Another Good Morning: We Got an IMDb Page

I'm not usually going to use this blog to trumpet my own trumpet (if you can dig my drift), but here goes anyways. It's arts-related, rest assured.

So some of you may remember the short film April and I conceived, wrote, and shot earlier this year for the exceptionally great website Dances Made to Order (Another Good Morning, 2011 Burnam Family Productions), a 5 minute experimental dance short that we came up with and put together over a two-week period based on online viewer prompts. In addition, I scored the film, along with input from some good Austin musician co-conspirators of mine. Here's the link to Dances Made to Order below; if you haven't checked them out, they're a really innovative blend of dance, film, and improvisational creativity.

https://dancesmadetoorder.com/

Anyhow, I'm pleased to announce that Another Good Morning recently received an online IMDb page, as we currently have it submitted to both Sundance and SXSW 2012. I'll post the link here rather than embedding the video so you, the humble reading public, can check out the page. Thanks! We love you all.

http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi1018470169/

Album Review: Distortion of Events "Congeners"

Distortion of Events
Congeners - LP
Reviewer: Reed Burnam
3 Stars (Out of 5)

Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, a number of underground electro-industrial artists were building on the previous decade’s worth of sonic experimentation charted out by foundational industrial acts such as Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Einsturzende Neubauten. Throughout the 80’s, groups such as Sleep Chamber, Controlled Bleeding, Clock DVA, Lustmord, SPK, etc, built on earlier electronic predilections and obsessions, mottled with liberal doses of noise, no wave, 80’s goth, punk DIY, and of course Metal Machine Music, and began releasing a range of harder, darker electro-industrial records steeped in alternating tangents of ideology, hedonism, dread, and mysticism. Their sounds and directions both mirrored and refracted the wasteland of mainline 80’s culture, forming trends that would eventually bleed over into more mainstream acceptance with bands like Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and Front 242.

So why dig up ancient history? Because a quick history lesson is what the uninitiated ear is gonna need to process exactly what’s bubbling to the surface of Distortion of Events’ newest record Congeners (2011, Zodarion Records). Congeners is the first full-length release from Patton, PA’s Michael Lubert (aka Distortion of Events). As a whole, Congeners is so steeped in earlier-period electro-industrial that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t delivered on cassette as part of a ‘zine mailer. If some crypto-ethnomusicologist was to dig up this record 100 years from now with no adequate dates attached, it would no doubt be erroneously thrust backwards in the history books to the late Reagan-era.

Everything present on Cogeners is in its rightfully retrofitted place, from the minimalist beats and the dated equipment tones, to the repetitive, meditative song structures, right down to the garbled, mostly incomprehensible vocals free-floating throughout the album’s electrical detritus and darkened horizons. Overall, the replicated sounds of earlier epochs herein fall somewhere in between Clock DVA’s “Hide” (from 1989’s Buried Dreams) and Sleep Chamber’s “El Topo”, from 1990’s Sleep, or Forever Hold Your Piece. However, before making snap judgments, it should be said that what Lubert is doing here needn’t be immediately discounted as simply derivative and lacking substantial originality. Though influences are visibly pinned on both sleeves, where Congeners succeeds is in system-merging itself into the depths of a sometimes menacing and never uninteresting musical subculture, painstakingly recreating and building upon a generation of earlier tangents while managing to imbue the project with a peek at Lubert’s own larger vision.

And what is that vision you might ask? According to Distortion of Event’s bio, there are themes running through Congeners concurrent with general arcs in neo-mysticism, self-exploration, internal decay, magickal/mystery traditions, and even paranormal activities, all ensconced in a sonic backdrop that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Philip K. Dick’s darker novels, pulsating out of some subterranean network where the youth sway in unison to a switchboard futuristic tribalism.

Clocking in at 8 tracks, Congeners never loses sight of a doom-laden thematic centrality. Individual tracks are frequently claustrophobic, humming with sharp electrical energy and coldly encapsulating in their propensity to remain unaltered in structure and thrust. Standing alone, each track is a small window into a bleak hard-wired potentiality, taken as a whole the entire thing becomes a sustained meditation on isolation and discomfort.

Album opener “Surgery” starts off with a crackling frequency signal that leads into a mid-tempo plodding, stuttering rhythm line underneath Lubert’s largely indecipherable horror-film vocals. It’s an effective opener, setting up for what’s to come with minimalist precision. Beats come harder, faster, and more abrasive in some tracks, such as with the whirring metal gears of “Deadface” and the dancefloor machinations of “Abandoned Path”, as well as with the distorted rave-up “Illusion”, perhaps grouped together due to their aural consistencies. Congeners really shines with tracks such as the cold efficiency of “Vade Mecum”, which manages to arrange the album’s main thematic elements into a darkly melodic track that both hums and pops. Other album standouts are “Heritage” and “Decaying for Eternity”, both of which quite effectively manifest the sparse, doomsday effect Lubert is going for throughout the record, as well as “Universal Plague”, which is perhaps the album’s finest example of effectively marrying anxiety-laden undercurrents to piston-precise beats and a vocal track that is both haunting and menacing in its alien aggression.

