HERBIE HANCOCK - Head Hunters (1973)

Review by: Mark Maria Ahsmann
Album assigned by: Eric Pember

File it under Jazz I Like. Oh, did I mention yet I like it very much? File it under jazz I Like Very Much.

Not just jazz actually. Jazz Fusion. But let’s not pick nits. Or fuck ants; as the Dutch expression goes.

Oh, OK, file it under jazz fusion I like very much, if you like. It’s a kind of jazz, isn’t it?

Under the shower I listen to classical musical. That’s good for the hygiene; physical as well as mental. And every once in a while, quite often in fact, I hear some piece of music that is if not exactly a piece of shit then at least a piece of music that does not exactly turn me on. Gives me chagrin. Usually the announcer tells me it’s Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when it is finally finished.

In the 80’s there was a movie about Mozart called Amadeus. In It young Wolfgang encounters a monarch who tells him he doesn’t like the music because it contains “too many notes”. To which the composer replies, very wittily, “Which notes exactly would you like me to remove, Sire?”.

Still, I think that was a wise king. Or at least he made a valid observation.

I don’t hate Mozart. In fact I love his Requiem. Very much. Fact is however that he wrote an awful lot of music that leaves me totally cold. Pieces that to my uneducated ears sound like futile exercises in cleverness. Aptitude tests. Series of meaningless notes that do not resonate with me at all.

My attitude towards jazz is somewhat the same. While I respect the tradition and the musicians and I’m fond of the mythos of the story of jazz the music is often boring or, worse, annoying, to my ears. All these bloody notes! Solo’s! All this emphasis on prowess. Chops! A very childish word: “chops”.

The same issue I have with some more technically inclined progbands. Trying to impress me. Well. Liberace had chops too.

Noodling. There’s some noodling I like but that’s more an exception than a rule. I don’t mind Jimi Hendrix’ and Miles Davis’ noodling at all. I like Fripping to some extent and was shocked to discover a couple of weeks ago that I actually liked one of those Yes albums, can’t remember which one. But that had a lot to do with the bass parts. (Definitely not with the singing.) Neil Young can noodle into my ear anytime. But I don’t know if that has anything to do with chops. Him and his old black sounding like a shot and leaking can of paint that comes tumbling down the slope in the morning. In these cases it’s the tone and the colour that I love.

But generally speaking I’m not fond of noodling.

Also I have this prejudice that jazz fans often have unpleasant, snobbish and presumptuous attitudes. But that’s not exclusive for jazz. Classical people can be very condescending as well. And maybe I ought to stick my hand in my own bosom. Could be I’m a poprocksnob.

Oh shit, I’m just reading the news that Lemmy has died. On the radio they’re playing the so called Top 2000 of All Time as voted by the Dutch public. I’ve just learned that my fellow countrymen think “We All Stand Together” is one the 2000 best songs ever made. No mentiön of Lemmy playing bass in the big hereafter, so far.

That makes me see red. I must be a snob.

I don’t want no sugar in my coffee.

So, I was just saying that a mild case of aversion to jazz because of the emphasis on virtuosity and solo’s and, more irrationally, because of the snobbishness associated with the genre.

Thus I frankly steered mostly clear of the genre, with a few exceptions like Miles Davis, whose tone I love (especially on Sketches of Spain) and vocal jazz like Billie Holiday. & I have an album by one Sydney Bechet that I like for some reason.

I was scared upon learning that I had to review a jazz album. Well OK, a jazz fusion album if you like. Headhunters by Herbie Hancock. Fear of noodling.

Then I put on the thing.

And it was a relief. I was fine & unharmed.

Of course, I could have known that I was gonna be alright with Hancock. So far I know only one piece of him, Rockit, - the jazz / hip hop fusion thing- , and I did like it.

What have we here? A very influential jazz fusion album. Referenced, listed, sampled a lot of times. Fuses jazz and funk and some African rhythms. It uses a lot of keyboards (clavinet and analogue synths mainly), saxophone and other wind instruments, various percussion instruments and it has fabulous basslines. No vocals.

Chameleon, the first track starts off with a really fat synthesizer bass line and it is very funky. An equally fat and pleasant keyboard sound is applied and there are a couple of breaks in the piece where the synthesizer sounds as if a space ship is landing. Or taking off. No, on second thought it is definitely landing. However, the bass, alternately synthesizer and conventional electric rules. By the way, according to Wikipedia there are no guitars on Headhunters but do I hear two rhythm guitar parts on Chameleon?

Somewhat more laidback, but still very danceable is Watermelon Man, the second track which happens to open with the coolest thing on the whole record, a rhythmic whistling pattern that’s played on beer bottles. (At first I thought it were flutes and was amazed that I liked it because the flute is the instrument I love least and dread most. It sounds wet, breathy, breathless, shrill and panicky. I always fear that a big lump of saliva will fly into my ear. Or worse. I don’t want no flutepersons climaxing near me. Most unsavory alas.) (But it turns out they’re not flutes after all.) Anyway: nice!

The third piece, Sly, is the one I have the most problems with. It starts out promising enough wih a beautifully fluid melody line but then it turns into a very frantic jazzy drum based piece which doesn’t have a memorable hook and is mostly given over to, yes, a lot of soloing on various instruments. I don’t abhor it and now that I hear it for the third time I’m getting used to it a little bit. Still I could do without the solo’s. Not my favorite.

Vein Melter, the 4th track is. Very evocative name by the way, especially when you read it in and think it is German which I mistakenly did at first. I have no idea what or who Vein Melter is in German but I would like to. Don’t know what is meant by it in English. Vein Melter is simply beautiful. It has a slow march tempo and it sounds mellow, sinister, introspective and lyrical at the same time. Once again it has a great bass line.

Probably many people assess new music by way of association with music that’s already known to them. At least I do. I can hear a lot of echoes of Headhunters in post-punk music without being able to quite put my finger on it where it’s influences show exactly. A Certain Ratio? Shriekback? Maybe I will find out tomorrow.

If it’s intention of this most alas game to spread new good music among the participants then in this case the goal is achieved. As I said before, I like it a lot. I consider a purchase.

