freeze/thaw: a 2012 mix
March 10, 2013
The now-traditional companion to my annual compilation, this time themed to match the endless chill this winter has brought. Click on the Mixcloud embed above to listen (requires Flash).
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0:00:00 / Thomas Köner: “Novaya Zemlya 3″, from the Touch album Novaya Zemlya
[eMusic]
Köner’s meditation on the eponymous Arctic archipelago marked his return to the frozen climate of his 1990s trilogy Nunatak Gongamur, Teimo and Permafrost (reviewed here). The intervening decade or so has done nothing to diminish his unexplained affinity with this landscape. Surrender to its cold embrace.
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0:02:20 / Loscil: “Collision Of The Pacific Gatherer”, from the Kranky album Sketches From New Brighton
[Boomkat]
Another track with a strong sense of place: this time New Brighton, a coastal quarter in Scott Morgan’s (Loscil’s sole member; previously on close to 94) home of Vancouver. The tidal rhythm of “The Collision Of The Pacific Gatherer” aptly reflects the aftermath of the event it seeks to evoke: in 1930 a barge named “The Pacific Gatherer” ran into the Second Narrows Bridge, causing a section of the latter to fall into the water it spanned.
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0:06:59 / Shackleton: “Music From The Quiet Hour, Part 1″, from the Woe To The Septic Heart album Music For The Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs
[eMusic]
Dubstep grandee Sam Shackleton (previously on close to 94) continued his journey into the remoter regions of the genre with his double release Music For The Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs. The former set is a foreboding, cinematic exercise in dub, with his now-trademark take on African drumming timbres and rhythms adding to its potency.
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0:11:00 / Kangding Ray: “South”, from the Raster-Noton EP The Pentaki Slopes
[eMusic]
After making (in this blog’s opinion) possibly the finest electronic track of the past few years in 2011′s “Or” – featured on that year’s close to 94 annual mix – it was a racing certainty that, if David Letellier released anything in 2012, it would make the cut here too. He did, so it has.
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0:18:57 / Diamond Version: “Empowering Change”, from the Mute album EP1
[eMusic]
A glitch music supergroup comprising Raster-Noton label heads Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto) and Olaf Bender (Byetone), Diamond Version sounds every bit as assured as you would expect. The sparse, driven power of “Empowering Change” comes from the first of five planned EPs on Mute.
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0:25:21 / Silent Servant: “Utopian Disaster (End)”, from the Hospital Productions album Negative Fascination
[eMusic]
I was fearful that the demise of the Sandwell District project would spell the end of key artists in residence like Function and Silent Servant. Thankfully not. The latter re-emerged on Hospital Productions with a typically solid set of industrial techno in Negative Fascination, including the concept-encapsulating and ultra-hypnotic “Utopian Disaster”.
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0:33:08 / Monolake: “Hitting The Surface”, from the Imbalance Computer Music album Ghosts
[Boomkat]
Robert Henke followed up 2009′s excellent Silence with Ghosts, a companion of sorts to the earlier album according to Henke’s own commentary. While not quite as successful as its predecessor overall, the uptempo “Hitting The Surface” bubbles along very nicely.
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0:39:22 / Valgeir Sigurðsson: “The Crumbling”, from the Bedroom Community album Architecture Of Loss
[eMusic]
The second movement (the thaw, as it were) of this mix starts with a beautifully tortured piece from Icelandic composer Sigurðsson’s third album, Architecture Of Loss. As the ice cracks, the crumbling begins.
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0:44:25 / Moon Ate The Dark: “She/Swimming”, from the Sonic Pieces album Moon Ate The Dark
[eMusic]
0:49:19 / Insa Donja Kai: “End Silence”, from the Sonic Pieces album Insomnie Joyeuse
[eMusic]
0:52:44 / Dictaphone: “The Conversation”, from the Sonic Pieces album Poems From A Rooftop
[eMusic]
This trio of acts from the consistently rewarding Sonic Pieces label (previously admired by close to 94) generate, in their individual ways, warmth and contentment in these (still) cold and harsh winter months. Moon Ate The Water pairs Welsh pianist Anna Rose Carter with Canadian producer Christopher Bailey on a flowing hymn to days by the river; Kai Angermann, Insa Schirmer and Donja Djember conjure the reverie of childhood memories; and Dictaphone (Oliver Doerell and Roger Doering) seemingly rework The Cure’s “Lullaby” as meditative improvisation.
