Malcolm Middleton - "A Brighter Beat"

Malcolm Middleton - Fuck It, I Love You (Full Time Hobby 2007)

Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat / Full Time Hobby

In the canon of history's great drinkers - Ulysses S. Grant, Shane MacGowan, Duff from Velvet Revolver, Amy Winehouse - there are two guys that hold a special place of their own for alcoholic artistry. Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton made their name under the Arab Strap moniker throughout the Chemikal Underground by slaying audiences on both sides of the Atlantic with their wry twist on life in another kind of middle - Falkirk, Scotland, unglamorously located halfway between the refined air of Edinburgh and the roughened beauty of Glasgow. Given the Chemikal connection, Arab Strap quickly adapted to become Glaswegian visionaries of their own by proxy - when Aereogramme was a little too forced and Mogwai a little too wordless, there was Arab Strap to hold down their own brand of bitter post-folk, with seconds on the bitter. And thirds on the lager.

Ten Years of Tears was the epilogue earlier this year to an Arab Strap story full of cheap drinks and great songs. But neither gentlemen were too sorry to see it go, and Moffat now carries on in instrumental form after being the 'Strap's lead singer for so many years under the name L. Pierre. Middleton has opted out of the sexual antics to stick with his own name as he has done since 2002's excellent but impossibly named 5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine. 2005's Into the Woods was a good deal brighter and Middleton continues on an upward swing away from his bottoming out with A Brighter Beat, which admittedly came out in February in the UK but is just now getting a release date from Full Time Hobby in the US.

Good thing they remembered to get around to that, too. This is a fantastic little album that brings forth both bright pop songs ("We're All Going to Die," obviously) and classic folkaholism Arab Strap were so famous for ("Somebody Loves You"). He's not doing it all on his own, with a laundry list of assistants including Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite, Barry Burns of The Delgados, Middleton's old compatriot Moffat, and wonderful female vocalists Nicola MacLeod and Jenny Reeve (another Arab Strap accomplice who also plays violin here).

"We're All Going to Die" is exactly the kind of song that made onlookers wonder whether to laugh or cry to Arab Strap. Riding a rollicking, fast-paced tempo, Middleton's trademark accent and relatively limited range are used to maximum effect. Boisterous is the first word to come to mind, but instinct says that despite a swooping orchestral backdrop, you really shouldn't get your hopes up too high for this to be the ebullient intro to a Malcolm Middleton party mix.

"Fight Like the Night" starts off a little mellow, but an 80s synth and another relatively upbeat tempo give it a different feel from late-night pub crawl casualties. That fighting figures prominently in the lyrics may make such a bouncy sound coincidental, but I get the impression that Middleton is the kind of guy who gives away a lot less than he knows. In short, he's clever and his wit never leaves him no matter the bar tab.

"Death Love Depression Love Death" starts off quietly enough, but like the general format of this record, it bursts to life and sounds as much a folk-punk song for three-quarters of its running as anything else. It's also one of the most aggressive tracks on the album, which sets "Fuck It, I Love You" up perfectly. With xylophones and a stupid Belle & Sebastian grin as the backdrop to the verse, Malcolm inevitably drops into a melancholy fall for the chorus complete with Reeve and strings. "When are you comin' home?" he asks in earnest. The answer doesn't matter, because the text message on his mobile has already shown the broken nature of another one of Malcolm's lost loves. This is the cardinal mistake he'll never learn; if he does, his music career would certainly change dramatically somehow.

Strings (and brass) also feature heavily in the lurching grandeur of "Superhero Songwriters," which feels a lot larger than it is. Halfway through, everything drops out and it's just you and Malcolm hanging out with an acoustic six-string again. Fade in on the tickled ivory, then ride out on a fuzzy guitar and lamenting a change of the world from your bedroom. Ba-da-dum nah nuh, nah nuh. A pop album for people who hate pop music. Yes.

Malcolm Middleton described it that way himself earlier this year. There's no doubt that the shades of Arab Strap past are still lingering, but Middleton has brought a brightening influence into his music. Who knows how much Falkirk pubs have made off of this guy, but if his music is anything to go by, Malcolm Middleton's bar tab might be changing for the lesser. Three albums in to a solo career that has only recently become his primary focus, it's sounding like a good thing. We'll raise a glass to that, toast a future full of sober-folk, and wonder what the hell will come of it all. There's only one way to find out.

The Dillinger Escape Plan - "Ire Works"

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Mouth of Ghosts (Relapse 2007)

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works / Relapse

There was a palpable sense of excitement when news first spread that The Dillinger Escape Plan had recorded the follow-up to 2004's Miss Machine earlier this year. That album brought out an art in the brutality of their systematic deconstruction of tech-metal that was less obvious on the seminal Calculating Infinity, and seeing what would come next had me intrigued. Though I have come to appreciate their extensive catalog that stretches back to the band's formation in New Jersey around 1997, the question on my mind was the question on everybody else's, too: Where does one of the most ceaselessly creative and reliably intense bands go from here?

What follows is an approximate arc of interest for a mature metal and loud-rock fan.

From Letters to Dave: The Dillinger Escape Plan and My Love of GMail:
"1998: I hear the Under the Running Board single and it makes me go, "huh," and then I keep listening to death metal.
1999: Calculating Infinity is released and I mosh with my steering wheel.
1999: I see the DEP at Fireside, complete with almost no lights on and an onstage firebreather. My friend Jarrett gets someone else's blood all over his shirt. I fear for my well-being.
1999: I see the DEP open for Mr. Bungle at Metro. They give it their all but no one except for me cares.
2000-2001: I do some other stuff
2002: DEP release that EP with Mike Patton singing for them. Mr. Bungle fans go bonkers. I buy the CDEP used.
2004: Miss Machine comes out and I try really hard to like it. I fail.
2007: The DEP only has one original member. Their new drummer looks like he shreds (courtesy of YouTube). I'm willing to give them another chance, but the review is all yours."

Did you see that last bit? The review is all yours. Dave Hofer's excuse is that he has a million other things he needs to listen to. The average fan's excuse is that they don't want to appear too interested in Ire Works, because if they did and it turned out sucking then they would look like a sissy. Nobody likes a sissy, bro. Even The Boy Least Likely To have Enema FX Mingeboxes and Mesa Boogies now.

So let's just say this right out: If you've only heard "Black Bubblegum" or just aren't feeling that stream from their MySpace page, stop what you're doing and listen to this album. Politely speaking, The Dillinger Escape Plan will blow you away on Ire Works precisely because they won't blow you away at all. When you've been to the top, done savored the juice of speed and technical precision, then you've got two options for surprising fans and keeping things interesting for yourself: Make a lot of line-up changes, and incorporate some other influences.

"Fix Your Face" doesn't give it away, but the DEP has done both. Though Ire Works took less time to make than the boundless Miss Machine, the band lost both founding drummer Chris Pennie (to, er, Coheed & Cambria) and longtime guitarist Brian Benoit (to nerve damage) went on indefinite hiatus, leaving Ben Weinman as the only remaining original member. Despite this, ex-Stolen Babies skinbeater Gil Sharone came in to fill the seat, and he's at least as accomplished. The evidence is all over the first two tracks as the band rips through both "Fix Your Face" and "Lurch."

There's been a lot of talk over what the hell is going on with an almost Blood Brothers-esque performance on "Black Bubblegum." This is a pretty unexpected move from a band known for its brutality, but the high-pitched synthesizers and modern rock chorus provide a nice breather between the opening one-two combination and the extreme sound of "Sick on Sunday," the DEP's best impression of one of their imitators (in Genghis Tron) that they've yet recorded. All too briefly, the band shows it can still display the dexterity that made them icons earlier this decade. The electronic passages dominate the song, much like 'Tron's "Arms," but even still, it provides a change of pace from the songs before it. These were the same guys, after all, who covered Aphex Twin. It's not totally out of nowhere.