JETHRO TULL - The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (2003)

Review by: Jeremiah Methven
Album assigned by: Dinar Khayrutdinov

Rating: 7/10

Best Song: "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

First off, I must admit that the Christmas album is not really my preferred genre of music. Sure, the basic Christmas canon has some strong melodies, but there are only so many times I can hear the same piece of music before it starts to become tiresome. What I'm generally looking for in music are original and unique ideas, not minor variations of the same old thing. 

Fortunately reviewers with similar biases as mine still praised this particular album, which gave me hope that Jethro Tull's Christmas experience would be the exception to the rule. And overall, I have to say that it is! On first listen to the album, I was immediately captivated by the opening flute/guitar riff to "Birthday Card at Christmas" and knew I was in for a rare treat - an original and engaging song that still maintains a clear Christmas atmosphere. Indeed, the combination of Ian Anderson's flute and Martin Barre's guitar sets the appropriate classical Christmas vibe throughout, and combine that with the strength of the tracklist - originals, reworkings of past Tull songs, and some more traditional Christmas instrumentals, and you get a Christmas album that actually stands up to immersive listening.

I also I admit I'm more of a Tull dabbler than acolyte, so several of the reworked tracks are new to me (e.g., the two 'Christmas Songs,' 'Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow') and I rather enjoy them. I also quite like the rearrangements of the songs I did already know ('Weathercock,' 'Bouree') as well as the new songs here. And since as a rule I'm inclined to dislike straight Christmas covers, I applaud Tull for managing to breathe new life into old chestnuts like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." In fact, that particular track is probably the standout of the album with the variation and complexity of its arrangement worthy of any strong instrumental track, Christmas or no, - from flute intro to laidback guitar to piano solo to an almost-metal electric guitar riff. 

If there's a flaw, it's that the sound is pretty similar throughout, so I do find myself starting to fidget a bit by the time this hour of Tull Christmas music starts to wind down. And since it's fairly limited in scope, it's hard for me to rate it as 'essential' in the context of all rock albums. But overall, I would happily recommend it to anyone in the mood for a Christmas album and it's certainly one of the best in its genre that I've ever heard.

This review is also posted on my personal review page.

THE VISIT - Through Darkness Into Light (2015)

Review by: Ali Ghoneim
Album assigned by: Kevin O'Meara

This album is to metal what Sparks’ Lil Beethoven is to electronic music.

Or at least that’s the conclusion I — someone who hasn’t listened to much metal beyond Sabbath — have made after listening to a 55 minute long “metal” album with no guitars. The metal tag comes from the band’s bandcamp page, so know that I’m not making any assumptions here.

Purely in terms of form and structure, I can see how someone could argue that this is a metal album. Chugging guitars are replaced with cellos, but you can still recognise the music that they’re playing as distinctly metal — again I don’t know much about metal so take that with a grain of salt. 

Prior to listening to this album, I had been aware that some metal acts liked to mix a lot of baroque/orchestral passages into their songs, but I was under the impression that those passages would then eventually gave way to stereotypical metal fair. Here, however, the whole album seems to be one prolonged ornate passage, which really caught me off guard the first time I listened to it. Here I was thinking: “Ok, the guitars are definitely gonna come in now….ok now……now?” But they never did, and the album was a much more interesting and engaging “metal” album because of it.

To be completely fair, it might very well be that these kind of metal albums sans guitar and drums are common, and that the visit isn’t doing anything new. In that case, my opening statement is a lot of hyperbole from someone who doesn’t know shit about metal. But AS someone who doesn’t know shit about metal, Through Darkness Into Light was a pretty enlightening listen. 

MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC - It's a Pony Kind of Christmas (2015)

Review by: Michael Strait
Album assigned by: Kyle Wilson

(A Review in the Form of Stream-of-Consciousness Notes)

Track 1: Six ponies. One choir. ALL AROUND THE WORLD OF EQUESTRIA – they don’t even HAVE Christmas in Equestria you FOOLS

Knowing that these songs don’t even have context only makes them worse tbh

IT’S SO GENERIC I CAN’T EVEN THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT. Just such a generic musical number. Lush instrumentation, I guess – many strings, gently-plucked acoustic guitar, childish vocals… ay, who’s surprised. I wonder how many parents were subjected to this?

Track 2: OH GOD A ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR INTRO FOLLOWED BY PUNK GUITAR RIFFS. IN A RENDITION OF JINGLE BELLS. When I say “punk”, understand I mean – compared to this, Green Day is fucking Nails or Amebix. I know nothing about these characters but apparently they’re overexaggerated to make sure the children can recognise them without the visual cues. I wonder how many people have masturbated to this? OH SANTA EXISTS IN THIS WORLD, HOW SEXCELLENT

Track 3: Rarity! She’s the only one I know anything about. She’s the best pony according to my ignorant opinion. Oh hey this one is a folk song. A drum machine comes in though. How innovative! Rarity is something of a dangerous innovator in the ponyfolk scene, perhaps – inserting mechanisation into one of the most traditionally spontaneous forms of music. At least I think it’s a drum machine – could just be one dude barely playing a kick drum but oh well. A veritable David Tibet, this lady

Track 4: Genericsville again. Arranged like any bargain budget wannabe-Disney musical number. At least it’s teaching children the word “boutiques”, that’s a good service. Considering how much the opening medley sounded like this, I take it that Twilight Sparkle is the Thom Yorke of the lot, i.e every project she is involved in becomes essentially a solo project of her own with none of the other members having any significant creative input. I hope you all get burned alive

Track 5: As traditional a lullaby as there is. Not the worst vocalist of the lot. Has a decent vibrato. Fluttershy, this is. Absolutely no impression Fluttershy makes on me hmm. Oh, I wish that I could fall asleep and wake up happy, wake up happy… Double bass! JAZZ

Track 6: IS THAT A UKELELE. Of course it is. This bitch is clearly the mischievous little cunt of the lot. YUM!!! I’m about to go full Anakin in this motherfucker. Not even the Younglings will survive. YOU ARE RUINING MY APPRECIATION OF THE GLORY THAT IS RAVIOLI WITH YOUR ENDORSEMENT OF IT YOU PINK FUCKSHIT. THIS IS LITERALLY THE LONGEST SONG. A WHOLE 3.20 MINUTES. PROG ALERT. PINKIE PIE – BOLDLY BREAKING BARRIERS. Actually this song is insufferable at the best of times and I don’t care if that’s heresy. God, can’t I just be listening to Carly Rae Jepsen instead of this?

