Cosa Brava is a quintet formed in March 2008 in Oakland, California by multi-instrumentalist and composer Fred Frith (Henry Cow, Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog). Fred Frith's career began as a folk and later rock musician he co-founded Henry Cow in 1968 but has since diversified into a number of different genres, from avant-jazz to contemporary classical music. He has written scores for film and dance, and music for orchestras and string quartets. But, like a lot of musicians, the idea of "genre" is not really very interesting to him anyway!
The motivation behind the formation of Cosa Brava arose out of Frith's love of rock music in general and songs in particular. He said, "Over the years Ive done a lot of improvising, and composed a lot of music on paper. Ive written for orchestras and string quartets, directed ensembles of improvisers of all descriptions, produced scores for dance and film. I even somehow became a Professor of Composition! But I really miss what you can do with a rock band. I miss developing material through the push and pull of cooperative rehearsals, I miss what happens when you move away from the parts and start formulating things with a collective ear, I miss the single-minded commitment to a group identity. The musicians in Cosa Brava can improvise, read scores, AND rock the house. Like I say, if you pick the right players, chances are the music will take care of itself.
Frith had previously worked with Zeena Parkins in Skeleton Crew and Keep the Dog, and had collaborated with Carla Kihlstedt on several albums.
The Quebec-based group Bradyworks offers up a program of three major works of R. Murray Schafer for solo performers. Soprano Annie Tremblay gives voice to Music for the Morning of the World with 4-channel tape accompaniment, Tim Brady arranges Schafers Le Cri de Merlin for electric guitar, and Brigitte Poulin provides the world premiere recording of the Deluxe Suite for Piano.
- CMC.
On his sixth solo album for Touch, Jeck continues his perfection of using the record player as an instrument (not as a DJ) to create a long-form piece that has no sense of gimmick or clich
System are Denmarks longest surviving electronic super group. With a membership consisting of Thomas Knak (aka Opiate) Anders Remmer (aka Dub Tractor) and Jesper Skaaning (aka Acustic), their collective presence in Scandinavian electronica is all but impossible to ignore.
Formed in 1994 under the name Future 3 the group found instant recognition, not only in Denmark but also among international DJs such as Kruder & Dorfmeister, who listed Future 3's debut album among their top five albums of all time.
In 2002, after three Future 3 albums, the trio changed their name and signed to ultra-hip German label Scape, allowing the labels then very clear minimalist profile to spill over into their sound.
Now, with their latest album, "B", the group have returned to the practices of their Future 3 days when they were a major driving force behind the benchmark Copenhagen label, April Records by working entirely alone in their choice of tracks.
On the record you can sense that their pioneering spirit has returned. Dark ambient moods mix with sublime melodies, dubstep rhythms and a timeless production that refers to both Phil Spector's "wall of sound" and King Tubby's dub experiments along with Brian Eno's soundscapes.
But in spite of these references "B" still comes across as a sound distinctly their own, borne out of a mature melancholy and a knack for getting electronic beats to swing organically.
System, being an electronic trio, are something rare and according to the group there is something very special about the interplay between three members which is lost if one is left out. "We complement each other in a good way. Duos are often very intense and intimate, where a third member provides some extra space. This gives a more relaxed atmosphere, while it is still clear, who's doing what they tell.
While the roles on B are as they always have been with Skaaning on synths and keyboards, Remmer at the computer, and Knak as the aesthetician: listening, conducting and directing there are innovations to be found too, with the album displaying a far more robust sound universe and a darker keynote.
Theres also a nod toward England, with the two-step and dubstep influences that were first displayed on Systems 2007 Tempo EP finding their place again in B (the tracks Well Blank and Alpha, have been playlisted by dubstep-producers 2562 and Geiom). These harder elements often live together with a melodic side that hasnt been heard in the trio since the Future 3 days. This is particularly evident on tracks like All, Drk, Would and Meadow And Stuff, which draw threads back to the '90s ambient music that Future 3 were at the forefront of in Denmark.
The three members of System have numerous solo albums behind them. Many of Anders Remmer's Dub Tractor releases (on City Centre Offices), Skaaning's Acustic output (most recently on Rump in 2005 with "Welcome") and Thomas Knak's Opiate releases (on April, Morr Music and Raster Noton [with Alva Noto as Opto]) have achieved classic status within the Scandinavian electronic music scene. Thomas Knak has also produced for Björk, Oh Land, and remixed for Efterklang, Ryuichi Sakamoto among others.
Over the last few years, the three System members and Ghost Society-singer Sara Savery have released music as People Press Play (their debut album was released on Morr Music in 2008), leaning towards the poppier end of the electronic spectrum. These traces can also be heard on B, with the melodies given much more space than before in this context.
- Rump Recordings
The Whole might be avant-percussionist Jon Muellers first album for the Type imprint but its far from his scene debut. Working in a plethora of bands for many years (including Collections of Colonies of Bees and Volcano Choir with Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver), Mueller has honed his sound to a distinct peak, and over the course of umpteen solo albums and collaborations has cemented his status as one of experimental musics most revered drummers.
