REVIEWS

peeesseye, mayhemIf anyone ever told you about a song that starts with somebody’s voice saying “One, Two, Three, Four” and lasts for 2 minutes you’d surely think it’s a punk track. Not sorry to disappoint us, the first track on Peeesseye’s "Mayhem In The Mansion, Shivers In The Shack" despite its two-minute duration, is not the case. Irreligiously, it is more of the starting point of genres’ destruction. Uncomfortably sunk into improvisation, from nonsense acoustic guitar intros or storytelling, potentially folk (but not ever) ones to performing riot noise chaotic intervals, this album touches you on the condition that you are in a state of embracing with that acoustic mayhem and “have already understood and agreed with the terms and conditions” of the Peeesseye ethos. In their whole anarchic sonic and actual status, they definitely intrigue all side effects of the anarchy idea where counter-fascism applies itself within the rules of no-rules. Subsequently, the listener is put in the defender’s seat where he/she can either acceptingly smile and get along or strive to get up and leave. P.S.: Happy to realize the album’s artwork comes from a master of drawing schizophrenia, Mr. Paul Noble.

:: Peeesseye/Mayhem In The Mansion, Shivers In The Shack - Evolving Ear CD, 2007.

green machineThis four-man rock machine from Portugal is doing something right. Their new album, Plays Ghost is a rockin’, jumpin’ 12 track release that reminds me of many things, including DC punk rock, Rage Against the Machine, The Greenhornes, Jonathan Fire-Eater, 60’s beat music and a glimmer of 70’s rock.
In addition to a host of guest musicians, the band is made up of Pedro Oliveira on drums, Angelo Sousa on bass, Bruno Costa on guitar and singer Joao Pimenta. This is music that begs to be performed live, the energy of these four is palpable and it’s hard to imagine them keeping still long enough in a studio to get this all on tape. Track 1, ‘Almodóvar Kind of Girl’ comes off a little demo-ish, like an old track they never got quite right but is charming in it’s own, raw, right. ‘…And You Will Know Us By The Dancefloor’ takes it further with a poppy jumping beat that instantly gets you up. Once you get used to the abrupt, shouty lyrical style of Joao Pimenta, things start falling into place. He deftly alternates between a whisper, a scream and a crooning chorus, inviting the rest of the band to shout out the high points.
 ‘I’ve Rejected You Cause I Can’t Deal With Rejection’ begins as a 60’s beat inspired rock song and instantly jumps again into the call and response singing style. The saucy, closing shake of a maraca reminds you that these guys cannot be pigeon-holed, they’re not afraid to mixed a Rage-styled shout with a 60’s Latin inspired fizz of a rhumba shaker. A nice bass-line draws us into track 4, ‘Black Heart, Leave Me There!’ and there is Joao shouting out a badabada, like a machine gun, you can just imagine him jumping all over the place, on the brink of losing control. His screaming and pleading give up some Elvis trill and a whiff of Glenn Danzig. A gorgeous guitar line opens ‘All-Star Love Triangle’, a dreamy upbeat number that is sure to be a hit in dance rock clubs. By now, just halfway through the album the song titles have become the second attraction on this album, invoking plenty of creative references that help to flesh out the image of this band. Just try to catch every one! Yes, they are Portuguese and yes, they are singing in English so I can’t help but wonder if the lyrics are supremely clever plays on words or lucky mistakes that come off like pop culture poetry. Track 6 is called ‘Your Inferno Fuck Me Eyes’ and has officially earned a spot on the top ten list of my all-time favorite song titles. 

With this track they shifts gears a bit by starting out with a 70’s rock inspired guitar intro followed by a classic swing beat on the drums and Joao singing in a low growl. This song, although punctuated by moments similar to the other songs, is a nice departure from the rest of the album. Josh Homme would be impressed. From the anthemy shout “we feel unstoppable!!!” on ‘Blonia’ to the lovely drum solos, acoustic guitar and swinging dance beat on ‘A Nation of Shy Persons’ down to the always appreciated cowbell on ‘Cola/I’m Sick Of The Same Old Town’ the album keeps a sweaty, pulsing rhythm with whispers and screams and rocking guitar licks that hold it all together like a train barreling down the track. Ending the album is a short, sweet, instrumental valentine to blues-rock introduced by a Howlin’ Wolf sound byte, called ‘Ghost Blues’.  This may be a mildly indulgent way to close, but after all the frenetic jamming it seems sincere and personal.

