Valet - Blood is Clean

From Jackie-O Motherfucker to Nudge to World to the Valet project you seem to have steadily gathered stylistic and aesthetic layers--- what do you feel you've brought forward from each group into this album?

I think the main thing that was culled from those experiences is the idea of freeform playing. A sort of running with what's happening at the moment. JOMF, Nudge and World all have strong roots in the jam being the important element. The songs that form out of the jams become these accidental happenings that sort of express what happened through voice.

There is a ceremonial element in some of the tracks that harkens back to the improvisational aspect of Jackie-O--- do you find it difficult to delve into that in a solo situation? Is there more of a push towards a "classic" singer/songwriter type of work when you record alone?

Not really. In fact, it's almost easier to get raw when it's just you and a bunch of gear. The possibilities are endless in a recording situation. Especially with a computer as your recording machine. My headphones are broken so i have to wear this tight wool hat that ties to hold them to my ears when i'm recording. It feels kinda like being in a space ship all locked in. It feels kinda like making 4-track music. You jam out on one track then you jam over that on another. Next thing you know, you have your own one-person jam band. I'm not a perfectionist so intense editing or over dubbing starts to get really boring. It's like whitewashing the original moment of idea-conception. Maybe due to the impetuous nature of blasting it out, the music might stay fresh and improvisational. Although occasionally i sit down and work out a song on accoustic guitar. That's a totally different vibe altogether.

In the title of the album and in some of the lyrics themes of purity and spiritual corruption are addressed--- do you feel these spiritual elements naturally inform or inhabit your art? Does the process of making art/music encourage philosophical ideas for your, or do your ideas encourage you to make art?

They definitely encourage eachother in the big picture. But from the day to day inspiration, it's usually philosophical ideas first then the music taking shape reflecting and reinturpeting the idea. For each record or each groupings of songs, I seem to have an idea that streams along some sort of metaphysical story. When i was making Blood is Clean, I was listening to a lot of Haitian drumming and Jon Hassell. also (Led) Zep II, ragas, Mahavisnu Orchestra and Velvet Underground. I was also reading tons of books on non-dualism and paying attention to daily symbols that would fall into my life. Becoming the witness to my life and to every moment became the songs. Who knows what it all means. I surely wouldn't try to pretend that I know or that I was responsible for it. It's just what was happening at that time. I hope that doesn't sound weird or dismissive. It's hard to explain the feeling without sounding like some sort of hippy witch, cosmic freak out lady.

How much of what we hear on the album is the result of ideas/single takes that are built up gradually, and how much is the result of a more "cut and paste" approach to song construction?

It's kinda like throw the clay then make a pot. Usually the songs are done after a couple tracks and a couple edits. Even the songs come out fast or they don't come at all. Whenever there is a struggle or a need to go back and work on something more, I stop. the songs that seem to need a lot of re-working or have too many questionable things going on don't usually make it off the hard drive.

Why Valet and not Honey Owens on the album cover?

When i first started Valet it was supposed to be my free project where i could do whatever i wanted. Then I met my friend Jason Frank who is an awesome video/experimental music dude. We came together and made Valet as a communication between visual and audio performance. There was midi and there was a limited edition dvd. The name came out of an absinthe evening. Valet was supposed to take the doer out of the picture. We were supposed to be the channelers. I guess it's kinda a weird name if you weren't there for the trip. I keep wanting to change the name because Jason isn't in it anymore for now but for some reason it stays.
------
Valet - Blood is Clean (Kranky)
------

Some of Valet / Honey Owens favourite things from 2007:

ummm let's see...

1. Hanging out at the Oak St. with Rob Walmart.
2. Boris song "Rainbow" (killer lead)
3. Tom Blood's latest book The Sky Position
4. shannonkringen.com
5. Rad Summer (vibe store that i opened with my friends Charlotte, Jacob and Tom from JOMF)
6. Adam Forkner's killer leads
7. Playing in Adrian's band (Adrian Orange and her Lilys)
8. Astral Social Club (vol 1-6)
9. Atlas Sound
10. Listening to Ali Farka Toure and Love Joys Lovers Rock.