"When Acting As a Particle" is the first instrumental and though it fits in well with this new DEP vision, it would've been better as an ambient intro for "Nong Eye Gong." Of course, eventually the band decides that these instrumentals aren't better on their own, and though there have been some complaints about "Dead As History" (which features Mastodon's Brent Hinds) and the epic salsa(?)-tinged closer "Mouths of Ghosts" having intros that are way too long, it's this element of the breaks between the extremes that makes the louder portions (such as "82588") so acutely recognized.

Ultimately, that's what's changed here. Instead of giving the listener no time to breathe, The Dillinger Escape Plan are breathing themselves. Content with a discography that has already proven they can be tech-metal when they want to, this group is exploring other options and looking to shed supposed fans who aren't prepared to defend the merits of not going further, of not taking risks, of not trying something different. The reward is that those who may not have been into The Dillinger Escape Plan before can now meet them halfway in a twisted tech-metal playground that continues to burn weakened bridges and focus on the future. Even if the actual music isn't to your taste, the statement ought to be. A fresh step forward is the only way to finding new sounds.

Junk Science - "Gran'Dad's Nerve Tonic"

Junk Science - Jerry Maguire (Embedded/Def Jux 2007)

Junk Science - Gran'Dad's Nerve Tonic / Embedded/Def Jux

Junk Science's Gran'Dad's Nerve Tonic has been my hip-hop joint of choice lately. This love affair with the Brooklyn duet extends back to early 2006 when I inadvertently stumbled upon their 2005 release Feeding Einstein. It was easy to warm up to, not just for its funny-like-a-clown rhymes but also for its tricky production. Anytime you can work The Muppets' Statler & Waldorf into an album and make it flow, you've got my vote.

Two years on from their last release, they've returned. Baje One and DJ Snafu are even sharper on this concept album about the nerve tonic that brief skits splicing up the musical material tie together. What is the nature of this nerve tonic? Maybe the nerve tonic is hip-hop itself, maybe it's the adversity facing hip-hop these days, maybe it's just a drink in the fridge. Whatever it is, the source of inspiration for this record has led to another outstanding release that is sure to have backpackers updating their iPods once they actually find out about this thing.

Seriously, why is the love for Junk Science so limited? Are we really burned out enough at this point to just assume that, once Def Jux released I'll Sleep When You're Dead, '07 was finished? I don't know man. Maybe it's just the fatigue everybody feels at the end of the year. But Baje and Snafu are a reason to care. They're yet another reason to love hip-hop this year. They're holding it down for Brooklyn when it would be easy to say not much is going on there at the moment.

Their intentions are clear from the beginning of "Slojo" as the bottle is popped open and you're downing the glorious noise tonic that Snafu juxtaposes with dreamy guitars and A Tribe Called Quest sonic tricks so often. There's a lo-fi funk sample that forms the basis for the opener, but Baje One's voice is given a little more grit in the mic and it's not really an indication for how his voice comes through on the rest of the record.

Now "Pop Rocks," "Pop Rocks" is a song that sounds more in tune with the generic "Junk Science sound" - if such a thing is possible. The song starts off with a good old college days story but quickly finds a gritty urban beat to balance out the smooth flamenco guitar. This kind of thing is what Junk Science are so good at - Baje One never sounds like he's about to lose his cool no matter what he's rhyming about. Paying the bills, coaching high school basketball, talking about the progression of hip-hop, whatever. Everything's fair game when you've downed a 40 and you're just exhibiting your talent.

The difference in Junk Science and so many other hip-hop artists lies in the secret to their successful formula: "We just havin' fun while a lot of rap kids really havin' none / Aww." No kidding! These guys may be living in slummy apartment buildings and living paycheck to paycheck, but they're having a hell of a time doing it. "Come on hip-hop / why your face so tense?"

To this end, the duo practices what they preach. "Do it Easy" rides a galloping beat, but hear those island guitar strums that sound straight out of a Wii menu. It's a deceptively easygoing track that keeps you relaxed. It also fits nicely in the track sequence, which doesn't look that balanced on paper: Guests figure heavily here, and though the weight of their contributions heavily, five of the album's 14 songs have guests (and Daedelus remixes "Do it Easy" as a coda) and they're all bunched within six songs of each other in the middle of the album.

No matter: They make it flow smoothly, and by breaking songs up with brief clips that hint at the continued use (and abuse) of the tonic, Junk Science build a story of hip-hop's Indie Everyman just trying to enjoy making his way through the world. Sterling example, right here: "Jerry Maguire." It's not necessarily an outstanding track on this record, but it does perfectly capture the attitude of these guys.

That may be the most refreshing aspect of Gran'Dad's Nerve Tonic. Attitude accounts for so much when it comes to emcees and how they approach their songs. Look, everybody knows it's good to have serious records and without them a lot of social problems wouldn't get a second glance. But sometimes a playful record, a record that's willing to poke fun at itself and at its contemporaries, that is just as necessary. "Ah, you know about the tonic." Words from the Pedro, indeed. By the time this ends, you will know the tonic... and the junk science that's used to make it.

Push-Pull - "3" EP

Push-Pull - Brain Fever (Joyful Noise 2007)

Push-Pull - 3 EP / Joyful Noise

One of the best parts about 3 is its brevity. In fact, in the most neglected traditions of blogging, we're going to keep this review short in the spirit of Bloomington, Indiana's Push-Pull. These guys - all of whom are affectionately named Mike - tear through their six-pack faster than an awkward neighbor at a wedding reception. Even with a bonus track buried long after "Union Songs" wraps up, this album clocks in at a mighty, er, 18 minutes.

Brevity isn't the big story, because anyone can make an album brief (except for The Mars Volta). The story is that, between the three of them, Push-Pull have exhumed the ghosts of everyone they list in their biography as they attempt to find their own sound. Is there an element of everything Ian MacKaye has done, combined with the furious manual dexterity of Shellac of North America (whose Bob Weston mastered this album)? The Wipers? Big Star? Maybe a simpler ...Trail of Dead pre-Madonna action? Check please. We got a winner here.

Like a strike of garage-punk lightning, Push-Pull make short work of their all-original material. If there was to be a hypothetical single from this album, or at least a song for people to listen to if they could only listen to one, "Brain Fever" is it. Howling vocals on the edge of bursting vocal chords and enough feedback to make it all worthwhile, "Brain Fever" is a mission statement with a purpose at less than two minutes. Comparatively speaking, that's a pretty long track for this young band. Though "Union Songs" cheats at almost a dozen minutes given the barbershop free-time bop of the bonus track, "Mike and Bob" is genuinely just over two minutes.

The crashing cymbals and fluid bass grooves of these songs, bashed out relentlessly for the duration of the album, is juxtaposed with crunchy guitars with ample distortion and feedback. The band trades vocals between Mike Notaro and Mike Brivadsky, while all three (Mike Hoggatt is the drummer) share songwriting duties.

They've got a lot of potential brewing here, evidenced plainly on "Brain Fever" and the Lucero-like ending of "Union Songs." Maybe they intend to write these songs as short as they are, but for all of their power and swagger, Push-Pull has hopefully got more ideas floating around to work with and showcase soon. This album, recorded in Nashville and only just recently released, is sort of the polar opposite of Triclops! EP Café Brutalia that came out late last year. While that tended toward the extended when it wasn't sticking to the punk plot, Push-Pull tend to cut the excess out. The only real exception is the bonus hidden track at the end of the album which sounds like the whitest guys alive trying to come up with their own TV on the Radio track. It certainly is something different from the rest of these songs, even though all it amounts to is an alternate version of the first track of an album they never released. Still pretty good.

