We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults.
The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings.
The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine.
Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna.
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I had a roommate back in the '90s who was deeply into the ambient side of techno, which was something that I intensely loathed at the time. Unbeknownst to me, however, that was my first exposure to the seemingly ubiquitous and eternal Taylor Deupree (via his Human Mesh Dance and Prototype 909 projects). I have since grown to genuinely love his work, of course, but I am sufficiently guilty of taking him for granted that I slept on his landmark 2002 album Stil. The same is not true of Joseph Branciforte (who runs the greyfade label), as he was so taken with the album that he embarked upon a multi-year project to "bring Deupree's explorations of extreme repetition and stillness into the world of notated chamber music." That initially seemed like quite a quixotic endeavor to me, but the resultant album is an absolute revelation, as breaking Deupree's elegantly skipping and sublime ambient magic up into individual acoustic components reveals an incredible degree of harmonic and dynamic sophistication that would have been otherwise lost on me. To paraphrase a scene from Mad Men, hearing Sti.ll after listening to Stil. feels like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when everything unexpectedly bursts into vivid color.
According to Deupree, the original album was inspired by the seascapes of Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and led to a significant change in the direction of his own vision (the idea of "stillness" became a guiding theme, as alluded to by the album's title). Compositionally, that change manifested itself in the four longform pieces of Stil. being devoted entirely to the "complex repetition of looping passages," as Deupree found that sustained immersion in repeating patterns could reveal "hidden pulses and movements not initially apparent," which is a vision that historically resonates quite deeply with me. In nuts-and-bolts terms, the original album was assembled from "melodic and granular passages juxtaposed in variable-length loops." Naturally, the "variable length" bit is what triggers the subtle, slow-motion transformations in these pieces, but Deupree illustrated the process more dramatically by noting that Stil.'s title piece was "based entirely on oscillating variations in a single 0.33 second tonal fragment." In short, small changes eventually bring fascinating and unexpected results.
In more conceptual terms, the aim for Stil. (and presumably for Sti.ll as well) was to create the sense of being suspended in a "brief moment of frozen time." In keeping with that theme, the 10- to 23-minute song durations on the original album were dictated by the CD format of the release, as Deupree saw the individual pieces as "fragments" of "longer works that extend for many hours." For the most part, Branciforte and Deupree opted to stick closely to the album's original durations for this re-envisioning, which was presumably came as a great relief to the ensemble of New York musiciansenlisted for the project (Madison Greenstone, Ben Monder, Laura Cocks, Christopher Gross, and Sam Minaie).
That said, I suspect that Branciforte would have gone completely mad if he attempted to notate and arrange a multi-hour version of one of these pieces, given the sheer glacial subtlety of their transformations. Hell, merely figuring out which acoustic instruments would be best suited for each piece seems like it would have been an incredibly tall order all on its own, as Branciforte wound up with some surprisingly unusual configurations, such as the title piece's limited palette of only vibraphone and bass drum (hearing the piece, I would have guessed a thousand other instruments before I ever would have landed upon "bass drum" by blind chance).
Unsurprisingly given the instrumentation, "Stil. (For Vibraphone & Bass Drum)" is the most aggressively minimal and distilled piece on the album, evoking a searchlight slowly sweeping across a sensuously flickering and undulating psychedelic fog. It is also the most "ambient"-sounding piece on the album and the one that could fit most seamlessly on the original album, but this latest version feels deeper and richer than the original. It also features plenty of sublime sorcery of the fluttering and ghostlike variety, but my personal favorite piece is the more dramatic "Recur," which genuinely sounds like the work of a chamber music ensemble (albeit one that is constantly stuttering and overlapping upon itself). After about a minute, however, a tense repeating loop crash lands in the mix to steer the piece towards increasingly cinematic terrain suggestive of a lysergic espionage thriller set in Morocco. Aside from that, the piece is teaming with odd whistles, hisses, plinks, and pings that make it feel like the piece is gradually tearing itself apart from the inside, continually venting pressure as the various cracks and tears intensify and spread.
Impressively, the remaining two pieces are similarly absorbing in their own right. For example, "Snow-Sand" feels somewhere between a blurred impressionistic deconstruction of Reich- or Glass-style minimalism and sensuously swaying drone magic (though a strangled-sounding clarinet sometimes breaks through the reverie to keep things unpredictable). Elsewhere, "Temper" transforms a clarinet and shaker into a quivering and flickering haze of shifting harmonies, crackle, hiss, and murmuring woodwinds. Cumulatively, the four pieces add up to quite a sustained plunge into immersive and dreamlike suspended animation. Moreover, it feels like a very different album than Stil. due to both the new instrumentation and the altered balance of sounds and textures. I can now easily understand why this became a labor of love for Branciforte, as Sti.ll is a one-of-a-kind deep listening experience that will probably feel fresh to me forever, as I am constantly finding new shades of beauty as I notice more details and small changes.
