Category Archives: REVIEW

Michael Bailey’s Invisible Path provide some of the most thoughtful compositions to the young ((Cave)) catalog with the ‘Cloud Variations’ C39.  Providing the service role left vacant by Roy Tatum’s Changeling, Bailey’s winding ambients reset the latest frame of noise on one hand (and it’s telling that I’m at a loss to recall the latest representatives, and not because they don’t exist), and drone on the other (countless “new agers” who came and went, leaving a lost generation to figure out what was meant to “go here”).  Now only the software has changed, raising the glossy, high-def stakes for all involved.  In the style of William Basinski, the two, sidelong couplets trade in divine tones while struggling with melodic consciousness.  Harmonics abound, turning many utterances of a melody into one big run-on of bleary warm hum and long rhythmic cycles, equally imposed upon by the mash.  Yet beyond this competent, considered core what elevates the album is the ornamentation of guitar harmonics, gongs, and string sounds which do not disturb the essence of weightlessness, but which stand this tonal miasma against the percolating relief of formal characters, as seemingly oblivious to the music being made, a psychoanalytical sketch about divergence and co-evolutions of thought which do more than just sound good, but do beg an audience and interlocutor in the most passive of ways. With art by Bailey on heavy J-cards.  Recommended. 

((Cave))’s own Rob and Ben form The Ether Staircase, whose murky, paranoid ‘Winning the Olympics’ pushes in directions of pataphysics with the same skill as Bailey pushes in the dimension of elegance.  Across four or nine tracks titled more like inside jokes than any sort of interpretive legend, the boys build on low-tempo synthesizer horror like so many Carpenter apes in the last 5 years, but do so with an artful tact much like UW Owl and the other homebrews from the hibernative Phaserprone; though largely low in fidelity, the pair play with this aesthetic essence as well, punctuating the sonic fabric with bright, rendered shapes, surgical edits, and a sourcing practice which belies the dingy sheen which sits atop the signal.  The tape opens and closes with an anti-dub sound (steady beats, whistles, shifters) which should be allowed to define the project, and help it crystallize much as early Sun Araw wobbled its way into the singular figure we find today. Art by Rob on heavy J-cards. Recommended.

((Cave)) Recordings cassette
$5
HERE

The becoming-duo AUN (Martin Dumais with Julie Leblanc) have made droning dark ambient music on a number of labels including Important, Crucial Blast, Alien 8, and now, Denovali. With a imaginative moodiness similar to Aidan Baker, AUN sets its own course away from the guitar-centered sound to traverse the modular tones of Oneohtrix Point Never and the silted production of Grouper. Aquatic and upbeat, the Montrealeans embrace a European sense of purposeful music, in particular, the “chillout” as a context not of dread and reflection, but recuperation and enhancement: while opener “Koenig” resembles the submerged cathedrals of Black Swan, from this murk appears a very real harmony of warm tones with undertones of playful glitch. Similarly, “War is Near,” while seeming to resemble the politicized aphorisms of neighboring artists at Constellation Records or Alien 8, in fact takes more of a mystical premise, with wisps of Leblanc’s voice providing a siren’s song to the lattice-tones of numerous pulsing lights. Other tracks, like “Viva,” “Voyager,” and the 11-minute finale “Return to Jupiter” flirt with the hard edges of analog percussion; compared to so many other works of ambience, these fibrous inclusions give body and organic detail to the disc as a whole, while ratcheting the intensity of each individual piece. Particularly in juxtaposition with “Floodland” (the track which precedes it), with its looping laughter and Buddha Machine-able melody, “Return” builds a focused and ferocious narrative befitting John Carpenter soundtracks and prog-metal alike: chords soar and sputter as percussion pounds as a furious monorail, in and out of reflections from the womb like fuselage that ‘Alpha Heaven’ becomes. Unfortunately exclusive to the CD, these two tracks capstone the bridge of an already stellar arch of music. Recommended.