I wouldn't recommend they follow the a capella route too much further, but it does provide a nice surprise at the end of a debut EP that displays just enough promise for the common gutter-punk to be interested as much as the Shellac devotee. Somewhere in here is an entire song of "Twin Peaks" quotations, and though I'd name it for you, knowledge at this web address of "Twin Peaks" is sorely lacking. The point is that, even though Brivadsky has said they make songs that are "fun for [the band] to play and [they] think is interesting," they've also got the intelligence to try and slip in a little direct Rolling Stones references as well. If you like the sound of "Brain Fever" and the idea of a rock band having a good time with their songwriting process, check Push-Pull out and keep tabs on them. With luck, there will be plenty more to come.

That brevity thing mentioned earlier: 3 is ready to entertain. Do you have your PBR pulled out and ready to swig?

Radio Show Playlist: 11/14/07

6a:
1. Wire - No Warning Given - Read & Burn 3 (Pink Flag 2007)
2. A Place to Bury Strangers - Ocean - A Place to Bury Strangers (Killer Pimp 2007)
3. Clinic - Come Into Our Room - Walking With Thee (Domino 2002)
4. Black Dice - Drool - Load Blown (Paw Tracks 2007)
5. Arthur Russell - Hiding Your Present From You - Sprinfield (2006 Audika, recorded 1985)
6. Bird Show - Greeting the Morning - Lightning Ghost (Kranky 2006)
7. Clear Horizon - Watching the Sea - Clear Horizon (Kranky 2003)
8. HiM - What's Up Tonight - Peoples (Bubblecore 2006)
9. Tortoise - Gamera - Gamera/Cliff Dweller Society 12" (Duophonic 1995)

7a:
1. Prefuse 73 - Spaced & Dissonant - Preparations (WARP 2007)
2. Reminder - Days of Awe - West Side Cabin EP (Ropeadope 2007)
3. Boards of Canada - Roygbiv - Music Has the Right to Children (WARP 1998)
4. Lusine - Jetstream - Language Barrier (Hymen 2007)
5. Takagi Masakatsu - j.f.p. - Journal for People (Carpark 2006)
6. Jan Jelinek - Vibraphonspulen - Kosmischer Pitch (~scape 2006)
7. Paul Duncan - Tired and Beholden - Be Careful What You Call Home (Hometapes 2005)
8. Bevel - Low Income Glade - Phoenician Terrane (Contraphonic 2007)
9. (smog) - Our Anniversary - Supper (Drag City 2003)
10. Six Organs of Admittance - Alone with the Alone - Shelter From the Ash (Drag City 2007)
11. Citay - Little Kingdom - Little Kingdom (Dead Oceans 2007)

8a:
1. Brightblack Morning Light - Friend of Time - Brightblack Morning Light (Matador 2006)
2. Morning Recordings - The Welcome Kinetic - The Welcome Kinetic (Loose Thread 2007)
3. Cal Tjader - Afro Blue - Soul Sauce (Verve 1964)
4. His Name is Alive - Capricorn Moon (live) - Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown (High Two 2007)
5. John Coltrane - I Want to Talk About You (live) - Selflessness (Impulse!, recorded 1963)
6. Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Band - Express Yourself II - You're So Beautiful (Warner 1971)
7. G&D - One - The Message Uni Versa (Look 2007)
8. Pharoahs - Track of My Tears - Awakening (Luv n'Haight 1996, originally 1972)
9. Alton Ellis - Mad Mad - When Rhythm Was King (Heartbeat 2007, recorded 1967)

Burial - "Untrue"

Burial - Etched Headplate (Hyperdub 2007)

Burial - Untrue / Hyperdub

I woke up this morning preparing for a frosty sunrise as has often been the case here in Chicago recently. But instead of finding freezing water tickling the rims of my windows and trees struggling to shake the ice off their limbs, I found 57 degrees and a peacoat too warm for its own good. There hasn't been a serious frost, but it nearly feels like an Indian summer and that can only mean there is still time for last-gasp albums of the year. It always seems to happen right before the American Thanksgiving: A left-field release emerges from the pastures to capture the imaginations of everyone who thought their top ten list was already finished.

Consequently, albums that are released in the last quarter of the year tend to be hyped up more than those in the first quarter, which remains the other big release date season. It's all strategy: If you go with a spring release, you risk people forgetting why your music was so good. If you go with an autumn release, you risk people talking too much in the fall and forgetting why your music was so good in the spring. Cycles are short and memories are getting shorter, but it's possible that Burial might beat this rap. Untrue is his second full-length following a self-titled debut in 2006 and many are arguing this is one of the best albums of the year.

One of the reasons people seem to be loving this is for the depth of Burial's soul-influenced melodies that one can find beneath the "corroded two-step" which has become a favorite description of mine in the run-up to this album. Dorian Lynskey is right in that this album sounds corroded, like it was made in the basements of a level on "GoldenEye." In fact, Untrue might be 2007's version of "GoldenEye:" Mechanical in some places, archaic and decrepit in others, at times dark and alien, at other times synthetically lit... And somewhere deep beneath the surface beats a heart that only lets itself out of the shadows in brief, fleeting calls to itself. In the caverns of Arkhangelsk, only Burial could make sense as a soundtrack.

Sure enough, "Archangel" is the first song on this record. It sets the mood that people have been so patiently waiting for since, um, Hyperdub's big release last year in the form of Kode9 and The Spaceape's Memories of the Future. It almost sounds a little like "Idioteque" meeting Akon, but don't be alarmed: This isn't the usual fare for this album, and if it was I wouldn't have wasted this much of your time by telling you Konvicted was much better. It's not. Drafty strings and gothic choirs swoop in on the chorus and though the beats may be buried deep beneath the solid rock foundations of UK garage, a soul is plainly evident. There is no official identity to Burial yet, but somewhere lies more than just a figment of Steve Goodman's imagination. That failing, Steve Goodman is a genius.

"Near Dark" echoes to the point that discerning "I can't take my eyes off you" from the chorus is rendered virtually impossible. Like the persona of Burial, the music here seems to exist in a vacuum. While scenes like Birmingham remain tightly connected and open about their work, Burial hides somewhere in London mining the deepest territories of dubstep for music that sounds impossibly deeper than his contemporaries. There were some in the dubstep underground who didn't feel as if though they were connecting with this track and after clips of it slipped on the BBC1 about a month ago, but hearing something like the air-raid buzzing of "Ghost Hardware" can't not be convincing that this is something serious.

Is it all done on a Mac from the comfort of a parkbench in plain view of the public in the best traditions of Banksy? Is there a secret subterranean lair where the most intriguing music in London is being made, or is that just time to kill waiting around at Elephant & Castle? MIDI beats, top-notch ProTools, who cares. The end result is that Untrue is magical. There have been a ton of other people to tell you that and I won't pretend to be the first. I also won't pretend I was excited about this release. Though there is no genuinely good reason not to be excited about a fresh Hyperdub release, Burial's gimmicky mystery and accomplished debut made it feel like the best was already finished.

As it turns out, Burial wasn't finished with us. Despite some cheesy moments ("Endorphin" feels like bad mid-90s trip-hop) and fat that could be trimmed, Untrue suffers not from excess but from the pleasure of being so good and, unfortunately, being released so very late in the year.

I don't know if you put much faith in New Year's resolutions. I thought about mine today for a brief moment, and though at the time there was no connection to Burial, in an abstract way they are related: When people toast to the end of '07, they will also find themselves toasting to a new beginning, a new leaf turned over to reveal something fresh with 365 days of infinite possibility lying before them in 2008. What better way to start than with a new soundtrack to symbolize this changing of the calendar guard? It happens that fast: Untrue will suffer the fate of so many wonderful albums before it, lost in the symbolic burning of the effigy of an old year.

