Tomutonttu - S/T (Fonal CD)

From Brainwashed:

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the solo project of Kemialliset Ystavat frontman and respected Finn Jan Anderzen. This reissue finds Anderzen further pursuing his deranged and chaotic sound worlds, albeit on a much smaller, more intimate scale than with his better known group. Almost childlike in its playfulness, the album is a rich and colorful affair that will have heads spinning with delightful sensory overload.

Translated, Anderzen's side project actually means "dust gnome," which is about as close a descriptor as one is wont to find for such an approach, especially when considering the artist's penchant for detail. Each piece lays down a world of kaleidoscopic sounds that largely intermingle amongst each other more than point toward any decipherable point. This means that tracks like the opening "Tteema," with its pitch shifting fuzz and interlocking computer trails, leaves ample space for immersion into its unique vision, seeking its eccentricities in the broader scope of its whole.

Much the same can be said of all of the offerings here as Anderzen appears to incorporate an entire children's orchestra into his lineup. "Kohtublues," with overlayed bendings of a slide whistle bobbing between lo-fidelity keyboard meanderings, is at once nostalgic in its sense of youth and forward looking in its sonic conception. There is an elfish quality to its mischevious charisma when the looped vocals and birdcalls of "Live in EU I" mesh with the toy piano loops and various fuzed interludes, as if Anderzen knows he's playing unfairly by bending the rules so much and getting away with it.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this work though is not that it manages to be as dementedly pleasing as it is without making concessions, but that it manages to avoid the trappings often associated with this kind of cuteness. Rather, Anderzen's work is neither redundant nor overly precious despite its natural feel and fried aeshetic. Certainly psychedelic in its connotations, it is still a challenging and rewarding enough a listen to warrent significant attention in any mindstate.

Take "Oksat Pois" as ample evidence. Its bird calls, including owl hoots and morning doves, coexist among electronic shards of light that come and go to cartoony effect, playing off of the associations of the bird calls rather than riding their intrinsic charm toward any cheap success.

By the time "King of Nu H" closes the album it's clear that this is a certifiably distinct vision and one far beyond the developmental stages of the typical debut album. At once experimental, joyous, immersive and overwhelming, this is an album to be cherished in the world of new music, and one whose emotional content extends far beyond the technological or instrumental tactics used. Filled with mystery, it is a disc well worth returning to many times, as there is surely a wealth of discovery to be had. I'm glad to see it finally available to more than the initial 400 who bought the vinyl.

Apologies for the Sudden Lag

Just wanted to throw up a quick post about the recent lack of posting over here. Last week I took a two and a half day bike ride across state to get over to Cape Cod for a family reunion and since then I haven't managed to catch a second to get around to the piles of tapes in my bag. I figure it might stay like this the rest of the week (maybe I'll sneak one or two in) but otherwise I'll be sure to get back to it this Saturday or Sunday. Otherwise, I'll throw up a couple of the reviews just piblished at Brainwashed for perusal. Ah, summer.

Pier - Improvable (For Noise's Sake CD-R)

Just received this cool little package a few days back from Madrid-based label For Noise's Sake, which included some super nice looking numbers. Loved this one best of all package-wise of course, as the CD inside the envelope inside the ziplock gave it a special kind of toxic vibe.

No disappointments sound-wise either. I hadn't heard of Pier, but it's a pretty crazed situation they've got going on there as they take the 20-minutes present here to rally some pretty rattly improv goop gathered around thudding cardboard drumwork, shredded guitar mingling and some sax/trumpet/kazoo freak outs. Really tough to grab on to anything here as it all kind of rallies together, pulling from hardcore, free jazz, Beefheartian destruction and total free-rock mayhem. Might as well be some homemade instruments LAFMS thing or something. Like Airway redux maybe, only played with shit for equipment.

