what's that noise ???!

Deep Freeze Mice - My Geraniums Are Bulletproof (1979)

wre — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:20:07 GMT

Do-it-yourself post-punk band the Deep Freeze Mice released ten records in their decade-long existence, beginning as amateurs with no formal knowledge of what they were embarking on. The original lineup -- guitarist/vocalist Alan Jenkins, bassist Mick Bunnage (of the Statics), keyboardist Sherree Lawrence, and drummer Graham Summers (also of the Statics) -- stayed intact until the release of the band's third record, The Gates of Lunch. After the departure of Summers and the acquisition of replacement Pete Gregory, the lineup remained until their breakup in 1989. Leader Jenkins (who was also involved with the Chrysanthemums and Ruth's Refrigerator during the existence of his primary band) continued afterwards in the Creams and the Thurston Lava Tube. All of Deep Freeze Mice's records were released in small quantities through the band's labels, Mole Embalming and Cordelia. (AMG)

Blonde Redhead - Blonde Redhead (1995)

wre — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:32:48 GMT

Recalling the no wave movement of the late '70s, the self-titled debut of New York City's Blonde Redhead is a glorious piece of dense, art-damaged noise, with songs that move from drifting melodicism to raging aural assaults in the course of a few measures. Taking their cues most directly from Sonic Youth (Steve Shelley produced the album), Blonde Redhead revel in noise and create vast sonic landscapes out of which songs naturally emerge. The focus here tends to be on atmospherics, and yet there is never the feeling of utter chaos; instead, the album functions like a work of controlled mayhem, referencing a wide range of musical approaches. The opening track, "I Don't Want U," starts off like jazz-rock, building momentum until it erupts in a blast of indie rock noise, anchored throughout by a steadily rolling bassline. "Snippet"'s quite-loud-quiet dynamics are offset by the driving rock of "Mama Cita," and the album's closer, "Girl Boy," comes across like delirious dream pop. The entire album is drenched in dense, multilayered feedback, with a rhythm section that works to keep the guitars in control, underpinning the attack. Blonde Redhead have created a great record, especially for fans of experimental rock: difficult, noisy, and exhilarating. (AMG)

Ruth's Refrigerator - Suddenly a Disfigured Head Parachuted (1991)

wre — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:09:23 GMT

Ruth's Refrigerator was a short-lived collaboration between Leicester, England-based neo-psychedelic guitarist/songwriter Alan Jenkins (formerly of the Deep Freeze Mice and the Chrysanthemums) and the British indie pop band Po! (not to be confused with American alt-rockers P'o). The members were Jenkins, namesake singer/guitarist Ruth Miller, keyboardist Blodwyn P. Teabag (whom Jenkins later married), bassist Terri Lowe, and drummer Robyn Gibson. Ruth's Refrigerator released two fine albums' worth of jangly psych-pop, 1990s Suddenly a Disfigured Head Parachuted and 1991's A Lizard Is a Submarine on Grass, but was never meant to be a full-time project. Miller and Lowe returned to Po!, and Jenkins, Teabag, and Gibson went on to form the Creams.

The first of the two Ruth's Refrigerator albums is the stronger of the pair. Ruth Miller's artless (and occasionally pitch-poor) vocals are quintessential early-'90s British indie pop, and they fit the rough-edged (but never quite sloppy) songs perfectly. The songs, mostly by guitarist Alan Jenkins but with contributions from all five members and one cover, a shambling take on the Zombies' "She's Not There," are psychedelia-tinged guitar pop with occasional glimpses at something stranger, like the impenetrable "Gro Haarlem Bruntland Wants Some Fish" and the minute-long instrumental fragment "Examine the Insects and Hit Them." It occasionally seems a bit too deliberately oblique, and there are a few moments of self-indulgence, like the lengthy psychedelic jam that takes up most of the seven-and-a-half-minute "Fish in the Air/Birds in the Sea," but even that song has a memorable melody and some smile-inducing lyrics. Very nice stuff, if slightly twee British indie pop is your taste. The CD edition adds five tracks, including alternate takes of the album's two best songs, "The Red Queen" and "Hello Anne of Green Poplars," and a Bevis Frond-like psychedelic rave-up, "I Am Big Chief Luxembourg." (AMG)

