A Certain Ratio, who took their name from a lyric off Brian Eno's flawless pop album Taking Tiger Mountain, began their career alongside fellow Mancunians Joy Division back in the late '70s, crafting a sound that evolved through the bleak references of punk
In addition to the first disc which collects many of their best songs (although hardcore ACR fans might take issue with some of the selections), what's extra nice about this reissue are the b-sides and rarities that comprise the second disc. Those of us who missed out the first time around and are perhaps only familiar with the ACR tracks on the wonderful In the Beginning There Was Rhythm compilation will be surprised to hear that the driving dance-iness of those tracks were balanced out by the decidedly more gloomy sound typical of Joy Division's dark and angular choppiness. Far more punk than dance. Another fine case of a band's demos and rarities being a valuable good listen, instead of being collected for collectors' sake. Highly recommended!
While Christian Fennesz has been very active in working with a diverse group of musicians, few of his collaborators have exhibited the likemindedness found in Sydney's tinkering guitarist Oren Ambarchi. For both Ambarchi and Fennesz, the guitar is the
They'rrrrre back! Norway's archetypal artsy "post-black metal" supergroup, featuring members of Ulver, Mayhem, and more. We thought they'd broken up after 1998's peak of bizarreness, "La Masquerade Infernale", as all we'd heard from them since then was a
One of the main figures in Arcturus (you may know) is Garm from Ulver (he's also boss of the amazing Jester label, current home to Ulver, When, Rotoscope, Bogus Blimp, Single Unit, Origami Galaktika, etc.) who is responsible for "voices of ghosts and monkeys and general manipulation" and lyrics. His songwriting partner Steinar Sverd Johnsen handles keyboards and composes the music. Out of the rest of the Arcturus lineup, "Lords of Chaos" readers will also recognize Hellhammer (of Mayhem and about a million other Nordic metal outfits) on "drums and flames". The band is rounded out by "high guitar rider" Knut M. Valle and "low guitar driver" Dag F. Gravem. Emperor's Ihsahn contributes "spitting voice" on one track as well.
Together these guys meld majestic keys, blasting drums, soaring vocals, melodic piano runs, rasping screams, and electronic atmospheres into what can only be described as Arcturus music. It's similar to "La Masquerade", but what seems new is how catchy and poppy some of this is. But, at the same time it's also quite metal indeed. Dark and heavy, not allowing the keyboards to overpower the guitars. And, after the gangsta rap and drum and bass remixes found on "Disguised Masters", this record seems almost normal! That is, if you can consider bombastic sci-fi metallic prog pop 'normal'. I guess it is, in the more advanced universe Garm and company inhabit. Brilliant!
So we really liked the last few Atomic Bitchwax records. Member of Monster Magnet busts out and does a record of guitar wanker stoner rock. Sounds good. So what's wrong with the new one? Not sure exactly. It's just sort of flat. Sort of pointless. And
Does come with a bonus cd, pretty cool Meteor City label sampler, chock full of, you guessed it, stoner rock.
Latest issue of beloved confusional music magazine Bananfish, that more often that not, is the only magazine that covers mostly folks we've never heard (of). This time is no different:
Robert Dayton - Canadian extrovert comic, Halim El-Dabh - selected exerpts from Denise Seachrist's upcoming biography, Paul Winstanley- New Zealand electroacoustic improvisor, AQ fave, Swedish electroacoustician Leif Elggren, fiction by Roger Pinnell, and tons of art/reviews. As well as a cd with exclusive tracks from Leif Elggren, Lateral Agriculture Order, Repeat, July Fourth Toilet, JDP Trio, Oren Ambarchi, Canned Hamm, Rosy Parlane, Dion Workman and Halim El-Dabh/Mike Hovancsek.