These boys have definitely been studying rock music and deftly manage to glean what they love into a well-done homage to a mish mash of contemporary and vintage rock.  And that’s what makes it such fantastic fun and a genuine good time. I just wish Joao would trust his voice a little more and give us actual singing. While the shouting style works, it can get a bit tiresome and redundant. Indeed when he lowers his voice and works with subtlety the screaming really pays off down the road.

:: Green Machine: Plays Ghost - Rastilho Records/Cargo. 

PSIDuring my second year in Art School, a schoolmate of mine asked me to participate in one performance piece along with other schoolmates for her assessment. The final piece would be a video piece consisting of the footage of that performance. The concept was to theatrically depict an official gallery sponsors’ dinner in a fashion of parody and attack. Us would be the dining lot, set around a large table on which the food was roughly put (no plates, no cutlery), “dressed properly” (wrapped in silly garment, wearing absurd masks upside down, etc) and the director and camera operator, would be the gallery’s security guard wearing the appropriate uniform as well (her real job at the time in London’s National Gallery). The lights were off so that in the filming process only what she would decide to shed light on by a torch would be clear. Performance kicks off and the dining creatures start messing around with the food, spreading it on the table, reluctantly associating with it; in the beginning. The play goes on and we have already started to expand our movements and fields of action from the table to ourselves and to each other. It is now time for more expression as we’re in the ritual and spontaneously no speech but squeaky cries come out, primitive orgasmic shouts and roars as the scenery becomes more and more vulgar. Keeping it up like this and approaching the peak, one of us is laid on the table in the food massacre, being pleased by our tortures. Catharsis has to put us to sleep now and we open the door. We altogether run outside wearing the masks and costumes, covered in canned pasta and other consumerists’ disgusting inventions, to all of the University’s facilities still shouting like mad people, finally stopping in the bathrooms to end the whole thing.
Long story for a start but worth mentioning in correspondence to The Peeesseye’s Commuting Between The Surface and the Underworld and its improvisational development. Raw and offensive, a knit work of squeaky movements and lo-fi acoustic guitarisms with ritualistic cannibalism vocals swaying among peaks and pits of muddy smog, this Peeesseye album has a somehow suppressed intensity and harmful narrative devices. From the performance art perspective – should we accept the art-music distinction but you Academics asked for it, you got it – this work overcomes all obstacles on the way of succeeding in the completion of the –anti. In listening, you can tell where is who in the recording space. Although not very sure if that works positively or negatively in the final verdict of the album’s quality, it surely puts you in the loop of thinking about it. As the entire album’s manner of recording appears to be, one has to make up his/her mind on what sort of weird course of action is being documented here or what is making that sound. In Stay Positive, Asshole, things seem to shape up a bit from pure abstraction to drone rock and articulated musical dominance. The question though quickly emerges: Is noise improvisation a matter of loudness and silence rather than middle audio situations? Without even a second of hold-on for an answer, Commuting Between The Surface and the Underworld, is surely the soundtrack of Jaime Fennelly’s, Chris Forsyth’s and Fritz Welch’s intentions of man-instrument idioms.

:: Peeesseye: Commuting Between The Surface And The Underworld - Evolving Ear.

patio bonitoLas Malas Amistades, die falschen Freunde, sind in Bogota, Columbien zuhause und haben schon dreivier Alben hinter sich, u. a. La Musica de Las Malas Amistades, Jardin Interior und die wunderbar zerzaust folky knirschende CD auf Igor Vlasovs Label Psych-O-Path (2006). Damals wie heute tupfen und sprenkeln die falschen Freunde ihre Songminiaturen mit Blumensaft und Gestaltduft. Ihre derzeitige Labelheimat Honest Johns Records in London hatte vor einzwei Jahren Moondogs - The Viking Of Sixth Avenue veroeffentlicht, eine herausragende Zusammenstellung seiner fruehen Aufnahmen. Las Malas Amistades Patio Bonito ist ein rosafarbenes Zuckerbonbon, elektronistisch gentrifiziert, konstruktivistisch angesengt, und liegt beim hoeren sehr gut in der Schwebe, vertikal gesehen.
:: Las Malas Amistades : Patio Bonito / Honest Jons Records