Erza Furman & The Harpoons - Banging Down The Doors (2006)

LARM — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:38:09 GMT

Every few years or so, an artist is hailed as the next Bob Dylan and 99 times out of 100 it's a preposterous and completely unjust comparison. That said, the confessional commentary and whimsical stream of conscious narratives that Ezra Furman spews forth on Banging Down the Doors could have been taken straight out of a textbook of Dylanology 101. But the key factor that makes Furman stand out from many of the other Zimmerman wannabes and upcoming indie folk revivalists is a unique personality and a childlike innocence that shine through and make him easily relatable. It's similar to the "pal factor" that Jonathan Richman had fronting the Modern Lovers and that Gordon Gano had in the Violent Femmes. Furman connects to his audience intimately, like a friend who is casually baring his soul, and delivers literal references and abstract theories without a hint of pretension. Furman has a whole lot of heart and deeply means whatever he says, no matter how strange the situation. In one instance, he tries to talk God (who, in this case, is a middle-aged woman with planets for earrings) out of marrying "some stupid guy" that she is settling for because she's not getting any younger. In another, he sings from the perspective of a bloodthirsty wolf that falls in love with a shepherd and desperately longs to change his ways, despite his intrinsically violent nature and ends his last verse with an agonizing howl. Furman's enthusiastic delivery can sometimes distract from the merits of the prose as he yelps with an unnerving urgency, shifting between awkward, quirky, and playful and straining his voice to a grating frequency that earns comparisons to Alec Ounsworth from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. It's an acquired taste, and something that will likely overwhelm a lot of the audience's eardrums, which is unfortunate, because it becomes abundantly clear that his intention is not to alienate anyone, but just the contrary as he screams, "this is only our first record, I want you to love me!" Whether he's singing from his personal perspective, as in the lucid "She's All I Got Left," or tells stories riddled in metaphors in "My Soul Has Escaped from My Body," the themes always feel accessible and the tunes are the type that reward with repeated listens. The Harpoons do a great job of keeping the accompaniment simple and Furman, well, even if he's not the first to try and emulate an iconic folk legend, he's one of the rare few authentic poets to do it so well.

Travis Morrison - Travistan (2004)

illuminaut — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:22:06 GMT

Much like ex-Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, former Dismemberment Plan lead singer Travis Morrison faces the daunting task of detaching himself from the large shadow his juggernaut band cast over the indie rock community. Free from the democratic constraints the Plan imposed upon him, Morrison presents a far more eclectic side of himself than seen on any record prior, and the results were heavily foreshadowed via mp3s on his website during Travistan's production phase. Nevertheless, Plan loyalists are almost guaranteed to scrutinize this album from start to finish, deconstructing it on a microscopic level with a magnifying glass to find any possible reason to complain why Morrison and company called it a day far too soon.

The immediate thing that comes through on Travistan that was missing on some of the Plan records is that Morrison sounds like he's having fun experimenting with new sounds and textures (check the Joe Jackson-esque piano playing on "The Word Cop") and not brooding so often. Combined with the added relief of starting clean on a new label with a new backing band (including Death Cab for Cutie's Jason McGuerin) and the freedom to produce without the pressures of making it better than a Dismemberment record, it's instantaneously notable. "Get Me Off This Coin," a folksy series of political interludes sprinkled throughout (which could get tiresome to a few people, but that's what fast-forward buttons were made for), and "Born in '72," which re-creates a live setting with quirky little jabs (and a melodic homage to fellow D.C. residents Fugazi during the breakdown), let the audience know that Morrison is well aware of the pressures and expectations of a solo record. One audience member even slyly asks "Think they'll play 'The City'?," a reference to one of the Plan's well-loved songs.

