In Place of Dreary Patterns

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Archive for category 5 stars

Xanopticon - (2003) Liminal Space (*****)

Jun 19

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Electronic Music, IDM / Glitch, Reviews | No Comments

xanopticon-liminal-space

Someone had to take amelodic, claustrophobic, oddly timed, electronic insanity as far as it would go.  This album spits in the face of anyone who has called an album by Richard Devine or Autechre a soulless technical exercise rather than legitimate composition, making no attempt to provide melodies or thematic elements that could make the music accessible and instead taking the style to uncharted heights of alienating incoherency and disorienting chaos.  It would be wrong to dismissively classify such left field music as IDM, though this music surely originates from the Warp records school of thought. “Hard IDM” would make a more fitting term, maybe.  Xanopticon’s “Liminal Space” is an experience so overwhelming one might easily need a break part way through.  This music moves at about 1.5x the speed of even the fastest death metal or grind music, and there are no repetitive rhythms to ground you.

“Liminal Space” is the sound of stress, of thinking too much, too quickly.  The music makes no attempt to breathe, or even to let the beauty of its own individual elements shine.  There are layers and layers of ambient sound in these tracks that are almost completely buried into inaudibility by distorted, forceful, frantic percussion - break beats and danceable grooves granulized into pulp and pointilistically shoved down the listener’s throat in an impossible rapid barrage bent on completely overloading listeners’ minds.  These desperate beats scream in your ear for the entirety of this record, but it feels a lot less like a aggressive display of force than an intense expression of panicked confusion, unlike the work of (fellow?) breakcore producer Venetian Snares, who is in my opinion the closest reference point for this kind of rhythmic ridiculousness.  In order to actually hear the subdued elements hidden beneath, one would have to play the music at a volume at which the beats would be unbearably loud.  Ironically for an album with the word “space” in the title, Friedrich seems afraid to let any emptiness or space into his music.  There are few dynamics; this music is consistently at full tilt and full volume.

Repeated listenings allowed me to more adequately keep pace with these busy rhythms, though every song has so many parts that it would be impossible to memorize or truly absorb them.  At best, this music falls into a bizarre, completely undanceable eight legged groove.  The mind can move to it, even when the body cannot.  The beats are very human despite their absurd complexity…  It is clear that the endless variations were sequenced rather than mathematically generated, and that the endlessly morphing beat is the aspect of his music Ryan Friedrich pays the most attention to.  The detailed nuances of the composition and production of the rhythm are truly his voice, the elements he uses to describe images and concepts inexpessible in ordinary language…  And through this cataclysmic blizzard of sound, one can glimpse a hallucinatory universe created by the vast networks of sonic layers that is absolutely one of a kind.

This music is perhaps best experienced one song at a time.  When evaluated alone, almost any of Friedrich’s tracks seems fresh, original and rich with ideas.  There are no weak tracks on “Liminal Space”, but it does appear that Friedrich has a formula.  Some tracks begin quiet and ambient, but in the end all are overtaken by heavy percussion by the 45 second mark.  The songs vary stylistically only in that some are even more dense and claustrophic than others.  In the less busy tracks, such as “Indec” or “Symphwrak”, some mournful, wintery synth chords and melodies can be clearly heard, showing traces of a less deranged side to Xanopticon’s musical intellect.  These melancholic tonal elements don’t add much actual warmth to the music, but at least they are expressions of easily understood emotions.  It’s not enough make me feel like any real respite has been provided, and the album is very exhausting to listen to as a whole.

Yes, I could easily justify giving this album a 4 star rating, docking it 1 for being too hard to listen to, or being too repetitive within its own bizarre idiom, but I must admit - I continue to be fascinated by this enigma of an album, and as it would seem “Liminal Space” is destined to be the sole full length of this unique and irreplacable musician, I feel compelled to give this unforgettable album 5 stars.

The Angels of Light - (1999) New Mother (*****)

Jun 14

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Folk, Neofolk, Reviews | No Comments

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Michael Gira’s Angels of Light project, no longer exactly ‘new’, at first continued on with the hypnotic, dreary and almost infinitely pessimistic sounds of his solo album “Drainland” while borrowing all the folkiest bits from the Swans’ 1989 folk experiment “The Burning World”. This time around, he puts his whole heart into it, and gets a diverse, sprawling 17 track epic. This is easily some of Gira’s best music ever, dispelling any worries caused by the breakup of Swans.

