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COHungear moi
'While most of the previous COH records openly shy away from accentuated beat structures and instead build up their rhythmical content by layering waves and pulses, every track on TO BEAT is padded with just that - beats. The music transition is illustrated in the album's artwork, displaying transformation of a sine-wave, a tone, into a waveform which is "beat". This mathematical progression is made audible in the album's opening track WAVE TO BEAT. The rest of the album, however, steers clear from dull math and presents the beats in their more traditional context of what could be referred to as "adventurous dance music", taking the listener through various examples of beat use with the sense of playfulness and joy.'-- Editions Mego
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ShiftedSecond Wash
'There's been a clear direction of development in Shifted since it started, but up until now calling any of it something other than purist techno would be stretching things; Brewer would no doubt wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. Certainly his 2013 Bed Of Nails album presented a tenuous step away from the harshly clipped, razor edge techno he initially become known for, with the duskier sound palette and feedback-laced soundscapes taking in elements of pure noise and industrial music. Over the nine pieces here, for the first time the overriding aspect of the works is not techno, but instead Brewer's increasingly adept sound designing, and much more than before, there's an organic element that indicates he's gone past mastery of production design and into performance flourishes. Turning up the volume on most of the tracks here yields a techno beat somewhere in the arrangement, but more often than not it's buried in the mix, awash in layers of static, droning synthesiser textures, and often missing essential elements that create a much more impressionistic outcome than he has attempted in the past.' -- collaged
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Hiss TractsHalo Getters
'Hiss Tracts is the long fermenting collaboration between David Bryant (Godspeed You Black Emperor!) and Kevin Doria (Growing) that began with Bryant engineering three Growing albums from 2006-8. The partnership evolved, and they began making instrumental music together for the films of Karl Lemieux (GY!BE’s current projectionist). The duo produce a singularly haunting sound on their debut under the name, combining vital pre-established elements - Set Fire to Flames’ mysteriousness, Growing’s gentle meander - yet quickly establishing a signature all their own. The album moves forward as a dreamlike patchwork, with flickering dulcimers melting into decayed cassette tape drones, cut up dictaphone whispers morphing into cinematic ambience, and the ever-present sprawl of the pair’s electric guitars droning, fluttering and yearning in equal measure throughout.'-- Drowned in Sound
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Noveller No Dreams
'Noveller is the solo project of Brooklyn-based guitarist and filmmaker Sarah Lipstate. She has performed in Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Army, and as a member of Glenn Branca’s 100 guitar ensemble. In March 2008, Lipstate joined Brooklyn art-rock outfit Parts & Labor as their guitarist. Her sounds drift from moments that conjure vivid mental movies to something more amorphous and undefined—more visceral than visual. According to press materials for No Dreams, these songs explore “blurred perception of reality and hallucination in the twilight of sleep and awakening.” The result is intoxicatingly hazy music, more fit for a half-remembered nightmare than a movie, with images flickering in and out of focus inside Lipstate’s shadowy soundscape.'-- collaged
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Rie NakajimaOn The Desperate and Long-Neglected Need for Small Events
'Rie Nakajima is an artist, originally from Yokohama, who lives and works in London. She studied art history and aesthetics at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and sculpture at Chelsea School of Arts and Slade School of Fine Arts in London. Her activities are mainly concerned with creating sound-based installations and performances. In both fields, her work develops from observing physical responses to the context of spaces/places by using sound and visuals. For materials she combines found objects, toy instruments, kinetic devices, and audio equipment. She has exhibited at SoundFjord (London), Void+(Tokyo) , and has performed at Experimental Intermedia (NY), Milton Keynes Gallery (Milton Keynes), Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin), Phonofemme (Vienna) and others.'-- monoskop.org
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Jar MoffTziaitzomanasou
'As both a visual and musical artist, Jar Moff's approach to composition is not dissimilar to Burroughs' infamous cut up technique. With his latest audio product, a large archive (more than 220 samples) of musical fragments were collected, cut, colored, spliced and repurposed to manifest a multilayered montage, one whose source material becomes unrecognisable, masked to the point of camouflage. The sound-design is astonishingly dense as a result, an extricable weave of analog, digital, organic, and synthesised sounds whose effect has an unusual physicality to it, making Financial Glam both strongly visual and extraordinarily immediate.'-- The Quietus
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M.E.S.H. Imperial Sewers
