REVIEWS

lucifer risingI’ve used this record as a metaphor to describe some the most great and epic things I’ve encountered; the coming of seasons, the return of the sun after several stormy months in the middle of summer, and for the epic majesty of intergalactic travel. Then I found out you could find it on vinyl. Bobby Beausoleil and the Freedom Orchestra create some of the most spooky, conclusive sounds that have come to film accompaniment. He did participate in an oh-so famous murdering spree shortly afterward, so his ability to visualize the bizarre goes without question, as does any cred. The Lucifer Rising Soundtrack is a psychedelic headful, handful, soulful that takes you on an amazing journey through beauty, terror and discovery. I can’t decide between listening to the Soundtrack and linking it to Kenneth Anger’s visually celebrated film masterpiece, or just letting my own wandering mental imagery run onto this unabashedly fruitful playground held mad within it’s grasp :: Bobby Beausoleil/Lucifer Rising Soundtrack - (Arcadia/Import).

harmonia live 1974Live recording from my favourite Krautrock (super)group. Consisting of members of Neu/Kraftwerk/Cluster here is a great document of a short lived band (1973-76) who influence remains today in contemporary bands such as Religious Knives and Sunroof! (Matthew Bower has acknowledged in interviews, the influence on his album "Cloudz") and nestles smoothly along French prog jammer Heldon and also "No Pussyfooting" era Eno (who joined the band towards the end). For the unitiated check out their other records "Deluxe" and "Musik Von" "Tracks and Traces". Searing dual guitar/synth over old drum machines at once bedroom primitive and collossal psychedelic mind river cruising. Why the hell their influence is strong abroad but lost in Berlin baffles me. I mean sure, I hear it in the techno scene, but where are the fucking psychedelic jammers in Berlin? Any leads feel free to email me :: Harmonia/Live 1974 - (Groenland/Cargo).

markers/bossMagik Markers came to me as a recommendation this summer and I am grateful that it was in time to listen to some previous material before "Boss-Ecstatic Peace" shot out hot and throbbing. They say the heart of rock n roll is still beating, and from what I've seen I believe 'em. This record put up against the backdrop of former MM material is fairly straight ahead. Sexy vocals, mean words, tamborine--and it's groovy! Everything's here...a confident, very at home Magik Markers complete with meat and potatos clamor, juicy diversity and fun. It's also a fabulous fuck record :: Magik Markers/Boss - (Ecstatic Peace/Cargo).

markers/bossFuck! Markers have gone - well its not exactly straight, but a definite departure from when I last saw them and they were the most fucking screwed up and animal I`d seen them. Vox are high in the mix this time with overdubs and shit. Cool! Where as debut "I Trust my Guitar etc" was dictaphone in pocket homage to Love's Da Capo with Fag Tapes filter this is PRODUCED Skronk. Spinned it a few times and makes me think of Royal Trux, early nineties Sonic Youth and even in places "Rid of Me" era PJ Harvey. 1993 as fuck? Nah, its now sounding, but a surprise! And bold to say the least! :: Magik Markers/Boss - (Ecstatic Peace/Cargo).

wzt heartsThis is a big immersion in distortion, non rhythmic drums, and, well, noise. It comes in big waves and sounds like a monstrous machine in your basement coming to life. The cover, picturing a psychadelic jumble of junk, pretty much sums it up. Duchamp took a toilet bowl and isolated it in the museum, but this refuses the singularity of refuse as art and just throws it all in a heap, jumping into the proverbial landfill. All the junk is already decaying so you’re not gonna find some funny kitsch objects in here like a cola bottle from 78. But you might find worm and maggot infestations. Add in a shamanic ethic and the occasional more scientific experimentation (what happens to bird chirps in a disortion pedal? etc) and you have the entire anthropological/ecological crisis :: WZT HEARTS/Threads Rope Spell Making Your Bones - (Carpark/Cargo).

ambarchi/pendulumSehr heavy, tief brummelnd und cremig wie Softeis fließen die tiefresonanten Basstöne in einander zu Beginn von In The Pendulum`s Embrace (Touch 78), dem neuen Album des Australiers Oren Ambarchi. Gebrochen klangklar schält sich nach 4 Minuten ein Gitarrenakkord heraus, der die glimmende luxuriöse Tristesse verstärkt, und dabei eine honigfarbene melancholische Stimmung erzeugt, die Basis und Ausgangspunkt bleibt für bislang alle Ambarchi Solo-Werke seit Clockwork von 1999. Seit dieser Zeit nutzt Ambarchi die Methode der Vibration sowie der Resonanz als klangtupfernes Grundfrequenz-Interplay aus Ober/Unterton/Residualtonmasse, ein Effekt, der gespenstisch schlafwandelnde Stimmungen sowie zeit-verlangsamende Atmospherics erzeugt. Oren Ambarchi hat mit Boris, Sunn0))), Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, John Zorn Keith Rowe und vielen Anderen zusammengearbeitet, fast alle seine Solo-Werke von Grapes From The Estate (Touch 2004), Triste (Southern Lord 2005) hin zum neuen Album wirken wie eine karge, reduzierte Mondlandschaft aus merkwürdigen Pflanzenformen und fremdartigen sun/the sameGeometrien durch den Filter eines Nachsichtgerätes betrachtet. Mit dem Namen Sun erscheint nun Ambarchis in Kooperation mit Produzent Chris Townend enstandenes Album I`ll Be The Same, das aufgeweckt poppig und leichtfüssig dessen sonnige Charakterseite darstellt, wobei Ambarchi hier vornehmlich als Drummer agiert und Townend die Instrumentation der Songs überlässt. Fast scheint es, als würden die versammelten Pop-Oddities auf I`ll Be The Same auf die softe 6oer Westcoast-Psychedelia von Country Joe And The Fish und Quicksilver Messenger Service hindeuten, nicht aber ohne zuvor bei Paul McCartneys 71er Alben wie Ram und Wild Life vorbei zuschauen :: Sun/I`ll Be The Same (Staubgold 79), Oren Ambarchi/In The Pendulums Embrace - (Touch/Cargo).