Following his epic works Metals (a collection of classic heavy metal rhythms) and the expansive and surprisingly beautiful Physical Changes, both for the esteemed Table of the Elements label, Mueller embarked on the heady process of creating a defining work. Intrigued by ideas of simplicity and acoustic sound, Muellers research drew him to Shaker crafts and quilt making, both deceptively simple practices rooted in the transmission of ideas. Over time these experiences were interpreted in many different ways, almost certainly inaccurately, and this miscommunicated simplicity is at the very centre of The Whole. Through a rolling, unamplified snare drum (a piece of kit perfected over a year of intense practice), booming low toms, hammered dulcimer and his own voice, Mueller creates a sound that is wholly original and totally beguiling. There are traces of folk traditions and lines drawn to the avant garde idiom but Muellers sound is so singularly perfected it is hard to connect him to specific peers.
The Whole is an album that sounds like both a relic of the past and an echo of the future. The ideas are anchored in memory and tradition, yet the sound is alien and sometimes impenetrable. Over time, as the messages are stripped back, an unabashedly gorgeous piece of work is revealed. Like a good book, it requires patience and contemplation to show its beating heart. - Type. - Full streaming available here. . .
More like a New and Notable Unrelease, but did anyone notice the powers that be over at eMu disappeared that 12 credit Fela Kuti Zombie Batch 3? I guess that 21 songs at 5.2 hours wasn't what they intended for that much. It's not to be found and has disappeared from my Download History.
- To put some words on this, I'll use this from a member of the LPD mailing list:
listen 1.
okay - theres something in this in like, but it kind of washes over me, nothing stands out, maybe a bit bland.
listen 2.
hmmm - actually it's a bit better than i first thought - now it sounds more coherent, makes more sense - but still maybe a little unremarkable.
listen 3.
okay - now it makes a lot more sense - i am hearing the detail, the beauty is hidden deep - actually some items are standing out with quite incredible texture and thoughtfulness.
listen 4.
!!!! !!!! - this is just incredible - loving this album - it's so coherent, flows with grandeur, does exactly what I want, when I want it, the detail in the tracks is outstanding - the interaction, arrangements and structure all make perfect sense.
listen 5 and on ......
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this record........ this is the greatest album they have done in some time - just can't stop playing it.
warm wishes
Paul
US tour dates & streaming of the first track here.
edit: it´s streaming of the whole LP(D) :-)
edit 2: well, it appears to be only the first 3 tracks . . .
At home in Eastern Europe and New York City, Ana Milosavljevic (aka ANA) is a musical dual citizen. Reflections features her broad talents as violinist, composer, and commissioner of new works all by women with at least one foot in both regions.
Ana has been acclaimed by The Strad as an imaginative artist willing to think big and by New Music Connoisseur as a virtuoso performer with a wonderful mix of technique, sensitivity and passion. This multi-talented Serbian native and Manhattan-based artist has performed stunningly from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, to Cornelia Street Café, and many points in between.
She is a pioneer at fusing elements of traditional Balkan music with other imagined soundworlds, often in collaboration with dance, theater, or visual projections. The music is colorful, sensual, edgy, and spiritual, often all at once. In addition to two of her own works, the CD includes works written for her by some of the more boundary-blurring composers around. From Serbian songs to a Belgrade soundscape, Buddhist chant to a bull-roarer, a dervish monastery to a New York dance club, artists with roots in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia will take you on a guided tour of the new geography.
REFLECTIONS represents my dual musical citizenship through the sonic experiences of my native Serbia and my current hometown New York. Each work results from collaborations with dance and visual artists, composers, performers, and technicians whove made similar journeys. We consider our artistic creations platforms for processing and making sense of our life changes, bridging the old and the new as we move from one location to another.
The CD title refers to both the mental act of reflection of contemplation, meditation, self-discovery and the physical act of reflection, what you reflect out to the world after having taken it in. Through this music I aim to reflect and to share thrilling and unforgettable moments of love, happiness, sadness, regrets and no-regrets, hope, peace, harmony, and gratitude, and, most importantly, how I came to find my home in my heart. ANA Innova.mu
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) celebrated a big birthday in 1998. She would have been 900 years old. A remarkable person of any era (she befriended popes, wrote herbal textbooks, ran a nunnery, and had mystical visions), she also left her mark on music history. The first piece of music by a composer whose non-Anonymous name we know, was written by Hildegard (a woman!). She even invented modulation in dramatic music, half a millennium before the idea caught on.
One of her dozens of radically individualistic compositions, the Ordo Virtutum, was chosen for updating by a team of New York artists appropriately named the Hildegurls: Eve Beglarian, Lisa Bielawa, Kitty Brazelton, and Elaine Kaplinsky. These all-rounder, singing/composing/acting women, took one act each of the music drama and recast it in late 20th century Downtown terms. Their 70-minute Electric Ordo Virtutum premiered at the 1998 Lincoln Center Festival with American Opera Projects directed by ace producer (and Einstein on the Beach original cast member) Grethe Barret Holby.