Denovali LP/CD
16€/13€
HERE

In quick succession, three unconventional labels producing three albums of different jazz conventions:

Following close on the collaborative work ‘Duets for Abdelrazik’, Stefan Christoff and the Howl! Arts Collective of Montreal serve up another session of communal arrangements – ‘Temps libre’ – this time centered on Christoff’s piano work. Titled the St. Laurent Piano Project, Christoff teams separately with Brahja Waldman (saxophone) and Peter Burton (contrabass), then Waldman solo and Christoff solo, to skate across four tracks of darkly-lit bop and ballad. Recalling a sturdy tradition of piano led composition epitomized by the peaks of Keith Jarrett, these pieces too inculcate the local scene of post-rock long hand which works in heavy strokes of filmic shading, situating the work in its texts among the political upheavals of 2012. Like ‘Duets’, the players are of utmost competence, but do not divulge the limits of these powers; somber, sober, they dress the set of social action with the full force of their instruments, each of which utters a tradition of tragedy and (power-) quiet dignity – if lacking in an agency of their own. 300 copies in screened, chipboard sleeves, available HERE. 

The Babel Label is working hard to cement itself as the Arena Rock Recording Company of UK/North Sea post-jazz-rock: though heavily catalogued in works of free bop sound, a sizeable minority express other interests, either wholly – e.g., the Mogwai of Glockenspiel – or in part – like the swatches of Tarentel slow core in Barbacana. Similarly, Eyes of a Blue Dog represent the Norweigian jazz (in the loosest sense of the word) scene, and the soul of labels like Rune Grammofon and Smalltown Supersound. ‘Rise’ involves the trio moving between heavily-electronic jazz modalities of an almost mathematical technicality, and poppier tracks recalling Add N to (X) and Wildbirds & Peacedrums; the latter are heavily indebted to the vocals of Elisabeth Nygård-Pearson, who develops complex melodic forms without any crutch considering the divergent instrumental ambience – an often stunning juxtaposition – but who also lends a human hook to this otherwise tremendously technical subgenre (well-illustrated by the former: ambling, flashy percussion and steppes of cool trumpet flutter). The result is a thorough, complete album that is highly listenable, while still revealing savory riddles with each run through. Recommended, and available HERE.

Orbiting the greatest span from conventional, the new label Care Of Editions purports to recycle money made on vinyl sales to compensate those who download those same albums. Underwritten by the Berlin University of the Arts and the state’s Einstein Foundation, the whole thing has a strong academic impetus and experimental novelty (it seems they have yet to make the necessary vinyl sales to begin paying out), which is fitting that their third disc should be ‘At the Door’: the disc is Ezra Buchla, of Mae Shi and Gowns, working in his most drone-heavy mode to date. Recalling his recent split with Whitman, but sounding more like that compatriot, Buchla plays the side A triptych “A Cruel Man/His Thirsts/Hail Nothing” with a lispy wisp of harmonic voice(s) and a fugue of strings, permutated through granular synthesis, and rising into the triumphant minor notes which he is known, and which gives so much of his work the sense of honesty and hopefulness. “Black Box” fills side B with a slow-burning drone, recalling the work of his father’s generation, out of academic experimental jazz, and up into the current diffusion through fellow practitioners like Infinite Body and Rale.  A worthy flagship for such a unique endeavor. Available from the label HERE.

Another timely summer release, ideal for BBQs and listening from another room, Amalgamated presents two skanky, (nearly) side-long tunes which comprise the ‘Trudge/Slap’ C44.  From the long, brooding intro of dark drones and darker grandeur, “Vezar Proof” emerges with a Battles-like tenacity, locking on a dub rhythm long before a beat emerges or the layers cease to fall in mounting tension.  The combination brings to mind the Unwound side-project Replikants, and later, Tussle, Out Hud, and Measles Mumps Rubella – a welcomed return of form, but hardly an homage or afterthought: ‘Trudge/Slap’ is made with material recorded in 2004, meaning the latter group were contemporaries.  Why the piece was shelved is moot point, as the groove still has legs.  In similar form, and with even greater resemblance to this cohort, “Slap” fills the B-side with a wall-to-wall neodisco, hitting a neurotic stride with a bulbous funk and wonky counterpoints of sonic icons.  Cassettes come labelled with pro-cut, collaged J-cards in the style of Phil French.  In a run of 50.

