Archive for category Electronic Music

Ultra United - (2002) Ultra Audience (****)

Jul 5

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Electronic Music, Noise, Reviews | No Comments

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Ultra Audience is the sole document of ambient / noise group Ultra United, and thus evidently quite the labor of love. There is a lot of passion in these 9 tracks, each which is accompanied by a picture or short poem in the beautiful, colorful booklet, raising the question of whether the album is meant to follow some kind of vague, abstract concept. The poems are often in stilted, cliched rhymes, but they lend a very personal air to the music and overall the packaging is undoubtedly marvellous. I spotted a used copy in a local record store, having never heard of this group or album, instantly gravitated towards it and ended up buying it. For something by a group so obscure and likely made on a low budget, it sure looks great.

Many groups that blend the genres of ambient and noise are jam bands of sorts, letting abrasive textures take over their music when it suits the flow of the improvisation. This is where “Ultra Audience” differs… it is obviously solitary, composed music, and is almost totally focused on textures of sound as expressors of emotions. Which movements on the album should employ volume and harshness has been carefully chosen. Accompanied by the poetry inside the booklet the message, the album seems to say, “This is how I have felt during my life. Listen, and if it’s unpleasant… Now you know how it was for me”. So much ambient music focuses on the cosmic, but this musician is not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. The poems reference the happenings of a life we have no hope of further access to, but leave the music with this general sense of significance in the context of a life. The unfortunate side effect is a certain angsty cheesiness in the vein of the woman sexily exhaling cigarette smoke on the cover, but this can be mostly avoided if you put the booklet down.

Each track is its own notably different textural realm, separated from the others by at least 10 seconds of silence. Some of the noise tracks simply rest in a suspended state, (”From Consciousness to Nowhere” and “The Volunteer”, accompanied in the booklet with the phrase ‘life in a locked groove’) mimicing the feeling of being stuck in a depressive rut. These are the album at its most unpleasant. One can feel they endure the noise, a humourless grey sheet that brings back every dismal rainy day, for a reason. This is not a nihilistic album, as is obvious in the very dramatic synth pieces (similar in style to Vidna Obmana, vintage Steve Roach or even some old Skinny Puppy instrumentals), like “The Quiet Riot” and “Sunset”. These tracks have wonderful, sensitive melodies, but are few and far between on this album. “Physical Initiation”, with its abrupt lurch into static life, is a well placed opening gesture. “Scrape the Sky” contains aggressive analog synth squalls that are like a storm. Only “The Incendiary Lover”, led by a needlessly distorted synth line that makes the track sound incredibly cheap and sequenced, really gets any criticism from me.

The noise textures are not volatile bursts of furious feedback, rather they are cold digital distortion created through DSP. They have less depth than analog noise often does, and on their own, the sounds are rather uninteresting, but by the end of each of the rather lengthy tracks they are densely intertwined in such a way as to be mesmerizing to me, although they may still be unlistenable to some people. I feel the dullness of the textures reflects the stagnation of desensitization and apathy. As Maurizio Bianchi said, sound “to work on complete realising of the modern decadence”. The highlight of the album for me is the absolutely transcendent closer “Snow Muzak” which after beginning with 4 minutes of silence, uses its digital cleanliness to evoke an unnaturally simple, glistening surreal dimension not too far removed from the work of Gas or Oval.

“Ultra Audience” is a solid album that succeeds in bringing the genre of ambient to a more personal, immediate and narrative place, as well as integrating it with elements of digital noise. It had to grow on me, as it’s very slow moving music. Fans of minimal ambient music should pick this up if they see a copy. 4 stars.

Coil - (2004) ANS (*)

Jun 19

Posted by Mr. Landry in 1 star, Ambient, Avant Garde, Electronic Music, Reviews, Tribal / Ritual Ambient | No Comments

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Regardless of the spiritual meanings behind what the group was attempting to accomplish here, this 3 disk set is ultimately, as the title of my review indicates, completely unlistenable. The sounds here do not sound composed; if they evoke anything, it is only an anomaly, an accident- I do not believe one can simply translate an image into sound and still find the SOUL of that image, that thing that made it interesting/worth looking at/spiritually significant, remotely intact.