Track 7: A male appears! Are they considered inferior in this world? They don’t seem to come up a lot. I should mention that this appears to be an original tune – good on ‘em I guess. I don’t even know what genre I’d call this unique masterpiece. It’s got pianos, horns, and a guitar – it’s… is it ska? I don’t know much about ska. I love Madness, though. The Specials are reputed to be good as well but I keep not getting round to them.

Track 8: Another male! An even younger one. This is a jazz song. Oh good god, it actually IS a vocal jazz piece. Some child out there is listening to this RIGHT NOW and enjoying it – and hey, to each his own! Personally I’m gonna make sure my child listens to nothing but Kanye West and Merzbow HE’S SCATTING FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUKC

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Track 9: Auld Lang Syne. Scotland is underrated. Shortbread is gorgeous, bagpipes are beautiful, and this song has always been wonderful. Apple Jack sounds countrybred – is this the woman who was the protagonist of that poem featured as the final song on The Roots’ album “Things Fall Apart”, whose husband beat her up and called her “white trash” when he wasn’t busy drinking? Why is COUNTRY TRASH singing this SCOTTISH CLASSIC, that would be like getting some FILTHY WELSHIE to read a recital of THAT ONE AMERICAN FOLK STORY ABOUT A TIMESKIP AND NINEPINS

Track 10: More generic musical number stuff. It’s a choir. THE FINAL FRIENDSHIP IS REBORN. THIS. IS. THE. FINAL. BATTLEEEEEEEE

Do ponies know what Harsh Noise Wall is?

Loyalty binds us together. This is filthy right-wing monarchist talk. People are not nice. People are not loyal. Ponies maybe, but hey, we humans enslaved the pony race and use them now as transport and glue so look who wins

Final rating: In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, There is Only War/10

KATE BUSH - 50 Words For Snow (2011)

Review by: Eric Pember
Album assigned by: Jeremiah Methven

This is an album I feel like I can write an actual review for, as opposed to a Christgauian blurb.

Yes, I will be writing more than fifty words for 50 Words for Snow.

Before I go on, I must confess that I prefer Kate Bush when she was at least trying to be pop. She kinda went too far off the deep end after Hounds of Love for my tastes. This kinda continues that.

For the first two tracks, the lack of dynamics honestly kinda bored me. I don’t particularly need busyness, but I thought they were curiously minimalistic for such a dense sound. The dynamics, however, started kicking in with “Misty”. From there, I was able to start getting into this album.

I think this album is meant to have the feel of background music, but set you off guard and make you start feeling for it just when you start to think you can ignore it. She has a lot of imitators who try to do this stuff nowadays, but she is still the best at it by some distance.

The sheer grandeur of the album is quite awe-striking. I wouldn’t want to listen to it everyday, but it perfectly hits the spot when you’re in the mood for it. I definitely agree with Jaime that her continuing to follow her muse like this is quite admirable. I suspect that, when I’m his age, I will start to feel a serious need for this album in my life.

As of now, I personally prefer to listen to her older albums that combine this juxtaposition of elements with accessible poppiness. I can’t fault her for not doing that anymore, though. Her still trying to be a pop star at her age would honestly be fairly embarrassing, to say the least.

This is definitely an album I will need to come back to eventually, and I admire her ability to keep up her unique vision for as long as she has. 

WIRE - 154 (1979)

Review by: Jonathan Birch
Album assigned by: Jonathan Moss

As the opening chatter of guitars, the crash of drums, and the morosely leaden voice of a man who sounded like a cross between slightly less depressed Ian Curtis and a more animated Morrissey drifted from the car speakers, my father made a not unobvious remark: “Sounds a bit punk-ish”. And indeed, it seems the band Wire were riding the punk wave that had exploded only a few years earlier. Only this was post-punk, which means everything has more echo and self-loathing.

  

The chunky sounding guitars and crisply recorded drums and bass gives the record some soothing oomph, although the deadpan vocals can occasionally verge on the side of monotony. The opening number, “I Should Have Known Better,” begins to resemble the diatribe of a love-sick teenager scribbling forlornly in his diary, and the self-indulgent attempts at anti-music such as “The Other Window” only serve to make me seek a window to jump out of.

However, although the album (non-descriptively christened 154) was a bit hit and miss for me, the hits were certainly the high points in terms of the musical soundscapes that were created. “The 15th” almost sounds like a slice of 2000s indie/dance pop that could have been released recently and has nary aged except for some noticeably late-70’s synth notes. The chirping of guitars and ending chime of synthesizer creates an almost zen moment of relaxation. “Single K.O.” is a bouncy number with a particularly animated lead vocal and haunting background chants, making me want to don a leather jacket, shave my head, and go out looking for a pub fight.

Unfortunately, what follows was another dud for me, an entirely atmospheric mood piece of repetitive guitar groans, with a dose of tom tom drums that seemed to drag for an unneeded 7 minutes. The attempts at building a tense emotional despair was admirable, but ultimately reminded me of a less interesting Joy Division experiment. Still, props for the dedication. A “touching display” indeed.

More entertaining nonsense ensues, and I remained unimpressed by some feeble Krautrock imitations, until about halfway through “A Mutual Friend.” The song segues into the singer muttering something about the months of the year, backed by the relaxing caw of an English horn, before climaxing in the chanting of the line “He might replace the old with the moon” that seems to have a greater significance I can’t quite grasp. But goodness, is it unconventionally catchy. The song fades out of this reassuring note, and opens with another proto-indie/dance pop number, “Blessed State.” Although clearly Bowie influenced, this is something that one could easily picture The Strokes or The Shins playing. The guitar riffs have great forward energy, and the steady drum beat is toe-tappingly addictive to my replay button. Most successful, easily accessible, and probably my favorite song on the album.

Two more dirges commence, before my attention is once again captured by the “Single K.O.” twin, another energetic tune called “Map Ref. 41 Degrees N 93 Degrees West” that begins to morph into an anthem for the post-modern, with the lead vocalist subtly announcing “Chorus!” in lieu of the chorus. Very meta! The album then ends with two more industrial rock tracks, and 154 comes to a bittersweet end.