((Cave)) Recordings cassette
$5
HERE

After a relatively brutal winter up north, here’s a pairing of albums to induce the onset of our latest summer: the first a few hairs of the dog, the second a wash of good vibes like wearing swimtrunks around town.  United by the distinct sound of the electronic valve instrument (EVI) – a sonic hybrid of Moog and melodica – both albums feature a certain dusky surrealism full of optimism and ease.  From the Galtta label, John Swana, Mark Price, & David Lackner celebrate a ‘Smooth End of Summer’: spread over 10 tracks, Swana and Lackner lay down a shady cover of impressionistic sketches with choice embellishments from Price.  Saxophone and EVI interweave in a multidimensional mix of resonant swaths and glottal textures, a cozy reality as cavernous as a mushroom trip, and as strange a soundtrack as the most avantgarde films inexplicably dominating Saturday TV matinees.  Hand-numbered to 125 copies.  $7 from the label HERE.  Recommended.

The latest signing for Kranky comes with little precedence: ‘Lullabies and Nightmares,’ the major league debut by Justin Walter, captures a fleeting, bleeding Bushwick sound neighboring on the Galtta contingent.  Using EVI and post-production, Walter shares with Daniel Lopatin an ear for ‘the hook,’ and a chillaxed appreciation for the pleasant ease of modern technology.  Percolating, channel-skipping, the disc is a sort of “what if” story – “what if the Album Leaf had signed to Kranky” – though the familiar cadence is aptly upset by the irregular appearance of percussion, or horns, tearing the wallpaper to patinas.  Reminiscent of Do Make Say Think in this regard, yet becoming the wonderful wobble from the newest Quicksails, the disc prefigures a happy wanderer, the cheery white guy you want to shove for no decent reason, he no company to misery.  Dubiously wedged on the Kranky-continuum between Greg Davis and White Rainbow, the disc is really a subtly new and promising scent for the label to pursue.  They call them “hybrid shorts” – look it up.  Available on LP & CD HERE.

Striking that sweet synthesis between familiarity and novelty is the first release from Rebecca Foon’s Saltland: ‘I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us’ is as solo as it gets from a member of the Montreal musical collective which spun out Set Fire to Flames and Silver Mt. Zion.  As a former member of both those groups, as well as an active participant of Esmerine and regular contributor to a number of projects you’ve heard of, Foon cannot but use the palette of Constellation records to craft this introverted work of largesse.  In many ways comparable to the still undefeated ‘Desert Farmers’ by Hannah Marcus, on which several members of ASMZ sibling-band Godspeed You! Black Emperor lend support to massively up-tick the scope and depth of the singer-songwriter compositions, Saltland’s charms are in the details of this less-hearthy, more esoteric set of, er, “contemporary” tracks – at this point hardly experimental, yet eminently tasteful if melodramatic – recalling the solo work of Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier, with a voice even nearer to Mia Doi Todd, and elements of trip hop recalling the continentalisms of Piano Magic, the pedigrees of all involved most certainly err toward the popular (though surely the voice of public radio could read the thing entirely through analogues of modern jazz).  From the perspective of the label, the move is admirable, akin to the aging graceful of Discord, where so many other peer labels (Sub Pop, Merge) went the way of industry, or broke-in-the-woods wild (Jagjaguwar, Thrill Jockey); the members are still up front and center, the sounds changing to match their station and not vice versa.

