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”

Senate Committee Votes to Expand Low Power FM Radio

It feels weird and uncomfortable to be pleased with a Senate movement, but I suppose the times are a-changin'.

Radio Show Playlist: 10/31/07

6a:
1. Dinosaur Jr. - Let It Ride - Bug (SST 1988)
2. Eleventh Dream Day - Interstate - Stalled Parade (Thrill Jockey 2000)
3. Ahleuchatistas - ...Of All This - In the Midst... (Cuneiform 2007)
4. Letters Letters - Dealer Dealer - Letters Letters (Type 2007)
5. Shooting Spires - Alive and Well - Shooting Spires (Cardboard 2007)
6. Dirty Projectors - Maarket Aair - Demons & Rare Meat (Mission 2004)
7. The Octopus Project - An Evening with Rthrtha - Hello, Avalanche (Peek-a-Boo 2007)
8. Testbild! - Inside Raindrops - Imagine a House (Friendly Noise 2006)
9. Efterklang - Horseback Tenors - Parades (Leaf 2007)
10. Scott Solter Plays Pattern is Movement - In Glasstone - Canonic (Hometapes 2006)
11. Saturday Looks Good to Me - When I Lose My Eyes - Fill Up the Room (K 2007)
12. The Cave Singers - Dancing on Our Graves - Invitation Songs (Matador 2007)

7a:
1. Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter from the Ash - Shelter from the Ash (Drag City 2007)
2. Morning Recordings - You've Been Letting Go - The Welcome Kinetic (Loose Thread 2007)
3. Bevel - Vice Versa (Protect What You Love) - Phoenician Terrane (Contraphonic 2007)
4. Pullman - To Hold Down a Shadow - Turnstyles & Junkpiles (Thrill Jockey 1998)
5. Grizzly Bear - He Hit Me - Friend EP (WARP 2007)
6. Benoit Pioulard - Palimend - Precis (Kranky 2006)
7. Alice Coltrane - Hare Krishna - Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana (Warner Bros. 1976)
8. Leaves - Ash Wednesday (Rumback) - Live at the Ice Factory (FP 2006)
9. Roy Montgomery - On the Road 2 - Inroads: New & Collected Works (Rebis 2006)
10. Paul Metzger - Orans - Deliverance (Locust 2007)

8a:
1. Gabor Szabo - Mizrab - The Sorcerer (Impulse! 1967)
2. His Name is Alive - Geechee Recollections (II) - Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown (High Two 2007)
3. Charles Mingus - II B.S. - Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Impulse! 1963)
4. Prefuse 73 - Spacious and Dissonant Pt. 2 - Interregnums (WARP 2007)
5. Isotope 217 - La Jetee - The Unstable Molecule (Thrill Jockey 1997)
6. Chicago Afrobeat Project - bscg2 - (A) Move to Silent Unrest (CAbP Music 2007)
7. Bubbha Thomas & the Lightmen - Country Fried Chicken (Lightin' 1975)
8. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Let Them Knock - 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone 2007)
9. James Brown - I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me) - I Can't Stand Myself When You Touch Me (King 1968)

Japancakes - "Loveless"

Japancakes - Soon (Darla 2007)

Japancakes - Loveless / Darla

"are you excited... really?"

This question was posed by an anonymous noter on Friday in response to Michael's Prefuse 73 review. Maybe it wasn't conscious, but they've allowed a can of worms to open itself in lieu of this month's feeling that the sky was falling in on the "indie" lover's world. It started with the suckerpunch of Radiohead's In Rainbows. Then came The Black Kids pre-CMJ when everyone was wondering, well, why them? Then came Sasha Frere-Jones and the race card. This came back to The Black Kids, who came back from CMJ with everyone still wondering, er, why them? Then came the Oink bombshell. Then came Idolator booting bloggers out of their ivory towers. Almost unnoticed, Stylus suddenly slipped out the back door. Happy Halloween.

