, Desmond Leslie, and more more more. His fine taste for rare soundtrack grooves and left of center electronics has always totally hit the spot for us here in AQ land. But with the release of Scrapbook, Trunk mixes it up and shifts into the role of musical creator instead of just music aficionado and the results are totally terrific.
If you've followed the releases on Trunk, his own musical stylings should make perfect sense as these are all instrumental jams and grooves that could be the sounds of some great lost library music collection. Short satisfying tracks filled with breaks you could totally imagine on a J Dilla or Madlib record. Trunk is extremely self deprecating in the funny liner notes and you can tell as someone who has released other people's exquisite music over the years he has been reluctant to release his own bedroom recordings from the last decade, and while we appreciate his humble and self-conscious musings they are so not necessary as Scrapbook more than holds its own, held up alongside any of the lost treasures he's helped shine a light on. We'll take Jonny Trunk's scraps anytime!
The first chapter of this cool new series of limited edition book/cd sets from Thrill Jockey starts things out in quite a dreamy, downy fashion. Much of the music sounds as though Aki Tsuyuko was composing a soundtrack to a children's fairytale. Hokane is a mostly instrumental album of hushed pastel interludes sprinkled with infant-like cooing vocals. Simple melodies teeter and totter and tiptoe about with a doe-eyed innocence. Imagine a dewy meadow filled with baby bunnies or if you prefer an interior scene, an antique doll slowly coming to life amid a landscape of wooden building blocks and tin toys.
The accompanying hardcover book is filled with comparatively more vibrant saturated colors and striking geometrics. Actually this is like a Japanese counterpart to the recent book'n'cd set by Michael Andrews. Both are musically warm'n'gentle (although Andrews' is more song-oriented) and visually fanciful'n'shapely.
Limited edition of 2000.
Fans of Ms Tujiko, it's time to rejoice. One of her early releases has been reissued with extras!
Perhaps you're wonderin' what happened to the original? Well, a short time ago (12/2005) the fine Austria experimental electronic music label Mego sadly bit the dust. Fortunately an even shorter time ago (1/2006!) Electronic artist Pita (aka Peter Rehberg) brought the label and select titles back from the edge of oblivion under the new moniker Editions Mego. Hurrah!
Back in 2001 when we carried the original release we briefly summed it up in this way: Temperate electronica, pretty ditties rest on cyclic heaving -- some dismantled soul and some traditional-ish Japanese vocals.
Allow us to elaborate a bit more this time around: Each track gently drifts to and fro with layer upon layer of chiming musicbox style melodies, more beefy sturdy thud-pulse rhythms, and gauzily effected breathy vocals that waver between curious child, coltish girl and soulful woman. This album predates Tujiko's very Bjork period (2002's Make Me Hard and 2003's From Tokyo To Niagara), but ties in well with her more distinct recent recordings (the spacious Blurred In my Mirror and the lovely 28). Richly textured in pastel watercolors. FYI: The first fourteen tracks are from the original release, and tracks 11 through 15 were previously pressed into vinyl for her "I Forgot The Title" 12".
Moving further away from those 'Japanese Bjork' comparisons which have (not unjustly) followed her through her past releases, Ms Tujiko's latest album presents her fresh, new, increasingly vaporous, softly glitchy electronic tracks for our enjoyment. Indeed, Blurred In My Mirror is considerably more spacious and less 'concrete' but no less finely crafted than her past releases. Perhaps it's the influence of collaborator Lawrence English who composed and performed most of the electronic tracks this time around, while she focussed more on lyrics. Her vocals verge on stream-of-consciousness, surfacing here and there sung or spoken in her native tongue. Fluttery, airborne loveliness.
After three albums for Mego on which her vocal delivery drew progressively (and eerily) closer and closer to that of Bjork, Tujiko Noriko gracefully hops over to the Tomlab label and subtly shifted her overall sound. For one thing, the vocal resemblance to Ms Gudmundsdottir is much less pronounced. Singing in both Japanese and English, her lilting murmurs and sighs are backed by glistening shards of minimal pulses and veils of softly muted drones. Check out the dreamy almost-ceremonial procession of "Mugen Kyuukou". Sheer prettiness.
