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REVIEWS part 2
HAINES, D. "emo"
CD Sigma Editions (UK) 2001
The second CD on Sigma by David Haines is a much more sedate affair then the first. The music is dominated by long stretches of drifting ambient beauty, somewhere between the most floating aspects of Klaus Schulze and Brian Eno. Of the three pieces on here, only the second, "peak communism" comes close to some of the crazier moments of piano-madness featured on his first CD, and even then, the keyboard runs are submerged beneath a thick soup of reverbed ambience. The Kraut quotient is pushed highest on "gibralter", which is a gorgeous piece of floatage somewhere between Tangerine Dream's "Zeit" and the sacred air of early Popol Vuh. The 24-minute "kosciousko" is perhaps the highlight here, as it plunges the listener into a deep chasm of swirling echoes - the result is very dream-like and quite psychedelic. I miss the variety of Haines' debut, but this is flawlessly executed ambient music, especially for the kraut aficionados out there. I hope we can see other facets of Haines' talents on subsequent releases.
HAACK, Bruce "Electric Lucifer Book 2"
CD Normal Records (Germany) 2001
Bruce Haack's "Electric Lucifer" LP, from 1970 was a pioneering work of electronic pop music. On that LP, and on over a dozen other LPs released between 1963 and 1976 Haack made the most of his clunky homemade electronic instruments foreshadowing the work of everyone from the Residents to Giorgio Moroder. Haack's LPs are ostensibly children's records, so the simplicity of his tunes and methods find and echo in the later faux-naive work of Kraftwerk. This LP, an unreleased work from 1979 suffers from comparison to its late Seventies contemporaries. By the time these tunes were recorded, disco, funk and the new wave were using electronic sounds to create complex and sophisticated music. Next to a Wire, Heldon or Parliament record from that year, this collection of creepy electronic pop songs full of awkward clanging rhythms sounds 10 years behind the times. In fact, the mix of mechanized beats, spacy synthetic squiggles and lyrics like "I got the power to be the man of the hour" and "Stand up Lazarus time to get it on" are as disco as anything else made in 1979, but not half as well produced. He might have been born in Canada, but this music, down to it's religious subject matter is more "American trash" than "Pioneering Electronica". Except for a couple of songs this is definitely more for fans of incredibly strange music and novelty songs - and seen in that spirit I can appreciate its charms. "Just a song at twilight" is a highlight both melodically with it's sad, hymn-like pace, structurally with it's ambient intro and outro, and sonically, with the hissing ocean waves that open and repeat throughout. The broken-up vocoder chorus has a shimmering similar to Spacemen 3's more electronic material. "Gastronomicplentyfication" is the disco hit of 1979 that never was - at the speed of Amii Stewart's version of "Knock on Wood" it bounces along until the chorus growls out the nonsense lyrics. This track also features a nicely executed synth solo, but I'd rather read the lyrics:
"Hamburgers - Cheeseburgers - Pagan Pie
Corn-Fritters - Baby Sitters - Eastern Fry -
Dill Pickles - Kill Pickles - Onion Soup -
Table Legs - Hard Boiled Eggs -
Pu-Pu-Padhoup -"
All together now... The rest of the music on here conjures up the image of a crazed church organist getting freaky with a megaphone and the preset beats on his Yamaha. If you dig that idea then you'll dig this.
Contact: http://www.brucehaack.com/
HIGH LLAMAS "Buzzle Bee"
CD Drag City (USA) 2000
I've never been that interested in bands seeking to recreate the best moments of the Beach Boy's "Pet Sounds". That album strikes me as the sort of anomaly for which there is limited room for in my collection. And, I don't want to be a grouch, but I'd rather spend my lazy Sunday afternoons listening to "Madcap Laughs" or "Bryter Layter", or even "Autobahn". Whatever. This disc is another story. Certainly, there are moments where you just have to smile at the sheer cojones of a guy like Sean O'Hagan, passing of those chord progressions and melodies as his own. Some of the appropriations surpass Noel Gallagher levels - but we're not supposed to dwell on that too much. There are some almost hellishly catchy tunes on here - though Brian Wilson's wide-eyed innocence and charm is replaced by a sleazy repulsive charm worthy of someone like Jeff Koons. La la la la la la la la la la la - it kills me. Nice graphics.