'M.E.S.H.'s “Scythians” and “Imperial Sewers” both feature vocal cut-ups that wouldn’t feel out of place on Oneohtrix Point Never’s R Plus Seven, but their context feels much more grounded in the demands of club rhythm than an exploration of a hyperreal, futuristic VR simulation. Even so, the dense layering of audio on Scythians does create unusually spatial relationships for club music. Varying amounts of reverb and echo drench each stratum, the size and level of which determines the location of particular sounds in a simulated sonic space. Each layer seems to occupy a different area, as if Scythians itself is a massive club with different shows occurring in a variety of rooms, linking up with each other along a rhythmic axis. Whipple guides the listener through the complex’s liminal spaces, alternately swelling and burying sounds in the mix as we step through its thresholds.'-- Tiny Mix Tapes
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Olivia BlockOpening Night
'Ever since her 1999 debut album Pure Gaze, Olivia Block has been exploring the surprisingly ephemeral sonic differences between field recordings, chamber music, and electroacoustic improvisation. With each successive release, Block’s disparate sound sources have grown more and more synthesized into a coherent unified whole. Block’s music plays with idiomatic instrumental technique and an extreme integration of sound worlds to create totally new acoustic spaces. “Opening Night” begins with a near Ligeti-esque cloud of voluminous harmonies that eventually gives way to clicks and clacks that seem to come from within the ensemble itself, but gradually transform into something that sounds natural yet completely alien and warped.'-- Tiny Mix Tapes
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Locust Sky Black Horses
'After the Rain is the latest offering from Mark Van Hoen and Louis Sherman's Locust project. Following up the 2013 release You'll Be Safe Together, this new album sees Locust stepping away from the abstracted forms of previous works, presenting a more melodic/harmonic proposition. Bathed in a warm nostalgic memory, After the Rain draws on Mark's formative influences, primarily '70s electronic music. With greater input by Louis Sherman (who, although being born when Mark was originally taking in this music, shares an equal enthusiasm for this particular period of European melancholic machine music). Unlike previous Locust and Mark Van Hoen releases which relied on programming and sequencing, much of this new record was played live, creating a space where innovation is secondary to the suggestive power of time, space, mood and melody. Rich in melancholia and a yearning for a world once suggested, After the Rain explores a crack in the historical framework, one embracing female identity and astute observations of melodic atmosphere. After the Rain is a melodic electronic mood record which presents itself as a triumph of historical revisionism.' -- Forced Exposure
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tētēmaTenz
'While many music lovers have spent fall buzzing about the first new Faith No More album in 18 years arriving in 2015, another noteworthy project of FNM’s Mike Patton has simmered below the radar of the mainstream music community. Tētēma, the joint project of the prolific, multitalented vocalist and Australian composer Anthony Pateras. With Geocidal, they dismantle common notions of “place” (both geographic and of social construct), and use its destruction as a springboard into an alternate universe where identities are rebuilt and seemingly anything can happen. Recorded across several continents with an ensemble of accomplished musicians, the duo sculpt industrial noise, electronic beats, jazz, neoclassical, field sounds, tribal rhythms and even some quasi-traditional pop into an amorphous beast that is unlike anything else.'-- Wondering Sound
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Monopoly Child Star SearchersBouganvillea's Shallow Lobe
'Monopoly Child Star Searchers is the creative audio project of Spencer Clark (a.k.a. Charles Berlitz, Black Joker, and Vodka soap, as well as 1/2 of Skaters), whose Romance Audio trilogy under the moniker has sought to explore a metaphysical relationship with an aviary sherpa. Clark has worked with an array of artists, including James Ferraro, Mark McGuire, Dolphins Into The Future, and Orphan Fairytale. His sounds as Monopoly Child examine esoteric and spiritual concepts through hypnotic layers of rhythm and melody, and might be exoticist if you find “the outerzone of infinite space” exotic.'-- Underwater Peoples
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Lee GambleMotor System
'The creative arc Lee Gamble’s music has taken is a strange and wonderful thing to behold. It began with a literal tearing apart of his influences, and then set off on a journey to see how much further away he could progressively move from them. His first full-length release, Diversions 1994-1996, tore passages from jungle mixtapes, stripped all the beats out, and reimagined them as dysfunctional bad dreams. The word “abstract” is never far away when people reach for descriptions of the London-based producer—and with good reason. Gamble’s music is staged in an unusual place, somewhere between the unreal and the all-too-real, where wretched drug experiences at past-peak club hours somehow end up in a form of metaphysical drift into the following morning.'-- Nick Neyland
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p.s. Hey. ** Sypha, Hi. Ha ha, oh, I do know that by now, James. ** David Ehrenstein, An auspicious start! ** Steevee, Cool, I hope Millhauser's work pleases you. Looking forward to your film review. Everyone, Steevee has reviewed the 'newly controversial' film 'Foxcatcher'right here. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. The Barthelme comparison re: Millhauser is really lazy and unhelpful. It's like the endless Burroughs comparisons my stuff gets. That fiction burn-out you're going through sucks, but, I don't know, maybe it's good for the actual writing? I could see that. 