If you've been left reeling from October, you're not the only one. Every amateur Jess Harvell (who's resigning from Pitchfork, incidentally) seems to be calling for the heads of... Well, who exactly? Is it the positive hype machine they've helped to contribute to? Is it anyone who's ever had a good word to say about an artist? Is it any kid who plays sheep to Pitchfork's shepherd? Is it the evil overlord Pitchfork itself? Who is at fault might be the question everybody's asking, but the better question might be Have we learned anything?

We here at Audiversity can't speak for the rest of the Internet, or the rest of the blogosphere, or even for each other at times. I can tell you that I've learned how dire the situation both is and is not. Because the Internet magnifies everything ten fold, the big issue with music "criticism" doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things... But it matters to someone, because every average music blog you visit has probably made some kind of commentary on it by now. Blogging is a delicate matter, a series of paradoxes and dead ends with no escape, a balance between hyping and critiquing, art and science, considered selections and impulse buys, writing and masturbating.

Therein lies the essence of what I've long suspected: We don't properly fit in with this discussion. The artists we like aren't getting paid much even when they do well. We're not ad-friendly. We don't want to get paid for two paragraphs of biographical information you could just as easily find on AllMusic. But we're also not going to write about artists we don't love because, why bother? Buddyhead flamed out because you can only be so angry for so long (and most of their "this sucks" mentality went to Vice, but that's another story). We don't hate not because it's no longer fashionable (though I suspect it'll be back soon) but because it's a waste of energy. My mother told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.

At last, then, we come to Japancakes. I like them. I like what they do. What they do: Country-tinged drone-rock. Lap-steel guitars twang with the dusty autumn evenings of a Texan sunset. Beautifully melodic, patient, instrumental songs that sound like every good post-rock band if they'd accurately captured that side of the American South that Explosions in the Sky try to hide with their brand: Quaint, modest, earnest, and endearing. When the fireworks are over and the moonshine is gone, Japancakes emerge as the sentimental side of every redneck who's ever put a "3" sticker on their Silverado.

It's this base sound that makes their selection of a very un-Southern record so thrilling: Kevin Shields and his kingdom of effects pedals never could have dreamt something so utterly simple, even in the base repetition forming the core of arguably the finest record of the 1990s. Critics give him credit for being a "sonic genius" because he is a perfectionist and a slave to your headphones. But credit is also due for being a maximalist, because Shields wasn't ready to quit until every last hair on your eardrum had been raised.

This Athens, Georgia band takes the opposite approach: Spare as much space as possible with the same material. Heather McIntosh's cello adds that extra string element that gives this such an organic feel. The key to their success in this instrumental reworking of the Irish band's 1991 classic is the organic feel that they have been exploring since early jam sessions in '97 playing the D-chord over and over again. Removed of the sonic intensity of the original, the Japancakes version sounds sweeping and classically grand without sounding self-indulgent and aurally over-the-top.

Japancakes are also releasing another album of their own material. It's called Giving Machines, and it is as good as 2004's Waking Hours which I remember enjoying a lot more than some people. But we're not going to review that. While this is a good band with a different take on drone-rock that they've been working on for years to great effect, when they come home from the studio or they finish up their workday or whatever it takes to pay their bills, they're just music fans.

Being a music lover levels the great playing field of listening. That's all any of us are (except corporate-driven yes-men), and a review of Loveless seems more appropriate at the moment than Giving Machines because covering Loveless is a labor of love rather than obligation. Fans crave fresh material. They do not ask for cover albums. Am I equating what we do here with Japancakes in the studio? Not entirely. But the thought is there.

Pierre Bayard, author of "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read," in Sunday's New York Times Magazine:

You seem to believe that knowing a little bit about 100 literary classics is preferable to knowing one book intimately. I think a great reader is able to read from the first line to the last line; if you want to do that with some books, it’s necessary to skim other books. If you want to fall in love with someone, it’s necessary to meet many people. You see what I mean?