Nicolas Bernier / Jacques Poulin-Denis - Etude #3 pour cordes et poulies

The worlds of electroacoustic composition and dance are not ones that most people would expect to overlap.... what circumstances bring them together here? Why do you think they fit?

For us, electroacoustic music is as relevant to dance as instrumental music, if not more. Music is music. Electroacoustic music can offer a lot of space, where instrumental music can be more independant and stand alone. This quality, the aptness for ambience, is appealing for choreographers who are looking to encompass their visual work with a supportive soundscape. The fundamental link that unites music and dance is movement. Music is movement. Dance and Electroacoustic music are the composition of gestures that exist in time and space and become meaningful when being shown and heard. Thus, the wonderful union.

Unlike many electroacoustic works these pieces have definite melodic and harmonic elements that move things along besides the acousmatic sound elements... is this more indicative of how the music is being used as an accompaniment to movement, or is it a primary aesthetic choice in itself?

The use of tonic sounds (notes) is definitely intentional, almost even a STATEMENT. Electroacoustic music went through a period of total rupture with music from the past, but we don't believe in this detachment. Our music is the result of many influences including instrumental melody and harmony. The other reason why you will find tonic sounds in our music is that we use a lot of musical instruments as source material in our music. Electroacoustic music is about timbre and sonority, but for us the most beautiful timbres are often those of instruments that were made to be musical. All other found sounds, only widen timbral possibilities and add a level of allusion.

Outside of the academic world it usually is associated with the general public often has difficulty grasping the concepts at play in electroacoustic music... do you believe there is a strength/purity in this distance from "pop culture" or is it too self-enclosed?

This is a BIG question that points to many things. We don't really identify with genres, but believe they are important. Even if it's not obvious in the music, these labels have a heavy influence on music. The Academics do research that always influence at a certain point in time pop music, just like pop music has always influenced "academic music". We only have to think of the loop now dominant in pop music, but discovered in a radio research studio. Personally we are very influenced by pop music. It's difficult not to be!

Do we believe in distance from pop culture? We believe in the quality of arts and research. That which aspires to bring music-creation further than pop music does. We believe in the purity of elctroacoustic music, close to being the only type of music solely based on LISTENING and not on performance. You have to be a REAL music fan to listen to this type of music because the concept of performance is kept irrelevant. We don't believe in the confinement of Electroacoustic music. If we want to understand the world that surrounds us, we have to be able to dialogue with others who constitute it. Academicians would gain by attending more pop music concerts, and that pop culture (also secluded in its own world, even if the mass is larger) should experience more research-based art. Wouldn't that be wonderful!?!?

The Ekumen collective supports creativity across different art forms, primarily in digital media... do you think it's possible for creative groups to flourish exclusively online or is an extension into the real world also necessary? What are difficulties you've faced when exposing your works to a greater audience?

It's possible for a collective to flourish solely through the internet... but how awfully boring! The reason behind Ekumen is to show that we are not just artists trapped in front of their machines. We also collaborate amongst ourselves, amongst humans.

Again, for a better world, human communication, physical communication is essential. Our work only begins to make sense when exposed in the REAL life, meeting REAL people, and not when we meander through the web.
--------
Nicolas Bernier / Jacques Poulin-Denis - Etude #3 pour cordes et poulies (Ekumen)
--------

Some of Nicolas Bernier & Jacques Poulin-Denis' favourite things from 2007:

- Absolute no.1 : The 3rd String Quartet of Henryk Gorecki recorded by Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch label)

- Absolute no.2: the DVD on Foley Room by Amon Tobin. He worked the same way electroacoustic composers have been working for 50 years. The thing is that on this DVD, he's making field recording look really cool! ...Something that electroacoustic composers have always wanted to do. Let a mass of people know that electroacoustic music is cool! (except Pierre Henry in the 70's I think but I wasn't born yet!).