On “New Mother”, Gira’s compositions, most easily classifiable as folk songs, are more complex and also oddly more conventional than ever before, often containing verse and chorus sections, though sometimes in unexpected alternations. Swans tracks often featured the same layered texture for the entirety of the song. This album shows that Gira has become ever more conscious of time, condensing the incredible power of the “Soundtracks for the Blind” album and its 12 minute build ups into shorter, 4 to 6 minute songs with many distinct parts. These songs still remain ’soundworlds’ in the Swans sense, although interestingly enough they are primarily acoustic, or recognizable instruments. The listener is typically bombarded by 10+ layers at once. Guitars and multitracked vocals dominate, backed up by vibraphone (as per “Soundtracks”), organ and a particularly good sounding melodica. In many cases it sounds like Gira recorded the song first with just guitar and voice, and then layered other tracks over the top. The result is that it is simultaneously intimate and very produced and polished, perfect for this style of music.

As often with Gira, the lyrics end up being a focus. This album is a bit more playful, knowing, self aware… but for the most part it is filled with Gira’s age old despair, all the more bitter, stagnant and desperate after all these years. His surrealist vocabularity is powerfully put to use. The album is filled with evocative metaphors describing alcoholism, destructive relationships, domestic violence and lack of faith in one’s own good nature, to name only the most decipherable subjects. There’s an odd sense, despite the sadness, that Gira is more comfortable in his own skin as a performer, more used to being perceived the way he has been in the past. It seems he feels more natural in his latest role as a folk singer than he ever did as a no wave extremist, although it took about 10 years of music along these lines to get to this point.

His singing here is surprisingly expressive and full, his vocal range larger than ever, though still limited. The best way to describe the change is that he’s become extroverted and also sensitive, and no longer feels the need to hide his emotions behind displays of anger and force. His tone changes drastically depending on the song, almost as if he plays a different ‘character’ with each new set of lyrics. As a result his lyrics ring with more power and sincerity than ever. His singing on albums like “White Light from the Mouth of Infinity” was sometimes so unchanging and monotone as to be comical.

“Praise Your Name”, a tribute to all the battered spouses of the world, is one hell of an opener, and just a very moving song. The rest of the first half of the album sounds similar - gentle, beautiful, orchestrated, melancholy, not so dark as to be actually unpleasant. The lush, mostly instrumental “Angels of Light” is like a river glistening in the sun. “The Garden Hides the Jewel” is a sublime ambient electronic experiment that brings back the transcendent beauty of the later Swans material, one of the lightest moments on the album. After the 8th track “Intermission”, it’s like night has fallen. Gira begins to lose his composure and visciously rasp, almost as if in physical pain. “Not Alone” is the sort of the song that could make a person fear for their safety in an intimate performance setting… It recalls a person who, in the course of their rant, lashes out at the confidant who has offered to help. These violent songs were obviously recorded in a state of mental breakdown. The climax “The Fear of Death” says more in its naked 3 minutes of desperation than dozens of albums of wordiness and inhibition. It’s uncomfortably raw music, and therefore an always needed breath of fresh air. It’s also one of the darkest albums I have ever heard.

5 stars.

William Basinski and Richard Chartier - (2004) Untitled 1-3 (*****)

Dec 18

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

basinski-chartier-untitled

The modestly titled “Untitled 1-3″ seems to have been majorly overlooked and allowed to pass into obscurity.  It’s a shame; this is a truly epic ambient collaboration in the grand tradition of Robert Rich and Lustmord’s “Stalker”.

Before hearing this record, both of those artists were at least somewhat familiar to me.  I can handle Chartier’s completely unlistenable ultra-minimalism in incredible small doses, provided I have the time, hi-fi gear and truly complete silence required.  My girlfriend once commented, “it sounds like dog whistles”.  I can’t argue.  I find the presence of collaborators often improve and balances his work, as they’re most often working in the realms of sound actually loud enough to be audible and closer to typical frequency ranges.  Chartier’s contributions are forced to be a little less uncompromising.  I enjoyed his “Chessmachine” with COH, and ended up quite impressed with “Untitled 1-3″.