I have to say, for my first Wire experience, it was more intellectually enveloping than expected. The melodies are often eccentrically brilliant, and the hooks are subtle enough to make repeated listening a must. Indeed, I must have listened to the record at least four or five times to absorb most of the subtle nuances (albeit in fits and starts). While only half the number of songs appealed to me on an aesthetic level, I can safely say that anyone with interest in Goth Rock, Grunge, Progressive, Alternative, Metal, or angsty Punk in general will find something to cling to. It’s a tough unforgiving ride, but the influence 154 has had on the post-punk bands of the 80s is something that cannot be overlooked.

Final Verdict: 4.0/5

SLEEP RESEARCH FACILITY - Deep_Frieze (2007)

Review by: Andreas Georgi
Album assigned by: Michael Strait

This album sounds the way it looks. I needed a hot tea after listening to it:) This is dark ambient, and as with all ambient music, it’s somewhat difficult to discuss in specifics. There are no chord progressions, to say nothing of melodies or rhythms, on this album. There are, in fact, very few musical elements, in the traditional sense. Only occasionally does one hear an extended note or chord on a recognizable instrument, which fades in and out of the background. The roughly hour-long album is divided into 5 pieces, all titled after the latitude and longitude coordinates of places in Antarctica. Not having the liner notes I have no explanation, but I’m not sure if it would make much difference to the listening experience. The division into 5 tracks honestly seems arbitrary, because they entire album consists of a continuous wash of sounds which ever so slowly and subtly changes. The mood, as I suggested, is indeed icy and it doesn’t really vary from one track to another. There is no point in trying to give a track by track summary. Nothing “happens” in this music. 

Listening to this album I think it does very effectively elicit the stark beauty and forbidding and threatening vastness of Antarctica. Apparently on the inside of the booklet is the following text: ...there is a certain comforting warmth in the encroaching slumber of hypothermia . This is DARK ambient after all :)

SRF is the creation of Kevin Doherty. Apparently Mr. Doherty intends his music to be sleep-conducive. It might be an interesting experiment to have this playing on repeat at a low volume while you sleep, but it might lead to some harrowing dreams. I’ve listened to it a few of times - the first time with headphones, and the next couple of times while reading. I don’t think the album stands up to repeated “active” listening but, as with any ambient music, perhaps the best way to approach this music is not to “actively” listen, but to let it wash over you as you go about your day, letting it draw your attention from time to time. This is intentionally “furniture music”, to use a term coined by Erik Satie. 

This is not an album that I am likely to go back to repeatedly, but it is an interesting listening experience, and I do think that it effectively achieves what it was meant to do, so THUMBS UP.

This review is also posted on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/A365F3CR3JRV12?ie=UTF8&ref_=sv_ys_3

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997)

Review by: Nina A.
Album assigned by: Tristan Peterson

To my most alas, I know nothing about Godspeed You! Black Emperor because I have always taken band names such as this one as a good clue that I should probably steer clear. I also know very little about the social and political situation in 90s North America and its capacity to inspire apocalyptic-sounding soundtracks but I do find that this does not significantly detract from the experience of delving into F♯ A♯ ∞ (and after all, the end of time has been an universal concern since at least the time of the Gospels and especially so in the 20th century), so let's dive right in.

The CD edition of this album is structured into three "movements" that each contain 3-5 sections with mostly appropriately minimalist sound, and it opens with the movement titled "The Dead Flag Blues". A beautiful string arrangement is shortly complemented by some nihilistic voiceover about lonely suicides, corrupt governments, people on drugs and an admirable graphic depiction of life inside a machine that is breaking down - if you are a fan of that kind of lyrical exploration you might find it beautifully poignant. But even if you aren't (and I most certainly am not) you can still appreciate the high quality of lyrical detail that might well surpass many other versions on this general theme by the cohesive picture it paints and the amount of actual information it delivers. Also notable here is that musical dynamic is used very competently and to a great effect, thus giving some spatial depth to the sound.

This first section of the movement segues into a claustrophobic and suffocating sounding sequence that is immediately preceded by a train rolling away from a station (maybe it took all remaining hope away) around the 8th minute and comes back with a beautiful mournful tune that evokes to me the image of Pink Floyd doing one of Mark Knopfler's western-themed compositions, and is resolved with a bright waltzy rendering of the first section theme with some folky violin.

The second movement - titled East Hastings - opens with some traffic noises and a prominent street preacher voice but then transits into something else altogether - the winds of the hopeless black desert of abandoned nothingness that awaits Earth after a nuclear war, most probably. But wait, it is not completely void, there is a solitary voice here. The gentle voice of a mournful guitar in the distance. It gradually gathers confidence to deliver an uninterrupted phrase. Yes, this is our solitary hero whose steady steps through the desert we shall now follow. He feels like the hero of a tragedy who marches forth to meet his destiny with grim resolution because now even the desert wind chorus is backing him much like the chorus of a classical greek drama would. And when the rhythm section joins in we can conclude that he is now the leader of a whole marching ragged group of desert heroes who even add in their own voices at some point (via a lovely string arrangement). This epic pilgrimage through the desert possibly in Biblical times arrives at a similarly epic conclusion around minute 12, and after a short radio transmission sample the desert winds take over once again, stronger this time in the aftermath of the epic culmination. You know, maybe we can even agree that East Hastings refers to some city way in the East and the opening traffic and preaching took place on a busy marketplace instead of the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood in Vancouver after which this movement is titled.

Providence, the third and final movement of this record, opens with a conversation in a bar on a busy street possibly, which possibly discusses what the preacher of the previous movement has said. You know, it is ordinary people losing faith now. In fact, I may well label this movement the personal introspection one because of the wonderful external-internal contrast that the beeping machinery samples of cruel objective reality vs the string arrangements of mournful internal monologue create. The subdued entrance of the strings may remind you of the way films are scored; however, the faint beeping sound still doesn't vanish altogether and therefore it reminds you that outside of the internal strings monologue there is still the silence of the external world. This sound later develops into a more full one as some percussions and guitar join and the tempo increases, before coming to a stop around minute 11. There are some more sonically interesting solutions for the remainder of the track including some wistful chanting at the side of a waterfall or possibly on a very rainy day in the second half of the track but eventually it peters out into some actual silence before the arrival of the outro that is named after John Lee Hooker and includes some very intense metal bashing.

