Surgery 66

Andy Stott - Unknown Exception (Modern Love)
Byetone - Death Of A Typographer (Raster-Noton)
B. Fleischmann - Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung! (Morr Music)
Ragliani - Of Sirens Born (Kranky)
The Alps - III (Type)
Holy Sons - Decline Of The West (Partisan)
Alva Noto - Unitxt (Raster-Noton)
Ryoji Ikeda - Test Pattern (Raster-Noton)
Agathe Max - This Silver String (Xeric)
Grails - Doomsdayer's Holiday (Temporary Residence)
Various - Kalk Seeds (Karaoke Kalk)
Heidi Marie Kjersem - A Killer For That Ache (Rune Grammofon)

Track Listing

Andy Stott - Massacre [0:00]
Byetone - Straight [6:59]
B. Fleischmann - 24.12. [11:10]
Ragliani - Jubilee [14:51]
The Alps - Hallucinations [21:31]
Holy Sons - Kindred Spirit [28:54]
Alva Noto - U_04 [30:46]
Ryoji Ikeda - Test Pattern #0111 [35:58]
Agathe Max - Black Needle [40:59]
Grails - The Natural Man [47:50]
Wechsel Garland - Tiny Stars [52:24]
Heidi Marie Kjersem - London Bridge [54:52]


Listen to Surgery 66 click here

Bird Show – S/T

Birds gotta fly. But sometimes they gotta sing too. Ben Vida’s talent for intertwining rhythms and bright flights of tone made the previous two Bird Show releases kaleidoscopic, blooming thickets of sound. His affinity for exotic instruments remains, but Vida has also brought his voice and the voices of his guests into the undergrowth this time out. Having joined forces with him for a project called Singer, brother Adam Vida and Lichens’ Robert A.A. Lowe have brought their mad choir from that off-centre experiment into this more celebratory and ceremonial one. Many of the pieces, often named for the instruments played, tend towards uncharacteristic minimalism, but the voices exhale a buzz that energizes the open air. Longtime collaborator Greg Davis and fellow Chicagoan, percussionist Michael Zerang are on hand to keep the pulse alive as well. If the previous two albums were walks through the rainforest, this is where we finally find natives dancing in a clearing.

(Kranky)

Surgery 65

Growing - All The Way (The Social Registry)
Build Buildings - Ceiling Lights From Street (Self-Released)
Bartek Kujawski - Murlull Movies (Warsztat8r)
Galerie [Stratique] - Faux World (Statik)
Goldmund - The Malady Of Elegance (Type)
Populous With Short Stories - Drawn In Basic (Morr)
Maluco - Right Time (Karaoke Kalk)
pole - pole 3 (~scape)
Model 500 - Starlight (Echospace)
With All Due Respect - Blueprint for Destiny (Self-Released)
Cory Allen - The Fourth Way (Quiet Design)

Track Listing

Growing - Lens Around [0:00]
Build Buildings - Elevators, Escalators [5:31]
Bartek Kujawski - Expectations Lead To Disappointment [9:26]
Galerie [Stratique] - Hors Champs [19:07]
Goldmund - Apalachee [23:08]
Populous with Short Stories - Breathes The Best [28:01]
Maluco - Evandro [30:22]
pole - Spaß Rewind [35:24]
Model 500 - Starlight (Intrusion dub) [41:52]
With All Due Respect - CCTV [49:36]
Cory Allen - All Suns [53:42]


Listen to Surgery 65 click here

Surgery 64

Another case of dipping back into the library... new stuff next time out.