This is certainly no Raster Noton-styled exercise in academic, mathematical forms of composition using basic waveforms and the like; rather, it brings ideas from such music into (slightly) more accessible arenas.  The sounds on this album were clearly made to sound beautiful (indeed they do), and the overall structure and sound is similar to the dark space ambient of Lustmord and Lull, putting this album more in line with Basinski’s work.  I’m so far only familiar with his also very minimal Disintegration Loops set, but judging from that set I can tell he puts a lot of emphasis on texture and aesthetics, and paints with nearly as subtle a brush as Chartier.  His music is emotional, evocative and moves in the patterns of the subconscious mind.

“Untitled 1-3″ is colder, most spacious, more static than all but the most empty feeling space ambient.  It clearly benefits from the influence of the Raster Noton school, as it strives for supreme, exact attention to detail and succeeds with flying colors.  Any audiophile or deep listening will find hours of enjoyment with this album.  Furthermore, as is common with the basic waveform school of artists, nothing here is exactly recognizable as a “synthesizer”.  These are artists who frolic comfortably in the infinitely blank canvas of electronic synthesis and create sound for sounds sake, and yet end up with something quite thematic.  It’s a perfect compliment to the abstract wash of color on the cover.

The first track begins with a warm bass drone, pulsing in subtle rhythm.  Layering builds and eventually an arctic whitewash howls an ode to loneliness.  It could be the wind, it could be the wails of living creatures.  The perfectly engineered sounds will keep you wondering for the 20 minute duration.

The second track is the most melodic of the set, as well as the longest.  Glassy, nearly-harsh higher frequency melodic resonances haunting fade in and out of the mix, sometimes building into chords.  There is little soul in these tones, however… they sound as if they could be the product of a natural phenomenon, ancient and unsympathetic.  Something like wind is again present, but here it is more faintly heard.  We could be in a cave of ice, even under the surface of the ice in a slow moving subterranean flow….

The third track is shortest and oddly enough most active of the  three.  Airy, whirring midrange reverberation is the name of the game here, sweeping in and out in blissed out gusts.  This track has more warmth and zen feeling, and may be my favorite on the disk.   Again, these drones recall the wind.  Glitches, clicks and other more abrupt sounds are somehow placed in the mix in such a way as to not be jarring in the slightest.  The resonance from the previous track appear on occasion, but seem less threatening and alien.

In summary, this is a challenging ambient masterpiece.  There is little human warmth to be found, and those inexperienced with the genre of space ambient will find it hard to detect the changes in the pieces.  I found arctic images to describe the music, but these are merely interpretation, and in truth this kind of synthesis is close to being sound without association, as you may guess from the pieces and album being nameless.  Having said that, this is one of the most complete, aesthetically engaging and immersive sound worlds I’ve experienced, and sadly underrated.  5 stars.

Katatonia - (1996) Brave Murder Day (*****)

Nov 23

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Metal, Reviews | No Comments

katatonia-brave-murder-day

What’s this? Metal that never once tries to sound ‘tough’; it’s melancholic, forlorn in that windswept black metal way that feels like so cold, but with the none of the “evil” or the posturing. It’s a thick, textured wall of sound, but there is no real aggression. Rough, raw, and low budget but strangely restrained… the band never plays faster than mid-paced, the playing is subdued, simple and tasteful, almost as if out of respect for some kind of loss or death.

If you liked the youthful, emotive, overwhelmed feeling of the first two Opeth records, you must have this immediately. Rarely do such sensitive, romantic artists (with not a violent bone in their bodies) end up creating metal. This album is simpler than “Morningrise” or “Orchid”, though, and also even more rainy in feeling. The fat is trimmed off, but it’s no less of a cathartic experience. It’s really amazing what they can do with a few simple chords strummed in a straight ahead 4/4 rhythm. Beautiful, haunting leads appear often as well. The album is driven by the sound of the guitar. The distortion is warm and thick, but never harsh, and envelops you like the womb. Mikael Akerfeldt of the aforementioned Opeth handles the harsher vocals. His performance is pushed to the back of the mix, which is perfect for this kind of music. His hollow mid-frequencies growls have the same pained immediacy they had on “Morningrise”, and with this he easily compensates for anything he might have lacked in polish and throat control at this time in his career.