But it's not without fault to say these songs could have been on the next Plan album. The signature video game noises and analog synths are still anchors of the song arrangements, and the inclusion of more electronic-based production only further reinforces the idea that Morrison is just as versatile behind a mixing board and sampler as he is behind a guitar and a vocal mike. Morrison's lyrics have always been a strong element of the Plan's popularity, and here he has never been more creative in his song subjects. A dark and philosophical muse on the mortality of life ("People Die") is followed by a wish for caged zoo animals to rebel against their captors in rather violent ways ("Song for the Orca"). There are also two beautiful moments of quiet introspection in "Any Open Door" and "Angry Angel," and the closest thing to a Ben Gibbard homage with the final, untitled track. Make no bones about it, Morrison is challenging expectations and listeners by stretching his musical boundaries and defying people to come along for the ride through close listening. And those who loved the Plan for the original angle they brought to a near soulless genre will be pleasantly surprised that Morrison is holding his own and staying true to himself. (AMG)

Toy Love - Cuts: The Authorized Version (2005)

illuminaut — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:06:35 GMT

The remastered version of the early Toy Love (pre-Tall Dwarfs) tracks, both the singles and the LP are included and sound a lot better than they used to. Chris Knox & Co were apparently upset about the production of their original LP (it was way smoother than they wanted to sound) and so they re-released it along with their singles 25 years later, the way they always intended it to sound.

Windy and Carl - Akimatsuri (2006)

wre — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:35:28 GMT

This is a special collaboration between Windy & Carl's music and Christy's photography.
Recorded at home between March and October 2006.
Made especially for Brainwaves, the Brainwashed 10th anniversary festival, Nov. 17-19, 2006 at the Regent Theatre, Arlington, Mass.
Actually there is only 1 Track (33:16 min).

Negativland: Escape from Noise (1987), Helter Stupid (1989), and Dispepsi (1997)

illuminaut — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:21:08 GMT

Issued in 1987, Escape from Noise took the scope of A Big 10-8 Place to even wider levels, touching on everything from how many time zones Russia covers to a rendition of "Over the Rainbow" sung by a little girl plagued with hiccups. Maintaining Negativland's blend of wit and darker themes, it might have simply remained a cult classic were it not for the appearance of the throbbing, creepy "Christianity Is Stupid" and, a few months after the album's release, a mass murder in Minnesota committed by a teenager against his family. Having seen tour plans fall through at around the same time, Negativland decided to distribute a fake press release hinting that the killer had in fact been arguing with his parents over "Christianity Is Stupid," which resulted in a slew of publicity and confusion over what the truth of the situation was. Some condemned the group's actions as tasteless exploitation, but Negativland preferred to think of it as an examination of media assumptions, and the whole affair became the backbone of 1989's Helter Stupid.

The 1997 release of Dispepsi looked to be another red-flag-to-the-bull effort, though whether out of foolhardiness or calculation is up to the individual to decide. Regardless, Dispepsi, featuring the guest contributions of newest member Peter Conheim, didn't bring down the wrath of Pepsi-Cola on the band's head even though the cover art was clearly a riff on the distinctive brand's logo while the content explored the very concept of advertising and its potentially destructive nature.

Support Negativland, buy their releases directly from their website!

Seeland Records is owned and operated by Negativland to manufacture and distribute our CDs, books, DVDs, t-shirts, posters and buttons , as well as audio and video works by other so-called “illegal” artists. And while you are welcome to buy our work as digital downloads, or find it for free on various file sharing networks out there on the web, each of our releases was meant to be listened to uninterrupted and in their entirety, and nearly all of our releases come with elaborate packaging, fancy artwork, extra texts and design that are integral to the concepts of each project.

Naked City - Grand Guignol (1991)

wre — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:37:30 GMT

Naked City's follow up to their self-titled album is a departure from the New York noir that they had perfected. Here, after a 17 minute, moody title piece, all low rumbling punctuated by drum thrashes and distorted screams, is a very straight transcription of Debussy's "Cathedrale Engloutie" featuring some very lovely, watery guitar work from Bill Frisell. Other modern pieces follow, with works by Scriabin, Ives, Messian, and Di Lassus. And then for something completely different: 32 thrash'n'burn numbers lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to a whopping 1:14, most with humorous titles (some favorites: "Jazz Snob: Eat Shit," "Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh," "Pigfucker"). Forget the subtlety of the first half -- this is thrash jazz! Yamatsuka Eye of the Boredoms provides vocals. As they say, there's screaming, and then there's Yamatsuka Eye. Whether or not such eclecticism makes for awkward listening is apparently the last thing on Zorn's list, and it probably shouldn't be a concern anyway. A rewarding album. (AMG)

