Somewhat sadistic, but approachable for the way that Rossetto arranges sound such that it feels both navigable, and like a sort of ride with a clear trajectory- Side A is all cavernous spaces collapsing around the listener, while B has her lost at sea where the forces manipulating things are immense and invisible
Showing posts with label noise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label noise. Show all posts
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 9, 2016
Under the Roman Clamour (2016)
Post-Frozen Niagara Falls industrial music in a year of a relatively quiet Dominick Fernow (only two releases!!!). While that one was sprawling and ever-changing, Death Kneel focusses on one key idea which is (1980s) dystopian soundscapes, and microphones put through distortion pedals such that breathing becomes a low-key version of screaming. Under the Roman Clamour benefits from this limitation and by the second half the artist has expanded the familiar into new terrain. Fernow has said that Prurient is all concept, no entertainment (which fans know has not been the truth since 2006's Pleasure Ground), and one of the joys of Under the Roman Clamour is that Max Klebanoff doesn't pretend that there is a conflict there- even his harshest textures are all processed into something soothing
Dec 8, 2016
Spiral (2016)
Resists (masculine?) noise tropes of screaming out sweet catharsis, Puce Mary builds atmospheres which are always on the brink of collapsing but never really do. The human voice is relatively soft and spoken, concerned with the way it appears to the listener while it reflects on the burden of the female body, but it's subsumed into the machine which feeds it back out in processed agony. There is no release, only tension and unease. Live she stands in front of the machine as it breaks free from control and overwhelms her- her role is to bring it back. Over the course of an hour she comes to understand it and then redirects its anger in a direction where she can become one with it, leaving the audience cowering and fearful. The Spiral tells a similar story but in song fragments and mini-atmospheres which bleed into each other. Its secret lies in the fact that it approaches the chaos/harmony machine/human dichotomies from the side of understanding and reconciliation rather than transcendence or rejection- its appeal is the terror and beauty that comes through restraint rather than domination.
Dec 5, 2016
Only the Youngest Grave (2016)
Seems driven by the desire to uncover a human past in the landscape but rather than rekindling a relationship with the elemental (as in the Scandinavian tradition), finds a kind of abandoned occult sadness (as in the British tradition), which is to say that it's all bones and no spirit. A few things strike me every time (one good, one subjectively not good_)- I have no idea what makes good music much less good mixing but the sparseness of Only the Youngest Grave allows me to hear around the noise in a way that I'm not accustomed to (good!), and also I am all attention whenever the music wanders, but it every now and then builds instead (repeated motif, click distortion pedal) which is a thing I am most allergic to thanks to post-rock but which is quite moving if you are into that, and which I consciously overlook as the noise actually overrides the loud-quiet dynamic and maybe inadvertently distracts from it. So there's something for everyone there
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 1, 2016
あいしゃ (2016)
Akio Suzuki moves a radio through public spaces, its hums and static drones echoing and reverberating in these 'found' environments, and making for a surprisingly musical instrument. The additional indeterminacy of people interacting in these spaces makes composers of them if that's what you get from it, but to me it grounds the music in 'the world' and brings it to life.
Nov 30, 2016
Eden (2016)
It may be the outcome of a potentially one-off Danish noise 'supergroup' (Erik Enocksson, Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary), Vit Fana, Loke Rahbek, Varg), but A Body Turns to Eden is no less pressing a release than any from its players' prolific output. Personalities become at once identifiable and for the sake of the songs, seamless- Frederikke Hoffmeier sails above a sea of static clouds and rains wisened angst, while abstracted military percussion tracks the ground beneath it. It might be the most delicate thing that any of the group have released, though there is something fundamentally 'off' about this, and it brings pastoral sounds to the listener freakishly devoid of pastoral texture
Nov 27, 2016
Patterns to Details (2016)
On From Patterns to Details the pieces left from Fis' process of making and then destroying dance music are put under such close observation that some listeners have complained that the album is clinical, but there is something emotional about sounds that have been separated trying to create new structures (evinced by 2015's The Blue Quicksand Is Going Now), and something haunting about those which remember and contain traces of the old ones. To me at least works about memory and decay are sort of the antithesis of 'clinical', and From Patterns to Details is one of the year's best because it's full of ghosts.