So bearing in mind that this record gets labelled as post-rock, experimental rock and instrumental rock, is it actually pretentious? Yeah, somewhat probably. But not really. After all, it is a record concerned with apocalypsis and it is concerned with it in a very humane way - taking into account the people living inside a machine, the street preacher in East Hastings, and perhaps even the internal monologue of one of the people conversing at the beginning of the third movement. I get the feeling that it was made mostly because of those people and those are the heroes that make their pilgrimage through the black desert of oblivion.

It also reminds me of something I once heard in Art History class - that 20th century art developed the position that art does not have to be beautiful, and that it decided to concentrate instead on the eternal suffering of the human soul. Now, the concept of the bleak beauty of human frailty is not something nowadays unheard of, and maybe this may prompt you to label the sound of F♯ A♯ ∞ beautiful. I will personally abstain from making such a statement but I am certainly glad that I got to experience the sonic richness of it during my pilgrimage through this album, even if probably no amount of coaxing will convince me to ever do it again.

Probably the only question that remains for me is what the title F♯ A♯ ∞ actually means but since apparently the vinyl edition of the album has a technically infinite running time due to the locked groove of the final track, I am going to assume that F sharp and A sharp are also some kind of clever reference to the music on the album.

LYCIA - Cold (1996)

Review by: Red Heylin
Album assigned by: Hipster Sokushinbutsu

For those who did not know, Lycia is a group/project headed by Mike VanPortfleet, a guitarist from Michigan, with his wife Tara Vanflower, contributing textural whispers and wails as well as appearing on record covers, and bassist David Galas. "Cold" was the group's fifth release and appeared in 1996.

These, though, are not the main performers on this record. Rather it is dominated by two small boxes, an Alesis SR-16 drum machine and a Lexicon LXP-5 digital effects unit, backed by a variety of synthesisers and, probably, an Akai sampler. Guitar and bass are in there somewhere, lost in the mix, as is a piano, but, once again, these are mainly for textural effect.

In fact, the technology makes "Cold" very much a creature of its time, for it had just become possible, in the comfort of your own bedroom, to give the impression that you had hired a symphony orchestra to play at the far end of the catacombs of Rome. Anything that The Beatles aimed at with tracks like "Tomorrow Never Knows" could now be achieved far more impressively with a thousand pounds' worth of equipment. Lycia are very much a home studio project - gigs were once attempted but VanPortfleet has said "Lycia never truly made the live transition... In retrospect I never should have done it." He keeps his day job, churns out his CDs and fair enough.

Anyhow, the basic sound of this record consists of ponderous drum-kit loops emerging through a cavernous echo also inhabited by massive textural synthesiser pads and simple repeating bass, guitar and piano parts, along with the mentioned half-audible vocals. All of it. That's all you get. Do not expect to be able to make out anything like a solo, or even a melody, though a couple of the tracks have chord-changes. As for the lyrics, I had to look them up and, for instance, the track "Polaris", typically, runs for seven minutes and twenty-five seconds with the following sum lyric content;

"I am loving again

I am loving again

Polaris

I am nothing again

I am nothing again

Polaris

Polaris"

So there you are. This is ambient music par excellence - it inhabits your space with a certain mood and that is that. Just like, say, some of the efforts of Terry Riley or Jean-Michel Jarre. Really the only reason there is more than one track is so that it goes on longer. And it does - almost an hour. It is for this reason, my pop-picking friends, that I shall not trouble you with a track-by-track breakdown.

Do I sound dismissive? That's just my temperament. There's a place for such records. Despite the titles and the bleak, gothic reputation, it's not really eerie, edgy, bleak or scary. I mean, you can call it "dark" - there's very little treble on anything, just a huge wash of nondescript synth tones (also from the far end of the catacombs) - but it's quite peaceful. Heroin users could love it, because not only does nothing happen, it happens very slowly. A smart-arse might argue that one could just as easily extract a nice, slow, pompous riff from Pink Floyd or someone, make a loop out of it and play it at half-speed while your friends mumble in the bathroom - but "smart-arsed" is neither you nor I, dear reader, as I am sure you partly agree.

No, this record has the slightly chilly immensity of Spirit's "Clear" or maybe "The Marble Index" (again if you played them at half-speed, or it could get too busy). It's pleasant. It could suit those who want a musical wallpaper that lacks the conceptualism and minimalism of Eno or who find "New Age" records shallow or hackneyed or the various electro-poppers of Germany overwhelming in their tendency to change mood or tempo after a quarter-hour or to insist upon merry melodies. No such problem here. It just goes on... and on... and on. And I can imagine, given a proper CD and good headphones, all those distant massive echoey synthesisers could be truly immersive, and those repeating piano figures hypnotic. It's really quite nice. I might buy it if I didn't own those sorts of machines myself. But one thing I can say - I can't imagine buying more than one. Why did they do a dozen? 

(Thus endeth this review)

KING SUNNY ADÉ - Isele Yi Leju (2013)

Review by: Mark Maria Ahsmann
Album assigned by: Jaime Vargas Sánchez

Well, I like it.

I find it difficult to put in words what I like about it. It's JuJu, a genre of music which I know almost nothing about except that it's a form of African pop music from Nigeria and King Sunny Adé is one of the most renowned artists therein.

So: a non-review.

The last couple of weeks I've been living in a redecoration job that's gotten completely out of hand – let's say a demolished and leaky bunker with too many personal belongings in it for comfort. And shaky shaky wifi. And the occasional headache caused by ammonia fumes. So that's how I listened to this album. It is good music to do some housepainting to. Though my helping hand Franz Ferdinand disagreed; he said it annoyed him. Then I had to put it off; to humour him. Anyway; I dug it but I didn't have time to read up on the subject, let alone review the album.