'Masterful' is such a weird term. I mean the idea that there's this thing that writing can become that could be mastered by one writer such that other writers doing that thing in some way or other would be consequently lesser. I like to think that in writing everything is collectively owned and can never be perfected or finished. Or something. That steam organ thing sounds awesome. Joy Williams, so great, so distinct, I think. Definitely one of my very favorite American writer/stylists. Have a superb day, buddy. ** Kier, How do you keep doing that with my name? Wow. I'm shocked by my name's malleability in your mighty mind. It's so cool. I ate Mac & Cheese two days ago! Your non- or non-ish day is a good bed fellow with mine. No, circumstances beyond our control, or beyond my control at least, ha ha, caused yesterday to be a complete wash-out on the editing front, so Scene 5 won't be visible to the powers that be today. It's still where it was the last time I wrote here, but hopefully we'll have a long, productive editing session today so we can get it Vimeoed by tomorrow, which was our original deadline anyway, and hopefully that won't make the Skype session later today scarier still. So, yesterday I mostly waited to see if we were going to start editing and did other work on the blog, my text novel, correspondence, email interviews, etc. while I was doing that. It was fine, but to describe it would be to describe me sitting at my laptop with fingers moving and various expressions, most of them samey variations on 'concentrated', crossing my face, which isn't easy to do. I went out looking for food to buy at one point, but everything was closed. It seems like store owners here take New Years a lot more seriously than they did Xmas, which surprised me. So I ended up in the train station across the street buying and then eating muffins while watching people get on and off trains. It's the train station that handles trains going to and from Germany, so most of the people were German, I think. Uh, yeah, that's kind of the story of my yesterday. Blah. Today will hopefully matter more, and I'll let you know. What did ... shit, it's Friday already, weird ... Friday have in store for you? ** Misanthrope, Oh, my pleasure on the guffawing compliment. I hope I get to see you actually unleash one of those in person one of these days. I'll try to pre-plan doing something that will cause that to happen. HNY to you! I don't think I know Harold Jacobson. He doesn't ring a bell. Why is it called 'J'? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thank you. We need a wish of 'every success'. Much appreciated. That sofa time sounds really nice. It does. I got tingly and relaxed just imagining it. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! I've been wondering and wondering how you are! I've missed you! This is awesome: seeing you! Oh, so are you not handling ALG anymore? Man, concentrating on your writing is such the genius move in my humble opinion. Nice Austin Islam quote. That's a really good way to think about it, for absolutely sure. Real Pants seems really good. I just got alerted to it yesterday. And Enclave too, yeah. I had the same worry about the post-Alt Lit scandal effect, or I guess I wasn't sure how damaging that would be to people's reading and writing. But, from way outside the situation, it seems more like a decentralization has happened, or a new configuration has arisen or something mostly. I don't know. I was really happy to see the new 'Shabby Doll House'. I feel like that couldn't have come at a better time. Anyway, yeah. So good to see you, my friend! Please please hang out here as much as seems fruitful to you in your own great efforts. ** Keaton, Hi. Is that quarter in the cabbage thing one of those kooky New Years ritual things like eating black eyed peas? Over here they have Galette de Rois (sp?), these flat cakes that have a porcelain toy-ette baked into them, and if you get the slice with the porcelain thing inside, you not only get broken teeth, you also get good luck for the whole year. Oh, old Horror stuff, or stuff with classically spooky, anticipatory sounding titles. Okay. It is going to be great New Year! It really is! I really think so too! ** Bill, Hi, Bill! Happy 2015 to you too! Welcome back! Was Vietnam fun or interesting or did it have a quality that doesn't belong under the descriptive powers of those two adjectives? ** Mark Gluth, Yay. I'm so happy that you, of all people, liked the Millhauser post! Ultra-happy New Year, man! And, oh, I loved your Listi interview! ** James, Hi, James! 'Edwin Mulhouse' is one of my all-time favorite novels, yeah. Well, why not read another Millhauser instead of rereading 'EM'? He's almost always great. I think, as of this moment, that I will be visiting LA next at the beginning of March. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen, and, oh, am I looking forward to it. I haven't been to LA in over a year! Much love back. ** Slatted light, Hi, D! Cool about the Mullen. Yeah, seems completely logical that it would be great. The Carson too, I have no doubt. I.e., don't hate me, Anne, if I may call you Anne. I've actually heard of 'Lake Mungo'. I made a note to watch it at some point which got covered over in the gigantic pile of crap and non-crap on my desk. Cool, I'll make a new note and float it on the pile's top. Ha ha, good joke! And rimshot! I'm going to try to remember it because I only remember 3 jokes which I have now told everyone I know so often they are drones. The musical ones, not the flying ones. Good question about our film's future. Our producers are extremely cagey and vague with us about that stuff. I think there's some kind of deal in the US with some company who put a little money into the film's production in return for getting to do a really limited theater release and release the DVD. Otherwise, I don't know. I think the plan is to get the film into the best festivals possible, hopefully build buzz and then get swamped by distribution offers? Our producers seem to be into keeping us in the dark. But maybe I'll know more soon when we finish the film, hopefully sometime this month. Cheerio for now in return! ** Okay. You get another gig today, this one featuring new stuff I've been listening to, and please have at it. See you tomorrow.