New Music: 65daysofstatic, Mikhail

65daysofstatic - These Things You Can't Unlearn (Monotreme 2007)

65daysofstatic - The Destruction of Small Ideas / Monotreme

It only feels like last year that 65daysofstatic burst onto the scene and lit up the post-rock landscape with their debut album One Time for All Time, doesn't it? Too bad that album actually came out two years ago and The Fall of Math was their actual debut... But hey, as long as Monotreme isn't telling, who in the US really needs to know?

As it turns out, The Destruction of Small Ideas is a good reason for illustrating a deeper background of this Sheffield-based band. They've been around for six years now, but like their music they are a constantly shifting group of people: It started out as a three-piece in 2001, but four line-up changes in the three albums since has continually contorted the focus and the direction of the group, albeit not so dramatically that they are totally unrecognizable from release to release. In fact, 65daysofstatic has now become one of the most reliable instrumental rock groups anywhere on the planet and that's no small feat considering the competition. So what's up about The Destruction of Small Ideas that makes it feel just that little bit circumspect?

After all, the artwork is all there and they certainly didn't slack on creating it: 16 pages of the kind of obtuse sketches and pamphleteering one would expect from a band fresh out of the blocks. But maybe it's this figure buried in the middle, "Fig. A: Fundamental Truths Versus the Path We Have Taken," that shows the kind of trajectory the group has taken. There's a progression on the x-axis of the graph that goes from "1 moment" to "the next" to "crossroads/again" to "fly/fall." In the visualization, a canyon shape, the labels follow this axis from "planteau of indecision" to "familiar peak of impending trouble" and so on. Maybe this can be read as the thought process of a single song, but I see it more as the progression of the group as a whole: For the third album (="crossroads/again"), the pairing is "sine ocean."

Maybe it's not so obtuse after all, then. Despite the fact that "When We Were Younger & Better" would fit in comfortably beside the tracks from One Time for All Time, and despite the fact that this album once again averages somewhere in the high four-minute bracket, the extra time they've spent in making this album has affected its presentation. Whereas once the glitchy backbeats and head-pummeling percussion were stuffed into a song almost for the sheer purpose of having them there, the emphasis is rather less on that now. In the same way that All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone's bonus disc had electronic elements bring out the percussive elements of their songs (except for that ruthlessly slow Jesu remix), 65daysofstatic will never need a remixer because it's already inherent in their music. The songs here are tinny in production, but the power is still there: When the guitars and drums are in full-on rock mode, they rock hard. "These Things You Can't Unlearn" is a depiction of the latest incarnation of the band at its very best, over six minutes of instrumental math thrown in a blender with Mono's melodrama and Autechre and filtered through backing strings for what ultimately turns out to be the apex of the album.

It's not that they descend in the next seven songs, but it does feel like they're going back through their notes of the first two albums and figuring out what to do with such a unique sound. This group is vital in the sense that they have opened up one more possibility for what a post-rock act is capable of. It sounds familiar and distinct all at once, and that's part of the continual balancing act they've had to face. The Destruction of Small Ideas might be the signal of intent that they've already competently conquered their own sound. Now comes the crossroads: What will it take to fly and not to fall? I like this album well enough, but I think it holds more questions than answers. For now, the holding pattern.












Mikhail - Dance (Quartermass 2007)

Mikhail - Orphica / Quartermass

Of course, being in a holding pattern is all relative isn't it? You have people writing blogs now who don't even remember when "art-damaged" was so ubiquitous, so utterly played-out it was only legitimate for about three weeks in early 2003... And then you get the critics who are still delving into the back catalogs for missing pieces in the life of Mendelssohn. Both of these critics are well represented come Sunday morning in The New York Times "Arts & Leisure" section, but elsewhere classical continues to remain sorely unrepresented. The perception is that it's just too stuffy, too highbrow to be dealt with. It's antique audio, no longer relevant and functional only from an academic standpoint.

Mikhail would bid to disagree with that. Like a lot of other amateurs, I'm not well versed in Grieg or Webern, but I can hear elements of the modern, the romantic and the classical all over Mikhail Karikis' solo debut. While Karikis throws in moments I know I've heard before from Tchaikovsky ("Untitled in CoF Minor") or even some generic piece from Copland ("Dance"), his background as a kid in Thessaoloniki, Greece means he's likely thinking more of the Balkan folk songs that dotted his youth than any "Pork: The Other White Meat" commercials. Indeed, some of the recordings here ("Asteris," "Archon" and "Incubus") take field recordings from Mount Olympus and the Ionian and twist them into beats Matmos would be proud of. The natural melodies of these songs over said beats have survived the centuries and Karikis shows why all over this album. It is beautiful and fascinating and I completely understand why Björk wanted him to remix "Army of Me" now: They're a perfect fit.

In that sense then, I suppose now is a good time to bring up that Mikhail has just as much in common with The One AM Radio as Handel or Liszt. Arguably the biggest selling point of this album is that he has remixed "Army of Me" and, with Volta right around the corner, Brussels-based Quartermass might have the perfect way in to really sell this one to kids who otherwise wouldn't have a clue about Mikhail. Frankly, I'd use any excuse I could to get this album out to the people; for me, that means a lowly college radio show and this mighty blog. There is just so much here to love, from the found sounds of scissors interspliced with harpsichords or tympani to Karikis doing that very Björkian vocal trick of almost sneering into the mic as a Wagnerian chorus backs him up on "Argonautica." And as a brief aside, "Argonautica." Pretty fucking cool if you ask anyone who hasn't played with Legos in the past decade. Argonauts? Anyone? No? Okay.

Though the inspiration for the soul of this music is the great Orpheus, Mikhail has managed to blend hundreds of years of music from all over Europe with the sounds of modern electronic and the avant-garde to create a fascinating LP that comes highly recommended. I'm not banking on Volta being a disappointment, but early indications are that it is significantly different from Vespertine or Medulla. If you still pine for the more cerebral elements of the Icelandic songstress or are looking for something more interesting from the "world" section of your local record store than yet another Putumayo compilation, pick up Mikhail's Orphica. I could put this in more elaborate terms, but that would be muddying the point: You'll be glad you did.