The ANS is evidently capable of creating some ghostly, strange sounds worthy of inclusion on a Coil album, but the virtually unchanging drone of the ANS is all that is found on the album, and even it is not structured in any way. There is no attempt at track ordering. There is no humanity. This is the closest to mechanical randomness in music one can find.

Perhaps if the rest of Coil’s truly beautiful, transcendental discography did not exist, “ANS” would hold SOME value, but as it stands, even if you evaluate “ANS” as something to use an ambient backdrop for other activities, many other Coil albums are far, far beyond it (”Time Machines”, “Queens of the Circulating Library”).

I’ve heard every piece on this set at least once by now, but I basically had to force myself to listen to it. I can enjoy maybe 2/3 of one track of this at a time from a purely textural standpoint, but it is completely empty sound. I doubt that I would even pay normal CD price for this (I downloaded it), so the fact that they charge more than $100 for it leaves me with no other choice but to give it the lowest rating possible.

In conclusion, I find it admirable that these adventurous musicians would try to work with such a machine. However, I have no idea why they released this. If you haven’t heard Coil, get the “Musick to the Play in the Dark” series. If you’re already a fan, get every other release first, and there are a LOT.

Originally published on Amazon.com on July 27th, 2008.

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

Jun 19

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

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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.

Z’EV - (2009) Sum Things (***)

Jun 17

Posted by Mr. Landry in 3 stars, Ambient, Avant Garde, Dark Ambient, Electronic Music, Noise, Reviews | No Comments

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Z’EV has always been a musician who has had my respect (he is completely uncompromising), but whose music I could not truly enjoy. His earlier percussive works, such as “Heads & Tales”, which often contained vocal samples, are more enjoyable with their concise compositions, discernable direction and polyrhythmic energy, but for the most part, his albums are such austere, unfeeling exercises; perhaps he is focused more on the process by which his works are created than the resulting sound, as are many other avant garde artists whose work sounds similarly lacking in human warmth or logic patterns, such as Ryoji Ikeda or Richard Chartier… or perhaps with his works he intends to take us on a journey to a mental space so distant that most get inevitably lost along the way, unable to emotionally relate or comprehend where the ‘trip’ was supposed to lead.

“Sum Things”, six tracks of ringing, beatless sound (described on the spine as “a possible form for cold dark matter”) is no different, showcasing many of the aspects which make him unlistenable. As often with Z’EV, every track seems to be a separate product of the same experimental method, making for an extremely consistent sound throughout the record. In this case, the primary and only sound on the album is a grainy, harsh metallic resonance, which rather than being ambient and pure is mulched up with unpleasant artifacts caused by performing excessive time stretching and compression on a sample. Only rarely does it approach something I would call ‘textural beauty’, something I’ve found in even the most unapproachable avant garde quite often. Mostly it rings obnoxiously in a muddy morass of high frequencies.

Though the music ends up sounding similar to ambient music in some ways, and does drone on, I have not been able to interpret the sound as representing a space, something ambient music generally does. There is only the haziest ‘landscape’ hidden in the sound here. It does not ‘reverberate’ as ambient music should… reverberation being the way the human ear determines the size and shape of the space in which sound occurs. The dull cacophony of this album seems random at first, and repeated listenings do nothing to make any kind of organization apparent. There are louder and softer sections. The last track is almost on the level of noise. But it seems to mean little.

Dark ambient, despite its name, is not always a masochistic genre of music to partake in. Many artists known for their fear inducing music are, for the initiated, pleasant to listen to in many ways. Lustmord’s music has a sense of hugeness and cosmic unity about it, whereas Lull specializes in a sort of cathartic, escapist hypnotism and sonic impressionism. Many an artist’s work could be called ‘badass’, and is thus enjoyable as subtle, slightly campy apocalyptic daydreaming rather than coming across as actually disturbing. All seem driven by a human sense of aesthetics. Even Aube’s work, nearly comparable to Z’EV’s in inaccessibility, has a certain spatial order and rhythm.

