REVIEWS

mind the driftWow. Lately the word “impressed” seems to apply to less and less music. For Big Business though, two words apply: fucking impressed. Unfortunately I haven’t had the pleasure to listen to their previous album, which apparently was minus the guitarist Toshi Kasai leaving the set up of the band with a bass and a drum kit. I am very eager to do so though after the first listen of Mind the Drift. Different aspects of explosive music evolve during the album within a metal context, a fact that makes you wonder how does this possibly work? So damn, successfully? The vocals of Jarred Warren have an extreme interchange ability and often a vintage electricity that tingles you music brain nerves through different decades and resemblances always maintaining a very unique style though. The drumming has a voice of its own and conjures up imaginative beats that kill any speck of predictability one might rush to assume. A strikingly amiable surprise is the organ - a rock n roll reminiscence - that appears in the most spot-on way and away from the cheesy tendency of heavy metal Golgotha to epicness tradition. This is definitely an album that will stay in top lists of headbangers, metalheads and general rockers. -- xrysafenia danai.

:: Big Business/Mind The Drift - Hydra Head/Indigo. 

landedIt becomes quickly apparent that Landed intend to take no prisoners. The tracks on Liver and Lungs are mostly over 10-minutes-long and include ranting, largely incomprehensible vocals, broken-sounding drum patterns, flatulent basslines and edgy synth noises, all covered in swathes of distortion. Some of the track titles, such as 'Osama OxyContin' seem to hint at a political agenda, but what exactly that agenda is, is not clear from the music. Instead, the listener is treated to a fairly uninhibited assault on the ears. There is a kind of gleeful nastiness at work here, an expectation, or even enjoyment, of getting up people's noses, reminiscent of Mike Patton's work with Mr Bungle and elsewhere. Despite the abrasive sound palette, Landed have been careful to include a few hooks and even a hint or two of melody in the six tracks on offer here. An immediate standout  is 'Blow Your Burger', which would sound amazing dropped at 4am through a hugely-powerful club sound system. The nightmarish quality of the ramblings on the subject of fast fast food that run through the track (for example 'get your hands off my whopper') is offset by insistent synth lines and downtempo, but danceable beats. The final minute of 'Dirt Bomb' also drifts into unexpected funkiness after the unrelenting doominess of the majority of the track. The last two tracks seem to be more metal-influenced. The doomy bassline on "Tip of the Whip" nodding a head to the Slayer-riffs-at-quarter-speed style founded by Earth and 'Fuck Seatbelts, Fuck Ralph Nader' has actual guitars bashing out power chords on the downbeat with the unrelenting swing of a George Romero zombie's walk. Landeds' music may aim to offend, but it's all the better for it. --nick ilott. 

:: Landed/Liver and Lungs - Corleone Records

mrs riceGovernment-sent-to-China, Australian cultural Ambassador Lucas Abela, a.k.a. Justice Yeldham along with drummer Yang Yang and saxophonist Li Zenghui on the piano form the trio under the name Rice Corpse. The name actually derives from the Chinese symbol for "shit" and the project has existed for as long as this album. Nobody can deny the album’s powerful kick-off but also one can’t help noticing that this is going towards the thousand things it could be but never reaches. During the listening procedure, a nonsensical musical arrangement unravels that no doubt, springs from the setup of the improvisation session which finds Mr. Yeldham rubbing amplified glass on his face, Yang Yang creating occasional tempos and the piano is another story. The point is that the actual sound from the glass is a complicated matter as I am sure it weirds you out in seeing and hold together a performance but through the speakers it is like my dad left the TV on Eurosport and Formula 1 is on. Now think of a room of a public nature. Now please replace the people in it with instruments in play. Mrs Rice is the result. Surely the improv qualities of the album float on its surface, the question is, why the effort for an unorthodox noise generator where there is always the guitar? On track number 4 named “Resurrection Men” an old-timer from the first track reappears. The drumbeat that builds something up. Still in the personalisation of the instruments, the drumbeat won’t build anything up after all as the piano – the still cute drunk chick at the party that everybody avoids will overtalk it. “Peking Duck” is like somebody in the room mentioned before, took the drunken chick and started dancing with her, occasionally allowing her to bring grace on surface by leading her irrational steps with a loud whisper speech that ends with a drony moan. Mrs Rice, last track, is the aftermath of the dance that took place before with the girl’s (piano) intoxicated depressed insistence of importance and life vitality touching the whisperer (glass) and bringing them together in an almost orgasmic unity of noise. Overall, this is a fairly creative and interestingly recorded improvisation session where only musicians make the music really. -- xrysafenia danai.