Contact:
Drag City
P.O. Box 476867
Chicago, IL 60647
USA
HIM "New Features"
CD Bubble Core (USA) 2001
Doug Scharin's Him presents a new album of jazz-based music that touches on many genres. Him consists of Scharin on drums, Fred Erskin on bass, Carlos Cennamo on sax, and Josh LaRue on guitar - no programmed beats, no sequences. The album has a very "live band" feel, especially on the three tracks that open the CD. The sound this band creates on these cuts has a close contemporary analogue - the Chicago Underground Duo's straight blowing jazz underpinned by a strong rhythm section. The production on this beginning set of pieces is live and dry - everything sounds separated and equally balanced, as if the musicians were leisurely jamming right in front of you in your living room. Track 3 sounds startlingly like a slightly stiff mid 60s soul jazz session recreated in 2001. The dub touches that Scharin is known for finally arrive on track 4: echoed horns and guitar swim over a thick rubbery bass line and a propulsive reggae drum beat. From here the CD gets heavy and spacy - track 5 offers guitars awash with endless echo over spacy synth squiggles and a hypnotic fat bass line. Thick layers of echo liberally cake each instrument in the mix. The guitar sounds particularly fine in endless echo mode, as each cleanly plucked note drifts off echoing endlessly. The drums are so submerged that they merely suggest the rhythm - but it's quite a head-bobbing rhythm nonetheless. The final track, "Sea Level" seamlessly begins as the subliminal groove fades to total silence and the guitar line picks up a tasty bit of distortion. It's not "Go Ahead John" exactly but the spirit of Miles Davis does indeed hover over this piece. The stereo separation is especially reminiscent of Macero's work on those classic albums that I just can't get enough of. The groove that Scharin and co. pull together is a rich one, but proves again that whatever magic Miles' bands were able to lay down on tape between 1970 and 1975 is not easily replicated. Sure it's unfair to compare it to the best, but everything in this track, from the repetitive synth-like bass, to the syncopated drums, to the fuzz guitar seems to just lack that one final bit of oomph that could have pushed it over the edge into levels of greatness. At around the 6:30 minute mark, they come so close, so close indeed that I almost ran out of my house taking all my clothes off yelling "Miles lives!!"
Contact: thehouse@bubblecore.com
IFFY "Can O Cope"
12" Foodchain (USA) 2001
Iffy is a vocals/guitar/programming trio that plays edgy funk music with a retro-70s feel. If you don't believe me check out their website http://www.iffy.net/ for the evidence. The singer, KjustinJ, was once in Run Westy Run, a Minneapolis band I've got filed away in my Forced Exposure-addled brain in the "never got around to hearing them" chamber. This 12" presents remixes of the title track by funky/big beat kings Freddy Fresh and Q-Burns Abstract Message, as well as the album version of the song, also included on Iffy's debut LP, "Biota Bondo". "Can O Cope", the original song, is a faux-gritty slice of pale electric funk, slathered with generic soul horns and dipped in a bucket of southern blackness. The singer's voice has a frightening resemblance to the scratchy, blackface tones heard on Three Dog Night's frat party anthem "Mama Told Me not To Come". The mixes can't really rescue this song, but on his "dub remix" Q-Burns does manage to evoke the faintest ghost of Jaki Liebzeit (as heard on Can's later 'bad' albums) and construct a Howie B-ish groove that seems headed for a money-shot big-beat hook that never materializes. Freddy Fresh hides the song behind clunky mechanical rhythms and does indeed provide a breakbeat climax worthy of being used in a car commercial. So mark that as the most functional remix of the three. Q-Burns' other mix brings the organ keyboard up front, but otherwise I couldn't think of what else to say about it. I guess I'll never again look for those Run Westy Run cut-outs in the .25 cent bins. Ever.
ISOTOPE 217 "Who Stole The I Walkman"
CD Thrill Jockey (USA) 2000
Live Isotope 217 is a funky-ass party machine. The bass and drums interlock with a soulful precision that is more Meters than Tortoise. No joke. The sight of the bass player, with his plaid-shirted overgrown college-boy look laying down some monster rubbery basslines was more than a little shocking. On record, their attempts at getting down are less successful - the production and attitude of the music is very cerebral - all the sweat and grime has been carefully excised from every bass groove, drum kick and horn bleat. Whatever production "grunge" these tracks contain has more to do with Martin Hannett than Teo Macero. Full of greasy charm, the blend of tight grooves, electronic filigree and horn bleats imagines a soulful bar band for a non-existent road house somewhere between New Orleans and Chicago, a place where the jukebox houses rare groove sides and early 80s avant funk in equal proportions. Still, on record, forgetting their live prowess, there are some tight grooves on display here, accompanied by some melodic and warmly expressionistic horn playing.