It's cool to hear a band letting loose and getting undeniably zany without being silly or overly conscious of themselves. This is some dedicated shit that's far more about finding their own groove than purposeful demolition. You can hear it in the little mini riffs that various members find themselves at a given point--the bassist rocking a near Chili Peppers line before losing it and throwing the axe down, the guitar hitting some chords and calling it quits when they realize they're playing something they've heard before. And when they all converge it's that much more effective for it. At least if you're of a certain mindset I suppose... Really nice and shattered sound, much more to come from this label (and hey, even one more from this band it looks like!). Cool beans, real stuff that gets moving and just don't quit.

Akatombo - Unconfirmed Reports (Hand-Held Recordings CD/DVD-R)

The soundtrack to the accompanying visuals provided on the DVD-R, this disc got sent to me from Paul T. Kirk, a Scottish ex-pat now living in Japan and working under the Akatombo moniker. Though his output is somewhat small (only one other disc released, albeit to some significant critical acclaim) it is more than apparent that Kirk is fully in his element, meshing dark ambient, industrial and dub into a brooding club sound that falls into--though avoids the trappings of--dubstep. When the visuals get involved it's an even more complete vision.

Truth be told though, the visuals aren't required whatsoever for this to be successful. There is an inherently grimy, urban feel here from the get-go, as "Friend for Hire" lays out some thick bass fog for a clacking electronic rhythm to glide over, creating a doom-laden, though motion-filled soundscape. Same goes for "Tondo," whose funky rhythm loop sees glistening neon light shards appearing out of the corner of the eye as you cruise the city streets. Extremely visual even without the visuals, this is some really well conceived stuff, and Hamish Low's slow and long guitar emissions steam the surroundings like sewer air.

"Cypher" gets into more ambient territory, gliding about three inches off the ground with shawl in hand as moody and mellow shadows drape over the buildings. Definitely something quintessentially Japanese about it it seems, can't really help but picture the lights of Tokyo and bustling subways as vocal shards are delayed across the terrain before the bad ass funk/bachelor vibes of "SSRI" serve as the Morricone soundtrack to some Tokyo gang movie. One of the nicest works here, but really it's a highlight among highlights, with the whole album clearly serving as a masterfully conceived journey. "Portable Pariah" could be African Head Charge if they took their cues from hip-hop instead of reggae, commercials instead of ganja (or commercials on ganja, maybe...) while "The Sand Collector" is a grimy and glitched out techno stew sent through the factory liens before getting sent to the cruncher. The closing "A Prior Disengagement" (not a bad title, eh?) thuds along with grim malice, displaying the snarky smile of a serial killer throughout.

The DVD only solidifies the already ample visual component of the disc. Beautiful work here--"Cypher" is all white-out fog stuff while "SSRI" looks like a cartoon overlay of city trekkers. Really wild and extremely interesting to watch. Not to mention the deluxe package, which comes with a couple newspaper cuts-outs )mine speaks of Ringo no longer wanting autograph requests) and photos--just uber-deluxe. The first release on the label too, so if this is any indicator keep an eye out. Beautiful through and through.

Hammer of Hathor - Tooth Eeth or Teeth Ooth (Shimmering on a Dim Tide LP)

Got this one a little bit ago as well, this time from Hammer of Hathor with the first LP release on their new label, Shimmering on a Dim Tide. A duo comprised of Mark E. Kaylor and Heather Vergetis, the LP looks, I dare say, spankingly wonderful. Nice uber-light image on the front and white vinyl gives it all a real ethereal look. Rather than complimenting the music though, the look serves the sound more in its opposition than in any mood setting role. Apparently the duo more or less shows up and plays whatever's lying around, making for a raw improv sound that is often focused on repetition and slight change more than endless momentum.

This is apparent from the get-go as "Run Run" features drums and guitar engaging in some pretty minimal dialogue. The guitars endless strumming of one chord rumbles on while the drums clatter along with it. Change does occur, but its more in the way the instruments are hit than in what's getting hit. Almost like some super minimal and loose Branca experiment or something, with a real focus on the repetitious aspects and the variations found within it. The next track is aptly named "Plum Blossom Killer," not necessarily because it sounds like one but because it's such a righteous name and the track is righteous as well. More or less all rhythm, the thing is a real experiment in garbage can gamelan, with some highly capable and taut drum work and odd inside of the piano (maybe?) strums. Nice little mini percussion orchestra thing, and again it goes nowhere, just drifting on nice and nimble-like, skeleton fever style. Seems to be a real focus here on digging themselves into a hole and setting up shop, which I'm all for. Refreshing to hear a rhythm thing too that doesn't veer into tribal pseudo-spirit conjuring. Just sounds straight fun to play in fact. Though I would say that by the end the plum blossoms are still in tact, if a bit loose on the vine.