- Absolute no.3 : Grand Corps Malade. A french slam poet.

- DJ Socalled : man this guy is groovin'!

- The Me, Mom & Morgantaler reunion : we want more!

- Louis Dufort : Matériaux composés

- Dillinger Escape Plan : the song "Sick On Sunday" on their latest album is just crazy!!

- Luc Ferrari : Didascalie. My favorite composer of all time. The Sub Rosa edition includes a documentary DVD on his work which is cool.

- Timber Timbre : Medecinal

- Sandro Perri : Tiny Mirrors

Ateleia - Formal Sleep

On your Antiopic release Swimming Against the Moments there was a political undertone made evident in the song titles--- do you feel like politics play a part in making music/art either in general or specifically in your work?

Big questions. I think in the process of creating anything there is a germ of the political. Creative thinking is by definition revolutionary. Why does anyone take the time to make something that serves no material gain? To me this is magnified in respect to art music - popular music is such a disposable commodity, although I do like to listen to a lot of it. But the act of spending time crafting sound that sits in opposition to trends in commercialism is an act of, however quiet, political resistance. That said, I'm not one for super-overt political allusions. It makes me uncomfortable. Its enough for me personally to hint and leave it up to someone to fill in the blanks. That thinking informs more than song titles or packaging, it informs the way my music sounds.

How do you think ideology can be communicated through primarily instrumental themes?

There is a great history in instrumental music, from jazz to musique concrete, using certain themes or sounds to make obvious references. I'm thinking of snare drum gunfire in a political jazz tune, or the use of sirens or helicopter noise or whatever in electronic music. I'd never go that route, I prefer to smudge a lot, to blur notions, abstracting the sound as much as I can. Its somehow more radical to me.

This release is surrounded by salt water, in the titles and in some of the music's flow--- what is the water an allusion to? Do you hear it as part of the music or as a more abstract connective device?

Its just imagery that I like really, not much more. The ocean and tides and salt come up a lot. They've informed all my records in some way. I like the notion of water as a substance that moves, changes shape, evaporates, doesn't stay fixed... and salt water has that added advantage of decay, of the brine of the salt. I'm a fan of the beach. The rusted down metal street signs near the water in ocean towns are something I think of a lot. That slow decay is interesting.

Do the collaborators on the album contribute elements you task them with primarily, or do they arrive to provide a catalyst for ideas in process?

It works both ways. Sometimes I'll have a track in progress and ask someone to contribute a part on a specific instrument or toward a specific end. Other times friends and collaborators will give me material to transform and it will become the basis for a track.

Do you find there is a shared musical language amongst these experimental artists?

There might be a shared language, I don't know. I'm more inclined to notice the differences in approach of people I work with. If there is a shared language among experimental artists I know I think its not to fall in to having too much of a shared language.

You touch upon several "specialties" of exploratory music--- drone, minimal electronics, ambient noise--- yet none seem to define your overall style--- is this by design, restlessness? Are you more of a detail-oriented artist or is the big picture the main thing?

I'd like to think the details are the big picture. But yeah, what you call "restlessness" is very intentional. I'd never think to myself "this is going to be a Drone Record, or this time around I'm going to do Minimal Electronics." Genre focus is backwards, its a bad way to limit yourself, a lazy way to think about things. I hope my records are hard to categorize. I'm drawn toward art that strives for the mutant, the hybrid of things. That goes back to the idea of blurring or smudging, to make the lines of reference less straight. That is something I definitely go for when I think about genre. Its something I hope I can make more obvious in future work.
----------
Ateleia - Formal Sleep (Table of the Elements)
----------

Some of Ateleia's favourite things from 2007:

Steinbruchel: Basis (Room40)
Ricardo Villalobos: Fabric 36 (Fabric)
Gang Gang Dance: Retina Riddim (The Social Registry)
Jesu: Conqueror (Hydra Head)
David Daniell's "Crossing the Susquehanna River Bridge" from The Great Koonaklaster Speaks: A John Fahey Celebration (Table of the Elements)
Oren Ambarchi: In The Pendulum's Embrace (Touch)
Loefah: Mud/Rufage (DMZ)
Jon Mueller: Metals (Table of the Elements)
Shackleton/Appleblim: Soundboy Punishments (Skull Disco)

Goldmund – Two Point Discrimination

Like fellow traveler Sylvain Chauveau, Bostonian Keith Kenniff is a sometimes-electronics artist (recording as Helios) who spends moonlight hours at the piano. Also like Chauveau he has just released an e.p. that illuminates the roots and branches of minimalism. But Kenniff’s main branch is perhaps as much miniaturist as minimalist. The eleven brief tracks feature cascading repetitions and overlapping movements that hearken to the schools of Riley, Glass and Feldman. Each is a delightful clockwork that appears fully formed only to vanish wisp-life leaving the next to take up the space. The inside piano is close miced, creating an intimacy with the physical presence of the music and revealing tiny details created with each impact. The single word titles are also linked into the sentence “Leading them from light to shadow they will see as one,” and this also creates another layer of meaning with the music. The final three pieces settle into a quieter lull that concentrates as much on the resonance and sustain as the notes themselves, like a breath of satisfaction slowly released.

Western Vinyl

Brian Grainger – Eight Thousander

Alan Weisman’s recent book The World Without Us speculates on the Earth’s post-human development. Were it not a contradiction of sorts, Brian Grainger’s desolate guitar improvisations would provide an ideal soundtrack for this vision. His approach culls aspects of Stars of the Lid’s oceanic wash, Flying Saucer Attack’s grainy panorama and especially Roy Montgomery’s talent for describing space through sound. The opening trio of pieces captures a mood of twilight weariness; the guitar’s muted figures nested in the amp’s unmasked electric hiss. “Above the Sky” breaks free of the pregnant drone into a tremolo wide enough to bend at the edges. The only slight misstep comes on “Lost in the Woods,” a track that fetishizes the delay and creates a miasma of overlapping notes that disrupts the albums overall arc. Grainger’s unvarnished, no overdub strategy gives the work a vital feel despite its overall coolness and restraint.

Attacknine

Origami Arktika – Trollebotn

Once you get past the wince-worthy name this folkloric Norwegian band makes up with fireside balladry that calls to mind a mead-headed Circle or electricity-free Current 93. Recording in the region of Seljrod the band, whose ranks swell and contract from 7-10 members, excavate traditional folk songs of the area and give them reverent yet slightly askew treatments. Singer Rune Flaten’s warm narrow-ranged vocal easily casts us back to pre-Plague times and song cycles for beautiful heartbroken ladies. The band both plays and manhandles their instruments into making occasional non-proscribed sounds. The ceremony is steered by new drummer Kjell Runar A159’s (the numbers are doled out based on the person’s order of entry into the “Origami Republika”… I think?) loose meandering beat, keeping the sometimes trancelike instrumentation from suffering the crush of gravity. While the majority of the tracks grow out of some dark root, “Fanteguten” is a lighter narrative guiding “how-to” deceive pretentious women, and with a tight looping rhythm that could easily double as a RZA backing track.