Darrell Banks was a great, if obscure, soul singer whose too-short career started in the mid '60s and ended abruptly with his death in 1970. In that time he sadly only released two albums and seven singles of beautiful soul music in the vein of groups on
If it hasn't happened already, Beige is likely to receive accolades from somebody like ArtForum or some other dinosaur institution desperately seeking a connection with what's 'hip' by claiming allegiance with electronica. Beige makes electronica that should be
Originally released in 1973 in France by Futura Records via their SON series (which also included the wonderful "Tacet" by Jean Guerin. Futura also released otherworldly tripped-outness from the likes of Red Noise and Mahogany Brain). Recorded between '71
Glenn Donaldson has been incredibly active lately in a number of San Francisco psychedelic / improv outfits (all with records out on the local Jewelled Antler cd-r label), including Thuja, the Knit Separates, the Blithe Sons, the Sky Green Leopards, Youth
Released in 1998 by TVT records, Next Millennium is yet another record that is part of that new breed of dancehall which has almost more in common with hip hop than reggae. The production is filled with breakbeats and scratching and if that isn't enough
AfroStrut continues to mine the depths of Nigerian music history to demonstrate that all that came out of Lagos was not just Fela. Keyboardist Segun Bucknor, who had been included on the 'Nigeria 70' compilation, gets the spotlight with an entire disc of
This Italian metal band is hard to figure out: visually, they look kinda Marilyn Manson-eque with big boots, devil-locks and black vinyl trenchcoats. So we expected some sort of vampire industrial goth thing, maybe with female vocals...well it's got female
This is John Cale's first Solo recording, digitally remastered and with 2 bonus tracks. Originally released in 1970, this record was recorded shortly after Cale left the Velvet Underground to strike out on his own musically (away from Lou Reed mostly) and to
One of the niftier 7"s to pass through the store in quite a while is the work of Caruso, a young North Carolinian with his first release on the promising UK label Crustaceans and Reptiles. "Titles Are For Babies" is a quick excursion through a number of
The Casket Lottery was borne of the mighty Coalesce, but their sound is far removed from Coalesce's pummelling metalcore. More a bizarre hybrid of emo, power pop, weird almost-prog, new wave and just balls-out rock. Huge emotive swells of thick rich chords,
There are many reasons why somebody needs to smack some sense into Table Of The Elements, with this compendium of Rhys Chatham's work being simply the latest episode of marketing blunders. Sometime in the future, Table Of The Elements has plans to release a
The lp re-issue (after a cd reish a couple years ago) of one of those albums collectors would trade their first born for. Gladly. This is head-damaged, heavy Oklahoma psych-punk circa 1975, predating the Butthole Surfers by a solid decade but with the same references to Captain Beefheart and the Red Crayola. Not too many bands in the '70s sounded much like this, with maybe Pere Ubu,
New recordings from Detroit's legendary Destroy All Monsters, recorded between 1998 and 2001. Less rock and more sound art pieces, some utilizing vocal tracks (from master tapes!) of Sun Ra and samples from Masaya Nakahara (aka Violent Onsen Geisha). Also
According to the liner notes, written in (intentionally?) broken English, Petros Drecojecai was a would be anthropologist visiting California from Hungary in the mid 1990's. Drecojecai spent much of his spare time in between conferences listening to and
Drone Records -- run by Stefan Knappe of Troum and Maeror Tri -- exclusively produces seven inches mostly by emerging artists who specialize in expressive drone work (hence the label name). While there is something to be said for Drone's dedication to unknown artists, the work that comes from the ongoing series tends to be some of the best work from each of the artists' respective
EA is a Polish artist who only has a couple of cd-r releases under his belt, but has succeeded in developing a very nice amorphous version of late '80s Zoviet France, albeit without Robin Storey's trademarked looping structures. "11'00" is a delicate strain of manipulated feedback that complements a battery of distant gongs, extended guitar tones, and reverberated textural scrapings. Nice.
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO
Earth on this disc consisted of mastermind Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals) plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones.
Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain plays on as well, which I know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day!
Eddie The Rat is a 12 piece art-rock / choral ensemble from San Francisco, arriving at a sloppy psychedelic ceremonial music and with plenty of post-industrial / Burning Man / San Francisco 'Fringe' overtones and purposefully oblique verbal conundrums and
Supposedly, this is Ekkehard Ehlers' finale in the "Plays" series of tributes / homages, a disparate grouping of artists which has previously included Albert Ayler, Cornelius Cardew, and John Cassavettes, and rounds out with the German beat poet Hubert Fichte. Where those previous releases had been dominated by ephemeral drone work with refinied patinas of digital corrosion, this album
On his fourth long player, Frenchman Fred Bigot has refined his unique style of psychedelic electropunk to excess. Gnarly analog synths rigged with loads of distortion are coupled with hard-as-fuck 808 shuffle rhythms and ripples of wah wah guitar. Imagine
With an album title like "Log On" you know that Elephant Man wants to let his audience know that he's still on the cutting edge... er, maybe. But this 2001 release does seem to follow in the trend of many rising stars in dancehall by working in a hip hop flavor
Beginning in a more than minimal, airy fashion, Le Fly Pan Am's new album swiftly breaks into a clamorous funky groove. Their cyclical bass and guitar lines gradually give way to hypnotic woodblocky tic-toc rhythms and circuit crunching fuckery which then
Freestyle Fellowship's legendary status was carved out in the early and mid-nineties when the Southern California outfit made such amazing records as Innercity Griots and To Whom It May Concern. Then they broke up. Then they got back together and recorded these
Anyway, this is prime Fellowship territory, with simple chopped up melodies and spare beats backing up the unbelievably deft rhyming of Aceyalone, Jupiter, Mikah 9, and Peace. Very good, much better than most of the hip hop coming out these days, including the underground stuff.