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0:57:21 / Bersarin Quartett: “Zum Greifen Nah”, from the Denovali album II
[eMusic]
Thomas Bücker’s second album honed his reputation for rich, even epic, ambient composition. “Zum Greifen Nah” (“Within Reach”) is a typically cinematic piece, painting an aural picture of the search for a tantalising truth.
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1:02:58 / Jóhann Jóhannsson: “The Cause Of Labour Is The Hope Of The World”, from the Fat Cat album The Miners’ Hymns
[eMusic]
“The Cause Of Labour…” is taken from the score to The Miners’ Hymns, filmmaker Bill Morrison’s eulogy for the coal mining industry of north east England (watch the trailer). Jóhannsson’s stirring evocation of the tradition, dignity and pride inherent in the subject and its people shines through unequivocally.
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1:10:13 / Matthew Bourne: “Juliet”, from the Leaf album Montauk Variations
[eMusic]
On his Montauk Variations, Bourne turned his back on his hitherto mischievous, quirky take on contemporary jazz. As “Juliet” charmingly demonstrates, he has replaced it with a pastoral minimalism that provides the perfect end to a cold, cold winter.
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1:13:35 / ends
See also:
good in 2012
March 2, 2013
Ah 2012, another year of non-posting (and 2013 is shaping up nicely in the same respect). Musically, as ever, there was reason for a little more optimism: new artists continue to plough the comforting furrows of melancholic synth-pop, krautish indie, soulful folk and minimal composition to keep this blog ‘happy’.
Click on the Mixcloud embed above to listen (requires Flash). Or, if you’re a VIP, wait patiently for an increasingly redundant physical copy to wing its way to you.
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0:00:00 / Ryan Teague: “Shadow Play”, from the album Field Drawings
[eMusic]
Opening Teague’s exquisite album, Field Drawings, “Shadow Play” suggests a hopeful awakening. The Bristolian composer’s artful blend of pastoral and urban grows in confidence and resolve over its duration, but remains in thoughtful repose, just short of committed action.
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0:04:08 / Metric: “Artificial Nocturne”, from the album Synthetica
[eMusic]
“I’m just as f**ked up as they say” confesses Emily Haines at the beginning of this epic slice of power pop. The driving rhythm combines with cascading chords to provide a brimming articulation of the futility of 24-hour culture – an “Artificial Nocturne”.
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0:09:48 / ERAAS: “A Presence”, from the album ERAAS
[eMusic]
The new project by former members of haunt-rockists Apse, ERAAS wove a neo-gothic fantasy with its first album. “A Presence” possesses a mesmeric, halting motorik beat and calls to mind “Sea Within A Sea” by The Horrors, as featured on the 2009 edition in this compilation series.
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0:14:24 / Biosphere: “Blue Monday”, from the magazine promo Power, Corruption & Lies Covered
[Discogs]
Well, here’s a turn up for the books. Geir Jenssen, a.k.a. Biosphere, retreats from the ice caps and tundra to cover perhaps the most sacred artefact in the electronic pop canon. By rights it shouldn’t be here (it was apparently released by Mojo magazine at the end of December 2011), but it makes the cut because (a) it remains an unimpeachably good song, and (b) Jenssen didn’t mess it up.
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0:19:52 / Liars: “No. 1 Against The Rush”, from the album WIXIW
[eMusic]
The art-punk outfit’s second album for Mute show off its electronic chops more strongly than ever. Single “No. 1 Against The Rush” blends accessibility (there are hooks!) with otherness just so.
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0:25:00 / Holly Herdon: “Fade”, from the album Movement
[eMusic]
In Movement, Herndon produced a provocative work about the interplay between human and machine at an almost anatomical level. “Fade” – with its sliced vocals, chopped beats and pounded bass – provides a energising way into the darker, more visceral sounds elsewhere on the album.
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0:31:15 / Grimes: “Genesis”, from the album Visions
[Boomkat]
Whereas Holly Herndon evokes a sometimes fraught fusion between tissue and metal, in Grimes’ music (created single-handedly by Claire Boucher) music the two forces duet in ethereal harmony. Transporting.