Contact:
Thrill Jockey
P.O. Box 08038
Chicago, IL 60608
USA
KAISER, Jeff and DIAZ-INFANTE, Ernesto "Pith Balls and Inclined Planes"
CD Mentum (USA) 2000
8 tracks 45 minutes
Jeff Kaiser - Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Electronics Voice
DIaz Infante - Acoustic Guitar, Electronics Voice
Kaiser's straight melodic horn playing puts me in a Chicago Underground Duo mood. The electronics are subtle laptop/sample hijinks, but beyond that this is intense improv with lots of silences in-between the delicate carefully enunciated sounds. Track 5 is a bit on the freaky side, with the breathy trumpet getting a bit too ecstatic for my taste. Diaz-Infante's guitar playing is supremely abstract and difficult to pin-down - his quest for evading any sort of groove is worthy of Derek Bailey. Beyond that, and perhaps obliquely related to Bailey, I kept being reminded of the humor and virtuosity of an old Mothers of Invention record. In a recent Wire mag Bailey was told that, when played a record of Bailey improvising with other musicians, Frank Zappa said he could play everything those musicians were playing with one hand. Perhaps. This music is difficult to listen to in that the concentration and effort the players are putting into their music isn't (on the surface) entirely apparent to the listener. Getting back to Bailey, in that same Wire piece he wondered how people could listen to imrpov records without devoting them their undivided attention. Well, I certainly can't do it - my mind eventually wanders. My favorite piece on here is track 8, where Kaiser gurgles horn lines like a sleep-drunk jazzman at a turn of the century New Orleans cathouse while Diaz-Infante tries to prevent 50 cats from chewing up his guitar strings.
Contact:
Mentum
P.O. Box 1653
Ventura CA 93002
KID606 "GQ on the EQ"
CD Tigerbeat6 (USA) 2001
If you've seen Miguel perform lately you might have noticed that the Kid is not exactly a kid any more. Maybe he has just aged prematurely but it seems the slow descent into becoming Geezer606 is well under way, in spite of the gleaming braces adorning his teeth. The music on this disc, collected from a 10" on the 555 of Leeds label as well as various 7" and comp appearances also displays an older and much more subdued Kid, though, in spots, the swagger that powered (or, perhaps, over-powered) his Vinyl Communication CDs remains. The single most striking thing about the music on here is the spaciousness of the mix. His sound sources still retain an appealing roughness, and subtle layers of digital grime coat every single track, but the wall-of-noise "intelligent gabba" density of "Don't Sweat the Technics" has long since vanished. Kid606's music now resembles nothing less than a breakbeat-oriented Oval - layers of abstract dsp noise strangles melodies and grooves that never really manage to get "groovy" and dissipate into seconds of near silence before reappearing completely transformed. On "Dandy" Miguel comes close to matching the alien beauty of early Oval, blending skipping CD atmospherics with a sad little melody overpowered by (gentle) waves of fuzzy noise. Unlike the dour Oval, Miguel's music remains "free" and alive with the smart-ass spirit of American indie-rock. Most tracks are also "free" in the sense that they seem sketchy and improvised - "Ginza" in particular could be a 3 minute intro to a hardcore epic, with its combination of ambient party sounds and voices overlaid with the lightest synth stabs. The hardcore epic never materializes on that or on any other track on this disc. If you're after balls-to-the wall beat and noise mongering you'll have to track down the "Boy On Boy" split 7" (w/ Pisstank) on Wabana Gun Court. If you're seeking to unlock the mystery of Miguel's media-darling fabulousness this collection might be too patchy a place to start - the "Down With The Scene" CD, bridging Miguel's hardcore past with his laptop jockey present/future remains (to date) the definitive Kid606 statement.