Nov 23, 2016
Moenai Hai (2016)
Juntaro Yamanouchi returns after disappearing for fifteen years and out comes Moenai Hai. It all begins with laughter which heard in light of the imagined Juntaro-the-person could either be life-affirming (a welcome back to the world of the living) or alienating (when we begin to think who or what caused the laughter). Surrounded by its sparse and tense ambient pieces is the fifteen minute The Gerogerigegege, an unexpected statement of intent from the officially living Juntaro which also happens to be the year's most beautiful guitar piece. The others might be private despair pulled from recordings of public spaces, but this one is performed to feel and to stir feelings in the listener as well- it is impossibly destructive but also pleading, desperate, and alive
Jul 31, 2013
Pharm
There's a dry scream and then a 4-song conversation between the dirge-like and the frightened and hysterical. The former makes for a heavy and intoxicating listening experience, the latter's outbursts make you stop what you're doing with sweaty palms and look over there somewhere,
try / buy / spotify
Jun 5, 2013
MORE LIGHT (2013)
Colin Stetson is a saxophonist who uses circular breathing and well placed mics to play/record in a way that sounds like he's using loops or even a 4-piece noise band, but it's just him (!), and there are no loops or tracks, and so every sound is alive and real and immediate. His drones soothe and his melodies repeat and whirl. He wails as he breathes circularly. We hear his hands move to create the minimalistic whirls and their movements are percussive. Often when people write about him they either exhaust the less strange suggestions on thesaurus.com for searches 'difficult' and 'beautiful', or they write about catharsis, delayed gratification, masochism, minimalism, and drone. This album is the final entry in his New History of Warfare trilogy and as with the others, it is concerned with loneliness. But it is also different. Bong Iver rocks up and not only sings into a mic that isn't placed near/on Stetson's sax (I have no way of confirming this), but requests that typically Iver-ish multi-track on his falsetto. Vernon's additions upset those invested in the purity of Stetson's method. Or who just don't like Vernon. I don't mind Vernon and I appreciate the contrast. Because contrast is such a big part of To See More Light. As the trilogy's final entry, it's important that it displays a wide variety of sounds and emotions. It's physical as ever (as well as thesaurus.com search 'difficult') but spiritual. Hypnotic but gruelling. Cold but heartfelt. Lonely but searching. To See More Light is darker than ever because sometimes it goes from an anxious, rapid anger to completely losing itself and slowing down and wandering alone having expelled its evils and presumably passion/spirit along with that, that's where it's darkest, where it goes from angry to devoid (of anything other than its own lack), but then sometimes this thing happens where it finds hope or a redemption somewhere/somehow having been 0 and it doesn't end there but rather we get to see it ascend and improve and it's so fucking beautiful that you might just cry when you hear it. To See More Light didn't have to be hopeful and it didn't have to be different. But it's both and it's incredible.
A
try it out cheapo / buy it cheapo
Mar 8, 2013
Who else thought the synths were an excursion or a side thing (2013)
Through the Window is Dominick Fernow's music/album for/about the masses/world/post-industrial-landscape, and in it he uses the language of techno rather than noise because techno and the masses/worlds/post-industrial-landscapes are interdependent, the former being born of, illustrating, and fueled by relationships within the latter group, the latter an inevitability giving rise to the former, the purveyors of which are inhabitants of the latter- critics or futurist weirdos, those in need of transcendence, and those who have given up on trying. Fernow usually deals with mechanical nihilism under the name 'Vatican Shadow' and kitschy synth driven gloom with the band Cold Cave, and Through the Window initially seems to have more in common stylistically (and presumably thematically) with these non-Prurient projects than with any Prurient release as of yet. Under 'Prurient,' behind or between the 1421841284021985415765856596797 harsh noise records Fernow's put out, there's been a refreshing element of the personal which has endeared him to many a non-noise-fan over the years, some hearing a sort of abstracted heavy metal, some hearing a condensed punk rock, most agreeing that at their best these records come from the heart and stomach(acid) rather than the book of Industrial Dada or How To Piss Your Parents Off While You're Still Living At Home. Through the Window has been designed to appear personal, then, and significant too, but surely sensitive to the themes and universal concerns of its adopted techno language.