Hildegards ecstatic chant melodies sung in Latin are woven throughout but now surrounded by more modern stuff than was available in 12th century Germany: electronic keyboards, samplers, electric guitars, and dazzling lighting and staging: (replete with red lights, smoke, and devilish scenes of binding, rape, etc.). The story depicts the souls struggle with Satan himself. Dozens of personified virtues appear and ensure that the former vanquishes the latter.
Galaxy - "Anders Brødsgaard worked on this major one-movement galactic work for two periods. The first half was created in the years 1990-93, then it lay idle for a while. With a view to a first performance in 1999 the second part was finished in the course of three hectic months. Galaxy is Brødsgaard's most volumi-nous orchestral work to date with a duration of 42 minutes. In it he wanted to challenge the audience to try to span a huge amount of information without pauses for breath. It should therefore be added that a CD recording may be the ideal medium for such a demanding work, as you can choose the time and place for listening to suit yourself. The orchestral ensemble is as ample as in a Mahler symphony: it prescribes two percussion groups with among other things two pianos, a harpsichord, two bass drums and one tam-tam placed on each side of the platform. The strings often play divisi and at certain points have 25 different parts.
Galaxy was composed as an attempt to challenge the ideologically entrenched thinking in con-tem-porary music, the -struggle between the speculatively technical and the spiritually sensual. On one front, in symbolic form, you have the whole Darmstadt School and all it implies, and on the other mentors like Per Nørgård and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Why not bring these two basic techniques toge-ther and let the work move between the two poles, alternate between the introverted, passive and explo-ratory processes like the harmony and the harmonic series, and the extroverted, active and inventive processes like melody and polyphony? In other words, an integration of tonal and atonal music, triads and cluster chords, diatonic scales and twelve-tone rows. It became important in this process that there had to be no ruptures - the music had to develop coherently, imperceptibly grow and contract, smoothly change tempo, move from the simply grasped to the overwhelmingly complicated, finally arriving at a synthesis on the highest plane.
As the bearing principle in the composition Brødsgaard chose the spiral form. In mathematics a spiral is defined by a plane curve coiling around a fixed point while approaching or receding from the same point; a circle in motion that returns to its point of origin but at a different level from before. In nature we know the spiral form from the galaxy, the DNA molecule, the tornado, the sunflower, the snail shell and even the water running out of the kitchen sink. Brødsgaard also mentions two subli-mated spiral forms in world literature as models: Dante's encounter with the Ten Heavens of Paradise in The Divine Comedy, and the final scene of Part Two of Goethe's Faust.
The spiral motion runs through Galaxy in two parts, that is, it forms a double helix. At first you hear the note D in one apparently unending breath, while at an underlying level the note is harmo-nized spectrally' with the natural harmonics. A little later you hear the twin spiral on the note E flat, and so on. Quickly added to the process is a rising twelve-tone row in the double-basses, as a theme that comes to proliferate in what follows. For after a good 13 minutes the double helix has moved forward to twelve overlapping notes, each with its own overtone harmonies. All the events appear to take place in a zone of weightlessness, in unpredictable patterns and soft collisions. The tempo mark-ings vary, but you do not notice this.
There are four of these overtone-harmonized sections where the strings predominate in a con-stantly varying sound spectrum. Four times they are interrupted by the opposite pole, the wild, rhyth-mic, complicated, percussive and virtuoso music where the percussion of course predominates. The total of eight sections gradually draw together, become shorter and shorter, and in time you can grasp the 12-tone spiral that is built into each section, and the poles then merge: the divisive (regular) string music and the additive (irregular) percussion music fuse into something new and integrated. The ninth section is the turning-point. And look, says Brødsgaard: the acceleration that has just ended is reversed, and the whole work turns out simply to be a semicircular motion in an even larger spiral. Galaxy is dedicated to Karl Aage Rasmussen."
Monk's Mixtures "The jazz luminary Thelonious Monk, one of the first protagonists of bebop and a quite unique piano artist, more or less consciously haunts Monk's Mixtures (2009). Since his youth Brødsgaard has been inspired by the more progressive harmonies of jazz and the instrumentation of the big band, especially the phenomenon called the thickened line' - the block harmonies that arise when you build up a melody line in several parallel parts. However, you also find this sonority in the disposition of the organ stops. The sound produced by the mixture' stop comes from not one, but several ranks of treble pipes, as a rule at octave and fifth intervals, and the stop is normally supplemented with a given selec-tion of fundamentals to produce a unified strong and brilliant sound.
Anders Brødsgaard says that Monk has influenced his own view of harmony. Monk used dense, dissonant chords, indeed often clusters, and together with his jagged rhythms this playing style resulted in a unique personal idiom that left most listeners fairly mystified. Monk had none of the horror vacui of the other beboppers. The pause played a quite crucial role in his composition - he was extraordinarily economical with his material and left it to the listener to fill out the spaces, for example in his own versions of the classic Round Midnight.