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It would be very easy and all too dismissive to simply say: Tujiko, Noriko is like a craftily fragmented Japanese Bjork. Granted that is what immediately springs to mind when hearing the first track of her fourth release (her third for Mego), but delve a little further and you'll be rewarded with a more defined idea of her own sparkling magical loveliness. If you're not familiar with Ms Tujiko, that initial description does give you a basic sense of her sound - an endless building up and stripping away of layer upon layer of swooping childlike vocals, swirling dreamy washes and delicate melody fragments. Her singing also brings to mind Kate Bush as well as the criminally undersung Canadian art pop singer Jane Siberry (check out the seventh song! apologies, I couldn't locate its title). Alternately soft'n'breathy, often almost birdlike, and considerably more robust. Furthermore, the title (in Japanese: Hard Ni Sasete) certainly doesn't evoke visions of her fantastic electronic dream pop world. Make Me Hard. Huh? Puzzling! The packaging consists of nine loose individual square panels of photography, collages, liner notes and lyrics, but be sure to bring your Japanese translator along for the ride 'cause it's all in Japanese.
Tujurikkuja is a meeting of San Francisco musical minds, namely Kit Clayton and Chris Dixon. It has been a very long time since we've heard anything from Clayton, the digital wunderkid who recorded a handful of deliriously glitched-out dub albums around the turn of the millennium and also ran the highly influential Orthlong Musork imprint which released work by Stephan Mathieu, Blectum From Blechdom, Akira Rabelais, AGF, Timeblind, and Gold Chains. While he hasn't released much of anything in the past six or seven years, he does perform here in the Bay Area mining the gaps of audiovisual errata as well as DJ-ing full-frontal techno sets. His partner in the Estonio-phonically named Tujurikkuja has recently been copping a dour drone-noise pose under the guise Earth Jerks, but he's long been a noisenik artrocker in Death Sentence Panda and Murder Murder. This one-sided lathe-cut 7" sports a spaced-out electro-drone mantra with Dixon churning through a shoegazing riff muffled through a mountain of cotton candy FX, and with Clayton delicately layering analogue (or seemingly analogue) electronic tones and drones throughout. Very lovely stuff; and we do hope to hear more from Tujurukkuja very soon. For those who care about such things, the lathe was cut at Funky Frankenstein the heart of middle Tennessee on a sheet of polycarbonate which shouldn't degrade or do any damage to the needle. Limited to 50 copies!
Max Tundra (avid Art of Noise fan and proud member of the Warp Records roster) exclusively used the Yamaha QY20 (a tiny / tinny sequencer with a bunch of pre-programmed 8-bit 'Lego block' samples) in the composition of this short EP, hence the title. These
If you go way back in the aQuarius list archive, you'll find us raving about Turing Machine years and years ago, and while that was before our reviews got to be so long, it didn't take a huge review to explain that they were one of our favorite instrumental post rock bands. We compared them to Polvo and Drive Like Jehu, Pitchblende, Shellac, Unwound, their sound was mathy and propulsive, driving and complex, a modern day kraut / prog combo that made it all seem effortless, from darkly hypnotic minimal grooves, to wildly dense almost metallic heaviness. Much of their magic was the incredible drumming of Jerry Fuchs, who tragically passed away a few years ago.
This album, recorded prior to Fuch's death, is the first Turing Machine release since their Zwei record in 2004, that long hiatus in no small part due to Fuchs' extracurricular drumming activity, which included a whole bunch of dance outfits, !!!, the Juan Maclean, LCD Soundsystem, even Massive Attack, and all that dance music drumming definitely had a huge effect on Turing Machine, who were no longer just a nineties style math/post rock outfit, but instead had become something much more. Fear not though, there's plenty of awesomely motorik post rock jamming, it's just that a lot of the time, there are also pulsing synths, or electronics. But just check out album opener, "Yeah, C'mon", which starts out like some strangely percolating new wave jam, the drums almost disco-y, the driving synths, but as the guitars come in, and coalesce into riffs, the song begins to take on rock form, until finally, exploding into some seriously fierce and driving post rock, wrapped in wild guitar squiggles and all sorts of random electronics, and the drumming, fucking KICK ASS.