Die Welttraumforscher - Gold vom tiefen Himmel (1993)

illuminaut — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:27:39 GMT

Since their formation in Zurich in 1978, the Welttraumforscher's music has been moving to and from a field marked by the cornerstones of the classic pop song as epitomized by Burt Bacharach or Simon and Garfunkel, the emotional barrenness of Nick Drake's compositions, the escapism of Syd Barrett and electronic home recording-miniatures of cinematic dimensions as [co-]developed by Der Plan and Cabaret Voltaire.

But this band never consciously flirted with the notion of 'being ahead of their time'. The Welttraumforscher have always been self-sufficient and completely independent -- and that goes for their musical as well as their lyrical content. In their unique way, they are working on everyday myths (complete with fantasy characters like Kip Eulenmeister and Leguan Rätselmann). This is not limited to their music but also comes out in the hand drawn cover art and comic strips. All this they do in their incomparable, unprejudiced and highly idiosyncratic style.

In the first 25 years of their existence the band created a body of work surrounded by a mystic aura similar to that of the Residents -- with the difference that Welttraumforscher-Mastermind Christian Pfluger has never tried to stay anonymous. At the beginning of the Eighties he started the band's own Monif label which henceforth released almost all of the band's output, at first exclusively on cassettes, and from the middle of the Eighties also on limited vinyl editions. Since 1993 the band has also issued their music on CD. (forced exposure)

Viktor Vaughn aka MF Doom - Vaudeville Villain (2003)

wre — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:37:24 GMT

Daniel Dumile (aka MF Doom) concluded a prolific 2003 with this paranoiac collection of warped city tales, released under the alter ego Viktor Vaughn. Having relegated production duties to a committee consisting of RJD2 and relative unknowns King Honey, Heat Sensor, and Max Bill, Dumile's full attention is left for the mike. With his mush-mouthed delivery as currency, the charismatic MC delivers a phone book of impressionistic rhyme trails, barmy anecdotes, and twisted punchlines that siphon humor into the grayest scenarios. Vaudeville Villain's story-raps are just as brilliantly spun -- the immaculate "Let Me Watch" features Apani B Fly guesting as Vaughn's vestal romantic foil and ends on a note that strikes just the right balance between Vaughn's comedic and sordid qualities. Grubby and excitable, the album's production is no less superb, with RJD2's "Saliva," Heat Sensor's "Never Dead," and King Honey's title track standing out as high points. Dense, bright, and packed with ideas, Vaudeville Villain is Dumile at his absolute best. (AMG)

Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura (1995)

wre — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:55:06 GMT

After the noisy but dream-like drift of Painful, Electr-O-Pura found Yo La Tengo in livelier and more outwardly enthusiastic form; while they had hardly abandoned their more subdued and contemplative side, as evidenced by the lovely "The Hour Grows Late" and "Pablo and Andrea," they seemed eager to once again explore the grittier textures they'd unearthed on President Yo La Tengo and May I Sing With Me with tunes like the gleefully manic "False Ending" and the bizarre horn-blasted "Attack on Love." Yo La Tengo also served up one of the most perfectly realized pop tunes in their repertoire with "Tom Courtenay" (which not only name checks the Beatles, but boasts a tune the Fab Four would have been happy to come up with themselves), and revisited the concept of the noisy groove jam (which they pioneered on "The Evil That Men Do (Pablo's Version)") with the acetone-powered "False Alarm" and the joyous "Blue Line Swinger." Throughout, Ira Kaplan's simple but forceful guitar lines, Georgia Hubley's steady, subtly inventive drumming, and James McNew's solid, supportive bass add up to a group that prizes intelligence and imagination over flash, and makes it work over and over. Few bands have consistently better ideas than Yo La Tengo, and they make 14 of them work like a charm on Electr-O-Pura. (By the way, those incongruous comments about the songs were lifted from an obscure book on the Blues Project, and don't trust those timings on the back cover -- they're deliberately inaccurate.) (AMG)