The reverberant, chorused ballad “Day” foreshadows the melancholic alt rock the band has made ever since they abandoned metal with 3rd album “Discouraged Ones”. Their later, non-metal material really does possess the same mood as this early material, and it’s obvious the band had already been exposed to the gothic, chronic depression of The Cure and others at this point in time. These days, though, the band often takes the easy way out with tired verse/chorus/verse song structures. On “Brave Murder Day”, the songs average between 5 and 10 minutes, and develop through many beautiful harmonized sections. Because of this “Brave Murder Day” may always be the band’s most mature and ambitious statement, and their crowning achievement.

The heavier tracks are all stylistically similar, which in this case is a good thing, as it nicely creates a strong sense of unifying theme. All the tracks are solid. There’s the eerily nostalgic supernatural fire and beautiful clean guitar tones of the closer “Endtime”, the plodding relentlessness of the 10 minute “Brave”…

In conclusion, this is a fantastic album that crosses several subgenres, from symphonic black metal to melo-death to melancholic alternative rock. If you like your metal more emotive and sentimental, need an album for the Fall months or just can’t get enough of Opeth’s “Morningrise”, you need this album. Really, anyone who appreciates metal that goes for musicality rather than sheer speed or brutality should check it out. It’s a true gem. 5 stars.

Between Interval - (2009) The Edge of a Fairytale (*****)

Nov 7

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

between-interval-the-edge-of-a-fairytale

While I have listened to all of Between Interval’s past output, I have never been truly impressed until hearing “The Edge of a Fairytale”, which, ever since seeing its artwork and song titles, has captivated me completely. Always fascinated with the stars and space (”Secret Observatory”), Between Interval now successfully brings you among them, to feel the size and shape of the void. Yet the void seems friendly when this album is playing. It takes the blurry, whooshing resonance of past albums like “Autumn Continent” into a newfound sharp, airy and crisp clarity. The album is so powerfully WHITE and PURE… A truly blank, holy white, blissfully at one with the massive, shining universe. Somehow never harsh or unpleasant, resonant whitewash blots out all other melodic tones, replacing them with rushing, beautiful sound. It’s like a splash of cold water in the face… It has the purity of snow, of mountain air. And yet it seems a creation of celestial or spiritual inspiration more than an ‘arctic ambient’ piece like Biosphere’s “Substrata”. The album seems charged with a strange magical vibrancy, making the title seem quite relevant.

Occasional processed melodic voices flicker in and out the mix in tracks like “Atlantis Lost”, gone before the mind can really even process them. It adds a little lonely urban flavor, reminiscent of Burial’s Untrue or the works of Scanner. The album seems to alternate between personal, introverted sensitivity and a universalized divine bliss. He’s obviously been listening to a lot of Lustmord, as well.

While his music has gotten a great more existential and spacey with this release, Stefan Jonsson, now calling himself Stefan ‘Strand’, is still less patient than an older ambient master like Steve Roach… His tracks are fairly short, and still use conventional synth sounds, loops and rhythmic structures sometimes, although they don’t really have “beats”. They seem almost energetic, and like fellow Scandinavian Biosphere, he doesn’t usually allow himself to drift too far into space, with a few marvelous exceptions, such as the epic “Leviathan”, or “Pillars of Creation”, a truly ecstatic highlight track. Perhaps now, however, I can see “Strand” eventually joining the ranks of Steve Roach and Robert Rich as one of the great ambient masters. He has been lumped in with them in the past, already, but I believe this was a comparison wrongfully made. He still seems like a younger musician to me. This is his “Structures from Silence”, or perhaps even his “Dreamtime Return”.

Other highlights include the absolutely magnificent “Eden In Shadows”, creating some of the most pleasing mental images I’ve ever had from an ambient track. It truly is the sound of the Garden of Eden. The sounds truly seem to evoke a place more lush and full of life than even anywhere on Earth… Warm synth chords resonate with the feelings of these sounds perfectly. It’s Strand’s crowning achievement so far.

In conclusion, this album is a invigorating masterpiece, a blast of spiritual energy and light. Between Interval has become one to watch for me, and this album is why. Recommended for any fan of ambient music. An unconditional 5 stars.

I do expect even greater things from him in the future, seeing as ambient musicians typically age like fine wine.

Richie Hawtin - (1998) Decks, EFX & 909 (*****)

Oct 22

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Dance, Electronic Music, House, Reviews, Techno | No Comments

richie-hawtin-decks-efx-909

Richie Hawtin truly takes the DJ mix album to a level of perfection worthy of being called high art. Other albums merely blend tracks well enough that the transitions aren’t jarring or distracting; with Hawtin, the transitions are the point. The tracks compliment each other to the point of sounding like different sections of the same song. In the end, it sounds a lot more like Richie Hawtin than any of the artists he took these tracks from.