So you won't be told here how good this is anymore. You won't be told how you should consider it in the context of the rest of your favorite albums this year. You're not going to be told anything. We will instead suggest that you play this album again in four months, in six months, a year, a decade, at your funeral, whatever. Untrue does not deserve to be, sorry, buried in the great haste to begin a new world. Tastes shift so often now and people's memories evaporate so quickly that it's hard to remember the surface of Severnaya from the caverns of Cuba. Burial doesn't have to be so fleeting. It doesn't take long for Untrue to assure you of its own Indian autumn. Best of the year? Maybe, maybe not. Memorable, genuinely special for its own unique ways? Well, that's all you can ask of a great album, isn't it. How ironic it is that few things resonate with such truth.

Lusine - "Language Barrier"

Lusine - Jetstream (Hymen 2007)

Lusine – Language Barrier / Hymen

Sometimes we don’t want music with a narrative. Sometimes we just want simple audible atmospheres to accentuate our own actions, whether it’s flipping through a photobook, cooking dinner, staring at the ceiling, etc. Ambient music is a good filler of this void. It is usually subtle and simple, a lulling hum crafted with intriguing sonic textures. And despite the typically structureless composition of the style, there is still something that speaks to us, otherwise there wouldn’t be as much of an emotional response when we listen to it. It is a sort of vernacular spelled out in pleasant frequencies and programmed to mostly soothe and calm. Seattle-based producer Jeff McIlwain, who releases music as Lusine, is amongst the long line of translators looking to write his own manuscript in this idiom. The aptly titled Language Barrier is certainly a statement worth reading… I mean worth listening to… damn, I lost track of my weak simile.

Last time we met with McIlwain, the keen electronica programmers over at Ghostly International gave him the remix treatment on Podgelism, released in March of this year. He rounds out 2007 with an album more suited for headphones than the dance floor. We have heard a number of different approaches from McIlwain for his IDM-derived ambient techno, from the faintly experimental, early-WARP-aping downbeat of his 1999 debut album, L’usine, to 2004’s conglomeration of niche electronica styles (minimal house, abstract hip-hop, etc) on Serial Hodgepodge. Language Barrier finds McIlwain reverting back to glacial ambient, but with the skill-set of a producer who has been experimenting with electronic sounds for the last decade. In other words, a refined and reflective nine songs of placid sonic hypnosis made up of warm synthesized music and field recordings.

In an interview posted on his website, McIlwain reveals that he is often most influenced by contemporary artists. With that in mind, I would have to guess that he is listening to awful lot of Takagi Masakatsu these days, because he is very much exploring the same pleasant textures as the Japanese mixed-media artist. Building each song around fluttering melodic samples and layering them with soft glitches, found sound and delicate instrumentation, McIlwain like Masakatsu creates hypnotic grooves that find simple rhythms and concentrate on entrancing the listener rather than moving them out of their seat.

“Caught in the Middle” is the perfect example of the Masakatsu parallel, to the extent that it would flow seamlessly sequenced into Masakatsu’s 2006 album Journal for People. Lined with faint ambient echoes from a German airport, McIlwain layers twinkling processed samples that lie somewhere between wind chimes and an analog synthesizer. There is barely any structure to the three-and-a-half minute song, but it is quite moving nonetheless with its cascading frequencies. “Jetstream” is the centerpiece of the album though as McIlwain interweaves breathy female coos in a softly throbbing medley of echoing melodic pulses, faint glockenspiel sparkles, a feathery clarinet melody and a distant ambient techno rhythm. If Prefuse 73 would have combined the opposite approaches of his recent double album, Preparations/Interregnums, my guess is it would have sounded very similar to this.

McIlwain attempts a number of different approaches to his brand of ambient throughout the album, from the classical piano and slight glitch crackle of “Without Standing” to the more rhythmic, almost Apparat-sounding synthcapade of “Stones Throw”. No matter his technique though, it comes off matured, refined and elegant. With a decade of electronica production behind him and an ear full of influences, it is really not much of a surprise that Language Barrier sounds so realized. I have spent all weekend letting the music soundtrack different activities as I meander around my apartment; and even if it was just folding laundry, McIlwain’s soundscapes spun it into a thoughtful, emotional workout rather than the mundane task it should have been. Like all good ambient producers should, Lusine entrances you into a reflective state of pondering and relaxation despite the lack of narrative.

Devotion #13

I’m in the process of wrapping up some liner notes for this budding record label, in addition to a feature on one of the men who helped provide the setting for this event, so I’m afraid this post is going to be a relative quickie. I also wish it were on better terms, but once again, condolences are in order.

Norman Mailer
January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007



“When We Were Kings” was my first introduction to Mailer, and I remember being fascinated by the insight he and George Plimpton provided throughout the film. As I learned more about Mailer and his work, two things became apparent. The first was that he might very well be the smartest author I’ve ever encountered, and the second was that he and Plimpton, along with Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Joan Didion, and others are to credit for the emergence of New Journalism, a long-form, literary style of reporting (also known as creative nonfiction) that allowed writers like myself with no real journalism education to actually have a shot at making a living.

Here is an excerpt from Stop Smiling magazine’s 2005 boxing issue, in which Mailer discusses the relationship between boxing and writing with his son and fellow scribe, John Buffalo Mailer.

JBM: Is there a correlation between boxing and writing?

NM: A small one, but it drew me to my interest in boxing. Which is: writers do suffer. But it’s at long range. You print a sentence or write a paragraph that is going to offend certain people in certain places, and you know it. Of course, it’s a tricky business. The people who it’s going to enrage usually don’t read books, they just hear about what you’ve done – which is usually worse. In any event, you may pay for it but you don’t know how, when or where. It’s down the road. On the other hand, there does remain one huge similarity – just one, there are many, many differences, obviously – but the one huge similarity is that you’ve got to pull it out of yourself. Particularly when writing fiction. There comes a point where you really have to dig down into your own vitals in order to get something out there. And in that sense it can be killing. You can really feel that you are using yourself up as your write. And boxers have that same feeling. Sometimes they have to call up something down deep in themselves in order to continue. And also, if you are a serious writer, there is the added desire to be more than just a serious writer – to be a writer who makes change in the history of one’s time. That’s a powerful motive. And when one feels that one is not successful at that, it’s depressing, just as it’s depressing for a prizefighter who comes to realize that his talent is not what he had hoped for. Big, but not big enough.

Another passing I have to mention is the death of Dr. Donda West, mother of producer Kanye West. West, raised mostly by his mother as an only child, has made numerous references over the course of his career to her enormous guidance and influence. According to her biography on the website for the Kanye West Foundation, Dr. West retired from her position as Chairperson of the Department of English and Speech at Chicago State University in 2004 to become her son’s general manager, and has been a close confidant on his rise to mega-stardom. Earlier this year, she published Raising Kanye: Life Lessons of a Hip-Hop Superstar, detailing her experiences as a single parent in the African-American community and her own ups and downs in bringing up Kanye. The two were extremely close. Kanye West has millions of fans across the globe, but Donda West was undoubtedly his number one.



Kanye West – possible “Hey Mama” demo – Freshman Adjustment mixtape (Chi Town Gettin’ Down Inc. 2005)

“Hey Mama” – Late Registration (Roc-A-Fella 2005)

Singleversity #35

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 110

MA:



One of Don Cherry’s first releases after relocating to Europe in the mid-70s, Brown Rice from 1975 is a fascinating display of jazz-fusion in a post-Bitches Brew scene. Joined by Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins among others, Cherry blends elements of Davis’s electrified jazz (especially the production tone) with Indian, African, and Arabic music, and of course his own accessible free jazz approach to the trumpet and keys. Though the two extended workouts, “Malkauns” and “Cherezig”, are a bit more hypnotic and groovy, the title track concocts a sound somewhere between Funkadelic, Manu Dibango and Gato Barbieri. Funky, pulsing and somewhat surreal, Brown Rice is certainly one of a kind.