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0:35:29 / NZCA/Lines: “Atoms & Axes”, from the album NZCA/Lines
[eMusic]
Pure nostalgia, recalling the early, innocent synth-pop of early Depeche Mode, as well as previous revivalists (as noted in several reviews) like Junior Boys. No pretensions, other than those held back in the early 1980s by Michael Lovett’s (NZCA/Lines sole band member) antecedents, trapped in amber for our benefit and enlightenment 30 years later.
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0:40:18 / Clark: “Black Stone”, from the album Iradelphic
[eMusic]
An acoustic interlude from Iradelphic, Chris Clark’s wide-ranging tableaux of an album (though unmistakably Warp with it). As a whole the release didn’t cohere for this listener, though pockets of beauty, such as “Black Stone”, made it worthy of exploration.
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0:42:17 / Bat For Lashes: “Laura”, from the album The Haunted Man
[iTunes]
The lead single from Natasha Khan’s third album, The Haunted Man. Khan is among Britain’s finest songwriters of recent years, as “Laura”’s redemptive fable (and her previous appearance in this compilation series) attests.
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0:46:36 / DIIV: “Doused”, from the album Oshin
[eMusic]
Back to krautrock, back to Brooklyn (c.f. ERAAS, above – what is it about upper case, double-vowelled band names there?). But who’s complaining?
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0:50:12 / The Liminanas: “Salvation”, from the album Crystal Anis
[eMusic]
Effortlessly cool, unabashedly retro, seductively French – think Gainsbourg meets Spector with a banjo. Magnifique.
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0:53:30 / Choir Of Young Believers: “Nye Nummer Et”, from the album Rhine Gold
[eMusic]
Jannis Noya Makrigiannis’ music hit mainstream consciousness when his (still stunning) “Hollow Talk” (from 2008’s This Is For The White In Your Eyes) was used as the theme for Danish/Swedish crime drama, The Bridge. I think “Nye Nummer Et” means “New Number One”. And it should be.
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0:58:05 / Alt-J: “Something Good”, from the album An Awesome Wave
[eMusic]
∆, to spell the band’s name correctly, won the Mercury Music Prize in 2012 with their debut An Awesome Wave. “Something Good” is a sprightly ditty whose pensive quality makes it a stand-out among its more generic brethren on the album.
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1:01:37 / Sharon Van Etten: “Give Out”, from the album Tramp
[eMusic]
Van Etten produced possibly the year’s finest Americana in Tramp, recorded with fellow neo-folk luminaries Zach Condon (from Beirut) and Julianna Barwick among others. But it’s honesty and directness, not cool collaborations, that give songs like “Give Out” their potency.
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1:05:54 / Cold Specks: “Winter Solstice”, from the album I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
[eMusic]
Al Spx (real name unknown), as the creative force behind Cold Specks, created a rare wellspring of authenticity in a world where increasingly one can look only to the past for that vital state of being. Her expansive songwriting and powerful vocals blend folk, gospel, soul and working song – music to be listened to, not written about.
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1:09:57 / Dustin O’Halloran: “Fragile N.4″, from the album Lumiere
[Boomkat]
Lumiere, from which “Fragile N.4” was taken, was released in 2011, so is here (due to administrative error) under false pretences. But no matter: O’Halloran’s rich, forgivably syrupy piece feels the right way to close.
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1:13:26 / ends
See also:
[live review] rammstein @ o2, london
February 26, 2012
Concert date: February 24, 2012
Almost two years to the day, Rammstein return to London, this time to the O2. While the key set pieces in the show were present last time around, the performance lost none of its impact, musically or in the jaw-dropping staging. Simply stunning. I refer you to my 2010 review for more details.
Video on YouTube:
Photos on Flickr
albums of the year 2011
February 11, 2012
A final look back at 2011, with a countdown of my ten favourite albums of last year.