The universe of “Sum Things”, on the other hand seemed to be governed by a being with no soul, no desire. It is abrasive without ever really being loud, breaking inhibitions or exposing a shred of aggression. Nor does it express the simplicity and clarity of any kind of zen or meditation state. The only keys we get into the bizarre world of “Sum Things” are the photos contained in the album packaging. Eroded, precarious natural pillars of rock of a grey color the album does seem to reflect. Even Steven Stapleton’s “Thunder Perfect Mind”, which came across as completely unsympathetic towards human life, was understandable in its sheer hostility. As far as I can tell,there is no force of will present in this music. The structures of the pieces would lead me to believe that they were caused by glitches or pure mathematics (just look at the track titles), and not a thoughtful process of composition.

So, after giving Z’EV another try I must concede he remains sonically interesting to me, but completely unlistenable. Perhaps if he chose the best of six tracks here and including it on an album with other, completely different experiments, it would be possible for me to listen to all the way through in one sitting. I give “Sum Things” it 3 stars on the basis of feeling like there is still something I’m not getting here. Perhaps this is generous, but I admire those who are unafraid to really push the boundaries. This is only for the most adventurous, and even they may be disappointed.

Scorn - (1997) Logghi Barogghi (****)

Jun 15

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Dub / Chillout, Electronic Music, Reviews, Sampling / Instrumental Hip Hop | No Comments

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Regardless of what I say about it now, Scorn’s 5th album “Logghi Barroghi” is destined to be dismissed as just another in a long string of minimalist dark ambient beats. In my opinion, it does distinguish itself from the others - it is one of the most unfriendly, minimal and alienating albums I know, and certainly the most ‘out there’ Scorn release to date. Though it is hard to enjoy, it has the rare distinction of being a musical enigma.

Even by the standards of the always dismal Mick Harris, “Logghi Barogghi” represents a particularly deep and bizarrely unfamiliar circle of hell. Its tone is one of nameless fear and confusion. The messy, hallucinogenic red blur on the cover, like the vision of a individual massivelty inebriated at the point of despair and black out, staggering down a threatening and alien city street in the night, proves the perfect image for the drugged disoriented terror that is this album. In a way it is more unsettling than his spacier ambient works as Lull because it brings the darkness back into the context of our urban everyday world with the organic sounds of the drums and bass. These familiar timbres keep the listener grounded, prevent this album from providing the psychedelic escape into peaceful abstraction of space ambient. Instead, it comes across as very dystopian.

These rough break beats fall into what at first seem to be sluggish hip hop grooves but soon morph into shambling mantras as layers and layers of rhythmic electronic ambience are quietly and systematically added. The impatient listen will start to wonder around the 3 minute mark when the main hook / theme of the track will be introduced, only to be disappointed when the song ends 3 minutes later without ever resorting to anything of the kind. Listeners able to immerse themselves in the subtle polyrhythms of these carefully constructed loops will find themselves drooling. For those with time, this is a sublimely rhythmic experience. Nobody can make a loop feel ’spiral shaped’ quite like Mick Harris.

Apparently, vocal samples cannot reach this abyssal plane without becoming stretched and mutilated into garbled nonsense. Indeed, no words can really describe the emotion on this disk and would thus only cheapen it. The sound palette here is incredibly stark; nearly every sound is muffled, chopped up, distorted and then muffled again, sometimes in very arbitrary and chaotic (yet emotional ways), resulting in a very gritty sounding production. No sound can hold together for long. The bass lines commonly utilize ungodly low frequencies, and may not even be audible on some lower budget systems.

“Spongie”, which is dominated by the sound of a whining mosquito turned drone, stands out as especially bizarre. “Out Of” gets points for containing the closest thing on the album to a nice cleansing spliced break beat solo ala Aphex Twin or Venetian Snares. “Black Box II” is refreshing with its sparkling high frequencies. Mostly, though, as with every Scorn album since it became a solo project with 1995’s “Gyral”, the tracks, while all good, keep a very consistent sound throughout the album. After you’ve heard a few songs, the rest of the album won’t surprise you.

All in all, a solid and unique Scorn album. It is definitely possible to listen to “Logghi Barogghi”, though I feel that to really allow yourself to be absorbed into it is to willingly descend into some sort of psychological dead end. Listen at your own risk. 4 stars.