PM:













When did My Bloody Valentine find the future? Listening to Japancakes’ Loveless cover recently inspired me to give the source group a refresher listen. Though 1990’s Glider EP is generally accepted as the milemarker for a new direction Isn’t Anything’s raw noise only hinted at, I’d forgotten “Instrumental B” from a 7” accompanying the first 5,000 vinyl releases of their 1988 debut. A Public Enemy drum loop (from “Security of the First World”) and ambient textures contrast sharply with the more grating, feedback-drenched “Instrumental A” for a clear delineation between what had been achieved and what was still to come: excellence and immortality. I wonder where those 5,000 people are now.

Paul Metzger - "Deliverance"

Paul Metzger - Orans (Locust 2007)

Paul Metzger – Deliverance / Locust

Maybe more than any other modern American instrument, the banjo is subjected to stereotypes; and for most modern/progressive music fans, derogatory stereotypes. Its tinny, twangy sound is almost synonymous with the Appalachian Mountains of the United States, a region that was once revered for its gorgeous landscapes and insular culture. Then came along a little movie by the name of Deliverance in 1972, in which the portrayal of the mountainous Georgia wilderness was, to put it lightly, creepy and disturbing. And maybe the most instantly recognizable scene of the film features a mentally-challenged hillbilly youth named Lonnie whose rendition of “Dueling Banjos” pretty much forever condemned the banjo to be associated with that eerie, uncomfortable setting for most of the movie’s viewers. On top of that singular pop culture event, the instrument is almost unanimously linked to the bluegrass and country genres.

The history of the banjo runs much deeper though. In fact, it is a direct link to Africa’s influence on modern American music. It is believed that its evolution began when African slaves in the American south sought to recreate familiar instruments from their homeland such as the akonting or xalam of West Africa. In the nineteenth century, similar instruments were used in the blackface minstrel shows to represent “slave music”, and Joel Walker Sweeney developed its modern day form in the 1840s when he sought to “remake the banjo into an instrument for the middle class”. Over the next century-and-a-half, the banjo would become more and more associated with the American south with its idiosyncratic sound and eventually be a central characteristic of bluegrass and country genres that developed along side it.

Over the last few decades, the banjo has been utilized more and more in different musical settings, ranging from the European jazz of Django Reinhardt in the 1940s to its increasing use in today’s indie-pop fusions. Minneapolis-based experimental folk artist Paul Metzger is forcing the instrument into brand new directions, both structurally and stylistically. His modified banjo is that of Frankensteinian mutation: the traditional pot-like body stays the same but with twenty-one strings instead of the traditional five and the elongated bridge of a sitar. Stylistically, Metzger rarely plucks in the circular, twangy fingerpicking we are most familiar with this instrument, but plays in an almost modal raga style with heavy influence from Northern India, Eastern Asia, jazz and folk. It’s a sound that echoes of Reinhardt, Sandy Bull and Henry Flynt, but remains insular and idiosyncratic due to the singular nature of his instrument of choice.

The banjo’s stereotypes are not lost on Metzger as he chose to call his first full-length for Locust, Deliverance, perhaps with a bit of a snicker and a soft roll of the eyes. Consisting of three tracks in a nearly sixty minute set, the album features real time performances of Metzger solely on his modified banjo. The opening number, “Orans”, is both the strongest of the three songs and the most accessible. Leaning heavily towards the raga side of Metzger’s sound, he patiently swirls the styles of Bull, Ravi Shankar, Gabor Szabo and Robbie Basho into a spellbinding fifteen-minute workout. Metzger’s banjo features a much heavier low end than the traditional sound of the instrument and leads the song with a lyrical bass line ornamented with flourishes of the tinny high end. With increasing urgency as the track proceeds, he patiently builds the song’s momentum before the last three minutes’ onslaught of speed-picking up and down the raga’s scale creating cascades of metallic tones that reminisce of the sitar but with more of an unsettling nature.

The ten-minute “Bright Red Stone” follows. This time leading with higher pitches, Metzger’s banjo sounds a bit closer to what you would expect from the instrument, but he rarely settles into any kind of countrified groove. The lyrical picking of Fahey is there as well as a modal jazz feel as he experiments with different approaches to playing a scale, all the while lined with a pulsing redundant strum that keeps the music from meandering. Finally, the title track runs for a whopping thirty-minutes. It opens with Metzger bowing his banjo creating an odd, aching Eastern sound that you might expect on an early 70s Pharoah Sanders release. With much less urgency than the prior two tracks, Metzger patiently feels out the tune, somehow connecting the Appalachian Mountains to Northern India and Far East Asia. It may be tolling for listeners with less of an attention span, but rewards in its curious fusion of styles and hypnotizing, almost soothing aura.

Like most Locust releases, Deliverance is for music fans that want to furrow their brow while listening to music. With the quickly crowding school of post-Fahey guitar players these days, Metzger is a welcomed departure as he looks to expand the reaches of Fahey’s country ragas not only with a completely singular instrument in his modified banjo, but in his approach to a more modal style of playing. This is music to lay back and ponder over. It can at times hypnotize and even lull, but there is so much curiosity to the sound, it rarely loses your attention.

Curious exactly what Metzger looks like in action?

Six Organs of Admittance - "Shelter From the Ash"

Six Organs of Admittance - Strangled Road (Drag City 2007)

Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter From the Ash / Drag City

Ben Chasny is a guy who's got such a wealth of material already behind him that putting something like Shelter From the Ash, something like his tenth proper album over the last decade, into perspective takes a little work. It's always been clear that this alias was his solo ride and other affiliations - most notably Comets on Fire, but also Current 93, Magik Markers and Badgerlore) - are not where he devotes most of his musical resources. As we know, those groups are all very well and good... But there's something about Six Organs that speaks something special. Being a fan (or even a casual admirer) is like being part of a great secret that so many people have heard about but not really participated in.

Hopefully, Shelter From the Ash is where that changes. This is one of Chasny's best records under any name for whatever that's worth, and his music here resonates with the autumnal haze so many psych-folk records try for and fail to achieve. The finger-picking effortlessness and daubed bits of electric guitar squall dot this rural landscape of rolling meadows and blissfully empty valleys. It's like driving through western New York in the middle of the night, or maybe wandering around in a Mumbai sunrise. It is Mumbai now, right? I think it is.

"Alone With the Alone" doesn't sound like a very promising title. Perhaps better suited to Taking Back Sunday acolytes or She Wants Revenge b-side choruses, "Alone With the Alone" starts sort of where 2006's The Sun Awakens left off: A tantric build with an Eastern feel to it. Instead of continuing with the epic drones that made last year's release so excellent, "Alone With the Alone" signals another change in direction, engaging the haunting hymnals with more traditional song structures. Noel Harmonson's drums add an extra edge to a very tense beginning, but the suspense will engage you right from the first plucked chord. Fade in Tim Green's bluesy solo and you've got yourself a hell of an opener. This is approximately where The Golden Road were trying to go but got too caught up in their Neil Young mimicry. Okay, Gettin' Gone wasn't really that bad. This, admittedly, is better.

Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Markers fame provides accompaniment for Chasny on "Strangled Road." The big story isn't really that her angelic voice is so delicately intertwined with Chasny's leads but that there is so much space between sounds in the verses. Ironically, this song is comparatively short at only five-and-a-half minutes, but the subtle integration of all of his albums up to this point has Chasny showing how smart he can be with smaller amounts of both space and sound.

"Final Wing," the longest song to be found here, is also one of the best in an album full of great songs. With a Wurlitzer dusted off for the second track in a row (following "Goddess Atonement"), both Chasny and Green returning to drone and outsider roots with Zahir and Batin sounds. I'm not sure what kinds of effects Chasny has in mind with those descriptions because there are no specific instruments for these presumably Islamic "sounds," but the repetition of the main melody anchors everything going on around it... whatever "everything" is. Despite its relatively simple line, it's also one of the most engaging songs on the record and an unquestionable highlight.