F.S. Blumm - Mondkuchen (Morr)
Scanner - Wave of Light by Wave of Light (Sulphur)
Spring Heel Jack - Songs & Themes (Thirsty Ear)
Marc Ribot - Saints (Atlantic)
Them - Themselves (Anticon)
Do Make Say Think - S/T (Constellation)
Martin Siewert - No Need to Be Lonesome (Mosz)
Matmos - The Civil War (Matador)
Folie - Eyepennies (Mitek)
Icarus - Six Soviet Misfits (Temporary Residence)
Cul de Sac - Immortality Lessons (Strange Attractors)
Dawn McCarthy & Bonny Billy - Wai Notes (Drag City)

Track Listing

F.S. Blumm - Restbad [0:00]
Scanner - Cosy Veneer [4:36]
Spring Heel Jack - Silvertone [11:06]
Marc Ribot - Somewhere [16:53]
Them - Death of a Thespian [19:29]
Do Make Say Think - If I Only... [24:21]
Martin Siewert - Attraktor [31:49]
Matmos - For the Trees [38:21]
Folie - Bundle [41:48]
Icarus - Despair [45:46]
Cul de Sac - Liturgy [53:40]
Dawn McCarthy & Bonny Billy - God's Small Song [56:34]
Cul de Sac - Liturgy (slight reverse) [59:19]


Listen to Surgery 64 click here

Surgery 63

Quartetski Does Prokofiev - Visions Fugitives Op. 22 (Ambiances Magnetiques)
Tape - Milieu Plus (Hapnä)
Town And Country - Up Above (Thrill Jockey)
Neil Young - Dead Man Sountrack (Vapor Records)
Willits + Sakamoto - Ocean Fire (12k)
Ólafur Arnalds - Eulogy for Evolution (Erased Tapes)
Pram - The Moving Frontier (Domino)
Monolake - Hongkong Remastered (ML)
Bird Show - S/T (Kranky)
Jane - Berserker (Paw Tracks)
Terminal 4 - When I'm Falling (Truckstop)

Track Listing

Quartetski Does Prokofiev - Lento Irrealmente [0:00]
Tape - Root Tattoo [2:48]
Town & Country - Almost At White Glass And Sun [6:17]
Neil Young - Guitar Solo 5 (excerpt)[10:06]
Willits + Sakamoto - Sentience [14:39]
Ólafur Arnalds - 1440 [22:51]
Pram - Sundew [29:31]
Monolake - Mass Transit Railway [32:29]
Bird Show - Green Vines [39:28]
Jane - Agg Report (edit) [45:24]
Terminal 4 - This Must Be The End [54:31]

Listen to Surgery 63 click here

Surgery 62

Alexander Tucker - Custom Made (ATP/R)
Tape - Luminarium (Häpna)
Giuseppe Ielasi - August (12k)
Elephant9 - Dodovoodoo (Rune Grammofon)
Strategy - Music for Lamping (Audio Dregs)
Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (Type)
Various - Remixes & Parts To Be Frickeled (Shitkatapult)
Various - Audiomatique 2.0 (Audiomatique)
Vibert-Simmonds - Rodulate (Rephlex)
Various - Dubstep Allstars Vol. 6 (Mixed by Appleblim) (Tempa)
Various - Ambient Not Not Ambient (Audio Dregs)
Cloudland Canyon - Lie In Light (Kranky)
Alexander Tucker - Portal (ATP/R)

Track Listing

Alexander Tucker - Rodeo In The Sky [0:00]
Tape - Moth Wings [4:24]
Giuseppe Ielasi - 02 [8:47]
Elephant9 - Hymne [16:32]
Strategy - All Day... [21:59]
Grouper - We've All Gone to Sleep [27:37]
Lusine - Drift (Apparat Remix) [30:49]
Trentemøller - Miss You [34:09]
Vibert-Simmonds - Go To Sleep [Everything Is Alright] [37:23]
Mungos Hi-Fi - Babylon [40:58]
White Rainbow - See and The Field Feels [45:26]
Cloudland Canyon - Krautwerk [48:33]
Alexander Tucker - Energy For Dead Plants [55:19]