So beautiful!!! The London-based trio Fridge has finally wrested back the rights to their masterpiece Eph from the evil major label and have re-released it themselves in the UK, and for the first time in the US, on Temporary Residence. Windy's hands down
The reissue also contains a second bonus disc that brings back to life the out-of-print "Kinoshita Terasaka" single and the "Of" EP, plus two previously unreleased remixes by Matt Herbert (Dr Rockit) and Viennese electronicist Patrick Pulsinger.
You *must* hear this record. I don't usually use Andee's favorite final word in my reviews, but I have to here. ESSENTIAL.
Tetsuo Furudate and Zbigniew Karkowski have released their second collaboration under the banner of "World As Will" as an homage to the 19th century thinker Arthur Schopenhauer, whose philosophical principles had been spelled out most thoroughly within a four
The Furudate / Karkowski collaborations (an album on Staalplaat and this record published by 23Five) have certainly followed Schopenhauer's fundamentals, with the creation of a violent, masculine, and ultimately tragic orchestrations as actions purely guided by edicts of the will. While based upon live arrangements for big horns, discordant strings, and timpani (in part composed by Karkowski and in part sampled from Wagner), the two offer a punishing collage in which the orchestral sounds spiral downward into brutal stabs of molten digital noise. "World As Will II" may lack some of the loud / quiet dynamics of the first volume, but the two more than make up for it in unrelenting intensity that falls between the totalitarian critiques of Laibach and the sonic bloodletting of Hermann Nitsch. A very difficult album.
At one time, Goem seemed like a great idea - a bunch of Musique Concrete informed post-industrialists trying their hand at Pan Sonic style minimalist techno. For a couple of releases, it worked quite well; but "Gast" proves how incredibly limited Goem have become with their project, and how boring the microsound community has become as a whole. This album is a collection of remixes /
Stoner metal fans might already know this trio from the split 7" they did with fellow Swedes Spiritual Beggars that was released a while back on Southern Lord. Now, The Music Cartel presents their self-titled full-length debut, a heavy, bluesy stoner rock album
Now available on vinyl, in a condensed, editted form.
Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) really wants you to know the concept behind this album. So, in his own words, here it is: "After recording, sampling, cutting and splicing over 100 tracks down to their most basic components, I ended up with a collection of over 300 loops, ranging from 1 note to 4 bars. I then started to recreate and reinterpret each track, putting the pieces back together as if an audio jigsaw puzzle -- using effects and edits as the glue in between each piece. This represents what those loops became and how their interactions created something that had not existed before."
Well, not exactly.
In reconstructing his decontructed history of Detroit / Berlin techno, Hawtin hasn't really "created something which had not existed before" as much as he's stated the obvious: the techno rhythm is wholly interchangeable. There, of course, are differences amongst the work of Wolfgang Voigt, Carl Craig, Maurizio, Stewart Walker, and Richie Hawtin... but their use of techno's rhythm is all virtually identical. Thus, in cutting all of those tracks down to a near molecular level (where the sampled sounds don't much opportunity to manifest their uniqueness), Hawtin is purposefully not emphasizing techno's aesthetic individuality, but its ultimate uniformity. So, Hawtin's "DE9: Closer To The Edit" may technically be something new, but it really sounds exactly like what techno should sound like -- big 909 or 808 four-on-the-floor drum kicks with tight cybernetic arpeggiations.