The second side opens with an odd guitar and drum jangler called "Lady Hermit" that's odd as can be; angular and repetitive, the thing builds into some kind of crunchy take on minimal free jazz, almost like some Blue Humans thing or something. The drummer can really play here, and the odd meter and movement of the guitar lines are well on point. Nice and curious stuff that drifts on for a ways, cresting and crashing back to its origins over and over in some perverse take on verse chorus verse format. The closing "Black Butterfly" is a super stripped back drum, flute, trombone (?) thing that's equal parts Art Ensemble of Chicago and Chicago City Dump. Not unlike Alloy Orchestra's score for Man with a Movie Camera at parts actually. Clattery thumps and bumps accompany the spare order of the various tonalities before some wood block comes in to take it back inward. There's something very structured about all of this actually, almost meditative like some shakuhachi thing. Zen thing going on even, Monkish and ceremonial in the best kind of way. Get the feeling this could have gone on for eight hours, which is always a good feeling and a great way to end this one, which really has a fantastic overall shape and some spectacular moments in there. Nice.

Bipolar Bear / Talbot Tagora - Abstract Distractions (olFactory Records 10")

Finally getting around to this split after way too many months on the shelf. This here is a split 10" believe it or not, a format which always makes me think of a bygone era, 78s etc. Jimmy Lunceford doing "Blue Moon" or whatever. Not that any of this is really pertinent whatsoever, especially with regard to this outing. Given that I hadn't heard either of these bands before, it was nice to be pleasantly surprised by both bands here, which is to say that neither of them plays "Blue Moon."

Bipolar Bear is a trio out of LA (both bands are in fact), and they go with a pretty raw angular post-punk sound here as they roll rather quickly through five tracks. It's all good here too, with a nice overall sound that's heavy on the fuzz and loose on the atmosphere. Definitely an anthemic quality here, as the opener "Cape Verde" and especially "Library," with its extended guitar splay out and catchy chant. "March of Mudmen" could almost be an early Fall single, with a frenzied and buried sound that grooves without managing to peel its face off the sidewalk. Something quintessentially LA here for sure, especially with the echoed vocals--almost makes me think of Jane's Addiction or something in a weird and not very applicable way. Nice tunes, and plenty of energy to be sure. Nice that the production is kept low too, making it all mesh together into a soupy, concrete walled club thing, sweat included. Not too much that's showy here either, as the group is too busy moving forward to be bothered with pyrotechnics. That said, this is an extremely tight unit fully capable of shredding it all up.

As for Talbot Tagora, this is another trio effort and, while the sound here is less charred up, the energy is equally fertile. Definitely can see why these bands run in the same circle, as each have a penchant for unleashing it, with Talbot especially sounding like a bigger unit than it is. A bit less sloppy and more angular as well, with "Internet Fixture" opening to jostling, herky-jerky guitar work and pummeling drums courtesy of Ani. Great sound, and it only gets better too as "We Live in Sack" is a real demented rising line theme whose shrouded lyrical content is so far immersed that it sounds more like the guitar remnants reverberating off the ceiling. "Black Diamond" channels the pummel of no wave but filters it through some LA epicness via sing-along lines before "The Weather Man" closes it out with the most straight ahead punky number here. Super good split for fans of sloppy art punk stuff, these are two bands well worth keeping an eye on. Great twin bill too, they fit together like two peas in a, um, mod.