However, despite the efficacy of the historical reenactments taking place herein, one of the overriding detriments to Congeners may be the deliberately derivative construction of its nod to the past, which in 2011 comes off as quite dated. This is especially obvious given the quantum leap advances in synths, sequencers, and home recording technology over the past couple of decades, though it is understood that datedness is an aim here. Another issue is the extremely repetitive nature of each track, which typically outlines its main idea within the first :30 and then simply repeats it for upwards of 5 minutes. The effect, while at times hypnotic and effective, becomes annoying after repeat listens, and a little more variety or experimentation with texture and change could have added a lot more curb appeal here.

In all, a solid backwards-looking effort that hints at interesting things to come, but lacking a certain something to warrant many repeat listens, or to update an earlier electro-industrial sound into the new millennia.

Congeners is currently available online through CD Universe, CDBaby, and Itunes.

Chasing Ghosts: Sun Araw's "Ancient Romans"

I'm a recent Sun Araw convert, having seen them this year at SXSW at the Longbranch with a colorwheel line-up consisting of A Place to Bury Strangers, the mighty Parts and Labor, keyboard head-wobblers Moon Duo, and Brooklyn's spaced out India voyeurs Prince Rama (among others). Good show all the way around, with Sun Araw and Prince Rama being the stand-outs for me. Despite their technical issues with the elaborate, mass-of-wires-and-gadgets stage set-up, Sun Araw managed to compel with their restrained, hypnotic brand of organically-looped tribalism electronic-a, and I immediately picked up segments of their back catalogue, notably 2010's amazing On Patrol and Off Duty, as well as 2008-9's Boat Trip, Beach Head, and Heavy Deeds.

Though Sun Araw's material can be hit or miss at times, it's always interesting, ranging from shimmering, psychedelic washes of electrified meditational sway, to space-dub aboriginal boogies, to tense, pregnant runways of raw sound perforated by cloudbursts of samples, all looping back into one another like some creative even horizon stretching the present moment into a multi-hued oblivion. There's the comparisons to Spacemen 3's experiments in delayed and determined melody, Popol Vuh's orchestrated master compositions for the cosmic third-eye and other new age sci-fi miasma, Music For Films-era Eno, just to name a few of the sounds one can hear bubbling to the surface of this strange brew.  I think I remarked to a friend after I had first seen them that they sounded like Spacemen and Burning Spear sitting on some Caribbean beach in the grips of an ayahuasca trip making music for 80's video game consoles (or something like that).  My initial reaction still stands.

Newest disc Ancient Romans in the main sticks to Sun Araw's (now) tried-and-true formula of lengthy slow-burn freak-outs coalescing around interwoven loops, cascading instrumentation, and funhouse vocals, with predictably trance-inducing results.  For my money, the output here pales a little in comparison to the brilliant psych-deconstruction present in On Patrol, with Ancient Romans lacking some of that album's phantasmal melodic undercurrent and the prolonged artistic restraint required to allow listeners to discover the gold at the end of the rainbow themselves, rather than the band beating it into your skull.  On Ancient Romans, one of the most readily apparent things about the album is the embrace of a more unified (straightforward?) structure and theme on each individual track, with some (such as "Fit For Ceasar" and "Lute and Lyre") coming (somewhat) close to materializing actual song structure, and album closer "Impluvium" standing two paces shy of being considered a Dionysiun dancefloor single for some future generation of the electric daisy be-here-now crowd. 

What I get the sense of overall with Ancient Romans, through imagery, feel, track titles, etc, is a kind of aural funneling of the idea of the ancient Mediterranean world down into the confines of Sun Araw's sound collages herein; thus you (I) hear the smack of the oars on wooden hull in "Crown Shell", the bustle of the sunbaked marketplace in "Crete", a moonlit walk through the darkened hills outside of Athens in "Lute and Lyre", or the pervasive majesty of the oracle in "At Delphi".  Perhaps this is just my imagination (and a little bit of the history geek in me surfacing), but it works for me when I listen to this album: the idea of a concept record by a band that seems to eschew any notion of concept anything outside of the acid-soaked tribal minimalism common to much of their other output.  If this newest record is an indication of future trends, perhaps we'll see Sun Araw begin to develop a more focused approach in their sonic meanderings, though like anyone else who's spent a good deal of time breaking open their heads, I know that meandering can be just as beneficial as a straight line.  Depends on if you have anywhere relatively important to be, I guess. 

Ancient Romans shouldn't disappoint Sun Araw zealots (of which I count myself), though new listeners would be better served starting off with some of their more dynamic output in Off Duty or On Patrol.  Still, what Ancient Romans has to offer is a picture window into some psychedelic revisionist history where the Caesar wears tie-dye and the wine never stops flowing.  Good shit, man.

Album Review: Bogdo Ula's "Prisoners of Freedom"

Bogdo Ula

Prisoners of Freedom - LP

Reviewer: Reed Burnam
4 Stars (Out of 5)

The newest album from Finland’s Bogdo Ula (Prisoners of Freedom, 2011) is a mind-bender. Space-odyssey guitars, a cooking jazz-rock rhythm section, spot-on technical musicianship and an overall sense of total artistic freedom combine to make this disc a stellar listen (pun intended). Light years away from any hint of pop conformity or herd-music mentality, Prisoners of Freedom is a sonic tour-de-force that relentlessly chases down its own muse and comes out the other end of the rabbit hole with some really beautiful and at times challenging compositions.

