Rewound 15

This post appeared on Igloomag.com in January 2010.

Okay; so I've been more than a little lax recently - hey, life intrudes sometimes on the life of a critic. But I'm here to make good, so what follows is a wrap-up of all of the records that have been sent to me in this last year that I just haven't had time to get around to yet. This blog-style synopsis took place in the span of two days and covers the following releases:

Rusuden :: Death By Din Sync (Soho Six)

V/A :: NOW Remixed (Underscan)

Lackluster :: Proof of Concept (Yuki Yaki)

Randomform :: carv.ec and Ono (Patpong)

Patron And Patron :: Gen (Nonine)

Tzii :: Rotten Friendship (V-atak)

Sqaramouche :: First Raw (Nonine)

Pepper and Bones :: One (Nonine)

Mobthrow :: Mutant Dubstep Vol. 3 (Spectraliquid)

Langer & Raabenstein :: Sourpuss (Nonine)

Datacrashrobot, 7appera7, Probes, and Wired (s/r)

:papercutz :: Lylac (Apegenine)

Fujako :: Landforms (Wordsound Digital)

10-20 :: 10-20 (Highpoint Lowlife)

Alec Empire :: Shivers (Eat Your Heart Out)

A Hawk and a Hacksaw :: D�livrance (Leaf)

Slowcream :: and (Nonine)

V/A :: XVI: Reflections on Classical Music (Nonine)

Belladonnakillz :: Sorry, Try Again (Dross:tik)

Nancy Elizabeth :: Wrought Iron (Leaf)

Halogen :: Baked (Maternity)

John Kameel Farah :: Unfolding (Dross:tik)

[7:47 am, December 29, 2009] First up - Rusuden's Death By Din Sync (Soho Six). This is a nice start to the day. Opening track "DMO" has a driving acid bassline that is perfect for starting the day with -- upbeat and slamming. I haven't paid much attention to acid artists in the last couple of years, thinking that maybe the acid sound had played itself out. Rusuden happily don't prove me wrong. And while this is retro in the extreme, it doesn't make it any less enjoyable. Using mostly vintage Roland gear, Rusuden understands the acid playbook.

[7:56 am] I have a bit of constructive criticism for Rusuden. Trim your track lengths. When working with a limited sonic palette (which acid certainly is), concise is better than sprawling. And many of the tracks on this record stretch way beyond when they should stop. Sometimes less is more; this is doubly true here.

[8:00 am] "Acid Abyss," track 3, reminds me of Clock DVA. The relentless beat with the acid handclaps, the darksynth bass loop, and the simple-simple-simple melody get my head nodding like Adi Newton's masterpiece Man-Amplified. All that's missing is the sample of someone discussing technology. Well done. This is the track I want playing in my head the next time I dream about a car chase.

[8:09 am] - "Tailpo," track 5. Here's the album's best track, and I think it's because it's under 3 minutes 30. Just enough to get me moving, get the head nodding, get the shoulders bouncing, and then out, over, done. Perfect. I think I've got the Rusuden m.o. down. And I like it. This isn't going to send me to the acid section of the record store to buy more, but I'm digging the old-school feel of Death By Din Sync. As anyone with experience with the genre will tell you, acid gets a little samey quite quickly, but for those minutes where it sounds new again, I suggest checking out this guy.

[8:16 am] Moving on to a collection of remixes called NOW Remixed and it's a collection of remixes (obviously) of artists on the Underscan label. I'm not familiar with the label. Googling ensues...

[8:23 am] Okay; so this album is a complete remix of an earlier label sampler. It's going to be hard to make some calls as far as artists go on this one, not having access to the original compilation. That being said, so far, Tammetoru's remix of Pytlik's "Atmachb" is pretty tasty - lush synthetics, interesting drum loops, vaguely psychedelic atmosphere. Based simply on this song, I know I'll check out both Pytlik and Tammetoru.

[8:29 am] The Bovaflux remix of Fibla's "International" is nice as well. There's nothing more to this track than a simple and compelling melody and a nice beat. Kind of like the minimalism of Tycho. Ooooh Tycho, I love you. Fibla's on the to-be-checked-out-later list as well. I'm digging this compilation so far.

[8:31 am] I've been jarred out of my reverie by the destructo-beats of the Scanner remix by Estonji. Typical Scanner melody is ruined by post-autechre/post-math digicrunch-beats. Not liking this at all, but only because I've heard so much of it before. I'm not saying that this sound is dead, there probably is room for innovation still, but stuff like this is tired.

[8:36 am] Slemper bring the funk! Or maybe Hungryghost put it in Slemper's framework. Hard to tell. "Dusdatikaf" (why not just call it "blmpfrzlstj" or "afgrchjzc"? Why not just bang on the keyboard for a track title? Come on people, "Untitled" works just fine. Track titles like this are getting to me as I get older) is a simple slab of 4/4 sex. My toe is tapping, my head is swaying, I'm typing in time to the beat, all at the same time. I'm feelin' it. Nice dub effects on top of the bass and drums, very psyched-out. Again, Slemper and Hungryghost go on the tbcol list.

[8:46 am] This too-short disc ends with Hecq taking on Frank Bretschneider's "Polaris". Excellent track, best on the disc - nice dark ambient intro, then a Brad Fidel-esque buildup straight from the soundtrack to The Terminator. Loving it.

[8:50 am] I'll say this about NOW Remixed. It makes me want to hear NOW right now.

[8:53 am] Smoke break. Back in a flash folks. It's way too cold outside to be out there for long.

[9:00 am] It's time for Lackluster's Proof of Concept (Yuki Yaki). I was a fan of Esa Ruoho's work back in the day, but I confess I've let him fall off my radar. At the time (early aughts), I put LL alongside Brothomstates and Funkstorung - the first wave of the post-Tri-Repetae diaspora. What a rich time for music back then - the doors were blown off the hinges and artists were streaming through.

[9:04 am] Lackluster have matured since then and Proof of Concept shows a newfound nimbleness in the programming, with a lot of different yet complimentary melodies competing for dominance. And it's kind of funky. Nice stuff so far. Opener "Montajoo" is great as well, a should-be anthem for someone, somewhere. Maybe me.

[9:12 am] Had to let the dogs out. Came back to the last minute of track 3, "rworbit," a nice piece of mid-90s IDM, my favourite. Pretty good so far, this EP.

[9:21 am] The twelve-minute epic "Meyouit" is consistently engaging, a lush piece with symphonic structure, a tasteful and lush accretion of details that sound like a house track slowed way down, or something that was once house music wrestled into an ambient house form. Excellent EP from LL, I'd definitely like to hear his next full-length. Recommended.

[9:30 am] That past me, back to something I hope is a bit more in-line with my tastes, two EP's from Randomform, carv.ec and Ono (Patpong).

[9:35 am] This does do too much for me. Randomform operate in a (I hate to keep using this term but it aptly applies) post-Autechre glitchbeat format, with atonal synth washes on top. Just not compelling anymore. I used to love stuff like this, really, but I'm past it and I wish the rest of the world would be too. I know I'm not describing this too well, but there are literally hundreds of Myspace artists doing stuff that sounds exactly like this. It isn't that they're not good at what they do, they're perfectly competent arrangers, but it is difficult to find new inspiration/innovation with Randomform.

[9:55 am] Patron and Patron's Gen (Nonine) starts.

[10:15 am] Got a phone call, so I took a break to make some coffee and talk. Opener "We Are Not Alone" isn't too promising, a glitch/ambient piece similar to "Rettic AC" on Chiastic Slide. It's thankfully short. Second track is better, a minimal groove, lots of small sounds making a nice little groove. It doesn't do much over the course of it's five minutes, but it's pleasant enough. We're off to a good start.

[10:25 am] P&P sound like what I wish the Kruder & Dorfmeister record will sound like if/when they get around to it. P&P keep things downtempo, blunted grooves and hazy atmospheres. There used to be a bar in Detroit that I was a big fan of, The Buddha Lounge (it isn't there anymore). There were these two DJ's, Erichinchman.com and Mr. Pickles that spun every Wednesday. And a small group of us would go there every week to hear them and drink ginger martinis. The two DJ's would occasionally spin sets of the classic downtempo stuff from the late 90's and early aughts. Anything I've heard so far would fit in with one of their sets. P&P so far have showed influence from K&D, Groove Armada, Fila Brazilia. Remember Quango records? This would be great on one of those early triphop compilations that they used to put out in the early 90's. No big surprises yet, not that I'm expecting a 90-degree turn or anything, just noting that the mood here is consistently smoky, something to paint the clouds in your headspace.

[10:45 am] Not much more to say about these guys, except that I'm really digging Gen. There are some nice surprises hidden in these tracks, and they bear close listening. I'll be searching out more from these guys.

