Surgery 88

Nudge - As Good As Gone (Kranky)
What Capitalism Was - Plays Philip Glass on Accordion (Self-released)
Heather Woods Broderick - From The Ground (Preservation)
Porzellan - The Fourth Level Of Comprehension (Hibernate)
Klimek - Movies Is Magic (Anticipate)
Steven R. Smith - Cities (Immune)
Milieu - New Drugs For Nuclear Families Of The Seventies (MMD)
Bvdub - We Were The Sun (Quietus)
Loscil - Strathcona Variations (Ghostly)
Pleq - The Metamorphosis (U-Cover/CD-r)
Isnaj Dui - Unstable Equilibrium (Home Normal)
Chihei Hatakeyama - The River (Hibernate)
Brave Radar - A Building (Fixture)

Track Listing

Nudge - Harmo [0:00]
What Capitalism Was - Etoile Polaire [4:53]
Heather Woods Broderick - Left [7:21]
Porzellan - One Week & One Day [12:05]
Klimek - Sound Of Confusion [20:43]
Steven R. Smith - Night Upon Us [25:58]
Milieu - Dionysus In Reds [30:20]
Bvdub - Lest You Forget [33:45]
Loscil - Midnight on Princess [37:47]
Pleq - Song Of Nonsens [43:50]
Isnaj Dui - Chill Turns To Cold [48:58]
Chihei Hatakeyama - Gray Hued Sky [54:33]
Brave Radar - Fireball (Surgery Edit) [59:07]

Listen to Surgery 88 click here

Christopher Tignor - Core Memory Unwound

An aptly titled solo debut from the musical director/violinist of the Slow Six ensemble that tests the elasticity of piano and violin themes with live sampling software. Where Slow Six dabble in Glass/Reich minimalism these pieces come closer to the chamber classical of Koji Asano or even austere John Cale. The eight pieces progress in pairs that alternate purely acoustic and treated electronic works.. “Last Thought at Night” is a lovely duet that slowly interlocks and pulls apart like a door latch, while the piano of “Last Nights on Eagle Street” tiptoes through an arpeggiated patch of violin samples. The title track at the centre of the album inverts the cascade, creating waves of piano samples that envelope slowly shifting drones spiking in the upper frequencies. Both sides of the equation approach each other closely on the subtly evanescent moments of “Cathedral,” a two-parter that closes the album.

Western Vinyl

Various - Iceberg

Montreal’s experimental music scene has a new label to exhibit its wares, both hard and soft. Minimalism is the watchword here, but the twelve artists approach it from intersecting spheres of ambience, concrete, dub and techno. Simon Carpentier (Sapin) provides a fitting introduction with “Balade,” a track that combines a soggy electroacoustic soundwalk with a chilly network of electronics from the Raster-Noton catalogue. Laforge and Sul.a follow up with a couple of micro-beat pieces that are part Tangerine Dream part Frank Bretschneider. “Luminescence” is a vapor by Julie LeBlanc (/de.i.te/) that seems to hover and vibrate in the middle distance just out of focus. Martin Dumais (AUN) labels his efforts as “blight metal,” but “Human Prince” seems light on doom, heavier on the hazy echo. More haunted is “Somewhere Cold” by Pascal Asselin (Le Chat Blanc Orchestra) that conjures quiet moments of devastation from Lynch films. At heart a post-dusk collection that contemplates isolation as the streetlights flicker.

CCCLTD

Martin Schulte – Depth of Soul

Having spent a few years rising through the ranks on netlabels like Red and Op3n, Russia’s Marat Shibaev has found a new hard disc home on Tokyo’s fledgling Lantern Records. While there are echoes of dub and Kompakt-influenced minimalism (his pseudonym hints at the gutte vibrations), there is a compacted surface to these tracks that render them dancefloor-friendly. What distinguishes them from your average upper-middle tempo cuts are the detailed undercurrents built into pieces like “Big City Street” and “Supper.” The latter’s clattering flatware and mealtime chatter is more prominent, while the former features more subliminal snippets of voice that encourage slightly paranoid sidelong glances. Even the less ambience infected tracks are gibbous with little working parts. Even as the topmost 4/4 is prodding the plexus there are blurry washes that graze the surface, like moving water under ice. Having just cracked the big 2-0 Shibaev has many promising nights ahead of him.