Listen to Surgery 62 click here

Thisquietarmy - Unconquered

Montreal’s Eric Quach is turning his pseudonym and label into a very reliable outlet for genre-transgressive music. The label’s recent releases have included two excellent handmade EPs by Apillow (Below the Sea’s Patrick Lacharité) and the Sales Department (formerly Beef Terminal, MD Matheson). Quach’s music, released here by a Polish label, crosses boundaries where ambient guitar spills over into the world of doom/drone. Helping with the heavier lifting is guest Aidan Baker of Nadja, who adds portent to the opening track. The first four tracks work as an uninterrupted suite that undulates from the ominously shimmering hum of “Battlefield Arkestrah” through to “Warchitects,” where the drums are finally unleashed. The album’s second half lets a little more light in. “Death of Sailor” improvises watery travel around a slightly crippled guitar loop, while “The Great Escapist” features guest vocals by Meryem Yildiz, edging a too little closely to romantic metal territory, but without the synth or string section to truly wreck everything. Standout track “Mercenary Flags” imagines what Eluvium might sound like if more Jesu influence crept in. Definitely for fans of heavier ambience, Quach expertly avoids making an album from a single grey mood.

(Foreshadow)

Alexander Tucker - Custom Made

Experiencing Custom Made, this little gem of a four song ep, as a burnt CD on a laptop likely isn’t the prescribed listening situation. Released in April by ATP in a, yes, “custom made” double 7” format it showcases a somewhat pared-down version of “Veins to the Sky” which later shows up on Tucker’s third full length release, Portal, as well as a new version of “Phantom Rings” from his debut. A cover of Fursaxa’s “Rodeo in the Sky” draws upon the trademark otherness of his sound that is both seemingly of ancient origin yet chronologically unbound. His self-described blues closer, “Florence Blue,” is a cochleate whirl of strings over a thumbed pulse that is equal parts Junior Kimbrough and Arthur Russell. Tucker’s sound maintains a strange familiarity despite it’s slippery signifiers, perhaps due to a tapping of something elemental outside of traditions. Could explain how he somehow fits on bills and in groups with Fuck Buttons, Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley and Owen Pallett without seeming out of place.

(ATP/R)

Alexander Tucker – Portal

Wherever the titular doorway leads it’s clear that Alexander Tucker has access to something larger and stranger than a guitar with looper effects. On 2006’s Furrowed Brow he pushed at the boundaries of acoustic folk and blues, importing contemporary drone and doom experiments. But here he re-focuses that slightly disparate energy back into a harder shell of song. Openers “Poltergeists Grazing” and “Veins to the Sky” illustrate Tucker’s signature method of building elaborate structures out of layered loops, making for an ornate recasting of the one-chord blues tradition. They also showcase his increased vocal presence, albeit rendered ghostly by double tracking. The album eventually crosses streams, with “Energy for Dead Plants” turbine engine of bowed strings and eddying tones, backed by “Another World” and its oppositely stark acoustic guitar and vocal. Whether Tucker is a pan-dimensional being sent here from an alternate England where The Incredible String Band featured Tony Conrad on violin, or if he merely has visions of such a place, his continuous beaming from there is a welcome sound.

(ATP/R)

Surgery 61

Erik Enockson - Farväl Falkenberg (Kning Disk)
Animal Collective - Water Curses (Domino)
Ueno - Sui-Gin (Room40)
Trapist - Highway My Friend (hatOLOGY)
Peter Broderick - Float (Type)
Stars Of The Lid - Carte-De-Visite (Tour CD)
Leighton Craig - 11 Easy Pieces (Room40)
Sebastien Roux - Revers Ouest (Room40)
Preslav Literary School - Pretext/Context (GFDM)
Nicola Ratti - From The Desert Came Saltwater (Anticipate)
Lost In Hildurness - Mount A (12 Tonar)
Yoshi Wada - The Appointed Cloud (EM)

Track Listing

Erik Enockson - The Breaking Of Waves [00:00]
Animal Collective - Seal Eyeing [04:40]
Ueno - 08 [08:11]
Trapist - Mine Was The Shoulder You Cried On That Day [12:05]
Peter Broderick - An Ending [16:18]
Stars Of The Lid - Hunting For Pops [20:36]
Leighton Craig - The Last Easy Piece [25:50]
Sebastien Roux - part 1 [28:51]
Preslav Literary School - Track 03 [37:39]
Nicola Ratti - Voluta Musica [44:36]
Lost In Hildurness - Reflection [50:37]
Yoshi Wada - The Appointed Cloud {(very brief)excerpt}[57:59]

Listen to Surgery 61 click here

Surgery 60

This is a slightly different show. I've been waiting for a few new releases to do my usual "all new" format of shows, but I grew impatient and so thought I'd dip back into the collection to do this show while I waited. Essentially I was trying to hit a balance of tracks that feature digital/analog, lyrical song/instrumental, electric/acoustic blend. Basically the places where the tipping point where more traditional and experimental music meets. I'm not sure this worked... I have to listen back to it a few more times myself... but it was late and I wanted to finish and so.... In my haste to finish I neglected to mark the track starts... but it should be a little easier than usual to spot them. Enjoy.