Der Plan - Die letzte Rache (1984)

illuminaut — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:29:21 GMT

So, hier ist er also, ein Beitrag ganz in Muttersprache. Logisch dass das hier jetzt so den einen oder anderen etwas verwirrt, und das ist ja auch ein ganz schönes Durcheinander, aber wenn man schon über den Plan schreibt, dann sollte man das auch richtig machen. Ist wohl auch so, dass diese exzellente Wiederveröffentlichung der mittlerweile vierteljahrhundert alten Scheibe eher die Deutschsprachigen unter uns interessiert, auch wenn das natürlich schade ist, denn der Plan hätte etwas mehr Aufmerksamkeit verdient.

Ursprünglich die Filmmusik zum gleichnamigen Film, die Wiederveröffentlichung aus dem Jahr 2000 hat eine ganze Menge extra Material von R. Kirkberg's zweiten Film, "Grottenholm". Insgesamt nicht nur ein wichtiges Stück deutsches Kulturgutes, sondern auch ausserordentlich unterhaltsame 40 Minuten. Was auch immer man dem Plan so vorwerfen kann, mangelnde Kreativität ist sicher nicht darunter. Wer den Plan nur von ihren (wenigen) NDW Hits kennt, sollte sich diese Platte auf jedenfall mal anhören.

Zum Abschluss noch ein bisschen einfache Mathematik. Vierzig Minuten, geteilt durch sechsunddreissig Lieder, geteilt durch zwei Filme, mal einer CD, das macht ein bisschen mehr als eine halbe Person die diesen Beitrag liest. Herzlichen Glückwunsch also wenn Sie hier angelangt sind, sie sind ein halber Mensch, und das werde ich vielleicht demnächst zum Anlass nehmen, die gleichnamige Neubauten Platte aufzuladen.

Translation: even if you don't understand German, this is a worthwhile listen. 36 very creative songs in a mere 40 minutes by German cult outfit Der Plan.

Lollipop Shoppe - Just Colour (1967)

LARM — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:42:07 GMT

Led by singer Fred Cole, who had formerly been in the Northwest punk band the Weeds, the Lollipop Shoppe's sole album (from 1968) ranks as one of the better psych-punk LPs, and also as one of the better one-shot rock records of the late '60s. Featuring Cole's choked, bitter phrasing, the group staked out the middle ground between the Seeds (who shared the same manager) and Love, with a bit of fellow L.A. psych-punkers the Music Machine thrown in. If comparisons must be made, they were definitely closer in tone to Love than the Seeds, with a mixture of raunch and reflection in the spirit of Arthur Lee. Cole was one of the few psychedelic performers to make a contribution during the punk era, surfacing in the Portland punk band the Rats in the late '70s.

They were originally known as The Weeds and featured Fred Cole, now of Dead Moon. After The Weeds signed to UNI Records (a now-defunct subsidiary of MCA), their new manager, "Lord" Tim Hudson, insisted they change their name to The Lollipop Shoppe to fit in with the current trend of bubblegum music. The band's actual recordings, including the 1968 LP Just Colour, are hardly bubblegum, but instead a mix of garage rock and psychedelia. The album and its single, "You Must Be a Witch," are regarded as period classics and still prized by collectors, though neither made the charts. The band opened for stars such as Janis Joplin and The Doors, and appeared in the biker movie Angels from Hell. The album has been bootlegged; the Music Maniac label has announced a reissue but it has not appeared. The Lollipop Shoppe released one more single, "Someone I Knew" b/w "Through My Window, before breaking up in 1969. They reunited as The Weeds for a 1971 single.