Omar Souleyman - Highway to Hassake (Folk and Pop Sounds of Syria) (Sublime Frequencies 2XLP)

From Brainwashed:

A recent discovery to listeners in this country perhaps, Omar Souleyman has nevertheless been a staple of, in the words of the press release, "Syrian street-level folk-pop" for years now. This collection unearths some of his strongest moments put to tape, compiled and lovingly assembled by the always on point Sublime Frequencies imprint. The result is a non-stop collection of the singer's signature grooves, which stand tall beside this shore's often paltry pop offerings.

It is always a difficult job task to listen to foreign music without bringing too many cultual expectations into the mix, but here most of those expectations are shattered in seconds. Immediately identifiable as an import, the work manages to erase any preconceptions, meeting its audience well beyond the halfway point and, arms folded, declaring itself with confident poise. From the opening "Leh Jani," whose snaking synth lines are met by Souleyman's instantly catchy melodic chanting, it is clear that this is a wholly conceived and realized musical approach.

That approach is marked by a dichotomy between the spare instrumental presence—most of it being played with only an accompanying synthesizer, guitar and drum machine, it seems—and the full, even over-the-top quality of the sounds used. Used in conjunction with traditional sounding melodies only deepens the strength of these works. "Dabke 2001," for example, presents frantically melodic arpeggiations engaging in a call and response with the singer as a steady up-tempo pulse pushes the whole thing forward. With synth tones resembling computerized guitar shredding, the piece is at once a kind of low-tech dance music and, conversely, a hyper-futuristic sounding space serenade.

The slower numbers are just as strong, often providing even more space for the eccentricities of the sound to come to the fore. "Atabat," an eight-minute mostly instrumental excursion, has a tempo so slow that the pitch-shifted melodies bring out the distintive potential of playing music whose melodic content extends beyond the limitations of the keyboard itself. Odd chirps enter and accentuate while the guitar frenetically dances above, further developing the content present throughout.

The nearly psychedelic beginning to "Bashar Ya Habib Al Shaab," with foreboding synth lines and Souleyman's echoing vocal refrains, is at once grating and cosmically attuned, relentless in its power before hastening the pace over halfway through to take part in a kind of droning rap. "Don't Wear Black, Green Suits You Better" continues in the poppier end of the program with more interlocking lines between the three main melodic providers.

Known for the dark sunglasses he adorns nearly always, Souleyman is a true Syrian legend who, we can hope, will finally have a chance to be appreciated outside of his homeland. Given the immense versatility of his outfit and the undeniable power of his vocal delivery, perhaps this is Souleyman's opportunity to extend his listenership. For now, Highway to Hassake is a fine intro to the singer's enormous output.

Volcano the Bear / La STPO - The Shy Volcanic Society At The Bear And Bird Parade (Beta-lactam Ring CD)

From Brainwashed:

As fitting a split as could be, this album joins two of rock's most experimental experimentalists in a meeting of minds that, as any split should do, provides new insights into the output of both artists, creating a fitting relationship between these two diverging takes on weird.

The disc opens with Volcano the Bear's five tracks, whose sumptuously layered take is, comparitevely at least, the more palattible of the two. Not that that means much here. "Our Number of Wolves" drifts from concrete scratch to ultra-slow New Orleans funeral music as covered by European avant-improvisers, while "The Boy with the Lips Inside" presents a spare beat and odd hummed melodies that trickle outward like some hi-fidelity field recording from hillsides yet uncovered, never presenting too much or getting carried away.

This comfort working with a single idea can be seen throughout here, as the extended "The Open, the Closed" presents sputtering synth lines and odd feedback that grows, shrinks, and grows again over its eight elliptical minutes. It is a compelling and, as is typical for the group, exceptionally well paced sonic descent before "Death Sleeps in the Ear" and the cosmically titled "The First Circle is the Eye" see the group moving deeper into the abyss.

La STPO, a relatively large ensemble of like-minded musical players (and I mean that in both senses) takes over from here, displaying their knack for oddly orchestrated mini-symphonies on tracks like "Guayaki," which could just as well be a meeting between gamelan classicists and early Zorn game pieces, and "Les Oreilles Internationales," whose silly and sputtering stop-starts, overrun with vocal antics, lunges deeply out of sync with any conventional genre trappings.