Most commonly nominated as a cellist, Foon leaves the instrument’s fanned patterns across every track, a tension which holds the whole hulking recording on tight-rope.  Like the green-blue/blue-green hairsplitting every child has known in a box of crayons, the songs alternate more or less evenly between the former ensembles: primarily, as 5-minute ASMZ edits, rather true to form with the addition of form breaking elements from Foon’s bloodless whispers (“Unholy”), the latter-day CST staple of Colin Stetson’s saxophone (“I Thought It Was Us”), or the first quarter of an anglophiled (Toronto-fied?) slow-burner (“ICA”).  Separated from the pack, it is remarkable how central the sound of Foon’s cello is to the sound of her previous group work.  Hence the familiarity without the derivation, as poppier tracks like “Golden Alley” open many more windows in the mansion, wafting novel comparison to those latter individuals.  Stand-out “Treehouse Schemes” places a subtler form of Sadier’s political satires between melancholy strings and a cassoulet of raucous percussion, to be honest, leaving an American befuddled for want of hard, informatic meaning (the source of much GY!BE hype) while otherwise seduced by a European tragedy-in-politics.  Though a “solo” work of sorts I may be unconvincing you of, Foon does not shy from erasing with one hand what the other has rendered: dropping a heaping ten-minutes of richly-ambient sound calories in the midst of the disc, “But It Was All Of Us” broils into the rolling backbeats of “Colour the Night Sky,” where Foon’s plaintive lines are eroded in lossy effects and an anemic sawing of strings.  And here is the final component, the production of Mark Lawson, which handles with high-definition mastery this diplomacy of materials, inserting perceptual false-walls and skylights like a somber Nigel Goodrich.  Raw listeners out there may grow sugared with the excess of polish, yet I imagine the bulk of fans who read this as a RIYL keyword search will be perfectly home-warmed with this novel collection of familiar sounds.

Constellation LP/CD
$17/$12
HERE

Along with the recently-reviewed by Jon Eriksen, these two tapes complete the latest batch from the young Elm Recordings.  First is from labelmaker Kryssi’s own Colorguard: as to the point as Eriksen, Kryssi keeps her sides short, filling the spectrum of side A with coarse chunks of feeback and a Cagey radio experiment of spun dials.  Tuning in to nothing, she instead activates the rhythm axis, placing the sound into motion to sometimes sensual, sometimes comic effect – all the more impressive considering this is half a C13.  The hands-on feel of the manual experiment is erased – along with everything else – in the blank repetition of side B.  A single syllable is uttered in a pale cassette haze, a trick of deafening not by volume but by muting the experience of listening.  A rare, but really excellent experience from such a fleeting release.

The duo of Arabian Blade (Chris Donofrio and Donovan Fazzino) seem no more unified than here, in their two-handed approach to ‘Perpetuate Myself.’  Simple in form and seemingly all post-production as it moves to and fro between what seem to be just two sonic objects in each moment, the tape makes more of less by not rushing to coherence or fullness but by building and leaving uncertain.  Seemingly composed of four untitled tracks, side A a beam and a breath, the first a reluctant blast of heavy reverb, the second a golden resting pulse and a tense low-end throb in granular definition.  Side B dispenses with even more of the form, at first appearing as pure timbre, a single effect exciting the entire soundfield causing it to warp subtly like a wrinkle which becomes tightly peaked into a single form of its own.  From this relief comes the final movement, if not its own track then certainly its own idea, as the hands introduce phase to an emerging rhythm; the binaural effect is a jarring bit of grime kept classy by atmospheric filters and a slow-burning transitions.  With art by Mike Haley (905 Tapes, Wether).  Both tapes hand-numbered to 100 copies.

