Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Acid Mothers Temple - Pink Lady Lemonade - You’re From Outer Space (Riot Season)

Posted: 08 Jan 2009 02:44 PM CST

acid mother temple

The thing that is most enjoyable about Japanese psych rockers Acid Mothers Temple is not just their love, nay worship of the guitar like it’s some kind of fetish object, but also their either total lack of understanding of excess, or their total understanding of excess and desire to pursue it as excessively as possible. Words like overblown can’t do their music justice as they grind their squealing repetitive riffs over and over to the point of mind numbing exhaustion. It’s quite curious. Their music doesn’t end. The shortest song on this four track disc is 10.48 and the longest 24.07. And not only do they continue, they escalate, building upon the riff, attaching noise like barnacles until we’re 12 minutes into a searing emotional psych noise freak-out. But it doesn’t start like that. The riffs begin quite gently, highly repetitive, with these ghostly vocals and space invaders synth oscillating around spookily. It’s a gentle esoteric psychedelia that draws upon elements as diverse as Neil Young when he’s getting to solo over a Crazy Horse who keep churning over the same riff, or even the trippy violence Hawkwind . It’s impossible to concentrate on, the repetition draws you away into yourself, till you reawaken and realise that you’re pretty much where you left off. The progressions do come eventually but if you sit and wait you’ll go mad. There’s something incredibly constrained about the repetition, because suddenly after what seems like years they’ll elect to kick out the jams, build up, and that’s when the sky isn’t high enough. Their recipe is simple and incredibly effective. Chill. Tear your face off. Then chill again. Their label is calling this their first summer album, but I think this album is more about time, as their music has a tendency to warp and confuse your senses until you’re no longer sure how much time has passed, or even whether it matters.

Though the riffs are hypnotic and repetitive there’s somehow a vague feeling of aimlessness in the stasis. It was recorded quickly in a few days in two separate sessions and some of the songs do feel like glorified jams. There’s nothing in the music that grabs hold of you bodily at the beginning and demands that they know where they’re going. Personally I think that’s part of the charm, you either give yourself over to them at the outset wherever they go, regardless of intent and embrace the length, repetition, and at times hilarious bombast or you slink unhappily away.

Bob Baker Fish

Various Artists - The Edge of Heaven OST (Essay/Inertia)

Posted: 08 Jan 2009 06:38 AM CST

Edge Of Heaven

It’s from the latest film from Faith Akin (Head On), a man not afraid to make great films with greater soundtracks. He also has a penchant for Germans. First there was his Turkish travelogue of Einsturzende Neubauten’s Alexander Hacke in Crossing the Bridge, and now he’s entrusted much of this soundtrack to a German who seems to think he’s Balkan. Shantel, a former techno dude who in a creative crisis rediscovered his Balkan ancestry, has liberally sprinkled in a few of those stomping Balkan dance-floor fusions that made last years Disko Partizani such a compelling and rump shaking joy (see earlier review) . There are also a number of traditional tracks from Istanbul and the black sea, the rough haunting music from Kurdish poet and songwriter Ahmet Kaya, the Turkish folk of Laz speaking Birol Topaloglu, an album highlight with its incredible vocals and soaring choruses, and also the the Queen of Turkish pop Sezen Aksu’s Olursem Yazikitir which draws upon as many traditions as contemporary elements, Yet it’s very clearly Shantel’s show, his ability to combine traditional instrumentation (this time Turkish) from some of the worlds best musicians with his own electronic desires is possibly more restrained and tasteful than ever before.

It works exceedingly well. There is much less of the sleazy close mic’d vocals that characterised Disko Partizani and less of a desire to drag everything immediately to the dance-floor. What is left is a haunting highly accomplished soundtrack where, not unlike Turkey itself, east meets west on equal footing for a change, without the blatant tokenism or self conscious exoticism that is a little sickening and all too familiar.

Bob Baker Fish

Adrian’s ‘What I Liked In 2008…’

Posted: 08 Jan 2009 03:58 AM CST

Writing reviews for Cyclic Defrost has shown me how much music I DON’T get to hear! I get to listen to some nice obscure releases that most people won’t ever even know about, but there’s so much music just in the Cyclic Defrost inbox that I never get to hear, let alone all the releases in the whole world! So I can’t call this the Best Of 2008, it’s just a list of the things that I happened to get to hear, via buying or reviewing, in the same calender year as they were released. Which means there are no doubt things released in 2008 that I will come to love in 2009 or beyond, and plenty of great music released in 2008 that I will never even know about.

So, in alphabetical order….

Awesome Color - Electric Aborigines (Australian Edition) (High Spot/Fuse Music Group)
Actually, skip the Australian CD version with superfluous jam demos and head for the vinyl version. It will make the amped up 60s fuzz weirdness sound more authentic. Not that this is too retro, but it wears the influences for these great songs on its sleeve.

Alan Morse Davies - The Last Summer (At Sea)
A free netlabel download of incredible beauty. Three very old pieces of vinyl are processed, almost beyond recognition, as long, ambient washes. Completely mesmerising and great value for money!