The record is three songs long, steadily repetitious on the first and third, brief and disturbing on the second. For all three, Fernow employs the Prurient character as observer rather than subject matter. What he's looking at and interacting with is a familiar techno landscape- a bleak metropolis and hazy sci-fi desert. This, of course, is less a fiction than it is an exaggerated reflection of our world. Prurient's vision is a paranoid, abnormally sexless one that's neither conventionally crushing nor transcendent. So much of Fernow's material as Prurient has suggested a link between the self and the mechanical with its industrially abstracted expression of the musician's wants, desires, and obsessions, that it's strange to hear how alienated the character is on interacting with the (retro)futuristic metropolis. The raw expression the character longs for on the three minute Terracotta Spine struggles with, and is restrained by something that could either be a mechanical rhythm or the sound of a heartbeat under panic. The heartbeat loses out for the final track You Show Great Spirit- its repeated phrase something like a deadpan mockery of house-ish vocal samples, or the victor from track 2's ironic initiation gloat. Through the Window juggles panic and apathy, its subject matter humankind's interaction with a mechanical, indifferent world. For once 'Prurient' isn't simply a window into Fernow's id- this time he's thrown the character out of that one and into our space. Rather than being 'ego-less,' Through the Window offers a perspective from which to look at the world that we (and Fernow) occupy. It's a nasty picture/lens, but the brief panic attack in the album's centre suggests that there's some sort of humanity in the middle of everything, as susceptible as it is to being crushed by a totalitarian indifference.
Recommended for fans of Prurient, probably not techno.
B
try / buy
Feb 21, 2013
Disingenuity b/w Disingenuousness (2010)
Both tape-collage pieces which derived from an hour-long improvisation based around a setup involving a tape of chance field-recordings (a helicopter, walking on snow, children) bounced to a mono nagra tape machine, which is covered in contact mic's that translate not just the sound coming from the speakers, but the actual mechanical "interface" of the unit into control voltage & triggers that drive a modular synth that's processing said audio using the classic electronic music toolkit (i.e. ring modulation, panning VCA's, filters, etc).Risk, chaos, chance, improvisation and all, the second piece (in particular) is gripping, aesthetic, and touching in a way that only risk, chaos, chance, and improvisation can be. At the same time it transcends the brainy notions attached to, and actually restricting, chaos and chance, and so the effect, like the cause, is intuitive, dazzling, and mind-freeing.
A-
try / buy / spotify
Jul 7, 2012
Prurient - And Still, Wanting (2008)
Passionate and sentimental (...) Stop over, friends! At Dominick Fernow's house back in 2008 where he made music your mom mightn't yell at you to turn off.A cooling down of Pleasure Ground where noise was used not to shock (for once), but to express something personal- taking over where shards of feedback sent from an aggressive set of powerchords could not quite express Fernow's frustration, or perhaps he just thought that the medium of punk rock had been castrated by 2006- cue pure abstract aggression instead. And Still, Wanting is not an easy listen, but it is occasionally lush and often sentimental- never noise for noise's sake. Either good as an introduction to Prurient or just a nice standalone release, I find myself returning to it more often than the rest of his output because it's a rare moment where the musician understands that planned atmospherics can say as much about his feelings as screams and violent improvisations
-scornaga
B+
buy (once in stock)
Jul 2, 2012
Animal Collective - Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished (2000)
Actually by Avey Tare and Panda Bear but I like keeping things tidy. Having a love-hate relationship with the band, I feel like I can't say THIS IS THEIR BEST, but I'll happily write I THINK THIS ONE IS THEIR BEST instead!