Monk's Mixtures emerges as an extremely diverting work. One is tempted to add that it is neo-classical', because it evokes associations with the rhythmic magicians of the last century: the play of shifting time signatures, the displacements of the stress and the metrical counterpoint that also came to influence the great jazz musicians. The orchestral configuration is in principle that of Vienna Classi-cism, with winds in pairs and two score of strings, but extended with a rich, often resonant percussion battery. Precisely with a view to the basic idea of the composition - mixture' sounds - the shrill pic-colo is often used at the high pitches, while the offside' winds, the bass clarinet and the contrabassoon, operate in the depths in both solos and parts moving in parallel. In this way, contours strangely remini-scent of the Duke Ellington and Gil Evans orchestras emerge from the mists of sound without leading you to believe that Brødsgaard intended to write a true jazz score. But the inspiration is not to be denied, as indeed the movement titles express: Moving, Walking and Flying.
Woodwind, brass and strings. These are the three sections that leap forth in blocks in the neoclassical game of the first minutes of Moving. Forward in shifting time signatures, first in the woodwinds: nine, six, five quavers in the three-part legato melody of the woodwinds, with the pizzicati of the strings and harp as reinforcers of the sound of the pulse. It may not be intentional, but now comes a flashback to Stravinsky's neoclassical Psalm Symphony, launched into the lake of sound with a similar vision of sonority: the beat on the bass drum and timpani as an initiatory trampoline bound. The brass takes over as a four-part block in shifting duple metres, the woodwind and brass join voices, and gradually the string front grows to a power factor with a striking duple rhythm in opposition to the triple rhythm of the winds. This is the first wave, which is thinned out with a small parade of more soloist activity, and the next wave sets in with an unequivocally duple basic measure. This is where the unison big tune' unfolds in the spacious breathing of the winds; the cool jazz phrasing is present, but more and more friction is coming from elsewhere with the usurping semiquaver rhythms of the strings. The culmination resembles the big band's chaotic tutti explosions, raw and tight, a long juicy confrontation between duple and triple metre.
Walking is a slow passacaglia, and the title refers to the walking bass' of swing music, but by no means with the four heavy beats to the bar - on the contrary, it is in the spirit of Monk with many pauses and shifting times. It begins quite as expected in the depths with cello and double-bass, but gradually ramifies quite wildly into the rest of the orchestra. One soloist after another is manifested across this straying bass-line where one is particularly fascinated by the contra-bassoon's Fafner-like exclamations and the bassoon's affinities with Dexter Gordon's unruly tenor sax.
Flying might be a nod to Benny Goodman's Flying Home, and the speeded-up finale starts with a scene of jubilation in the now-conquered and truly flying 3/4 time. These 36 bars are in fact just an intro to an extended collective improvisation, with the solo violin as pilot. The woodwinds succeed one another in undulating rhythmic perpetual motion, and the brasses and strings cut in momentarily with edgy fourth-based chords like a blow-up of Monk's left-hand work. All this leads on to dizzying melodic concourses in the three blocks of the orchestra, each laid out in its own thickened line'. In time the differences are evened out, the instrumentation becomes brighter, the strings take over the stage - until the low-key luminous coda. A new version of the big tune' swings its way up into the woodwinds, and after several intermediate phases the work ends with a simmering, ever-fainter fade-out." Dacapo Records 2010
- "Anders Brødsgaard was born in 1955 and studied piano from 1974 at the Funen Academy of Music with Rosalind Bevan as a teacher. From 1979 he studied contemporary piano music with Elisabeth Klein in Copenhagen and piano at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Anker Blyme. Compositionstudies with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Per Nørgård and Hans Abrahamsen. Anders Brødsgaard began by writing rigorously structured pieces, inspired by the serial composers of the 50s - above all Karlheinz Stockhausen. In the pieces from 1990 and onwards he has been working with fundamental musical phenomenons like tonality and regular pulse and he is still inspired by the post-Pythagorean idea of a musical continuum between the musical parameters. An example of how such ideas can sound may be heard on the 65 minute recording of the piano cycle In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Dacapo 2008). Newer pieces still deal with rhythmic structures, for exampel Six Sax Examples (2006) and Monks Mixtures (2009) for orchestra which is recorded together with Galaxy on Dacapo Records (2010)."
Monocoastal was inspired by Fischers movements up and down the West Coast of America over the last two decades. Washes of tape hiss play homage to the Pacific Ocean, while multiple layers of details reveal themselves differently upon each listen. Tiny sounds originate from field recordings and are given the same attention as conventional instrumentation. Found instrumentssuch as a piano discovered in the corner of a salvage warehouse and a xylophone made of metal wrenchescreate sounds captured through both analog and digital recording. Detail is removed rather than added, and harmonic tones are discovered in natural resonances. The compositions on Monocoastal are built upon a bed of low fidelity textures, an exercise in restraint and tension. Space between notes plays an important compositional role to create this balance and tape loops provide organic repetition that wavers subtly with warmth and imperfection. There is a fractured and naturally worn sense to Fischers compositions, each one an object itself summed from carefully selected instruments and tones used in their making.