[10:47 am] Changing up to Tzii's Rotten Friendship on V-atak. Interesting play on words there, as this is a remix record. And like NOW Remixed above, I don't have access to the originals so it's going to be hard to quantify who is contributing what. At the start, Planetadol's remix of "Teras Logos" is dark ambient in the vein of Paul Schutze's New Maps of Hell or Lustmord. This is apparently part of a package that includes a DVD of videos for each track. And while I don't have the DVD, I think it's great that the state of the CD-buying landscape has changed enough to now almost require something beyond just the music on a CD. Those little extras that you can't get by downloading the mp3s or the flacs. I sometimes feel gypped when I buy a CD and find minimal artwork, little to no information, etc. It is disappointing. So I applaud Tzii for going the extra step and including something more than just music.

[10:54 am] I think it's fair to say that Tzii isn't into happy hardcore. Umkra's remix of "The Pole" is straight up dark electro, menacing in the very best way. Add some solid metallic percussion and you're firmly in late-80's Wax Trax company, which is a fantastic place to be. As a sidenote, I've listened to a whole bunch of early WaxTrax stuff this year, and I find a lot of it is still fresh.

[11:04 am] A little dark ambient goes a long way. After two indistinguishable remixes of "Swamp Ritual," I'm ready for something new. The gutteral moans over dungeon-percussion just doesn't do it for me much anymore. Maybe there's some magic hidden later in the disc. I'm going to skip around a bit.

[11:10 am] I'm not finding too much here. Hop Frog's remix of "Go East" is kind of neat, in that it is based on east-asian instrumentation with some nice dub effects thrown in. As a result, the track wobbles on its way. On headphones, it's kind of disorienting in a good way. At least it's not dark ambient.

[11:17 am] Okay, enough. I like the record in parts, mainly the opening two tracks and "Go East." The rest seem to blend together, with little to distinguish themselves from each other. The two openers stand above because they're first, simply. I'd like to hear some of the original Tzii tracks just to see what they sound like unaltered. Interest peaked.

[11:19 am] Sqaramouche's First Raw (Nonine). For starters, I'm not a fan of the name, which is too clever by a quarter.

[11:23 am] Please make it stop. Stop sampling soul singers and putting them over half-baked and over-busy percussion. "Cincinatti Phoenix", you're guilty.

[11:29 am] Can't say I'm to impressed yet. Granted, it's only been 10 minutes, but with so much music out there, if you're not going to like it in 10 minutes, should you move on? Part of me says yes and part no. It's a personal decision, I guess. I myself don't have the time much anymore for music I'm not going crazy about, so my instinct is to move on. But I'm going to skip through and see if something catches my ear. So far, it's been mild to say the least, with half-formed hip-hop beats and inchoate melodies.

[11:31 am] Here come to vocals. Whoever it is on "Suck the Monkey" needs to learn how to either stay on the beat, or get off the beat skillfully. And if you're going to say something, actually say something. The lyrics here are a collection of standard rap tropes, nothing new.

[11:39 am] I'm still hanging with this record. There's something about the second half of it that reminds me of some of those early Global Communication 12-inchers. "Clean the Pipe" is really fetching, with a smeared little melody over some skittering early dnb drums, and it totally works. Feet are tapping, head and shoulders are swaying, and I'm back to typing to the beat again. And at 4:29, it's not long enough. Damn.

[11:46 am] The rest of this record is shaping up to be much better than the first. Melodies are more mature, beats are still simple but effective. The vocals kill any track that they appear on, but the instrumentals are kind of nice.

[11:48 am] Smoke break, then on to Pepper and Bones' One (Nonine).

[12:01 pm] This is cool. Slow tempo's so far, hazy atmospheres, all the keystones of trip-hop. "Marivin" has someone on vocals that perfectly apes the smoky throat of Serge Gainsbourg. Pepper and Bones aren't afraid to use acoustic textures as well, with piano and some very pretty guitar lines put to good use.

[12:07 pm] Hammond organ. Nice touch.

[12:15 pm] "Ginger" commits the crime of using the MacTalk voice as vocals. Inexcusable.

[12:20 pm] One is pleasant enough as background music, but it's not keeping my attention. If I had to call this anything, it's isolationist trip-hop in places, a slight bit poppier in others.

[12:42 pm] Lunch break.

[1:10 pm] And we're back. Mutant Dubstep Vol. 3 by Mobthrow (Spectraliquid). I'm not the biggest fan of dubstep, to be honest. Yeah, I get it, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. The Burial albums are okay, but how often do you listen to them for pleasure? Not much in my home. So this little five song taster might fit the bill.

[1:19 pm] Mobthrow are good, they sound like Scorn. Hey, I like Scorn. Ergo, I like this. Simple mathematics, actually. With a vicious atmosphere and slashing beats, this is decidedly more upbeat than the dubstep I've heard in the past. And far more interesting. The second track ("Breakstar") has a couple of different beat patterns going on and it's pretty constructive.

[1:23 pm] The press release calls this darkstep, and I guess that's as apt as any genre tag. Industrial in atmosphere, Mobthrow sound like they should do the backing tracks for the next Dalek record. Heavy bass (obviously) and cut up drum breaks are in abundance. And with a running time around 30 minutes, it doesn't get old. Well done!

[1:31 pm] Hey, that's a remix of Future Sound of London's "My Kingdom"! Nice!

[1:34 pm] We're up to Langer & Raabenstein's Sourpuss (Nonine). Hilarious opener, "Smack" with its samples of what could be an animal or some dude just screaming his head off... or it's a trumpet... perhaps all three? Follow-up "66 Angel Field" has the sound of a trumpet farting. Just blatting away. Hilarious to a point. Then some real trumpet kicks in and it's awesome. Acid Jazz to the max. Haven't heard anything like this in some time. Kind of like Ben Neill fronting Portishead. Nice change of pace.

[1:45 pm] Well again, the vocals kill it. It never fails. "Feud and Far Between" tells the tale of Glenda who stitched dicks on her pants. Dear sweet God, why? Who thought this was a good idea? The track itself is a nice little jazzer in the vein of MC 900 Ft. Jesus and it's got a great horn groove to it (the whole album does, so far), but damn if I'll ever play this track again because of those vocals. It's a shame.

[1:50 pm] Maybe I'm getting restless or have had too much coffee (three cups in 3 hours? your call), but what started out as being an interesting and different acid jazz record has become just another acid jazz record, and a reminder of why I don't listen to much acid jazz anymore. Not that I ever listened to that much to begin with, mind you, but still. Next.

[1:53 pm] Three EP's from Datacrashrobot, 7appera7, Probes, and Wired. Immediate reaction - minimal Funkstorung. That's not a bad thing.

[2:00 pm] Two tracks into 7appera7, and I'm really digging it. There's funk in these 1s and 0s.

[2:06 pm] I'll say this - Datacrashrobot is good at what he does. This is really nice, like groovy Autechre, crisp beats, a whole ton of layers actually, just really well put together. Incunabula is a major touchstone here. And I know I mention that record in almost every column, but the thing holds up and still sounds fresh, despite the leagues of wanna-be's. Some are better than others, Datacrashrobot certainly falls into that small group. Really aces so far.

[2:17 pm] Probes is great too - much more psychedelic than the above EP. Lots of echo effects, more of the same advanced rhythm programming and minor key melodics. Industrial house? The case could be made for that being an accurate genre tag.

[2:26 pm] Probes is really great. Fresh to the ears. Not a bad track on it. Touches of electro on "Signal Probe," and what headspace. This is made to be listened to on headphones.

[2:34 pm] Wired is much more industrial. So for a trilogy of EP's, this is great - lots of different styles that still have a singular, distinctive sound. So rare these days, to have an artist be able to do this so well. Industro-psyche-glitch? IPG? There's your shoebox to horn them into. Recommended.

[2:42 pm] :papercutz's Lylac (Apegenine). Firmly glitch-pop, gentle melodies and low-fi bedroom beats. Totally enjoyable. The singer sounds like Lisa Gerrard a little bit. Definitely a Liz Frazier/Cocteau Twins thing going on. Pop music from another century crossed with the most modern production techniques. Even the deliberately off-kilter "Caught in a Halo" is charming in its own way. The title track is all bells, really nice production, reminiscent of Oval's masterpiece Dok, but not as glitched out.

[3:00 pm] I'm enjoying this quite a bit, but it is starting to get a little samey at the halfway point. Not wanting to spoil my current like for these guys, I'm going to move on and keep the second half for another time. But recommended for fans of laptop pop with angelic vocals.

[3:03 pm] Fujako's Landforms (Wordsound Digital). Avant-garde hip-hop. Industrial soundscape on "Queda de Regoufe," sounds like what Muslimgauze was turning into near the end; or Dalek. Not a fan of the vocals, which waver between straight up rap and a poor crooning. I think they're shooting for something like a rap version of Sun Ra's Arkestra. I'm not so sure it's working. Kind of sounds, in places, like Kevin Martin's God project, with multiple horns blatting away on top of each other.