#10
Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#09
Hauschka & Hildur Guðnadóttir: Pan Tone (Sonic Pieces)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#08
Emika: Emika (Ninja Tune)
Featured on the close to 94 compilation good in 2011
#07
Kangding Ray: Or (Raster-Noton)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#06
Chris Watson: El Tren Fantasma (Touch)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#05
Kreng: Grimoire (Miasmah)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#04
Pinch & Shackleton: Pinch & Shackleton (Honest Jon’s)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#03
Swod: Drei (City Centre Offices)
Featured on the close to 94 compilation good in 2011
#02
Nils Økland & Sigbjørn Apeland: Lysøen: Hommage À Ole Bull (ECM)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
#01
Jacaszek: Glimmer (Ghostly International)
Featured on the close to 94 mix reaching down
reaching down: a 2011 mix
February 11, 2012
A deeper, darker companion to my good in 2011 compilation. Click on the Mixcloud embed above to listen (requires Flash).
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0:00:00 / Kreng: “La Poule Noire”, from the album Grimoire
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Belgian sound collagist and theatre composer Pepijn Caudron’s book of magic casts a mesmerising spell over the listener, conjuring a Grimm world of shadowy threat and decaying beauty. Its dark universe becomes, at times, so oppressive it leaves you caught between seeking escape and welcoming surrender. Delicious. (Listen for yourself.)
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0:03:41 / Hana: “Tate”, from the promo Wire Tapper 25
Low key, simmering techno from Greek duo Thanos Papadopoulos and Thanos Bantis, culled from the April 2011 edition of the Wire magazine’s promo CD/download series. To date, Hana have just one album of austere analogue electronics to their name. More please.
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0:07:15 / Daphni: “Ahora”, from the single Ahora
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Daphni is none other than Dan Snaith (Caribou, formerly Manitoba), so you know what to expect: lush electronics, organic rhythms, skewed melodies, solid grooves.
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0:12:41 / Hauschka & Hildur Guðnadóttir: “Cool Gray 1″, from the album Pan Tone
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
In Pan Tone, German pianist Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka) and Icelandic cellist Guðnadóttir collaborated to produce one of the year’s most satisfying additions to the modern classical canon. The two musicians seem to interact and play off each other like seasoned jazz partners, recalling in places the meditative improvisations of The Necks. A fine addition to the wonderful Sonic Pieces label’s catalogue. (Listen here.)
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0:19:09 / Tim Hecker: “In The Fog II”, from the album Ravedeath, 1972
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
2011 saw not one but two outstanding releases from Canadian noise-whisperer Tim Hecker: centrepiece Ravedeath, 1972 and a curated selection of out-takes from those sessions, Dropped Pianos. Despite being recorded in Iceland (with Ben Frost contributing production duties), Hecker’s harmonic drones on Ravedeath evoke shimmering heat mirages, tantalising yet unreachable.
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0:23:55 / Chris Watson: “El Divisadero (The Telegraph)”, from the single El Tren Fantasma (The Signal Man’s Mix)
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Sound recordist Chris Watson’s output has tended to focus on the natural world, revealing new dimensions to our environment that can only be experienced once you close your eyes (see previous posts). El Tren Fantasma (“ghost train”), Watson’s 2011 album and accompanying single – based on recordings made for a BBC television programme – mark a departure (if you’ll pardon the pun) as it reveals the industrial grind, strain and toil of Mexico’s railway system.
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0:29:52 / Kangding Ray: “Or”, from the album Or
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Kangding Ray’s (David Letellier) latest album fuses minimal techno, bass and industrial to create a kind of, well, minimal industrial - the pistons, hydraulics and drills are still there but now they operate in sterile conditions, to nanometre precision, under the control of remote CPUs. Yet the machine has a heartbeat, as the title track (featuring the ubiquitous Ben Frost) amply demonstrates.
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0:35:00 / Answer Code Request: “Escape Myself”, from the single Subway Into
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
It’s fortunate that this fairly obscure (apparently German) garage/electronica ditty found its way onto Marcel Dettmann‘s highly recommended minimalish techno mix, Conducted. Otherwise its pleasingly propulsive shuffle wouldn’t have slotted into this mix, right here.
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0:39:15 / Pinch & Shackleton: “Rooms Within A Room”, from the album Pinch & Shackleton
[Boomkat] [iTunes]
I didn’t know dubstep could sound like this, bristling as Pinch & Shackleton is with exoticism, intellect, imagination and emotion. On their self-titled collaboration, Rob Ellis (Pinch) and Sam Shackleton brought renewed clarity to the normally submerged soundworld of the genre, in doing so moving its narrative away from the streets and into the mind.
