Saturday, March 03, 2007
diane labrosse
petit traité de sagesse pratique
[1999, ambiances magnétiques]
canadian diane labrosse is a part of the musique actuelle movement. literally it means contemporary music. yes, that is rather broad, isn't it? the deeper meaning that's applied to it serves to coin a genre which encapsulates elements of jazz, avant-garde rock as well as musical improvisation. late 60s-70s avant-rockers henry cow (originally, fred frith and tim hodgkinson) are looked to as originators of musique actuelle.
labrosse is also a part of the montréal based ambiances magnétiques collective. it was an artist co-op before joane hétu founded the record label. that collective includes: jean derome, rené lussier (co-founded the collective along with derome), andré duchesne, robert marcel, danielle palardy roger, joane hétu, martin tétreault and michel f. côté. the last two members were later additions, the other seven were the original 1983 members.
there's no shortage of releases (forty), or groups for diane, either. most of them involve members of the amc including justine, an all female affair including danielle and joane with the addition of marie trudeau. wondeur brass, which has essentially the same line-up
as justine only without trudeau. there's also repeated pairings with tétreault [pictured together right]. île bizarre, which sees that duo aided by ikue mori is highly recommended.
in english, petit traité de sagesse pratique, translates to "a short treatise on practical wisdom". according to am's press release on their website this album is "a series of miniature songs whose texts-some ironic or mocking, others of (intentionally) questionable value-are drawn from those great popular guides we call proverbs. these reflections on morality, often out-of-date, are re-examined, reworked...by diane labrosse". seeing as how the lyrics aren't in english, my response is "if you say so".
petit is thirty-seven tracks barely spanning forty-nine minutes. it should go without saying that there are a hell of a lot of ideas, musically and non-, packed into such a concise time frame. there are no songs over two minutes and only two under thirty seconds. while superficially, it might not seem like such time constraints would work for avant-garde music, after all, haven't we grown accustomed to half hour tracks from the likes of keith rowe by now? while petit's mere approach itself may seem experimental, each piece of music is its own concrete statement. the brevity never seems to fracture anything and while there's a plethora of tracks that i wish were longer, the album
works and without any regrets. diane may be receiving the sole-billing for this cd, but i have to imagine that there were quite a few other people helping her out as this is full of instrumentation (drums, upright bass, saxophone, digiridoo, flute and probably more that i don't even know the names of) as well as male vocals on a few of the songs. one of the downsides to downloading music is that there's no liner notes from which to reference and i can't find any credits for this album online beyond diane's.
let's get down to the musical content. nearly every piece of music is punctuated by vocals of some manner; tribalesque bellowing (trust, me it sounds better than i worded it), chanting, reverbed shouting, talking, singing, laughing, maggie nicols-like wailing and maja ratkje-like vocal noisery (on the spot improvisational spelling by me). the music is just as diverse as the vocals. the most unexpected moment comes in at track number thirty-four, à tout seigneur, toute horreur, which is a charming piece of thrash rock that's cut up, panned and otherwise manipulated with fantastic results. going back to the henry cow influence, the shadow of that group's unrest can certainly be felt looming over some of petit. in a gross summation of sounds, there's jazzier numbers, mellower and sparser ones, noisy passages, atmospheric music as well as some upbeat rockers to be found throughout the disc and it's all expertly balanced. that balance is just as important as the music is, especially when you consider the amount of tracks versus the amount of time allotted for them. there's no feeling of heaviness anywhere or segmentation, but there is a nice sense of flow.
for me, petit traité de sagesse pratique is an overwhelming success. if there were to be impasses in anyone's enjoyment of it, i'd say that they would lie with the vocals; however, the tracks that i might be tempted to call questionable are few and far between and in most of the situations the music itself really elevates, not just accentuates, the vocals anyway.
C’est en forgeant qu’on devient faussaire
L’argent n’a pas d’onneur
[1999, ambiances magnétiques]
canadian diane labrosse is a part of the musique actuelle movement. literally it means contemporary music. yes, that is rather broad, isn't it? the deeper meaning that's applied to it serves to coin a genre which encapsulates elements of jazz, avant-garde rock as well as musical improvisation. late 60s-70s avant-rockers henry cow (originally, fred frith and tim hodgkinson) are looked to as originators of musique actuelle.
labrosse is also a part of the montréal based ambiances magnétiques collective. it was an artist co-op before joane hétu founded the record label. that collective includes: jean derome, rené lussier (co-founded the collective along with derome), andré duchesne, robert marcel, danielle palardy roger, joane hétu, martin tétreault and michel f. côté. the last two members were later additions, the other seven were the original 1983 members.
there's no shortage of releases (forty), or groups for diane, either. most of them involve members of the amc including justine, an all female affair including danielle and joane with the addition of marie trudeau. wondeur brass, which has essentially the same line-up
as justine only without trudeau. there's also repeated pairings with tétreault [pictured together right]. île bizarre, which sees that duo aided by ikue mori is highly recommended.in english, petit traité de sagesse pratique, translates to "a short treatise on practical wisdom". according to am's press release on their website this album is "a series of miniature songs whose texts-some ironic or mocking, others of (intentionally) questionable value-are drawn from those great popular guides we call proverbs. these reflections on morality, often out-of-date, are re-examined, reworked...by diane labrosse". seeing as how the lyrics aren't in english, my response is "if you say so".