:: Rice Corpse/Mrs Rice - dualplover.com

hag decAnne Rolfs' debut EP as Allroh, Nym, sounded like a transmission from the the spirits, with clanging, clattering, abrasive guitar and her chanting, shamanic, incantations striving angrily for the infinite. The one-woman guitar army is back in force with this Steve Albani-produced full length effort. There are more vocals this time around and things are structured to feel like a collection of songs rather than instrumentals with vocal ornamentation. Rolfs' unique guitar stylings are very much still in place. 'Ade' is a virtuosic and abrasive performance combining refined skill with a willingness to assault the eardrums with sheets of sound. Midway through the raucous 'Hebelus' Rolfs pulls things back to almost silence in a move that highlights her ability to incorporate both subtlety and pummeling into the same piece of music. Rolfs spins contrapuntal lines into her furious strumming, rarely resorting to single notes and never to cliché. Imagine Paco di Lucia beating out "Rasgueados" through a filthy amplifier and you're getting close to the sonic impact, but missing out on the uniqueness of Rolfs' sound. There are also many quieter tracks on Hag Dec, often based on acoustic guitar. 'Ma and Pa' has a Sitar-like sound running through it which adds a blasted, psychedelic, late-60s vibe. 'Feder' is underpinned by a series of low drones and meditative, understated vocals in contrast to some of the wild yelping found elsewhere. 'Eine Skaboise' shocks when its acoustic guitar hints at 'Stairway to Heaven'-era Led Zeppelin until Rolfs' hard-edged vocal emerges and messes things up a little. The acoustic-based tracks sound, perhaps inevitably, a little more conventional than the electric, but also contain moments of unalloyed beauty. Rolfs' modal melodies refract the folk music of various countries through a modernist lens, digging deep into the roots of music while moving forward towards something new like Ornette Coleman or even Albert Ayler. Hag Dec is ferocious and passionate, but also refreshingly lacking in any sign of pretentiousness or self indulgence. --nick ilott.

:: Allroh/Hag Dec - Graumann/Broken Silence.

a ways away

The latest offering from Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, engineer and painter Tara Jane O'Neil, A Ways Away, begins like a thousand singer-songwriter albums. The plaintive vocals and soft tambourines of 'Dig In' have a folk-like vibe, with a hint of the gospel-on-heroin sound of the Velvet Underground's third album. As seems common at the moment, everything is swathed in a great quantity of reverb. However, the simplicity of the sound is deceptive and there are many subtle touches to the production that become apparent only after a number of listens. The percussion in 'A New Building' sounds programmed to my ears, but not in a way that is obtrusive within the intimate blend of acoustic and electric guitars that accompany it. Buried in 'A New Building' is what sounds like a looped guitar, holding everything together. The atmosphere of restrained emotion in A Ways Away makes it a cohesive listen and O'Neil's carefully-arranged guitars stitch everything together, but there are touches of interesting instrumental colour throughout, from strings to tape delay. The studied lack of bombast is occasionally almost comical: at no point do either the instrumentation or vocals in 'Howl' get close to the animal extremity suggested by the its title. Instead the soft weave of the instrumentation and the mostly-indecipherable melancholy murmur of the vocals wrap around the listener's ear, bringing with them a hint of twilight, whatever time of day it is. The standout tracks 'Pearl into Sand' with its perfectly-judged electric slide guitar and 'The Drowning Electric' with its woozy combination of delay, feedback and strings, are instrumentals. Both have a restrained, cinematic quality and conjure a sense of mystery and drama without the need for vocals. In fact, the lyrics on the rest of the album are so indistinct that they could be considered more of a decoration, like Blind Willie Johnson's moans, than a focal point. A Ways Away will enchant some, but I'm waiting impatiently for a fully-instrumental solo effort. -- nick ilott.

Listening to "A Ways Away" summons images of clouds floating dreamily along streets of memories and pastel cartoon. This, O'Neil's fifth album is relaxing, contemplative and soothing – ideal for an afternoon on the veranda with a bottle of your favourite whiskey. The clean guitar and satin voice of O'Neil are a common theme which flow beautifully through the entire album gently holding it all in place. Many of the tracks hold Irish undertones, in particular 'Drowning' which is full of Celtic heart and soul played out in repetitive rhythms and lilting vocals. In 'Beast Go Along' and 'Pearl Into Sand', melodies reminiscent of '80/90's bands House of Love and James and the like, ring through like gateways to the past shrouded in a refreshing haze of quality song writing. -- anna johnston.

:: Tara Jane O`Neil: A Ways Away - K Records/Cargo.