Thursday, November 02, 2006
irr. app. (ext.) and at jennie richie
night wearing feathers 3" cd-r
[2006, psychform]
irr. app. (ext.) [pictured] is the brainchild of matthew waldron, out of san francisco. waldron's joined by ballard's (just north of seattle) at jennie richie (which seems to be more of a collective, with revolving members) for this collaborative release. honestly, i don't really know a whole lot about either of these artists. i'd avoided listening to irr. app. (ext.) due to its associations with current 93, coil and einstürzende neubauten, all of which traverse in dark ambient/industrial music, which i really don't find all that appealing. as for at jennie richie, i was mostly interested in them because they'd put out a split with the seattle noise
project withdrawal method, whom i like a lot, and they also have an upcoming release with the terrific broken penis orchestra. i figured, these guys have done a good job choosing their release-mates so far, maybe i'll like what i hear from irr. app. (ext.). after listening to it a few times, i can say that, yes, i did like i heard from ia(e), though i'm not sure if it's the greatest indicator of at jennie richie's sound. regardless, this was an outstanding collaboration. it starts out with a little bit of dissonance, a sound byte, then a live recording of someone opening up a door, then we hear some running water, then another door opens and closes and we're outside. crickets, dogs barking and the sound of the wind are all that's left. shortly afterwards, the music starts. there's haunting music in the background and some repetitious noises which are really reminiscent of hans grüsel’s kränkenkabinet's happy as pitch disc (hans grüsel has worked with @jr, so that's not a stretch). as the piece progresses, it starts to get overtaken by drones, with other subtle electronic noises lurking in the distance, then moving to the forefront. the mid-section, for the most part, is much calmer. it spends most of its time floating along with more subdued drones. even when the noisier aspects return, they don't detract from the ambience, it's more complimentary, while keeping its own distinctions. the last couple of minutes pretty much drop everything it had going for itself, musically, save for one prominent drone, that's not pretty sounding at all, but brings about a gorgeous end.
night wearing feathers impressed me all the way around. i'm not going to start listening to death in june anytime soon, but i'll make more of a concerted effort to check out more of matthew waldron's work. as for at jennie richie..i eagerly look forward to getting a copy of the double c-1 (yes, one minute long per side) with broken penis orchestra. coincidentally, stan reed of bpo designed the packaging for this release. from what i hear, it's real fancy like. i think they came in nice envelopes with a wax seal. i need a copy. so does everyone else.
Night Wearing Feathers Excerpt (from 9:21 to 13:34)
[2006, psychform]
irr. app. (ext.) [pictured] is the brainchild of matthew waldron, out of san francisco. waldron's joined by ballard's (just north of seattle) at jennie richie (which seems to be more of a collective, with revolving members) for this collaborative release. honestly, i don't really know a whole lot about either of these artists. i'd avoided listening to irr. app. (ext.) due to its associations with current 93, coil and einstürzende neubauten, all of which traverse in dark ambient/industrial music, which i really don't find all that appealing. as for at jennie richie, i was mostly interested in them because they'd put out a split with the seattle noise
project withdrawal method, whom i like a lot, and they also have an upcoming release with the terrific broken penis orchestra. i figured, these guys have done a good job choosing their release-mates so far, maybe i'll like what i hear from irr. app. (ext.). after listening to it a few times, i can say that, yes, i did like i heard from ia(e), though i'm not sure if it's the greatest indicator of at jennie richie's sound. regardless, this was an outstanding collaboration. it starts out with a little bit of dissonance, a sound byte, then a live recording of someone opening up a door, then we hear some running water, then another door opens and closes and we're outside. crickets, dogs barking and the sound of the wind are all that's left. shortly afterwards, the music starts. there's haunting music in the background and some repetitious noises which are really reminiscent of hans grüsel’s kränkenkabinet's happy as pitch disc (hans grüsel has worked with @jr, so that's not a stretch). as the piece progresses, it starts to get overtaken by drones, with other subtle electronic noises lurking in the distance, then moving to the forefront. the mid-section, for the most part, is much calmer. it spends most of its time floating along with more subdued drones. even when the noisier aspects return, they don't detract from the ambience, it's more complimentary, while keeping its own distinctions. the last couple of minutes pretty much drop everything it had going for itself, musically, save for one prominent drone, that's not pretty sounding at all, but brings about a gorgeous end.night wearing feathers impressed me all the way around. i'm not going to start listening to death in june anytime soon, but i'll make more of a concerted effort to check out more of matthew waldron's work. as for at jennie richie..i eagerly look forward to getting a copy of the double c-1 (yes, one minute long per side) with broken penis orchestra. coincidentally, stan reed of bpo designed the packaging for this release. from what i hear, it's real fancy like. i think they came in nice envelopes with a wax seal. i need a copy. so does everyone else.
Night Wearing Feathers Excerpt (from 9:21 to 13:34)
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
(vxpxc)
drapery dept.