It’s been said that improv music is primarily musician’s music, and though this reviewer has always taken issue with the underlying presumptiveness of the statement, it doesn’t take much imagination to see the logic there. Bogdo Ula create a sound that, while perhaps not specifically aimed towards a musician’s demographic, is bound to generate plenty of technical oohing and aahing from those possessed of a musical predilection, both in tastes and abilities. However, one need not have any musical background to enjoy the fruits of these labors. Bogdo Ula crafts an unapologetically heady, jazzy maelstrom that pulls from a long history of experimental, psychedelic, and avant-garde influences stretching back over half a century. And they also rock, for good measure.

Present of course are the free-jazz spasms of Ornette Coleman, Peter Brotzmann, and late-era Coltrane, the freak-outs of Zappa and the Mothers, Metheny, and McLaughlin, the space rock explorations of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, the ecstatic Kraut-jazz-noise of Can, neo-shredders like Vai and Satriani, not to mention a whole generation of Japanese day-trippers receiving psych-communion at the altar of the mighty Acid Mothers Temple. And of course let us not forget the overplayed but never overrated Hendrix and the Experience. The Experience’s most insane power trio moments are often referenced herein (see around 1:35 of “Sounds from the Moonbog”, for starters).

Guitarist Samuli Kristian, Drummer Ivan Horder, and Bassist Jean Ruin comprise a tight, communicative unit, quite adept at extended improvisational excursions due to the mainline running between Horder and Ruin’s propulsive, expressive rhythm lines and Kristian’s inquisitive, volatile fretwork. There’s a nice overall groundwork of call and response, ideas being hashed out in the open air, riffs and runs being allowed ample space to blossom and bloom; all that stuff that makes good improv so difficult to do, and for some of the less inspired amongst us, more difficult to listen to (hence the “musicians’ music” designation). Prisoners of Freedom works out in its twelve tracks a road-map of adeptly maneuvered and expertly played sonic and textural landscapes that constantly cross-reference and return one to the overall solidity of this formidably talented threesome. While the general field of cutting-edge experimental instrumental music (if there can be an actual corralling together of such disparate outfits) has moved on to embrace the outlandishly intense and downright confrontational in recent decades, Bogdo Ula’s brand of probing space-jazz weather reporting is always a welcome old friend at the table.

Individual tracks on Prisoners of Freedom are more or less distinct expeditions in their own right, compartmentalized units that stand alone as well as contain generalized sonic tangents which crop up across the entire album. Tracks like “Sounds from the Moonbog”, “Chicane Runway”, “Dolphian Scale”, and “My Heart is on My Sleeve” take on an edgy, frenetic tone that skews more towards classic free jazz and fusion, while tracks like “Lava Flow”, “The Sand of These Dunes is Recommended by the Sandman”, “From Now on we Move only by Night”, and the title track “Prisoners of Freedom” tend to align more with the flange inflected acid-soaked psych-jazz/rock of Hendrix’s finest on-stage moments. At times tracks take on an aggressive fuzz-drone buzz-bomb approach, such as with the fiery “Identify Yourself”, which comes close to encroaching on the scorched-earth policy of bands like Rhode Island’s mind-blowingly phenomenal Lightning Bolt. Peppered in for good measure are more atmospheric pieces like “Towards the Star” and “Pick up the Beams”, tapping into a collective unconscious of space-jazz-fusion rhetoric that is a well needed reprieve from the amazing yet near constant guitar heroics found most other places on the album.

Holding the whole thing afloat is the musicianship, which is animated and top-notch. Ruin’s bass work is flat-out amazing, and Horder’s percussion is agile and adept at fully committing to whatever the moment demands. Together the rhythm section is damn-near flawless, a powerhouse. Kristian’s guitar work, both in tone and technique, is fantastic, and his bag of tricks runs pretty deep. Coupled with the fact that 99.9% of what you hear on Prisoners of Freedom is both improvisational and single-take recordings (there’s only one overdub on the album), it’s safe to say that this trio is the real deal.

Overall analysis: this record is great. Really great. The only complaint is more of an opinion piece rather than any sustained criticism of the album’s contents, which are excellent. Still, it would be nice to hear on future releases a decision to experiment more with ambient space and more controlled and long-form atmospherics, as the technical side of what Bogdo Ula is doing is well established and could eventually be seen as more theatric than exploratory. Impressive as it is, the urge to shred is often an easier route to chart than the minimal, and a more nuanced blend of approaches would take Bogdo Ula to the next level. Can’t wait to hear what comes next from these guys.

Prisoners of Freedom is available on Itunes and CDBaby, as well as through the band's website.

http://www.bogdo-ula.com/

Just in Time For 2012: Leonard Cohen's "Old Ideas"

Reuters reported yesterday that Leonard Cohen will be releasing an album of previously unpublished material in 2012 tentatively entitled Old Ideas. The 77-year old musician announced the album's release on Wednesday in the Spanish town of Oviedo, where he had traveled to receive Spain's "Principe de Asturias" Prize for literature. Apparently the album's content is already recorded, and Cohen says that he's "played it for a few people, and they seem to like it". When asked if he was planning to tour in support of the album, Cohen said "God willing...I never quite know whether there's going to be a tour or not." Let's hope so.