blood, muscle & airVocal sounds are produced everyday by people all around the globe, yet few show as much control and ingenuity with their vocal chords as the artists heard in the most recent collection from the Sonic Arts Network , 'Blood, Muscle and Air'. It is an education in vocal sound production and the possibilities hidden inside each of us. The fourteen artists, all experienced performers from around the world, submitted fourteen very different tracks in response to a request from David Moss: “... the power and intimacy of the human voice... a piece that reflect how you love singing at the moment”. Each one uses an extensive array of sound, giving testament to the individuality of the human voice and personal creativity. Slotted between the pieces are short ten second buffer tracks which aid in a smooth transition from whisper to squeal to chatter to breath. Melissa Madden Gray opens by creating an acoustically graphic image of a 'Heart Murmur' with a polyphony of whispers, tunes and vocal rhythms. In 'I've Heard That One' Chris Mann rambles through a monologue of a piece timed as one-side of a conversation. The use of pitch, silence and breath is an interesting observation of speech patterns. Fatima Miranda takes us through the shadows of everything that has ever existed to a mysteriously beautiful landscape in 'Palimpsiesta'. In 'Dong Song Thanh Trong Khong Gian (Overtones in Space)', Tran Quang Hai sings over a recording of himself to produce multi-leveled throat singing in an interesting mix of traditional and modern effects. A number of tracks are wandering passages of noise with unfamiliar sounds akin to insects being suffocated in a balloon or sparrows slowly being frozen. Improvisation is a wonderful way to be musically expressive but a form, even a loose one, heightens the listening experience. Tracks with more familiar sounds are reminiscent of The White Album, Tom Waits and the Terminator melting to death in film II. Some tracks have great concepts, like 'Breathing Out' by Phil Minton who's strained squeals form a unique expression of an everyday act, one which we often take for granted; and 'Idling on Air' by Jaap Blonk who sounds a little like a struggling Vesper until a glance at the accompanying notes makes you listen, really listen.
So now I feel a little lazy with my everyday speech. Blood, Muscle & Air is all we need to speak, sing and make weird and wonderful sounds using only our vocal chords as a musical instrument. This collection is a worthy statement of the possibilities within us.

:: The Sonic Arts Network-Curated by David Moss/Blood, Muscle & Air - Sonic Arts Network

heaven and Heaven And is the music project held by Australian Necks’s Tony Buck on drums and percussion, also Australian Steve Heather on drums, percussion and marimba, German Martin Siewert on guitars, lap steel, electronics and keyboard as well as in production, along with German Zeitblom who also is on bass and keyboard. The album Sweeter As the Years Roll By kicks off with a jazzy introduction of intense percussion drumming; creating an expectation of possible free jazz blah blah but quickly surprises those expectations when Alexander Hacke’s vocals pierce in as soon as the second track begins. From then on the whole experimentation backdrop appears which is to eventually come to surface and take over whenever instrumentalism allows it. The member’s playing skills blend together in integrity resulting in a wholesome “rock sound” within the composition’s freedom. Distorted guitar torture has matched with the indecisive percussion tempos that manage to maintain a sense of melody. A good way to not allow anyone to contextualise an album, nevertheless a great opportunity to observe how different facets of art rock can coexist on the same stage without suffocating in a sea of baroque. Post and avant-garde in it’s sober times so as to also leave space for Hacke’s vocals, gradually ascending to out-of-control krautrock, going beyond that, flirting a lot with space rock but never gets there because it overdoses on something preferring hedonistic repetition on fucked up, long, distorted, addictive riffs and noise rock playground. In the entire duration of the album, Siewert’s and Zeitblom’s idea of production provides the instruments with the compliments they deserve with loud - whisper electronics and locates them in the correct sound economy. Overall, Heaven And is a project seriously about music and Sweeter As the Years Roll By is serious music.

:: Heaven And/Sweeter As The Years Roll By - Staubgold/Indigo. 

beehooverWie es scheint hat einfach jeder musikliebende Mensch dieser Tage ein Profil bei MySpace, und so wie Du oder ich sind BEEHOOVER ebenfalls glücklicherweise mit einer Seite vertreten, auf der man auch zwei Stücke ihres vorigen Albums THE SUN BEHIND THE DUSTBIN hören kann. Ihr mögt jetzt den Kopf schütteln, hohnlächelnd sogar, wer weiß, womöglich habt Ihr die Chance ergriffen sie bereits auf den Festivals DOOM SHALL RISE oder SOUTH OF MAINSTREAM zu erleben - diese beiden unglaublich kraftvollen Musiker, irgendwo zwischen Avantgarde, Progressive Rock und einem neuen Weg, sind schließlich seit fünf Jahren dabei, mit dem Bass zu dröhnen und die Trommeln zu schlagen - doch für mich ist dies der musikalische Einstand in Sachen BEEHOOVER, unschuldig wie der erste Augenblick einer Begegnung, die faszinieren könnte, künftig – und das kann ich, glaube ich, zugegeben leicht enthusiasmiert, ruhig so behaupten: Bereits nach den zwei ersten Stücken ihres neuen Albums HEAVY ZOOO habe ich um eine virtuelle Freundschaft gebeten. Der Gesang der beiden ist mitreißend, intensiv, emotional, frauensofreundlich tief, männerachverstehend martialisch, einfach genderübergreifend anregend, die Haare zu schütteln und sich auf wechselnde Tempi, präzises Schlagzeug, das einen narrt, möchte man tanzen, einzulassen; ’mal ist’s die Ruhe vor, ’mal nach dem Sturm, innehaltend, weitertreibend, hier und da durchzogen von Soundcollagen, die das ganze experimentell und verspielt erscheinen lassen, dann wieder fühlt man sich offenbar mit gutem erdigen Rock verbunden und wird von melodiösem Fingerpicking überrascht - ihr braucht das Album, also geht hin und kauft – und vergesst nicht, die anstehenden Konzerte zu besuchen. -- Nicole-D