The enigmatic, inscrutable, and defunct Austrian duo of JürgenWeber and Lili Novy/Frl. Tost has long been a subject of fascination for me, as I have had a bunch of their albums for years and enjoyed them, yet knew virtually nothing about them at all. In fact, I still would find it incredibly challenging to even answer a simple question like "what does Nový Svět sound like?" as their elusive discography continually blurs the lines between industrial, folk, cabaret, improv, collage, and whatever other esoteric influences they decided to assimilate for a given album. Amusingly, they also had a quixotic tendency to record albums in languages other than their native German, as evidenced by this newly released album from the vaults, which was originally intended to complete a "Spanish trilogy" back in 2007. In characteristically contrarian and mystifying fashion, it was shelved for being "too Spanish" and a synth album (Todas Las Últimas Cosas) was released instead. If this were any other band, I would drive myself crazy wondering why they would allow such an mesmerizing and wonderfully weird album to languish unheard, but baffling choices were basically the norm for Nový Svět. In any case, this album rules and I am thrilled to finally get to hear it.
Aside from rudimentary and potentially dubious details like "Nový Svět were originally Vienna-based and formed in 1997," most of my knowledge of the band's history amusingly comes from a 1999 Russian interview in which the hapless interviewer kept asking an obviously disinterested Weber about how Futurism shaped the project's vision. Given that Weber glibly dismissed a few prominent Futurists as embarrassing weirdos and dandies in the interview, it is probably safe to say that they were not a terribly big influence, but he did seem to know a hell of a lot about the European avant-garde despite attributing the band's origins largely to alcohol and having a bunch of instruments lying around. Based on what little I know, it seems that the project's shapeshifting vision was more likely shaped by an interest in traditional music and instrumentation colliding with a fondness for tape loops and samplers, but Nový Svět also seemed to be shaped quite a bit by their immediate surroundings and a host of non-musical influences (theater, Buddhism, hedonism, folklore, Cage, Pasolini, Esperanto, Art Brut, etc.)..
In keeping with that theme, this album probably felt too Spanish primarily because the duo had returned home to their native Vienna shortly after finishing the recordings. Unsurprisingly, very little else can be said about the album with any certainty, but DeGenerazione is purportedly centered around "dream and sleep and (waking up in) nightmares" and Weber is the sole person credited for the words and music. Aside from that, all I can say is that someone named Tristan handled the mixing and that the recordings surfaced online awhile back after being rescued from decaying masters. There are a couple of other names credited on the album (ZaZa and Sara), but it is impossible to say who was truly involved or what they did, as the album seems to be primarily crafted from the minimal palette of Weber's voice, a bunch of samples, a couple guitars, an accordion, and some bells, chimes, and pieces of metal. To be sure, there are a decent number of "Spanish" touches strewn throughout the album, such as the looping minor key guitar motif in "Raja" or the mutant Latin groove in "Lo Que Tu 1," but Weber's Spanish-language vocals are the sole consistently Spanish thread on the album. Given that my own grasp of Spanish is embarrassing at best, I cannot throw stones at Weber's own questionable mastery of the language, but he certainly manages to make it sound expressive, sultry, poetic, and beautiful anyway.
I am hesitant to describe these songs as sketchlike, as a lot of attention clearly went into how everything ultimately sounded, but a lot of songs are only a minute or two long and damn near every piece is a vamp centered upon a single rhythm or melodic hook. That suits the material quite beautifully and seems to fit Weber's personality as well, as he doesn't seem like someone who would be remotely interested in adhering to songcraft conventions. That said, he does seem to have an impressive intuition for crafting compelling and memorable songs from spontaneous inspirations and also has the good sense not to overstay his welcome or needlessly dilute a good idea with unnecessary clutter.
Notably, these recording sessions seemed to be an especially fertile period for those good ideas as well, as every single song is inspired in some way and my notes are packed with colorful phrases like "Jimmy Durante fronts The Electric Mayhem," "someone is strangling a balloon animal," and "a lysergic march of cartoon ducks" (those are all compliments, by the way). In general, however, the longer, more substantial pieces tend to feature many of the album's strongest moments, such as the dramatic acoustic strumming in "Ciudacanta," the manic insanity of "Rexistencia," and the sensuous and surreal psychedelic crescendo of "Tierra." That said, I loved a lot of the shorter pieces too, especially the sultry noir jazz of "Al Fuego" and the clattering, backwards weirdness of "Suenos, Anos, Despues."
