living light c20
[2007, buried valley]

i don't think that there's been a project name this appropriate since squarepusher. this siren isn't the warning or signaling kind, but of the mythological variety. your obvious touchstone on living light is going to be christina carter's solo work. from there, we can narrow it down a bit more to her electrice ep, but why stop there? i think christina's words are not my own would conjure a decent image of what to expect from siren.

siren do have their own legs to stand on, thankfully, but their selling point is definitely the formless vocalizing of their enchantress. her ooohs and aaahs, gently reverberated beneath a sweet and slow-tempo guitar line that could've been lifted from slowdive's pygmalion create the musical embodiment of ethereal. you should only play this if your day's ambition is to lay on your couch all day with a huge grin on your face. lush, haunting and absolutely disarming.
side a's feather crown is the more static piece of music. on living light siren aren't showing that they've got very many tricks up their sleeve, but the few that they do pull out are executed very well. this isn't the type of music where anyone really needs to break it down and closely scrutinize it. truly, there's not a lot going on, all that's really necessary is allowing the music to wash over you.

spiral spell manages to be a bit more interesting. it retains the same formula: cooing plus a simple, but memorable guitar line, and then add to that a healthy amount of reverberation, only this time out there's a couple of dynamic shifts to give it some character. the shift comes by way of the two guitar layers, one is more of a pleasant background provider while the other is a bit more forceful. they're good together, but when the domineering one cuts out and you're left with just the backing one and the singer's beautiful wails, that's good stuff. when that guitar comes back, it's just as outstanding. spiral spell is a very nice track on a lovely album, the added bonus of the tape hiss works real wonders for this music as well.

Spiral Spell

pleonasm cs
[1996, amp japan]

tokyo's kohei gomi was one of the leading figures in the japanese noise scene in the '90s. while his output has decreased quite a bit from those days, he's resurfaced in the new millenium with gomikawa fumio (a group containing members of the incapacitants), and he's been especially busy this year with a few albums released. i'm glad to have him back.

rare is the time when i feel like settling down and listening to a noise album that has three tracks ranging from ten to twenty something minutes in length. it's a bit much to ask, and as a result i don't get around to digesting pain jerk's music nearly as much as i'd like to. i love pain jerk, but i don't love the fact that out of the twenty albums i have of his, only ten tracks run less than ten minutes, and a large percentage of those are eight to nine minutes in length. if only he took a more rubber o cement approach to making an album: fifty tracks, sixty something minutes long; perfect.

while the need for sanity draining running times is fodder for questioning, one thing that's certainly not is kohei's (anti-)musical prowess. dude's a professional, one hundred percent, and this cassette is as fine of an example as any other i could find.

behavior modification, the twenty-three and a half minute a side, starts us off and due to gomi's skill level, stagnation is never an issue, he keeps it fresh through and through, it's more a matter of are you going to stick around for all of it. in short, yes, yes you should. dense, noisy, not particularly harsh, but certainly not a walk in the park, and the brief rhythmic interruptions are more than welcome.

the second side is comprised of the two parter crippled cupid and it's with these pieces that i'm most fond of. part one has a great background loop that gets me going, meanwhile kohei's tweaking the knobs and doing a stand up job of it. the way he pans that main loop between all of the channels is a nice little touch. feedback abounds on this one and when everything is met with thick distortion, it only gets better. the best part though, would be when that foundation loop makes its sly reentry during the last minute, as it succumbed to the pressure of everything going on on top of it early in the proceedings. part two also has a nice background loop going for it, but what's nice this time around is that, in addition to panning effects, he also adjusts its sound a bit rather than just having it repeat itself endlessly. the winning touch comes by way of the throbbing bassline during the middle stretch. once it's joined by strangled distortion and feedback, yeah, it's getting better. the real moment of euphoria for me with part two is the all too brief period where kohei's matching the hits of the bass with stabs of feedback, stroke of genius in my opinion. absolutely brilliant. towards the end of the tape when the original background loop coolly returns to the fray...goddamn.

also, dictionary.com defines pleonasm as "the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea". their definition was rather pleonastic.

if you don't know, make yourself aware and join my worship at the altar of pain jerk. oh, also check out his newly released collaboration with ex-bastard noise's john wiese.