Monocoastal is another 12k release next to Taylor Deuprees Shoals, Solo Andatas self-titled release and the latest CD from Seaworthy + Matt Rösner that represents the current aesthetic of the label: a passion for acoustic and found sounds, a minimal of obvious DSP and synthesis, and a natural warmth created by analog recordings and the use of physical space. Fischers instruments include a variety of guitars, both acoustic and electric, lap harps, melodicas, ukelele, home-made instruments, field recordings, and the use of manually manipulated cassette recorders to create stop-and-start compositions. Much like Fischers creative blog DustBreeding, Monocoastal finds beauty in everyday objects and surroundings and portrays a hazy, personal narrative, like the cover photography taken by Fischer himself on expired Polaroid film. - 12K.
Jah Lloyd meets David Cunningham - the legendary recordings from 1978.
"The source tapes for this LP were recorded in Jamaica by Jah Lloyd (Patrick Francis) as part of a series he made for Virgin Records' Front Line label. The original tapes were not released and were offered to me by Front Line's Jumbo Vanrennen with the suggestion that I should "remix" the music. I accepted the project, expecting lots of time in one of Virgin's studios to play with the music and the equipment, only to be presented with a mono master tape.
So I began to invent (or perhaps re-invent) techniques of editing, looping, filtering and subtraction to deal with unremixable mono material (these were the days before samplers). The subsequent work took a long time: as I thought it might be something of an indulgence I worked on it at weekends and evenings rather than let it interfere with other projects. The techniques used here expanded my vocabulary of musical electronic (as opposed to electronic music) treatments and appear in a very different form on records made at that time. Notably "Fourth Wall", my collaboration with Patti Palladin, and my production work on Michael Nyman's records. The original players remain unidentified. Jah Lloyd used various combinations of musicians but did not include who played on which tracks." (David Cunningham, May 1995)
Basic tracks recorded by Jah Lloyd, restructured and produced by David Cunningham for Piano Records. Keyboard on "Flicker" by Julian Marshall, other additions by David Cunningham. - Staubgold.
For Hendrix fans - who don't necessarily want/need the whole of the new box set West Coast Seattle Boy - eMu's got it, some of the early disc 1 cuts, e.g. Don Covay, are album only, but the three Hendrix proper discs are available per track for those who want to pick and choose, with the exception of the 20 minute Young/Hendrix track and the 14 minute Stone Free - good news, those tracks are available at 7digital priced at 0.99 (Amazon also) like most others (except those disc 1 tracks). The Young/Hendrix jam was one I anticipated most. Happy camper I am.
$7.79 for a 3-disc set! ~2.5 hrs long. A fine way to introduce yourself to this excellent Scandinavian group, known too for their collaborations with Ken Vandermark and his bands.
Fredrik Ljungkvist: reeds; Magnus Broo: trumpet; Havard Wiik: piano; Ingebrigt Haker Flaten: bass; Paal Nilssen-Love: drums, percussion.
Sohrab was born in Tehran in 1984. He was seven when the Iran-Iraq war ended. His name, from an old poem called 'Shahname', means 'rouge water', which can also mean 'blood'. He started a punk band with his brother and a friend, which lasted about two years before splitting. Sohrab is totally isolated in Iran, with little or no connection to what is happening there. Sohrab is, like so many, displaced within his own country and occupies a similar internal cultural isolation. This is suggested by Jon Wozencroft's imagery and artwork; looking in through shattered glass and an air of menace underneath the surface.
He recently performed live at Berghain for a Touch night, with Fennesz, Hildur Gudnadottir and others. It was his first legal gig since a performance by his punk band was broken up by the police in Tehran...
He is currently seeking status as a political refugee...
The first half of a two-part live album from Fennesz, Jim O'Rourke and Peter Rehberg, documenting the trio's 2009 tour of Japan. This LP captures the Kyoto and Tokyo legs of the tour, with side-length tracks 'Kyoto 1' and 'Tokyo 1'). There had been an eight year gap between the last two Fenn O'Berg studio albums (2002's The Return Of Fenn O'Berg and this year's In Stereo), so to be on the receiving end of these two live albums so soon after the studio-based full-length is quite a treat. In reality, Fenn O'Berg's earliest albums, The Magic Of... and The Return Of... had owed much to this trio's live work - both being composites of various concert recordings, later edited together in post-production. It comes as little surprise then, that this return to the live arena sounds so surefooted. It's hard to say how much - if any - of this has been processed or manipulated after the initial concert performances, but the resultant outpouring of glitches, molten laptop drones and babbling synthesis sounds simultaneously chaotic yet fluid, recapturing the same sort of wildly experimental and slightly unmanageable feel of the In Stereo studio sessions. As with that album, these documents are incredibly hard to get a handle on; just when you think the trio are settling into some sort of inscrutably steady whirlpool of noise and tonality, something erupts from the surface taking you by surprise and redirecting your attention. It's hard to say why the Editions Mego camp chose to release this as two separate LPs rather than a double-album - if you want one, you'll undoubtedly want the other as well - but regardless, Live In Japan serves up a fine pair of releases, rendering the revered electronic super-group's on-stage sound in pristine, hi-fi clarity. Highly recommended. - Boomkat
On it's own, one of the great rock albums, arguably best of the nineties. This deluxe edition comes with two extra discs of material (outtakes, alternate versions, etc).