Lantern Records

City Centre - S/T

The same shifty restlessness that made Saturday Looks Good to Me such an undervalued pop curiosity blossoms at the heart of Fred Thomas’ City Centre. Parts of this eponymous debut have the feel of a pillow fight where exploded feathers touch off loops of mbira, gamelan and then unexpectedly drop like rhythmic hammers. It takes a few tracks for the disparate elements to synch, but “Bleed Blood” succeeds by shunting the acoustics and embracing the Panda Bearishness of sweet and sticky tug-of-war layers. The wall of noise on “Cloud Center” is an appropriately nebulous one that is the aural equivalent of the debris that circles Saturn. Even in varied states of deliquescence, the hard pop core of each track retains enough form to survive declassification. “Young Diamond” sounds like a wet dream Kevin Drew wishes he could remember and closer “Unfinished Hex” proves there is a machine inside the ghost with its more minimalist guitar/vocal approach. Get your pillows ready.

Type

Surgery 87

Lawrence - Until Then, Goodbye (Mule Musiq)
Ben Klock - Remixes (Ostgut)
Daniel Meteo - Working Class (Shitkatapult)
Dubkasm - Transform I (Sufferah's Choice)
Variant - The Setting Sun (Echospace)
The Notwist - Music For "Storm" (Alien Transistor)
Naptha - Long Time Burning (Ruff Revival)
M - Pop Muzik (30th Anniversary Remixes) (Echobeach)
Midaircondo - Curtain Call (Twin Seed)
Rainer Wiens - Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Ambiances Magnetiques)
Thomas Köner - La Barca (Fario)
Ganesh Anandan & Hans Reichel - Self Made (Ambiances Magnetiques)

Track List

Lawrence - Sleep And Suffer [0:00]
Ben Klock - Subzero (Function-Regis aka Sandwell District Remix) [3:31]
Daniel Mateo - On The Corner [9:37]
Dubkasm - Sangue Brasileiro [16:03]
Variant - Adrift [20:12]
The Notwist - Sarajevo 2 [25:09]
Naphta - My Heart Beating [31:05]
M - Pop Muzik (Dub Spencer & Trance Hill Remix)[32:48]
Midaircondo - Bringing Me Home [38:52]
Rainer Weins - The Valley of Green Ghosts [43:11]
Thomas Köner - 35° 40' N 139° 42' E (Hour One) [45:31]
Ganesh Anandan & Hans Reichel - In the Stillness (edit) [51:47]

Listen to Surgery 87 click here

Surgery 86

Vladislav Delay - Tummaa (Leaf)
Ethernet - 144 Pulsations of Light (Kranky)
RJ Valeo - September (Type)
900x - Music For Lubbock, 1980 (Asthmatic Kitty)
Epic45 - In All The Empty Houses (Make Mine Music)
Various - XVI Reflections On Classical Music (Universal)
Rameses III - I Could Not Love You More (Type)
Ólafur Arnalds - Found Songs (Erased Tapes)
Mem1 - +1 (Interval Recordings)
Con Cetta - Micro (Moteer)
Cresting - an e.p. (Fixture)
Radian - Chimeric (Thrill Jockey)

Track Listing

Vladislav Delay - Musta Planeetta [0:00]
Ethernet - Seaside [5:12]
RJ Valeo - Black Ice [10:39]
900x - Lands [16:26]
Epic45 - In All The Empty Houses [20:35]
Gavin Bryars - Tramp With Orchestra III (No Strings) [24:08]
Rameses III - No Water, No Moon [29:01]
Ólafur Arnalds - Raein [35:39]
Mem1 - +Area C [38:28]
Con Cetta - Shown Anatomicophysiologic [43:44]
Cresting - A Bottom Hill [46:41]
Radian - Subcolors [51:05]

Listen to Surgery 86 click here

Surgery 85

Sonogram - Pixels (Simulacra)
Sparklehorse + Fennesz - In The Fishtank (Konkurrent]
Gardenia - Untitled (CD-R)
Autistici - Volume Objects (12k)
Lokai - Transition (Thrill Jockey)
Giuseppe Ielasi & Howard Stelzer - Night Life (Korm Plastics)
Lawrence English - Transit (Cajid)
Brock Van Wey - White Clouds Drift On And On (Echospace)
Stephan Mathieu + Taylor Deupree - Transcriptions (Spekk)
Tickley Feather - Hors D'Oeuvre (Paw Tracks)
Six Organs of Admittance - Luminous Night (Drag City)
Tu M' - Monochromes Vol. 1 (Line)