petit is thirty-seven tracks barely spanning forty-nine minutes. it should go without saying that there are a hell of a lot of ideas, musically and non-, packed into such a concise time frame. there are no songs over two minutes and only two under thirty seconds. while superficially, it might not seem like such time constraints would work for avant-garde music, after all, haven't we grown accustomed to half hour tracks from the likes of keith rowe by now? while petit's mere approach itself may seem experimental, each piece of music is its own concrete statement. the brevity never seems to fracture anything and while there's a plethora of tracks that i wish were longer, the album
works and without any regrets. diane may be receiving the sole-billing for this cd, but i have to imagine that there were quite a few other people helping her out as this is full of instrumentation (drums, upright bass, saxophone, digiridoo, flute and probably more that i don't even know the names of) as well as male vocals on a few of the songs. one of the downsides to downloading music is that there's no liner notes from which to reference and i can't find any credits for this album online beyond diane's.let's get down to the musical content. nearly every piece of music is punctuated by vocals of some manner; tribalesque bellowing (trust, me it sounds better than i worded it), chanting, reverbed shouting, talking, singing, laughing, maggie nicols-like wailing and maja ratkje-like vocal noisery (on the spot improvisational spelling by me). the music is just as diverse as the vocals. the most unexpected moment comes in at track number thirty-four, à tout seigneur, toute horreur, which is a charming piece of thrash rock that's cut up, panned and otherwise manipulated with fantastic results. going back to the henry cow influence, the shadow of that group's unrest can certainly be felt looming over some of petit. in a gross summation of sounds, there's jazzier numbers, mellower and sparser ones, noisy passages, atmospheric music as well as some upbeat rockers to be found throughout the disc and it's all expertly balanced. that balance is just as important as the music is, especially when you consider the amount of tracks versus the amount of time allotted for them. there's no feeling of heaviness anywhere or segmentation, but there is a nice sense of flow.
for me, petit traité de sagesse pratique is an overwhelming success. if there were to be impasses in anyone's enjoyment of it, i'd say that they would lie with the vocals; however, the tracks that i might be tempted to call questionable are few and far between and in most of the situations the music itself really elevates, not just accentuates, the vocals anyway.
C’est en forgeant qu’on devient faussaire
L’argent n’a pas d’onneur
Friday, March 02, 2007
interview! britt brown
britt co-runs one of my favorite record labels, not not fun. after discovering nnf through blastitude maybe a year and a half ago, i've been consistently impressed with them ever since. outside of being one of the most artistically forward thinking imprints around, they also put out some great music and seem to have a blast in doing so. i had a few things that i'd wanted to know about not not fun's approach and history and, fortunately for me, britt was happy to help me out. check it out here.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
christian marclay and elliot sharp
high noon
[2000, intakt]
both christian and elliot are based out of the rotten apple. marclay is largely known as being one of the first non-hip-hop musicians to recognize the turntable as an instrument itself, not just its usefulness as a ho-hum audio medium. he did more than just recognize that fact though, he went on to establish quite a name for himself in the experimental and avant garde fields of music. while
marclay's style leans heavily towards the avant side of things, the turntable has also enjoyed a good deal of exposure in the world of noise. you can count amk, vertonen, emil beaulieau and nautical almanac amongst its more prominent fan base.
elliot sharp is an experimental musician with ties to a few instruments including guitar, soprano saxophone as well as the bass clarinet. elliot (i've also seen it printed as elliott) is incredibly prolific with over two hundred releases, spanning solo, collaborative and band efforts. strangely, this is the only one i have...in terms of bands that i actually know about, he was a member of no-wavers god is my co-pilot and there was also carbon (a pretty large membered affair that also included harpist zeena parkins). when it comes to what he's playing, sharp is just as comfortable with jazz, blues, rock, orchestral as well as more noise-based music.
on high noon, my favorite moments are those that feature elliot playing the guitar, such as on the fantastic opener blinding shadow. aside from elliot's great performance, marclay's work is more on the textural side of things and really achieves the album's best balance. the record static is an excellent touch as well. really though, that can be said of all of the tracks where it shows up. or even just in general. immediately following blinding shadow is wait, which really serves as a testament of how impressive christian marclay is on the wheels of steel. over a sublimely catchy backdrop, marclay seemingly shows off his entire repertoire on the instrument, from well placed scratches to cut and paste sound collaging, he's really going to town on this one. had i not seen pictures of him, i'd swear that he has no fewer than ten arms, but sadly, he only has two. how plebeian. while marclay exercises like wait are remarkable, i have difficulty in picking up on what elliot was laying down. i did hear what sounded like random guitar plucks at different intervals, but with all of the variety of sounds coming at me, i'm never sure if that was
from a record that was being used or not. clearly; however, this is a minor detail since the overall sound is so brilliant. sharp and marclay find harmony once again on ghost town. with sharp this time on the bass clarinet, the turntable freak-outs are set aside, with marclay focusing on fewer separate ideas. it comes as no surprise then that this is probably the most centered track. ghost town lives up to its name and has that haunting aura to it. the marriage of drawn-out clarinet notes with the faster digital sounds that marclay's producing make for a unique contrast in sounds. overall, the piece is slower-paced but it's not without its noisier moments, especially as it's winding down. so short so long is one of the best songs on high noon. after opening up with a myriad of layers, including a nice one with drums that gives it some pep, it settles down after a few minutes and then gets into a groove, the foundation of which elliot'll soon be playing the electric guitar over. it's a memorable piece of melancholy coming from him, too. christian lets him do his thing by himself for a spell before some digital sounds pop up. the final minute of so long seals the deal, as the guitar keeps fading out, only to come back briefly in fuzzed-out glory. very nice. oh, yeah, that bit of accordion, you gotta love that.
this is a very nice album indeed with a good mix of turntable wizardry as well as more focused/cohesive works. throughout the album there's so much layering going on that you'll undoubtedly find something new that will stand out to you upon repeated plays. that's obviously a good thing as it's a lot harder to grow weary of listening to an album when new surprises keep presenting themselves.
The Noon Train
[2000, intakt]
both christian and elliot are based out of the rotten apple. marclay is largely known as being one of the first non-hip-hop musicians to recognize the turntable as an instrument itself, not just its usefulness as a ho-hum audio medium. he did more than just recognize that fact though, he went on to establish quite a name for himself in the experimental and avant garde fields of music. while
marclay's style leans heavily towards the avant side of things, the turntable has also enjoyed a good deal of exposure in the world of noise. you can count amk, vertonen, emil beaulieau and nautical almanac amongst its more prominent fan base.elliot sharp is an experimental musician with ties to a few instruments including guitar, soprano saxophone as well as the bass clarinet. elliot (i've also seen it printed as elliott) is incredibly prolific with over two hundred releases, spanning solo, collaborative and band efforts. strangely, this is the only one i have...in terms of bands that i actually know about, he was a member of no-wavers god is my co-pilot and there was also carbon (a pretty large membered affair that also included harpist zeena parkins). when it comes to what he's playing, sharp is just as comfortable with jazz, blues, rock, orchestral as well as more noise-based music.