The music is characterized by grooves of polyrhythmic drum and bass playing (all kinds of different traditional percussion, I suppose) very fluid and clear mulitple guitar lines and call- and response type of singing; the unobtrusive and very sweet, melancholic voice of Adé taking the lead. Of course I don't have a clue what they're singing about.

Adé had a moment of fame in 80's when a couple of his albums, Synchro System and Aura, (maybe there were more) were released on Island and distributed worldwide to general positive reviews. I missed out on Synchro System, heard it at a friend's place and bought Aura instead. So that's how I knew about King Sunny until now. Typically I never heard more than these two albums, my attention moved on, and I think that's exemplary for how many western listeners listen to “World Music” – from hype to hype.

Isele Yi Leju contains recordings from before the Island years. I suspected that Adé's sound on the Island albums was adapted to a large extend to what western audiences demanded. Also because the rhythmic patterns are not dissimilar to those used by Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel, to name but a few. However, this is not the case, apart from the obligatory 80's stereoids treatment on the drums the sound is mostly the same.

There's also a large resemblance to traditional Surinamese music, Kawina and Kaseko, that you hear a lot if you live in Amsterdam (as there are many people with a Surinamese background here).

This is music that is better experienced in a live setting or at a party – great for hip-shaking. When heard in the background it can become a bit monotonous at times. But the painting comes along nicely with this album. As long as Franz Ferdinand isn't here.

You should try to redecorate my apartment for a change. See how you like it. Anyway, I have work to do. Fixing a hole.

BROADCAST - Tender Buttons (2005)

Review by: Jared Walske
Album assigned by: Eric Pember

I'm not familiar with all of Broadcast's output - I really only know this album and their debut, The Noise Made by People - but I find it very easy to believe that this is their peak as a band. The same kind of icy and dreamy pop sound that was a dominated Noise is still here, but it's been augmented by a sharper edge that gives their music a little more kick without overwhelming the softer aspects of their sound. A superb example of this can be seen in the opening track "I Found The F". Musically, it's not dissimilar to the kinds of songs Broadcast were already known for, but their earlier material would have used a less coarse-sounding synthesizer tone and would not have emphasized the drums and bass line as much. this becomes every more prominent on the following song, "Black Cat", which is driven by abrasive bed of electronic noise underneath Trish Keenan's vocal line. This blending of the pretty and the spiky runs throughout the album and while I could see someone getting tired of the sound by the end of the album, I don't count myself among them. Listening to this album always makes me a little sad that Broadcast only made one album in this particular mode and makes Trish Keenan's death in 2011 all the more tragic, as I think her singing and vocal melodies are what really help hold this album together. Give the album a listen and then tell your friends to listen to it too. You won't be disappointed.

Highlights: "I Found The F", "Black Cat", and "Corporeal" stand out as obvious highlights for me, but I suspect that's more personal preference than anything else.

Lowlights: None. Unless this style of dream pop doesn't do anything for you, you'll probably at least enjoy everything here.

CROSS RECORD - Be Good (2013)

Review by: Eden Hunter
Album assigned by: Dinar Khayrutdinov

Be Good, the first full-length release from confused indie rockers Cross Record, opens with three minutes of tenuous bass mumblings. It sounds both inescapably fragile and powerfully creepy, and that’s a feeling that carries itself through the album’s whole runtime. Even in the most dramatic, grandiose moments, there’s a constant sense that this is all some kind of pose, as if everything could fall apart if you pressed the wrong buttons.

Cross Record are masters of atmosphere, and, in addition to the fragility they summon, there’s also a palpable cloud of grimness passing over the whole album. The instrumentation constantly retains a sense of hazy ambiguity. It’s assisted by the lyrics, which always feel masterfully curated to summon both visceral emotion and atmosphere. There’s a moment in Cups in the Sink where everything slows down and the lyrics repeat the words, “Let me go/Please just let me go.” Emily Cross’ vocals fall somewhere in between Joanna Newsom and Chelsea Wolfe, and when she’s putting forth indictments as searing and brutal as that, another truth comes to mind; Be Good is absolutely terrifying music.

This terror is perhaps captured most powerfully on late-album highlight Dirt Nap. It builds up through an increasingly punishing pattern of monastic drumming, before exploding into a series of harrowing sonic revelations. The track is only four minutes long, but more than anything else on Be Good, it feels like a comprehensive statement.

Dirt Nap’s strengths, however, highlight a whole lot of the album’s fundamental weaknesses. At around four-and-a-half minutes, it’s the longest track on Be Good, and it’s the only one that really gets the chance to thematically resolve. There’s a whole lot of really interesting stuff happening on the album, but it feels like Cross Record aren’t really working towards anything. The end result is more like a haunted house than an existential revelation – a superficially harrowing atmosphere hiding what is ultimately fundamentally contentless art.

65/100

VERSHKI DA KORESHKI - Vershki da Koreshki (1996)

Review by: Eric Pember
Album assigned by: Mark Maria Ahsmann

Man, this is even harder to review than the Peter Tosh album was. It’s basically just moody jazzy throat singing. I think I’d go batty if I were to listen to this all the time, but it’s rather neat to listen to every once in a while.

KATE BUSH - Aerial (2005)

Review by: Jaime Vargas Sánchez
Album assigned by: Jonathan Birch

The first impression that I got when “King of the Mountain” started was “this sounds like a slightly nuttier version of Peter Gabriel”. But that’s an oversimplification. Yes, it has the expected belabored programmed backgrounds and synth sounds, and her vocals still have that edge that sets her apart from your typical female pop-rock singer. It also has several traditional sounds that are very welcome in an album like this. For example, in the opening song, after the first chorus the listener runs into a rhythm guitar that, not only has a decidedly retro sound but is mixed much higher than guitars in contemporary pop usually are; I think that the relative level of the guitar in the mix is as responsible as the tone, if not more, for the “Sixties” vibe I get from it. The contrast between this guitar (mistakenly described as “reggae” throughout the Internet) and the 80s rock drum sound is interesting.

But sonic variety works also in a macro level. For example, “Pi” also has live drums but this time they sound like prog rock drums, which alongside the acoustic guitar, bass synth and pulse-wave shaped keyboards (a la “Won’t get fooled again”) should sound like a Seventies throwback… but it doesn’t. And throughout the album? We get Renaissance flavourings (“Bertie”, which is by the way Kate’s son and the reason why there was a large time gap before this album; the inspiration is worth the wait). We get piano ballads. We get guitar-based, New Wave-ish pop (with bouts of funny noises). We get electronica-influenced backdrops.