[3:06 pm] There's nothing about this record that ingratiates itself. It's deliberately repellent. And that's fine, I love some deliberately repellent records (hello, Sheer Hellish Miasma by Kevin Drumm). But this doesn't work as noise-hop, doesn't work as avant-hop, doesn't work in french ("Irradies").

[3:07 pm] 10-20's self-tltled debut (Highpoint Lowlife)

[3:15 pm] I'm hypnotized by this record. Lots of detail, very trance-inducing. Pulsing throbs of electro on "Nei" make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. And in what seems to be a theme of this column, the artists that are the most interesting are also the most industrial sounding. Which is strange because I haven't been listening to much industrial lately, and haven't followed the genre closely since Ministry started doing GWB concept albums and Skinny Puppy lost the plot. But this is pushing my industrial buttons, even though it's not in any way classicly "industrial" sounding - more of an industrial vibe. An attitude toward sounds used, if you will.

[3:27pm] I have one quibble with this album, and it's not about this music. It's the nonsense song titles. "jjuvxszla," "milvus," or the worst offender, "wdtrhjvelgrad." I mean come on. When you're making music for a relatively small audience, you're not going to get a lot of radio play with track titles like that. Global Communication did fine with making the track lengths the song titles on 76:14. It's not hard, people, to come up with song titles that aren't a bitch to type and impossible to say. That's just a middle-finger to people who listen to your records.

[3:30 pm] Rant over. Aside from that though, this album is pretty meaty - lots of great bass, exemplary production, good sense of atmosphere, etc. etc. Recommended for anyone with an ear for such.

[3:32 pm] Alec Empire's Shivers (Eat Your Heart Out).

[3:34 pm] Well, he's slowed down. The breakbeat hardcore that Empire made his name on isn't present here. Apprantly renouncing the sound in 2008, Empire now calls his stuff "The Sound of New Berlin." Whatever. It sounds to me like warmed-over rave-dustrial. And it works in some places, mostly when Empire keeps his mouth shut. Screaming "control drug" over and over and dropping f-bombs doesn't make you angry, it makes me angry. At you. But the beats are pleasingly slamming and full of energy.

[3:37 pm] Ooh, he's singing on "Shivers." That's unexpected, and it's pleasant in an Adi Newton/Ralf Hutter kind of way, half spoken half whispered. Easily the most mellow track I've heard from Empire ever. And I've been a fan of his early work (collected on the consistently excellent The Geist of Alec Empire) for at least a decade. A total change of pace and really cool. Never thought I'd say that about Alec Empire.

[3:45 pm] More strident vocals over kraft-rave synths. Empire's agit-prop was kind of interesting when he was in Atart Teenage Riot, but that was their thing. Splatter beats and hardcore guitars with preaching-to-the-choir screams. Now that he's moved on from that style of vocal delivery, his words sound almost completely ridiculous. Which is a shame because I don't think he's trying to parody himself (as much as that's possible) with his lyrics, but this is grade-school anti-establishment scribbling.

[3:47 pm] Spoken word vocal albums are kind of like comedy albums - they're only good for a couple of spins, not matter how great the laughs. Shivers is beginning to sound like that. There's only so much negativity that a person can reasonably take, and with things like they are now, is it worth it to just hector people for the sake of hectoring them? I'm not into it anymore.

[6:05 pm] I had to reboot the Mac and got locked out. Blech. I'm back in now, but my flow is interrupted. I'm calling it a day for now, more to come.

[December 31, 2009]

[9:11 am] Last day of the year, last day of this cursed decade. I'm so glad to see it go. I think there's a good soundtrack to the day today. Let's see what we have.

[9:12 am] A Hawk and a Hacksaw's D�livrance. This is a nice change of pace.

[9:27 am] Playing traditional folk instruments (accordion, bouzouki) at top speed, sounding like a cross between a greek wedding and A Fiddler on the Roof. Recorded in Budapest, the eastern European traditional influence is very prominent in the songwriting. Slow, almost funereal vocals float over a hyperactive fiddle and string section. And darn if it doesn't make me want to get up and dance in a circle with 20 people who speak a different language. Some of the parties I went to with my Polish ex-wife had bands like this and while it isn't my normal cup of tea (or igloomag's, for that matter), they were always great musicians and the crowds always went wild.

[9:31 am] I have to believe that shows from these guys are fantastic. There's a whole lot of energy in these performances, and a spirit of joy that comes through in each track.

[9:35 am] There are a couple of traditional songs here alongside some new compositions, and they blend together very well. Kind of like how Dead Can Dance would write in a madrigal style and do something that sounds completely authentic. A Hawk and a Hacksaw can do this in spades.

[9:44 am] I'm reminded of The Ukranians, and their EP of Smiths covers. Same kind of vibe here. Really great and unexpected.

[10:11 am] I've moved on to Slowcream's and (Nonine). Temtative orchestrations start the first track, "Pressure," and it sounds like a collection of cues that Michael Giacchino would do for Lost; very atmospheric and sinister like Univers Zero.

[10:13 am] Turns out Slowcream is an alias for Nonine recording artist Me Raabenstein (see below).

[10:23 am] Not a lot of electronics on this record, it sounds like. No problem. Modern composition is by turns invigorating and exasperating, usually the the oeuvre of each artist (take Xenakis, for example). Slowcream sound like they're doing the cliched "soundtrack for imaginary film," which usually means interesting fragments of songs, but no songs. Not the case here. Slowcream understand song form and are merely using classical instruments to achieve their sound.

[10:30 am] Each of these tracks is kind of long! And ultimately they're kind of samey over the 40 minutes of their duration. Not in a bad way, I just wish that this music had some kind of horror film or crime thriller to be used in, because this music would be better with visuals. Moving on to Me Raabenstein's Raabenstein_esk.

[10:42 am] So I'm trying to come up with some kind of identifying genre tag for Me Raabenstein, and I'm not coming up with anything. Parts of this album are very chill, others very IDM, some modern composition, kind of a mixed bag, really. And here, that's totally cool. I don't know much if anything about this artist and they keep surprising me with each track. "Island Patois" are these great Tom Middleton vibraphone lines, but underneath is a funky bubbling synth-cussion track that burbles along throughout, with this fantastically detailed echospace around it; very nice.

[10:56 am] One minor quibble with this record - again, the vocals. The spoken-word thing just isn't working. Nothing wrong with the tone of the voice or anything like that, it just spouts relative nonsense, and when the instrumental tracks are so compelling as they are here, they're just unnecessary.

[1:30 pm] Back from a break for lunch and year-end book selling. There's a nice diversity of style on this record, far more range than shown on the Slowcream disc. This is definitely more electronic, but also encompasses ambient, funk, and some glitch. It's a nice mix; Raabenstein knows what he's doing. The vocals, however, kill this record.

[1:38 pm] A compilation from Nonine, called XVI: Reflections on Classical Music. Pretty nice compilation from the looks of it with some mighty voices in the modern classical realm: Ryuicho Sakamoto, Gavin Bryars, Akira Rabelais, and Gas, among others. And the comp delivers just what it promises in its title. Some new takes on old-fashioned song structure, new expressions of tonality.

[1:43 pm] The Gas track, "Zauerburg iv" is a standout, as it must be. The project was so groundbreaking in bringing classical into electronica, that its inclusion was a foregone conclusion. What is unexpected, though, is the inclusion of the chamber pop of Final Fantasy, the track "He Poos Clouds" (nice imagery). It has all the trappings of an "art song," string arrangements and restrained vocals spouting goofy lyrics; it's a nice change of pace, and coming at about the halfway point of the album, re-engages your attention.

[1:46 pm] Philip Glass is also on here, an excerpt from his "Heroes" Symphony based on the David Bowie album. It's a fun listen, but kind of out of place here. I personally would have gone with something older from PG, like Einstein on the Beach or Music in Twelve Parts. But that's just me and this isn't my compilation.

[1:48 pm] Max Richter also has a beautiful track on here, "Arboretum." I can't recommend Richter's stuff high enough - he's a favourite as far as modern composition goes. His track here is not the best introduction to his work (that remains The Blue Notebooks), but it's good enough, with its changing moods and ghostly samba break in the middle.

[1:57 pm] Sorry, Try Again by Belladonnakillz (Dross:tik). This is a nice slab of electro-pop on the Dross:tik label. Infectious choruses, simple and memorable melodies, cool beats, nice vocal effects, it's great. Music like this is just fun. With the dour mood, grey skies, and general malaise over the city of Detroit, this is a refreshing diversion for me, and something that I'd like to hear in the new year, which holds much promise to be better than the last ten. This is a perfect soundtrack for that kind of hopefulness.