KUCHARZ, Larry "Unit 28: Blue Motion"
CD International Audiochrome (USA) 2000
The pieces on this disc alternate between ambient tracks made of several lush, washes of angelic synths swimming around each other and Kucharz's pointillistic minimal compositions of speedy buzzing and rattling keyboard tones running in and out of phase. The synths have a rather unattractive tone to them, a bit cheap sounding and "generic" or preset, and the compositions aren't strong enough to transcend this. Some tracks achieve nice hallucinogenic effects (track 2 perhaps) where the patterns of tones seem to be doubling back in on themselves but the tinny keyboard sound is still too distracting. I much prefer Kucharz in his Techno Unit 30 mode.
Contact:
International Audiochrome, Inc.
P.O. Box 1068
Rye, NY 10580
E-mail: intaudiocr@aol.com
LALIBERTE, Mark "Pillowscenes - Soundworks 1996-1999"
CD Thinkbox (Canada) 2000
This CD includes a fat booklet full of texts and graphics from a performance piece by artist and composer Marl LaLiberte. The texts have a sense of artsy sophistication to them, but they clash with the rough and naive quality of the musical accompaniment. The arrangements are basically sets of loops triggered at odd (improvised live?) intervals. Some tracks achieve a dense mechanical feel, full off creaky echoes and ugly machine clanks - track 3 and track 11 for example sound like Asmus Tietchens or Dome without the subtlety, and with the same amount of hiss and cut-and-paste clicks you'd expect on a self-released industrial cassette from 1982. Track 16 is a rhythmic track of dubby "techno" overlaid with low-key sampled noise and female voices discussing the use of makeup. Track 19 a fine cut and paste funky abstract groove, like a Funki Porcini outtake. And on track 21 the woman's voice reading female body measurements is genuinely funny. Overall, there are too many tracks, and too many throwaway tracks, with too much cliched use "media overload" samples.
Contact:
Website: http://www.netcore.ca/~obscure/artist/a-1.html
E-mail: obscure@netcore.ca
LAPORTE, Jean-Francois "Mantra"
CD Metamkine (France) 2000
Since those earliest Mego records were they messed around with refrigerator sounds I've been spending a lot of time with my head next to the side of my fridge. That metallic humming sound is unstoppable - a deep gurgling drone I've always looked for in the best of Pan sonic, Hafler Trio, Stilluppsteypa and whoever else manages to get a similar sound on tape. Well I can stop searching now. This is it. This is the "drone" I've been looking for all my life. "Mantra" goes beyond Mego's fridge sounds - forget the refrigerator, Laporte kicks it up several notches by going after the sound of a cooling compressor at a whole goddamned hockey rink. Twenty-two minutes of gorgeous oscillating, stuttering, burping noise that, through it's simplicity, opens up a limitless world of mind-expanding possibilities. After reaching a peak early on in its duration and staying there for almost twenty minutes, the piece is topped off by an insane metallic rattling that brings it all home with a resonating hum as the machinery is shut down to silence. As soon as it is over I play it again. And again.
Contact:
Metamkine
50, Passage des Ateliers
38140 Rives
France
E-mail: metamkine@compuserve.com
LE FORBICI DI MANITU "Appy Pelly Loggy"
CD Moloko Plus 2001
This brief CD presents seven tracks of odd, "non-techno techno" machine music. The keyboard sounds are somewhat 80s sounding (Chris & Cosey?) with the addition of some more contemporary tingly touches but always with a slightly awkward touch. Like the music of Larry Kucharz this is "techno" coming in from another direction - it's not meant for the dancefloor, but some of these beats and sequences have been heard on the dancefloor before (sometimes as long ago as 15 years before) and their appearance on a non-dance record is somewhat puzzling. Some tracks pound away at a mechanical 4/4 house beat, others throw in some breakbeats but their palette of sounds is too disconcertingly familiar.
Contact: iperst@tin.it (artist)
LIBYTHTH
CD Phthalo (USA) 2001
This is a bizarre CD of off-kilter electronic pop music. Certain elements and sequences suggest variations on the themes of abstract techno, but other sound sources, structures and samples had me scratching my head and flashing back to an era when such electro-oddballs such as Renaldo and the Loaf, Tuxedomoon, Severed Heads and Yello graced us with their presence. Track 2 scrambles all those influences through a Mike Paradinas (ca In Pine Effect) blender of chirpy melodies into a dense, messy and fantastic piece of swirling, percolating music. With its mix of oompah synth stabs, roller rink organ and synthetic rhythms track 3 sounds like a Mexican marching band stumbling through a plink-plonking Germanic beer hall. This nutty CD is just perfect - it doesn't take itself too seriously, and yet manages to impress with it's carefully assembled chaos - tracks start, stop and start again with a self-confidence worthy of Steven Stapleton. Sean Cooper, the man responsible for this chaos blends accordions, acoustic guitars, mangled dance beats, scratchy violins, sped up cheesy synth samples and buzzing electronics with a quirky new wave flavor. I can't think of who else might be making music like this - imagine a nastier Mouse on Mars with a taste for abrasive lowbrow kitsch.