on high noon, my favorite moments are those that feature elliot playing the guitar, such as on the fantastic opener blinding shadow. aside from elliot's great performance, marclay's work is more on the textural side of things and really achieves the album's best balance. the record static is an excellent touch as well. really though, that can be said of all of the tracks where it shows up. or even just in general. immediately following blinding shadow is wait, which really serves as a testament of how impressive christian marclay is on the wheels of steel. over a sublimely catchy backdrop, marclay seemingly shows off his entire repertoire on the instrument, from well placed scratches to cut and paste sound collaging, he's really going to town on this one. had i not seen pictures of him, i'd swear that he has no fewer than ten arms, but sadly, he only has two. how plebeian. while marclay exercises like wait are remarkable, i have difficulty in picking up on what elliot was laying down. i did hear what sounded like random guitar plucks at different intervals, but with all of the variety of sounds coming at me, i'm never sure if that was
from a record that was being used or not. clearly; however, this is a minor detail since the overall sound is so brilliant. sharp and marclay find harmony once again on ghost town. with sharp this time on the bass clarinet, the turntable freak-outs are set aside, with marclay focusing on fewer separate ideas. it comes as no surprise then that this is probably the most centered track. ghost town lives up to its name and has that haunting aura to it. the marriage of drawn-out clarinet notes with the faster digital sounds that marclay's producing make for a unique contrast in sounds. overall, the piece is slower-paced but it's not without its noisier moments, especially as it's winding down. so short so long is one of the best songs on high noon. after opening up with a myriad of layers, including a nice one with drums that gives it some pep, it settles down after a few minutes and then gets into a groove, the foundation of which elliot'll soon be playing the electric guitar over. it's a memorable piece of melancholy coming from him, too. christian lets him do his thing by himself for a spell before some digital sounds pop up. the final minute of so long seals the deal, as the guitar keeps fading out, only to come back briefly in fuzzed-out glory. very nice. oh, yeah, that bit of accordion, you gotta love that.
this is a very nice album indeed with a good mix of turntable wizardry as well as more focused/cohesive works. throughout the album there's so much layering going on that you'll undoubtedly find something new that will stand out to you upon repeated plays. that's obviously a good thing as it's a lot harder to grow weary of listening to an album when new surprises keep presenting themselves.The Noon Train
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
tan as fuck
heavier than excitement
[2003, vanishing]
tan as fuck were a nashville, tennessee based three-piece. they were amazing. taf's line-up consisted of angela messina on guitar & flute (the flute was more of an occasional thing), derek schartung on keyboards, samplers and sax (used with the same infrequency as the flute) and josh elrod taking care of the percussion. all three would supply vocals, of some manner, at one
point in time or another. as far as member's projects outside of taf go, i'm mostly familiar with angela messina's work. there's vegan brand, which is her eclectic solo project as well as (the foolproof way to stave off commercial appeal, by naming yourself) the new faggot cunts, which freedom from founder matt st. germaine was a touring member. tafer derek was also in that group. while the new faggot cunts is a rad band name, tan as fuck ranks up there as an all-time favorite. anyways, it was the relocation of josh elrod in 2003 to new york that sent tan as fuck on permanent hiatus, but derek and angela both still play together under the taiwan deth [pictured] moniker. the duo's musical exploits with that project are less noisy and center more around drone atmospherics. am's also been in what i can only imagine to be numerous other bands, so i'll toss out a few more names just for kicks: the dutchies, cornfed and sweet, small children (another duo with schartung). she also sews!
taf's, brief recorded output spanned a few different styles, noisier rock outbursts, drone as well as touches of psychedelia. the dronier leanings, most expertly shown off on the fantastic (sars)chasm cd that carlo put out, would hint at the direction that angela and derek would carry over into taiwan deth, but in terms of the more experimental aspect of taf, that disc was their pinnacle. heavier than excitement stands as their shining experimental/noise rock album. rock isn't necessarily the right word to use there. the drums sound rock enough, but little else resembles the genre, but let's not get into semantics. whe
n compared to the rest of their discography, the skully cd-r would be the most like-minded release. branching out a bit further you could say that vampire belt shares a bit of common ground with the tan as fuck on this cd.
heavier catches the band at their, well, catchiest. the sax and flute interplay combined with josh's driving drum pounds on night of the living creeps is awesome. on a good deal of taf's music the drums aren't used nearly enough, and you'll only come to this realization when you hear how great his contributions are. sometimes they're used more as an additional layer of sound, occasionally, they steal the show. even when his drumming is in more of a complimentary fashion, it's appreciated, like on die live die, which is a great group effort, everyone here's doing something that i like. i especially loved the one a half minute keyboard assault in the middle stretch. athwart hawse is as close to drone as they get on the disc, but they pile a lot of additional sounds and noises over the top of it. there's more excellent keyboard use on athwart, as well. meh, just take my word for it, every song on heavier than excitement is a keeper. i found that there was, at the very least, one thing to latch onto on every track. while applying it with the label of "best" in regards to the group's oeuvre depends on your perspective, i can say that this has the most replayability. the absence of longer songs, six out of eleven tracks range from six to eight minutes in length, the rest are under five, certainly helps.
Were-Echo
[2003, vanishing]
tan as fuck were a nashville, tennessee based three-piece. they were amazing. taf's line-up consisted of angela messina on guitar & flute (the flute was more of an occasional thing), derek schartung on keyboards, samplers and sax (used with the same infrequency as the flute) and josh elrod taking care of the percussion. all three would supply vocals, of some manner, at one
point in time or another. as far as member's projects outside of taf go, i'm mostly familiar with angela messina's work. there's vegan brand, which is her eclectic solo project as well as (the foolproof way to stave off commercial appeal, by naming yourself) the new faggot cunts, which freedom from founder matt st. germaine was a touring member. tafer derek was also in that group. while the new faggot cunts is a rad band name, tan as fuck ranks up there as an all-time favorite. anyways, it was the relocation of josh elrod in 2003 to new york that sent tan as fuck on permanent hiatus, but derek and angela both still play together under the taiwan deth [pictured] moniker. the duo's musical exploits with that project are less noisy and center more around drone atmospherics. am's also been in what i can only imagine to be numerous other bands, so i'll toss out a few more names just for kicks: the dutchies, cornfed and sweet, small children (another duo with schartung). she also sews!