Track Listing

Sonogram - Brakhage By Seashore [0:00]
Sparklehorse + Fennesz - If My Heart [4:13]
Gardenia - Blow Away Like Cosmic Dust (excerpt) [9:06]
Autistici - Broken Guitar, Discarded Violi [16:37]
Lokai - Salvador [20:54]
Giuseppe Ielasi & Howard Stelzer - Ruin 3 [24:47]
Lawrence English - Shinagawa (Moment On Tokaido) [29:40]
Brock Van Wey - Too Little Too Late (Intrusion Shape VI) [35:59]
Stephan Mathieu + Taylor Deupree - Largo [42:13]
Tickley Feather - Fly Like an Eagle [45:37]
Six Organs of Admittance - Cover Your Wounds With The Sky [48:50]
Tu M' - Monochrome 3 [52:56]

Listen to Surgery 85 click here

Coming up short?

This is a little strange. After putting episode #84 on my iPod for the final roadtest (which admittedly I do after posting it to the site... making it fairly useless as far as a quality control goes) I noticed the running time was 59:09 and not the full 60 minutes I always make the edit. The original file is indeed an hour long and I have tried re-uploading it, but the iTunes running time still has it at the truncated version. Hmmm. Anyhow it doesn't seem to affect the direct download from the site... only the subscription version, so I apologize to Gareth Hardwick for the rude end to his lovely drone and to people whose enjoyment may be affected by it.

Scratching my head,

Eric

Surgery 84

Clubroot - S/T (LoDubs)
Father Murphy - ... and He told Us to turn to the Sun (Madcap Collective)
To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie - Marlone (Kranky)
Jack Rose - The Black Dirt Sessions (Three Lobed)
Risil - Non Meters Vol. 1 (Important)
Susanna And The Magical Orchestra - 3 (Rune Grammofon)
Cheju - Waiting For Tomorrow (Distant Noise Records)
Murcof - La Sangre Iluminada (OST)
Luigi Archetti / Bo Wiget - Low Tide Digitals III (Rune Grammofon)
Gareth Hardwick / David Tagg - Split (Install)

Track Listing

Clubroot - Dulcet [0:00]
Father Murphy - Hide Yourself In The Woods [5:50]
To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie - Villain [9:21]
Jack Rose - The World Has Let Me Down [15:25]
Risil - We Were Ruined Before We Started [21:59]
Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - Subdivisions [29:34]
Cheju - Grid Reference [34:20]
Murcof - Eugenio IV [39:34]
Luigi Archetti / Bo Wiget - Stück 28 [42:41]
Gareth Hardwick - Five Points [48:48]

Listen to Surgery 84 click here

Surgery 83

Groupshow - The Martyrdom Of Groupshow (~Scape)
Gareth Davis & Steven R. Smith - Westering (Important)
Giuseppe Ielasi - (Another) Stunt (Schoolmap)
Chihei Hatakeyama - Saunter (Room40)
Pillowdiver - Sleeping Pills (12k)
James Stephen Finn - The Antique Metronome (Cotton Goods)
Le Chat Blanc Orchestra - Ste-Claire Hotel (Make Mine Music)
Aaron Martin + Part Timer - Seed Collection (Mobeer)
Gregg Kowalsky - Tape Chants (Kranky)
Kreng - L'autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu (Miasmah)
Boduf Songs - There Is Something Hanging Above (Under the Spire)
Nils Frahm - The Bells (Kning Disk)
Final - Reading All The Right Signals Wrong (No Quarter)
Jóhann Jóhannsson - And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees (Mutesong)

Track Listing

Groupshow - Dog Shoes To The Stars [0:00]
Gareth Davies + Steven R. Smith - A Relic [2:28]
Giuseppe Ielasi - Part 5 [7:21]
Chihei Hatakeya - A stone inside the box [11:02]
Pillowdriver - Nineteen [16:04]
James Stephen Flinn - Ghosts Are Making Appearances On Closed Circuit [20:44]
Le Chat Blanc Orchestra - Stephen Harper Dreams Of Kyoto [23:04]
Part Timer - Darkness Settles Over Jones (Voice Of Jim) [29:48]
Gregg Kowalsky - IX [32:35]
Kreng - Aspyxia [36:48]
Boduf Songs - Deathbed Triumphs Of Eminent Lackwits [38:18]
Nils Frahm - Peter Is Dead In The Piano [44:14]
Final - Green [46:58]
Jóhann Jóhannsson - The Flat [56:35]