[2006, house of alchemy]
(vxpxc) are an experimental three-piece (though, sometimes they have more members, for this particular release the line-up doubled in size) who hail from southern california. the core members, judging by their myspace page, are justin mcinteer, grant capes and tim goodwillie. tim's little girl cat also lends her vocal talents to drapery dept.
the disc opens up with the excellent, and appopriately named, wailing drones, which is just that. well not just that, but you get me. this ten minute long track is firmly centered around warm guitar drones, but there's also the vocal wails in the background (they don't persist throughout the entire song), the sound of jingling bells and other inoffensive noises. occasionally, there's some shouting and talking from cat, which isn't as bothersome as it might be, and i don't like kids, so that's saying something. (vxpxc) don't change up the sound a great deal during wailing drones, but they do add more instrumentation to it as it progresses. the general feel here is a
pleasingly blissful one. they continue the bliss-out with the following track, ballad of the empty room, begging you to harken back to the heydey of shoegaze, minus the reverb soaked singing. this song rides a memorable synth line and does a terrific job combining catchier bits of music with more abstract concepts. no bop bop bop breaks out of the dronier territory and edges into psych-folk. there's some stringed instrumentation (pretty sure that's not a standard guitar) over swirling background noise and affected guitar as well. again, there's some more vocal work from cat, she's on probably half of the songs, but she's used sparingly and, on some of the tracks, including the opener, makes a pleasant addition. she brings about an innocent nature that can only improve upon the warm feel on some of tracks. in the walls tonight is hands down my favorite piece of music on here. there's some subdued vocals, mainly in the beginning, atmospheric guitar noise, harmonica and some very nice synthesized sounds making it the catchiest track on the album, without actually striving to be poppy. the next song, caged echoing footfalls, is pretty rhythmic too with its metal percussion and other pounding sounds. one of the things that i like best about this album is how well the songs transition into each other. it seemed like all of the tracks carried some element into the next one. for caged echoing footfalls, it was the synth sound from in the walls tonight. elsewhere, it was metal percussion. their keen sense for segueing was a nice addition.
drapery dept. is the first full album i'd heard from (vxpxc), after downloading a ton of free mp3s from their previous albums off of their old website, and i was heading into this with the notion that it would be more rooted in psychedelic folk, not the case. there's a few forays in that direction, but it's more of an atmospheric album that you can put on and just zone out to, but there are plenty of moments here where (vxpxc) grabs your attention, preventing the album from merely becoming pleasant background music.
Caged Echoing Footfalls
[2006, house of alchemy]
(vxpxc) are an experimental three-piece (though, sometimes they have more members, for this particular release the line-up doubled in size) who hail from southern california. the core members, judging by their myspace page, are justin mcinteer, grant capes and tim goodwillie. tim's little girl cat also lends her vocal talents to drapery dept.
the disc opens up with the excellent, and appopriately named, wailing drones, which is just that. well not just that, but you get me. this ten minute long track is firmly centered around warm guitar drones, but there's also the vocal wails in the background (they don't persist throughout the entire song), the sound of jingling bells and other inoffensive noises. occasionally, there's some shouting and talking from cat, which isn't as bothersome as it might be, and i don't like kids, so that's saying something. (vxpxc) don't change up the sound a great deal during wailing drones, but they do add more instrumentation to it as it progresses. the general feel here is a
pleasingly blissful one. they continue the bliss-out with the following track, ballad of the empty room, begging you to harken back to the heydey of shoegaze, minus the reverb soaked singing. this song rides a memorable synth line and does a terrific job combining catchier bits of music with more abstract concepts. no bop bop bop breaks out of the dronier territory and edges into psych-folk. there's some stringed instrumentation (pretty sure that's not a standard guitar) over swirling background noise and affected guitar as well. again, there's some more vocal work from cat, she's on probably half of the songs, but she's used sparingly and, on some of the tracks, including the opener, makes a pleasant addition. she brings about an innocent nature that can only improve upon the warm feel on some of tracks. in the walls tonight is hands down my favorite piece of music on here. there's some subdued vocals, mainly in the beginning, atmospheric guitar noise, harmonica and some very nice synthesized sounds making it the catchiest track on the album, without actually striving to be poppy. the next song, caged echoing footfalls, is pretty rhythmic too with its metal percussion and other pounding sounds. one of the things that i like best about this album is how well the songs transition into each other. it seemed like all of the tracks carried some element into the next one. for caged echoing footfalls, it was the synth sound from in the walls tonight. elsewhere, it was metal percussion. their keen sense for segueing was a nice addition.drapery dept. is the first full album i'd heard from (vxpxc), after downloading a ton of free mp3s from their previous albums off of their old website, and i was heading into this with the notion that it would be more rooted in psychedelic folk, not the case. there's a few forays in that direction, but it's more of an atmospheric album that you can put on and just zone out to, but there are plenty of moments here where (vxpxc) grabs your attention, preventing the album from merely becoming pleasant background music.