It could not end any more appropriately than "Goodnight," a fine send-off. Not quite instrumental but with no words in the booklet to make it official, Chasny quietly finishes off the album on a low note with little more than an acoustic guitar, Ambrogio's vocals and Green's organ. Shelter From the Ash is one of the most touching records of 2007 by a man who has inspired a legion of acid-folk revivalists and neo-hippies to pick up guitars and see what notes sound the most relaxing. More than any of that is the underlying notion that this is a cathartic record. It's not an album you can just pop in and rock out to, but it's also not an album to forget you're listening to. The tension, the release, the considered instrumentation... If you didn't love Six Organs of Admittance before, now is the time to try again. Shelter From the Ash won't let you down.

gNotes - "Rhymes and Beats"

gNotes - Samba Tryst (Gnawledge 2007)

gNotes - Rhymes and Beats / Gnawledge

We recently mentioned the Boston hip-hop scene via Y Society's Insight. We got a bona fide Bostonian for you this week, and it's possible that if you've been paying attention you may already have heard about gNotes. This cat is right about what I need to wind 2K7 down on a high note. There's a pun in there somewhere, but I'll let you find it.

And I'll leave Sean Dwyer to do the verbal gymnastics for me. His boom-bap beats break out immediately on the opener to this record, "Muddy Treble Clef." It's an aggressive song that reminds me of Aesop Rock, or maybe Sage Francis. Dwyer sounds like he's just reaching the end of his breath at the end of every wordy line, and it makes not only his delivery breathless but your ears breathless too. This is exactly the effect that has worked so well for the Rhymesayers collective and backpackers everywhere else. You're being thrown into the fire of this album before you've ever really had a chance to decide if you even want to step inside. You're not even finished with the first song and it's already too late. It's a clear trick of the ears, but it works everytime... And that's why we keep coming back.

"I'm talkin' to the earthworms and ostriches / Caddymacks, battle cats and hipster hip-hopper kids." So basically, everybody who reads and writes this blog should have their ears primed for the 14 songs on this full-length. Its solid production and delivery isn't the work of an amateur. It deserves mentioning that Dwyer actually got his start in 2004 with Broken Spoke, an MC debut that acted as the basis for what was to come. His entire music career has been building to the uncreatively titled Rhymes and Beats, but given his drive and passion it would be hard to imagine the man sitting in the production studio thinking of any other title for his personal magnum opus.

Here's how it worked following Broken Spoke: gNotes set up two halves of the same whole with an album that revolved entirely around rhymes (2005's Flow From Above) related to issues of "global justice and social responsibility." The other half, naturally, was beats (Inthrumental). gNotes used slide guitar to complement Afro DZ ak's trumpet work for an intriguing exploration of instrumentation based around traditional hip-hop thumping.

The only thing left to do was bring it together for a complete statement. So arrives album #4: "Rhymes and beats grown mature." He definitely sounds like he's got his act together, even right down to sequencing. The single "Throw Your Nickels Up" has the same feel as "Muddy Treble Clef," but the pace is wisely slowed down for the soulful third and fourth songs, "Tower of Babylon" and "We Can Roll." From here things follow a more midtempo trip for the middle section of the album as the listener relies more on Dwyer's wordplay than in-your-face bells n' whistles.

Evan Tanguy writes that the sometimes "difficult lyrics are difficult to translate for the average listener, which can hurt aspiring artists like him." We respectfully disagree. Unless you're Dälek (and there can be only one of those), beats are only going to get you so far. To be fair, the live instrumentation used on this record (to great effect on a track like the synthy "Nemesis" or the guitar-cum-trumpet climax of "Samba Tryst") is certainly worth mentioning. "Nemesis" marks a turn back for where the music catches up to the lyrics and the two reach that maturity gNotes had been seeking since he got his start three years ago. Likewise, "Samba Tryst" is arguably the highlight of the album.

But it's your lyrics, your verbal flourishes, your mind-melting meter, that's the bread and butter of hip-hop. That's where you're going to earn your respects. Dwyer duly accomplishes this with clever twists, puns and a delivery that can fascinate even when the song should be putting you to sleep (as on the piano bar ballad "Missin' You"). Unlike a lot of MCs, his lyrics are readily available on the Gnawledge website, so I won't burden anymore than I have to. Sometimes the actual words themselves don't matter so much as the way they are delivered, speeding up and slowing down as necessary.

Dwyer is adroit enough to make his words fit the music. The payoff is that the music returns the favor: Rhymes and Beats is a series of songs that exposes the diligent work of a man that raps like he's been waiting for this album his whole life. Maybe that's true. Finding biographical information on Dwyer is difficult, partly because he's not sucking up to a major and partly because people who are afraid of abstruse words strung together swiftly feel alienated. It's plausible that he's been making music his whole life. At the end of this album, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you're left feeling there was little to be improved upon. For all the people Sean Dwyer is speaking to, it's himself that he's speaking to loudest. To thine ownself be true, and the truest colors will shine through. Few are shining brighter than gNotes right now.

Radio Show Playlist: 11/7/07

6a:
1. Sonic Youth - Cross the Breeze - Daydream Nation (Geffen 1988)
2. Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow - Rainbow (Drag City 2007)
3. Om - Unitive Knowledge of Godhead - Pilgrimage (Southern Lord 2007)
4. Fugazi - Bed for the Scraping - Red Medicine (Dischord 1995)
5. Liars - Mr Your on Fire Mr - They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top (Gern Blandsten 2001)
6. Letters Letters - Between the Seems - Letters Letters (Type 2007)
7. Arab Strap - Love Detective - The Red Thread (Matador 2001)
8. Mekons - Diamonds - Natural (Quarterstick 2007)
9. The Handsome Family - When the Helicopter Comes - In the Air (Carrot Top 2000)
10. Citay - First Fantasy - Little Kingdoms (Dead Oceans 2007)
11. Bob Dylan - One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) - Blonde on Blonde (Columbia 1966)
12. Bill Callahan - Sycamore - Woke on a Whaleheart (Drag City 2007)

7a:
1. MV & EE with the Golden Road - Sweet People - Gettin' Gone (Ecstatic Peace 2007)
2. Dr. John - Such a Night - In the Right Place (Atco 1973)
3. Woods - Hunover - At Rear House (Shrimper 2007)
4. Grizzly Bear - Alligator (Choir Version) - Friends EP (WARP 2007)
5. Richard Youngs - I Need the Light - Autumn Response (Jagjaguwar 2007)
6. Blake Miller - Cut Your Hair - Together With Cats (Exit Stencil 2006)
7. Spacemen 3 - Feels So Good - The Perfect Prescription (Taang 1987)
8. Morning Recordings - Sugar Waltz - The Welcome Kinetic (Loose Thread 2007)
9. Lateduster - Grunting and Walking Around in a Circle - Easy Pieces (Merck 2004)
10. Tortoise/Autechre - Adverse Chamber - Adverse Chamber/To Day Retrieval 12" (Thrill Jockey 1998)
11. So Percussion - What the Hell - Amid the Noise (Cantaloupe 2006)

8a:
1. Xela - Wet Bones - The Dead Sea (Type 2006)
2. Don Cherry - Brown Rice - Brown Rice (A&M 1975)
3. Albert Ayler - (Blues) - Holy Ghost: Rare and Unreleased Recordings (1962-70) (Revenant 2004)
4. Sun Ra - Call for All Demons - Sun Song (Delmark 1956)
5. Marvin Gaye - "T" Plays It Cool - Trouble Man (Motown 1972)
6. Flying Lotus - Massage Situation - Reset EP (WARP 2007)
7. Idris Muhammad - Camby Bolongo - Turn This Mutha Out (Kudu 1977)
8. Extra Golden - Brother Gone Away - Hera Ma Nono (Thrill Jockey 2007)
9. The Lafayette Afro Rock Band - Red Match Box - Afrojazzfunk: 9 Pure 70s Jazz, Funk & Afrofunk Tracks (SuperClasse 1999)

I Broke My Robot - "Tomorrow Does Not Exist"

I Broke My Robot - Take Alphacalm As Directed (Broken Fader Cartel 2007)

I Broke My Robot - Tomorrow Does Not Exist / Broken Fader Cartel

This review should've been done weeks ago, but what ordinarily takes only a few hours has grown to day after day of worrying and fretting and procrastinating. Sort of like Black Dice, I feared writing about this record... But not because it was a twisted pop record with a concept review waiting for it. No, Virginia's I Broke My Robot was something I feared writing about because I just could not delve deep enough. Tomorrow Does Not Exist is a virtually impenetrable wall of digital hardcore and late-90s techtronic wizardry that would make Prefuse 73 jealous if he were into that sort of thing. Robbie Hartless has the perfect name for his music: All humans, please check your expectations at the door and bring only something to receive the goodness found within.