Even though I own the original, I still might spend thirteen bucks just for the two bonus discs.
Rafael Anton Irisarri's music is rich in imagery, and like Wolfgang Voigt's corpus as Gas it seems to paint a synthesized portrait of a particular place and time without getting too directly involved in it, in the more documentary style of Chris Watson and the like. During The North Bend you'll hear sounds that draw you into natural landscapes, but also muffled micro-melodies and huge, immersive sonic vistas fashioned from gusty electronic plumage. The standard and scope of production places Irisarri within the upper crust of artists in his field, and as with his work as The Sight Below the well-rounded depth of his sound will keep you returning time and time again. From the anthemic, looped fanfare of 'Traces' to the intoxicating, balmy orchestrations of 'Blue Tomorrows', every corner of this album brims not only with artistry and accomplishment but also a stealthy emotive grandeur that holds your attention for long after the record has finished. So yes, it's a struggle to convey the sense of what this music is without getting a little bit wishy-washy or sentimental, but The North Bend is without doubt one of the more worthy albums of its kind and deserving of your full and immediate attention. Highly Recommended. - Boomkat
"The latest solar blast of shimmering guitar noise from this US three-piece" Heavy Winged - Sunspotted
Heavy Winged are a sprawling North American trio made up of drummer Jed Bindeman, bassist Brady Sansone and guitarist Ryan Hebert. Over the last few years the band have released a cacophonous splatter of cassettes, vinyl and cdrs for Not Not Fun, Digitalis, Aurora Borealis and a handful of other esteemed imprints. Most of these have been mercilessly grimy signifiers of their buzzing free-rock style, and were recorded poorly to almost accentuate the harsh guitar tones and double-time blast beats. This latest jagged offering however is a rare beast in the Heavy Winged canon, offering a higher fidelity peek into their muddled world.
This time around the band escaped to a real studio to record two slices of extended sludge rock, which come across as wider than ever thanks to some fresh recording techniques. Something like an unholy union between the sheet-noise of Yellow Swans and the blissful sub-harmonic transcendence of early Mogwai or Sonic Youth, Sunspotted is an album that takes tried and tested sounds and bends them beyond recognition. Sure plenty of bands have made distorted, blurred, guitar noise before, but rarely with the conviction and wit of Heavy Winged. With their early explorations into doom and metal we find the band on a high, framing their high-octane jitter into something that could almost be mistaken for beautiful. Just as the aforementioned Yellow Swans took their sound from the outer reaches of noise to something, dare I say it, pretty, Heavy Winged have focused their three individual powers to come up with an album that revels in its depth and shimmering beauty.
It might take a few listens to reveal its layers but Sunspotted is a challenging and rewarding listening experience. Standing at the top of the bands already estimable catalogue of albums and EPs, this album finds them at a key moment, a moment where they have found a balance between fidelity and grit, harmony and discord. Step in, turn it up and let yourself descend. - Type Records. (Full album streaming)
Comments
Cosa Brava - Ragged Atlas
Fred Frith - guitar, bass, voice
Carla Kihlstedt - violin, nyckelharpa, bass harmonica, voice
Zeena Parkins - accordion, keyboards, foley objects, voice
Matthias Bossi - drums, percussion, sruti box, voice
The Norman Conquest - sound manipulation - Rec'ed by Okierambler at the other board - Thank you !
R. Murray Schafer - 3 Solos performed by Bradyworks
Analog Africa does it again with Afro-Beat Airways.
Pretty damn tasty.
- And a new Electronic Experimental label called The Helen Scarsdale Agency.
helenscarsdale.com
James Blackshaw - All Is Falling
Philip Jeck - An Ark For The Listener - (Touch - 2010)
System - B - ( Rump Recordings 2010)
Frank Zappa's Classical Selection
Jon Mueller - The Whole - (Type 4. oktober 2010)
- Don't think, just do it !
The Legendary Pink Dots - Seconds Late For The Brighton Line - (ROIR 2010)
- To put some words on this, I'll use this from a member of the LPD mailing list: US tour dates & streaming of the first track here.
edit: it´s streaming of the whole LP(D) :-)
edit 2: well, it appears to be only the first 3 tracks . . .
Ana Milosavljevic - Reflections - (Innova October 26, 2010)
Linernotes
ANA website
Hildegurls - Electric Ordo Virtutum - (Innova 2008)
Linernotes.