Bayard is of the same mentality as most bloggers, and it's this mentality that has had people giving up on the whole thing altogether to walk away and take a break, re-examine why they're spending countless hours blogging in the first place when other places are doing it faster and better. I know I've felt like that on a number of occasions this year. And everytime I've felt it, I've done it. I've just walked away and listened to John Cage's "4:33" and that's it. No strings attached.

This isn't a job. This isn't work. The day it becomes more than a hobby we have a great enthusiasm for is the day I start getting paid for something other than ad clicks. We want our enthusiasm to reflect in how we write and what we write about. We want you to understand that the reason we feature albums is either because we really love the artist, we really love the release, or we really love the label. We're going to stick by that, and if it means we have to endure a year with a rep for being "a Japancakes-loving blog," better that than "another blog that has no real long-term passion about anyone except the favorites you expect." Am I excited about Japancakes covering My Bloody Valentine... really?

Reading over this, I think I like Michael's response better: "yes i am." And it is fantastic.

Morning Recordings - "The Welcome Kinetic"

Morning Recordings - The Welcome Kinetic

Morning Recordings – The Welcome Kinetic / Loose Thread

I have had Morning Recording’s sophomore effort, The Welcome Kinetic, playing in the background all morning as I shuffle through my usual checklist of mundane get-the-day-started tasks. As the band name implies, their particular brand of lush, pleasant pop is perfect for this setting, and has made this Monday morning routine flow a bit smoother and proceed with a bit less urgency. It wasn’t until I got to the title track that my attention was immediately pulled away from everything else and wholly concentrated on the music grooving out of my speakers. Sounding like a long lost 45 b-side from an early 70 soul-jazz group influenced heavily by the Blaxploitation soundtracks and taking an interest in the burgeoning fusion scene, it all of sudden makes sense why this pastoral pop collective lists David Axelrod, Ennio Morricone, Mulatu Astatke, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sven Libaek, King Tubby and even Madlib as their influences. All of a sudden, Morning Recordings seems a bit more hip than their initial vibe.

Oddly enough, the influence list doesn’t even begin to slow down there as Pramod Tummala and his cast of talented musicians pair Bobby Hutcherson with Burt Bacharach, Cal Tjader with The Sea & Cake, Luiz Bonfa with Popol Vuh, and so on and so on. It certainly sounds like a crowded cluster of particular styles, but Tummala keeps them all under wraps by infusing the pastoral post-rock with elegant melodies and accessible pop entries.

Morning Recordings was initially conceived as a solo outlet for the Chicago-based Tummala as he began to branch out from the late 90s dream-pop outfit, Melochrome. What started as a venture to record an EP’s worth of material with Barry Phipps of The Coctails blossomed into Morning Recordings debut full-length as friends all started to contribute their own talents. Featuring members of Lambchop, Zelienople, L’Altra, Poi Dog Pondering and The Lightbox Orchestra, 2005's Music for Places was a lush, intimate affair that matched breezy melodies with introspective instrumentals. The Welcome Kinetic builds off this foundation and progresses by not only matured songwriting on Tummala’s part, but sonic manipulation as he experiments more and more with recording techniques.

The album opens with “The One Hundred Hills,” which first gives light to the grooves the Morning Recordings band is capable of concocting. A vibraphone swirls in and out of a stand-up bass and jazzy drum kit before a late 60’s organ sound and acoustic guitar paves way for a brief almost-Latin trumpet outburst. The song is enveloped in it’s own popping low frequencies until it gives way to “Sugar Waltz,” the first pop tune of the record. With a teetering organ/drum foundation very reminiscent of Hymie’s Basement (a short-lived collaboration between Fog’s Andrew Broder and Why?’s Yoni Wolf), Tummala’s submerged vocals undercut Edith Frost’s elegant croon while eerie sound byproducts bubble just below the surface. “Join the Curtains” pushes the album in a faintly Latin-jazz direction with the instrumentation keenly sunken in reverb and other analog effects. All the while, elements of Morricone’s spaghetti Western soundtracks also frequently appear, as do Axelrod’s funky productions. “You’ve Been Letting Go” shimmers brilliantly amidst Tummala’s more straight-ahead singer/songwriter moments, and album closer, “I Wish I Met You Sooner”, brings everything full circle in a coda much akin to the opening track, but with more tape manipulation.