Crippled Cupid, Part One
(i'd recommend listening with headphones)

4 corners
[2007, clean feed]

prior to settling down with this album i was only familiar with sirs vandermark and nilssen-love, and that was enough to grab my attention. let's go over the line-up, on drums we have norwegian paal nilssen-love, on double bass is new yorker adam lane (of adam lane's full throttle orchestra), swedish trumpeter magnus broo and lastly chicagoan ken vandermark on saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet.

there's just something about listening to jazz that makes you feel more sophisticated than you really are. i feel like i should be sipping chardonnay from a glass instead of drinking blue ribbon from a can. ah well. while i'd have to say that my knowledge of the genre lies somewhere between ignorant and simply uniformed, i know what i like, and i'm really liking this. call me old fashioned, but i appreciate an overall feeling of structure in jazz music, yet one that still allows for freer elements to be able to creep in and make their presence known without altogether abandoning cohesion. as big of a penchant for dissonant and chaotic music as i have, i've never ditched my love for harmony, melody and rhythm. it's really the rhythm section that's winning me over with this disc. that's not to take anything away from ken or magnus, they're great, but adam and paal are achieving some incredibly good chemistry, which might be weird since paal's more used to working with ken vandermark [pictured together bottom right, with vandermark on the left], not lane.

4 corners is a good album on the whole, but it's pushed to that next level by two exceptional pieces of music in (opener) alfama and ashcan rantings. it's no surprise that both of these tracks encapsulate the brilliant chemistry between the rhythm section. it's adam lane, in particular, that i've been completely impressed with throughout the cd. while it should also be noted that the bass is my favorite instrument when it comes to jazz music, lane's excellence on the instrument should be abundantly clear to anyone who gives this a spin. in the first few minutes of alfama just pay close attention to how well the drums are complimenting the bass, it's fantastic. when adam switches back to the main bassline, paal is with him every step of the way. i really can't say enough about the job these two did on this song. brass fans, fret not, ken and magnus do a fine job of playing the supporting role (it would be hard to outshine the other two on this particular gem). i've been listening to this on repeat for the last, hmmm, i guess it's been three hours now, and in that time i've grown fond of the fourth track, lucia. with lucia, it's vandermark and broo's turn in the sun and they're certainly up to the task of commanding the stage. the rhythm section is finding itself playing the back-up role whilst the brass section woos you with a bit of elegance. i'm really enamored with the main (catchy) notes that vandermark's playing while magnus nonchalantly supplies some accompanying instrumentation that's not in line with what ken's doing, but works beautifully to accentuate it. how i didn't catch this track the first time around is beyond me, and hey, it happens. glad i stuck with it though. alright, so lucia is 4 corners most beautiful piece of music, let's get onto its grooviest. that honor goes to ashcan rantings. rantings takes us again to the nilssen-love / lane show. slick as snot bassline being laid down by adam, and the brass section is doing a better job of playing off of his foundation than witnessed earlier. the passage where lane's double bass drops off and it's a back and forth between the other three is very nice. jeez, then there's the free jazz freakout between vandermark and broo that you just know is going to culminate in a triumphant return to form, but as soon as that bassline and drumming do return, it's still astonishing. later on during the track when adam lane plays like terence butler on early black sabbath, good times!
i've become certain of a few things after listening to 4 corners. one, paal nilssen-love is in my top three experimental/jazz drummers along with hamid drake and chris corsano. two, adam lane is fucking awesome. i've got a few other albums by him that i need to check out, hopefully that assessment will still ring true. if you like good jazz, don't let this album pass you by, you will not be disappointed.

Ashcan Rantings

konkrete klaenge
[2006, radical matters]

milan's king of sample splicing (trademark) appears to be on a mission to undo his own legacy during the first nine and a half minutes of konkrete klaenge. he begins by using a one second long vocal sample, looped over and over for a minute or so, then he switches the sample, loops that for a few more minutes, and so on until punching yourself in the face no longer seems like such a bad idea. the first time that i heard this i had to skip ahead in the track to make sure that there was more to it than just painful redundancy. there is. i would've been severely disappointed otherwise. thinking about it, yes, the samples themselves blurring together do have a certain musical quality and you could say that maurizio's being super avant-garde (read: annoying), but i'm more of a fan of plays the clockwork orange where he pieced together bits of different music together to create new music, that was interesting. if mark e. smith had heard konkrete klaenge before he penned repetition, he might've rethought his stance on the matter.