"I'll Be Alone" starts you off exactly how the rest of the record will carry you: With clicks, clacks, beats and bothers that come at you like a flood of sounds. Processing it all on the first listen is impossible, simple as that. "Take Alphacalm As Directed" is one of the best tracks here partly because it hit me immediately with the spacey atmospherics that help give it a human soul that feels like it's lacking so often on this record.

A lot of people would take that as a diss, but in contrast I find it refreshing to be so incredibly difficult. There's something about I Broke My Robot's melodic touch that makes his music less intolerable than Mochipet. There's something about this album that gives me the will to listen to breakcore again. There's something about these songs that brings me back, over and over, to find something I recognize. It is always a struggle.

Hartless lists himself as "Experimental / Jungle / IDM" on the ol' MySpace page. Though it may not necessarily be literal, a listener comes to find exactly what "jungle" means in Broken Fader Cartel's universe of cracked rhythms and Richard D. James anthologies. The density of his sampling and snapping and twisting and crackling found throughout this record is astonishing. It's a thick forest of electronics and your only way out is the airy synths that provide the backdrop for tracks like "The Afternoon We Tried Suicide." Unless microtones are your thing; in which case, have a gander at "Rebuild(d8t)," complete with a minimal glitch beat and more synthetics given just a hint of life, an organic feel in a sea of BPM blowouts and mind-collapsing mayhem.

I already feel like I'm treading over the same paths other sources (XLR8R and CD Baby for starters) have hit, but the reason we all sound the same is because there's just nothing else. The artwork, conceptually simple but intricate in design, maps out perfectly what this record is all about: Put your brain at the mercy of a man who has sacrificed his own for an android's microchip. The result is that, on cursory listens, you come out feeling less human. That's when the weaker among you will take refuge in The Postal Service.

If you keep listening, something else emerges. It may take days, or weeks, or maybe years if you stick with it (and who has the time to bother doing that anymore?), but Tomorrow Does Not Exist has a soul. Robbie Hartless has tried his damnedest to keep it from us, but I hear it. I hear it in the humanity that's been chopped to pieces on "The Further Away." I hear it in the Air-on-speed "Not So Fast, You're Hurting Me." You have to listen closely, closer than any hundred-dollar headphones can get you. Like any album worth its salt, going back always reveals something new. The secret is that Tomorrow Does Not Exist is not a casual listen but a rewarding full-length whose density ostensibly defines what cannot be described: the sensation of revealing the humanity hiding behind every binary beat. Air-tight? Not quite. Those who fear will follow.

His Name is Alive - "Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown"

His Name is Alive - Juba Lee (High Two 2007)

His Name is Alive – Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown / High Two

“Ornette Coleman is the same as Charlie Parker, but he did it a different, the opposite way. Charlie Parker did everything that he did based on knowing harmony and chords. Ornette Coleman did everything he did based on knowing how to reach inside of himself and create music intuitively.”
--Marion Brown, 2003 in an interview with Fred Jung on allaboutjazz.com

Though John Coltrane is the well-established hero in Brown’s descriptive pairing of the quintessential bop saxophonist and the original avant-garde innovator, Brown himself, along with other sax players like Archie Shepp or Dewey Redman, have also brought vital blends of chordal improvisation and borderless imagination to jazz. Almost unanimously described as over-looked or under-sung, Marion Brown was an inside member of the mid-60s NYC vanguard jazz movement recording alongside and inspiring/drawing inspiration from Coltrane, Coleman and Shepp. In fact, after relocating from Atlanta to New York in 1965, his very first recording session was for Coltrane’s now legendary Ascension, which is often pinpointed as the moment the celebrated saxophonist emerged as the avant-garde spiritual leader. The other two saxophonists Coltrane brought in to help inspire his own sound in new, fresh directions, Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, went on to well-revered careers, but Brown, though he recorded a number of respected albums over the last forty years (nonetheless for the likes of Impulse!, ESP, ECM, Fontana, Freedom and Black Lion), has remained thoroughly under the radar. Would I have ever imagined Warn Defever’s genre-defying indie-pop outfit His Name is Alive to be the group to pay proper respects to Brown? No, but Defever is an underappreciated musician and composer in his own right, so perhaps it is only proper.

For the last seventeen years, Defever has been experimenting with His Name is Alive’s dream-pop sound, from the found sound and tape loop obsessed 1990-debut Livonia to last September’s Xmmer, in which the band explores a myriad of styles from Afro-pop to folk that shimmer with pristine production. No matter his stylistic interest of the moment, Defever’s music in any of its concoctions is underpinned by the experimental and spiritual aesthetic established by Brown’s mid-60s jazz scene. Music should never be paint-by-numbers or intently confined to a specific genre’s framework to express an idea; it should be the artist’s expression of feeling regardless of predetermined principles, melodic, atonal or otherwise. Maybe Defever is inspired by Brown’s particular idiom in the same way Coltrane was back in ’65 and set out to use this vernacular to push his own musical expression in new directions. Or perhaps he is just a fan who wanted to bring attention to the overlooked saxophonist. Either way, Sweet Earth Flower is one of the most inspired and interesting albums I have heard all year.

Originally intended as a one-off concert at the University of Michigan Art Museum to pay tribute to Brown, the success of the evening sparked follow-up recording sessions from the talented ensemble. Including members of NOMO and Antibalas, this concoction of His Name is Alive pulls songs from both Brown’s initial mid-60s period including cuts from 1965’s Marion Brown Quartet on ESP and 1966’s Juba-Lee on Fontana along with his mid-70s reemergence on Impulse! after relocating to Europe, including ‘73’s Geechee Recollections, ‘74’s Sweet Earth Flying and ‘75’s Vista. Three of the eight tracks are from the original concert, while the other five tracks include two studio renditions of the live tracks and three other interpretations from the nine-piece band.

I would go into the particular approach for each song, but Thom Jurek’s review on the All Music Guide is more knowledgeable and on point than I would ever be able to do, so I respectfully nod in you in that direction. The music is that of delicately toned, almost ambient-leaning non-linear jazz. The players mesh seamlessly: Defever’s guitar work rarely takes spotlight (nor does any instrument really), restraining instead to a barrage of differently approached ostinatos or hypnotic chords; Defever, Elliot Bergman and Erik Hall’s electric and acoustic keys paint lush, detailed and poignant images with their sensual melodic improvisations; tenor saxophonist Bergman, trumpeter Justin Walter and alto saxophonist Michael Herbst accentuate and solo with subtlety, driving each track with modality akin to the more reflective and melodic moments between Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry; double bassist Jamie Satlsman acts as a strong anchor helping retain rhythmic structure whenever the other players sidestep to the outside; and percussionists Jamie Easter, Dan Piccolo and Olman Piedra jump from more pulsing rhythms to ambient hand-percussion accentuation with ease, tying elements of free jazz, African and Latin music into one vibe. Their recreation of Brown’s sound is that of spiritual reflection, sensual exploration and earthy provocation. It shimmers and drones, rouses and soothes. It’s meditative music you can get lost in without ever actually feeling lost, and that may be the best compliment I can pay it.