[2:07 pm] Track "B In Love" is really smooth, a simple two-note piano figure bounces along as Bella happily sings about (I assume) a girl. It's pop music of the highest order, and should be huge if there's any justice in this world.

[2:15 pm] So the obvious comparison for electronic pop music is The Postal Service, but BDK keep their grooves a little dirtier, a little more abrasive than Jimmy Tamborello did with Ben Gibbard. When "A OK" slips in a little hardcore drumbreak action, it totally fits into the melange of styles BDK appropriates in each track. This one reminds me of ABC, with DJ Surgeon doing all of the music. Or, if you'd like, what Venetian Snares might sound like on downers and with a singer. I'd check that out, and deep in your heart, you know that you would too. Sorry, Try Again is as close as we're going to get to that for now. And that's cool, because this is a great place to stop over for a while and recharge.

[2:23 pm] I'm going to put this record on tonight. Great upbeat party kind of vibe, and from beginning to end, it kind of sounds, if you're not paying close attention, like a great mixtape and not just a single artist. Well done.

[2:24 pm] Nancy Elizabeth's Wrought Iron (Leaf).

[2:28 pm] Nancy's got a nice voice, and her gentle arrangements of acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, and others is kind of captivating. Harmonies to rival the Beach Boys, and it sounds like it's just her, but multitracked.

[2:30 pm] Not a lot of variation on this record. Nancy sounds at times like Stina Nordenstam, at others kind of like Jewel or Tori Amos. I guess this is a folk record, albeit a lush and unique one. While it might not end up being something I reach for often, I know I'll be happy when I'm in the right mood to listen to this record. It's for sunny days.

[2:32 pm] Halogen's Baked (Maternity) begins with the sound of someone lighting up, a not-so-subtle clue as to where our heads are expected to be when we listen to this.

[2:44 pm] So far this is a nice piece of ambient-prog, kind of FSOL, kind of early Orb. Reminds me Skylab's #1 in that both are largely very ambient with song interludes. Same kind of vibe, early trip-hop lounge, major dub influence. It's good in the background or the front of your attention.

[2:51 pm] "Etik" is suitably psychedelic, its gentle Rhodes and tinfoil beat are mellow in the kindest way.

[3:04 pm] I've been letting this just play while doing some quick catching-up with the latest issue of Rolling Stone, and my attention keeps getting drawn back to this record. Halogen deals in the details, the tiny production bits that most people take for granted or bypass altogether, are here used so wonderfully. I say so in that Baked prompts a feeling of childlike wonder (the best kind) when listening to this record. Recommended. One of the tops for 2009.

[3:06 pm] John Kameel Farah's Unfolding (Dross:tik). This opens with a classical/avant-garde piano piece, and then rips deep into Acid Jazz territory, Farah's nimble piano style over some splattered drum'n bass... and then left curve back into some modern classical. This is all over the map.

[3:16 pm] Super wicked hardcore breakbeats in "Uprising," sounds like Miles Davis' fusion band with Dave Lombardo on drums. Excellent.

[3:25 pm] Farah has done something really intriguing to me, not being much of an Acid Jazz head. With his gorgeous and fluid piano playing as the base, he lets all number of sound effects and offkilter percussion run rampant through his compositions, giving it a feel not unlike, if you can imagine, Mr. Bungle as a jazz band. Just when I think I've got a track figured out there's a total change up to something even more amusing. Moments like this are very prevalent.

And that's it for this Rewound, for now.

The Orb - Baghdad Batteries (Orbsessions Vol. III)

This post appeared on Igloomag.com in January 2010.


I was very excited to hear about this - I'm a rabid Orb fan. I realize they made some mis-steps here and there, but lately there's been a return to the fun of the old Orb in the new Orb. I'm happy to say that this record completes their trip back to their roots that began on The Dream. Main Orbert Alex Patterson and Berliner Thomas Fehlmann have helmed the Orb's last decade at least, and they were starting to lose the plot. 2004's lazy Bicycles and Tricycles and the follow-up, the ill-advised dip into schaffel, Okie Dokie Its The Orb on Kompakt committed the crime of being flat out boring. This was unheard of for Paterson & co, they had, to this point, always been at least worth a listen (excepting maybe a couple of the badorb.com releases).

The Dream was something else. Jumpy and dubby with a gleeful sense of the old humour, The Dream was a return to form, to high points in Patterson's oeuvre like Orblivion and Live '93. It was the pop side of the Orb, the sunny afternoon on E. Baghdad Batteries completes the picture, being entirely instrumental and aimed directly into outer inner-space. Back are the spacescapes of Pomme Fritz and Orbus Terrarum. Back is the dancehall dub of U.F. Orb. This is more like a greatest hits album with all new tracks, each track echoing an earlier but not necessarily better corresponding track. Baghdad shows the other side of Orb, the hazy chill, a relaxed paranoia, if you will. Taken together, the two albums are a full update on all aspects of the Orb's muse.

Perhaps the best way to come to Baghdad Batteries is to start at the beginning. Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld comes out and, along with Chill Out by the KLF, invents ambient house. Full of grab-bag samples and minimal actual "music," Adventures contains everything the Orb would become in its two compact discs. U.F. Orb takes the kosmiche out of the equation and replaces it with Jamaican Dub. Smokers rejoice. Pommes Fritz shakes off the nigel hipsters who hopped on the bandwagon with its deliberately avant garde and "difficult" sound. Orbus Terrarum injected some emotion, and the Orb were at their peak. 1997's Oblvion and to a lesser extent 2001's Cydonia keep the spaceman/freak flag flying. But then they lost the plot a little, stopped innovating and chased the new sounds of the times instead of forging ahead like they had in the past. It was a critical time for them, because the musicians they influenced were past snapping at their heels and had moved into Orb's place in the pop consciousness.

I think that Patterson knew what was happening. I'm glad he found his muse again. The old, familiar atmosphere is everywhere. Consistently solid, The Orb are building on their previous album's successes. I raise my glass and my hopes that this new year, with all its promise, will bring another brilliant Orb record. Until then, this is just as good.

Baghdad Batteries (Orbsessions Volume III) is out now on Malicious Damage.

Vladislav Delay - Tummaa

Well, I'm confounded. I don't know what to make of this record. I've been a Delay fan almost since the start, in all of his guises (Luomo, Uusitalo, Conoco, Sistol, The Dolls, AGF/Delay, etc.) and this one is a totally different beast than anything else he's done. Attempting to move away from the sound the Vladislav Delay brand has come to signify, Tummaa focuses more on acoustic sounds, abandoning the glacial space-landscapes of Mutilla, Anima and even Whistleblower. But is this a good thing?

I'm thinking no. For an artist so pseudonym-friendly, and with each of his various guises being a specific sound, to put this album out under the Delay guise is a left curve. Luomo is known for the prog-house stuff, The Dolls are a downtempo/jazzy trio, Uusitalo is more of an electro sound. The pieces on Tummaa bear no resemblance to what has come before, and for that reason I wish that Sasu Ripatti had either put this out under his own name or under a new alias, but not as Vladislav Delay. Which brings up a point I'd like to get into - how much responsibility does an artist have to keep making records that sound like previous records?

As a fan, the expectation usually is that an artist, when releasing a new album, will do something similar to what they've done before, maybe with some progression, maybe a little change, but not a wholesale rethink. When I think of Vladislav Delay records, I want long tracks like the material on Entain, or The Four Quarters. That's what I expect. And while the Delay project has been moving into shorter forms (Demo(n)Tracks, Whistleblower), the sound was akin to what had come before. Now maybe Ripatti felt he had taken the project as far as it could go (Anima certainly seems like it, with its 60+ minute piece), and wanted to switch things up. But, I'll say it again, the instrumentation and compositional left curves of Tummaa are so far away from what this project has been that it almost feels like a betrayal of some sort.

I'm not against change-ups, don't get me wrong. When Orb dropped their dub sound on Pomme Fritz, I was right there with them. When Aphex moved into drill 'n bass territory on Hangable Auto Bulb, I drank the kool aid. When Ripatti wanted to do house music, I went along with it - that first Luomo record is amazing (although subsequent albums have been illustrations of the Law of Diminishing Returns). The acoustic textures here (sampled from live drumming from Ripatti, clarinet and saxophone from Lucio Capece, and piano from Craig Armstrong) are far removed from the out-there dub landscapes from previous albums, and it feels wrong.

Now as an artist, I think there should be free reign to explore one's muse, try new things, etc. I'm not against experimentation. So what I've been trying to deal with on this record is the question of whether or not I'd like this album more if it wasn't credited to Vladislav Delay? And I go back and forth on this. When Radiohead put out Kid A, and the indie press fell over themselves praising its daring electronic textures and "avant-garde" songwriting, my reaction was a slightly bemused "so what?" A thousand records that sound like that come out every year on tiny electronic labels, but no one hears them and therefore Kid A is "innovative" because it is Radiohead. Radiohead was known for a sound, and they switched it up and now apparently they're the best band ever or something. I'm not against the risks that they took in writing that record, but I was against it being called "new" because, for people paying attention, it clearly wasn't. When an artist is taking the risk of failure its usually at least worth listening to, even when it fails (hello, Bjork's Medulla).