taf's, brief recorded output spanned a few different styles, noisier rock outbursts, drone as well as touches of psychedelia. the dronier leanings, most expertly shown off on the fantastic (sars)chasm cd that carlo put out, would hint at the direction that angela and derek would carry over into taiwan deth, but in terms of the more experimental aspect of taf, that disc was their pinnacle. heavier than excitement stands as their shining experimental/noise rock album. rock isn't necessarily the right word to use there. the drums sound rock enough, but little else resembles the genre, but let's not get into semantics. whe
n compared to the rest of their discography, the skully cd-r would be the most like-minded release. branching out a bit further you could say that vampire belt shares a bit of common ground with the tan as fuck on this cd.heavier catches the band at their, well, catchiest. the sax and flute interplay combined with josh's driving drum pounds on night of the living creeps is awesome. on a good deal of taf's music the drums aren't used nearly enough, and you'll only come to this realization when you hear how great his contributions are. sometimes they're used more as an additional layer of sound, occasionally, they steal the show. even when his drumming is in more of a complimentary fashion, it's appreciated, like on die live die, which is a great group effort, everyone here's doing something that i like. i especially loved the one a half minute keyboard assault in the middle stretch. athwart hawse is as close to drone as they get on the disc, but they pile a lot of additional sounds and noises over the top of it. there's more excellent keyboard use on athwart, as well. meh, just take my word for it, every song on heavier than excitement is a keeper. i found that there was, at the very least, one thing to latch onto on every track. while applying it with the label of "best" in regards to the group's oeuvre depends on your perspective, i can say that this has the most replayability. the absence of longer songs, six out of eleven tracks range from six to eight minutes in length, the rest are under five, certainly helps.
Were-Echo
Monday, February 26, 2007
tetuzi akiyama
terrifying street trees special edition 2 x cd
[2006, esquilo]
tokyo experimental guitarist tetuzi akiyama has put out a slew of releases (solo as well as collaborative) on fine labels such as: erstwhile, a bruit secret, for 4 ears, creative sources, idea and quakebasket. his guitar playing ranges from more avant-garde/minimal work, to
electric blues riffing (more on this later) to gentler acoustic strumming (see his recentish collaboration with new zealand's donald mcpherson).
i have a thing for absurdly named album titles, birchville's swarming tamagotchi plague is holding a special place in my heart right now (thanks igor!), so this one's right up my non sequitur lovin' alley. the first disc of the pair was taken from a live performance back in 2004. terrifying street trees is tetuzi showing us all how to play the guitar without really playing it. specifically, it's a showcase of tetuzi's tape delays, prepared treatments and manipulations for the instrument. in addition to using experimental guitar playing staple, the bow, apparently he also went medieval on his guitar's ass with a sword. good times. over the disc's thirty-two minutes, akiyama covers plenty of ground making his guitar sound like a number of things, surprisingly, including a guitar (every now and then). the music can be bare and minimal at times with merely the sounds of guitar scrapping and the occasional pluck to lead us to the next plateau. elsewhere it can be denser and layered...via those delays, i surmise. overall, it's a fantastic piece of guitar fuckery (meant with the utmost respect) that's full of wonderful subtleties that will reveal themselves over repeated listens. the brief chime-like passage around thirteen minutes can be counted as a personal favorite, on an album abundant with them.
the fact that some of the copies of terrifying street trees also came with pineapple stomp is a little curious when you consider how completely night and day these discs are. pineapple stomp is essentially a live performance of tetuzi's don't forget to boogie! 12", but before that record was actually formed. honestly, i prefer the rawer and noisier sound of these recordings to the 12", but i haven't really spent enough time with boogie! to decide which version i like more. if you haven't heard that lp, it's tetuzi's shredding version of the blues' guitar chords. pineapple stomp isn't a complete full on assault as there are a few curves thrown in here and there to keep you on your toes. normally, i wouldn't gravitate towards artists who really traffic in this sort of music, les paul, etc. but i'm all about this cd. the fractured, fuzzed-out, version of doll house shakin' had me bobbing my head in epileptic splendor, thankfully, there's no one around me right now to witness this horror. when the fuzz meets what sounds like a...fiddle, for the last half, it's pure genius. the galloping strumming on the following dead or ... is another tremendous moment that's not to be missed. the downswing of that seven minute monster where tetuzi's throwing caution to the wind and just playing his ass off kept me grinning like a bastard, too. i could rave about every single one of the thirteen songs on pineapple, but here's what you need to know, tetuzi akiyama's take on the blues guitar riff is something that you need to experience. while it's unlikely that i'll further explore the genre anytime soon, i'm certain that i'll be revisiting this...often
Terrifying Street Trees Excerpt (from 6:24 to 11:09)
Pineapple Stomp 11
[2006, esquilo]
tokyo experimental guitarist tetuzi akiyama has put out a slew of releases (solo as well as collaborative) on fine labels such as: erstwhile, a bruit secret, for 4 ears, creative sources, idea and quakebasket. his guitar playing ranges from more avant-garde/minimal work, to
electric blues riffing (more on this later) to gentler acoustic strumming (see his recentish collaboration with new zealand's donald mcpherson).i have a thing for absurdly named album titles, birchville's swarming tamagotchi plague is holding a special place in my heart right now (thanks igor!), so this one's right up my non sequitur lovin' alley. the first disc of the pair was taken from a live performance back in 2004. terrifying street trees is tetuzi showing us all how to play the guitar without really playing it. specifically, it's a showcase of tetuzi's tape delays, prepared treatments and manipulations for the instrument. in addition to using experimental guitar playing staple, the bow, apparently he also went medieval on his guitar's ass with a sword. good times. over the disc's thirty-two minutes, akiyama covers plenty of ground making his guitar sound like a number of things, surprisingly, including a guitar (every now and then). the music can be bare and minimal at times with merely the sounds of guitar scrapping and the occasional pluck to lead us to the next plateau. elsewhere it can be denser and layered...via those delays, i surmise. overall, it's a fantastic piece of guitar fuckery (meant with the utmost respect) that's full of wonderful subtleties that will reveal themselves over repeated listens. the brief chime-like passage around thirteen minutes can be counted as a personal favorite, on an album abundant with them.