:: Beehoover/Heavy Zooo - Exile On Mainstream Records/Soulfood.

klangwartAlways in the experimental field but now from a more electronic/noise sampling approach, Staugold Records’ latest Klangwart release, Stadtlandfluss, is another story. Certainly narrative, Stadtlandfluss puts together the unravelled urban story of breathing within the city. Beginning as silent as waking up, going to the understanding of the awake state and from then on, to the urban audio complexity of interchangeable chaos is experimental that makes personal sense. At it’s asleep/awake state, the dominant sounds sway between irritating and lullaby-ish as if your head spins around the pillow when your dream has been mixed with the reality of the construction site at the building opposite to your apartment’s. On the existing repetition of the sound of the outside, as the narration of a day in the city goes by, one finds him/herself in the audio secrets of the interior of the mechanisms of industrial society still able to catch the ambience from the window as if from somebody’s office/working environment. Typewriters, printers, telephone ringing, random speech in the form of rapid glances in human communication through microphones within the vast complexity of the machine-talk of smaller and bigger scale (from printers to helicopters) dominance. When done with walking through the strictly organized chaos of the industrial and as it fades out, the only thing left and now fading in more and more is the whisper of a real human, a speech, a sound of self conscience, a word goodbye. Definitely, Stadlandfluss is the result of “handcrafted” synthesis of recorded sounds in such a skilful way that is rid of any need for creating impressions as it intrigues much more interesting aspects of listening.
:: Klangwart/Stadtlandfluss - Staubgold/Indigo.

themaeshi-hlllyhIf early Greenday had had a smoke with Mr. Bungle, it might have sounded a bit like Mae Shi in the rehearsal-garage afterwards. Or not. It definitely was a garage. I like Mae Shi, yes, I think so – though I agree with one of my musician friends who is very wise in music and said: “I don't think they're wacky, I think they want to be wacky.” Their style is not fixed, they take you to Tripping Daisy’s or Jane's Addiction times and you eventually end techno - you cannot predict, yet whilst having their current album HLLYH in your player, you can predict it will be weird, which actually makes them predictable. It’s fun listening to them, refreshing, and they are still quite young, it seems – Frank Zappa or Mike Patton started at some point as well… and may have been an influence, among many others. If a young band adds in new sparks and dots to the colourful fields of wide spread music movements, and has been doing so, successfully and increasingly, for 6 years now, it should be welcomed, with doors wide open. Let their blend into your ears and your hearts - and watch them in the times to come: They may form an opinion on where they feel most at home with and most authentic, if they care; I suspect them to give a damn and just want to play, play, play - and music is a playground, isn't it? -- Nicole D

:: The Mae Shi/Hlllyh - Moshi Moshi/Cooperative Music/Universal.

bulbul6Throughout Bulbul # 6 prevails an undulating intensity caught in complex rhythms and complimenting melodies. Opposing rhythms overlay and cross each other to form beats which dare anyone to try not to feel. 'When the sun comes out' banishes genre borders with raw, comfortable, new and familiar sounds of the 60's, to the 00's taking us through, out of and around unknown familiarity. The mood softens in 'Shenzhou' which echoes in the air like a beautiful nightmare. 'Tighter' and 'Tighten' wake us to a stomping reality and we're submerged into Bulbul's unique, extensive expression all the way to a final track so repetitive it almost forms an addiction. Like sleeping and waking in the same moment, Bulbul 6 gives satisfaction in uncertainty by stretching the illusive lines of decided opinion. It is a fine album and one which continues to reveal itself in each playing.

:: BULBUL/Bulbul 6 - Exile On Mainstream Records/Soulfood.