"Lazy Afternoon Of The Jaguar" is equal parts laid back dance groove and motorik krautfunk, the guitars looped in woozy psychedelic swirls around the super tight bass/drums foundation. "Slave To The Algorithm" is total electro kraut-funk, Fuchs doing his best robo-beat accompanied by all manner of pulsing synths and weirdly processed guitars. The title track sounds like "Legs" by ZZ Top, stripped down and given a cosmic psychedelic space rock makeover, the synths again in full effect, but the drums locked tight, and the guitars loose and spidery and wildly psychedelic. "If It's Gone (It's On)" adds vocals to the mix, and lays down a serious slab of crunchy, fuzzy, guitar driven post-punk electro-funk, and record closer "Bovina 2/23/08" finds the band in full on heart of the sun mode, effortlessly channeling the sort of FX drenched space rock psychedelic freakout that should most definitely endear them to fans of White Hills, the Heads and the like.
Robert Turman may be more well known in early industrial noise circles as a part of Boyd Rice's NON project (contributing to the seminal conceptual noise single "Knife Ladder" with its additional holes drilled into the vinyl) as well as other obscure noise groups such as Z.O. Voider and Comfort Control, but this recording shows a completely different side of this multi-instrumentalist composer's sound.
Flux, recorded in 1981 and originally released on cassette, is a series of long form compositions of lo-fi meditative minimalist grandeur, a home-brewed study of new-age avant-classical aspirations made through a distinct DIY sensibility. Reminding us a lot of the spacious dreaminess of Anton Batagov, Turman uses piano, kalimba, a rudimentary drum machine and tape loops to make slow-paced tones and textural phrases that eventually repeat, and form drifting mesmerizing patterns. Eventually the looping aspects of the various compositional components begin to gently overlap, causing the sounds to shift subtly and collapse on each other. A mysterious vibrational resonance flows throughout, created both through the hypnotic longevities of the pieces but also through the low fidelity manipulation of overtones. Rough button clicks and other sonic debris of the recording process occasionally cause crackles and distortions, emphasizing their home recorded origins. The choice of instrumentation and their processional pacing give off an Eastern influenced quality, but it also shows a deliberate effort to push the boundaries of minimalism within a challenging limitation of sonic palette and available technology. It's this restraint that makes this incredibly beautiful. Hats off to Spectrum Spools for allowing this to see the light of day again!
And for all of you non-vinyl folks, a cd version will be available soon!
Also on vinyl!
The thing about being a modern-day "psych" or "prog" rock band, is that you have 40+ years of rock n' roll (and other) musical history to draw upon, you don't need to just pretend it's 1969 or 1971 or 1978 all over again (though that can be cool too). French band Turzi are definitely open to mixing things up in interesting ways, with no regard to whether it sounds "authentic" or not for the duration, their kitchen sink psych aesthetic pushing many and various buttons for us here in ways that maybe no single other band manages to do! At one moment bringing us blissed-out Frippertronics, at another heavy stoner riffage, sometimes in combination. If we didn't know they were a band, we'd think they were an excellent psych-digging DJ! We thought the mantric synth-rock of their debut, entitled A, was pretty Awesome and now here's their second album, B, and it's even Better (with more of what we liked about A, and nice surprises too). It follows the same track-titling convention of A, where on that album all the songs started with the letter A, here they all start with the letter B, and now for some reason they're all place names as well. Also as with A, much of B is instrumental, but when there are vocals, they've got some famous friends helping out.
We said they mix a lot of different elements into their music - for example, to pick a sequence of songs in near the middle of the disc, "Bombay" begins like a Bomb Squad cut, with a sample from a civil rights era speech, that's mashed up into a hard charging, distorted metallic gallop with urgent organ chords, over which they then crank a killer 'exotic' Eastern sounding riff like something by the Flower Travellin Band, or from the most intense Turkish psych single ever, Turzi really kicking out the jams on this one! But that soon mellows out into the next track, "Bethlehem", a hushed mystic ceremonial trudge akin to The Stooges' most John Cale inspired moment, "We Will Fall" or something by Acid Mothers Temple. But then the next thing you know, next up is "Baltimore", a techno-delic ravey raver, kinda '70s glam too, which we were already gonna say reminded us of Primal Scream, before we realized yes indeed it features guest vocalist Bobby Gillespie, of Primal Scream. Elsewhere, a lot of the songs pulsate immensely with kosmische synth delights, 'cause Turzi are French of course making us think of their countrymen Heldon (and also Air), but also naturally Harmonia and other '70s electronic krautrock brigades...