the fact that some of the copies of terrifying street trees also came with pineapple stomp is a little curious when you consider how completely night and day these discs are. pineapple stomp is essentially a live performance of tetuzi's don't forget to boogie! 12", but before that record was actually formed. honestly, i prefer the rawer and noisier sound of these recordings to the 12", but i haven't really spent enough time with boogie! to decide which version i like more. if you haven't heard that lp, it's tetuzi's shredding version of the blues' guitar chords. pineapple stomp isn't a complete full on assault as there are a few curves thrown in here and there to keep you on your toes. normally, i wouldn't gravitate towards artists who really traffic in this sort of music, les paul, etc. but i'm all about this cd. the fractured, fuzzed-out, version of doll house shakin' had me bobbing my head in epileptic splendor, thankfully, there's no one around me right now to witness this horror. when the fuzz meets what sounds like a...fiddle, for the last half, it's pure genius. the galloping strumming on the following dead or ... is another tremendous moment that's not to be missed. the downswing of that seven minute monster where tetuzi's throwing caution to the wind and just playing his ass off kept me grinning like a bastard, too. i could rave about every single one of the thirteen songs on pineapple, but here's what you need to know, tetuzi akiyama's take on the blues guitar riff is something that you need to experience. while it's unlikely that i'll further explore the genre anytime soon, i'm certain that i'll be revisiting this...often
Terrifying Street Trees Excerpt (from 6:24 to 11:09)
Pineapple Stomp 11
josexto grieta
euskal semea
[2006, w.m.o/r]
the latest statement to emerge from the european home of the argument (i mean to say the basque country, but i suppose w.m.o/r is an equally valid interpretation), euskal semea (lit. "basque son") celebrates the 40th anniversary of the formation of the velvet underground by taking their oft-ignored european son and working it into a rallying cry of sorts for europe's most conspicously-excluded community.
that said, there's little left in the way of signposts of the original work once everything's been suitably acclimatised to the local ways. lyrics are now declaimed in euskera (except, strangely, "you want to make love
to the scene"), the bassline swallows its own tail and swirls in a dense, noisy throb, and even the inspiration of the piece, lou reed's poet-mentor delmore schwarz, finds himself a little cramped in the company of eduardo haro ibars, the basques' very own self-destructive counterculture hero.
pieced together from a number of takes, the studio effort (followed later by a live interpretation) is a surprisingly limpid construction of overdubbed guitar feedback. after the coherent intro politely acknowledges the original (smashing glass and all), the woozy off-center rotation of the bassline dissolves in the crisp howls and groans, leaving not much more than bass hum amid a vibrant radio field. apparently all these guitars are tuned using just intonation, the tuning system of choice of the theatre of eternal music crowd, though of course i'd be hard pressed to divine that from the racket they serve up. the closest the two orbits come to intersecting are some fairly harmonious feedback pools about a quarter of an hour in, which, if you squint and tilt your head a bit, are a little reminiscent of john cale's breathtaking early guitar work. nonetheless, a great piece, though you have to wonder how they'll ease it into the VU tribute/showcase it was commissioned for.
as mentioned previously, the second half sees the trio take another crack at the work, this time in the live context. curiously, there's nothing to speak of in the way of crowd noise on the actual recorded performance whereas they were happy enough to pipe in some ambient chatter the first time round. in any case, it bears little relation to the opening round, nor indeed any discernable link to its inspiration. the thing itself
plays out in a far less sophisticated manner, relying mostly on primal instinct fueled by pounding martial drums. the three of them exorcise the odd demon, with pages lifted straight from the textbook of cathartic guitar and inhuman screaming, but so close on the heels of carefully constructed first take, there wasn't too much here that grabbed me. i suspect it'd actually work better given a little space, tucked away on the other side of a record, but such are the problems with the cd format. anyone who had a gut appreciation of the billy bao recordings'll want to ignore my misgivings and dive in themselves, but, from where i stand, the first side takes it easily.
finally, for those just tuning in: we've said it before, 'll say it again: all w.m.o/r releases, including this one, are free for download. but let's not forget that you can find any number of great albums there for 10 euros a pop; the deleted runs are starting to edge up dangerously close to the unami, sugimoto, korber and russell releases. it's already too late for the much-lauded malfatti & mattin duo, so don't say i never warned you...
w.m.o/r catalogue
[2006, w.m.o/r]
the latest statement to emerge from the european home of the argument (i mean to say the basque country, but i suppose w.m.o/r is an equally valid interpretation), euskal semea (lit. "basque son") celebrates the 40th anniversary of the formation of the velvet underground by taking their oft-ignored european son and working it into a rallying cry of sorts for europe's most conspicously-excluded community.
that said, there's little left in the way of signposts of the original work once everything's been suitably acclimatised to the local ways. lyrics are now declaimed in euskera (except, strangely, "you want to make love
to the scene"), the bassline swallows its own tail and swirls in a dense, noisy throb, and even the inspiration of the piece, lou reed's poet-mentor delmore schwarz, finds himself a little cramped in the company of eduardo haro ibars, the basques' very own self-destructive counterculture hero.pieced together from a number of takes, the studio effort (followed later by a live interpretation) is a surprisingly limpid construction of overdubbed guitar feedback. after the coherent intro politely acknowledges the original (smashing glass and all), the woozy off-center rotation of the bassline dissolves in the crisp howls and groans, leaving not much more than bass hum amid a vibrant radio field. apparently all these guitars are tuned using just intonation, the tuning system of choice of the theatre of eternal music crowd, though of course i'd be hard pressed to divine that from the racket they serve up. the closest the two orbits come to intersecting are some fairly harmonious feedback pools about a quarter of an hour in, which, if you squint and tilt your head a bit, are a little reminiscent of john cale's breathtaking early guitar work. nonetheless, a great piece, though you have to wonder how they'll ease it into the VU tribute/showcase it was commissioned for.