I had the good fortune to meet Cohen back in 2006 or 7 when he was in Austin for a non-performance related visit. Nice guy, and one of my all-time favorite songwriters, hands down. We just had Various Positions playing this morning, as a matter of fact. I regrettably missed his performance at the Long Center in Austin in 2009; good to hear there's another chance coming up to see him.

Jeff Mangum live @ OWS (October 4)

A little late in the game, but I'm posting amateur video here anyhow of Jaff Mangum's acoustic set for the OWS protesters on October 4th in Manhattan. The footage is a bit shaky, but the sound quality is spot on, and Mangum sounds intense and amazing as ever, playing well-known cuts from his back catalog as well as covers like "Themselves" by the Minutemen. This footage gives me a slight chill; like taking part in a modern re-enactment of a veritable wellspring of modern American history, as if watching Woody Guthrie talk sense to power half a century ago. Mangum has some upcoming tour dates, mostly East Coast, though we'd like to see him out West at some point soon. Of course everyone has had well over a decade to digest the painfully human, neo-folk brilliance of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (one of my top 10 records of the 90's, to be sure), but if for some reason you've been residing on some foreign planet and haven't yet had a chance to give it a listen, well...can't really help you there, but I'm interested to hear what was that engrossing so as to keep this off your radar. Though I don't listen to it much anymore over the past 7 or 8 years, it still has the ability to raise hackles and deliver insights into this here mortal coil that is sorely missing from so much contemporary drivel calling itself folk, or pop, or freak-folk, or indie-pop, or whatever the hell the kids are listening to these days. Think I'll dig it back out right now.

Dana Spiotta's "Stone Arabia": A Quick Review

Just finished reading Dana Spiotta's new novel Stone Arabia.  Fantastic read, a bit on the brief side (I finished it in two days), but it does what it needs to do.  Set mainly in Los Angeles in the mid 00's, the story centers on Denise Worth, a middle-aged divorcee dealing with mounting debt, a dead-end job, and a mother suffering from the initial stages of Alzheimer's, and her brother Nik, an immensely prolific, idiosyncratic, and utterly unknown musician whose health is deteriorating after years of hard living.  After a brush with a record deal in the late 70's, Nik retreats from any public mention of his music, yet he continues to hand-produce not only scores of albums by various "bands" that no longer exist (on fictional record labels of his own design), but an entire world of press releases, record reviews (with varying degrees of praise and condemnation for his work), and artist interviews, all of them staged.  He calls the project the Chronicles, and the massive contours and intricacies of the dozens of volumes eventually form a type of alternate history of his life crafted totally in isolation: no one apart from a small handful of family members and friends knows of their existence.  And while Nik spends years meticulously arranging a separate narrative of his own life, he and Denise's mother is literally losing her mind as she slips further into dementia, releasing her hold on her own identity as her memories dissolve.  This leaves Denise in the middle to witness her family falling apart, and to try and situate her own self in light of her growing sensitivity to the isolation and pain of modern existence, and the converse realization that every day is truly its own reward.  When Denise's only daughter Ada, a young filmmaker living in New York City, decides to try and make a documentary about Nik's carefully created alter-existence, the project brings a lifetime of issues to a head, for all involved.  The novel is a powerful commentary on relationships, change, identity, and the perseverance of creativity in the face of the end that awaits us all.

In Stone Arabia, Spiotta manages to ask some fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of identity and self through these troubled characters, as she uses the relationships and storylines of the novel to reveal an undercurrent of hopelessness and futility running straight through the mainline of modern life.  But all dark spots have their more illumined edges, and the relationships in the novel end up constituting what truly matter, as painful and difficult as they may be.  Spiotta doesn't attempt to answer any of the questions she poses, but who can really answer them anyhow?  Rather we see the sometimes frayed bonds between the members of a family and most of all the manner in which these bonds both shield us and cut us off from the world outside.  The writing style is accessible and bright, and often deceptively short-winded.  There's a lot to unravel in this novel. 

One of the things I found most salient is the undercurrent surrounding Nik's artistic output.  Nik's dedication and creativity coupled with his outright denial of the 'proper' artistic channels, even going so far as to create decades of art in total obscurity, brings up a lot of issues that fascinate me about 'outsider art' in particular.  The book has Nik mention that he might be remembered as a Henry Darger type character (the reclusive janitor discovered to have been a prolific writer and artist upon his death--see the recent documentary Into the Realms of the Unreal), further pointing to Spiotta's own interest in these topics.  I've always been invested in these issues, and in the processes involved in completely and willfully removing oneself from the artistic mainstream (for the record, one might note here that the record label moniker I've been using on my hand-distributed discs over the past 12 years or so is a totally fictional entity, among other things I've often claimed, though all the music is real).  There was a lot that hit home for me about what makes art personal and what makes it public, and how it relates so intimately with the personality of the artist, as well as larger forays into notions of integrity and realism in a sphere (mainstream music) so fraught with fakes, ego, and general soul-destroying bullshit of all stripes.  But that's another post altogether.