Tummala does an excellent job of redefining his initial dream-pop sound with The Welcome Kinetic. The singer/songwriter meets lush post-rock foundation is built off of with a knowledgeable list of intriguing influences from across the genre spectrum, while the production is very aware of not sounding over-digitized by incorporating analog tape effects throughout the album. It’s pastoral morning music that will certainly help ease you into the day, but there is enough exotic flair to keep more attuned listeners content. It very much is a welcomed, lulling flow that could keep you under the covers for a bit too long on those chilly winter days when the alarm clock is your worst enemy and your bed is your best friend.

Animosity - "Animal"

Animosity - You Can't Win (Metal Blade/Blackmarket Activities 2007)

Animosity - Animal / Metal Blade/Blackmarket Activities

In my last review (Severe Torture's Sworn Vengeance), as well as my Death Breath review, I made mention of how recording technology has negatively affected metal's sound over the past 10 years or so. First, drum triggers (devices used to process the actual sound of a drum through a computer into whatever sound you want) made it easier for drummers to play fast and accurately without trying as hard. Speed was limited when drummers actually had to hit hard in order for a microphone to pick up their sound. Now, even the slightest tap can be a thundering boom. Channel that mechanized sound into Pro-Tools and everything else falls into line, digitally. When albums are recorded like this, the sweat that goes into playing a type of music as demanding as death metal is marginalized. While this overly sterile approach doesn't really work for a number of bands, there are a few groups with a mechanized, relentless style that work well within a precise, overly accurate recording. One of these bands is San Francisco's Animosity.

Their 2003 Tribunal Records debut, Shut It Down was a decent-enough deathcore romp, made slightly more impressive by the fact that their average age was reported to be 16 at the time. 2005's Empires on Metal Blade/Blackmarket Activities was unlike anything else that came out that year. I must have listened to that album hundreds of times. Clocking in at only 27 minutes, the nine songs on Empires were short—but not concise—blasts of hardcore-laced death metal with a host of aggressive and complex twists. Riffs spiraled and changed without warning, about a hundred per song, but the songs retained a sense of direction rather than just randomly ending up at a huge breakdown for no reason other than to end the song. After that flurry of an album, my interest was piqued.

October 2007 brings us the follow-up album, Animal. Recorded with Kurt Ballou at his Godcity Studios, the production is a nice mix of Ballou's chaotic style (Converge, The Power & the Glory) and Animosity's accuracy, which adds just enough edge to make Empires sound as if it were recorded in an operating room. Sonically, everything is in place, but sounds as if it had to rush to get there . . . like all of the instruments are a little out of breath. Animosity's exactitude needs this style of recording, though . . . with so much happening, a sloppy recording wouldn't do their chops justice.

My initial complaint with Empires was that the drums were actually too busy for what the guitars, bass, and vocalist were doing. It's hard to imagine an overly-technical band having a drummer that's too busy, but when Animosity decide to ride out a riff for a few seconds (which seems like an eternity after you've been pummeled mercilessly for a few minutes) drummer Navene Koperwies needed to show restraint. This is a trait he seems to have found within himself for the recording of Animal, holding back more when the riff doesn't demand him to be flashy.

Again, the songs range from about two minutes to the album-closer "A Passionate Journey," which ends up at just over four minutes after an extended drum outro. Overall, Animal's songs end up in the two-and-a-half minute mark, which is just enough when there's a million things happening at once. It's impossible to describe an average Animosity song, but there's more changes than you can shake a stick at, and how they're able to explain song structure to one another during the writing process is beyond me. It's pure insanity with a running time similar to that of Empires, this Animal ceasing to exist at the 28-minute mark.