as mentioned previously, the second half sees the trio take another crack at the work, this time in the live context. curiously, there's nothing to speak of in the way of crowd noise on the actual recorded performance whereas they were happy enough to pipe in some ambient chatter the first time round. in any case, it bears little relation to the opening round, nor indeed any discernable link to its inspiration. the thing itself
plays out in a far less sophisticated manner, relying mostly on primal instinct fueled by pounding martial drums. the three of them exorcise the odd demon, with pages lifted straight from the textbook of cathartic guitar and inhuman screaming, but so close on the heels of carefully constructed first take, there wasn't too much here that grabbed me. i suspect it'd actually work better given a little space, tucked away on the other side of a record, but such are the problems with the cd format. anyone who had a gut appreciation of the billy bao recordings'll want to ignore my misgivings and dive in themselves, but, from where i stand, the first side takes it easily.finally, for those just tuning in: we've said it before, 'll say it again: all w.m.o/r releases, including this one, are free for download. but let's not forget that you can find any number of great albums there for 10 euros a pop; the deleted runs are starting to edge up dangerously close to the unami, sugimoto, korber and russell releases. it's already too late for the much-lauded malfatti & mattin duo, so don't say i never warned you...
w.m.o/r catalogue
Sunday, February 25, 2007
kaoru abe and yasukazu sato
akashia no ame ga yamu
[2003, 3d]
if you're one of those special few who considers free-jazz saxophone freak-outs to be your cup of tea, you should know who kaoru abe is. born in kawasaki, japan in 1949, abe's considered to be one of the most abrasive saxophonists ever. while he was fairly prolific, his tragic life was cut short due to a drug overdose at the age of 29, in september of 1978. kaoru is an important figure in japanese avant-garde music, but unfortunately, he wasn't around long enough to see its rise to prominence. you can count otomo yoshihide, keiji haino, tamio shiraishi and masayoshi urabe as followers of his. outside of his solo work he also collaborated with toshinori kondo, derek bailey, masayuki takanayagi and milford graves, amongst a few others. you can also credit him for giving japanese psychedelic rockers overhan
g party their name (taken from one of his album titles). for a further look into abe's troubled life there's koji wakamatsu's 1995 film endless waltz.
yas-kaz sato is a name i'm unfamiliar with, but he's a japanese percussionist who tours with the innovative dance troupe sankaijuku, as a composer.
akashia, a three movement, seventy-one and a half minute long affair, begins beautifully with the most atmospheric piece, after the acacia rain. the abrasive tag, for right now, can be set aside as this is some slower bass clarinet playing aided with minimal percussion by yas-kaz. there are bangs and crashes emanating from his kit, but they're spread out, it's not full-bore let's make as much racket as we possibly can, nah, there's a bit of actual thought being employed here. sato's use of the cymbal is to be appreciated, so to are the wind chimes, which make a brief appearance. there's a good balance between mellower clarinet intoning and noisier moments. lover come back to me has the duo in flaherty/corsano mode. though you're definitely not going to find the grooves that those two could get into. this is a textbook example of the word free as it applies to music. great improvisation on the alto sax along with some drum and cymbal pounding. the name of this one definitely doesn't fit the music being played as there's far less 'tender' moments being had. screechy as can be, you can trace what's going in the world of free-jazz-noise at the moment back to this piece of music. in the words of shoegazing aesthetes boyracer, check yr fucking history. at a little after eleven minutes in, things calm all the way down and then abe swaps his sax for the harmonica. for some reason he was maligned for his use of the harmonica. granted, it can be one of the most grating instruments ever (many a street musician i've wanted to punch for their (mis)use of the thing), but he should've been lauded for his brilliance with it. it's entry is completely out of the blue and, for me, it's one of the highest points of the album. for most of it's appearance, abe's essentially playing solo. the contributions by sato are a lot less in your face than before, instead he provides subtle compliments. six minutes later, back to the sax. after an initial moment or two of slower playing they go back to being raucous and finish out these twenty-seven minutes in fine fashion. the (nearly) twenty-three minute closer chimchimcheree - dark sunday, is a reworking of kurai nichiyobi's sombre dimanche. much like the opener, the focus is primarily on abe. the percussion is more spaced out than it was in the pummeling lover. sato does get his shots in though, he just makes you wait a bit longer.
this disc is from the duo's october, 31st, 1971 performance at tohoku university. i've seen this cd listed under a few slightly varying titles; akasia no ame ga yamutoki, acacia no ame ga yamu toki and akashia no ame ga yamu toki. the english translations are also varied between as acacia rain stops and after the acacia rain (seeing as how the first song is entitled after the acacia rain, that'd be my logical choice). why it's so hard to get a general consensus for the proper name of this album is beyond me. i'll just stick with the one that i used.
abe's music, including this release, are blueprints for what would later transpire in experimental and avant-garde music, and if you're looking for a good entry point to work your way up from, this would be one of my suggestions.
Chimchimcheree - Dark Sunday Excerpt (from 9:19 to 13:12)
[2003, 3d]
if you're one of those special few who considers free-jazz saxophone freak-outs to be your cup of tea, you should know who kaoru abe is. born in kawasaki, japan in 1949, abe's considered to be one of the most abrasive saxophonists ever. while he was fairly prolific, his tragic life was cut short due to a drug overdose at the age of 29, in september of 1978. kaoru is an important figure in japanese avant-garde music, but unfortunately, he wasn't around long enough to see its rise to prominence. you can count otomo yoshihide, keiji haino, tamio shiraishi and masayoshi urabe as followers of his. outside of his solo work he also collaborated with toshinori kondo, derek bailey, masayuki takanayagi and milford graves, amongst a few others. you can also credit him for giving japanese psychedelic rockers overhan
g party their name (taken from one of his album titles). for a further look into abe's troubled life there's koji wakamatsu's 1995 film endless waltz.yas-kaz sato is a name i'm unfamiliar with, but he's a japanese percussionist who tours with the innovative dance troupe sankaijuku, as a composer.