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0:44:32 / Regis: “Blood Witness”, from the EP In A Syrian Tongue
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Erstwhile member of the apparently-defunct (and, if so, sorely missed) Sandwell District label, Regis (Karl O’Connor) exemplifies that collective’s uncompromising, muscular take on the techno ethic.
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0:50:00 / Jacaszek: “As Each Tucked String Tells”, from the album Glimmer
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Polish musician Michał Jacaszek’s seventh album sounds like it was assembled by a magical tinker or watchmaker – a multitude of tiny components that combine to become one living, mechanical organism. Blending baroque, ambient and jazz, Glimmer lives up to its name, a flickering lightbulb in the musty gloom. Captivating.
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0:53:33 / Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto: “Naono”, from the album Summvs
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Alva Noto‘s stark digital backdrops are the perfect foil for Sakamoto‘s melodramatic piano melodies; it’s no wonder they found each other. Summvs is their fifth collaboration in ten years, and retains its predecessors’ blend of fire and ice. The sonar motif of the beautiful “Naono” evokes an imaginary underwater journey beneath a frozen sea.
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0:59:27 / Roly Porter: “Arrakis”, from the album Aftertime
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Bristolian Roly Porter’s visceral debut took analogue synthesisers, including an ondes martenot, and field recording sources and systematically mangled them with the kind of noise generators and filters beloved of the other drone connoisseur in this mix, Tim Hecker. And like Hecker, Porter’s distorted musicality is both unsettling and affecting.
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1:02:48 / Petrels: “Winchester Croydon Winchester”, from the album Haeligewielle
Oliver Barrett (a.k.a Petrels) drew on somewhat obscure historical inspiration for his solo debut (he is also a member of Bleeding Heart Narrative): pagan water sources (“haeligewielle” is the Anglo-Saxon antecedent of “holy well”) and the life and work of William Walker, a renowned diver who shored up Winchester Cathedral in the early 20th century. The result is a surprisingly coherent blend of folk, field recording and post-rock, a deserving soundtrack for a biopic yet to be filmed.
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1:05:37 / Nils Økland & Sigbjørn Apeland: “Belg Og Slag”, from the album Lysøen: Hommage À Ole Bull
[eMusic] [iTunes]
Sometimes I wonder if I should give my listening entirely to the output of the ECM label. Its studied simplicity and singular worldview brings harmony, even in dissonance, to the disequilibrium of modern life. This tribute to Ole Bull, the 19th century Norwegian violinist and composer, was recorded in his home on the island of Lysøen. The two musicians – voilinist Økland and organist Apeland – tread the line between recital, composition and improvisation so gracefully you almost feel the Nordic wind in your eyes.
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1:08:20 / Khyam Allami: “Individuation”, from the album Resonance/Dissonance
[eMusic] [iTunes]
Syria-born Londoner Khyam Allami arrived at the oud as his instrument of choice only in 2004, after playing violin, drums and bass guitar in various settings since childhood (he’s now the ripe ‘old’ age of 30). His debut album betrays the startling proficiency and intuition in both composition and performance he has accumulated in less than eight years.
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1:14:17 / ends
See also:
good in 2011
January 25, 2012
2011 was another vintage year for new music – though it must be said a less-than-stellar year for this blog. Time to make a change.
Still, I just about managed to find time to curate my annual CD-sized selection of favourite tracks (not a definitive countdown, please note) from the past 12 months. I’m grateful for my own small mercies.
Click on the Mixcloud embed above to listen (requires Flash). Or, if you’re a VIP, wait patiently for a physical copy to wing its way to you.
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0:00:00 / Swod: “Sans Peau”, from the album Drei
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Swod is the acronymic name of German duo of Stephan Wöhrmann and Oliver Doerell. Together they crafted one of the most intelligent yet accessible instrumental albums (their third) of the year. “Sans Peau” illustrates its lightly-worn intricacies perfectly.
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0:04:52 / Mina Tindle: “To Carry Many Small Things”, from the EP Mina Tindle
[eMusic] [iTunes]
Nom de plume for Parisian singer-songwriter Pauline De Lassus, Mina Tindle captured critics’ and listeners’ (including this one’s) hearts with her warm, playful chamber pop.