So is this record a failure? Probably not, in the long run. While it is a total change in compositional techniques and sound sourcing, it kind of works some of the time (as on the title track). But Tummaa is merely adequate - not great, not terrible. It can be argued that an album that produces an indifferent reaction is a failure, at least on some level, and I can't disagree, but I'm haunted by the question of whether or not I'd like this record better had it been put out under a different alias.

Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy For Lilith

Where did this come from? An ambient album from Nurse with Wound in 1988 was an invigorating shock to the system. Soliloquy for Lilith was a complete turnaround from the kosmiche/noise that Steven Stapleton and crew had been coming up with. Six tracks, each roughly 20 minutes, one track per side of a triple-vinyl box set, each piece subtly different from the others, all with a quiet power to completely dominate the environment of wherever it is played. The mystery of the album lay in its unique sound source -- Stapleton merely looped a collection of effects pedals together and then found that by gesturing in the air around them, as if playing a Theremin, he could manipulate the tone generated by the electricity itself. What a wonderful discovery, and put to complete use here, as the possibilities in the setup are fully exploited over the course of two hours. Slow pulses in the lower register, similar to what Alan Lamb came up with in his high-tension wire recordings, complete with annular buzzes and high-end controlled feedback. It isn't far-fetched to see the roots of this album in the drone experiments of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, or Tangerine Dream's epic Zeit. Occupying a completely separate corner of the massive Nurse with Wound catalog, Soliloquy stands outside of genre, and in the right frame of mind, outside of time. An absolute classic.

Nurse With Wound / Current 93 - Nylon' Coverin' Body Smotherin'

This split release with Current 93 shows a newer side of Nurse with Wound, the side that involves vocals. Embracing people singing words and not just screaming or howling, head Nurse Steven Stapleton brings Jim "Foetus" Thirlwell into the fold to sing on the title track. Thirlwell, for his part, sounds like a rabid attack dog, spitting his words, sounding a lot like he does on earlier Foetus records. Lyrically, he's just above unintelligible, but as part of one of the most straightforward NWW tracks, with its pulsing organ and various noises punctuating the "groove," Thirlwell's contribution is immensely exciting. Incongruously, the Current 93 track "The Great in the Small" follows, a slow build-up of sparse hammering, chanting, and David Tibet saying and eventually screaming "Antichrist." It's a bit silly. "Chicken in Drag" rounds out the first half, credited as "a token Sylvie and Babs Ditty," a reference to a group of collaborators known as the Murray Fontana Orchestra that Stapleton would head up on The Sylvie and Babs High-Thigh Companion. The track here is based around samples from the theme to television's Dragnet, sped up and slowed down -- not that interesting. The remaining three tracks, all NWW, cover familiar ground in the early NWW catalog, suitably noisy and surreal, but not all that great, making this a somewhat minor footnote in the Nurse canon.

Nurse With Wound - Insect and Individual Silenced

Notorious in the vast Nurse with Wound catalog, Insect & Individual Silenced was so hated by its creator, Steven Stapleton, that the album went out of print and the master tapes were burned. Copies on auction sites went for beau coup dollars. Thankfully his mind was changed and the album finally made its digital debut in 2007 on Raash. Easily the most playful of early Nurse with Wound, Stapleton is joined by merry prankster Jim Thirlwell from Foetus and Trevor Reidy, who would go on to work with Danielle Dax and the Monochrome Set. Reidy plays drums, adding bizarre accents when and where he can, given the musical terrain, while Thirlwell's contribution consists of "playing" his amplifier by manipulating the jack-plugs and leads, generating unearthly buzzes and drones. As expected, Stapleton brings to the table many unidentifiable noisemakers, drones, bits of old records, and a playful sense of the psychedelic. Like many of the early NWW releases, Insect is more of an audio collage than an album of songs, each piece appearing improvised with a disregard for any type of song form. And that's not a criticism, it's what makes Stapleton's early work so unique, and in this case, fun. Reidy's loose and inventive kit-work on "Absent Old Queen Underfoot" consists of merely a snare and brushes, surrounded by a pastiche of kosmiche and John Cage from Stapleton. "Mutiles de Guerre," at a brief seven minutes, is like the early NWW efforts in a nutshell -- completely disorienting pitch-shifted screams mix with bizarre horn squalls, and howling feedback that eventually give way to a banjo and choir version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." More than other albums in the discography, it's hard to predict just what's going to come out of the speakers next, even after repeated listens. Recommended.

Nurse With Wound - Drunk With The Old Man of the Mountains

This release fills in some holes in the vast Nurse with Wound catalog, gathering up five stray tracks from the mid-'80s into a nice package for the collector. Some of the tracks have appeared on compact disc reissues (for example "Mourning Smile" appears on the CD reissue of Spiral Insana, but was not on the original release) that were all out of print at the time this was released. So that makes this a nice piece for the rabid collector, and also a good starting place for the inquisitive. As an album, the tracks work surprisingly well with each other and present a rounded, if difficult, view of what Nurse with Wound was capable of at the time. "Mourning Smile" is a relatively brief (just over five minutes) distillation of Steven Stapleton's unique ability to mix disparate elements (ghostly drone with ragtime piano and pipe organ) into a disorienting collage that keeps a close listener on his toes. "Swamp Rat" is a long exploration of drones working over a Neu! Motorik beat. "Sheela-Na-Gig" recalls some of the Penderecki music that was used as the score to The Shining. Broadly cinematic and avante-garde, Drunk with the Old Man of the Mountains resists easy categorization except as a NWW release. It couldn't have been made by anyone else.

Nurse With Wound - Ostranenie 1913

This release houses two slightly different versions of tracks from previous Nurse with Wound releases, "Ostranenie" from To the Quiet Men from a Tiny Girl, and "Dada" from Merzbild Schwet. Originally released on vinyl only, this has yet to make it to compact disc, and that's a real oversight, as this record brims with the kitchen-sink excitement of main Nurse Steven Stapleton's earliest, most exciting pieces. Collaborating with Current 93's David Tibet as well as John Fothergill and Jacques Berrocal, "Ostranenie" (the song) leans towards the isolationist ambient music that NWW pioneered in the early and mid-'80s. Eschewing any sense of melody or song structure, this 24-minute version aims for the heart of the void, with spectral whistles, found-sound recordings, context-less spoken word samples, and an impending sense of doom. It is nearly impossible to guess at the instrumentation used to create this kosmiche/psychedelic collage, in a good way. One of NWW's goals in the early days was disorientation, a shattering of preconceived notions, and on "Dada," they have certainly achieved it. Those not familiar with avant-garde or Dadaist music may have trouble even classifying this as music, but repeated deep listening reveals hidden connections between the disparate compositional elements Stapleton and company use to construct this soundworld. Unexpected silences abound among clattering metal, spoken word French from Crass member Eve Libertine, and primitive electronics. While hardly the place for beginners, Ostranenie 1913 is worth tracking down for those curious enough to have explored the NWW catalog and are intrigued by what they hear.

Autumn's Grey Solace - Over the Ocean

The duo of Erin Welton (vocals) and Scott Ferrell (everything else) avoids the "second album syndrome" with Over the Ocean, a sometimes excellent collection of ethereal dream pop that shows the band was right to sign with Projekt. As with most Projekt bands, Autumn's Grey Solace know how to make lush soundscapes that fully engage a listener's attention. Ferrell, with a dexterity rare for so-called shoegaze guitarists, layers his guitar sounds with an ear for detail and not just fuzz. Each track sounds like there are several guitars playing at the same time. And over Ferrell's workmanlike basslines and drums, Welton's airy voice soars and swoops, mingling the techniques of Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser and Cranes' Alison Shaw. The lyrics aren't always understandable, but their sound doesn't necessarily reflect the words, and the emotion comes out anyway. Welton is a very expressive singer, mixed at just the right level above the music, which never overpowers her voice, but complements her vocal strengths at every step. Very well done and recommended for any fan of shoegaze or dream pop.

The Notwist - Nook

The second album from the Notwist shows little evolution from the hard rock sound of their debut album, still sounding little like what they would transform into several years later with Shrink. Mixing songwriting similar to Swervedriver with the guitar angling of Dinosaur Jr., Notwist make an honest effort to stand out, but ultimately fail in light of the records they would start making after this one. Viewed this way, Nook is an enjoyable record, if not a fully successful one. For fans of Neon Golden, this sounds like an entirely different band. No electronics here, strictly drums and wires employed in as muscular a way as possible, as on the Helmet-sounding "Unsaid, Undone." With meatier production than their debut, the Notwist pummel their guitars and drums in search of majestic riffs and are mostly successful. There are a couple of tracks that miss their mark, but its probably around a 70/30 split in terms of success. If nothing else, Nook is as good an example of early-'90s alternative rock as any other, if a fairly generic one. Not recommended for fans of the band's later works, but probably one for the die-hard completist.