I promise the noise will eventually make sense, and if you stick it out 'til that happens, you might end up agreeing with me. Any feeling I might have that I'm being contrarian (it's a polarizing one), or relying on vibes rather than sense (I do that often, and Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished has REAL good vibes), is put to rest by the songs Alvin Row and Penny Dreadfuls. The former is a perfect indie rock song which could go on for hours and I'd keep listening. They try me for 12 minutes and I stand by that until they give up. The latter is the skeleton of the kind of song they'd later jam on and build up, but seems perfect to me as a rough draft. The thin textures, spare arrangement, and uncomfortable low-singing (don't be so shy!) with affecting outbursts (LEAVE MY BOY ALONE!) make it seem rather personal to ol' Panda, or just an enticing mix of strangeness and enigmatic purpose. I don't care. I'm moved every time!
A+
try
buy
spotify
Mar 26, 2012
Tim Hecker - Part I
Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006)
1. Rainbow Blood 1:53
2. Stags, Aircraft, Kings and Secretaries 4:31
3. Palimpsest I 0:36
4. Chimeras 3:14
5. Dungeoneering 5:25
6. Palimpsest II 0:39
7. Spring Heeled Jack Flies Tonight 3:11
8. Harmony in Blue I 1:32
9. Harmony in Blue II 1:53
10. Harmony in Blue III 2:41
11. Harmony in Blue IV 2:03
12. Radio Spiricom 4:52
13. Whitecaps of White Noise I 7:30
14. Whitecaps of White Noise II 5:57
15. Blood Rainbow 4:06
Download (FLAC)
Download (MP3 V1)
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (2011)
1. The Piano Drop 2:54
2. In the Fog I 4:52
3. In the Fog II 6:01
4. In the Fog III 5:01
5. No Drums 3:24
6. Hatred of Music I 6:11
7. Hatred of Music II 4:22
8. Analog Paralysis, 1978 3:52
9. Studio Suicide, 1980 3:25
10. In the Air I 4:12
11. In the Air II 4:08
12. In the Air III 4:02
Download (FLAC)
Download (MP3 V1)
Tim Hecker! If you're on this blog you probably know more about Tim Hecker than I do, but in case you know nothing, he is a guy who creates really good ambient music.
I've been dissatisfied with the quality of gapless playback in every Tim Hecker MP3 rip I've heard. In order to avoid that issue, I made each album a single 50-minute MP3 file, so that's what you're getting here if you choose MP3. You may notice some of these links are RapidShare. This is a necessity, and RapidShare's a lot better than it used to be.
Jan 25, 2012
John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions (1969)
1. Cambridge 1969 26:29
2. No Bed for Beatle John 4:41
3. Baby's Heartbeat 5:10
4. Two Minutes Silence 2:00
5. Radio Play 12:35
Bonus tracks
6. Song for John 1:31
7. Mulberry 8:58
The suggestion that any of the best-selling artists of today would have the balls to create something like Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions is laughable if not entirely unthinkable.
In 1970 Lennon would release John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band to great critical acclaim, getting praise for being one of the rawest and most honest popular albums of all time. Reliving childhood trauma on songs like Mother and My Mommy's Dead, declaring all idols dead on God, and pushing his cathartic primal scream to lengths arguably unmatched until Nirvana's In Utero 23 years later on tracks like Well, Well, Well, it's easy to see why it's still so loved. So what about Unfinished Music No. 2?
It's a universally loathed mess of an album often too painful in its aesthetic and content to listen to. And yet I love it. The content is so personal that it makes Lennon's 1970 album sound like I Want to Hold Your Hand being played 11 times . The cover shows Lennon and Ono in Queen Charlotte's Hospital following Ono's miscarriage. Baby's Heartbeat is a recording of the baby's heartbeat before the miscarriage. Two Minutes Silence commemorates this.
