New Music: Stars of the Lid, Lusine, Schneider TM

Stars of the Lid - The Evil That Never Arrived (Kranky 2007)

Stars of the Lid – Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline / Kranky

Sadly, I do not have a musical ear, though it’s not because I cannot read, play or understand music, quite the contrary in fact. I was always the head of my section while playing the saxophone through my pre-college years (at which point I gave it up), I can read music, have taken numerous theory classes throughout my entire education, studied sound design, was taught audio production by an incredible mathematician, can and have recorded, produced, mixed, remixed and pieced together samples, but I just do not have that natural musical talent. I cannot improvise, cannot resolve a chord without painstakingly mucking my way through the rules of theory, cannot hear a simple ditty and easily recreate it, and could not come up with an original melody to save my life. However, thanks to my education, I can listen to a piece of music and mentally see the wavelengths it creates, and, mostly because of the reasons of can’t I just listed, appreciate music as an emotion and almost as a mystical entity. I actually very well may have the polar opposite of perfect pitch, so when music moves me, I don’t question "how technically" but "how emotionally." Stars of the Lid moves me.

It’s been six years since the duo of Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride released an album together. Their last one, The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, garnished many a positive review for their continued evolution of ambient post-classical music, which has developed exponentially from the found-sound compositions of 1995’s Music for Nitrous Oxide to the patient enveloping of tender harmonies found on Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline.

As I was rambling about earlier, the specific chord progressions and harmonic resolutions Wiltzie and McBride utilize may and I’m betting does impress your everyday musical theorist, but to me they are as alien as Martian terrain. I do, however, think that we both see a very similar visual representation of the gentle swelling of the pulsing harmonic interaction that encapsulates Their Refinement of the Decline. The theorist sees an elegant spread of strategically layered whole notes all strung together with numerous overarching and overlapping ties creating almost a gentle sea of musical composition while I see rolling foothills of intermingling and gracefully curving wavelengths producing that same sea-like visual representation of the music. We both, as well as any other listener with effectible emotion, can easily grasp and appreciate the elegant sophistication of the deceptively simple compositions of the Lid. Basically, it’s like Reich on benzodiazepines. Utilizing a small ensemble of stings, horns and even a children’s choir, Wiltzie and McBride knead out two hours of gorgeous tones and reflective harmonies creating music that can make you stare hypnotically into space and completely shut down mentally for a few precious minutes to just feel the music. I’m guessing it’s not too far from the aural equivalent of using steady meditation to reach your state of unconscious.

The associations made with Stars of the Lid are usually film composers like Zbignlew Presiner or minimalists like Arvo Pärt, partly because there are very few contemporary musicians making such ambitious and timeless music and partly because Their Refinement of the Decline sounds like more of an aural accompaniment in our vastly visual modern world. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I certainly wouldn’t mind it as a soundtrack to my biopic, but the truth is most kids rarely can sit through an EP and the Lid are over here giving you two hours of gentle music, you do the math. If you do have the patience though, Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline is one of the most rewarding and soothing pieces of music you’ll ever hear.

Oh! And it’s Kranky 100! Long live challenging music.






Lusine - Drip (Apparat Remix) (Ghostly International 2007)

Lusine – Podgelism / Ghostly International

Though knocking around the experimental techno scene since the late 90s including putting out material on Isophlux, !K7, Hymen and Delikatessen, Jeff McIlwain's stock didn't really skyrocket until signing on with Detroit's electronica label extraordinaire Ghostly International in 2003. His subsequent album, Serial Hodgepodge, further embellished on the colorful IDM he established with his impressive pre-Ghostly catalog and spread the Lusine moniker to eager headphones around the world. Lying on the SMM side of the Pac Man-copped logo, the Seattle-based producer sits comfortably beside his label-mates with his ability to spin soothing weaves of wintry downtempo, somber micro-house or even, as his collaboration with David Wingo showed on Idol Tryouts Two, experimental acoustica. For many though, Ghostly means one thing: trippy dance music a la Matthew Dear, so McIlwain is getting the royal remix treatment with Podgelism. No longer just for contemplating or reflection, Lusine is now rocking your favorite hip dance club.