Joe Meek And The Blue Men - Magnetic Field - EP
Galaxy
- "Anders Brødsgaard worked on this major one-movement galactic work for two periods. The first half was created in the years 1990-93, then it lay idle for a while. With a view to a first performance in 1999 the second part was finished in the course of three hectic months. Galaxy is Brødsgaard's most volumi-nous orchestral work to date with a duration of 42 minutes. In it he wanted to challenge the audience to try to span a huge amount of information without pauses for breath. It should therefore be added that a CD recording may be the ideal medium for such a demanding work, as you can choose the time and place for listening to suit yourself. The orchestral ensemble is as ample as in a Mahler symphony: it prescribes two percussion groups with among other things two pianos, a harpsichord, two bass drums and one tam-tam placed on each side of the platform. The strings often play divisi and at certain points have 25 different parts.
Galaxy was composed as an attempt to challenge the ideologically entrenched thinking in con-tem-porary music, the -struggle between the speculatively technical and the spiritually sensual. On one front, in symbolic form, you have the whole Darmstadt School and all it implies, and on the other mentors like Per Nørgård and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Why not bring these two basic techniques toge-ther and let the work move between the two poles, alternate between the introverted, passive and explo-ratory processes like the harmony and the harmonic series, and the extroverted, active and inventive processes like melody and polyphony? In other words, an integration of tonal and atonal music, triads and cluster chords, diatonic scales and twelve-tone rows. It became important in this process that there had to be no ruptures - the music had to develop coherently, imperceptibly grow and contract, smoothly change tempo, move from the simply grasped to the overwhelmingly complicated, finally arriving at a synthesis on the highest plane.
As the bearing principle in the composition Brødsgaard chose the spiral form. In mathematics a spiral is defined by a plane curve coiling around a fixed point while approaching or receding from the same point; a circle in motion that returns to its point of origin but at a different level from before. In nature we know the spiral form from the galaxy, the DNA molecule, the tornado, the sunflower, the snail shell and even the water running out of the kitchen sink. Brødsgaard also mentions two subli-mated spiral forms in world literature as models: Dante's encounter with the Ten Heavens of Paradise in The Divine Comedy, and the final scene of Part Two of Goethe's Faust.
The spiral motion runs through Galaxy in two parts, that is, it forms a double helix. At first you hear the note D in one apparently unending breath, while at an underlying level the note is harmo-nized spectrally' with the natural harmonics. A little later you hear the twin spiral on the note E flat, and so on. Quickly added to the process is a rising twelve-tone row in the double-basses, as a theme that comes to proliferate in what follows. For after a good 13 minutes the double helix has moved forward to twelve overlapping notes, each with its own overtone harmonies. All the events appear to take place in a zone of weightlessness, in unpredictable patterns and soft collisions. The tempo mark-ings vary, but you do not notice this.
There are four of these overtone-harmonized sections where the strings predominate in a con-stantly varying sound spectrum. Four times they are interrupted by the opposite pole, the wild, rhyth-mic, complicated, percussive and virtuoso music where the percussion of course predominates. The total of eight sections gradually draw together, become shorter and shorter, and in time you can grasp the 12-tone spiral that is built into each section, and the poles then merge: the divisive (regular) string music and the additive (irregular) percussion music fuse into something new and integrated. The ninth section is the turning-point. And look, says Brødsgaard: the acceleration that has just ended is reversed, and the whole work turns out simply to be a semicircular motion in an even larger spiral. Galaxy is dedicated to Karl Aage Rasmussen."
Monk's Mixtures
"The jazz luminary Thelonious Monk, one of the first protagonists of bebop and a quite unique piano artist, more or less consciously haunts Monk's Mixtures (2009). Since his youth Brødsgaard has been inspired by the more progressive harmonies of jazz and the instrumentation of the big band, especially the phenomenon called the thickened line' - the block harmonies that arise when you build up a melody line in several parallel parts. However, you also find this sonority in the disposition of the organ stops. The sound produced by the mixture' stop comes from not one, but several ranks of treble pipes, as a rule at octave and fifth intervals, and the stop is normally supplemented with a given selec-tion of fundamentals to produce a unified strong and brilliant sound.
Anders Brødsgaard says that Monk has influenced his own view of harmony. Monk used dense, dissonant chords, indeed often clusters, and together with his jagged rhythms this playing style resulted in a unique personal idiom that left most listeners fairly mystified. Monk had none of the horror vacui of the other beboppers. The pause played a quite crucial role in his composition - he was extraordinarily economical with his material and left it to the listener to fill out the spaces, for example in his own versions of the classic Round Midnight.
Monk's Mixtures emerges as an extremely diverting work. One is tempted to add that it is neo-classical', because it evokes associations with the rhythmic magicians of the last century: the play of shifting time signatures, the displacements of the stress and the metrical counterpoint that also came to influence the great jazz musicians. The orchestral configuration is in principle that of Vienna Classi-cism, with winds in pairs and two score of strings, but extended with a rich, often resonant percussion battery. Precisely with a view to the basic idea of the composition - mixture' sounds - the shrill pic-colo is often used at the high pitches, while the offside' winds, the bass clarinet and the contrabassoon, operate in the depths in both solos and parts moving in parallel. In this way, contours strangely remini-scent of the Duke Ellington and Gil Evans orchestras emerge from the mists of sound without leading you to believe that Brødsgaard intended to write a true jazz score. But the inspiration is not to be denied, as indeed the movement titles express: Moving, Walking and Flying.