This is NOT a slight against this record, it's just that Hawtin has failed in achieving his lofty goals, BUT Hawtin has created a really great techno record, sounding just like Jeff Mills' "X-103" or his previous "Decks, EFX, and 909."
The demise of Man's Ruin was a big blow to the stoner rock scene, weeding (ha) out some crappy bands, to be sure, but also rendering some worthy albums out of print. Thankfully, in the case of San Francsico's favorite potsmoking doomsters High On Fire,
The Bay Area's slowest, heaviest, potsmokin'est doom metal combo Sleep (RIP) lives on in the form of ex-Sleep guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike's new band High On Fire. Sleep's last album, the infamous "Jerusalem", consisted of but one, super-long super-slow track. High On Fire speeds things up a bit (only a bit) but maintains the heaviness and the trademark Sleep sound. Right on.
You wanna hear some in-the-red, ultra-distorto, psychedelic speed freak rock n' roll? If you love it loud and crazy, this legendary Japanese band can't be beat. Led by bassist/vocalist Asahito Nanjo (also of Mainliner, Musica Transonic, and many other
This amazing 1994 debut by Ruins side-project Koenjihyakkei (aka Hundred Sights of Koenji) is supposedly out of print, but miraculously back in stock! We're not sure if it's actually been repressed or if somebody just found a hidden cache of these in a
If you're familiar with the Magma-obssessed Tokyo bass and drums duo Ruins, imagine them becoming EVEN MORE Magma-obsessed and adding female vocalist/keyboardist and a guitar player (actually, adding a bass player, as the Ruins bass player switched to guitar for this). This uber-Ruins quartet then wrote a bunch of insane, gorgeous prog rock tunes (or, in one case, adapted a traditional Bulgarian one) and play them to dazzling perfection. The French '70s prog band we keep mentioning (Magma) were insane, but not quite this heavy or hyper. If you like Ruins and/or Magma and/or weird prog music, you might want to get this if you haven't already. Probably the best of Koenjikhyakkei's three albums, which are all pretty cool ("II" being out of print still, though).
Imperial Teen are back from their major label excursion and now grace Merge Records with this cd filled with poppy, catchy songs, some with Clinic-like danciness. This is their best record by far. The melodies and harmonies get stuck in my head and are
Institut Fuer Feinmotorik are a German collective of techno / turntable engineers with the misleading motto: "to produce from almost nothing almost nothing." It is true that their turntablist source material may qualify as 'almost nothing' culled from
Compared to the recent release of the collaboration between avantgarde turntablists Philip Jeck, Otomo Yoshihide, and Martin Tetreault, Jeck's solo production receives the superior packaging job -- not only with the normal sized digipack (and not that stupid 'super jewel case') but also with the beautiful design from Touch's Jon Wozencroft. Furthermore, Jeck's album clocks in nearly 20 minutes longer and is two bucks cheaper.
OK, so it looks good, but what does it sound like?, you ask. The AQ verdict is -- it sounds wonderful! Philip Jeck's take on turntable experimentation involves using multiple turntables and scratchy old records to create blissfully beautiful surface-noise looping. His largely improvised compositions make the most gorgeous, repetitive, droning use of good old-fashioned record crackle and hiss. Jeck takes great care to allow for scraps of melody to emerge from the original music on the records with snippets of piano, sitar, and slow-motion vocals, popping out of crackled loops and often recalling the height of the Robin Storey era Zoviet France in the late '80s.
What differentiates this new album from the previous excellent ones in his oeuvre is its dynamics (perhaps due to the fact that these were all live performances?) -- the music is more active in terms of the elements used and their resulting emotional power. In fact, the first track "Above" is the creepiest composition I've ever heard from Jeck. The dynamism is also evident in that he uses more individual sounds that unfold over time but *not* necessarily being looped. It's nice to hear him trusting the sounds to stand on their own rather than needing the looping effect to make them beautiful. Highly recommended!!