Pulling source material mostly from 2004’s Serial Hodgepodge, Ghostly lined-up an impressive set of top-notch remixers including their very own micro-house icon Matthew Dear and select artists from BPitch Control, Plug Research and Kompakt among others to reshape the Lusine sound. If you are a DJ and looking for the more club-oriented tracks, you very well may want to start with the Select Remixes 12” which includes the four most DJ-friendly cuts. Kicking off the wax is the shifty industrial shuffle of “The Stop” care of the Wighnomy Brothers’ Robag Wruhme, which may pack the most jerky rhythms but I’ll bet for namesake alone, most people will be jumping the needle directly to A2 where Apparat gives “Drip” a new spin. Fresh off his world-renown collaboration with Bpitch head Ellen Allien (2006’s Orchestra of Bubbles), Sascha Ring reassembles “Drip” with oddly programmed snare washes and skittering synths which is definitely a highlight of the 12” and album, but would be tough to dance to (at least for me). The B-side features the loose micro-techno of “Make It Easy” from John Tejada as well as Lawrence’s remix of “Everything Under the Sun” which attacks with a similar approach, but more dubbed-out and synthy.

The rest of the eleven remixes can be found on the full-length which features three re-imaginations by Lusine himself as well as choice cuts from Matthew Dear, Cepia, Deru and Dimbiman. Dear does his usual thing and completely spins “Flat” in a direction far from the original. He builds from a revolving sample and crunchy percussion snippets into a thumping, swirling, trippy underground club number further proving his incredible inventiveness. Label-mate Cepia and Dimbiman both take on the very same track; the former embellishing with intricate polyrhythms and scattering glitch and the latter (who teams up with Cabanne) adds an infectious drum-machine pulse and delicate peeks at electric guitar and bass. Podgelism is definitely an album aimed toward the Ghostly crowd, but will as easily inspire spins from club and radio DJs from around the world. It’s quality experimental techno from the very artists paving the way of the genre while getting to utilize inventive source material in it’s own right.







Schneider TM - Caplets (City Slang 2006)

Schneider TM – Skoda Mluvit / City Slang

When ambient or electro- pop (depending on which genre tag you prefer) began to gain momentum in the late 90s, artists like Air, Stereolab and Broadcast were producing albums based on inventive synthetic textures and infectious keyboard melodies. The key word here is albums. This was back when zines or college radio was the only exposure an independent album would get; there was no need for a single when basically your only option was to get judged on the whole. Well obviously times have changed with the ballooning of the blogosphere, and especially aggregators like HypeMachine, forcing independent music to enter back into the world of drawing-in singles for the first time since 7 inches were popular. The power of a few top quality singles can all of a sudden boost you to the top of the indie hierarchy, and with the genre at hand, The Postal Service are the perfect example. A couple of exemplary tracks with a few decent fillers and you will be riding high for at least a few years as the ripples slowly find their way to the outer edges of the pond of popularity. In turn, albums like Schneider TM’s third full-length, Skoda Mluvit, begin to sound like a bunch of stringed together singles rather than a cohesive album.

Germany’s Dirk Dresselhaus was not too far behind the electro-pop curve coming to recognition in 1998 with Moist that garnished descriptions like a “less frenetic Mouse on Mars.” His only other full-length album in the 10-year existence of the Schneider TM moniker was 2002’s Zoomer on Mute, which once again received praise for mixing pop music with glitchy programming. Maybe because it’s now been 15 years since the genre really took off, Dresselhaus’ latest just doesn’t seem as impressive as his earlier works. The biggest change is the wide inclusion of vocals, which I think distracts from his excellent bubbling arrangements. Lying somewhere in the vicinity of The Go Find and Erlend Øye, the vocals aren’t bad, but lack the individualist quality that would really differentiate himself from the ever-expanding crowd. His productions on the other hand do the best to do just that as Dresselhaus utilizes a lot of the typical current electro-pop instrumentation but expounds upon it tenfold. The “tools” listed in the liner notes look to be at least 60-deep ranging from fender mustang and French horn to ilpo’s typewriter and wooden sticks. He easily hopscotches from quirky pop (“Pac Man/Shopping Cart”) to Mouse on Mars-ish industrial-glitch (“S’kcorratiug”) to European pop-hop (“The Blacksmith”) to electro-funk (“A Ride”) to off-center avant-pop (“Caplets”) with confidence and aptitude, but can’t seem to really pave out any sound that hasn’t been explored many times before. And as I mentioned earlier, about half the tracks could find it’s way into the HypeMachine popular list if enjoyed by a strategic number of blogs because they are quality and infectious songs, but does that make a good album? It leaves me on the fence more than anything, because while definitely an enjoyable listen, it sounds too middling electro-pop, too Morr Music. I think the genre needs to be pushed in a new direction to sound fresh again, and while Dresselhaus certainly has the skills to do it, Skoda Mluvit is just not that album because it’s hard to hear as an album. I foressee a lot of this conversation:
guy1 - “hey! This mp3 is really catchy!”
guy2 – “really? Yea, it’s not bad! Are there any more songs posted?”
guy1 – “naw, just this one.”
guy2 – “oh well. Hey! Look at this new band Gorilla vs Bear just posted!”