One other reason why fans of intense, unrelenting music should pick this up is for the vocals of Leo Miller. His defeatist, anti-war attitude comes across loud and clear in the lyrics on Animal ("I look ahead on our path / and all I see is fucking doom / plunder and rape"), but it's the way he's able to bob and weave his vocal patterns in and out of the band's ridiculous complexity is unbelievable. Musical accents match vocal accents; pauses come at just the right time . . . the pacing is just excellent. Some lyrics feel crammed into place, but that just comes with the tech territory. Most of the time, Miller succeeds in getting a lot of words in a very small spot. Vocal arrangement are often overlooked in metal, but the only way you're going to really get a feel for how amazingly difficult this can be is to get the album and literally follow along with the lyrics. It's a lost art, that lyric reading , but totally worth it on Animal.

The prowess these youngsters display on only their third album is extraordinary. Basically, if you can't handle the heat, you're going to need to get out of the kitchen, because Animosity crank the heat way up on this record. Chances are, this album is going to whiz by in what seems like a lot less than its 28-minute running time, which makes Animal a perfect contender for repeat listens, almost daring you to try and absorb everything presented on this disc without becoming overwhelmed in the process.

Devotion #11

Life is good – very good – but I’ll be damned if living it doesn’t sometimes feel like juggling a feral kitten, a soiled diaper (#2), and a skinned mango, all while riding uphill on a unicycle with a flat tire. I believe it was the sweet brother Kanye who implied, “Life is a bitch, dependin’ how you dress her,” so if this is indeed the case, I think I want life to be naked. That way, there are no surprises and I know exactly what I’m dealing with.

But if not naked, then I’d really like for life to be Shannyn Sossamon.



Babe Ruth – “Wells Fargo” – First Base (Harvest 1972)

Babe Ruth is responsible for “The Mexican,” a classic b-boy (i.e. “breakdancing”) track in the vein of the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache,” Herman Kelly & Life’s “Dance to the Drummer's Beat,” and “It’s Just Begun” by The Jimmy Castor Bunch. “The Mexican” was originally released on First Base in 1972, but found new life when it was re-discovered by a burgeoning hip-hop culture and became an anthem for the dance floor expression of rampant gang violence in the Bronx and Brooklyn boroughs of New York City. The cross-genre appeal of “The Mexican,” however, overshadowed what was a very good quasi-progressive rock album from one of the more unheralded bands of their time.

Jay-Z – “So Ghetto” – Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter (Roc-A-Fella 1999)

Jay-Z has a new album coming out (which I’ve heard), apparently inspired by a new Denzel Washington film (which I’ve seen), and I must say that I’m a lot more excited about the film. I’m not going to get all long-winded on Jay, though. I’m a big admirer of his talent and business acumen, but he’s really in no man’s land with the rapping. People didn’t seem to like 2006’s Kingdom Come because of his insistence on throwing the noveau riche-ness of his current lifestyle all up in our faces, so with American Gangster, Jay is supposedly getting back to the tales of drug dealing and street hustling that helped make him a hip-hop superstar. The problem with this is, when was the last time he actually sold drugs or hustled anywhere that wasn’t 8th Avenue and 50th Street in Manhattan, home of the Island Def Jam Group, where he serves as president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records?

Sure, you can always go home again, and I’m all for an artist getting back to basics, but here we are, over ten years since his Reasonable Doubt debut, and Jay-Z is singing the same old songs – probably because he has little else to talk about. He’s always been rather one-dimensional in that respect. People gave Common heat over a line on Finding Forever about how his “daughter found Nemo,” but Com’s in his mid-30s, so rapping about his daughter finding Nemo isn’t out of the ordinary. At least he’s found his niche. I’m not sure what Jay’s looking for, but at his age, unless 40 is the new 20 and not the new 30, he’s not going to find it in a recording booth.