Silber

The Drift – Ceiling Sky

With their 2005 release, Noumena, this San Francisco crew eked out a patch of post-rock ground that abutted against the jazz/fusion property line. This collection of tracks previously only available on vinyl releases further articulates some of their best attributes. On the 2004 “Streets/Nozomi” tracks Safa Shokrai’s upright bass sits atop of the alternately driving and dragging rhythms; fantastically recorded to capture every hint of vibration, string snap and finger pluck. The two tracks taken from the vinyl version of Noumena are a touch chillier, exploring dub rhythms and atmosphere with the aid of Jeff Jacobs’ lowering trumpet work. The crown jewel of the release has to be Four Tet’s remix of “Gardening, Not Architecture.” Kieren Hebden knows his way around acoustic instruments, upping the free jazz overdrive of the drum track while swirling the electronics and guitar like a blizzardy treat. Eventually high-pitched electronics sub in for the woodwinds it all locks down into an over-caffeinated loop. High energy fun.

Temporary Residence

Lawrence Casserley / Simon Desorgher – Music from Colourdome

While the intrusion of laptops and homemade electronic gadgets into “proper” improvised jazz seems to be on the increase, many of these interlopers are still pushed to the periphery of their respective outfits. From their time out corners most manage only the odd crackle or sine wave to stain the acoustic eminence. Lawrence Casserley strikes a blow for the wire jockeys by forcing the acoustic instruments to come to (and through) him. The ColourDome is an actual structure used in the long running Colourscape Festival, directed by Casserley and Desorgher since 1980. An air-supported labyrinth of colourful PVC, it provides an environment for spectators to inhabit and experience sound. In addition the duo use this structure to improvise new ideas. Here flautist Desorgher is joined by UK saxophone giant Evan Parker and violinist Philipp Wachsmann. On the other side of the coin, Casserley’s usual instrumental processing is abetted by David Stevens. The end result is most successful with the acoustic instrumentation and mutations simultaneously inhabit space. Occasionally this balance is lost and we hear the sound of someone wandering and lost in the ColourDome. What would Mel Gibson do? Sorry.

PSI

Tarentel – Ghetto Beats on the Surface of the Sun

This San Francisco outfit continues to red shift from its beginnings as an above average post-rock outfit in the vein of Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky. Subsequent output revealed a growing interest in improvisation, “Eternal Music”-style minimalism and probably pharmaceuticals. This limited edition double disc unleashes an avalanche of ideas, and like most avalanches there are only a handful of air pockets for those trapped in its path. The objection of too much belies the fact Ghetto Beats is likely not meant to work as a coherent statement… more of a flare-lit aggregation of tribal beat driven and ambience-heavy sketches. Long pieces like “All Things Vibrations” and “Sun Place” grow and unwind into their own ecosystems split free from greater context. Some of the shorter pieces, however, suffer from under and over-watering. All in all, if fans of Tarentel have followed this far they should have little fear wading into this foliage. Others may need to sharpen their machetes.

Temporary Residence

Michaela Melián – Los Angeles

Having strong roots as singer and bassist in German band F.S.K. (begun in 1980 and still going steady), Melián’s solo career is surprisingly new. This organic and lovely release follows her more DJ friendly debut Baden-Baden that appeared on Monika two years ago. Focus here is on warmth and acoustics, with violoncello, Spanish guitar and ukulele balancing the stoic against the playful. Given the album’s title it’s difficult not to picture a smog-obscured landscape made golden and dreamlike in early morning light. The instruments are likewise bathed in refracting layers of ambient noise and stacked upon each other until the loops punch through to the surface. Pieces like “Stein” or “Stift” conjure Steve Reich in a dream of quicksand. This mould is broken on later tracks like “Convention” and “Sebastian” that resolve into sharper detail, revealing angles and edges where before there was only heat haze. A closing cover of Bryan Ferry’s “Manifesto” further dims the lights and sparks up the neon of Sunset Strip. Sometimes it is about the nightlife, after all.