However this is not a simple exercise of style. Apart from all the art song trappings the album features genuinely moving melodies, sung expressively, and idiosyncratic but heartfelt lyrics. Who else would write a poignant piano ballad from the point of view of a housewife daydreaming while washing a load of clothes? (“Mrs. Bartolozzi”). Or a song like “Pi”, which seems to be about a mathematician (or maybe an autistic savant?), set to a rhythm that paints a vivid picture of the protagonist dancing, alone, oblivious to everyone, in his room with the decimal figures running through his brain? Or a song like “How to be Invisible” which you probably have to live inside Kate’s head to decode any metaphors and hidden meanings, if there are any, that is?

After the incredible stretch that spans from “Pi” to “How to be invisible”, “Joanni” seems to me a relative letdown, but “A Coral Room” is starkly beautiful, not as instantly memorable as the rest, but a grower and a suitable conclusion to the first CD.

Ah, I didn’t tell you this was a double album?

Well, what would you say if I told you the second CD consists of a single piece?

Actually “A Sky Of Honey” is a kind of a suite comprised of individual linked sections. Shades of “Thick as a brick” or “A Passion Play” here (actually, like the latter, the different sections have their own titles, and the first CD edition had them indexed separately; the reissue just has it as a single 40+ minutes track under the title “An Endless Sky Of Honey”).

From what I’ve read elsewhere, the suite just describes a day of leisure from beginning to end. Hardly the most epic of subjects, but domestic bliss seems to be one of the main themes of the whole album, and Kate tackles the subjects she wants to tackle, and who am I to object.

Sonically, this second CD is less varied than the other. Not only that, while the concept is interesting, the actual execution is, if any, more conservative than in the first CD, with several segments that sound like Eighties flashbacks. “An Architect’s Dream” in particular sounds like a textbook on how to sound like 80s Top 40 pop (you know – the synth pads, the DX7-type metallic lead synth lines, the programmed congas, the fretless bass, the so-low-you-cannot-hear-it acoustic guitar; the works). Most of the music passes by at an easy slow to mid tempo, but it kind of accelerates towards the end; the final sections range from “Somewhere in between” (a moderate pop piece with a very good and agile vocal melody in the chorus) to the lite funk of the (deceptively named) “Nocturn” and the unrelenting four-on-the floor of “Aerial”, complete with a bizarre laughter section and an unexpected epic guitar solo. Both of those are also sections which could have easily come from a 80s record, and in the case of “Nocturn” it might be not even a 80s Kate Bush record, but a 80s Fleetwood Mac record at that. Apart from those, the only section where it picks up the pace is the second half of “Sunset” which is arranged in a rumba flamenca style. Kudos for the effort, although with the preprogrammed handclaps and shouts it sounds more than a little inauthentic. That “Sunset” segment, however, might well be the best part of the entire cycle; at the beginning the backing is an unobtrusive but lilting jazz-lite, the vocal melody is memorable both in the undulating “sea of honey (…) sky of honey” phrase and in the pixie-like end of the verse, and if you’re willing to forget its plastic qualities, the ending rumba is a suitable finale.

To me, maybe the most memorable purely musical hook in the suite is the four-chord piano riff that forms the basis for “Prologue” – which despite the name is a full-length song. Not everything is; apart from the short instrumental “Prelude” there are a couple of short “links”; of those, “The Painter’s Link” is interesting with its guest spot for Rolf Harris’ vocals and the uplifting choir of Kates.

In summary, this is not a groundbreaking Kate Bush album, but it is more or less on the same level as her classic material. Which means it is highly recommended if you like your music non-trivial, artsy but not self-consciously “difficult”. If the middle of the road was as well-crafted as it is here, everybody would want to run through it.

On a personal note I have been haunted for days by the main keyboard riff of “Pi”, which, by virtue of whatever strange neural connections I have in my brain, insists on being merged with the coda of Dire Straits’ “Telegraph Road”. Weird thing, the human mind. Which is fine by me as far as it can produce works as good – and as needed in the comparatively barren landscape of the post-millenial musical world – as Kate Bush’s “Aerial”.

SUN CITY GIRLS - 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond the Rig Veda (1996)

Review by: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Album assigned by: Tristan Peterson

This is not an easy record to like; at least not on the first few tentative listens. Things are made difficult from the start and the first couple of tracks present a particularly serious obstacle to the casual listener, uninitiated into the ways of the Sun City Girls: hideous shrieking vocals that are reminiscent of nothing so much as a cat being slowly strangled or roasted alive over an open fire set to a feeble, scratchy accompaniment of out of tune guitars played with such obnoxious artlessness that your instant first reaction is to curl your fingers into a fist and head for whatever sound source that the music is emanating from. The point being that this is pure aural troll-ery at its finest and most music fans would feel no qualms about giving up on the record after having stuck it out for, I dunno, the first 5 minutes or so. 

I decided however to persevere and try and overcome my initial, understandable aversion to the Girls’ unrepentantly autistic levels of zaniness. And lo, my persistence was eventually rewarded. The album gets much more engaging and much less annoying as it progresses, and it improves even more on successive listens -- and although those scrawny vocals continue to be a point of contention for me, taken as a whole the record is definitely more hit than miss. The idiotic swirling chaos that marks the very beginning of the record settles down to a much more compelling musical morass that edges towards drone-y minimalism on the second disc -- and fuck those guys can really play. What you get for the most part is actually fairly conventional as far as late 20th century popular-avant garde music hybrids go; Sun Ra especially seems to be a big influence. 

I’m not really au fait with the rest of the Sun City Girls’ catalogue so I don’t know whether their other albums are this consciously ‘eastern sounding’ or whether this record was a focused attempt on the part of the band to discover affinities with a host of different asian musics, here ranging from gamelan and religious chants to hindi film tunes. They actually manage to do justice to the film tunes in question though with their thin nervy guitars and frenzied hysterical vocals it helps that the songs were utterly over the top in the first place. Cruel and Thin in particular seems fairly genuine and heartfelt rendering of the original (whatever it was; I wasn’t able to track it down) that really stands out in the midst of a record that is generally feels emotionally retarded if not deeply neurotic. But of course it wouldn’t be the Sun City Girls if one of the next tracks didn’t sound very much like a freshly castrated schizophrenic having a protracted argument with himself in an alley at three 3am to a vaguely gamelan-ish accompaniment. 