akashia, a three movement, seventy-one and a half minute long affair, begins beautifully with the most atmospheric piece, after the acacia rain. the abrasive tag, for right now, can be set aside as this is some slower bass clarinet playing aided with minimal percussion by yas-kaz. there are bangs and crashes emanating from his kit, but they're spread out, it's not full-bore let's make as much racket as we possibly can, nah, there's a bit of actual thought being employed here. sato's use of the cymbal is to be appreciated, so to are the wind chimes, which make a brief appearance. there's a good balance between mellower clarinet intoning and noisier moments. lover come back to me has the duo in flaherty/corsano mode. though you're definitely not going to find the grooves that those two could get into. this is a textbook example of the word free as it applies to music. great improvisation on the alto sax along with some drum and cymbal pounding. the name of this one definitely doesn't fit the music being played as there's far less 'tender' moments being had. screechy as can be, you can trace what's going in the world of free-jazz-noise at the moment back to this piece of music. in the words of shoegazing aesthetes boyracer, check yr fucking history. at a little after eleven minutes in, things calm all the way down and then abe swaps his sax for the harmonica. for some reason he was maligned for his use of the harmonica. granted, it can be one of the most grating instruments ever (many a street musician i've wanted to punch for their (mis)use of the thing), but he should've been lauded for his brilliance with it. it's entry is completely out of the blue and, for me, it's one of the highest points of the album. for most of it's appearance, abe's essentially playing solo. the contributions by sato are a lot less in your face than before, instead he provides subtle compliments. six minutes later, back to the sax. after an initial moment or two of slower playing they go back to being raucous and finish out these twenty-seven minutes in fine fashion. the (nearly) twenty-three minute closer chimchimcheree - dark sunday, is a reworking of kurai nichiyobi's sombre dimanche. much like the opener, the focus is primarily on abe. the percussion is more spaced out than it was in the pummeling lover. sato does get his shots in though, he just makes you wait a bit longer.
this disc is from the duo's october, 31st, 1971 performance at tohoku university. i've seen this cd listed under a few slightly varying titles; akasia no ame ga yamutoki, acacia no ame ga yamu toki and akashia no ame ga yamu toki. the english translations are also varied between as acacia rain stops and after the acacia rain (seeing as how the first song is entitled after the acacia rain, that'd be my logical choice). why it's so hard to get a general consensus for the proper name of this album is beyond me. i'll just stick with the one that i used.abe's music, including this release, are blueprints for what would later transpire in experimental and avant-garde music, and if you're looking for a good entry point to work your way up from, this would be one of my suggestions.
Chimchimcheree - Dark Sunday Excerpt (from 9:19 to 13:12)
ag i appreciate you taking some time out to do this, very cool. now let's go back to before you actually started not not fun, what was your main intent, initially, with it?
bb actually, my then-girlfriend-now-wife manda started NNF with a mutual friend back in....about february of 2004. the original intent was just to put out stuff by the band i was in, and some friends' bands. she used to run a very K/Kill Rock Stars style label (pre-internet too!) back when she was in college, but it gradually lapsed into inactivity due to school & life things. so she had talked for a while about starting up a new label, but doing it better, and finally she did. the goals at the beginning weren't very specific at all, other than to create a label that was like a family i guess...
ag it seems like even in the onset, the artistic aspect of the releases was always a forethought, do you guys have any background in visual art?
bb yes, that's true...even though musical genre/style wasn't really an articulated goal early on, we had always had conversations ranting about how gross so many of the initial underground bands we came across presented their music. we'd meet bands who'd give us their demo/album and it'd be an awful photoshopped computer-printed cover, in a jewel case, with the band name written in plain sharpie handwriting on an Office Depot cdr. we'd always laugh and be like "so is your main deal that you're REALLY into Office Depot?" we just saw so little effort being put into the packaging/presentation, we definitely wanted to be the antithesis of that...to be as hand-made as possible. too many objects in life are mass produced, and that's inevitable, but for something artful, it rules to be able to tell for certain that a human's hands crafted it.
also, manda actually minored in sculpture at Mass Art in Boston, so she's always been incredibly inventive & crafty at physical construction tasks. she used to make elaborate sculpture creations with mechanical working parts, and...i dont even know. pretty involved stuff. so when it comes to beading weird twine to lace around a cassette case, her hands FLY at stuff like that! it's one of NNF's art secrets, for sure.
ag ha, so that must be her handiwork on the robedoor/loopool tape. okay, so if manda's taking care of the art and packaging, what's your role in nnf?
bb i mainly pick the music we put out, and handle the email/mailorder tasks. in truth, every aspect of the label is ultimately a shared decision, but on a day-to-day basis, i'd say she's mainly the art director, and i do more of the nuts-and-bolts tasks (filling out pressing plant forms, ordering supplies/blank tapes, writing checks, asking bands to do releases, etc). it works pretty well, most of the time.
ag in regards to the choices of music, i'd have to say that you guys are one of the more diverse smaller labels. noise, experimental, psych-folk, spazzy/weird/art-damaged no-wavey inspired rock, math rock, noise rock, lo-fi, acoustic, drone to everything in between. who else is putting out albums by nihilistic bastards burmese alongside stuff like the golden hours? i can't think of anyone. how much of that is your hand-picking vs. artists sending you demos?
bb this is one of the things about the underground music community that i find most confusing. i never used to think it was weird when i was growing up to be just as obsessed with nirvana as i was about archers of loaf as i was about angry samoans as i was about rudimentary peni as i was about kraftwerk as i was about geto boys as i was about spacemen 3. i've always been of the opinion that every genre of music has shit in it that RULES (just as they all have bands/artists that SUCK). it all comes down to personal taste of course, but i always thought the most beautiful freedom of running yr own label would be that you WOULDN'T have to pander to commercial expectations (no one at our level -- and higher even! -- is making any money, of course), you could put out anything you wanted. but ever since i first started to encounter the micro/underground scene, i've always been surprised how rigidly narrow a cross-section of music most labels limit their output to. the vast majority seem to just pick one basic thing they're into -- whether it's harsh noise, metal, psychedelic drone, hippie folk, whatever -- and then exclude everything else. which is of course totally fine. that's just not how i see/appreciate music. to me, burmese are amazing. but i don't like ALL bands that sound like burmese. in fact, i DON'T like most of them. same with golden hours. i don't like a TON of fey bedroom pop stuff. but i think they do it awesomely. and since it's our label, we can do what we want. hopefully other people appreciate the diversity. we of course have fans who ONLY buy our drone/noise stuff, and then we have fans who ONLY buy our punker stuff, and we have people who only buy the folk/soft stuff. and then there's some diehards who like it all!
ag wow, very well said. you definitely hit the nail on the head with the close-mindedness. to disregard other genres outside of what you're involved with is to show how little you care about music as a form of art and expression. i certainly appreciate nnf's willingness to bring different forms of music together in the same place. hopefully, in turn people will think to themselves, hey, it's okay to like impregnable as well as endearingly quirky rock music.