Monika

To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie – The Patron

The term “dream pop” is generally used to describe a music where the melody, voices, rhythm and tone all blend into a kind of indistinct haze. TKAPB have more vivid dreams. The Minneapolis duo of Jehna Wilhelm and Mark McGee take an expressionist and/or baroque approach to lyric storytelling. The Patron is, from all accounts, a love song-cycle for merging corporations… and indeed the musical equivalent of concrete buckling and heartrending electric wiring is laced throughout. Somewhere, perhaps hiding under a photocopier, Wilhelm sings her swooning romantic songs while McGee catapults flaming boulders against the outer structure. In other words this ain’t “Jack and Diane.” At intervals, like on “Lovers and Liars” and “I Box Twenty,” there are bits that more closely resemble songs in the canon of, say, CocoRosie or The Cranes. Elsewhere shards of feedback and crumpled electronics gyre around the idea of a song. For all that it is an impressively elaborate first recording that challenges and repays the brave and economic of heart.

Kranky

Sylvain Chauveau – S.

This first release for Type records marks a return to minimalist experiments for Chauveau after his surprisingly faithful album of acoustic Depeche Mode covers in 2005. Over the five brief tracks his strongest weapon is tension, built with a play of elastic and irregular intervals. As on opener “Composition 8,” where a few low tuned electric guitar notes bob and eddy in a thick bass drone amongst the liquid popping of looped analog input contacts. The piece is bracketed by two louder “plug-in” noises, creating the illusion of a placid and self-generating oasis hidden from outer chaos. “P.” features Chauveau at the piano, seeming to acoustically recreate the overheard electric sounds of the previous. “E/R” is something of an anomaly here: an extended cycle of regular digital figures with little variation, not unlike contemporary minimal techno from Kompakt stripped of nearly all dance floor pretense. After another brief piano composition, the closer “A.” is a simple and quiet song that seems to have been fed a drug and left to weave and stumble upon itself. Chauveau continues to prod the world of post-Satie classical piano composition into new enclosures with subtle electronic boundaries.

Type

Sun – I’ll Be the Same

Oren Ambarchi and Chris Townend switch back from their artist/producer dynamic to their group one for this second effort on Staubgold. As with the eponymous debut a pun-obliging sunniness touches the diffusive songs until you can’t always spot a structure amongst the lens flares. Tracks like “Mosquito” and “Smile” channel fragments of classic cracked psychedelia beamed from Donovan to Brian Wilson to CSNY. The image of a Laurel Canyon mega-jam at its psilocybin peak spilling over into Venice Beach or Malibu also comes to mind. Ambarchi and Townend apply a loose improvisational approach to broader tracks like “Help Yourself” and “Soul Pusha” that results in wonderful “first-take” instrumental collisions and drumming that defies any time-keeping theories. The Animal Collective have occasionally mapped out songs like “Bruise Things,” with its mix of acoustic trippiness, electronic arabesque and found sounds. Sun, however, take this map, read it upside down and stumble onto a bridge that drifts off into morning fog. I’ll Be the Same may test patience if you’re expecting common sense to be the guide, but if you’re willing to abandon steering you may be ready for this ride. Man.

Staubgold

Oren Ambarchi – In the Pendulum’s Embrace

With recent pendular group work that has swung from the high brow [Keith Rowe] to Cro-Magnon browed [Sunn O)))], Australian guitarist Ambarchi returns to center with this new solo release. Following a thread begun with Suspension (2001) and Grapes from the Estate (2004), both on Touch, Pendulum starts as a familiar meditation on tone. The Sunn O))) aesthetic of repetition and vibration suffuses the muted low guitar rumble and sympathetic cymbal shimmers of “Fever, A Warm Poison:” the sound Ambarchi building a monolith in a bell jar. The tone-cloud returns on “Inamorata,” retaining its slow pace and evocative shape until it is slurred into colourful contrails by a bowed drone just past the track’s midpoint. “Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow,” last of the three long pieces, adds lovely meandering acoustic guitar clusters to the mutating electricity; closing off is a wordless vocal counterpoint in the Lichens / Alexander Tucker family. This de-centralization of the guitar simultaneously breaks open new melodic terrain and maintains Ambarchi’s distinctive voice. One senses that if the albums through-line was extended a song might eventually emerge. But if this is the close of a triptych or just another evolutionary step remains to be heard.