“Decks, EFX & 909″ is an album for anyone who heard the music released under Hawtin’s “Plastikman” alias and liked the vibe but wished it had just a little more “oomph”. It’s also the album for anyone looking to experiment and move away from the techno mainstream, and yet is unwilling to give up their precious four on the floor thump. And perhaps most of all, it is an album to dance your ass off to. Pure rhythm, pure movement, without any extra sentimentality or melody, anthems or sloganeering… as one track title puts it, “Zen”. And yet it is more than this. In a long career of perfectionism, “Decks, EFX & 909″ might be the greatest of all, and is probably my favorite techno album.

As anyone who has listened to this man before knows, Hawtin likes it old school. He rocks out like he’s never heard the words “happy hardcore”. Warm, analog crackle and vintage drum machines dominate the record almost completely. This vintage palette is shown to present a world of new possibilities. The beats can be quite housey, but I assure you there is no cheese to be found on this album. Hawtin reminds us just how badass house really can be, and how “minimal” does not after all have to be synonymous with “boring”. You may find yourself glad at the absence of ‘more’.

Hawtin has you stuck in the groove within the first 30 seconds with “Early Blow”, and from there on, for better or for worse, the beat almost never stops. Hawtin finds other ways to build and release energy.

Vocals occur only in the album’s absolutely devastating highpoint, the one two combo of Hawtin’s rendition of Nitzer Ebb’s 1991 EBM classic “Let Your Body Learn” (from “That Total Age”) and his own “Minus/Orange”. “Minus/Orange” transitions into “Let Your Body Learn” only to come back in an absolutely crushing moment right as the vocals end (”Suffer the children, suffer the children…”). At this point the rhythm reaches a fever pitch… those who like it hard will not complain. This concludes the first half of the mix, which is followed by the only break in the entire thing. This tremendous explosion of energy is all the more powerful for the 15 or so tracks that occurred before it, including such highlights as “Call of the Wild”.

The second half is a little bit less kinetic, and has more non-percussive elements, such as some thick bass lines, such as in the last track, Rhythm & Sound’s “Never Told You”. There’s plenty of great tracks, such as the chilled out “Club Soda” and the tribal feeling “Zen”.

I would insist that this album is not at all repetitive, as some have complained. The beat completely changes at least every 45 seconds… sometimes I actually wish he’d keep up the same thing for longer! Ah, but that would only the hinder the absolutely INCREDIBLE momentum of this mix. The illusion of repetition can sometimes be created due to the fact that many of the drum sounds are similar in many tracks, but subtlety is key here. Hawtin doesn’t shove his ideas down your throat. He sacrifices accessibility for longevity, and layering that reveals itself more and more with every listen.

In conclusion, “Decks, EFX & 909″ is an absolutely seamless masterpiece of minimal techno. Recommended to anybody open to dance music of any kind. 5 stars.

PlatEAU - (1999) Music for Grassbars (*****)

Sep 17

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, House, Reviews | No Comments

Plateau - Music for Grassbars

After the scatterbrained, inebriated mindfuck that was Skinny Puppy’s entire career, cEvin Key’s solo projects have wandered even further into mindbending strangeness.  Most of the albums have been filled with layer after layer of disorienting noise in chaotic dense collages (Download’s “Furnace”, “Music for Cats” released under the cEvin Key name), but with the marijuana inspired project PlatEAU, he’s finally learned the value of keeping things simple.

Inspired by the best of Detroit-styled amelodic, minimalist house (read: Richie Hawtin), “Music for Grassbars” has a vintage, in your face sound palette.  The machines are twisted and turned on themselves, creating disjointed, shambling but always repetitive rhythms, contrasting the constant shifting and variation that made up the beats in Skinny Puppy.  The music here is cold, subtle and possibly improvisatory, at least in part.  It holds you in its hypnotic single-mindedness, creating a clear mind, a certain lack of mental noise.

Those looking for a quick industrial or EBM fix will not find it.  However, those who have gone beyond the typical techno anthems and popular DJs and are already interested in electronic dance music as listening music will probably eat up the odd atmosphere and somehow groovy seasick rhythms.  cEvin doesn’t shy away from dissonance or strange moods.  The album is insistent and aggressive in its coldness at times, but spacious and mellow at other times. It remains listenable.