encomiastThis is unreleased, early, re-edited or remastered tracks: after 6 full lengths, 2 eps and a bunch of compilations, why not go back to the potential of the earliest works. This has the sweep, grandeur, and open ambience of a soundtrack - and the haunting, minimal, creepy music suggests the soundtrack to little girls digging graves below an enormous, beautiful sky, as elaborate, creeping monsters slowly crawl, or float past, unconcerned. Threat is never realized, tension spins out beauty, the music is always a background, never a performance, making it inevitably near to the subconscious. With all its vague but inevitable influence and pull. This is a mood not a story, but the story is drastically altered in moody drift :: Encomiast/Self-Titled - (lensrecords/Cargo).

ken ikedaKen Ikeda uses art theory to talk about his music. (Makes sense, he works in video and collaborates with artists like Moriko Mori and Tadanori Yokoo). I want to argue: that should not make you shiver. The structure of his music is consciously unconscious: respects the need of the unconscious to dress in shadows, without shadows it is as out of place as a bat in the bright sun. What does that mean musically? It means a realm of difficult to recognize, impossible to name sounds lapping against each other making a quiet magic. Homemade string /nail instruments with rubber bands and synths are the stepping stones back into plato’s maligned cave, forget the chains, out of the burning of harmonic enlightenment. And the images you see on the wall - well Moriko Mori could have painted them. The plucked noises are like jumping in rainbow puddles on acid. That’s always fun :: Ken Ikeda/Mist On The Window - (Spekk/A-Musik).

dredd fooleOpening like unpausing a tape w/ strong blossom tones in the same dazed vein as Ignatz Dredd Foole plays waking up w the sun lying down on your face. Initially issued as a limited edition CDR on Child of Microtones and backed with the label curator Matt Valentine and his partner Erika Elder adding to the lush rays. Dredd Foole deals in submerging his voice in the mix and effects to use it as another sound somewhere between 60s psych greats The Godz and Alan Vega, playing with leads to late night half heard associative lyrics. I had only previously heard his solo album “In Quest of Tense”, which was a quite an anomaly seeing as he has had people back him since the early 80s where he would be joined by Mission of Burma as Dredd Foole and the Din. His love of rock manifests itself in two covers on the album, "Signed D.C." by Love and "Someone Said" by J Mascis makes for great imagination strolls :: Dredd Foole/Daze On The Mounts - (Family Vineyard/Cargo).

sunburned-fire escapeHearing that Sunburned Hand of the Man were “leaders of the new weird America” caused Kieran Hebden of Four Tet to search the band out. He listened, liked the music immensely and was very interested in collaborating with them. Like Hebdens previous works with Animal Collective or former Sun Ra drummer Steve Reid, he seemingly influenced their sounds into something a bit more danceable, a bit more 70’s Kraut, a bit more Four Tet style jam. While the title track “Fire Escape” starts like an old man’s chime collection on a breezy day with random tambourine played by his naked sunbathing wife, it quickly evolves into a fast, hypnotic psych out. “The Parakeet Beat” is the jam on this record. It runs with a badass African drum line and has been remixed by Norway’s dance maestro Bjorn Torske. All in all the album wavers in and out of just about everything imaginable in Attention Deficit Disordered clips, with pretty piano ballads, smooth jazz trumpets, flanged out bass lines, a flute army, tight and plodding rhythms, sometimes concentrated, sometimes sparse, but somehow with a kind of desert feel, marching in from Can, Ash Ra Temple or Harmonia territory into hallucinating post-punk clatters of early PIL or Cabs. FIRE ESCAPE falls somewhere between the soundtrack to Burning Man Festival taking place in the Nevada desert and a plodding kraut rock opera with whirl horns, cut paste feelings and intuitively placed spontania and would probably go well served with madness plus drug cocktails :: Sunburned Hand Of The Man/Fire Escape - (Smalltown Supersound/Rough Trade).