here's the kicker though, i'd have to strain myself to think of the last time that i've been so put off by the beginning of a song only to want to sing its praises upon completion. the metamorphosis is breathtaking and i applaud m.b. for his alchemy. the question, i suppose, is how does he accomplish this? the answer, ironically enough, is with repetition. only this time what he's repeating is stunning and maurizio's taking a more tactful approach. now that my sequencing has become all kinds of crazy i'll backtrack.

once past the vocal looping, we're still not quite out of the woods just yet, but bianchi's shifted from vocal to tonal looping. this is somehow more agreeable, though i could see this as being just as annoying as the beginning, yet i'm unfazed. this'll only stick around for two more minutes until we find ourselves caught in the middle of a static deluge. i dig the sound of rain and that's what this sounds like, so this signals the beginning of konkrete klaenge's turnaround. four minutes later the downpour begins to relent a little until it's more of an omnipresent background hiss that gives way to industrial machinery noise. that's well and good for another six minutes until we get to the album's money shot, the coupling of a fixed background of buzzing electricity and an instrumental sample. i want to say it's a keyboard sample, but i'm not sure how accurate that is. i can tell you what it sounds like, something snatched from a murder mystery (it makes me want to play clue for some reason). noir as hell. this three parted sample working in unison with, at first, the humming and then the static give me a musical high that would be next to impossible to ruin, especially in bianchi's capable hands.part deux sees m.b. returning to his fascination with looping, but thankfully doesn't come close to repeating the annoyance of someone shouting "quiero" incessantly as was previously the case. this time the focus is squarely on tones and tonality and i can recognize this as actually being musical, because, well, it is. also, some of these samples sound like they could've been procured from a carousel, and i can get swept up in the whimsical nature. ten minutes later the sound starts progressing, again, much like its predecessor, but maurizio never will shake the fixation with sustained tones. surprisingly, this piece of music manages to be a lot more repetitious than the first track, though the sounds he's using are far more agreeable.

make no mistake, konkrete klaenge is not for all fans of experimental music. these are two behemoth tracks weighing in at a shade under seventy-seven minutes. repetitious and slow to develop, it ultimately rewards those listeners who are daring enough to sift (sit?) through its many layers.

Konkrete Klaenge Part I (in all its 38:28 glory, have fun)

resuscitation
[2006, blossoming noise]

ryke? more like yikes. two of my favorite noise artists, san franciscan randy (h.y.) yau and japan's kazumoto endo (pka killer bug [pictured]) hooked up for this glorious disc. if yau's selected works compilation coagulation is any indication (too many 'ations, yes, i know), this isn't the first time that these two have worked together under the ryke moniker and here's hoping it won't be the last.

if you're familiar with either's work, let's make some contrasts and comparisons. where yau's noise could involve minimalism in between his vocal outbursts, the noise is a bit more present and the harshness isn't merely relegated to his shouting. back to the vocals, what randy's doing here is a bit more subtle, for the most part. there's some gasping, grunts and various other sounds but the focus isn't solely on the vocal aspect. now for kazumoto's part, he rarely comes close to the full on sustained brutality that marks his earlier works, such as bloody rehearsal and i find that his new found restraint is working wonders here.

randy and endo are a fine tuned machine on this outing. impressive all the way around. when they want to be noisy, they can bring it; look no further than resuscitation parts ii and xii as prime examples. they're not squeaking by with dense bullshit neither, no this is loud multi-channel pressure blasting à la facialmess. one of the successes for this disc is how they don't rely strictly on that great harsh noise, letting yau's vocal dread work as a transition. also, the brief dissonant shots that we get out of the blue are nice. the fact that these guys can get loud isn't a question, but they can also provide some interesting understated noise, which they do most well on part xi.shockingly enough for me, this disc slipped past me last year, a friend actually had to tell me of its existence. i'm still marveling over this. anyways, if i'd have known about resuscitation last year it would've been near the top of my favorite noise albums. a great cd that clearly distances itself from the pack not just by sounding "different", but by kicking a lot of ass in the process. fucking lovely.