Wow. Whatever this is, psych or prog or whatever, looking forwards futuristically or backwards retrowise, or sideways even, Turzi has succeeded in synthesizing (with synthesizers!) a whole lot of what we like about both similiar -and- dissimilar artists such as Heldon and Zombi and Diagonal and Astra and AMT and Maserati and Etienne Jaumet and Witch and Circle and Oneohtrix Point Never and Itavayla and GR & The Full Blown Expansion... the icing on the cake is the nearly 10-minute finale "Bamako", all dreamy and droney, made all the more Beautiful by another guest vocalist - Brigitte Fontaine! Sweet.
A three track EP of adventurous breakcore electro with plenty of acid squiggliness thrown in the mix for good measure has a lot in common with Richard D. James' Analord series he did under the AFX moniker. Lo and behold, the author of The Tuss seems to have been identified as Richard D. James (despite plenty of internet driven counterintelligence by the publicists at Rephlex, serving only to hype these recordings all the more.) But regardless of who is behind this, it's quite solid complement to the Rushup Edge album from The Tuss.
The identity of The Tuss has become a matter of net-born mystery and conspiracy, yet the fingerprints of Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin) are smeared all over the cross referenced Myspace accounts of possibily fictionalized characters. James has always had a knack for media sleights of hand in half-heartedly disguising his work. Certainly the entire hullabaloo behind The Tuss makes the album all the more interesting; and what you'll find is exactly what you would expect from the mastermind of Aphex Twin and all of those other projects that may or may not be authored by Richard D. James. There's the archetypal breakbeat skitter which developed out of James' involvement with post-rave hardcore techno and tumbled into drum 'n' bass snare crashes; there's plenty of acid squiggles and vocoder squelchiness to provide a electro edginess; and then there's the unmistakable idiosyncratic constructs of perpetual melody streams and hyper complex drum programming that always seem perfectly at ease with their speed and delivery. The Tuss is probably not the most innovative offering from James (hence, the hidden identity we'd imagine, if it is indeed a James production), but there's something quite refreshing to hear just how good these musical signatures and templates still sound today.
It's been about a year since Tussle's great sophomore release, Telescope Mind, and now they've put together an ep of remixes from that disc, calling on the capable hands of folks like Optimo, Dennis Young (Liquid Liquid), Kango & Torkill and their friends Hot Chip (who they hit the road with for a jaunt across the east coast last summer). We are still really anxious to hear what the new incarnation of Tussle will end up sounding like (as there has been some major line up shifts since the original recording of the songs getting the remix treatment here). But until then this will sit nicely next to the other forward thinking kraut-meets-dance-floor offerings in this current chapter of Tussle ever evolving sound.
Release number three from local label Voltaire Records, and it's another good one. After the debut from Publicist (aka Sebastian Thomson from Trans Am) and the Affairs Online compilation, which included the debut of Lovelock (aka Steve Moore of Zombi), comes this killer split, featuring Publicist once again, this time teamed up with aQ faves Tussle, with each band offering up one original, and then remixing a song by the other.
Tussle start things off with a groovy chunk of bouncy bass driven electro, wreathed in strings, and underpinned by what sounds like blurred pianos, it's a dizzying mix of dancefloor slink, and low slung electro-pop, the production lush and softly psychedelic, the rhythms a bit dubbed out, definitely digging the new sound, and we're excited to hear more. They also take on Publicist's "Hand To Mouth" from the Voltaire 12" and make it their own, pulsing synths, garbled processed vox, even bigger beats, some robotic funk swirled in, what sounds almost like some talk box, seriously propulsive and groovy.
Publicist offers up some minimal synthscapery, a stuttery rhythmic bit of clipped synth pulse, over a krautdisco groove, and some thick funky basslines, everything softly distorted and seriously buzzy, the song blossoming into a sort of sci-fi Moroder-ish disco funk groove, with some swirly psychedelic synths and some kick ass robo-vox. And then Tussle's track gets Publicized into something a bit darker and groovier, thick dubbed out bass pulses, wild percussion, all over a churning low end groove and lush swells of cosmic synth, not to mention some weird breathy vocalizations, the whole thing sounding like the music from the credit sequence in some eighties sci-fi fantasy epic. Awesome!