A side-note: I would be surprised if Spiotta didn't base at least some small part of Nik's character on the whole Jandek spectacle of some years past (see previous post "Jandek Eschews Obfuscation in Austin").  The similarities are too close: Nik produces well over 30 or 40 albums in complete obscurity, never plays live, and manages to create a whole alter-ego for himself that is really just a mildly distorted picture of his own life, had he perhaps made different choices earlier on.  The novel is even set at the same time that Jandek was emerging from self-imposed obscurity to a fanbase just as interested in the amazing oddity of the story than in the music itself.  I first heard of Stone Arabia via a recent interview that Spiotta did with Terry Gross on "Fresh Air", in which she mentioned that part of Nik's character was also inspired by her uncle, an LA musician in the 1970's and 80's with the punk band Village.  According to Spiotta, Richard (her uncle) eventually took an approach similar to Nik's, creating a whole legend about himself as a recognized musician despite the fact that he had officially stopped performing decades before.  (In a side note, Richard's band Village was featured (briefly) in the scene at the Roxy in Cheech and Chong's 1978 LA stoner classic Up In Smoke.  They had the song which I believe is called "Bi-School".)

Jandek Eschews Obfuscation in Austin (08/2005)

I'm moving an old write-up on the elusive Jandek's first US show (08/2005, Austin, TX) into this column for your nostalgic enjoyment. I'm currently reading Dana Spiotta's Stone Arabia and I'm pretty sure that the whole Jandek legend that came to a head 6 or 7 years ago is loosely thrown into her character development. I don't know, read the book and see for yourself. Enjoi.

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In a style true to the rapidly accumulating urban legend surrounding him, the eclectic, enigmatic, and elusive Jandek made his first-ever US live performance tonight at Austin's historic Scottish Rite Theater, the mere 4th such performance of a career that spans 42 albums and nearly 30 years. As much a source of inspiration amongst the initiated few as he has been a complete mystery, Jandek has consistently throughout the years managed to elude any and all attempts at classification, musically and physically. After a long and prolific musical incubation verily unmolested by the public eye, the native Houstonian's choice of three cities for his first American "tour" includes Austin, New Orleans, and New York. His first performances in front of an audience (that are known of) were last year in Scotland and England, respectively.

I was able to procure tickets, and attended the affair with two hundred or so of my fellow Austinites, curious to see the idiom that is Jandek just as much as I was to hear his music. Not to denigrate the musical output in the slightest, though. Atonal and lilting, haunting and cacophonous, Jandek's artistry resembles nothing the listener has heard before. Resemblances, abject qualities, influences, all are eschewed in the face of what is truly a unique style. Coupled with such an arresting sound, the length and breadth of the impressive Jandek back catalogue is mighty indeed, with 42 records to date, 3 of which have been released just this year. Nearly thirty years after the very first record (Ready for the House, credited to a different name, "The Units"), the output remains prolific. Closer examination reveals the faintly defined "periods" of Jandek's music, which shows subtle and not-so-subtle changes in his artistic progression as the years go by, as well as the addition of side-players from time to time. The music itself is at once anxious and soothing, as Jandek's vocals waft through the atonal detritus like an apparition not wanting to be exposed, yet making it's presence known nonetheless. The man's tenacity to produce such myriad works in near-total isolation is yet another facet of this amazing story.

Many people have come to know Jandek through his legend, which is monumental in scope given the length of time and output of art involved. Leery and evasive of interviews, and loathe to print even the slightest personal detail on record sleeves save one solitary photograph and the cryptic address of a P.O. Box in Houston, the myth of Jandek has taken nearly thirty years to build itself to the crescendo that has occurred in the past year. Many in the audience tonight were present solely to see the idiom that is Jandek. Worthy of note, the idiom took a backseat to the music this night, as Jandek and his piece-meal group comprised of three young Austin and Houston-area musicians specially picked for the show plodded, wandered, and jolted through strange musical territory for nearly an hour and a half.

Taking the stage wordlessly, Jandek slowly and methodically prepared his instrument and amplifier, while the band readied itself silently. Dressed in a crisp, dark outfit capped by a slightly oversized gunslinger's hat a la "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", Jandek appeared more suited to attend a funeral rather than play a show. Without a word, he cued the band and the music began. The tone was foreign and simultaneously reminiscent, something strange and exotic, a sound augmented by off-time arrangements and spurts of instrumentation inserted nearly randomly into the fray. Above it all, Jandek's sparse and chilling vocals painted scenes of melancholy design, left bare at the end of each passage as if posing questions to the audience at random. Despite the eclectic and sporadic elements of the "songs" performed, there remained a cohesive center to each, like a string tied to a far-off tree signaling the way back home through the maze of confusing and often concussive sounds emanating from the four players on stage. Jandek's signature chronically off-tune guitar was the center-piece with which to explore the depths of each passage, drawing the others back to the question being asked of them.

Upon playing for nearly and hour and a half, Jandek looked down at his songbook, thought better of turning another page, and just as quietly as he had entered the stage, methodically placed everything back in its original position and walked silently out of sight. The crowd gave a rousing applause, and the general sentiment held that something special had been witnessed by all in attendance. Indeed it had.

Album Review: Alexey G's "Model For Assembling"

Hey all. I'll be from time to time posting record reviews here of things I'm working on for the website I write for. While a lot of what I have to review is shit, some of it is quite good and you should check it out if you have the chance. Enjoy!