Listen to Surgery 83 click here

Comfort – Sleep Talking Shared

Groups that decide to combine the acoustic and the electronic in their work generally draw heavily from one and add the other as an afterthought. Italian duo Alessandro Baris and Leonardo Chirulli take a much more balanced approach. On the rock side their bass/piano/drums framework is as complex and far reaching as any Tortoise jazz/rock essay. Rather than resting on this level tracks like “The Missed Environment” rework the script to include microtonal violin loops, hissing electronic percussion and synth textures. While it calls to mind works by Crescent or Radian, Comfort’s sound is much more expansive and not as dry. Tracks like “Florian” and “Iceberg” successfully combine hints of classic 60s soundtrack, 70s European jazz and modern digital effects in one cool, detail-rich flow. And though their scope is broad and guests many the duo is careful to let instruments breathe and silences matter. There is no abused space and each track comes with a fresh new secret waiting to be discovered.

Stilll/Off

Anduin & Jasper TX – The Bending of Light

With a more than a dozen recent releases on labels small and smaller, including last year’s wonderful Black Sleep on Miasmah, Dag Rosenqvist’s Jasper TX has been careful not to slip into a single-minded way of doing things. His ability to describe the desolate with either acoustic melody of dense drone comes to bear in this collaboration with Virginia native Jordan Lee’s Anduin alias. Using a Carl Sagan description of a black hole’s formation to unify their musical theories the duo create a mood that drifts between awe and resignation in the face of such raw but emotionless power. The first suite of three tracks is more dependent on the electronics that swallow, compile and compound tones, allowing only faint pulses and distant notes to emit. The album’s second half is comparatively sparse with the musical elements rising to the foreground like the debris left to orbit the gravitational well. It’s a work of stark beauty that serves as a worthy entry to both gentlemen’s discography.

SMTG Limited

Baja - Aether Obelisk

Not the splashdown into pop waters of, say, a Caribou, Daniel Vujanic is nonetheless dipping his toes in the pool with a few more lyrics on this fourth release. Baja signals the continued cross wiring with an introductory cough and wolf slide on the acoustic guitar that’s pierced by a sine tone on "9 seconds." From there on vibraphones and 70s flutes rub against cut-up drum patterns and vocal edits. Vujanic neatly interchanges noise and melody roles, creating competition and dissonance that evolves into harmony. For example "Graph-viak" unexpectedly flips from post-Drum n Bass froth to oddly 80ish pop song without breaking rhythm. Last year’s Wolfhour had a similarly broad palette of sounds, though this year’s model works it’s transitions and shifts with greater subtlety. “The Story of Fissa Maines” starts as a taped monologue unspooled from a noisy source and segues into a venue-changing woodwind cue that itself merges with an electronic pulse and piano figure as “Prism Break” starts. It's an album of (lovely) surprises that never lags or lulls.

Other Electricities

Fridge – Early Output 1996 – 1998

That this trio of London kids was still in high school and essentially just dicking around with a cassette 8-track when Trevor Jackson began releasing their explosively imaginative post-rock experiments on his Output label is humbling. It’s well known that they’ve gone on to glory with Four Tet and Adem; and a reunion in 2007 that produced the new album Sun whetted the appetite for more. Culled from sessions that yielded two full lengths and a handful of singles comes this blend of Tortoisesque musculature with swatches of cheap electronics and cheeky melodies for drapery. Sam Jefffers’ unschooled and deeply intuitive drumming was the loose backbone that let Adem Ilhan and Kieran Hebden drop noise guitar and droning keyboards wherever their hearts desired. Standouts like faux-dance groovy “Lojen,” Mogwai-winking “Swerve and Spin,” and the patient 808 epic “Anglepoised” prove the breadth of ideas and influences that continue to serve these gentlemen today.

Temporary Residence

Various – Enjoy the Silence

Taking a cue from the Kompakt Pop Ambient compilations, Japanese label Mule Electronic celebrates five years of bliss with its own collection of serene themes. Veterans like Strategy, Jan Jelinek and Thomas Fehlmann, who trumps even his IMPS remix from earlier this year with a wonderful piano-in-a-whirlpool bit, sit next to eagerly ascendant artists. Kuniyuki Takahashi, who records as Koss, takes a regal piano theme and adds slightly unsettled ambient noise to generate something lovely and a little unnerving. Sweden’s Minilogue continue to develop their non-dancefloor side with a lengthy synthpad churner that is treated to hide-and-seek polyrhythms from several sources. Peter M. Kersten’s Lawrence track is a simple and effective balance of a few echoing elements with a thread of playful vibraphone stringing them along. It isn’t as fluid a collection as the Kompakt offerings, but still makes a splendid label overview and bookend to their German counterpart.