Beem - The Future
Probably the thing I discovered of most personal value this year is the Finnish phenomena of skwee music. It’s kind of r’n'b, dancehall, baile-funk, electro - but without any (mostly) vocals, and with all the sounds sounding kind of blobby and, well, squeezed (hence the name). There’s lots of good stuff available, but I include this because it’s probably the most accessible, being a free download album from Beem’s website. It covers all fronts from jerky rhythms to elastic basslines and twinkly synths.

Buraka Som Sistema - Black Diamond (Fabric/Inertia)
A late entry, but very worthy. This became the soundtrack to my pre-Christmas summer holiday and is still growing on me. Reinventing western dancefloor music in the image of Angolan kudora rhythms, without any world music awkwardness or self consciousness. I can’t wait for the live show in a month’s time.

Joshua Burkett - Where’s My Hat (Time-Lag Records)
I find a lot of wyrd folk/new Americana over rated and under considered. Not Joshua Burkett. Starting with what sounds like some sort of bagpipe solo, it catches you off guard from the outset. Tape hiss and acoustic guitar - check. But depth, rather than first take improvisation laziness.

Color Cassette - Small Town Smoker (Mobeer)
Double 3inch CD-R set posing as sides A and B of an album. Brilliant. Field recordings blended into melancholy folk-tronica. Brilliant.

Deepchild - Departure (Future Classic/Inertia)
If I was strapped down and forced to pick my single favourite release of 2008, I’d probably end up saying this was it. Everything that Deepchild has become renowned for over his career, only even better. And concise. I really love it.

Department Of Eagles - In Ear Park (4AD/Remote Control)
Skewed, organic/electronic pop of the highest calibre. It’s got everything necessary - experimental production, memorable melodies and the right amount of melancholy.

The Faint - Fasciination (Pod/Inertia)
At the turn of the century it was called electroclash. Now it’s gone mainstream and has naturally been diluted to lowest common denominator stuff. Thankfully, there’s a few artists like The Faint who can pick up the mix of early 80s electro, guitars and good pop songs, and make it sound great.

Ghoul - A Mouthful Of Gold (Oyvey)
9 tracks in under 20 minutes of space oddities. The electronic basses really get me. And the pop melodies. Nothing Like their live show, which is also great, but distinct from most things making the rounds at the moment. And that voice which has already been discussed ad-infinitum elsewhere. And you can only get it for free.

Lessons In Time - Lessons In Time (4-4-2 Music)
Full disclosure - 17 year old Blake Wassell is a great friend of mine who makes great music - so much so that I asked him to join my band and released his solo EP on my own label. However, all of that happened because the music he is making is great, not the other way around! This is twisted folk and lo-fi stuttering of great quality. He seems to throw a hundred tiny sounds in the air then keep them up by some magical process as they begin to whirl around.

The Oscillation - Out Of Phase
Shoegaze began to find a bit of a critical mass during 2008, even though it hasn’t actually gone away since the late 80s and has always had its admirers. I’m one of its big admirers when it’s done well, and The Oscillation does it better than most. And it’s all one man, Demian Castellanos, somehow sounding like a full band ebbing and flowing off each other.

Parts & Labor - Receivers (Jagjaguwar)
I became rather obsessed by this album a few months back. It harnesses the noise of old into new pop jackets, making for a powerful, noisy, concise collection of great songs. Guitars and electronics mixed with not a whiff of the 80s - see, it can be done!!

Pivot - O Soundtrack My Heart (Warp/Inertia)
Editor Seb called it ‘Van Halen meets Vangelis’ and online editor Peter called it ‘”rock”, almost dumbed-down Nu-Pivot’. I’m going to have to go head to head with the big guns, disagree and say that this album is still one of the best Australian releases ever. There! You all know what it sounds like by now.

Seekae - The Sound Of Trees Falling On People (Knitting Club Records)
Another late entry, but another good one. My judgement is probably clouded on this one a little as I’ve spent the year getting to know the band and their music both live and on recordings, but it’s really great blippy, moody, twinkly stuff. Maybe the album is a touch long - they could almost have split it into two great albums, or maybe left off the older tracks we’ve already grown to love, but the actual music is very worthy of any best-of list.

Various Artists - Nashville Sputnik - The Deep South/Outer Space Productions of Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan (The Omni Recording Corporation)
Nothing on this under 20 years old and most of it is nearly 40 years old, but the compilation was released in 2008, so it qualifies. And it’s the most fun you could possibly have with a country and western template, weirding it out in all manner of lyrical and sonic ways. Bizarre, hilarious, and actually quite good.

Wounded Knees - All Rise (Specific Recordings)
It was the promise of hand silkscreened packaging and brown vinyl for this 10″ that got me in. That, and the name ‘Kevin Shields’ for the mixing credit. And it didn’t disappoint. It’s actually Shields’ brother’s duo playing great 60s shaded fuzz/gaze/pop.

Adrian Elmer