LIQUIDSPHERE "Skull & Bones"
CD Shambala Records (France) 2000
Every piece on this fantastic CD takes off from the same electrically charged noise pulse zone that I find so seductive in the music of Heldon, Pan sonic, Aube and pre-laptop Stilluppsteypa. This hypnotic CD is full of shimmering echoes and hypnotic gurgles, beautifully recorded, without beats, without bullshit. Each track progresses flawlessly through sound fields of cavernous echoes towards its inevitable conclusion. Sometimes a CD hits all the right spots for me so perfectly that I don't know what else to say about it. My obsession with feedback squeals, dentist drill drone haze-outs, and endlessly delayed bass loops has been satisfied for this month.
Contact:
Shambala Records
2, Rue Des Quinconces 93110
Rosny Du Bois
France
E-mail: shambalarec1@aol.com
LODE RUNNER
"On-Site"
Cassette Racing Room (UK) 2000
Delicate music full of tinkling noises, subtle use of echo and interpersed with gaps of enigmatic silence. Can't think of anything else to compare this to - there is something that makes me think of the abstract electronica of SND or Frank Brestchneider, but Lode Runner's working process seems to be much less synthetic. The use of non-effected guitar also makes this music stand out - the sounds have a stark feel - very well recorded and mixed. The compositions have a live or improvised feel, and therefore the rhythms and rhythmic loops have an off-kilter feel that is quite attractive. Ocasional use of what sounds like a minimal drum kit, as well as bass, guitar and marimba evoke the possibility that this might be a "real band" - some sort of minimal pop combo on a Ralph Records record that never was. The melodies that erupt amidst all the microscopic sounds are either wistful or cartoon-like but never less than memorable. Intriguing, and worth tracking down in spite of the cassette format.
Contact:
Racing Room
37 Egmont Rd
New Malden, Surrey, KT3 4AT, UK
MARANHA, David "Circunscrita"
CD Namskeio Records (Switzerland) 2000
This austerely packaged CD digipack informs us, almost in spite of itself, to "play loud". Nice to see Mr. Maranha and me are on the same page. Maranha, who composed all but 2 of the 11 pieces on here, plays violin and leads a small ensemble of guitar, harmonium, hammond organ, double bass and bass drum. The music is primal, almost primitively repetitive dirges that could be a lost Krautrock epic, or perhaps a Nanjo side-project on Japan's PSF label. The opening track is a sustained drone, with a heavy harmonium presence, presenting the listener with a swirling and impenetrable mass of strings, perhaps somewhat like the less melodramatic moments of Godspeed You Black Emperor!. Subsequent tracks throw in a bit of ritualistic rhythm provided by the bass drum, for a Third Ear Band feel, but still with more of a wall of sound approach aided by the organ and harmonium drones. Hypnotic and occasionally frightening minimal music that kicks up quite a racket.
Contact:
Namskeio Records
P.O. Box 409
1000 Lausanne 9
Switzerland
E-mail: namskeio@namskeio.com
MARTUSCIELLO, Maurizio "Unsettled Line"
3" CD Metamkine (France) 2000
I find it difficult to describe, let alone review this music - short snippets of sound appear and disappear in succession with a logic that is close to being random, though this being Metamkine we can be assured that it is most decidedly not. The sounds are delicate and scratchy, though they expand out into noisier zones without warning. Brief bits of noise explode out of the near-silent mix, adding to the air of confusion most musique concrete sound collage seems to induce in the listener. Like a French movie that ends just when you were beginning to think you knew were the plot was headed this CD comes to a close with a hiccupped burst of girlish laughter. Not an easy listen, and not a pleasurable listen - and I don't mean that in a bad way - a pop song is pleasurable - this is more complex. You don't read Wallace Stevens when you want to give your brain a rest. Likewise, you shouldn't play this as incidental music when you're looking for a little escapism. This CD demands concentration and work - sometimes I'm willing to play along and "work" and other times I isn't. You make the call.