The few moments of melody that do appear are delicious; warm, analog shimmers that echo in the distance.  The reverbs on this album sound beautiful.  This, as any of cEvin Key’s work, is a perfect album for the audiophile, production nut, or lover of well crafted electronic sounds.

As far as highlights, the album flows incredibly well and most of the tracks run together as in a DJ mix, so individual tracks aren’t always easy to remember.  “Dutch Flowers”, however is a chilled out instant classic of house music, and a great track to listen to in order to test the waters and see if you can enjoy this sort of style.

I do have to admit, this album is a lot like cEvin Key saying “see, I can be a techno DJ too”, and I’m used to him being the innovator, and not the follower, but this album succeeds so incredibly well at what it’s trying to do that I can’t fault it.  cEvin Key puts his own stamp on an already established genre.  I can’t think of another minimal techno artist who took us this far out into nowhereland except the master himself, Plastikman.

5 stars.  Highly recommended, along with the second album “Spacecake”, but that’s another review.

Venetian Snares (2009) Horsey Noises (*****)

Aug 12

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Electronic Music, IDM / Glitch, Reviews | No Comments

Venetian Snares - Horsey Noises (Cover)

Aaron Funk’s new EP “Horsey Noises” might be his most consistent EP yet.  Continuing the druggy acid theme that crept into the record Funk released earlier this year, “Filth”, “Horsey Noises” is a lot more subdued, psychedelic and accessible.  Whereas “Filth” operated by its own unique, nearly untrackable, strange sense of rhythm, “Horsey Noises” is often danceable and feels quite human.  The vintage acid basslines squall in less chaotic, dissonant patterns, beginning with a song that seems destined to be a new anthem, the title track “Horsey Noises”, which features a single repeating vocal line delivered in Funk’s underused, smoky baritone.

The drums are skillful and complex, yet tasteful.  For sheer complexity, Funk has done far more than this; the programming here doesn’t feel superhuman in speed.  One can actually follow these tracks!  But it’s really okay, because after all these years, Funk has finally found his groove… these are the grooviest beats he’s ever produced.

“Horsey Vag Island” hints at drum and bass and psytrance without ever really leaving the realm of acid, and then transitions into a section with live bass guitar and drums (!) which continue to play complex signature Aaron Funk parts.  There’s a 4 on the floor section with a fuzz bass.  It’s great.

“Pig Dync” is the longest, darkest, most alienated feeling track on the EP, and my personal favorite.  The synth parts struggle to stay in tune, Funk has turned to one his customary odd meters.  He starts to sample pig snorts.  A voice speaks “It’s like a corkscrew…  It’s like a spiral.”  It ends with ghostly voices repeating a mysterious progression of slightly out of tune chords.

The “Horsey Noises” remix turns the original groove on its head, making it a lot more frantic and off kilter.  Funk unleashing the classic amen break and rocks out.  He has fun with the vocal line, running it through a series of sound-mangling vocoders.  It climaxes with a beautiful and intense melodic section.  It’s a great track that reminds me why Funk is the greatest break beat programmer I’ve ever heard.

In conclusion, “Horsey Noises” is a consistent, accessible EP of acid techno inspired stuff from Aaron Funk.  It’s a lot mellower than “Filth”, but no less hallucinatory and spaced out in feeling.  “Pink and Green”, the title of Funk’s similarly drugged out feeling 2007 EP, still applies here.  Great and listenable stuff.  Highly recommended.

Robert Rich - (1983) Trances (*****)

Aug 11

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

Robert Rich - Trances (Cassette)

“Trances” is Robert Rich’s other 1983 album, and stylistically, it’s much like “Drones”, but sees him expanding his sound palette, add clarity to his production, and creating more evocative, complicated sound environments.

“Cave Paintings” begins like the pieces on “Drones”…  a pleasant loop, this time of what sounds like sped up cricket sounds, establishes a backdrop for a warm drone with shifting, resonant harmonics.  Extended synth improvisations introduce themselves.  This time, though, shimmering, golden sounds that could easily have originated from a rhodes piano rise in liquid arpeggiations compliment the chords.  The song feels, at risk of waxing overly poetic, like light shining through honey.  The mix is much more clear and three dimensional.  Several minutes before the song ends, most of the drone drops out, leaving the sound environment strangely empty.  Though it never becomes outright threatening, like some of the material on “Drones” and “Sunyata”, by the end, this emptiness has given risen to new synth themes that are quite mournful and nostalgic.  All in all, an amazing track.