Josef K - Entomology (2006)

LARM — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:57:28 GMT

Josef K were a rock ‘n’ roll rarity: a band that arrived seemingly fully-formed, manifestos unpronounced but doubtlessly concealed somewhere up their natty sleeve. Never mind the post-punk bollocks—these fine young lads were positively anti-punk. Teetotalers in a land of booze and dirty needles, they projected an austere and hyper-intelligent image. Naming themselves after the main character in The Trial, Kafka's masterpiece of alienation and paranoia, they courted bookishness just in time for the rise of the effete and literary youth in British rock—and promptly broke up before they could reap the benefits. Not because they were violent or did too much coke, but simply because they felt they'd accomplished all they'd set out to do.

On their scrapped first LP, Sorry for Laughing, Josef K perfected a kind of insectoid funk, brittle and tenebrous but shuffling along on invariably tight rhythmic tendrils. Acerbic and taut, their music was ideologically vague but emotionally complex. Paul Haig's characteristically dry vocals call for examination and investigation, rather than excitement, and though feelings are the subject under the microscope, the lens is clouded with the grit of a murky, confused world. "Sorry for laughing, there's too much happening." This was a band that nearly banished brightness from their kingdom—even their cover of Alice Cooper gonzo obscurity "Apple Bush" comes across more as whimsical than carefree. Their singles during their brief existence (under two years) paint the same picture in more strident tones: "Radio Drill Time," "Sorry for Laughing," and "The Missionary" are irrepressibly urgent, slices of fierce and unforgiving punk-funk that dismiss punk as childish and slice up funk into shards to be used as weapons against a brutal world.

Though the band allegedly rejected Sorry for Laughing as too rhythm-heavy, its follow-up, The Only Fun in Town, is even more pummeling. Despite the scabrous guitar of songs like "Forever Drone" and "16 Years," this is a sound rooted in bottom-end, replete with yards upon yards of sex-free hip-shaking. Josef K’s sterility, though, was coupled with a vibrant and tenable intelligence—at times a bitter pill to swallow ("I smash up the radio, that's enough for one day") but one providing necessary medicine. One could lose oneself in the cavernous maw of the rhythm section, find a compelling if cold partner in Haig's voice and express one's distaste with the callous world through the alternately scraping and chiming guitars of Malcolm Ross. Rarely has a band created a world-space so monolithic yet provided a listener with so many easy routes to the interior.

Entomology curates the Josef K story with the kind of lover's touch that should grace all such collections of under-appreciated bands. Culling from both LPs, it's dotted with single versions, b-sides, and a concluding trio of Peel Sessions. Which is to say: it feels more like a fine novel than a work of reference (the fault of far too many similarly well-intentioned compilations). Perhaps the secret lies not so much in the virtue of Entomology's overseer, but in the band itself: Josef K served with distinction, in a manner befitting no one but themselves, and made an end of it. A clean, perfect end: the only sane response to a suffocating, befuddling world. - Stylus Magazine

1 Radio Drill Time [Postcard 7" Version]
2 It's Kinda Funny [Postcard 7" Version]
3 Final Request
4 Heads Watch
5 Drone
6 Sense of Guilt
7 Citizens
8 Variation of Scene
9 Endless Soul
10 Sorry for Laughing [Postcard 7" Version]
11 Revelation
12 Chance Meeting [Postcard 7" Version]
13 Pictures (Of Cindy)
14 Fun 'N' Frenzy
15 Crazy to Exist
16 Forever Drone
17 Heart of Song
18 16 Years
19 Angle
20 Heaven Sent
21 Missionary
22 Applebush

Pere Ubu - The Story of My Life (1993)

illuminaut — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:27:37 GMT

By request, here's another Pere Ubu album from the nineties. Features one of my favorite Ubu songs, "Wasted". This album was released two years after the horrible Worlds In Collision (which AMG for some reason seems to love), and sees David Thomas return to his more creative and playful side. It's still all pretty slick, and especially the annoying echoed drums remind more of stadium rock than art rock. The guitar work by Jim Jones is amazing however, and is stylistically very much in line with early Ubu records.

Overall this is a fairly mediocre Ubu album, which is still too slick for its own good, but it's an important step in the right direction, eventually leading to the return to their roots with 1995's Ray Gun Suitcase. Highlights of this album are the opening track, "Wasted", which starts off like a sea shanty and then very briefly explodes into full-out rock, the poppy "Sleep Walk", which sounds a lot like the Talking Heads, and the bizarre "Postcard", if only because the awful drummer is replaced by a drum machine.