Woodwind, brass and strings. These are the three sections that leap forth in blocks in the neoclassical game of the first minutes of Moving. Forward in shifting time signatures, first in the woodwinds: nine, six, five quavers in the three-part legato melody of the woodwinds, with the pizzicati of the strings and harp as reinforcers of the sound of the pulse. It may not be intentional, but now comes a flashback to Stravinsky's neoclassical Psalm Symphony, launched into the lake of sound with a similar vision of sonority: the beat on the bass drum and timpani as an initiatory trampoline bound. The brass takes over as a four-part block in shifting duple metres, the woodwind and brass join voices, and gradually the string front grows to a power factor with a striking duple rhythm in opposition to the triple rhythm of the winds. This is the first wave, which is thinned out with a small parade of more soloist activity, and the next wave sets in with an unequivocally duple basic measure. This is where the unison big tune' unfolds in the spacious breathing of the winds; the cool jazz phrasing is present, but more and more friction is coming from elsewhere with the usurping semiquaver rhythms of the strings. The culmination resembles the big band's chaotic tutti explosions, raw and tight, a long juicy confrontation between duple and triple metre.
Walking is a slow passacaglia, and the title refers to the walking bass' of swing music, but by no means with the four heavy beats to the bar - on the contrary, it is in the spirit of Monk with many pauses and shifting times. It begins quite as expected in the depths with cello and double-bass, but gradually ramifies quite wildly into the rest of the orchestra. One soloist after another is manifested across this straying bass-line where one is particularly fascinated by the contra-bassoon's Fafner-like exclamations and the bassoon's affinities with Dexter Gordon's unruly tenor sax.
Flying might be a nod to Benny Goodman's Flying Home, and the speeded-up finale starts with a scene of jubilation in the now-conquered and truly flying 3/4 time. These 36 bars are in fact just an intro to an extended collective improvisation, with the solo violin as pilot. The woodwinds succeed one another in undulating rhythmic perpetual motion, and the brasses and strings cut in momentarily with edgy fourth-based chords like a blow-up of Monk's left-hand work. All this leads on to dizzying melodic concourses in the three blocks of the orchestra, each laid out in its own thickened line'. In time the differences are evened out, the instrumentation becomes brighter, the strings take over the stage - until the low-key luminous coda. A new version of the big tune' swings its way up into the woodwinds, and after several intermediate phases the work ends with a simmering, ever-fainter fade-out."
Dacapo Records 2010
- "Anders Brødsgaard was born in 1955 and studied piano from 1974 at the Funen Academy of Music with Rosalind Bevan as a teacher. From 1979 he studied contemporary piano music with Elisabeth Klein in Copenhagen and piano at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Anker Blyme. Compositionstudies with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Per Nørgård and Hans Abrahamsen. Anders Brødsgaard began by writing rigorously structured pieces, inspired by the serial composers of the 50s - above all Karlheinz Stockhausen. In the pieces from 1990 and onwards he has been working with fundamental musical phenomenons like tonality and regular pulse and he is still inspired by the post-Pythagorean idea of a musical continuum between the musical parameters. An example of how such ideas can sound may be heard on the 65 minute recording of the piano cycle In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Dacapo 2008). Newer pieces still deal with rhythmic structures, for exampel Six Sax Examples (2006) and Monks Mixtures (2009) for orchestra which is recorded together with Galaxy on Dacapo Records (2010)."
Marcus Fischer - Monocoastal - (12K november 2010)
The Secret Dub Life of The Flying Lizards (Staubgold 2010)
Thanks for the David Cunningham rec.; that looks very interesting.
Atomic - Retrograde (2008, %)
$7.79 for a 3-disc set! ~2.5 hrs long. A fine way to introduce yourself to this excellent Scandinavian group, known too for their collaborations with Ken Vandermark and his bands.
Fredrik Ljungkvist: reeds; Magnus Broo: trumpet; Havard Wiik: piano; Ingebrigt Haker Flaten: bass; Paal Nilssen-Love: drums, percussion.
Sohrab - A Hidden Place
Live In Japan Part One - Live In Japan Part Two
http://www.emusic.com/album/Spiritualized-Ladies-Gentlemen-We-Are-Floating-In-Space-MP3-Download/12217789.html
On it's own, one of the great rock albums, arguably best of the nineties. This deluxe edition comes with two extra discs of material (outtakes, alternate versions, etc).
Even though I own the original, I still might spend thirteen bucks just for the two bonus discs.
Hildegard von Bingen: Antiphona - World Premiere Recording (Digitally Remastered)
Bruno Maderna: Orchestral Works (Digitally Remastered)
Rafael Anton Irisarri - The North Bend - (2010)
- 32 minutes streaming @ Soundcloud.
- Rafael Anton Irisarri is also a member of The Sight Below
STUDIO IRISARRI
"The latest solar blast of shimmering guitar noise from this US three-piece"
Heavy Winged - Sunspotted
- Heavy Heavy !