- RealAudio clip: Above
- RealAudio clip: Pax
Jester (the unclassifiable Norwegian record label run by frontman Garm of the formerly but no longer black metal band Ulver) has rapidly become one of our favorite labels, what with releases by When, Ulver, Arcturus, Rotoscope, Esperanza, Bogus Blimp, Single
Switzerland hasn't exactly been known for their metallic output. You could probably count all the great Swiss metal bands on one hand (Celtic Frost, Coroner, uhhhh...Krokus....uh) but when they do metal, man do they do it right. This is album number two from
Live Human's previous albums never really did it for me, so this great album is a revelation. Here the groundbreaking trio of standup bass, drums, and turntables is *live*, recorded right here in their hometown of San Francisco at the Great American Music
Live Human mixes warmly organic bass lines that are funky but not overly so, with percussion that is as breakbeat "funky drummer" style as it is carefully shuffling, staccato and delicate. The third equal element is hiphop DJ Quest's visionary turntablist style. While he does his fair share of athletic, textural scratching here (he even plays with the tense sound of a skipping cd, of all things), it isn't overdone, nor boring, nor predictable. He brings in just enough outside elements like women's voices, snippets of old hip hop classics, James Brown's "heuh!", etc., to prevent the "jazz" from imploding self-indulgently into itself, yet not so much that it becomes a sample-heavy smorgasbord. It is incredible how perfect Quest's instincts are for what is too much and/or not enough. I have to say that the turntablist skills demonstrated here are so seamlessly integrated with the bass and the drums that I can't help but think this is one of THE FINEST examples of turntablism I have ever heard -- he knows that the way to us listeners' hearts is not to showboat his virtuosic skills, but instead to bow to the demands of the music itself.
This is an awesome record that is completely worth your money. As if that wasn't enough, it is purposely being sold directly from the label to retailers for the express purpose of keeping the price down and, according to the liner notes, "cutting out many of the redundant music-industry middle-men that traditionally add nothing to the art but are happy to pocket more than their fair share of the profit (biiiiaaaatch!)."
Look out! Toronto electro surgeon Lowfish (Gregory De Rocher of Suction Records, not to be confused with Berlin's DJ Highfish) rips out four new numbers for Detroit's premier electro dealers Ersatz Audio. Playful, bubbly hip-hop-electrofunk from the label you know and trust.
Second single from Chicago electro pimp Marlon Magas (he and wife / Metalux member Bridgette Wilson also run the squeaky clean underground electronic superstore Weekend Records And Soap!), formerly of no wave supergroup Lake Of Dracula and Detroit rawk legends Couch. Sad to say, the vocals are the weak spot here... and such a very weak, distracting spot it is! Remove them, and
The once hyper-prolific Markant entered the IDM / electronica community with a flurry of releases, which seemed to appear with almost monthly regularity. These vinyl only releases (now all out of print) were short albums or long singles each clocking in
My god these boys are prolific! Last week a live album with Fantomas, now a new not-at-all-"ambient"-despite-the-title studio full-length. And the past 3 or 4 years have seen just as many Melvins releases. If after 1999's disparate trilogy of The
MIMEO stands for Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra, a massive ensemble of European electronic musicians and improvisers that includes Keith Rowe, Phil Durrant, Kaffe Matthews, Jerome Noetinger, Gert-Jan Prins, Cor Fuhler, Thomas Lehn, Marcus Schmickler,
Drone Records -- run by Stefan Knappe of Troum and Maeror Tri -- exclusively produces seven inches mostly by emerging artists who specialize in expressive drone work (hence the label name). While there is something to be said for Drone's dedication to unknown artists, the work that comes from the ongoing series tends to be some of the best work from each of the artists' respective
Mnem's "Hypstatic Ground" is another fine entry from the ongoing Drone series. It appears that Mnem is a couple of Finnish guys who have been tinkering around with the mechanisms of old reel-to-reel tape machines, to build warbling compositions of collaged creaks, clatterings, and buzzes with all sorts of slow descents into rumbling noise and infernal rhythmic grindings. If Philip Jeck ever wanted to make a piece that was seething and angry and subtly brutal, it would probably sound like this. Limited to 250 copies.
One of the early filmworks from Mario Bava (best known for his horror flicks), Danger: Diabolik is a spectacular, unusual and campy romp of a movie. From 1967, it's an Italian comic book come to life complete with wonderfully mad leaps of logic, a bevy of
Having been released both in excerpt and complete form at various times in the past, the Mad God... label has decided to take a stab as well as part of their Celebrities At Their Worst series. The story goes that Bert Berns, who ran the label "Bang" on which
The new album by critically acclaimed folk singer Nina Nastasia ia brimming with lush instrumentation and pretty Lilith Fair folk vocals. Didn't strike me as anything really special, but I know that some people would absolutely love it. Touching and pretty, it
