ritual of the ouroboros
[2007, crucial bliss]

not so fun fact: korperschwache means organic decay in deutsch. apparently, this was listed as the cause of death for those who were gassed in auschwitz. it sounds so much more eloquent their way, like a flower wilting. that's nice. when it comes to music, korper is austin, texas' roy k. felps. roy ran the short-lived monotremata records, which put out good discs by mason jones and gravitar, along with four other albums that i don't think i've heard yet. he also has a review based e-zine called the one true dead angel. i think it was initially an actual paper-zine. anyway, i'd recommend checking out his site if you're looking for more music blogs. it tends to deal more with heavier music, but there's great variety, too, and it's well written. oh, back to this project, originally, rfk started out making harsh junk noise under this moniker (if it sounded like k2, i'm sold), but eventually moved away from that and towards black metal / industrial music. yes, that's a bummer. i think that the recent incarnation of korperschwache features doktor omega and kid orgasmatron. i'm still deciding whether or not to believe that they're real people.

alright, so adam sent me two cds by this project, and i'm not so sure i want to spend all day reviewing them both. so the second review will, hopefully, be a lot shorter, unless it's drastically different than this cd.
i'm pretty stoked that i'm getting to the point where i can look at albums, names and track titles and have a good idea what i'm going to be hearing. shit, i might even take a page out of maxim's book magazine and not even listen to what i'm reviewing, but write a review anyway! i am that good. okay, no, i care too much about music to do that... but it's nice to have that option. anyway, my point is that i put off reviewing these discs until (almost) the end of the stack, because i had a strong feeling that it was going to black metalesque. i was right.

it's always a bit awkward to (tactfully) review something that you wouldn't normally listen to. what makes my job a little easier here is that there are musical elements that i can get into (and in other spots, at least appreciate), so while the sum of the parts may not quite do it for me, i can recognize that ritual of the ouroboros has redeeming qualities.

what strikes me the most is felps' guitar playing. it's fantastic throughout. he comes from a dronier background and half of his label's discography was devoted to psychedelic guitar music, so it's nice to see that put to use. it also keeps the disc from veering off too far into metal territory. what will pull it in that direction are his vocals; slow, sinister and rising up from the abyssal depths of the mix. i'm thankful that the synthetic percussion, handled by kid and doktor (still not convinced these are real people), is minimal and metronome-like on the twenty-minute opener ouroboros: first lesson: our eternal salvation (in the beginning there was the serpent). when the vocals assume a more commanding presence, and are delivered in a hissy (hey, the serpent thing makes sense), slightly reverberated, demonic deadpan, i can't help but look forward to track two. i do like that i can focus my attention on the hypnotic guitar track, but that's not quite enough.

first invocation of the ouroboros: behold, i set before you the way of life, and the way of death (is a long ass title, is the end of that sentence) is a doomier (made it up) piece of music. now we have a slower, more traditional, albeit, programmed drum beat. the guitar this time just creates a slow, steady stream of drone. i can actually get into this one a bit more. he's still doing the evil thing with the vocals, but he's multi-tracked that with low, normal sounding singing. the way that he'll use the evil vocals more as atmosphere by making growls and occasionally muttering something is actually enjoyable with the chant-like singing which is creating a great melody to compliment that drone.my favorite track is ouroboros: second lesson: the serpent's warning, despite its blatant industrial rhythm. it's kind of like f/i's rad 5 crowns of the saxon king. i really wasn't feeling the vocals on that song, but the music itself made me overlook that. this is easily the most memorable guitar playing on ritual, and rfk won't overdo it in the vocal department, relying mostly on groans and other sounds, keeping the more dramatic moments in check. even when he's saying words, he's mixed down so low that it's more of a discordant musical element than anything else. the cd does come with lyrics, but i'd rather not read them. i'll just weigh the vocals based on how they sound as opposed to what they're saying.

the nearly hour long disc closes with the seven minute ode to optimism, ouroboros: blessing: all things shall be destroyed (death is the only answer). settle down there, atrax morgue. actually, this is the easiest thing to listen to on the whole album, seeing as how it's almost exclusively layered guitar noise and the beat in the background is fairly innocuous. not a bad ending at all.

Ouroboros Second Lesson

sacrifice of the ouroboros (i see your bleached white skulls on a long and pointed row of bloodstained sticks)
[2007, crucial bliss]

the first thing that i notice about sotoisybwsoalaprobs is that there's thirteen tracks (and it's seventy-three minutes long). as far as the musical differences go, sacrifice seems to feature the rhythm more than its counterpart did, and the results are varied. deep down, i can't help but feel like that detracts from the creepy vibe of the vocals and the slow, sustained guitar chords. while i'm not super into the way that the vocals sound (i do like them more on this album, though), i appreciate the dynamic between those two elements. back to the rhythm, at times, it seems like they're trying to force something to be industrial, that's clearly not, and that doesn't form a nice juxtaposition as much as a musical conflict which won't serve either well, but that's just my impression.
when the rhythm replicates traditional drum sounds, that's when korperschwache really hits their stride since it provides the (black) metal edge that this music is more suited for. velma's one of the better indicators of that as the percussion is a bit more lively (though it will settle into its more routine sound during the song's middle stretch), roy's vocals are also a lot more animated, so that helps to give it an even-keel sort of feel.