Contact:
Metamkine
50, Passage des Ateliers
38140 Rives, France
E-mail: metamkine@compuserve.com
MATMOS / MOTION
Split 12" FatCat (UK) 2000
Matmos return on this split 12" with English newcomer Chris Coode, who records as Motion. Matmos's "Freak N' You" is a dense cutup dance track with a near-Autechre like feel for breaking up the club-ish groove that threatens to emerge. Crackling with digital fuzz, the boys dice up contemporary R&B samples over a stuttering house beat full of alternatingly sweaty and brainy energy. "Feeling Freaky", the raspy voiced soul man enthuses, as Daniel and M.C. drown his greasy booty call with abstract bass thumps and delicate noise. Nasty. "Rigged Seance" is a bizarre music box fantasy, and another pinnacle in this duo's spotless discography. Random bleeps, digital skips and a blast of opera can't derail this impressive anti-groove. The weirdness meter shifts into Faust/NWW/HNAS territory on this one - creaking crackling electroacoustic sound (aided by Jay Lesser fucking around with a CDR of Dave Pajo's guitar playing) spaciously mixed with plenty of silence and humor in-between. The record ends with what sounds like a theremin solo, but slowly reveals itself to be (and yeah, I'm just guessing here) a manipulated record of someone whistling. Turntablism indeed. Brilliant. Next to this madness, the sounds of Motion sound low-key and introverted. The opening piece is a glitchy track full of Ovalesque fragmented loops - quite beautifully mixed. "Motor Function Error" features shimmering echoes and guitar tones abstractly plucked or strummed, like a New Zealand axe-wrangler dueling with his/her own digital doppelganger. Sonically, Chris Coode presents a promising debut, but perhaps too earnest a match for Matmos, who are clearly following their own path through the glitch/electronica/post-whatever scenes.
MINIT "cc/bb"
12" Sigma Editions (UK) 2000
The always-reliable Sigma Editions label returns with another hypnotic bit of epic minimalism. The A side is a slowly evolving (or does it not evolve at all?) repeating tone-click loop. This music has definite wall-moving potential, as the minimal amount of change produces all sorts of time-lapse, mind-melting tricks. The loops slowly submerge into a deep ocean of bass, and the tracks ends as the clicks and pops coalesce into and achingly beautiful melody. An exhausting but rewarding journey. The B-side offers a floating organ-like drone flying with the same angel wings Klaus Schulze once used. The darkest Schulze is not a bad reference point, though with the addition of dubbed out far-away detonations. Again, either someone's leaning on the tape reel or time really is collapsing in on itself as I spin this flawless record.
MOTION "Pictures"
CD Motion (UK) 2001
Last seen on a FatCat split with Matmos, Englishman Chris Coode returns with a fairly stunning full-length effort. Motion's music is a perfect blend of subtle digital effects embellished by blurry melodies played in an abstract, but highly listenable way. There is a sadness and distance to all the pieces on this CD that made me think of someone like Arovane, though Motion's music remains resolutely beatless. Rhythms are provided by frail loops which melt effortlessly into oceans of hazy dsp sound. I must have not given Motion the attention he deserved on the split 12" because every piece here is on the same level as some of the best less aggressive members of the clicks and cuts set - Neina, SND, and Stilluppsteypa for example. The brief track "snapshots" is like a mix of the sort of melodies that powered Wunder's CD (on Karaoke Kalk) with the glitchy, stuttering beauty of Oval's most ambient moments. Beautiful without being precious, the melodies that float through the digital whistles and rumbles add a human dimension that the more stringent laptop jocks might sneer at, but works perfectly in the expert hands of Chris Coode. This CD is a limited edition of 500, so I suggest you act fast.