"Invalid Islands," opening with bent reed and string slides, eventually drifts into a kind of ether-drenched poetry before turning around and harkening toward a downtown aesthetic that's as much Pere Ubu as it is Branca, let alone Material. The closing "Colonies" is just as chaotic, jumping between sytles and approaches at a moment's notice while remaining entirely together and cohesive.

Given the strength of the music here, and the vast potential of such a tag-team as this, it seems a shame almost that the split wasn't done track by track. Given the world music influences, open sonic stances and moment's notice phrase changes of both groups, it seems like, rather than splitting the disc down the middle, this offering could just as easily alternate every other track. While the relationship of both groups is highly apparent here, perhaps there would be even more to discuss were they presented side by side and title by title. That said, this works too.

Vakhchav - In Embers (Stunned Records CD-R)

The follow up to Vakhchav's debut on Abandon Ship from way back (which reminds me... I still have some Abandon Ship tapes to finally get around to soon...), In Embers presents five tracks of Nickolas Mohanna and his guitar/electronics motions. Nice to see him teamed up with Stunned, as two rights always make a double right.

Maybe it's my fast fading memory banks though, but I seem to remember this unit being a little less contorted than this... eh, likely so. The important thing is that, whether it sounds like the Vakhchav of yore or not, the guy's still got it. The first number, "Morning Shroud" (nice doomy name there...), lays down some crunch quick, building static on static until the whole thing conjoins its rhythms into a real vault of hot air compression. Total destructo stuff here, with nice woeful lines hiding somewhere behind the shrapnel. Ok, I'm pretty certain that this is heavier than anything on that first one now... will have to go back and do a Venn diagram or something. "Teething" follows, starting from a similar rhythmic non-tone angle before Mohanna's guitar begins to materialize, wrangling some vastly distributed sonic material into a hovering hum that really takes off.

"For Who Has it Been Just a Thought" finds a similar approach yet again. While Mohanna certainly exhibits a real control and a full ability to "get there" with everything he does, it always seems a bit like a similar pace. Of course I'm gonna go ahead and bite my tongue now that the blissful synth zones have said track have faded out after a measly minute and a half... so much for similar pacings... not to mention the crunching sci-fi sounds that quickly follow on "Labyrinthula." Yowzers, space wars abound. The closing "The Drifter" is a long fuzzed journey down the waterfall, slow-mo sparks of yellow light and white water fumbling about. It's a lovely end to a disc that sees Mohanna continuing to subtly push the envelop, balancing sound and mood in careful, oppositional equilibrium. Lovely as always, and a nice package that continues with the body part overdoses of late.

Tuluum Shimmering - Longhouse Spirits Gather for Fragrant Island River Dreams (Housecraft CS)

So here's another one Jeff sent me in that last package, and so far I haven't seen this bad boy up on the website at all, so who knows where this number is, though I do have the 45th of 50 copies, so safe to say they were all made at least. Still, never saw this one posted anywhere, maybe it'll be included in the next update or something, though I'm pretty sure it is available.

Adding to the mystery, I have no idea who this project's participants are, nor really anything else. There might be one dude, or maybe four, but safe to say it's on the lower end considering the minimal slant of the sound here. Two sides of gently shaken psych drift here that's super nicely paced and drifting. Word has it that there are four tracks here, but for my money it's better to just take the whole thing as one long zoner. They all more or less present a similar angle on the same sound, with plenty of loping, lazy river lounging rhythms, meandering flute loops and rest easy synth stuff. Not so much new new age though, more new jungle age. Second track almost reads like a Monopoly Child jam slowed down a tad and stripped to its essentials, which can't possibly be a bad thing if you're reading this blog regularly at all.

The other nice thing here is the sheer quantity of music. Maybe it's the mood, but this tape feels like it sets the cruise control to 50 and just rides on and on. Like J.D. Emmanuel jamming with Don Cherry circa Brown Rice and Damo Suzuki (who showed up just to set the mood). Really nice, and two-sided for maximum pleasure cruising. Summer's arrived at last, and these last two Housecraft offerings set the tone magnificently. Adorned with more typically rad Astin artwork as well.