Windy & Carl - Depths (1998)

wre — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:51:41 GMT

Though it's another album of slow-building textural ambience, Depths is quite organic-sounding compared to the duo's debut. Besides the spacious noise that remains a focus, there are several tracks of faraway guitar pop ("Silent Ocean" and "Undercurrent" are highlights) that include vocals (by Windy) much closer to singing than their previous work. (AMG)

Windy & Carl - Consciousness (2001)

wre — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:22:15 GMT

The world of experimental rock is crowded with musicians seeking to add more and varied sounds to their growing body of recorded work, while restlessly seeking to diversify their approach by absorbing more and more from outside their musical universe in terms of form, source, and stylistic considerations. Dearborn, MI, duo Windy & Carl tread a different path: They are interested -- no -- obsessed with creating a musical aesthetic based solely on digging ever deeper into the sub-subbasement of drone-based guitar music. As evidenced by this, their fourth long player, they've accomplished that. Windy & Carl, with their deceptively spare production mannerisms and subtle shadings of guitars, barely audible vocals, some keyboards, and employed sounds from other spheres, have developed a manner of letting the music speak for itself through them. By getting out of the way, they have developed a signature that belongs to them (apart from stealing an Archie Shepp album cover from the 1970s to illustrate this small wonder). While the tone of their music is always contemplative, it is never static: Movement happens at different speeds, in odd ebbs and flows, but travel is inherently what the music on Consciousness is all about. The beautiful shimmering single notes trilled and echoed repetitively are woven into a quilt of light on "The Sun," offering only glimpses of the atmosphere that underlies the track, which is considerable. A mass of transparent gauze -- weighing a ton -- gilds the guitar in gold and shimmering, glistening whole tones that find -- in their moving back and forth -- staggered nuances that create a microtonal ambience, where the drone is finally revealed in its nakedness and reverberating majesty. "Balance (Trembling)" moves from the predominant guitar sound into another field of exploration. The whirring sound of helicopter blades, paired with a guitar's elemental chordal drone, dominate the track. The blades waver in dynamic fibrillation and turn each other around to the point of being unidentifiable in both essence and existence. Is there a keyboard drone here? As long as the whirring continues it is impossible to distinguish how much things are distorted or shifting -- though it's obvious they are. And the constancy of the whirring -- itself a drone -- creates a trembling of anticipation for change, for the unknown to enter, for the caress of a lover's lips upon the skin. Beauty, foreboding, and electric anticipation create a tension not easily or readily resolved, but rather leaving the listener in the midst of its ethos as it trails off fully in possession of its initial elemental mysteries. And this is the pace of Consciousness, moving from inside itself to the sound world outside in order to engage it and observe that interaction. It begins as an embryonic melding of flow and tension and becomes a liquid, hazy, sonic nectar of pleasure and bliss. When "Elevation" begins, the sounds of individual instruments are blurred to the point of no return. There is only a glissando of shimmering tones and indivisible chords reduced by nothing, floating there whole, without any structure to support them. The drones are all whole-toned, offering an overtonal shapelessness that the listener realizes to be the root sound of emotion, though it's impossible to identify any of them as such. The last half of the album -- "The Llama's Dream," "Consciousness," and "Resolution" -- changes pace, with the guitars and drones becoming more nameable. Their entwined, woven structures of space and tonalities seem to signify the movement of the heart, not as it pulses, but as it breathes. These last three tracks are heartbreakingly beautiful; as each tonal phrase enters the picture and leaves, the body of the tonality gradually disappears into the larger aspect ratio of silence echoing eternally. Where Wendy's vocals grace the title track, they seem to be on the level just below it, all but indecipherable under the hypnotic guitars and polytonal drone effects. Perhaps it's a prayer, perhaps a blessing, perhaps a poem full of questions -- it hardly matters. Consciousness ends appropriately with "Resolution." Where the album began with its single notes and trills amid the beautiful drones, strummed chords that are patterned on the drones take it out, playing over and over as sounds come and go through the center of the spacious mix. They stop just long enough for the shining drone to open its mouth without hindrance and then reappear to carry the listener back down into that sonic architecture without walls, and a universe free of anything but elementary particles that combine in manners and mysteries that grace us in each moment with their sounds. Consciousness is humble, moving, and brilliant. It's an achievement when a band creates an aesthetic, holds beauty as a goal in and of itself, and knows how endless the pursuit of it is. (AMG)