Nagisa Ni Te - The Same As a Flower (Secretly Canadian)
Loscil - First Narrows (Kranky)
LaZarus - Songs For An Unborn Sun (Temporary Residence)
So - S/T (Thrill Jockey)
Molasses - Trouble At Jinx Hotel (Alien8)
Philip Jeck & Janek Schaefer - Songs For Europe (Asphodel)
Palace Brothers - Days In The Wake (Drag City)
Various - Hmm (Sprawl)
Joan Of Arc - Presents Guitar Duets (Record Label)
Komet - Gold (Raster-Noton)
Flying Saucer Attack - New Lands (Drag City)

Track Listing

Nagisa Ni Te - River
Loscil - Sickbay
LaZarus - Born A Friendship
So - Untitled B
Molasses - Trouble In Mind
Philip Jeck & Janek Schaefer - Lullaby Duel
Palace Brothers - No More Workhorse Blues
David Toop - Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Joan of Arc - Tim Rutili & Sam Zurick
Komet - Wheel
Flying Saucer Attack - Forever

Listen to Surgery 60 click here

Surgery 59

John Dahlbäck - Winners & Fools (Pickadoll)
Apparat - Things To Be Frickeled (Shitkatapult)
Vladislav Delay - Anima (Huume)
Pluxus - Solid State (Kompakt)
Electric President - Sleep Well (Morr)
Annea Lockwood - A Sound Map of the Danube (Lovely Music)
Jean Martin & Colin Fisher - Little Man On The Boat (Barnyard Records)
Jean Martin & Evan Shaw - Piano Music (Barnyard Records)
Jean Derome Et Les Dangereux Zhoms - To Continue (Ambiances Magnetiques)
Scorch Trio - Brolt (Rune Grammofon)

Track Listing

John Dahlbäck - Houses Of The Archipelago [0:00]
Apparat - Steinholz (Monolake Remix) [5:42]
Vladislav Delay - Anima (version) [10:22]
Pluxus - Forth [20:18]
Electric President - Bright Mouths [24:49]
Andrea Lockwood - Passau to Jochenstein Dam (excerpts) [29:46][35:10][43:12][53:27]
Jean Martin & Colin Fisher - A Long Way From Beacon Hill [30:41]
Jean Martin & Evan Shaw - Me Softly With His Kill [36:32]
Jean Derome Et Les Dangereux Zhoms - Cogné Un Genou [45:02]
Scorch Trio - Basjen [55:32]

Listen to Surgery 59 click here

Surgery 58

Jasmina Maschina - The Demolition Series (Staubgold)
Thisquietarmy - Unconquered (Foreshadow)
Skyphone - Avellaneda (Rune Grammofon)
Butcher The Bar - Sleep At Your Own Speed (Morr)
Various - Ambient 4: Isolationism (Virgin)
Christopher Bissonnette - In Between Words (Kranky)
Samuel Sighicelli - Marée Noire (D'Autres Cordes)
Martin Baumgartner - Shoot's Huft (For4Ears)
Grosse Abfahrt - Everything That Disappears (Emanem)
Martin Archer - In Stereo Gravity (Discus)

Track Listings

Jasmina Machina - Holy Holy Holy Word [0:00]
Thisquietarmy - Death Of A Sailor [4:03]
Skyphone - All Is Wood [9:15]
Butcher the Bar - The Boy You Miss The Most [14:06]
Sufi - Desert flower [17:32]
Christopher Bissonnette - Jour Et Nuit [23:49]
Samuel Sighicelli - Les Alluvions [30:09]
Martin Baumgartner - 0.1.0 [33:50]
Grosse Abfahrt - The Lack Americans Connected What Disappears [40:12]
Jim O'Rourke - Flat Without A Back [49:44]
Martin Archer - I'm Like Hello [53:59]