While I certainly expected to dig this album, I was still very pleasantly surprised by how thoroughly it exceeded my expectations. For one, I didn't even know that this album existed until Quindi stepped up to finally give it a proper release. Secondly, it was extremely heartening to discover that there was someone out there interested in resurrecting such a unique and obscure project at all. In fact, the release of DeGenerazione was even accompanied by a second surprise, as Quindi also just released a new solo JürgenWeber album under his Jota Solo guise. The biggest surprise of all, however, is that DeGenerazione is a legitimately excellentNový Svět album, which is not usually the case for shelved albums from the vaults. For the curious, this is as good an entry point as any and has the added bonus of actually being readily available (digitally, at least). Notably, the vinyl editions for both DeGenerazione and Jota Solo's Nessuno sold out faster than I could write about them, which hopefully bodes well for the prospect of future Nový Svět reissues. Hell, maybe the Nový Svět renaissance is already fully underway, as yet another album from this same era (Desde Infiernos De Flores) was quietly reissued on Brannten Schnüre's Quirlschlängle imprint back in 2022. Sadly, I was not fast enough to grab that one, but I will be damned if I let the next one slip by me.
First issued in 2013 as a limited-to-50 CDr, the, um, second album by the duo of Christoph Heemann and Will Long (Celer) was initially released in conjunction with a tour and has been only digitally available since. For its tenth anniversary, Black Rose Recordings have reissued this second (of three) recordings from the project on a wider available physical edition, ensuring that its lush, yet sparse collection of electronics are available once again for those longing for a tangible copy.
Consisting of a single 42-ish minute piece that was created using only two synths, a reverb unit, a tone generator, and tapes Second Album's overall sound reflects this intentionally stripped-down setup, but the duo cover a lot of different territories throughout its lengthy duration. Opening with a basic, resonating synth pulsation, the two delicately add in some low frequency elements and subtle melodic tones to flesh everything out.
From this starting point, Long and Heemann allow the synth to continue its pulse throughout while blending in lush, glistening layers of tone and sound. This development is slow but deliberate, and never does the piece linger too long. Instead, gentle passages come and go, all the while the backing synth pulses away. However, the duo start shifting tones to lower registers as the composition goes on, obscuring the light and filling in the open spaces.
Eventually the electronic layers become more distorted and noisy, and the changes are no longer subtle. Well-worn tapes blend in, covered with grime and the decay of time, casting the piece into a space of disquieting nostalgia. The background layers build and build until the now-dense mix is peeled back to leave a dissonant buzz, eventually floating off into space, still propelled by that same synth note.
The "dream" part of the duo's name certainly fits the sound and mood of Second Album. Slow shifts from light to dark, and the transition from lush tones to distorted textures all happen within this waking dream-like space that feels real, yet not always tangible. Additionally, maintaining this fascinating drift for over 42 minutes is no small feat, but Heemann and Long make it seem effortless, and beautiful.
A pairing of two Swedish artists, the veteran Dan Johansson (Sewer Election) and the relative newcomer Gustav Danielsbacka (Incipientium), Sorceress makes for an unsettling collaboration at various points throughout its four compositions. With their heavy use of manipulated tapes, they add an uncomfortably organic sense to the sputtering electronics and junk noise that sound anything but human throughout. It may be unsettling, but it is also delightfully enchanting throughout.
The album is essentially split into two halves, with Johansson handling mixing duties on the first three shorter pieces, and Danielsbacka tackling the 20 minute fourth and final work. The two different approaches clearly reflect that mixing was handled by each individual, but the overall product complements each other quite well.
Right from the onset of "Hallucinations of R. Maxfield," the deluge of tapes is apparent. Immediately it is a mass of hissy backwards analog noise peppered with the odd outburst here and there. It is primarily based upon loops that never become too harsh, but as the volume increases, the duo introduce sputtering electronics and grinding sounds to the fray.
The duo again lead off "Sorceress" with tape hiss, but in this case mixed with some low-end heavy bass synth tones. The bass portion loops throughout as the two throw in an uncomfortable pastiche of tape cut-ups, consisting of muffled voices and what sounds like pained groans and coughing. These unpleasant voice bits are joined by some shrill passages that make for an engaging, if unsettling piece. High frequency tones and mangled tapes set the stage for "Gaps of Brain," but the pseudo-loop structure and lo-fi fog that enshrouds the piece keep things a bit more pleasant in comparison to what preceded it. It becomes a bit more abrasive as squeaky, wet noises pop up at the end, but overall, it is a more restrained work.
"Steel Temptation-Concept-Deviations" is the 20-minute Incipientium mixed piece that closes the disc, and compared to the first three it is a bit more dynamic (at times chaotic), and is an overall more forceful approach. The duo again launches with some hiss drenched tones, unidentified clattering soon comes into the mix, with creepy voice fragments appearing soon after. The focus soon becomes on a rattling bit of metal, with a crunchy pulsation and deep buried noise churn filling out the spectrum. Clattering junk and rough stop and starts are joined with reversed echoes and banging loops.