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0:08:32 / Joan As Police Woman: “The Magic”, from the album The Deep Field
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Another slice of grown-up, contemporary pop from the consistent, generous but sadly not prolific Joan Wasser. This cut, with shades of “Cry Me A River” (a good thing, by the way), adds a touch of soul to her indie sensibility.
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0:12:40 / Metronomy: “She Wants”, from the album The English Riviera
[eMusic] [iTunes]
“She Wants” out-New Waves the New Wave – it sounds so authentic it could have inspired Japan, The Cure and the others over thirty years ago. But it was released in 2011, and sounds fresh too. How do Metronomy do that? Maybe it’s something in the Devon water.
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0:17:33 / Blouse: “Into Black”, from the album Blouse
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
More New Wave reminiscence, this time from elegantly morose Portlanders Blouse. My early enthusiasm for their self-titled debut album has perhaps waned just a touch, but “Into Black” still pulls me into a gratifyingly melancholy dream state.
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0:20:58 / Emika: “Come Catch Me”, from the album Emika
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Ema Jolly – Berlin-based, Czech-descended, England-born Emika – created possibly most accomplished electronic pop record of 2011. Her debut showcases her already coherent vision: meticulously-programmed techno and dubstep sounds wrapped in immaculate song structures. A real treat.
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0:25:02 / Astrid Williamson: “Pour (Raffertie Remix)”, original from the album Pulse
[eMusic] [iTunes]
I haven’t heard Ms. Williamson’s Brian Eno-inspired album Pulse, but this blend of her breathy, passionate vocals with Raffertie‘s techno theatrics hits the spot.
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0:30:01 / Hecq: “With Angels (Trifonic Remix)”, from the album Avenger
[eMusic]
Shamefully, the only other album from German sound designer Ben Lukas Boysen I’m familiar (intimate, more truthfully) with is 2008′s Night Falls – a cinematic, ambient, exquisitely dark symphony-of-sorts. Avenger, on the other hand, is a satisfying collection of mostly pummelling dubstep. Trifonic’s take on “With Angels” (click for an insight into the production process) is in fact one of its lighter moments.
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0:34:01 / Martyn: “Viper”, from the album Ghost People
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
This track from Dutch producer/DJ Martyn (Deykers) makes the cut simply as a result of its tip-of-the-hat to my 107th favourite track of the last four decades: Front 242′s “Headhunter“. That it’s also a pleasing little techno interlude is just gravy.
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0:36:39 / Rone: “So So So”, from the EP So So So
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
I can’t think of a single way in which this house/techno hybrid could be improved. “So So So” asks little of you but rewards you in spades – a selfless track that only knows how to give. The video is a hand-drawn treasure, and the other two tracks on the EP maintain the quality. Erwan Castex deserved all the plaudits he got in 2011.
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0:43:45 / Gui Boratto: “Soledad”, from the album III
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Gui Boratto’s 2007 debut Chromophobia remains one of the best dance albums ever released in this blog’s humble opinion. While his third full-length – called, aptly enough, III – doesn’t quite match up, it does have more than a few moments when Boratto’s intuition shines. “Soledad” is one of them.
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0:48:50 / Apparat: “The Soft Voices Die”, from the album The Devil’s Walk
[Boomkat] [iTunes]
Sascha Ring (a.k.a. Apparat) toured with a live band for the first time (photo here, video here) to support The Devil’s Walk, his fourth album blending analogue and digital, club and home, headphones and heart. While he may not appreciate the comparison, Apparat brings to mind Radiohead at their very peak.
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0:53:12 / M83: “Midnight City”, from the album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
“Midnight City” was pretty inescapable in the second half of 2011, particularly if you came across E4′s Made In Chelsea or the BBC’s endless Olympic coverage trailers while channel-flipping. I didn’t rate the album as highly as everyone else, but once you hear “Midnight City” its hook remains in your head thereafter. The very definition of catchy.
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0:57:15 / Julia Holter: “Goddess Eyes”, from the album Tragedy
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
The most conventional song on Tragedy, a meditation on the Greek play Hippolytus, “Goddess Eyes” nevertheless belies Holter’s beguiling otherworldliness. The album is captivating, bewitching even – we are Phaedra to Holter’s Hippolytus.