Listen to Surgery 58 click here

Surgery 57

Silje Nes - Ames Room (FatCat)
Colorlist - Lists (Stilll)
Various - Living Bridge (Rare Book Room)
Anandan / Gzowski - Shruti Project (Ambiances Magnetiques)
Anna Järvinen - Jag fick feeling (Häpna)
OST - The Beautiful Dead End/Point mort (Mutasis)
Heaven And - Sweeter as the Years Roll By (Staubgold)
Pita - Get Out (Editions Mego)
Kahn, Korber, Möslang, Müller, Weber, Yamauchi - Signal To Noise Vol. 4 (For4Ears)
Kahn, Moslang, Muller, Aube - Signal To Noise Vol. 5 (For4Ears)
Gavin Bryars/Philip Jeck/Alter Ego - The Sinking of the Titanic (Touch)

Track Listing

Silje Nes - Magnetic Moments Of Spinning Objects [0:00]
Colorlist - These Complimentary [3:04]
LUS - Contendo [8:54]
Anandan / Gzowski - Nothing is Familiar [13:03]
Anna Järvinen - Koltrast [17:21]
Dan Weisenberger & Lee Hutzulak - Caul [20:54]
Heaven And - Durango [23:28]
Pita - 5 [29:51]
Kahn, Korber, Möslang, Müller, Weber, Yamauchi - Untitled (excerpt) [34:11]
Kahn, Moslang, Muller, Aube - Untitled (excerpt) [42:15]
Gavin Bryars/Philip Jeck/Alter Ego - The Sinking of the Titanic (excerpt) [49:01]

Listen to Surgery 57 click here

Ulaan Khol - I

Increasingly, our guitar heroes seem to be genetically recombining to meld the traditions of folk mystic (Fahey, Basho) and electric pyrotechnician (Hendrix) into one frame. Steven R. Smith developed mutations of both strains over ten years spent in both Mirza and Thuja, but it was perhaps his more recent Hala Strana project that led to this recording. Billed by Soft Abuse as the first installment in their “Ceremony” series, Smith adapts his interest in Eastern European musical structure to an overdriven and fractured electric recording of striated guitar layers with occasional minimal percussion. The result does conjure mist-shrouded metaphysical graffiti in search of some lost truth. The nine untitled tracks are curiously compact given their outward reach, but cumulatively they read like prophecies interpreted from several interlinking points of view. They are also like powerful little engines that rage against an encroaching darkness that is dissolving the clean lines of defense.

Soft Abuse

Christina Kubisch – Five Electrical Walks

The idea of the “Sound Walk” in fine art is usually a marriage between the artist’s presentation of site specific concepts and the pre-recording of natural / urban sounds provided to listeners for experiencing. Christina Kubisch adapts this idea to previously invisible worlds. By developing headphones that act as receivers of electromagnetic impulses Kubisch allows listeners to hear the network of transmissions that surrounds them and seek out individual experiences of their own. For the purpose of this recording she gathered sounds from many cities (Birmingham, Chicago, Taipei, Paris etc.) and many sources (NYC’s Times Square, various train stations and airports, retail security doors) and with careful sequencing has created a kind of music that is alien despite continually being present in our lives. “Homage With Minimal Distortion” reveals Times Square to be a wonderland of ambient loops that almost naturally resembles the work of artists like Alva Noto or Ryoji Ikeda. “E-Legend II” illustrates the landscape of Birmingham where the near-silent decay of collapsed industry abuts the cellular voice-haunted squawk of new technologies. In some ways this work updates the new age music fads like Solitudes; recordings of nature to be played in your living room. But this is the new new age after all, and not as relaxed as before.