M.I.A. – “The Turn” – Kala (XL 2007)

When M.I.A. broke a few years ago, I was skeptical of her musical authenticity, writing in a local publication about her overnight appeal and how there was an air of contrivance in which the Sri Lankan songstress seemed to have arrived on the scene. And I’m still not fully convinced, as the combination of her music, her politics, and her visual art makes for a pretty confusing affair. There’s such a mess of information on her Wikipedia page that reading it almost gave me the spins. But I do admire the growth she has shown as an artist since her 2005 debut, because her new album, Kala, is excellent.

So, props to you, M.I.A…whoever you are.

Kool & The Gang – “Ronnie's Groove” – Live at P.J.’s (De-Lite 1971)

The title of this song pretty much speaks for itself.

Singleversity #33

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 43.

MA:



Thank Atavistic for introducing the still-touring Ayler-devotee Peter Brötzmann to a new generation of open ears. "Responsible/For Jan Van de Ven", recorded in 1968, is just a sampling of the free jazz purity held within the recently released The Complete Machine Gun Sessions.

PM:













One English band that helped me through my London experience in ’05, Peace Burial at Sea are likely breaking up following a Newcastle gig with 65daysofstatic and Tired Irie. Brutal to the last, their small but tidy legacy lives on with "Eye-Heart Logic."

Prefuse 73 - "Preparations"/"Interregnums"

Prefuse 73 - Pomade Suite Version One (WARP 2007)

Prefuse 73 - Spacious and Dissonant Part 2 (WARP 2007)

Prefuse 73 – Preparations/Interregnums / WARP

I haven’t been short on my unabashed love for Guillermo Scott Herren here on the site. He is up there on my all-time list of favorite contemporary artists with a discography that runs amuck through a number of different monikers and a style that is both instantly recognizable and fluidly morphing with each release. The biggest problem critics have with Herren, at least in his Prefuse 73 suit, is that his pioneering and perfecting glitch-hop approach to producing has a defined, predictable framework though the creative possibilities within the stylistic confines can go on for days.

Let’s face it, he peaked early, first with 2001’s genre changing Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives and then 2003’s career-defining One Word Extinguisher. It’s not that Herren has run out of creative ideas, just check one of his other monikers: Savath y Savalas, Delarosa & Asora, A Cloud Mireya, Piano Overlord or La Corrección. It’s that from the listeners’ point-of-view, improving upon those first two releases is near impossible. He has certainly tried though; first attempting to push his own creative boundaries by crafting an album of all collaborative efforts, 2005’s somewhat underappreciated Surrounded by Silence, and then heading in 180 degrees back to the Prefuse 73 roots for 2006’s mini-LP Security Screenings. Both were bashed or ho-hummed by the majority of the critics, first for not staying true to the instrumental glitch-hop he ushered in, and then for being too predictable with his beatwork by returning to just that. Goddamn we are hard to please.

So what the hell is Herren to do next? If he can honestly not improve upon his first few productions, what’s the point in going on as Prefuse 73? He certainly has enough other outlets to still be releasing quality music (for example, Savath y Savalas was signed by the venerable Anti- Records for their last album), but that pretty much would be conceding to an increasingly fickle society of music lovers/haters whose current pedestals are only raised for a manner of seconds before their champions come clamoring back down to earth with near-unachievable expectations (this includes us obviously). Personally, I wouldn’t give us the satisfaction of quitting, no matter what the unkind reactions may be. Herren doesn’t either, and Preparations finds his Prefuse 73 personality both remaining true to his game and then turning heads by displaying his compositional skills in their naked glory.

Setting aside the “bonus disc”, Interregnums, for now, Preparations itself is the album I believe most fans were looking for as One Word Extinguisher’s follow-up. The exact definition of glitch-hop, Herren does what he does best: splices rap beats within a skittering skeleton of IDM, downtempo, broken beat and of course glitch while filling that framework with masterfully sequenced melodic samples. In fact, this album may be the most organic and melodic disc of the Prefuse 73 discography as the sound is not quite as urgent or rap-based and heavy on the classical-leaning acoustic instrumentation like strings, piano and xylophone.