The second track, “Hayagriva” is more spacious, less melodic, and feels very dry.  The bassy drone from the previous track returns, but definitely feels a little less warm, a little less sympathetic.  A, sparkling, crisp electronic buzz that would sound like power lines overhead if it didn’t resonate in such a pretty major chord crackles quietly in the background.  It brings to mind images of ruins in the open desert.  The usual slow synth chords do eventually enter, but create little human feeling to sympathize with beyond a vague sense of anticipation.  The movement of the piece is again reminiscent of clouds, but this time other sounds are present to remind the listener that they are on the ground, looking up.  Near the end, it’s as if the wind begins to pick up, and a longing, airy chord overwhelms the mix for another somber ending.

In conclusion, both these pieces are fantastic, and “Trances” is a must have Robert Rich album.  Highly recommended to anyone not opposed to the concept of ambient space music.  5 stars.

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Venetian Snares - (2002) A Giant Alien Force More Violent & Sick Than Anything You Can Imagine (*****)

Aug 3

Posted by Mr. Landry in 5 stars, Electronic Music, IDM / Glitch, Reviews | No Comments

Venetian Snares - A Giant Alien Force

This rare EP consists of one song, 15 minutes in length, and it’s every bit as epic as one could hope.  Into a single track, Aaron Funk pours all his creativity, energy, focus and compositional meticulousness.  Could this be Funk’s greatest work ever?  After hearing most of the man’s fantastic discography, I do in fact think this EP could be my favorite.

Being that this is an earlier Snares release, Funk’s edgy horror tendencies are in full swing, and the volume is consistently set to 11.  This record is the perfect example of how this man used to be louder, scarier and just plain weirder than any of the competition.   While the newer Snares albums have a lot of beautiful, cleverly orchestrated melody and emotional depth, there’s a certain macabre ferocity on songs like this that’s just so raw and honest.

The album’s title might make you laugh, but it takes itself seriously.  From the beginning, the music feels huge, unsympathetic, smart, agile…  Funk’s beat programming dances around faster than the baffled listener can process through a single listen, but always keeps the signature caffeinated, hyperactive groove.  Listening to this album for the first time is like being suddenly hit by a completely overwhelming wave…  It’s so densely packed with ideas.  It’s really amazing how much drama he can create with simple drum sounds.   With only ambience and rhythm, he tells a story, and it’s entirely convincing; it really DOES feel like a message from an extra terrestrial tyrant, violently delivered in some strange language.

There’s a minute of ambience before the beat slowly forces its way into the mix through layers of filters.  Warbling, dissonant, almost random sounding chimes ooze out an odd melody.  The beat picks up…  smooth pads fade in, bass accents begin to form some kind of tonal idea.  The beats seem to fall apart… the kicks and snares change to odd shrieks and scrapes.  The tension continues to build.  And build.  At one point the beat pauses for a strange, animal scream of agony to drag itself into the mix.  Most of the middle of the piece is a distorted, frenetic beatfest, with gaps of eerie ambience, eventually leading into an epic chord progression, complete with squalling, distorted bassline, and the first and only coherent melody of the song.  All this happens around 9 minutes, and sounds not near as terrifying as the preceding sections, but no less mysterious.

Upon reaching the conclusion , I was pleasantly surprised to find that Funk knows that the end of an epic track like than this needs a little more “oomph” than usual.  Any sense of ‘hope’ or positive energy is shattered.  This is the most punishing, violent moment in Venetian Snares history, bar none.  Funk shows us why electronic music can be more hardcore than any death metal will ever be.  The beat becomes an absolute wall of noise for 2+ minutes, slamming merciless through the speakers in an inhuman, infinitely hostile ROAR.  It blasts itself into one final, absurdly groovy rhythm before sputtering out for good.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this EP highly enough.  This is Venetian Snares’ best track ever, and he has a lot of great ones.  It certainly isn’t among his more accessible work, but if you can appreciate atmosphere in music, can stand a bit of noise, and don’t necessarily need a lot of melody to entertain you, I think it’s easily enjoyable.  It’s some of the most intense music known to man.  5 stars.