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Alexey G

“Model for Assembling” – LP

Reviewer: Reed Burnam

Four Stars (out of Five)

Where to start with Alexey G’s “Model for Assembling”? The adjectives aren’t short in coming. Initial impressions: kinetic, free, cloistered, smart, airy, brooding, jazzy, schizophrenic, talkative, slick, heady, rounded, ambling, spastic, proggy, meditative, evocative. If that random list of buzz words isn’t any indication of what you’re getting into with this record, well…

“Model for Assembling” is like a soundtrack to a silent film that doesn’t exist, a slow-pan over a cityscape in constant flux, a window into the nexus of a neutron bomb that plays out fast and furious like a Looney Tunes chase sequence, all emanating from the sleeping mind of a hyperactive child blissed out on too much sugar and playtime. On repeat listens, new nooks and crannies reveal themselves like vast, foreboding, and unmapped frontier regions on some alien world; the music busies itself blazing trails into new territory after new territory.

After that introduction, one might be wondering what exactly is going on here. Seemingly, the devil is in the details, and this album has them in spades. Alexey G (one Alexey Gorokholinsky) has put something together that rewards the attentive ear. A classically-trained clarinetist and pianist since his youth in Russia, Alexey G has attained quite a pedigree for his years (Mr. G is quite accomplished at the ripe young age of 25). “Model for Assembling” was his first solo effort while still at The Juliard School in NYC, and is an attempt (in his own words) to “produce accessible/creative electronic music with [the] edition of classical elements…aiming to combine two worlds where listeners of both cultures could get to know each other in context.”

According to his bio, the record explores (in this order) themes of: Prog Rock/Breakbeat, Ambient/Folk/Trance, Acid Drum n Bass/Classical, Slow Psychedelic Techno, Traditional (Berlin School) Electronic/Trance, Electro/Industrial Techno. Six thematic variations, six tracks, six assembled parts of the whole. Throughout it all, Alexey’s amazing clarinet work is the lynchpin, the vocals on an otherwise voiceless outing. And make no mistake, this guy can play his instrument really well. His technique is precise, free-form yet structured, emotional and resonant. It provides the point of recognition stringing the whole structure together.

Mr. Alexey’s aim here seems to be to create a record, or a “model”, of various spare parts assembled one by one and strung together either by happenstance or design (the listener can figure that out?) that are representative of the disparate musical realms that are obviously near and dear to his own tastes. The result is quite sublime at points, though following the blueprint on this model is likely to be bewildering for all but those with the most evolved knowledge of the nuances of both historical electronica and neo-classical styles. But be not afraid, gentle listener: it’s meant to be a bit daunting. One doesn’t learn history by simply showing up to the lecture, you have to visualize yourself into the whole teeming, seething forward progression.

And wow is it ever teeming. Album opener “Flashback” drifts in with heavy, delayed synths and a heartbeat of a bass-line that opens up into Alexey’s first lilting clarinet flurries. Electronic buzz and effects meander into and out of the foreground, as the bass and rhythm lines chug forward with Kraftwerkian propulsion over ground that at times recalls the more techno side of the Eno/Cluster collaborations. Album standout “Jabberwocky” delves deep into the riff zone, with amazing bass/clarinet runs and an overall sound like Danny Elfman and John Zorn co-writing a prog-metal opera. “Memoria” is ambient enough, haunting and embryonic until the dramatic synths creep in around 4:40-ish, finally exploding into a full on free-techno dance party towards the end of the track. “Metropolis” is another standout, emotional and varied and splicing in the dancehall and the Euro-beats at the right time for maximum efficacy, while “Split Second” manages for a minute or two to take drum n bass on tour to the renaissance festival before collapsing into the soundtrack of some b&w 60’s art film…and that’s just before it gets a bit aggressive. “Take Me to the Moon” ends it all in the arms of a highly danceable constellation of beats just before fading out on the notes of a lullaby.

So what’s the final analysis? The album is difficult, but rewarding. Beautiful, amazingly verbose, and well-played to the rafters. This is not spectator music. It makes demands of the listener that more modern music should be attempting, and not only that, but Alexey wants you to know your genres, your history, and your free-radicalized associations. The only question that remains is: has “Model for Assembling” fulfilled its stated purpose? Is this record simply a box full of model parts lacking a master blueprint? Or does the listener come away with an enlightened view of the tectonic power of fusion electro-industrial-classical? As far as this reviewer is concerned, if it keeps coming like this, then bring on the revolution. Great stuff.

Model For Assembling is available at CDBaby, Itunes, and Bandcamp, and numerous other online sources.

http://www.russianclarinet.com

Wolves in the Throne Room's "Celestial Lineage": They Never Disappoint

Olympia, WA's mighty Wolves in the Throne Room never fail to amaze. I've been listening to these guys since the Two Hunters album and the status is always the same: blisteringly progressive, meditative, and psychedelic black metal that shows no sign of compromise, and avoids the dissolution into regrettable cliche and corpse-paint mediocrity that plagues so, so many bands. Now, I'm no major BM apologist, and although the genre has produced what is arguably some of the most boundary-challenging noise witnessed in metal since the 1980's (as well as some of the most notorious metal headlines ever), it's no secret that the utter banality and idiocy that this genre has belched from out of pop culture's distended underbelly since the original progenitors set to burning churches and killing themselves in Europe is the stuff of legend. At the risk of inviting round disdain from the militant: the poseur theatrics, laughable make-up choices, and bargain-basement vision of many BM releases is (to say the least) regrettable; add the misdirected white suburban angst and empty-headed reactionary politics and you've got the perfect recipe for the dumbest music you've never heard of. And there's A LOT of it out there, cropping up all over the developing world (especially) like a wildfire fed on shit and ridiculous hype. So as I said, I walk a tightrope with this genre daily. Some of my favorite albums of the past decade have been BM releases, and I have steadfast faith in the power of this music to produce uncompromisingly anti-mainstream art and blindingly majestic meditations on loss, sorrow, and the destruction of the natural and the mystic. BUT, unfortunately when taken as a whole, the genre can be pretty dismal given the undead army of fascist poseurs and vapid anti-creatives intent on biting image rather than wrecking the boundaries. Dismal indeed, pun intended.