Important

Balmorhea – Rivers Arms

The much overused word that plagues music like that of instrumental duo Rob Lowe and Michael Muller is “cinematic.” It’s a kind of shorthand to describe themes that are emotionally evocative but difficult for some to fully absorb while unmarried to either vocals or images. Any trouble with absorption should only come from the richness of sources or the diversity of modes Balmorhea embrace within the walls of this album. Opener “San Solomon” cross wires a field recording-enhanced banjo/piano pattern, reminiscent of The Books or Ramses III, with a grounding pull of cello courtesy of collaborator Erin Lance. The piano parts belie a strong classical hand that is equally adept at Chopin’s quiet darkness and Stravinsky’s skipping clusters. The acoustic guitar’s counterpoint leans more towards a folk ease and understatement that helps build the album’s quiet confidence. With touches of violin, accordion and bass along with the cello Rivers Arms becomes a place full of colourful stories, with or with out the pictures to prove it.

Western Vinyl

Lars Stigler - Samarium-Cobalt Compound Impulse-Release Magnets And Linear Resistance

This Viennese guitarist has been working quietly, in all senses of the word, for just over a decade now. Samarium is his fourth solo release in that time and showcases a patience and clarity of technique. As the lengthy title hints, a tonally complex yet scrupulously observed phenomenon continually unfolds until it inhabits a wide vista of sound. In the musical world this is revealed through initially delicate and deliberately plucked notes against a rising hum of chorus. Stigler stretches the first two long pieces into divided movements, suggesting natural process, before releasing a more synthesized arrangement for radio static saturated guitar and piano harmonics. Stigler’s compositions have a little in common with Oren Ambarchi’s more restrained moments or Giuseppe Ielasi at his least abstract. But truthfully his music is on it’s own track… one that is less interested by the density of structures and with a simplicity that is more about clarity than minimalism for it’s own sake. These are themes for traveling deep into the heart of things or observing the sweep of great distances.

Karate Joe

Silje Nes – Ames Room

This Norwegian singer/songwriter is sure to draw comparisons to fellow Sub-Arctic siren Björk’s for her blend of wobbly electronics and acoustic inflected pop experiments. Nes is much more of ship in a bottle to Björk’s galleon, though. Not exactly fragile, the pieces of Ames Room are still miniature, but once assembled they become something unexpected and charming. Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be to Finnish avant-folk artist Islaja, whose work seems likewise more “built” than “played.” It’s a slippery affair to pin down, with a title track that burbles and chirps like jay in a natural spring followed by the drum machine and guitar drone of “Giant Disguise,” a track that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Cat Power album. This in turn is followed by “Dizzy Street,” which imagines a Belle & Sebastian / Fiery Furnaces détente. Nes’ approach is a hybrid of her classical piano background in collision with freewheeling home recording, making for a surefooted traipse through whimsical and tricky terrain.

FatCat

Surgery 56

Bochum Welt - R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) (Rephlex)
Lars Stigler - Samarium-Cobalt Compound Impulse-Release Magnets And Linear Resistance Inputs (Karate Joe)
Bobby And Blumm - Everybody Loves (Morr)
Various - Monika Bärchen Songs For Bruno, Knut & Tom (Monika)
Ulaan Khol - I (Soft Abuse)
Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (Kranky)
Borko - Celebrating Life (Morr)
Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing (ATP/R)
Principles Of Geometry - Lazare (Tigersushi)
Thee Silver Mt. Zion - 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (Constellation)
Sun City Girls - You're Never Alone With A Cigarette (Abduction)

Track Listing

Bochum Welt - DR2D [0:00]
Lars Stigler - As Cells Approach Exhaustion... [5:16]
Bobby And Blumm - The Letter [10:37]
Michaela Melian - Locke Pistole Kreuz (Edit) [13:27]
Ulaan Khol - Untitled 04 [17:10]
Atlas Sound - Ready, Set, Glow [20:02]
Borko - Hondo & Borko [22:56]
Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love for Planet Earth [29:38]
Principles Of Geometry - Akeshore [38:17]
Thee Silver Mt. Zion - Blindblindblind [43:36]
Sun City Girls - Sev Acher [56:49]

Listen to Surgery 56 click here