Mule Electronic

Our Brother the Native – Sacred Psalms

Pared down to a duo OBTN seem to have discovered a slightly more lucid spirit guide to follow on this third full length. Joshua Bertram and Chaz Knapp, both barely into their 20s, are still adventurers into and melders of twilit global musical forms, but with a firmer grasp on the western pop trope. Easy but accurate comparisons to Animal Collective’s earlier acoustic and ecstatic campfire songs paint part of the picture. However, for every song like opener “Well Bred” that thrives on adrenaline and a layered choir of voice and horns there is a “Sores” that has a simple and mournful folk song atop the bongo/sitar/gamelan exoticism. Certain tracks have a jammed-out feel where competing found sounds and meandering samples eventually stumble across the song proper. “Behold” has a repeated lyric that states, “there is no use in holding back / this is who we are,” and that is as good a self-descriptor of OBTN’s approach to music making as any critic could ascribe; best just to relax and enjoy the overflow

FatCat Records

Animal Hospital – Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues

As a Boston area engineer Kevin Micka has built his reputation as a first rate loop guru. Guiding guitar, drums and other sound sources through a maze of electronics he creates vivacious streams of notes that change colour with each new collision. The vivid playfulness of The Books is called to mind as a comparison. For all the high-resolution detail and clever juxtaposition of sounds Animal Hospital falls prey to a problem that plagues many sound-happy artists. The building, building, building up of many tracks never actually becomes anything more than a foundation to a song. Certain pieces like, “March and June” with its systolic beat, whirring resonance and cooing vocals promises to swerve but never changes its arrow-straight path off into a vanishing point. “Barnyard Creeps” is a late-comer that breaks that tradition and uses a gnarled guitar form to force directional shifts. Micka’s knack for interesting textures and complementary colours make the album an easy listen, but one that fails to leave lasting impressions.

Mutable Sound

Aughra – Proof of Dark Matter/Light the Lights

The dark ambient subgenre has not been so strong since the mid-80s/early 90s when creatures like Zoviet France and Rapoon slithered over the British heartland. While Aughra’s Brent Eyestone doesn’t stick exclusively to those deep shadows, a good number of them fall across his full length debut. Opener “Et In Arcadia Ego” neatly crosses the mid-90s Bristol wires of Flying Saucer Attack and Portishead by sitting a nest of fuzzy guitar noise atop a slinky drum machine beat. Things get a little more clockwork on “Machinelike Registration of Proximity,” a corroded goosestep by Schwarzeneggerian toy soldiers. The title suggests a certain balance, and the second half of the album finds the murky medium of marsh gas electronics obfuscating distant sheets of guitar heat lightning. Aughra’s quiet menace seems to exist as a dream world version of Eyestone’s work with Forensics, a less-than-obvious metalcore quartet given to tasteful loud/quiet dynamics. The metal may be deteriorating from its immersion in aquatic electronics, but it still has sharp edges, waiting.

Magic Bullet Records

Black Dice – Repo

The hodgepodge collection that was 2007’s Load Blown marked this Brooklyn crew’s skip over to their Animal Collective buddies’ label. The focus on Repo remains on the healing/disorienting power of the loop, though with a little less dogmatic minimalism. Opener “Nite Creme” illustrates how their brand of noise rock has tapped in the energy flow of American hardcore, siphoning DIY energy and ragged experimentalism into a real time jam. Black Dice prefer the wink to the frown, however. Cousin Panda Bear’s acclaimed Person Pitch could be summarized as “Good Vibrations” for Kraftwerk fans, but Repo, though related, defies reduction. Oddly nostalgia-inducing turntable stabs, off-speed/kilter vocal loops, and what sounds like a sentient pawn shop with Pee Wee Herman at the till only offers a preview of the mayhem. The whacked kids show vibe reaches it’s peak on “Lazy TV” which sounds like The Wonderful World of Disney on the best hash brownies money can buy. For the older and funkier set “Ultra Vomit Craze” simulates James Brown’s discography bit-reduced into an old school Gameboy. Those who like their noise angry or austere may be put off, but if they drink the punch they’ll be fine.

Paw Tracks