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| Celer - Cursory Asperses (Slow Flow Records) Posted: 03 Feb 2009 09:56 PM CST
Where a blind grasping at a teeming mass brings a brief respite, supplanting the absolutely undetermined and making of the future one’s own nest egg, Cursory Asperses lowers the eyelids as the world, slow and gossamer, sinks down to you. In this place, where, far from tumult, it is the quiet that bathes and inundates, the secrecy that signifies, and the relative uselessness that guides, the ears prove better able to stretch their sensitive sails and actively attend to the aural ice-ferns and other such crystalline images of flora, water and wind. From field recordings found at an isolated stream in the woods, along with piano, strings, bells, theremin, whistle, and voices, Celer weave trailing mantles of wispy cloud. The nearly hour long composition surprises for its almost ceremonial construction. Silvery, brittle soundscapes exude a flotation tank calm. Despite this slight remove, the piece also has the sense of an opening out upon the elements; its atmosphere embraces and is stirred gently by indistinct sounds, motions, colors largely tempered but of a quiet jubilation and exaltation. As the piece moves on, an upward spiral becomes apparent, the piece eddying into white-capped pensive atmospheres. The piece then returns to the lower registers, finding a kind of natural completion. It’s a simple recording, to be sure, yet riddles rest easily here. Max Schaefer |
| Kontakte – Soundtracks to Lost Road Movies (Drifting/Falling) Posted: 03 Feb 2009 04:19 AM CST
Soundtracks to Lost Road Movies encapsulates this contact, or communication if you will between musical forms and social groups whose inclination towards a 'pure' encapsulation of sound formations creates a sense of disconnect rather than communication. If we are thinking at all of music as linguistic or communication form. To reference moments in both electronic and rock do we thus have a 'post-rock' album? If such term itself refers to a fusion of forms, hybridisation, to the moment of consistent realistion of the superfluidity of form and possible form. Or it my just be a question of branding. Kontakte are Ben (guitar, noise, programming), Ian (Bass, Synths, Programming), Paul (Guitar, Melody, Programming), and while having not witnessed them live it comes across that the programming preceded the performance. This is not merely self-evident assertion, of course composition precedes performance (without even considering the idea of 'pure' improvisation), but also that Kontakte perform to their programming. With the preceding intricacy of form established they essentially build a full sonic spectrum with their guitars creating depth and intensity and pushing the sound spectrum in a rock/noise sense. Two And A Half Thousand Miles is the most restrained and controlled of the six original tracks and equally demonstrates their skill of loud quietude without reference to the dramatics of which the 'rock men with axes school' can be prone. The final six tracks on the album are remixes by their contemporaries 'Twelve (Chris Olley of Six. By Seven), Winterlight, Polysicness and fellow Drifting Falling artists Matt Bartram (Air Formation) and Oppressed By The Line'. The remixes re often more subtle than the originals, with the bombastic exception of Matt Bartram's remix of Motorik which is insistant, abrasive and dry. This could be its quality. Winterlight's remix of Lifes road movies is the most insistently joyous but this is only a question of pre-established notions of form, rather than necessarily the achievement of the sound form of joy. If these comments, for what they are worth, are meant to form a critical assessment then they have essentially failed. For Kontakte demonstrate that they have talent, they have a musical knowledge and technical ability; they can make disparate forms come together with verve. Yet still I expect more, perhaps because they are better than this debut long player. Innerversitysound |
| Wicked Beat Sound System – Dreaming (Wicked Beat Records / Inertia) Posted: 03 Feb 2009 03:58 AM CST
This latest, fifth album from Australian electronic collective Wicked Beat Sound System ‘Dreaming’ certainly occupies distinctly different conceptual territory to its predecessor, 2006’s ‘Hydromajestik.’ In this case, the seeds of ‘Dreaming’ were first sown back in 2003, when WBSS mainman Damien Robinson was asked to compose the music for The Sydney Dreaming Festival, the main centrepiece being a theatrical adaption of the Australian Indigneous rain maker creation story. After the actual performance of the event itself, which featured several indigenous dance groups including Bangarra and Doonooch along with vocalists Emma and Casey Donovan, this recorded collection represents the best elements taken from the various sessions. Opening track ‘Overture’ certainly hints at the widescreen ambient sense of ’sweep’ that underpins much of this album, with the sampled noise of massed crickets proviing to be a suitably potentous counterpoint to the distant rumbles of thunder and deep didgeridoo textures that follow – indeed, there’s a sense conjured of the sorts of epic desert landscapes seen in travel-film classic ‘Baraka.’ In many senses though, it’s moments here where the electronics retreat to the sidelines and the indigenous voices are given centre stage, such as ‘Doonooch Welcome’ that prove to be the most effective here, with the triphop centred rhythms in evidence on the Emma Donovan-fronted ‘Miminga’ dragging some of the atmosphere away, in favour of a distinctly more coffee table-oriented trajectory. Still, few will be able to disagree that this is easily WBSS’ most deep and enveloping collection to date. |
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