The Chicago lap-top trio TV Pow has always been a hit or miss operation, situating themselves closest (when at their best) to their one time Icelandic collaborators Stilluppsteypa as a recombination of microwave / glitch work and the erratic, shifting
Yet another sonic time machine trip, right back to the mid eighties, and as usual, you find yourself transported directly to the credits of a VHS tape in the bargain section of the local video store, or right into a montage of various characters getting ready for the big dance / race to raise money to save the school / rendezvous with the cute girl you've always had a crush on. It's so strange how these youngsters can so masterfully channel a time before they were even born, but then there are plenty of people who are channeling the sixties and seventies, maybe it's more a question of WHY. The decade better forgotten, whether it be fashion or music, but once again, given enough space, we have to say, as reimagined by this new generation, this stuff sounds pretty dang good.
Twins is the latest in a long line of new outfits channeling the sound and spirit of eighties pop music. Zombi, Majeure, Umberto, Outer Limits Recordings, Puro Instinct, Dylan Ettinger, Autre Ne Veut, Craft Spells, Innercity, Greatest Hits, Gatekeeper, Soft Metals, well now you can add Twins, aka one man band Matt Weiner, to that list, but of that whole bunch, we're definitely feeling like Twins might be the weirdest, and at the same time, the most genuinely eighties sounding of the bunch. Or maybe it's just how we wish music in the eighties sounded, or how we remember it, whether it's true or not. Woozy doomy warbly sci-fi funk, crappy Casio disco, warped druggy new wave electro pop. The drums programmed and reverbed, woozy guitar jangle, throbbing synth funk bass, and the vocals, warped and sexy, a whispery croon, heavily effected, the pitch control seemingly on the fritz, slipping into crazy falsetto one second, deep bellow croons the next, the perfect match for the throbbing pulsing neon new wave surrounding it. Unlike the dancey grooves and haunting Carpenter soundtracks of many of the other eighties revivalists, Twins is more concerned with pop music, this is like a glance into some alternate universe, where eighties MTV continued on into the future virtually unchanged, just becoming more and more damaged and fractured and fantastically freaky as it's broadcast across time and space. We're definitely reminded on fucked up pop weirdos like Gary War and Ariel Pink, but if anything, this takes those already fucked up sounds, and adds a whole other level of new wave cabaret drama, transforming a mere exercise in romantic retroism, into something totally and dementedly inspired.
Released on the Synth Series sub label of the mighty Rural Fauna, and of course very very limited�
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After the abrasive drum & bass album 'The Sharpest Tool in the Box', Jon Tye (aka Twisted Science) completely shifts course for this whimsical electronica-concrete album. Sorta like u-ziq meets Jim O'Rourke.
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Harsh jagged ultra distorted electronic music ranging from furious drum and bass to half-time sputtering noise... This is one of our unanimous favorite new releases.
Longtime aQ fave Amon Tobin, whose records are brilliant dark tangles of dense electronica, dizzying, driving beats, swirling atmospheres, unrecognizable samples recontextualized into wholly new shapes and sounds, and often, especially on his early records, a distinctly Brazilian vibe, returns with a new album, under a new moniker, and in this new incarnation as Two Fingers, Tobin seems to have moved away from the brooding Ben Frost-like cinematic menace of his last record Isam, in favor of something much more mainstream, and much more dubsteppy. In fact, a lot of the tracks here wouldn't sound that out of place in a DJ set alongside jams by Deadmau5, Blackburner or Skrillex. But while this is definitely made for the dancefloor, it's well removed from all the knuckle dragging bro-step out there, it's still Tobin after all, working some delirious dancefloor alchemy with BIG beats, that are ribcage rattling crunches one minute, intricate technoid skitters the next, everything wreathed in heaping helpings of dubstep style low end bass wobble/warble, electro synth squelch, dense gouts of buzz and thick sheets of undulating rumble, clouds of psychedelic FX and spaced out sci-fi bleeps and bloops. Lots going on for sure, a whole different effect in headphones as through the sound system at a club, but Tobin's knack for crafting impossibly catchy grooves, and mutating them into some warped alien electro/techno hybrid, is fully intact. And for every blast of grinding beat heavy crunch, there's another sprawl of loping electronic grooviness, usually those two oozing into one twisted new whole.
And while they last, we have the deluxe version of the cd, which includes a second disc, on which the sound slips even further into the commercial/pop realm, with vocals, even rapping, the resulting jams will definitely have you wondering why this shit is not all over the radio.