Jute Gyte - (2009) Subcon (****)

Jan 18

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Electronic Music, Industrial, Reviews | No Comments

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As much as they may try to distinguish themselves, the obscure Jute Gyte clearly belongs to the recent wave of lo-fi “progressive” noise, a genre that blends various extreme electronic subgenres that perhaps all share a certain spirit - the completely freeform, ’sound without association’ style of CCCC and Merzbow with the power electronic of Whitehouse; the early martial industrial rhythms and tape loop techniques of Laibach, SPK and NoN; the hellish soundscapes and brooding, deceptively quiet malevolence of Lustmord or vintage Nurse With Wound. These groups, in their day, represented a purity, a directness of attitude and approach. They were honest, they made me no compromises, and they had little sympathy for the listener. They cared nothing for listenability or reasonable pacing. All this was sacrificed so that they could stand apart from all other forms of expression.

With the blending of subgenres found in groups such as Jute Gyte and Wolf Eyes, this purity is lost. As a result, this group is less distinct than any of the aforementioned by pioneers. However, the music is ultimately more listenable and musical than any of those groups. Few would deny the thought and structure present on this release, but it becomes predictable. It’s closer to the realm of music most of us are used to. It’s also lost a large portion of its organic immediacy.

The sluggish hypnotic loop is Subcon’s weapon of choice - disjointed, synthetic grooves usually created primarily with gritty, washed out synths and samples rather than actual drum machines. The repetition can be initally disappointing, but it’s a great album for meditative states and just plain zoning out. The nature of the loops also unfortunately suggests that the album was sequenced, rather than performed. Without this human feel, a lot of immediacy is missing from the compositions. To be fair, sterility may be the point; in any case, it is certainly not avoided. By being sterile they seem to express a lonely certain desensitization. Often a strength of noise music, however, is that one cannot tell how it was created, or what the source material could be, and “Subcon” seems to remind you often that it was programmed on a laptop. On the other hand, the loops themselves were thoughtfully composed, and are often quite effective. The compositions themselves are filled with interesting ideas, and the dramatic logic with which they unfold is near-perfectly timed and convincingly alien. “Subcon” posesses a unique and interesting rhythmic sensiblity. Groups like this sometimes rely on their anonymity, the inhumanity of their music and cryptic, occult inspired artwork to add a feeling of false importance to their work, but I’m happy to report these tracks do indeed contain substance.

The more aggressive noise washes found on many of the tracks sadly fail to impress, due to the cheap, digital sound of the distortion and the aforementioned audible presence of triggered notes. It’s hard to lose yourself within a womb of sound when the sound has so little spatial depth, as well. Most tracks that reach full tilt here would have benefitted from having these sections removed. At slightly quieter volumes, however, Jute Gyte creates their best textures. These mangled and granulated synths buzz with an enchanting dusty resonance.

The best example of this is the best track on the album, 9 minute opener “Lung”, a track with some real dynamics and intelligent use of space. “Pure”, while overly repetitious and predictable, has some beautiful harmonious processed voice sounds, pitched down to fit the murky, muffled sound of the album. Then follow several less impressive noise tracks which vary little within their durations and contain few interesting sounds, although they do well at creating a sort of drained, watery melancholy, especially “Rain”, which sounds like a storm and actually contains rain samples. It is as if with each repetition of the loop, the listener drifts further from some distant hope. The album gets a few points for “Days”, a 10 minute ode to lethargy with little in the way of progression, but plenty of vintage dark ambient charm. Along with the next track, “Sign”, it sounds not unlike a vintage Throbbing Gristle track slowed down and run through a granular synthesizer. The rhythm and tonal quality are similar, but the sounds themselves have been processed into a metallic, synthetic mulch and bear little relation to the analog synths and tape loops of old. “Sign” is a more active track. A sound reminiscent of the muffled growl of some massive creature trapped underwater makes it a highlight. Both “Days” and “Sign” are better off for never reaching higher volumes. Final track “Weep” is a magnficent and mysterious buildup, climaxing in a thick wash of flute tones and bassy murk echoing into infinity. It’s powerful and achingly emotional.