Contact:
Chris Coode
Motion
20 Riverside Close
Kingston, Surrey
KT1 2JF
UK
MR. VELCRO FASTENER
"Lucky Bastards Living Up North"
CD Statra Recordings (USA) 2001
Electro is like the 60's garage punk of electronic dance music - and if Mr. Velcro Fastener were a bunch of Sonics-quoting guitar slingers from Finland they'd be the star band on Estrus. Instead, their Kraftwerk-quoting ditties find their outlet on Brooklyn's Statra Recordings. What is there left to be said about electro? If you haven't acquired a taste for it's idiotic boom-chaka-boom charms then this disc will probably not change your mind. Like 60s garage this music is fun and funny, perhaps not always intentionally so, and more than a little bit stupid but it never fails to bring a smile to my face. Like garage punk, or like Tango, or Polka, the genre limitations can lead to a certain mind-numbing same-ness to the material, and in no way does this disc avoid that in spite of how well executed it might be. So be warned. Unlike Drexciya or Aux88, Mr. Velcro Fastener's attitude is more self-mockingly futuristic than grimly apocalyptic. Robo-centric as opposed to Afro-centric. Furthermore, Mr. V.F., a duo of Tatu Metsatahti and Tatu Peltonen try to vary the pace and mood of their tracks enough that the feel of an LP is held throughout. The track "Blue Screens" glitches things up a bit, as the beat slides under some shuffling stutters closer to Autechre that Aux 88. But then again, Autechre have always had an electro feel haven't they? My favorite piece on here is "Knot Three" a slower-paced menacing groove that deserved more than the 2:50 they allotted it. The epic 11+ minute "vector graphics" closes this disc in fine extended jam fashion - the groove is sustained deliciously and attains some sort of peak around the 10-minute mark. I give them bonus points just for the track titles "Realrobots", "Real Robots Don't Die" (how true!) and my favorite, "Robots 4 Life".
NOOSFERA / SLOW MOTION "Sloosfera"
CD Half Die Collective (Italy) 2000
A wonderful CD by these two Italian electronic outfits. The purity of sound, the minimal atmospherics and the clarity and rigor on display here is mighty impressive, and this is one monster of a CD. Noosfera (Cesare Marilungo) starts off the disc with a shimmering lysergic wet dream - shuddering, minimal electronics, with a distant clicking rhythm - implying a vast sense of space through slow motion echoes the likes of which I only rarely find on Aube, Heldon, Zero Gravity, Stillupsteypa and Pan sonic records. Noosfera's other tracks (1-5) feature guitars strummed in a user-friendly shoegazer style, over the same hypnotic electronics that power the opener. Track 3 whips out some hazy vocals, again very much in that mumbly blurry style so favored by Anglo outfits of the late 80s. It is amazing what Marilungo can do, as in track 4, with a few simple elements: guitar, looped percussion, and mountains of echo to build a stark mini-symphony - beautiful. This is what an ambient follow-up to Spacemen 3's "Playing With Fire" could have been - and I don't mean to say they sound dated in any way. Slow Motion is Alberto Pellegrino, Giovani Rosace, and Riccardo Cionni, and they take over on tracks 6 through 11. Their music starts off more on the crackle and glitch end of things but every subsequent track has the same guitar and electronics feel of Noosfera. Track 9 hits a perfect (and I mean it) blend of crackling hiss and guitar haze. There is more hazy, romantic goo slathered over this one cut than I can handle in one year's worth of music. I'll take it. Slow Motion's final track adds a shadowy hint of a house beat, though the result is as downtempo as house can possibly get. Again, the use of delicately echoed sounds is flawless. The final track is a collaboration between both outfits, and is composed of slightly harsher sounds than the preceding 11 - it feels like an improv, and could possibly be an indicator of what this music could sound like live - I wish I could have been there.
Contact:
E-mail: halfdiecollective@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.noosfera.com/
Website: http://www.slowmotion.it/
[N:Q] "Untitled"
CD Fibrr Records (France) 2000
This is one 58-minute track by Keith Rowe of the British ensemble AMM and three French musicians (Jean Chevalier, Christophe Harvard, and Julien Ottavi) working with electronics, prepared guitar, objects, percussion, reeds, and voice. It seems to be an exercise in structure, in this case arraying sound so that the density and volume follow a probability distribution function. It starts extremely softly, builds slowly to a high point somewhere past the midpoint of the disc, where the sound space is filled with a barrage of sax squeakings and electronic gruntings and twitterings worthy of a barnyard afflicted with the European Community farm disease of the month. From there the sound makes a gradual decline that mirrors the increase in the first half of the disc. Through the last four minutes of the disc there is a constant and extreme reduction in the variety, length, volume, and frequency of sounds. When I first listened to the disc, the beginning and the end blended into the ambient noise of the room I was in, reminding me of the infinite regression towards zero that is part of a probability distribution. Hearing this structure build over 58 minutes and the sounds themselves are moderately interesting. (David Maddox)
Contact: fibrr@canalv.com
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