sabrina (all tracks except the last untitled one, are dedicated to women, how touching, given the album's title) is one of the better tracks as well, made so by the looping feedback, and the faux-cymbal led percussion isn't bad either. meh, could've used without the vocal outro, but that martial arts movie sample in the background makes me laugh since it's quite out of place.

most of the songs on this album utilize a similar guitar sound, lending it some continuity (while forsaking memorability). that might be why i'm more critical of the rhythm this time around, because it's really up to that aspect to provide the bulk of sacrifice's distinction. i should say that roy does a good job of changing up his delivery and emotion on some songs, as well. christy starts off on a decidedly different note, and you think that there might be the possibility that felps will rock out (he won't), but this is another great instance where the percussion takes charge and turns it into a memorable track.the untitled song at the end is great. it's completely different from the rest of the disc, actually sounding more like a slow rock ballad... gone terribly, terribly wrong. this is where some lyrics would be helpful. hold on. dammit! no lyrics for this one. anyway, he'll say, in a semi-normal voice (by korperschwache standards), that we could do (something) all night long, or (and then this is where he sounds like freddy krueger) i could rape you and kill you instead! i'm no advocate of rape, but in conjunction with the pretty nice music, it's freaking hilarious. i could go for an album's worth of these power (violence) ballads.

so, turns out that both discs were fairly dissimilar from each other, which was a welcomed surprise, and both had things about them that i liked. i think that i prefer this disc over ritual of the ouroboros, though.

Velma

exoskeleton heart
[2007, crucial bliss]

toronto's aidan baker is both a writer and a musician. greedy. some of us can't even master either. in addition to knowing how to play a bunch of instruments and write books of poetry, aidan's in the ambient trio arc with with his brother richard and christopher kukiel, and the doombient (ugh, combining those two genres into one word looks awful, i apologize) nadja with leah buckareff.

up until this point, baker's music had eluded me. or maybe i eluded his music. i see the word ambient thrown out there a lot in regards to his work, and, for me, life's too short to listen to music that's content to merely exist while you do other things around it. i tend to go more for things that either strike me as profound or are visceral. the middle ground, from a sonic standpoint, doesn't suit me too much.

i say all of that because exoskeleton heart is the least immediate album that i've heard from the crucial bliss set thus far. two tracks clocking in at fifty-nine minutes and fifty-four seconds, certainly doesn't help make it memorable, since it needs to be absorbed in full, but when i look at this cd, i will think to myself, man this disc was long as fuck, so it's memorable in that regard, at least. oh, i'm only teasing, this is a good album, yet, it's one that i feel, ultimately, will speak the loudest to those who are already acquainted with him. he's very popular amongst his peers; he's got four times as many listeners on last.fm as andrew chalk, an artist whom i'd place towards the top in the hierarchy of ambient musicians, so if you listen to ambient, guitar-driven experimentation, i'm sure you're familiar with baker. the question then is, is exoskeleton great enough to win over people outside of his spectrum? hmmmm......one thing's for sure, the answer takes its sweet time getting to you. facts first, exoskeleton heart was comprised solely with the electric guitar (and effects). if you're thinking drone, well, not so much, no. while there are drone-laden stretches throughout interior (track one), the emphasis is more on aidan's soundscapes with the instrument. when there is a drone, it's textural, and unlikely to get lodged in your memory. out of both pieces of music, this is the one which requires the most patience. on the plus side, it is dynamic, and the last thirteen minutes or so will settle down into an ambient lull which is pleasant.

anterior is the piece which i take to the most, though. after spending the first third of its time on minimalist build-up, it will crescendo with warm ambiance and a shrill droning noise which doesn't undercut the serenity as much as add a uniqueness to it. it makes for a lush backdrop, but your mind could wander for ten minutes and when you drifted back into the music, you wouldn't have missed anything. the last quarter of anterior sees the volume level rise as another guitar drone joins the ambiance, also, aidan will start to jam on the guitar and stomp on the distortion pedal, giving the track an epic post-rock kind of sound, but instead of bringing down the house, anterior will (almost) quietly fade into the night.i'm beginning to think of exoskeleton heart in movie terms. if that were the case, this would be the director's cut dvd, with all of the nuances and subtleties that may capture the essence and heart of the filmmaker, but might be lost upon the film's viewers. i think of myself as the asshole studio executive who's like "well, this is good, but couldn't we chop this, this, this and that?" i think sixty minutes is a lot to ask of someone for two tracks of ambiance. the same would be true for dense noise, wait, actually, it would be a lot worse. i would hate that. thirty minutes would've been ideal. i definitely warmed up to this and really got into certain parts, but you have to sit through a lot of, let's call it, creative process, to get to the sections that make you want to listen to the album multiple times. that being said, aidan's been doing his thing for awhile now, so i have the utmost faith that he knows exactly what he's doing, and this will reach the right people. now, going back to the question that i posed earlier, is this good enough to attract interest outside of his circle? pfft, hell if i know. i did enjoy it, though.

Anterior Excerpt (from 8:39 to 14:43)

Aidan Baker @ Eglise Sainte-Catherine; Brussels, Belgium



Nadja @ Lee's Place; Toronto, Canada, 07/27/07