Soon everything is turned up to the maximum, resulting in a good old fashion harsh noise crunch that hearkens back to the golden era of the genre, with a combination of rhythmic loops and random blasts keeping the flow going. For the final third, everything comes to a dramatic, reverberated stop as the duo shift focus to lighter wobbly passages, loops, and eventually menacing tones and spectral crunches to conclude.
At times Sorceress has Johansson and Danielsbacka pushing everything into the red zone of harsh noise, but for most of the disc's duration the duo exercise restraint, balancing electronics, junk, and cassette tapes. Throughout—and most explicitly on the title piece—this actually results in a more disquieting sensibility, since the familiar sound of human voice is presented in a way that is so unnatural sounding in execution. But it is this mood that makes Sorceress so great, because the weirdly shifting mood only served to draw my attention closer to trying to figure out what was going on, which is the hallmark of a captivating noise album in my eyes.
This unusual drum and guitar duo first surfaced back in the dark days of early 2020 with The Quickening, which they boldly recorded without ever having previously performed together. Obviously, both artists are seasoned improvisers and excellent musicians, but I was still taken aback by the instant and incredible chemistry on pieces like that album's title track. Given the significant hurdles like distance, touring schedules, and other collaborations, it understandably took quite some time before the opportunity to reconvene presented itself, but the duo finally managed to meet up in White's native Australia in 2022 for some recording sessions in the coastal town of Point Lonsdale. The resultant album feels a bit different from its predecessor for a couple of reasons (no acoustic guitars this time around, "big change of vibe and scenery"), but the three-part "Bitterroot Valley Suite" beautifully recaptures the magic and spontaneity of the pair's debut while also breaking some very compelling new ground.
In the album's description, Anderson notes that Swallowtail's engineer (Nick Huggins) was an avid surfer "attuned to the cycles of tides and sunrises and sunsets and ocean rhythms" and suggests that "all of that got into the music." I could not possibly agree more with that assessment, though I would have guessed that it was actually White who was the surfing enthusiast, as his drumming throughout this album beautifully mirrors the dynamics of rolling and crashing waves. Notably, Anderson's playing evokes water as well, but I would characterize her circular arpeggio patterns as something more akin to ripples in a pond, which is a strategy that works quite well here. In fact, that magic formula runs throughout nearly all of Swallowtail's strongest pieces, such as the opening "Aerie" and the aforementioned "Bitterroot Valley Suite": Anderson's rippling and chiming arpeggio patterns are breathlessly propelled forward by the rolling, elemental power of White's drumming. That said, those pieces are considerably more dynamically and melodically complex than that sounds, as White's crescendos ebb and flow just like actual waves and Anderson's patterns often branch out into tendrils of melody in the spaces between those climaxes.
When Anderson and White veer into more conventional rhythmic or melodic terrain, however, the results can be a bit uneven. That makes sense, as it feels like a waste to relegate a world-class drummer like White to a straightforward beat if he is not playing a pre-existing song (there is a big difference between jamming and improvising, as the former is basically sonic chloroform for me). More significantly, I imagine that improvising strong melodies, hooks, and song-like passages in real-time over the shifting foundations of a free-drumming tour de force would be quite a daunting task indeed (and a counterintuitive one as well). The way I see it, if you find yourself at a beach with big waves rolling in, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to hop on a board, find your balance, and ride those waves as far as they'll take you than it does to try to impose your will upon the fucking ocean.
The intuitive grasp of dynamics like that are what make Anderson and White such a formidable improv unit: they let the music organically flow and simply go where it leads them without imposing their egos upon that flow, though such alchemy only works when both artists are on the same wavelength and have the improv chops to take their mind completely out of the equation. That said, the closing "Aurora" is quite a lovely and surprise outlier, as White sticks to a simple beat to give Anderson a chance to stretch out and weave a languorous, sun-dappled melody that evokes a scenic drive along a gorgeous coastline with the windows down.
After hearing Swallowtail, I immediately went back and listened to The Quickening again. After I finished kicking myself for sleeping on that debut, I was struck by what an impressive (and evolving) body of work Anderson and White have amassed sheerly through spontaneous improvised performances. Despite following Marisa's work for nearly a decade and being a casual fan of several Jim White projects (Dirty Three, Boxhead Ensemble, his collaboration with Nina Nastasia), I definitely did not expect this to be the duo that would finally give Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano a run for their money, but that was entirely because I had no idea how amazing Jim White's playing could be when he is given free reign to indulge his stumbling, tumbling, and off-kilter freeform virtuosity. Thankfully, I have now been cured of my ignorance and this duo will have my full and enthusiastic attention every time they convene until the end of time.