The album's aesthetic is totally unique also. Cambridge 1969 is the track which brings most people here. Lennon showcases some fantastic guitar and feedback over Ono's bizarre vocal improvisations. Things come together in the most chaotic way possible when they're joined by saxophonist John Tchicai and percussionist John Stevens towards the end of the track. It's excellent as a noisy improv track and then there's the fact that it's John Lennon in the same year that Abbey Road was to be released.
No Bed for Beatle John features the couple sing-reading news clipping about each other, which, given the context, adds to the freakishly personal nature of the album. Ono's very existence was painful to the public, blaming her for The Beatles' demise, so there's something strange and very sad about the couple acknowledging their public image whilst holed up in a hospital following a personal tragedy. The songs following Cambridge 1969 are isolated and claustrophobic avant-garde tracks like you wouldn't hear until Royal Trux did Twin Infinitives in 1990. Add everything mentioned before though and it's something infinitely more heart-rending.
Behold the ballsiest album by a popular artist ever! I've let the contextual information effect my description of each track, but even without it songs like Cambridge 1969 are totally necessary for anyone interested in noise or improvisation. For all I know they were just continuing to troll Beatles fans, but I don't really give a shit 'cause that track rules so hard.
A-
320
Jan 22, 2012
Harry Pussy - In An Emergency You Can Shit on A Puerto Rican Whore (1993)
2. 1986
3. Pussy Control
4. Riot Riot
5. I Fought the Police
6. Fuckology
7. Dream Driver
8. I Don't Care About Sleep Anymore
9. Showroom Dummies
Harry Pussy were a noise rock band who kind of pushed the noise and no wave components of their sound to their limits without ever ending up entirely unlistenable. In fact, initial listens will prove that there's something fascinating in something this chaotic, and as the sounds become less offensive, there's something beautifully cathartic in their less furious, more dramatic tracks like Fuckology, Dream Driver, and I Don't Care About Sleep Anymore.
192
The Dead C - Harsh 70s Reality (1992)
1. Driver U.F.O. 22:23
2. Sky 3:38
3. Love 11:51
4. Suffer Bomb Damage 3:40
5. Sea Is Violet 7:57
6. Constellation 6:43
7. Baseheart 6:53
8. Hope 9:23
Love embodies the album's spirit of ambivalence- hazy indifference and latent violence. Hope is suitably the darkest track and the best way to finish the album- strummed detuned guitars and murmured vocals set the scene before frustration and violence emerge only to be drowned out by the sound of people talking. Even the 22 minute Driver UFO has its place- initially seeming like a way to weed out casual listeners, it becomes clear after a few listens that the band are masters at free-form noise jams.
There's a consistent atmosphere over the duration of the album leading some to declare it A rock opera for a post-nuclear war society which seems insincere or hyperbolic but it was only when I took the album as a whole and recongised its frustration, violence and apathy that it became a coherent story, which, yeah, is desolate and sometimes incredibly sad.
Harsh 70s Reality took something like three years to fully grow on me and I recommend those who don't completely love it persevere until it clicks.
A+
192 1/2
Oval - Ovalcommers (2001)
I won't pretend to know much about Oval. I've only heard this and the much more widely acclaimed 94 Diskont (noted for "deconstructing music and digital audio by using exacto knives, paint, and tape to damage the surfaces of the compact discs, only to stitch it back together in loops of melody punctuated by the disc's physical skips"). As far as I can tell, 94 Diskont is a masterpiece of glitchy microsound electronica (that's right, I get my tags from wikipedia), which, despite apparently deconstructing the music, seems to have much more of a direction than Ovalcommers. It sounds like a fucked up glitchy, repetitive idm inspired album, perhaps similar to something by Autechre.
Ovalcommers, on the other hand, is a directionless sea of distortion, glitches and sonic textures, which has lead some to claim that it is too harsh, or even gimmicky. I find the complete onslaught of synthesized noises almost invigorating, and that the attention paid to layers and textures makes the album a unique experience every time I listen to it. It's exciting that Oval moved into complete free-form territory for this release, I'll definitely have to look into more of his (Markus Popp's) releases, in particular the album's twin Ovalprocess.
A
256
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