While the above may be the case for a veritable wasteland of forgettable bands, WITTR refuses to follow the same self-defeating logic. Ever since 2006's Diadem of 12 Stars, brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver have done what many of us so desperately crave of our artists: they put integrity above all else, and practice what they preach. Intensely DIY, activist, literate, and above all fucking amazing at what they do, WITTR has pushed boundaries consistently since its first release and continues to do so with impunity, with an increasingly measured effect on the scene at large (which could use a dose of intelligence once in a while that doesn't involve constantly pulling out Weakling's brilliant 1997 opus Dead As Dreams). Celestial Lineage is the third part of a trilogy that began with 2007's Two Hunters and continued with 2008's Black Cascade, both milestones in the field of North American Black Metal for their sound, scope, and feel, channeling and crystallizing the magnificent sweep of WITTR's native Pacific Northwest within the sonic juggernaut of their output (a trend captured in the "Cascadian Black Metal" tag applied to a number of bands in the region). Celestial Lineage, released on Sept. 13 (2011, Southern Lord), continues this trend, and sees the completion of a cycle of albums that may be amongst the most inspired pieces of metal to have been created on this continent in the past decade. On CL, the band again produces an awe-inspiring mixture of traditional BM aesthetics, meditative operatics, and crushing psychedelic black noise that have become trademark. Marking a mild departure from previous albums, Celestial Lineage boasts 7 shorter tracks rather than fewer, longer compositions, though the output is none worse for wear due to the quicker builds and flows in the minimized time slots for each individual piece. Tracks such as "Permanent Changes in Consciousness" and "Rainbow Illness" serve as short, downtempo segues to and from the bellowing intensity of album opener "Thuja Magus Imperium", the blistering "Subterranean Initiation", and the thundering black clouds of "Astral Blood", all of which are prime WITTR. Embedded in the fray is the sublime "Woodland Cathedral" (which was actually featured on NPR of all places), and the Xasthur-esque claustrophobia of "Prayer of Transformation", capped off by close to a minute of near silence, a meditation at the end of the journey.

Do yourself a favor and pick this up, even if it's outside your realm of taste. These guys are the real thing.

Echoes of the Desert in West LA: Tinariwen @ the El Rey Theatre Sept. 30, 2011

On Friday night I drove out to the El Rey Theatre in Miracle Mile to catch Tinariwen. For those of you who may have missed them to this point, they're a band from northern Mali hailing from the Tuareg tribe of the northern Sahara. They've become quite a sensation over the past few years, due mostly to their surprisingly polished-and-yet-somehow-still-just-exotic-enough brand of languid, flowing Sub-Saharan desert blues (and not a little due to their strong worldwide distribution and constant international touring). I'll spare you the details here of their backstory, which includes a lot of intersections into uprisings, revolts, and Western pop-cultural influence in modern West African history (here's the easily digestable version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinariwen) .

Importantly, Tinariwen is really at the forefront of a whole new wave of West African musicians making inroads with a fresh generation of American and European press and musicians near-desperate for something with any real substance. The African influence on the younger set is becoming more and more palpable, evidenced by the popularity of (great) bands such as Dirty Projectors and tUnE-YarDs, and (not-so-great) groups like Vampire Weekend, as well as by Tinariwen's and other fellow Africans' appearances this year at cutting-edge music festivals such as All Tomorrow's Parties and Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin (as well as recent years seeing bands like Animal Collective traveling to the historic Festival in the Desert music fest in Essakane, Mali--cross-cultural exchange at its finest). Witness to this point is Tinariwen's newest record Tassili, a collection of collaborations with musicians ranging from Nels Cline to TV on the Radio. Of course, "world-music" generically remains popular with the all-grown-up, well-meaning neo-colonialists responsible for buying Global Grooves discs at their local 10,000 Villages; the fact that the world music "genre" (don't I sound like an ass) is prone to its regrettable moments should be none of our concern. As for Tuareg desert-blues in particular, there's a host of bands hailing from the same region, doing what I've heard people lately narrowly refer to as "Tinariwen-music": Terakaft, Entran Finatawa, Tartit, Tamikrest, etc etc. The music as it now stands has wide and far-reaching roots; from traditional Tuareg forms to other regional tribal musics to a general Malian 'blues' style that's well trod ground for other area musicians such as Ali Farka Toure and his recently much-heralded guitar-slinging son Vieux. Tinariwen has consisted of many members over the 30+ years since its inception in a Libyan refugee camp; anyhow, all this info is on their website and no need to regurgitate it here. Suffice to say that the cultural back-and-forth is showing no signs of stopping. To this reviewer, the situation recently is becoming reminiscent of a generation of hippies back in the 60's and 70's (and still today) looking to far-off, exotic India for mystic inspiration and "liberation" from whatever social hang-ups they felt were impeding their creative flow; these days, India ain't so mystic anymore, and the (criminally) under-appreciated mega-diversity of African music in general and West African styles in particular is getting mined by a fresh-faced gaggle of players looking for something, anything, with some tangible culture and groove present in it. Not that this trend is unprecedented (one will remember Paul Simon's Graceland, Brian Jones' PR work for the Master Musicians of Jajouka, etc), but it's worth noting that there's a lot of it going on lately.*