Gang of Four - Solid Gold (1981)

wre — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:57:32 GMT

Gang of Four's existence had as much to do with Slave and Chic as it did the Sex Pistols and the Stooges, which is something Solid Gold demonstrates more than Entertainment! Any smartypants can point out the irony of a band on Warner Bros. railing against systematic tools of control disguised as entertainment media, but Gang of Four were more observational than condescending. True, Jon King and Andy Gill might have been hooting and hollering in a semiviolent and discordant fashion, but they were saying "think about it" more than "you lot are a bunch of mindless puppets." Abrasiveness was a means to grab the listener, and it worked. Reciting Solid Gold's lyrics on a local neighborhood corner might get a couple interested souls to pay attention. It isn't poetry, and it's no fun; most within earshot would just continue power-walking or tune out while buffing the SUV. Solid Gold has that unholy racket going on beneath the lyrics, an unlikely mutation of catchiness and atonality that made ears perk and (oddly) posteriors shake. With its slightly ironic title, Solid Gold is more rhythmically grounded than the fractured nature of Entertainment!, a politically charged, more Teutonic take on funk. It's a form of release for paranoid accountants. Financial concerns form the basis of the subject matter; the hilarious but realistic "Cheeseburger" is a highlight with its thinly veiled snipe at America: "No classes in the U.S.A./Improve yourself, the choice is yours/Work at your job and make good pay/Make friends, great/Buy them a beer!" This is a nickel less spectacular than the debut, but owning one and not the other would be criminal. (AMG)

Kramer - The Guilt Trip (1992)

illuminaut — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:07:13 GMT

Only the wit of Bongwater and Shockabilly guitarist and renowned producer Kramer could get away with this -- a three-LP rock opera released as a box set in 1993 on his own Shimmy Disc label. The collection covers a year's work in his Noise New Jersey studio, where he toyed for long hours with the George Martin aesthetic, an answering machine, and his extraordinary gift for pop songwriting (not to mention guitars). Somehow, he sculpted it all into a cohesive whole with The Guilt Trip. What better way to spend an afternoon immersed in psychedelic pop -- it's as though he set out to make his own dream of a '60s concept album.

His hybrid sound borrows from the best of the Kinks, the Hollies, John Lennon, and Led Zeppelin fused with his own unique avant rock approach, which is based on the simple deployment of overdubbing and reverb drenching that creates songs that seem to hover in space. Few other artists could pull it off -- the Residents or Half Japanese perhaps -- yet such an audacious undertaking from a solo artist must be commended. That is not to say that The Guilt Trip isn't just a tad self-indulgent. It is utterly self-indulgent, and for that very reason is overwhelming brilliant.

Kramer called on a couple of friends (David Licht for drum duties and Randolph A. Hudson for additional guitar), but produced, played, and recorded everything else himself, in just over a year in his studio downtime from his day job as record producer, an occupation in which Kramer challenged Steve Albini for the mantle of most-overworked producer in indie rock.

The Guilt Trip's first disc is an entirely well-formed suite that swings between pure psychedelic pop, humorous Led Zeppelin-esque instrumentals, and sampling pastiche/tape collage in pure Bongwater fashion. Kramer's extraordinary ability to fuse sincerity and irony is one key to his work -- a songwriter with an uncanny ability to adopt existing forms. From Beatlesque pop gems such as "Wish I Were in Heaven" through to the warped Americana of "I'm Your Fan," Kramer displays a gift for appropriation and cheeky quotation. If you can take the full-immersion listening experience of the album in one sitting, it is highly recommended to do so, as the exercise reveals more and more with each listen. (AMG)