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1:00:39 / Lana Del Rey: “Video Games”, from the album Born To Die
[iTunes]
Possibly the breakthrough act of 2011, “Video Games” single-handedly propelled Lizzy Grant – Lana Del Rey to her audience – from online backwaters to the global chat show circuit almost overnight. A torch song for meaning and happiness, it brings majesty to the mundane. “Hollywood sadcore”, as the woman herself puts it, is the perfect label.
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1:05:19 / I Break Horses: “No Way Outro”, from the album Hearts
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Swedish neo-shoegaze band I Break Horses’ debut Hearts created a shimmering, beautiful soundworld, though perhaps it lacked just a little light and shade across its 40 minutes. That said, “No Way Outro” does evoke a kind of end-of-innocence feeling that takes a long time to fade after the song does.
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1:09:41 / Deaf Center: “Time Spent”, from the album Owl Splinters
[eMusic] [Boomkat] [iTunes]
Norwegian duo Deaf Center crafted a beautifully haunted album of cello, piano and field recordings in Owl Splinters. I’ve covered the solo work of one member, Erik Skodvin, before. “Time Spent”, however, foregrounds the touch and poise his co-conspirator, pianist Otto Totland.
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1:11:51 / ends
See also:
[live review] christian fennesz, philip jeck, old apparatus @ st. pancras parish church
May 27, 2011
Concert date: Friday, May 20, 2011
I’ve fallen badly out of the blogging habit over the last few months – and, more regrettably, the listening habit too if I’m honest. I could blame starting a new job, but in any case it’s time to get back on the wagon.
One thing I managed to do was go along to a Miles Of Smiles event at St. Pancras Parish Church last Friday that brought together a trio of ‘beautiful noise’ practitioners, established and new: Christian Fennesz, Philip Jeck and Old Apparatus. I’ve since lost the notes I scribbled during the performance, so this review will be a little more impressionistic than usual.
Fennesz’s set, which closed the evening by a civilised 10pm, saw him push his use of reverb as an active instrument to near total saturation – the originating sounds became almost entirely forgotten beneath layer upon layer of self-sustaining, infinite echo. Yet he maintained a harmonious quality throughout even the most intense, piercing sections of the set.
It was a shame, therefore, that the points of departure for this sonic drenching were Knopfler-esque melodic guitar phrases, albeit with the distortion cranked up a notch or six. They seemed unimaginative, twee even, in comparison to what they became as a result of Fennesz’s deft processing, undermining some of the music’s power as a result.
Fennesz (pictured below, right) announced a new solo EP earlier this week, his first major release since 2008′s Black Sea – Seven Stars (Touch), due for release in July. Based on this performance, I’m tempering my expectations.
The evening opened with a video-augmented laptop set from experimental dub-steppers Old Apparatus, who built a pulsing electronic accompaniment to their audiovisual projections of anatomically-themed scans, scopes and symbols (see main picture, top).
Old Apparatus’ music suits headphone listening better than ‘live’. It is in the detail – much of which was lost (to me) in the perfect atmospheric but imperfect acoustic environment of the church – rather than the vision that they excel.
Nonetheless Old Apparatus – whose identity, typically for the genre, is something of a mystery – provided an absorbing and aptly dark introduction to the evening.
In between Old Apparatus and new Fennesz came the unassuming figure that is Philip Jeck (pictured above, left), “multimedia composer, magician, choreographer and taxidermist” (Wikipedia).
Jeck’s simply wonderful An Ark For The Listener (Touch, 2010), his mediation on Gerald Manley Hopkins’ “The Wreck of the Deutchsland”, is but the latest addition to an outstanding oeuvre of sonic collage-sculptures. His performance here was perhaps slightly freer in its shifting timbres and dynamics but no less coherent than Ark.
One phrase I recall from my now-lost notes from the evening I wrote in relation to Jeck’s set: “meta-drone”. This now seems like pretentious frippery, of course, but at the time felt like useful shorthand for how Jeck (deliberately or otherwise) uses the drone form both within and across his works.
No matter how much variation in sound, tone, rhythm (as distinct from percussion) or atmosphere he injects – which is plenty, by the way – the spell is never broken. Stretched or mutated yes, but never broken.
Magnificent.
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