Southern Lord

Brian Joseph Davis – The Definitive Host

Serving as either a summation of or introduction to the collected sound projects (2004-2007) of Canadian artist Brian Joseph Davis, The Definitive Host is an inarguably wonderful looking package. There are unavoidable comparisons to be made with fellow maverick John Oswald, and especially his Plunderphonics works. Underlying considerations of copyright and censorship are manifest on pieces like “Ten Banned Albums Burned, Then Played,” sounding as title describes, and “Eula,” which features the Sony/BMG user license agreement orchestrated for and sung by a choir. “Ten Banned Albums…” features everything from Mahler and Stravinsky to Dead Kennedys Frankenchrist in a suite of stylus-jarring loops. New to this collection is “Five Box Sets Played on Fast Forward, Then Edited Into Songs” that, as advertised, takes on Motown through Metal, repurposing themes from a machine-driven randomness. And perhaps this is where Davis and Oswald part company: while Oswald performed exacting surgeries with razor and magnetic tape, Davis seems to embrace the chaos of creation that occurs when the technology runs itself. He also lets human error direct things as on “Yesterduh,” featuring layered performances of “Yesterday” by paying users of a gallery’s recording booth, encouraged to sing the song from approximate memory. The edited results are embarrassingly lovely. The disc is held in a chapbook-sized glossy package with photos of the burned albums, the score to “Eula” and several other tidbits to pore over while you listen.

Blocks Recording Company

MC Maguire – Meta-Conspiracy

Using the computer as a compositional tool is not exactly groundbreaking, but using it to achieve the level of musical density present on Meta-Conspiracy stretches the boundaries of its applications. The two long suites by Canadian composer MC Maguire both began as commissions for orchestras and/or dance accompaniment but have since grown in proportion and purpose. “A Short History of Lounge” is a duo piece for CPU and piano (played here by David Swan). Described by Maguire as “a quasi-rondo sonata… a kind of Boulezian pandiatonic Rumba,” it begins as an accelerating, percussion-happy absorption of musical themes, both naturalistic and digitized, heroically accompanied by Swan’s piano. The piece slows to regroup in several spots over its duration before swelling again into massed but always musical layers not unlike a thick sandwich of Zappa’s mid-80s Synclavier experiments in contemporary classical themes. “Got That Crazy, Latin/Metal Feelin’” is also explained with notes pointing to “a harmonic 49-chord progression (forward then backwards through all the major/minor keys),” but in the listening it can be taken as a half-hour collage of overlapping themes. Accompanied by John Gzowski’s guitar and vocals by Maguire with Sam Sinanan and Barnyard Drama’s Christine Duncan, it somewhat resembles a more frenetic, serial version of label boss John Zorn’s Naked City band pieces. That is to say good fun for those who like music that resembles rollercoasters.

Tzadik

Hildur Gudnadóttir / BJ Nilsen / Stilluppsteypa – Second Childhood

Though she’s worked extensively with fellow Icelandic artists like Múm and Jóhann Jóhannsson, it is likely cellist Hildur Gudnadóttir who is the dark horse of this collaboration. Her spare and echo-enhanced strings however do define the space and direction of these pieces. BJ Nilsen has gradually gone from the atmospheric electronics of his Hazard projects to nearly pure atmosphere, as with his recent CD Storm with field recording artist Chris Watson. Here he provides an enclosure that gives the ambient music room to breathe. He also serves as full circle connector to expatriate Icelandic duo Stilluppsteypa, having worked with them on two previous albums for the Helen Scarsdale label. Where earlier releases where typically barbed and dark-humoured affairs, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson have recently embraced restraint as a new tool in their arsenal. Most of Second Childhood inhabits a twilight realm that teeters on the edge of beauty and foreboding. “How to Catch the Right Thought,” for instance, is an idyllic shimmer of cello notes that seem to be broadcast from a subterranean chamber. It is this pepper-laced honey that keeps things from drifting into new age torpor and makes this a repeatedly intriguing listen.