The Notwist - The Notwist

First things first -- while this is essentially the same band that made Neon Golden, the Notwist were, at their beginning, a hard rock/metal band. Very little of their later, more popular sound is present on this, their first album. So for fans who are working their way through the back catalog, be forewarned that this bears no resemblance to the band you like. Despite this, The Notwist stands on its own as a thrashy and punky record with flailing drums, fun singalongs, and screaming guitar solos. Opener "Is It Fear?" is the highlight, a throwback to the raw punk scree of the Ruts, with a chunky start-stop riff, barely intelligible singing, and straight-up muscle. "Bored" ups the ante by upping the tempo and adding some scream-along vocals. Overall, it's a fun record, if fairly generic. The bulk of the album passes with a few memorable hooks, but nothing that would make it stand out from other hard rock records that were being made in 1989. Recommended only for the super-hardcore Notwist fans.

Cipher - No Ordinary Man

Cipher are Theo Travis (soprano sax, alto flute, piano) and Dave Sturt (fretless bass, loop programming). No Ordinary Man, their second album, echoes Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land with its gentle ambient soundscapes and a slightly melancholic jazz feel. Sampling through various moods that evoke ideas of contemplation or meditation, the duo is joined at various times by Richard Barbieri and Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree. The atmospheres are mostly wordless throughout, with the notable exception of "Desert Song," a noir-ish phantasm featuring the gorgeous vocals of Rabbi Gaddy Zerbib. Travis expertly produces beguiling textures on his wind instruments, and Sturt provides subtle and moving foundations beneath. Best for quiet times, No Ordinary Man is an excellent starting point for this project, especially for people who come to Theo Travis via his Thread album with Robert Fripp.

Creamy Water Quiz :: Flojo, Loco y Enigmatico

I got passed a demo from this Michigan duo a couple of years ago and was quietly blown away by it. 70 minutes of nearly formless electronic improvisation done with live instruments (not laptops), mixed almost haphazardly and bursting with lo-fidelity, DIY, "just do it" spirit. Now, in 2009, comes the debut album, and it is a wonderful continuation of that same ethos.

For 53 minutes, Creamy Water Quiz (CWQ) push the envelopes of composition, appearing at times carefully structured and at others completely free-form. Mostly melodic but not in a memorable sense, the whole album works as a long suite, with individual pieces alternately flowing into one another and cutting into one another. What makes this album so fun though is the fearless sense of adventure it has. It sounds like the duo laid down some basic improv tracks (maybe keys or bass guitar), and then went nuts over them with whatever was at hand. Really fearless, this. Skipping across genres, CWQ touches on idm, electro-acoustic improv, music-concrete, dub, etc. Imagining what the sessions for this record were like brings to mind a brainstorming session where no idea was thrown out, but all of the ideas were good. Their motto, according to the label website, is "we make sounds until the tape runs out." How lovely, that they recorded this on tape.

This is easily on my top 10 for 2009.

Retic :: Somnolent Massive

Back in 2007, I praised Retic for their debut album, Saturn Day Trajectory for its tricky interleaving of keen beats and sly sine-wave bass with crackerjack melodies, and Somnolent Massive is more of the same wonderfulness.

Still evoking Boards of Canada but mixing in with some classic Rephlex / Braindance sounds ("Flippit"), Retic pushes his sound a tad further than before, coming back with a further distillation of his influences. Overall the album has a nice pastoral-IDM mood, but with a couple of detours (the 80s-Detroit sounding "Represent," the dnb drive of "Pushing Buttons") that keep the album fresh all the way through.

Equally focused on rhythm and melody, Somnolent Massive is a well-rounded "album" in the classic sense, not something that one would pick a couple of tracks to download. The whole thing is worth your time.

Seriously recommended.

SubtractiveLAD, Plastik Joy and Last Days

This latest crop of releases from n5md puts them near the top of my favorite indie labels. With a strong catalog featuring Lights Out Asia, Proem and Another Electronic Musician, they've been on their game since they started. But the label is really coming into its own now.

SubtraciveLAD's Where the Land Meets the Sky is an excellent nu-gaze record; a double-disc set of warm, fuzzy laptop melodies that bear the hallmarks of classic shoegaze (particularly Slowdive) but with better production than the average distorto-laptop musician (not naming names here). The record smoothly transitions from pastoral, late-period Flying Saucer Attack-style haze ("Away From Brightness") to blissed-out ambient pop ("The Slender Stem") that evokes Mark Van Hoen's solo work, all the while maintaining a warm, enveloping sound. Disc two of the set is given over to two long-form tracks, each over 20 minutes, that explore a rich seam of ambient not unlike Stars of the Lid - drumless soundscapes that evolve slowly and compellingly, with a forward motion revealed through intense, rewarding listening. Overall, its an embarrassment of riches, a fully-loaded album of excellence. More please.

Plastik Joy travels in the same direction as SubtractiveLAD, but pulls back on the fuzzy nu-gaze for a more minimalistic effect. Slipping an acoustic guitar into the mix is a nice touch, avoiding the folk-y tendencies of other artists who try the same. They're not afraid to mix the acoustic sounds with some glitch textures, and in "Hands," they find a nice combination of the two, a rare success to my ears. I thought for years that glitch was dead, but on this track Plastik Joy create a hybrid between .snd and Cranes, something that I've never heard before. Plastik Joy also have a keen ear for collaborators, using Sara K. Hellstrom and S. Kawasaki as expressive vocalists, their young-girl style adding another layer of nostalgia and warmth to the music. The other thing to mention about 3:03 is its playfulness. While their illbient-folk is as serious as can be in concept, it is readily apparent that the Icelandic/Italian duo don't take themselves too seriously. To wit, they have a song called "True Norwegian Black Metal" which is of course nothing like that, but makes for a chuckle or two. Much like SubtractiveLAD, more from Plastik Joy is most welcome.

Last Days' The Safety of the North is much more meditative than the other two in this batch, wearing their Godspeed You Black Emperor and Twine influences of their sleeves. Also evoking early Piano Magic, The Safety of the North sounds glacial and majestic, each track drowning in duende. Perfect for late night come-downs from evenings full of emotional turmoil. It sounds like a soundtrack to the months after your most devastating breakup, where time moves slow and little around you moves. That's a recommendation - this is music for when you need music the most - as something to mirror an emotional state, allowing you to recognize yourself in it. And that's rare, which makes a project like Last Days all the more valuable now.

All releases are out now on n5MD.

Harmonic 313 - When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence

Global Communications' resident wizard Mark Pritchard (Tom Middleton is GC's resident sorcerer) returns to us with a new album from a new alias (a shout out to Detroit and a play on one of the man's many aliases, Harmonic 33). The H33 project started as a lounge/exotica electronic project (and put out a couple of excellent EPs on Alphabet Zoo), morphed into a disappointing turn towards music concrete for one record on Warp (Music For Film, Television, and Radio), and now, with a slight number change, brings some serious funk to the decks. Only one problem -- he's forgotten his roots, and in the attempt to forge ahead, Pritchard has left behind his superb melodic sensibilities, or at least let his love of hip hop subsume them.

When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence finds Pritchard exploring Detroit-style hiphop, a genre I am largely ignorant of, on purpose. While Detroit may be the revered "home" of techno, the best electronic music is largely produced elsewhere. And if there is a hip hop scene in Detroit beyond Eminem, I don't have anywhere near the desire to earn the bona fides to speak about it with any authority. As such, the only approach that can be made to WHEMI is that of an outsider.

But I am armed with a knowledge of Mark Pritchard's previous work, work that I hold near and dear. I'm a Global Communications fanatic. I am one of those people that really does buy anything that has either Pritchard or Middleton's name on it. And I love 95% of it. This is the 5%. But why? What is it about this record that just does not resonate with me? I've been wrestling with this question for quite a while and still don't really have an answer beyond the idea that it just doesn't move me. The lush symphonics of GC (even their late-period house material), the dnb of Chaos & Julia Set, the blasted ambience of Pulusha, the Chicago-style house of Cosmos all get me going. Harmonic 313 though seems to sacrifice the melody for the funk, and it makes me tune out. But I can't give up on this record, because there are some real gems in the rough. There is almost too much chaff that needs to be cut through to get to the wheat that I can't be enthusiastic about this project.