In conclusion, this is a solid record. It avoids cliche, and has some tracks that are truly worth hearing. It also contains some fairly forgettable material. It is not essential, but I enjoyed the band’s aesthetic enough that I’ll definitely check out their other records. Overall, I’d recommend this album to anyone who’s been enjoying this rennaissance of DIY progressive noise and ritual ambient groups, and is looking for more music in that vein. Most criticism I could apply to this record would apply to aspects that could easily have been intentional stylistic decisions on the part of the band. “Subcon” creates a world, and the fact that it remains spatially two dimensional is part of its lo-fi charm. 4 stars.

COH - (2007) Super Suprematism (****)

Dec 28

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Avant Garde, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

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Having just acquired some seriously nice studio monitors for christmas, I thought I’d christen them by listening again to COH’s 2007 limited release “Super Suprematism” (only 33 copies!). I’ve heard this album many times, but it has a certain quality many noise albums have, which is that they are enjoyable when playing, but very hard to recall after the fact. Not to say this is noise - COH’s trademark blips clicks, delicately textured synths and subtle spacial atmospherics and panning are still arranged into rhythms, beats and song structures, but it’s true that they’ve gotten more abstract. The title seems to apply not specifically to the album but to COH’s style in general; I wouldn’t say the change in direction is a particularly more ’suprematist’ one. COH has recently been diversifying and actually become more accessible, a word few would apply to any group on the Raster Noton roster.. 2006’s “Above Air” was an ambient departure, much less cold and mechanical than previous work. 2007’s “Strings” delves into acoustic instrument sounds, processed through Pavlov’s unique methods. Much like 2006’s “Patherns” EP, “Super Suprematism” represents the perfection and maturation of his older ideas, and thus is not in the least bit accessible. Still, if you found any of his work to have beautiful textures and a soundworld pleasing in how starkly empty, clean and perfect it is, you will likely enjoy this album.

More than past albums, “Super Suprematism” demands silence and patience. It sounds like Pavlov is taking cues from his one time collaborator Richard Chartier (see 2005’s “Chessmachine”) or label mate Ryoji Ikeda. Pavlov seems to have tired of the simple, metric pulses that dominated his earlier work. Rhythm seems spontaneous and subconscious… It is not consistent enough to say there is a ‘tempo’. The buzzing energy and life found in much of his early work is not here. It could not be played as a noise record. It might piss someone off, but there is no aggression. Where past work would sometimes disorient the mind with chaotic density, this album gently and slowly drags you into an ordered yet truly bizarre world. The transitions and movements of the songs are slower. 2005’s “Post-pop” was already moving in this direction.

One gets the impression that the placement of each sine wave drone, bell and sub bass wash is more perfect than ever. It evokes surfaces and worlds impossibly smooth, clean and polished like the sounds themselves. The drones still possess the familiar warmth that made his piece for Raster Noton’s “20′ to 2000″ series, “Into Memories of S-tone”, so great. “08″ is a perfect example of this.

Certain human emotions have a way of creeping their way into COH, despite it being the purest of avant garde. Anticipation is one. Other albums contain fear, sadness, loneliness, blissful peace, calm. On this album, though, a sensation of emptyness, clearness and stillness, which is not exactly ‘emotion’, seems to be the real point.

The final track “10″ or “Super Suprematism”, is the only catchy song on the record. It has an interesting processed vocal part repeating the title, and something you might call a chord progression or bassline. The sound here is beefed up with enough different frequencies to almost pass as some sort of processed instrument, and yet one knows it is not. For a few short minutes, the album almost ‘rocks’. It’s a great track, one of Pavlov’s most likeable.

In conclusion, I am glad that while COH breaks ground and attempts new styles with other releases, he still stops to make releases like this. It’s not the most listenable COH album, but it’s an absolutely solid addition to the catalogue. COH is always a mind-expanding experience, and remains my favorite Raster Noton artist. 4 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

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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.

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

Nov 7

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

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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.

In Place of Dreary Patterns

exploringthecavernousbeyond - a blog for colder, stranger, more inexplicable musical trinkets