Marion Brown is still alive and gave his blessing to Defever to pursue this project. Due to his deteriorating health, Brown spends most of his time now teaching, and not advance classes in the detailed improvisation he is most known for, but mostly to children and amateur musicians on the art of musical self-exploration, instrument creation and the innate boundary-less nature of music. As Sweet Earth Flower displays, Brown doesn’t just teach in the classroom; his recorded output inspires and influences similar-minded artists like Defever to produce music just as warm, cerebral and passionate. It’s avant-garde jazz where the soulfulness is not lost in the intention to explore the outside. It’s music roaming free, where melodicism is not sacrificed for the sake of being different or avant-garde, but rather expressed in its unabashed warm spirit. Like the opening quote, both Brown and Defever reach inside and create music intuitively; they are well schooled in the technicalities of jazz, but express music based on feelings alone.

Also, a portion of the proceeds of every album sale is donated to the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF), a charity helping children in one of the poorest nations on Earth. www.nyof.org

Devotion #12

Amen, brother.

Singleversity #34

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 97.

MA:



I doubt this will be a first-time listen for most readers, but the Duke Ellington and John Coltrane collaboration "In a Sentimental Mood" popped up on my flypod yesterday and I had forgotten what a timeless tune it is. Ellington’s opening piano flutter is downright haunting, and Coltrane meanwhile elegantly weaves throughout with one of the most affectionate tones he ever recorded (and props to Sam Woodyard for the excellent auxiliary drumming on the song). Sadly it is mostly condemned for cheese compilations like Coltrane for Lovers, but goddamn what a emotionally reverberant four minutes of music.

PM:



Matt Valentine and Erika Elder opened new doors for me this year. Without the Green Blues one-sheet, I wouldn’t have had a clue that New England harbors such a vibrant psych-folk scene. Mainer label L’animaux Tryst is one of the best examples: With a roster of outsider artists pushing in new directions for drone, psych, folk, and acoustic racket of all kinds, the Portland-based imprint recently started a 7” series and aren’t finished with ‘07. The hell if I know exactly what’s going on with Jazz Angel’s "Electronics Future 3000 Part 2" here, but check it anyway.

Witold "Vitek" Kieltyka dead at 23

Though his name is virtually unknown outside of the death-metal community, drummer Witold "Vitek" Kieltyka (of the Polish band Decapitated) succumbed to head injuries sustained after a bad van accident while on tour in Russia. He was 23.

One of the youngest and most promising bands in the genre, Decapitated have consistently released albums both crushing and invigorating in their musicianship. He will be missed.

Decapitated - Long-Desired Dementia (The Negation, 2004)

Decapitated - Invisible Control (Organic Hallucinosis, 2006)

G&D - "The Message Uni Versa"

G&D - One (Look 2007)

G&D – The Message Uni Versa / Look

“I was sent by the divine forces of the universe to bring a message of funk and light to the good people of planet Earth!”

Last time we met with our heroes, singer/producer Georgia Anne Muldrow and oddball crooner Dudley Perkins, they were united by the production techniques of DJ 2Tall on Beautiful Mindz. It was a decent record with a few memorable moments, but for the most part, it was less of an inspired affair as much as a showcase for the individual talents of the artists involved. Dudley would drop a fun, goofy verse on one song, then Georgia would momentarily perk your ears a few tracks later, but there was rarely a substantial period when both immensely creative individuals sounded as a cohesive awe-inspiring unit. We know these artists have talent, check Perkins’s Expressions (2012 A.U.) or Muldrow’s Worthnothings EP/Olesi: Fragments of an Earth (all three released by Stones Throw), and their collaboration on “T. Biggums” from Oh No’s Exodus into Unheard Rhythms showed that together they may be an even stronger force. Can these two creative minds flesh out an entire album’s worth of attentive material though? Their debut as a duo, The Message Uni Versa, leans heartily towards yes.

“I’m learning the fine art of singing from the heart.”

Existing somewhere between the groovy sociopolitical soul of Funkadelic, the left-field hip-hop concoctions of Madlib, the synth-driven bounce of the Dungeon Family and the neo-soul confidence of Erykah Badu, G&D are purveying a sound though easily traced from its influences, stands pretty far left of the rest of the playing field. It is much hipper than what the neo-soul tag implies these days, way too quirky to be straight-ahead R&B, not syncopated enough vocally to be called rap and maybe too modern and structured to be considered psychedelic soul. It certainly contains fragments of each of these stylistic descriptions, but pieced together into a Frankenstein of oddball soul-funk. Muldrow’s beats and production pair the current L.A. space-hop vibe with Atlanta’s Organized Noize sound circa 1998. Chunky bass lines counteracted by sweeping, circling synths drive each song, and patient, uncomplicated drum patterns provide a mellow pace that give the pair ample space to vocally improvise over.

“Drink funk juice instead, good for your head and better for your health. Take that ice off before you melt yourself.”

As with every release so far by both the pair together and individually, the lyrical message is one of peace and love; the same hippie-soul vibe pioneered by George Clinton and Sly Stone in the late 60s. The Message Uni Versa is almost exclusively about these ideals, though less cushy love as much as peaceful living in harmony love. It bends from the more political stance, “War Drums” and “Good Mornin Amerikkka”, to pleas to have open minds, “Time”. Perkins sing-song-raps with his now patented warble that marries Cody ChesnuTT, Bootsy Collins and O.D.B., and Muldrow coos with earthy, Simone-derived serenity à la Badu, Timobe Lockhart or even Lauryn Hill. When matched together, the duo produces a sound that is completely idiosyncratic. It’s infectious, goofy and soulful at the same time.

“In the great inspiring of words of Pastor I. from Oregon: Bush! I got my eye on you, you demon!”

A bit top-heavy, the strongest tracks come early on in the album. “One” bounces on a Coup-like beat with each vocalist taking turns crooning near-improvised lines of finding unison by getting everyone to ride the same rhythm. The chorus excels by Muldrow accentuating urgently beneath Perkins’s more laid-back calls. “Time” is a bit more nocturnal and groovy, and perhaps the most accessible song of the disc. There are less off-the-cuff verses and more refined vocal interplay. It works very well and displays a more matured collaboration, but I believe a full album of it wouldn’t be as endearing without the jovial goofiness that keeps everything lighthearted. I am also quite partial to the pseudo-song “The Stomp”. With an excellent underlying synth groove lying somewhere between Madlib’s Yesterday New Quintet and Marvin Gaye’s soundtrack to Trouble Man, there is no narrative, but instead snippets of hilarious party conversation. It may supposed to be more of a transitional piece, but it turns out to be one of my favorite tracks.

“It’s fonk with an O, through your stereo.”

The Message Uni Versa is an album displaying two similar-minded artists reaching their potential by bouncing musical ideas off each other. They are perfectly sufficient individually, but truth be told, their styles can be a bit tolling over a complete solo album. As G&D, their left-of-center styles balance each other out for a bit smoother audio swallow. With forty minutes of fun and utopian ideals, The Message Uni Versa is a worthwhile and refreshing listen. Muldrow and Perkins are as an idiosyncratic pair as they come, and an essential push for the neo-soul and left-field hip-hop genres.

Georgia: “Oh come now, that’s rubbish. For you are a warrior and warriors do not sing.”
Dudley: “It’s a new thing my lady, it’s a newwww thinggggg!”
Georgia: “But what about all the critics my lord?”
Dudley: “Critics? The hell with the criticssssss!”
Both: “La la la la laaaaaa”