I won't do a track-by-track breakdown (boring), but here's what I'm talking about. Opener "Dirtbox" consists of an 8-bit descending bassline with no groove to it all, video game noises placed counterpoint to the "melody" and some sparse raga toasting. That's it. At 4:29, it is too long. Maybe on a system with huge subs this would rock the place, but from where I sit, it just sounds like poorly mastered rumbling. "Cyclotron" follows with a hip-hop-by-numbers 4/4 beat and the laziest of basslines, with a modicum of fat synths on top. Maybe this would be better with an MC over it. I'm reminded, listening to it again, of the Dr. Octogon instrumental record from 1996: kind of neat, but incomplete. And Pritchard stretches this "track" again to the 4:30 mark, outstaying its welcome by at least half. "No Way Out" follows in the same vein. It's almost like Pritchard wanted to create an album of DJ tools, specifically for anonymous Myspace MCs to use as sample fodder. And if that was the intent, then he succeeded.

The more I write about this record the less I like it. The more I think about this record the less I like writing about it. Mark Pritchard is one of my heroes, who until this record, had really not done any wrong. But this album just seems unfinished and not up to the standards that he set for the first 16 years of his career. Sorry to say this, but Harmonic 313 is failing like the town it seems to honor.

When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence is out now on Warp.

Rewound Vol. 9 (Liveblog Style)

OK, so first things first -- the non-traditional formatting for this column is based on the absolutely STUPID decision to have a text file on my desktop called "Untitled," which contained long reviews of almost all of the records that are covered below. This file, again stupidly named "Untitled," was over-written by mistake, and the entirety of the column was lost. What you read below is a last-ditch attempt to get these records reviewed. I'm listening to all of this column's records one more time, blogging as I go.

[6:34 am, February 4, 2009] Starting Fun Is Near by Artifact Shore. "2 In 24" starts. Nice metallic, electro-punk vibe. Vocals come in around 1:00 and they're a deal-breaker. Not liking them at all. Kind of off-key, which can be cool if that's the point, but I don't get that feeling here. The bed is awesome, with grinding guitars and a relentless bass. Nice breakdown just before 2:00 mark. I'm tempted to pause the track to go get some breakfast from downstairs, but its WAY too early in this experiment to take a break. Facebook gets checked at the four minute mark, as the track fades.

[6:39 am] The title track, "Fun Is Near." Paradoxically, the vocals are way too low in the mix for my tastes on this track, which evokes mid period Flying Saucer Attack minus the deafening fuzz. Hard to pin a genre on this disc so far. No idea what is being sung about, as I'm not able to make out any of the words. The live drums are a nice touch. 2:30 into the track there's a double-speed bridge which is grabs my attention, but it doesn't last long enough for me to get enthusiastic about it. The double-speed bit appears around the four-minute mark to take the track home, and this time it makes a real impression. Very cool change-up, taking an almost pastoral ballad and thrashing it to pieces. Nice.

[6:44 am] Pausing to get a bowl of cereal.

[6:48 am] Okay, got my bowl of whatever with bran, and ready to proceed. Pressing play. "Insight and Action" is the track, and its probably my favorite on this EP. Sounds like an outtake from the Twin Peaks: Season Two soundtrack, with what sounds like an acoustic bass and twinkling piano. Really nice, smoky vibe on this one. Vocals come in shortly after the two-minute mark, and while they're way too far in the background again, this time it works. The bass picks up to match the vocal cadence and the drums and piano play catch up. Really cool. And just when it gets good, it ends. At four minutes, this track is too short! Twelve-inch extended remix, please!

[6:52 am] "Stupid Coma" doesn't lend itself to saying too much about it, except that the buried vocals continue, and this time they irritate. The lyrics that I can make out sound like they're an homage to Joy Division's "The Atrocity Exhibition." Weird. Whatever.

[6:55 am] "On the Banks of Black." Itunes shows the track title as "On the Banks or Black" which is incorrect. As this EP winds down, I'm taken with the idea that this CD wouldn't be out of place on Ghostly, and Artifact Shore wouldn't be out of place opening for a band like Midwest Product, if they were to tour. I think in that kind of context this record might take on a new resonance. As it stands, its an interesting but flawed mini-album. Problems seem to stem to the mixing of the record, not because of any of the music contained here-in. I'd rate this as a try-before-you-buy, but if you have an open ear, I think you'll end up buying.

[7:00 am] New record! Mandrake by Dif:Use. Somewhere I read that these are the guys from Funkstorung? Googling to confirm. Nope, it's the guys from Funckarma. Easy to mix up, I guess. This is their ambient project, according to their Myspace. Opening track, "Backsheesh" sounds like the first couple of minutes from a FSOL live broadcast back in the mid 90s, i.e., semi-random sounds coming together, melding into coherence, like an orchestra tuning up, kind of. First track is mixed into the next, "Felon."

[7:05 am] Yeah, this Dif:Use is really reminding me of FSOL, in a good way. Not "Papua New Guinea" FSOL (although that's fine), but the later, post Dead Cities FSOL where they kind of lost the plot a little but were still making really exciting electronic collages of sounds -- not music per se, but collisions of sounds. The emphasis here seems to be on the ambience -- a droning synth dominates "Felon," with plenty of attending squiggles and synth washes going on in the left and right channels. I'm liking it enough to do a quick google to see if they have other records.

[7:09 am] They do! I'm buying it. Thank you Discogs marketplace.

[7:13 am] Meanwhile, "Kaddish" has been playing in the background. I've kind of tuned it out while I was shopping there, but now that I'm paying full attention again, it scares me in a way that is hard to describe, but evokes the feeling of being three or four years old and totally convinced that something was moving under your bed. Actually, the track sounds like whatever is moving under the bed. There are a number of musical elements in this track that are operating against the others, and it makes this reviewer feel a little uneasy. And that's fine, I like being unsettled, but for enjoyment, this track ain't working. Skipping ahead at the 4:22 mark.

[7:16 am] The title track, "Mandrake." This isn't a disc to really break down track by track, as there aren't songs, but rather movements in a larger piece. I'm enjoying this one quite a bit - not to harp on a comparison, but this album really brings back those seat-of-the-pants feeling of those early FSOL broadcasts, or their ISDN album. You may not like every track, but you probably like the whole album. It's an important distinction. 4:28 into the track sounds like a Skinny Puppy sample, but damn if I can name the track.

[7:23 am] Just tried the headphones, and they are magic with this one. Really really nice. Headphone albums seem to be on the outs lately, for whatever reason, but Dif:Use have made a good one, and the ten-minute title track is great. In headphones it just swirls all around.

[7:30 am] Okay, I admit that the more abstract this album gets, the less I'm paying active attention. "Nectopod" is a very ambient track, and I'm wandering away from my duties here. This record, in my listening, gets played when I'm reading. And it is great for background to another task like that -- it's not an intrusive record by any means. It does get a little abrasive in this track, but I'm not complaining. Overall this is a nice little illbient record that evokes the futuristic atmospheres of FSOL and the drugged-out spaces of Skylab. I'm going to move on to the next record.

[7:39 am] Lowest Moments, a mixed compilation of tracks on the Low Res label, mixed by C64. This is a mash-up of 26 tracks from the excellent Low Res in Detroit, mixing sounds of hardcore breakbeat, industrial, and speed-glitch, touching most of the major releases from the label's first ten years in operation.

[7:46 am] In the first four tracks on this, C64 has brought together label head Adjust, Venetian Snares, Bombardier, and I:Gor, all easily identifiable as Low Res artists and all classics in their own rights. A record like Lowest Moments makes me want to immediately purchase the entire back catalog. I'm going to resist this time, but so far this album has been all gravy.

[7:49 am] The punishing breaks at the end of I:Gor's "Happy Mechanical Unit" lead directly to the vacuum cleaner-bass tone and overdriven snare of Kamphetamine's "Exorcism Threshold," and early classic from Low Res sub-label Division 13. This goes into the mighty "Forsaken" from underground power-star Abelcain, one of my personal favourite Low Res artists.

[7:58 am] Starting to feel a little fatigued, like maybe I should have slept a little bit later into the morning. C'est la vie. C64 is on the decks and I'm getting jolted out of my stupor with this disc. Really digging how C64 manages the mood and tempo in his track selections and mixing. Like all good DJ's, he knows when to take it down a notch or two and when to crash the faders all the way up and blow everything out. Really expert control of the vinyl here. Currently on the Adjust remix of Delien's "Aon." Delien always reminded me of what Skinny Puppy should have turned into after Last Rights, instead of what they became on The Process. They should have kept it digital. Adjust remixes their track sympathetical to that. And C64 takes it to the next level by seamlessly mixing it with Tarmvred's "Oskulden." Not 10 tracks into this CD and we're hitting all the right high notes in the Low Res catalog. Other artists included in this mix are Davros, Theeq, Ubergang, Cdatakill, and Kero. All excellent on their own (Davros, especially), here they become the ultimate hardcore DJ party. This disc could be 12 hours long and it would keep me moving.