Ignoring the lead single featuring Brooklyn psyche-poppers School of Seven Bells, “The Class of 73 Bells”, which we covered extensively on the teaser EP review, the strongest tracks on Preparations are held in the last quarter of the album. “I Know You Were Gonna Go” is made up of a barrage of undeterminable vocal samples that Herren weaves into the song’s continuously morphing melody overtop of a snare-heavy broken beat and ping-ponging pulses of static. That is followed by maybe the album’s strongest track “Pomade Suite Version One.” The beat stays similar from the previous song, but is now laced nearly unrecognizable beat-boxing, a series of glitchy and vocal loops, wisps of strings and xylophone and a free-jazzy baseline. The track never sits still, dropping into a groove for a matter of seconds before Herren manipulates and skews it and then scrapping it all together for the next. Though verging on overindulgence, the six-minute song contains more interesting, disectable moments than most albums do in their entirety. “Spaced + Dissonant” features Herren’s more laidback style as he opts for a more sparse beat and a stronger string presence. Once again, he chops samples of a female coos into fragmented melodies that are near inimitable. And finally, “Preparation Outro Version” is made up of pulsing pings surrounded by a myriad of stuttering ambient noises and free percussion, both acoustic and electronic. It ends unassumingly, but perhaps because there is still more to come.

Sadly deemed only as a “bonus disc”, Interregnums is made up of the orchestral backdrops Herren would eventually chop to pieces for Preparations, but presented here in fleshed-out, fully realized pieces. It is certainly not the first time we have heard this sort of sound from Herren, see especially the Savath y Savalas EP, The Rolls and Waves, and to an extent, the ambient tour only compilation, Sleeping on Saturday and Sunday. For the most part, he had just buried these compositional talents beneath more popular beat-oriented tracks, but showcasing them in their fully bloomed form was an excellent move to reclaim some of the intrigue of his once highly heralded reputation. Interrgnums begins nearly all orchestral: swelling strings, sweeping clarinets, resonant piano melodies and pinging xylophones. But as the album advances, more and more ambient electronic elements begin to accentuate the tracks. The most impressive number, “Spacious and Dissonant Part 2”, utilizes choir-like chants with pulsing orchestral melodies before breaking down the song with almost free jazz like outbursts and staticy electronic flares. Harking back to his early Delarosa & Asora moments, it reminds us that Herren started his career as an avant-garde electronica producer before grasping a hold of glitch-hop. At 52 mintues in length, it’s hard to consider Interregnums as just a bonus disc. There are moments of pure emotion, such as the all string composition “Over Ensembles”, and then moments that are a bit more trying, like when the swelling strings meet microscopic glitch during “The Ground We Lift.”

While Preparations is the main product here, it was an excellent strategic move for Herren to package in Interregnums, though labeling it as a “bonus disc” is a bit baffling. Alone, Preparations is another strong Prefuse 73 outing, but unsurprising if you have been a long time fan. Herren has not lost a step by any means, and his glitch-hop endeavors are still the peak of the stylistic niche, but being somewhat pigeonholed by his sound-concentrated monikers, it makes it much easier for most people to just write it off as another Prefuse 73 album. Interregnums is a much more intriguing album though, but mostly because it catches you off guard. Herren’s compositional skills are much more developed then he may let on, and it is a gorgeous 52 minutes of introspective music. The question that remains is exactly what Herren is “preparing” for as the album title suggests. Could this be the beginning of the end for Prefuse 73? As a listener whose tastes were widely expanded by being exposed to Herren’s music some five years ago, I hope not. But if it is the only way for the talented composer to further mature his music, then let’s do it; I’m excited to see where he leads me next.