The highlight of the album however has to be Ghost Ghat Trespass, a collaboration with the great avant garde violinist Eyvind Kang that really showcases the group’s chops and allows them to stretch out their improvisational wings over the space of 34 minutes -- and trust me they go all out. 

7/10

UNITED WATERS - Sunburner (2014)

Review by: Francelino Prazeres de Azevedo Filho
Album assigned by: Steve Andrew Robey

Don’t get mistaken by this album’s name: it promises fire, but there’s no fire here. The element that prevails is water. Not clear, crystalline, French-Polynesian-sea water, either. These eight songs take place at the bottom of a murky lake, composing a psychedelic chill-rock record that stands out primarily by its extremely fuzzy vocals.

It almost seems like the singer is speaking from the bathypelagic zone, and it’s, texturally, pretty unique. If only he did sing something, instead of mumbling featurelessly and lethargically all the time! Due to this, not only are his words incomprehensible (at least for me, not a native English-speaker) but it is extremely hard to find any trace of vocal melody in most of the album. The only songs that approach a hook are the title track; the fifth one, ‘Our Beat’; and the closer, ‘Out of Flight’. The latter is also the only one to depart from the submarine mood, and only then in the coda, which legitimately feels like emerging from a long dive and is the strongest part of the album to me.

The instrumentation is sparse, but the guitars are good throughout the 37 minutes, with interesting riffs and cool textures, being the redeeming factor for many tracks. In fact, the album could be said to be defined by the conflict of interest between guitars and vocals. The guitars beg to be analyzed further, for they are not immediately attention-grabbing, but subtle in their intricacies. The vocals, however, are so dull most of the time, they actively contribute to make you not want to pay the attention the guitars need to be appreciated.

I feel sorry for the guitarist, who certainly deserves better, but I must give this album thumbs down. This is not an unpleasant album, by any means, and not an uninteresting one either, but it is very monotonous, lacks diversity and hooks, and there’s nothing there that makes me want to listen to it again.

THE RESIDENTS - God in Three Persons (1988)

Review by: Jonathan Moss
Album assigned by: Franco Micale

Franco loves the lyrics on this album, so I’m going to get them out of the way. They’re really good! I wouldn’t go quite as far as Franco in calling them “epic poetry” but they’re narrated with the humour The Residents are known for- of course for some that might be a sign straight away the album isn’t for them- and it does touch on some interesting philosophical themes. However I am no Alex Alex and thus cannot really go into the lyrics in any greater detail.

Alright, so this is an hour long concept album about a man called Mr. X - the narrator- discovering mystical conjoined twins with healing powers and touring them as a freak show. Then he tries to rape one and has an epiphany, or something. The story seems more like an excuse to visit Mr. X’s life and get some themes across than anything else. Anyway, the music, see the thing about the music is that due to the claustrophobia it seems minimalistic, though I’m not sure how genuine this is. Well, there’s a decent variety of instruments- guitars, synthesizers, horns, pianos, drums. Hell, even the synth, which I’d argue is the most prominent, switches between a low budget new wave sound and a grander, almost progressive rockish one. Still, the album definitely does seem to go for a similar vibe- one that seems to me to be like a seedy alley on an alien planet- and the Les Claypoolesque (only, y’know, this guy came first) spoken vocals give it a unity and repetition.

The album has been described as disturbing and while I wasn’t outright disturbed myself it does have some unsettling moments. But it also has a lot of fun parts! Take the first song (“Main Title From God in Three Persons”), which is dominated by pseudo-operatic female backing vocals that stay throughout the album, though not as prominent, save for some bits. Anyway, these slightly deranged vocals along with the almost show tune like melody serve to make it one of my favourite songs on the album. Then there’s “The Touch”, where they sing “fluttered down” which is very catchy, though in a different mood it could sound annoying.

The vocals could easily be isolated from the music and still be somewhat compelling, though I doubt you’d want to listen more than once. They’ve just got this quality, like they make this weird, new wavey avant-garde record also sound like a continuous talking blues song (a comparison I found original, until I read the Wikipedia page for God in Three Persons. If anyone asks I edited it).  

I must admit outside of other Residents albums for some bizarre reason this album reminded me of Philip Glass. Maybe it’s the minimalism- or the pseudo-minimalism- along with the female opera vocals. Now, these vocals don’t sound particularly similar to the ones employed in Glass’s operas but they serve a similar purpose and they definitely reminded me, to the extreme where the comparison was pummelling in my brain in an industrial headache that at one point got so intense I thought it was part of the album (not really). Outside of that this album seems split between artsy, melancholic songs, demented lo-fi children’s songs created by someone who hates children (and songs) and more peculiarly beautiful moments that remind me of their other album Not Available. And there’s some parts that sound like Scott Walker’s weird albums (sorry I couldn’t fit this in more naturally, I’m a hack). I would also compare it to Devo but let’s face it those guys were way better. 

The album is remarkably even, filled with poppy melodies, weird noises, artsy synths, catchy brass and eerie vibes (to clarify, not the instrument). Despite this there’s definitely some stand out tracks. One is “Fine Fat Flies”, which contains backing instrumentation that’d work in a noise record. There’s also “Loss of a Loved One”, which features the backing vocals singing “this is the sad paaaaart!” all meta like, backed by creepy- possibly synthesized- whistling and a mournful brass bit, while Mr. X narrates how his wife died (that’s why it’s the sad part!) Not even the detached southern spoken word can stop it from being a genuinely moving song with a peculiar sort of grandeur. The final song- Pain and Pleasure- also works well, sounding suitably climactic (backing vocals: “this is the end!”).

So, overall this is definitely a strong album, and probably one of the more accessible Residents album, to be honest it’s more art rock than avant-garde. Of course, this doesn’t stop me from pausing it when I hear my parents outside.