Caged Echoing Footfalls
Sunday, October 29, 2006
burkhard stangl and christof kurzmann
erstlive 003 (schnee_live)
[2005, erstwhile]
the third (and middle child, if you want) of the erstlive series, schnee_live documents the final set at 2004's amplify festival.
stangl and kurzmann's first meeting as a duo was the basis for the original schnee, all the way back in 2000; if you want a landmark, that's roughly about the time that the japanese moved into tokyo's off-site gallery. schnee_live shows how far they've come in the interim, though rather than scaling the dizzy heights of abstraction you'd probably be just as accurate in describing their career arc as a crab-scuttle; drawing in from across the spectrum rather than intense refinement. even cloaked in the stock pop melodrama of prince and complete with backing singers, there's no doubting they're infinitely more confident and focused than their first time round.
yeah, prince. the set's built around the parade album's sometimes it snows in april, which pretty much places it in deepest, most homoerotic, prince vamp territory. no sooner has kurzmann shut up the crowd than he's deadpanning lyrics, brilliantly both hamming it up and sounding like he's about to break down into sobs... ladies and gentlemen, christof kurzmann brings you tears of a clown. leavening the audience's confusion a little, stangl's guitar chimes in over the top in conventional fashion, laying out the theme before pop structures dissolve into a bilious electronic cloud that breathes in a no less controlled fashion than the melodies that preceded it. each textural breath builds and subsides converse to stangl's delicate guitar till they clash and dissipate near the ten minute mark, drawing back to the theme. the more literal ways they play off each other's contributions are the set's backbone, but beyond the basic building blocks each player contributes flourishes of their own, like stangl's stretch into surprisingly smooth jazz guitar as kurzmann butts in with ominous panting brassy stabs. and damn if it isn't good to hear laughter as the girls in the chorus line schmooze into view...
though the usual improvisation is more limited to the confines of what actually seems to be pretty traditional pop structure (if you can call a thirty minute song traditional), i'd be more tempted to label it coherent than hamstrung. and considering it came at the end of a festival of cutting edge improvisors, why not add brilliantly grounded and assured. maybe the (uniformly packaged) first four issues of the erstlive series were all too quick out the gate, but i have no clue why this wasn't all over end of year lists like a rash. possibly people felt guilty about neglecting the ludicrous ambition of erstlive 005 (in size, music and packaging), but c'mon; obvious list-bait. ultimately schnee_live's a killer example of middle child syndrome, but also just a fantastic album in its own right.
schnee_live (excerpt 22:00-26:00)
[2005, erstwhile]
the third (and middle child, if you want) of the erstlive series, schnee_live documents the final set at 2004's amplify festival.
stangl and kurzmann's first meeting as a duo was the basis for the original schnee, all the way back in 2000; if you want a landmark, that's roughly about the time that the japanese moved into tokyo's off-site gallery. schnee_live shows how far they've come in the interim, though rather than scaling the dizzy heights of abstraction you'd probably be just as accurate in describing their career arc as a crab-scuttle; drawing in from across the spectrum rather than intense refinement. even cloaked in the stock pop melodrama of prince and complete with backing singers, there's no doubting they're infinitely more confident and focused than their first time round.yeah, prince. the set's built around the parade album's sometimes it snows in april, which pretty much places it in deepest, most homoerotic, prince vamp territory. no sooner has kurzmann shut up the crowd than he's deadpanning lyrics, brilliantly both hamming it up and sounding like he's about to break down into sobs... ladies and gentlemen, christof kurzmann brings you tears of a clown. leavening the audience's confusion a little, stangl's guitar chimes in over the top in conventional fashion, laying out the theme before pop structures dissolve into a bilious electronic cloud that breathes in a no less controlled fashion than the melodies that preceded it. each textural breath builds and subsides converse to stangl's delicate guitar till they clash and dissipate near the ten minute mark, drawing back to the theme. the more literal ways they play off each other's contributions are the set's backbone, but beyond the basic building blocks each player contributes flourishes of their own, like stangl's stretch into surprisingly smooth jazz guitar as kurzmann butts in with ominous panting brassy stabs. and damn if it isn't good to hear laughter as the girls in the chorus line schmooze into view...
though the usual improvisation is more limited to the confines of what actually seems to be pretty traditional pop structure (if you can call a thirty minute song traditional), i'd be more tempted to label it coherent than hamstrung. and considering it came at the end of a festival of cutting edge improvisors, why not add brilliantly grounded and assured. maybe the (uniformly packaged) first four issues of the erstlive series were all too quick out the gate, but i have no clue why this wasn't all over end of year lists like a rash. possibly people felt guilty about neglecting the ludicrous ambition of erstlive 005 (in size, music and packaging), but c'mon; obvious list-bait. ultimately schnee_live's a killer example of middle child syndrome, but also just a fantastic album in its own right.
schnee_live (excerpt 22:00-26:00)