Quecksilber

A_dontigny – Geisteswissenschaften

Aimé Dontigny is a Quebec artist with a slippery aesthetic that wriggles free of easy classifications. Having begun with the “free noise” collective Napalm Jazz, his treatment of sound at its root informs later work; from electro-acoustic duos with Diane Labrosse, Chantal Dumas to a recent live performance under the direction of Francisco Lopez at this year’s Victoriaville festival. Dontigny accesses these muscles here, but also draws upon his work with Érick D’Orion in morceaux_de_machines, a project that force-feeds noise into the drum n bass paradigm. What Geisteswissenschaften offers is the rapid survey of a micro-managed patchwork landscape where many styles and ideas compete for space. It opens with the lazy hip-hop pulse of “Koons” that is eventually overturned by a chaotic collapse of competing beats, followed by the smooth flow of “Pruitt-Igoe” where the electric piano and syrupy strings are just a little too uncomfortably degraded to produce nostalgia. The album begins to describe the worm in the heart of cultural recycling. What many modern electronic albums undertake to preserve through mutation and adaptation Dontigny slathers with new layers of decay and distance-confusing disorder. The album especially succeeds by allowing just enough of the “known” to peek through while spinning through its disorienting cycles of hyper-detailed noise.

No Type

Marhaug / Asheim – Grand Mutation

Organs have figured prominently in the Touch catalogue over the last couple of years, most notably with the release of the two Spire compilations featuring artists exploring the intersection of acoustic tradition and electronic innovation. Grand Mutation places this intersection dead centre of Oslo Cathedral where noise artist Lasse Marhaug and organist Nils Henrik Asheim first crossed paths ruing the 2004 All Ears Festival. Returning to the cathedral in June 2006 they brought along engineer Thomas Hukkelberg to capture their monolithic improvisations. Starting with “Bordunal” the drone elements and resonant space serve to soothe and seduce the listener before eventually terrifying them. Marhaug’s electronics were played live through a loudspeaker to share the space more naturally with Asheim’s organ, initially leading the way. By the bridge into “Phoneuma” the distinction between the duo’s tonal palettes blurs, with Marhaug exhibiting a great patience for gradual change not always evident in his Jazzkammer work or recent collaborations with Maya Ratkje and Testicle Hazard. “Philomela” illustrates the denuded sound of air forced through the fluttering stops before interjecting tones and notes. Taken as a whole the work transits from pure tone through unadulterated noise and eventually into “Clavaeolina,” something closely resembling a devotional grandeur the space must usually host. After fire and brimstone returns a more benevolent deity, theoretically.

Touch Records

Surgery 52

Pinch - Underwater Dancehall (Tectonic)
Various - A Number Of Small Things (Morr)
The Drift - Ceiling Sky (Temporary Residence)
Bogdan Raczynski - Alright! (Rephlex)
Astral Social Club - Neon Pibroch (Important)
Charalambides - Likeness (Kranky)
Origami Arktika - Trollebotn (Silber)
Toshinori Kondo - Silent Melodies (Stilll/Off)
Ateleia - Swimming Against The Moments (Antiopic)
Sylvain Chauveau - Nuage (Type)

Track Listing

Pinch - Widescreen
Teamforest - Home
The Drift - Gardening, Not Architecture (Fourtet Remix)
Bogdan Raczynski - Alright! Part Six
Astral Social Club - The Big Spree (edit)
Charalambides - Saddle Up The Pony
Origami Arktika - Fanteguten
Toshinori Kondo - Song For The Small Planet
Ateleia - Production And Poverty
Sylvain Chauveau - Fly Like A Horse


Listen to Surgery 52 click here