Two Lone Swordsmen chase their recent Double Gone Chapel album with this six song ep (containing remixes and instrumental versions of three TLS tracks -- "Showbizz Shotguns", "Feast" and "Sex Beat"). Continuing in much the same stark dark vein, each track follows simple basslines, minimal repetitive synth melodies and uncomplicated programmed beats. The male vocals that appear on a few of the tracks are delivered in an electro-friendly cold monotone speak-sing. If you dug the change in direction that they took on their last full length (i.e, away from their mellow electronica past and towards an edgier, more 'rock' sound), then you just might dig this ep which sorta bridges their two musical personalities.
The follow-up to "Tiny Reminders" from Andrew Weatherall (formerly of Sabres of Paradise) and Keith Tenniswood comes in the shape of a remix collection. They asked a few of their friends to have a go at some tracks from their last album. It begins (and ends) in a promising, dreamy dance beat-less manner courtesy of C-Pij but then quickly reverts into the less than thrilling,
What do the following artists have in common? Calexico, Starsailor, Lalipuna, St. Etienne, Luke Slater, Primal Scream, Howie B, Stereo MCs, Force Legato, Texas, Six By Seven, Alter Ego and Slam -- hmmm, any guesses? Well folks, they've all had their music remixed by Two Lone Swordsmen. Please note: Most tracks bear little resemblance to the original songs. If you're a fan of any/all of the abovementioned artists in search of more of the same, you'll probably want to continue your quest. If you dig late '90s IDM with skillful digital dismemberment of melody and Cuisinart-style fragmentation of beats, this might be for you. By the way, this compilation serves to warm up the decks in preparation for TLS' forthcoming full length due out in June.
This is lovely, melodic, burbling electronica from the famed Andrew Weatherall (Sabres of Paradise etc). Mellow and groovy, it's similar in concept to KLF's pastoral Chill Out, but underwater!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Second full-length from Andrew Weatherall's latest incarnation. Dark, brooding, burbly, epic, yet overtly relatively subtle (lots going on but you have to listen closely) experimental electronica...
For eight years IDM duo Two Lone Swordsmen have made pleasing electronic music, nothing to knock your socks off nor put your knickers in a knot, just well executed, predominantly downtempo tracks. Now they've ventured into some unchartered territory... at least for them. The Double Gone Chapel can easily be tagged their "rock album". What it actually resembles is a diluted version of analog synth slingers Add (N) To X who themselves became dilutions of their past more engaging selves years back. Vague jamming -- a la get a farty synthesizer sound, come up with a simple riff and repeat until 'groovy'. 'Cheers' to them for trying new things, but 'Boo' for feeling compelled to release it before getting their rock chops up to snuff. Cmon Warp, some quality control! There's so many other bands who do this much better. Offering a bright light amid all the dullness is the second to last song "Taste Of Our Flames". With its woozy male / female vocals and heavy fuzzed bass tones, this smokily intoxicating, somber number could've been a great album closer... but it isn't. Instead, they tagged on a redundant post-rockish instrumental. Adding one more confusing glitch in the TLS system this time around.
Dive may be the latest release from the man known as Tycho, aka Scott Hansen, but it's the first thing of his most of us here have heard, and we have to say we're pretty swept away by Hansen's sonic vision, a musical accompaniment to some sort of abstract futuristic utopia, rendered in shades of glistening, sun dappled shimmer, abstract IDM skitter, and warm, lush, organic atmospheres. The sound is definitely shoegazey, and a little bit house-y, flecked with glimmers of new age ambience, wreathed in wisps of celestial ethereal drift, and smears of late night chill out electronica, all filtered through what to our ears sounds like a decidedly indie rock filter, with the occasional acoustic guitar and wistful melancholy melody woven deftly into glistening expanses of crystalline electronica, or minimal dreampop space-prog, all floating lazily beneath swells of swooshing synths and wreathed in woozy moodiness, and all driven by skeletal shuffles and warm liquid pulses, those pulses occasionally coalescing into a sort of eighties retro Knight Rider style groove, and briefly positioning Tycho's sounds alongside folks like Zombi and Umberto, but not only are the sounds here more prismatic and dreamy, they're also decidedly more rhythmic, and more IDM style electronic, definitely a retro-futuristic sort of dancefloor vibe, but only if you can imagine said dancefloor in the middle of a sun dappled meadow, beneath a blue sky and surrounded by rolling hills as far as the eye can see. It seems like those two elements wouldn't really work, but they kind of do, creating something minimal and groovy, but also tranquil and meditative, a sort of new age / soft focus electronic kosmische indie pop, that would be the perfect soundtrack to the romantic montage in some low budget experimental underground art film (or heck, these days, even some big budget car commercial)!