Elm Tapes cassette
$4
HERE

Having posted my review of the very good comp from Belgian collective and tape label Hare Akedod after the thing was all sold out, I made the point of bumping this next arrival, the label’s fifth, to the top of the pile.  The Gripgevest & Kling C38, by the pairing of David Edren and Bent von Bent, meshes nicely with the scope and diversity of the label comp, suggesting a fractal relationship between the collectivity and its constitutive members.  The sound is foremost psychedelic electroacoustic – more Popol Vuh kraut than Vanishing Voice neohippy – where the six tracks emerge from a sympathetic vibration of analog synths and guitars, and the otherwise disparate instruments of flute, zither, and voice come to conform to this brassy resonance.  That is to say, where the tape would find a welcome fit among the earthen tones of Digitalis (alongside Starving Weirdos, early Barn Owl, even many of the Rose’s own works), there is a certain continental principle at work here, stretching way back to who knows when and smuggled through the rock and experimental dynasties of Amon Düül and Tangerine Dream, which suggests a modernist grid, yes, but something more than that, perhaps a premodern mysticism which needn’t have gone the way of the grid.  The microtones of “Tweespalt der Zielen” sing with the curt insistence of a mandolin, the deep hum which grounds the entire album not disengaging but regularly convening as if to endorse these ornaments in the higher registers.  But to be clear, this mysticism is not the feel-good animism of the new agers, but a gothic by which those types would sense a dark cynicism in the whelping of requiem “Ondergronds Geduld,” and not surprised by the horror film anxieties of “Graafaarde” which ends the cassette.  At the apex of this descent, “Sermoenstonde” nicely summarizes the album in just a couple brief minutes: over a looping zither, the growing ring of steel strings chimes with eastern figures but always the hint of digital malice, the entire image scrawled horizontally like a sinister signature.  Limited to 77 copies, with fancy paper inserts featuring the label’s particular brand of kitsch-pulp imagery.  Recommended.

 Hare Akedod C38
€5
HERE

Gina presents what appears to be her first Macho Blush long-player, ‘Under Weight,’ – in the parlance of Top Chef – “two ways,” to cassette and CDr. Cooking and television references apt, the album’s eight tracks clock 26 minutes of moderately-paced electronic poetry recalling early tape compositions of the historical avant-garde, semi-updated with the decade-hopping feminist tropes of the experimental 1970s, 90s, and 10s. With titles like “Action Cooking,” “Sugar Coach,” and “Chicken of Scorpion” making the shaved Barbie head into so much eye of newt, Gina’s experiments with layering tracks to choice piano flourishes and demented percussion turn snide mantras like “sweat-shop/slave-ship” into ingrowths of politics and nihilism of form. It’s not total cut-up, as the substance is of a consistency and human speed unlike that of Fletcher Pratt or ID M Theftable or Scissor Shock. Recalling, for example, the Waxy Tomb CS from last summer, “Romania” features Rylan-ic layers of vocals, warped to various levels of dissemblance and concern, which fill the sonic space like the rawness of a live room; a tribal mash of percussion undergirds the smear as so many hapless voices crisscross, banging noggins like an art bruitism for the GIF generation. Cassette comes labeled in heavy, gold-flecked j-cards.

self-released cassette/CDr
$6/$3
HERE

S-S made the easy decision to release another from Banque Allemande, the second, the dada ‘Willst du Chinese sein musst du die ekligen Sachen essen.’  The sequel is a distinct shift from the thrash kick-off of the band’s ‘Eins, Zwei.’  In their notes, the label rightfully wonder about the state of punk in Berlin, where, despite how hard some may like to pursue the myth of the apolitical punk whatever, there’s no standing still on that moving train. To be fair, I only catch every tenth word in German, and the band sings nothing but.  Plus: less Teenage Panzerkorps and more Horrid Red, the band dredge up the post-punk timbres of Unwound and fit them into a coarser grid and steady 4/4, with new wave angles and a glassy sheen. Further still, the LP demonstrates a decidedly un-punk commitment to extrapolate, with just six tracks, the majority of which exceed seven minutes each. Not that it ever gets that dark, and the Fugazi hundred-guitar dirges never seem to end; but they are German, they like their bass tones low and harmonics searing white. Particularly with its release abreast the debut beer-punk of Spray Paint, the wry yet ruthless menace of “Warmes Wasser” recalls the power by fiat of Billy Bao’s debut ‘Dialectics of Shit,’ even more so as it transitions to the Shellac-ed industrialisms of “Schlaf An Einem Anderen Tag.” Still, the melodic urge is deep, and while the band wield total control of that admission – the chorus of “Suchmaschine” setting like a leaf over the Vic Bondi riff, or the constant air underneath “Schwarz Vor Schwarzer Wand” despite all locked grooves – the punk does not come off. Pressed to 400 copies. Next level collaged art by Jurgen Grewe. Recommended.

S-S Records LP
$13
HERE