bb exactly. jeff/impregnable is fucking amazing. but not every harsh freak who photocopies a bondage photo and names their 16 minute track of violent feedback, "sorrow" (or whatever), is amazing to me. though there's infinite dudes who do that.
ag one of the more surprising, and awesome, releases of last year came by way of spain's loosers and their "bumba meu boi" tape. how did you come to put that out?
bb glad you like that loosers tape! i first heard about them through jelle crama, who did the artwork for an early self-released LP of theirs. i wrote them asking to buy a copy of it, but they were just like "give us yr address, we'll send you one for free!" we fell in love with it & asked them to do something, but they were busy for a long time. finally they sent us the master, and it was even better than i was expecting it to be. we had talked for a long time about getting a "real" tape manufactured, so we did it for the loosers album. we're actually doing a 10" of theirs too, that's gonna be a co-release with Woodsist.
ag i'll have to keep an eye out for that 10". the tape's great, but i've been real surprised by the lack of press for it, outside of label sites and distros. lots of people missing out.
it's funny that jelle had something to do with all of that since he emailed me just last week asking if he could send some stuff from zeikzak and puik for review, spooky.
bb yeah, well, press is pretty much a non-thing for most underground labels of our size. outside of a few brave blogs and SUPER sporadic columns, there just aren't any legitimate avenues of press/writing/whatever for small-run music culture. that's just the state of things. word of mouth (and the internet) is all there is.
ag what was the idea behind the bored fortress 7" club?
bb the bored fortress 7" club was, not surprisingly, manda's idea. she was a big supporter/subscriber to all the singles clubs that K & Kill Rock Stars used to do in the early 90s, and she always wanted to do a Not Not Fun club of some sort. when we saw how (relatively) smoothly Brian (Miller) did the first year of the Deathbomb Arc tape club, she was finally prompted to birth our own subscription series.
BF year one was received way better than we thought it would be, and right away people wrote us urging us to do a 2nd year of it. so we did. assuming this year's rules too, i guess we'll probably do a year 3 as well. logistically, it's kind of a headache to organize, and there's a million deadlines to hurdle, but all the music & art we've been given this year has been amazing, so that's made it more than worth it.
ag the first year of the dba tape club was awesome, except for the fact that i left all of my cassettes out of their plastic sleeves and now all of the tapes are tied together by that damned fishing line, ha.
year two of bf looks outstanding as well. lots of very nice names there.
bb yes, a lot of folks had problems with that fishing line shit. and the "no tape case" factor!
ag yeah, if i ever decide to waste an afternoon by untangling that mess, buying some cases will be the next step...
seeing as how not not fun is seemingly in the thick of the underground revitalization that's going on in los angeles right now, i was wondering if you could shed some light onto the whole thing. awesome bands don't just sprout up out of the blue all at once, yet that really seems to be the case. everyone knew about san diego, oakland and san francisco's music scenes, but within the past few years la has stepped up in a big way. are there any main factors that can be attributed to it's visibility? also are there any acts in particular we should look out for?
bb our relationship with LA as a focus/inspiration has been pretty back-and-forth. i mean, no doubt, there's a lot of awesome people here, that's definitely my favorite thing about living in LA. but like any scene, it has ups & downs. when we first started meeting the larger underground local community, we were pretty blown away at the crazy number of diverse & awesome bands. nearly every time we went to the smell we'd see something new & insane. but shit's changed a lot, and our tastes have evolved too, and a lot of the bands we loved either broke up, or altered their aesthetic, or moved away, or transformed in some way, and now it's a pretty different landscape. what propels LA most -- in my opinion -- is 1) the fact that there's at any given time, at least 2 or 3 really open-minded venues for bands w/zero draw to play at, and 2) the fact that the population of the greater LA metroplex is literally like nine million people!! that makes for a LOT of teen punks with cheap cars looking to stay up late and watch weird bands (and then start their own weird bands). i think overall though LA's pretty forever-bonded to its punk roots, so the main kind of shows that draw a lot of siked kids are punk shows (duh), or harsh noise shows (which basically functions as punk, energy-wise). oh, and i guess there's a lot of bands that do jokey electronic rave stuff, but that's never been something i've been able to get into.
so, it varies. like, when MV+EE come through town, maybe 35 people show up. but when mika miko plays, the smell sells out.
i really like trying to support a local aesthetic as much as possible, but these days it's so easy to communicate with far-away bands & musicians, we're inevitably influenced by non-LA people and art just as equally.
ag alright, speaking of people changing their aesthetic, what did you think of abe vigoda's new one? people were creaming themselves over these guys when the nnf lp/cd first dropped.
bb i love the abe vigoda kids a ton, so i'll always be biased in their favor. but for me, what i most loved about them when i first heard them was how weirdly 90s they sounded! that's always something manda & i get siked on, shit that reminds us of rad unwound 7 inches or something. it was especially cool since none of those kids even seemed to like -- or know shit about -- the claustrophobic post-punk they were playing! i always remember juan being like "my musical evolution was basically that i liked the smashing pumpkins, and then we started abe vigoda." that's hilarious. "kid city" sounds way more like a modern art-punk album to me though. it sounds like something that kids who go to lots of XBXRX shows would make. which is cool, it just sounds more 2007. whereas "sky route/star roof" sounded really 1994. to me, at least.
ag haha, that's great. yeah, i loved the vocal style of sky route. musically i liked what they were doing with kid city, but the lazily slurred and mumbled singing was the rad part.
i know that you keep yourself pretty busy with a couple of different projects, but what's the full scope of your musical activity?
bb right now the main band i'm in is Robedoor, which is just me & my friend Alex. bands with multiple people are tricky to keep running, just cause it's hard to accomodate everybody's different schedules. but i'm also in Knit Witch, Quintana Roo, Barrabarracuda, and Insaniacs. these all are way more sporadic, but we do stuff as/when time allows. lately the label's been too busy & time-consuming to allow for a million different practice/recording sessions anyway...
ag ah, awesome, i didn't know you were involved in knit witch.
alright Britt, i think that just about does it for me. is there anything you'd like to add?
bb no, i guess that's all. i appreciate you taking the time to do it. and keep up the rad work on yr SA blog, the world needs more open-minded review places, people that care & write for no $$!
ag my pleasure man, thanks a lot!