The last U.S. Girls record, U.S. Girls On Kraak, found Meghan Remy, who IS U.S. Girls, pushing her sound ever/even further from the gnarled low fidelity roots that seemingly defined it, claiming that those lo-fi records were that way based entirely out of necessity. And as we mentioned in that review, she said that if she could, she would make a super glossy commercial pop record. And while it may have been her intention, U.S. Girls On Kraak was most definitely not that record - Gem however IS.
We were actually pretty shocked when we put this one. The record opens with some warped music box melodies, wreathed in weird industrial scrapes, the sound panned woozily from speaker to speaker, so we were thinking that maybe all that talk about glossy pop was a put on, that she had reverted to her early experimental floorcore sound, and were just beginning to luxuriate in those woozy soft noise, when the sound suddenly transforms into something MUCH poppier, and MUCH more polished, simple stately drumming, wheezing organ, and Remy's vocals way up front, soaring dramatically, the vibe very sixties girl group, positioning this new version of U.S. Girls alongside some other Girls, namely Dum Dum Girls, and Best Coast, and while it's not nearly THAT poppy, it definitely sounds like that's what Remy is shooting for. More minimal, and a bit more droney and psychedelic, but ultimately a dreamy organ driven sixties style fuzzy pop, and heck, it definitely suits her. The next track adds some skittery programmed drums, which gives it a bit of a cold wave vibe, but still poppy and almost torch songy, her voice sounding a bit like Zola Jesus, there are horns (or what sounds like horns), some serious girl group vocals, it's weird, and surprising, but cool. Track three might be the straight up poppiest of the bunch, and listening to that, it's hard to conceive of the fracture fucked up sounds on past U.S. Girls records.
"He Who" though might be one of our favorites, harkening back to the more experimental USG recordings, brittle machinelike rhythms, haunting pianos, lots of echo and reverb, cinematic and creepy, darkly dramatic and psychedelic, we could easily listen to a whole record of just that. The rest of the record unfurls similarly (to the poppier opening salvo), and then something weird happens, with Remy seeming to try her hand at different sounds, echo drenched garage pop on "I Don't Understand That Man", or most surprising of all, some big guitar Gary Glitter style classic glam rock on "Slim Baby", or the groovy almost calypso sounding "Down In The Boondocks", and it all sounds pretty great. There's one more short experimental track, all stuttering programmed beats and looped and layered vocal samples, murky and muted, but those moments are few and far in between. The new sound is definitely well removed from the U.S. Girls sound of old, but for fans of Dun Dum Girls, Best Coast, and other sort of sixties girl group jangle pop, this will very likely hit the spot! And who knows, might get some pop kids to check out the way more warped early records too!
From the same label that brought us the killer 7"/cd from Spanish electro punk outfit Der Ventilator (reviewed elsewhere on this list), comes this killer split, featuring long time fave US Girls, and new super hyped combo (or one man band, we're not sure), Dirty Beaches.
US Girls, aka Megan Remy offers up another fantastic batch of lo-fi psychedelic greywave, all murky and muddy, haunting and ritualistic, a strange drum driven vocal chant starts things off, her voice witchy and warped, all wreathed in a cloud of whirring low end, before the sound blossoms into a weird electronic groove, all minimal programmed percussion, beneath a soft haze of distortion and tangled psychedelic guitars, before launching into the final and longest track, a sort of creepy underwater goth dub workout, that sounds a bit like a more minimal avant lo-fi Zola Jesus, a looped sonar rhythm, Remy's vocals chant like and mesmerizing, eventually the beat and vox are swallowed up by a cloud of electronic squiggles and warped spaced out FX. Dirty Beaches is similarly murky and echoey, but instead of witchy electronic minimalism, he/they offer up a moody croon over a super minimal bit of rhythmic crunch, and some barely audible melody, the sound a woozy, warped bit of washed out drift, the rhythm more like a distant chugging train, a hushed pulse, there seems to be some super minimal guitar too, an almost Johnny Cash bit of low slung strum, but it too is wreathed in murk and transformed into just another warped undulating throb, the whole thing dark and dreamily dubby.
Super sweet packaging, full color cover in a thick plastic sleeve sealed with a sticker, pressed on green vinyl with a download coupon too.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Skweee!!! See our Museum of Future Sound review for more explanation...