Resuscitation Part X

toadstools amongst the tombstones 12"
[2007, qbico]

damn, i decided to take a bit of a siesta on pengo after climbs the holy mountain, and now they've gone and cut an absolutely fantastic record. i'm waking up just in time, it seems. i loved the holy mountain's trans-love abattoir, though. great track. after that album i pretty much just "collected" their music whenever it would happen to pop up on slsk. i'd give them the quick once over, not find anything that particularly stuck out, shrug and run off to go listen to prurient. i never really got what was so popular about the band, but then again, i wasn't really putting forth interest in finding out. recently, i got the hair police and pengo collaboration, actually listened to it, and was impressed enough by that to give some undivided attention to this release.

this rochester, ny, trio (nuuj, jason finkbeiner and john schoen) have created a beautiful zen-like harmony with their organic psychedelia, electronic and noisier impulses. after the impossible happened would be the quintessential example. sputtering electronics, echoing chimes and barely there guitar strumming will gradually build culminating in a gorgeous track with memorability on every front. outstanding electronic work. the latter half of the track gets more into psychedelic things with an emphasis on the guitar. now, the electronics play out to be more of a noisy background layer. if pengo's got more shit like this in their (sizeable) discography, point me in the right direction, please!

moving on from there, pengo choose to get their hands a bit dirty with chaotic vocal noise and yelps during the onset of doboce. eventually, they'll settle down to a terrific little bit of guitar twang and drone. voices inside the circle seems like an entirely different band altogether as they focus more intently on synth usage. higher and lower frequency tones and buzzing static in the background layer. voices is significantly less dynamic than everything else on here, but taken in the full album context, serves change up the pace a bit. it also segues nicely into the superb the day it came crawling. there's a catchy electronic groove hidden in the back and they're just laying down some great free noise guitar freak outs. one eye looks north also pairs some hooky guitar playing with vocal noise and synthesized tones.

the closing piece, let's levitate the outhouse, lightens the mood considerably with some airy chords and the first appearance of percussion. as outhouse unfolds, the percussion gets fucked up to the point where everything's stuttering and off-beat and believe me, it's a very good thing. the track'll soon explode into a pleasantly noisy conclusion. couldn't have ended this on a better note.
the constants of something attention grabbing on nearly every track, whether it be by guitar or other instrumentation, electronic or not, make this a hell of a listen. additionally, pengo's seamless weaving of instrumentation and synthesized music gives you something else to marvel over when you listen to this. hugely recommended. they've made a believer out of me.

The Day it Came Crawling

self-titled cassette
[2006, self-released]

these are powers, hailing from brooklyn and featuring a former member of liars (bassist pat noecker, from their they stuck us in a trench days, who also sings and plays bass in n0 things, who appear to be a bit more known), are a hugely under-appreciated band, in my opinion. i randomly came across them on slsk when i downloaded them, from someone whose taste in music i find agreeable, because i liked their name. i do that a lot, it works better than you might think. unless you have poor taste in band names. lucky me.

let's get to the bad news first: this tape is shorter than vern troyer. at sixteen minutes and fourteen seconds it just manages to be more than a tease. amongst the good news is the fact that that's the only thing remotely 'bad' about this tape. you could even say that by only having five songs they've effectively eschewed the filler, which is a very good thing.

these are powers' self-titled cassette stood out to me for having a uniqueness to its sound, while i can certainly pick out different elements and say 'the bass on this one reminds me a bit of silver daggers' it's the full range of what they're doing, how they're putting everything together that makes such a great impact and gives it a fresh feeling. the trailed off and repeated vocals on the outstanding opener the south angel work to glorious effect in tandem with the interesting instrumentation. "guess... you'll never guess... guess.... i... i tried to scream from the other side of closed eyes" the song has a very eerie and tense feeling to it and i'm loving it. when anna barie actually breaks out into a shriek simultaneously with some great bass riffing, fuckin' a i'm in love. dynamic song structure, creative vocals and catchy bass work all make for a hell of an opening number. with all my might features some very nice repetitive electronic sounds with memorable guitar playing by barie, but my favorite part is definitely the singing on this one. my least favorite part is that at two minutes long, it's the shortest track. the absence of a chorus during creme teeth doesn't hurt the song at all as the rhythm section picks up the slack and keeps you tuning in. the question is is the lone instrumental song and it doesn't miss a step thanks in large part to the call and response interplay between anna and pat's instruments. here's really where that silver daggers comparison comes into play. hoop snake brings the tape to its fine (if not sad) end. it almost sounds like vintage coughs, albeit far more musically subdued and with a nicer sounding vocalist. it has some catchy lyrics and a rad bassline. the singing will eventually become more virulent with shouted lyrics and screams. i enjoy muchly. in fact, i'm retroactively adding these are powers to my 2006 favorites.

this brooklyn-three piece are set to drop a 12" entitled terrific seasons this fall. rest assured it will be in my hands when it drops. curiously enough, they also have a 7" out on the more noise-centric elsie & jack label. i need that too.

The South Angel