[8:22 am] Really not much more to say about this album that wouldn't be repetitive, but C64 is in top form using the Low Res catalog as building blocks for Lowest Moments. There is a superb mastery of mood and tempo that wouldn't be as effective should the same tracks be used in the same fashion for another mix by another mixer. Low Res is one of the best underground labels going, and a true shining star for the city of Detroit - an innovative underdog that takes what the city gives and spins it into genius.

[8:27 am] Moving on, to Podington Bear's The End. I had some choice words and a rant in the original column about PB, and while I'm not going to try to recreate it here, I'll say that this whole PB project just rubs me the wrong way. The idea was for PB to put out three tracks a week for a year. And he mostly made it, but at the expense of quality over quantity.

[8:32 am] Okay, so I haven't created 156 tracks in one year, far far from it. But I know what's good and what isn't (or more accurately what I like and what I don't like), and this isn't good. The End is filled with stock sounds and lazy beats, maintaining a mid-tempo "whimsicality" throughout. Maybe its just me, or maybe its this economy, but I'd rather get 12 excellent tracks than 156 okay ones. But The End, being the final CD in the PB box set (which captures 10 of the 13 albums released in 2007) just sounds like there was writer's block going on and this was the attempt to fight through it. The days of putting out what you do as soon as you do it should be coming to an end. NOW.

[8:36 am] Now, we're cooking with gasoline. Next up is tKatKa's self-titled debut, and its a real corker. I've been listening to this record for a long time and I'm really into it. This is a duo from London who apparently really vibed off of classic ambient electronica (early to mid 90s variant) like Orb, FSOL, early Autechre, etc.

[8:46 am] I just realized I'm listening to this record on shuffle. Damn, it works anyway. I love the Orb-like vibe of seemingly random sounds against a firm synth, with some nice drums and breaks interspersed. This record really hits all of my musical pleasure centers. There's a playful atmosphere on some of these tracks that juxtaposes with a creeping sense of dread in each track. It really keeps me off balance and therefore focuses my attention on it. Early single and opening track "LazersLab" is a great example of what I'm talking about.

[8:51 am] My energy is starting to flag. Need some protein. Nothing like some vegetable juice and a hardboiled egg. "E.L.D.A.C." provides a great soundtrack to peeling the eggshell. Its got a great headnodding bass, bouncy synths and a filter-swept synth to die for. If every record I review could be this great the music industry would not be in the sorry state it is. I sincerely hope that tKatKa makes huge bank off this record.

[9:07 am] Had to take an unplanned break to investigate a noise from the kitchen (nothing serious), but I'm back with "Storm Proof Weather," the most FSOL-esque track on the record. It sounds like a rainstorm with keyboard accompaniment, and at roughly four minutes, its way too short. "(It's Just a) Molecule," the follow-up track, is also just too short at 4 minutes. It's hard to put into words just what it is about these guys that makes me flip out over this record and want moremoremore of it, but they have that thing, that spark that inspired Alex Patterson, Sean Booth, Darren Emerson, Phil Hartnoll, and Garry Cobain. If you're a fan of any of those people, you'll find plenty to love from tKatKa.

[9:16 am] Moving on, I'm tackling the double disc from Yaporigami, Saryu Sarva. I've had a lot of trouble with this album this past year, perhaps not because of the music it contains, but because there's so much of it. The second disc in this set is a track-for-track remix, and its completely useless. But I'll get to that.

[9:18 am] Opener "thirteen" sounds like an outtake from Drukqs, with toybox melodies and drill 'n bass drums. Bleh. This style of music is over. Nothing new. Aphex killed it years ago. "Ame" is more like it, but still this is incredibly derivative stuff, this time aping Tri Repetae-era Autechre. And that's cool, I've gone on and on above about how records sound like other records, but Yaporigami is missing more than hitting here.

[9:23 am] "Nomad," track three, might be my favourite track of the set. There's a really nice minor key melody that keeps getting pushed to the next level by this deep, surging bass tone that gets right to the edge of sounding like a synthfart but pulls back at the last moment. I don't think you could dance to this track, but its a nice uptempo piece that makes me think that maybe if this mammoth set had been cut down to an EP, it would be totally killer with no filler.

[9:29 am] I miss Merck records. Yaporigami makes me think of Merck records.

[9:41 am] Halfway through this record and I'm tired of listening to it. There's too much here, too much in each track, and the totality of the 30 tracks on this double disc set makes me whimper in despair. I can't get through this disc. Suffice to say that the remixers are mostly anonymous to me (exceptions being TRS-80, COH, Jimmy Edgar, and Machinedrum), and all keep the same basic template that Yapo sets forth. If you're one of those holdouts that still clutches your Hangable Auto Bulb 2 to your chest, this is probably right up your alley. The downtempo tracks on this record are pretty good, but the faster, drill-type stuff really grates on me. I think this kind of music has reached its end and artists still doing it are spinning their wheels.

[9:44 am] One final note about the Yaporigami record. The label, Symbolic Interaction, has put out some fantastic stuff and its a label I keep my eye on. I don't want to slag the label for this record, but don't let this one put you off other entries in the SI catalog. They're one of Japan's finest indie/underground labels.

[9:45 am] Break. Gotta rest the ears for a bit. It's been 3 hours since I started writing this.

[10:04 am] Ready for the final stretch. We start with Erdem Helvacioglu's Altered Realities. This whole record was recorded real-time with an acoustic guitar and "live electronics." "Bridge to Horizon" starts things off nicely, establishing an ambient/post-rock vibe that continues through the entire album. Hard to tell what sounds on this track aren't manipulated, but aside from what is obviously an acoustic guitar plucking an engaging melody, whatever else is making the various drones in the background is up for grabs. I can't tell. And I LOVE that I can't tell. Sourceless sounds are fantastic. As a side note, there's a record called Nothing by System Error, where all of the sounds are sourced from a no-input mixer. And it's nowhere near as glitchy as you'd think it would be. Check it out.

[10:10 am] Because of the very nature of this record, it starts to sound a little samey way too soon for my tastes. Second track "Sliding on a Glacier" again has an acoustic guitar playing an engaging melody, over which is laid some electronic soundtrickery. The liner notes say that Erdem used Audiomulch. I'm not familiar with the software, but if I was a drone artist, I'd use it. There's some seriously messed up sounds on this record, sounds that I can't recall hearing before.

[10:16 am] Okay, "Sliding on a Glacier" makes me feel like I'm falling over, even though I'm sitting down.

[10:22 am] "Frozen Resophonic" is ending and I'm starting to weary of this record. Using the same tonal palate throughout doesn't work for me -- I need a little variation. Sorry, Erdem, you're not making the cut. You'd make a nice EP, but an entire album of this stuff just doesn't work, even as background music.

1765 image 7 [10:24 am] Okay, the final entry in this experiment, TerrorKnowledgeAction from tKatKa. I split this record off from the debut because there was a significant amount of time that had passed between when I received the debut and when I received this, and I didn't want to combine them, because they sound like they're from different groups. Terror has tKatKa using (overusing) electric guitar, the instrument that ruined industrial music and made Boards of Canada boring. tKatKa were great on their first record and not that great on this one. Opener "Global Fascist State" grabs the attention with the looped guitar and a pulsing bass, but it doesn't go anywhere except around and around for an interminable 4:15 that seems easily twice as long.

[10:30 am] "Grief Hijackers - Tom Hickox Vs. tKatKa" is up next and if I could un-hear this track I would. There are vocals on this track, and vocals are fine, but in this case, whoever is singing just makes me want to listen to Underworld, they sound so similar to Karl Hyde. Some bands are able to ape another and make it their own, and some aren't. Why listen to a band that sounds like Underworld, when you could be listening to Underworld?

[10:42 am] Midway through the record and "Lullabize" is failing to make much of an impression over the course of its three minutes, with the exception that the white noise sound they layer over the whole track makes me want to turn it off. Which I'll do right now. I'm grateful for the skip button. "Kamikaze" follows with 1990 rave-synths and torpid beats. What happened to the band that made the first record? That one was fantastic, but this one is just derivative and boring. Whereas their self-titled was able to transcend its influences, this one is not. Sorry fellas, go back to what you were doing before, because this just isn't working.

[10:48 am] This isn't working for me at all. TerrorKnowledgeAction is making me think that tKatKa has lost the plot, and will unfortunately be resigned to that pile of artists that made only one great album. I sincerely hope not, but they need to make a change against what they've done here. Using guitar is one thing, but its ruined more bands than its saved. Singing is cool too, but develop a style that isn't the monotone chant that Karl Hyde does so well with Underworld. The one thing an album should never do is make me think that I'd be better off listening to another record, and TKA does that every second. I'll take their first one over this one any day.

[10:53 am] That's it for this Rewound. I promise to not do it like this again.