*(Let us not forget the whole "desert blues is the original wellspring for American blues" nonsense that went out with the overplayed "Ali-Farka Toure is the African John Lee Hooker and vice versa" stuff: of course Africa is the root source of the blues, is that even an issue? It's also the root source of humanity in general, so there's where the comparisons start to go a little fuzzy, if you dig my drifting. Now that that's out of the way.)

I headed down to the El Rey early to ensure parking within a five-mile radius of the theatre (it's LA, don't ya know), and got there plenty early enough alright. Early enough to get a $9 beer (fuck me, I know, but I had already waited in line for 5 minutes whence I found out that we were collectively waiting our turn to get punked by the keepers of the kegs). Looking around, it was worth noting that the crowd was about 70/30 West LA 40+ upscale fashionista garbage to the vastly outnumbered people of my age group, and I saw nobody there under 25 or so, I think. With all the hip-hype around Tinariwen in general (they're only a month away from playing the same festival as Slayer, among others), I was surprised to see so many Santa Monica soccer moms and blue-tooth sporting dads in the audience. But it's West LA, and not a filthy scuzz-punk club, so go figure. I'm out of my element here.

After about an hour, we were "treated" to the first band, Hindi Zahra, a French-Moroccan singer fronting a diverse and well-groomed backing band. According to her website, the band has won some sort of award(s?) in the category of "Best World Music"; one would not have been able to discern that from the dismal live performance on Friday night. As the band stated, it was their first US show ever, and so they were a bit on edge, but that doesn't make up for the fact that the band mis-stepped on every single song (not an overstatement). Blown cues, forgotten notes, wrong time signatures, spaced-on lyrics, visible band tensions, you name it, I've never seen a band put on this lousy of a performance, and this coming from someone who actually enjoys most things unpolished and raw. I can't remember seeing anything quite this bad since I saw Fiery Furnaces go into an onstage melt-down in Austin a few years ago; but at least their songs were interesting, and while that was more voyeuristic and entertaining, here I just felt embarrassed for the band. The music was pretty insipidly bland to my ear: just vague, blase world-pop fronted by a marginally beautiful songstress, a little cabaret flavor thrown in for good measure, boring, repetitive, and simplistic progressions marked by aforementioned snafus, and two songs that were seemingly Tuareg/Berber in nature but that in this context sounded forced, like they were inserted simply to remind the audience that the band has embedded street-cred just because some of them hail from Africa. I could go on. Lame all the way around in the live context, maybe their records are better. But if you can't pull it off live, then what's the point?

But all was not lost, and Tinariwen came out shortly after to cleanse our collective palettes. Onstage at the El Rey the band was a sight to behold: dressed to the hilt in colorful bedouin desert robes with full facemasks and turbans, bathed in soft blue light, and sporting some strange percussion instruments, it's a wonder that the Department of Homeland Security even lets these guys perform at all. Not that they needed all the accoutrement to affect such a powerful stage presence; I'm positive that they could have wowed all of us in khakis and Hawaiian shirts, it was that good. The sound was phenomenal all night, and the band moved in and out of slower call and response numbers into more upbeat and downright groovy material that had the crowd pulsating right along with the band. The communication between band members was one of the showcase elements of the whole night: different instruments took turns leading the collective, speaking in phrases and flowing passages that wordlessly gave direction to the individual songs. Lead singer/guitarist Ibrahim Ag Alhabib's plaintive, low-throated vocals and sparse guitar playing formed the foundation for the amazing back-up playing, especially that of Eyadou Ag Leche and Said Ag Ayad's stellar bass and percussion work.

Though a highlight of the recent Tassili album and a further indication of the rising level of collaboration between US and West African musicians, the guest appearances at the El Rey were the low points of the show for me. After the butchered opening slot, Hindi Zahra was invited back on stage for a slow, call and response dirge, during which she seemed both out of place and a bit bewildered. To make matters worse, the mic that had been working fine for an hour immediately gave out (twice) when she began singing into it, leading to yet another uncomfortable moment onstage, and once it was fixed the song was all but over. Shortly after, Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio came out and jammed a couple, and as much as I like those guys on their own, it didn't mesh for me here either, though I look forward to hearing the cuts they did on the most recent album. It might have been nerves again, but it didn't gel well, and no doubt--I would be nervous as hell to play onstage with those guys as well. Finally, the last song of the night featured the completely random addition of Flea and Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which actually went off rather well, but mostly because they just stayed in the cut and played a Tinariwen track with a little added bass frenetics courtesy of Flea. All in all, a great show, and worthy of checking out should they be in your area soon. But you may wanna skip the opener.