Friday, July 17, 2009

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

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Various Artists – Daniel Haaksman presents Funk Mundial (MAN Recordings / Inertia)

Posted: 17 Jul 2009 06:24 AM PDT

Funk Mundial

Berlin-based DJ / producer Daniel Haaksman has certainly been one of the more visible exponents of the Baile Funk sound, having previously been responsible for compiling two volumes of his ‘Rio Baile Funk’ series for Essay Recordings, which went a long way towards crossing over the Brazilian electro hybrid genre to a considerably wider audience. While the ‘Rio Baile Funk’ series focused exclusively upon South American artists however, this latest unmixed compilation on Haaksman’s own MAN Recordings label offers a considerably different slant, with established European producers including Crookers, Feadz, Jesse Rose and Sinden in this case collaborating with a range of Latin vocalists and MCs. The overall result, rather than really focusing on Baile Funk per se, comes across more as a crossover club compilation in a similar vein perhaps to Palm Pictures’ ‘2 Culture Clash’ dub / reggae-influenced collection of a few years back. Indeed, Italian duo Crookers’ opening ‘Para De Gracinha’ collaboration with MC Leka sits far close to the sort of cut-up, post-French Touch electro-house inhabited by the likes of Boys Noize and the Kitsune label, a trajectory that’s followed up by the more fidget-house fixated efforts of Feadz’s ‘Subiu, Desceu’ collab with MC Wesley and Count & Sinden’s ‘Tamborzuda.’ While the contemporary electro-house leanings frequently threaten to overwhelm proceedings at points here, rendering things indistinguishable from much mainstream club fodder, the presence of genuinely captivating highlights from the always interesting Stereotyp, Jesse Rose and Makossa Megablast make this still worth exploring. That said, those looking for a more representative introduction to the Baile Funk genre might be better off looking elsewhere.

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Mokira – Persona (Type/Fuse)

Posted: 16 Jul 2009 10:52 PM PDT

Sweden’s Andreas Tilliander has been releasing minimalist digitalia as Mokira since 2000, his first recordings were for such genre giants as Raster Noton and Mille Plateaux and he’s now based mostly on the equally heralded Type. He also produces acidic dub-techno under his own name for domestic label Adrian Recordings, and traces of these rhythmic explorations cross over into his latest, possibly most challenging Mokira release to date, Persona.

As the name and cover image of Liv Ullmann’s chin implies, Persona relates to the Ingmar Bergman film of that title, although how is never satisfactorily revealed. The decision to move away from his laptop and record on analog tape, using only monosynths and a TB303, might suggest an affinity with the monochrome film stock and raw emotions explored by the master director, however the most immediate reference once Tilliander’s tape starts rolling is the spacier elements of classic Krautrock: specifically Cluster and Harmonia.

With no intervals between tracks, Persona rolls by like one single, gaseous plume, individual pieces defined by gradual shifts in texture and structure and, somewhat incongruously, dynamics. First track ‘About Last Step And Scale’ begins with faint tape crackle before the synths announce themselves, vast waves considerably louder than what came before. Penultimate ‘Ode to the Ode to the Street Hassle’ is similarly muffled, a looped melodic cell lifted from Spacemen 3 lifted from Lou Reed; here the low volume emphasises the layers of detachment between Tilliander and Reed, pointing to similar experiments by Akira Rabelais and William Basinski. In ‘When the Sun Hits / The House Hit’, this same crackle is used as an underlay, like the pops of Pole. Elsewhere ghostly 303 tones stamp out vague rhythms, Basic Channel dub effects crack and fade, while throughout the rolling banks of synths throb and buckle in random, ever-enticing patterns.

Joshua Meggitt

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Tenniscoats – Temporacha (Room 40)

Posted: 16 Jul 2009 10:55 PM PDT

tenniscoats-temporacha-200

Temporacha's delight is a conjunction of ideas and techniques that essentially reveal the idea of the Tenniscoats as the artists to be a convenience of the form of delivery. It brings the field recording techniques of Lawrence English and applies it to the complex simplicity of Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats) use of small organ/piano, guitar, harmonica and vocals as tonal/word play. The whole album is a form of field recording. Recordings of performance in differing locations, Wako-Jurin Park and the Koma-Gawa river, brings in the ambient sounds of the area, (road, river, birds, trucks/cars) and the subtle interplay of the sounds travel and interaction with Lawrence's recording. Distinctions unbounded, the gentle improvised structures of the duo weave in with happenstance creating an intimate atmosphere for the (non) abstracted listener.

However there are moments when this inclination as an act of modern pastoral blurs too greatly the edges of distinct entities. While 'Ninichime' integrates the sound of the road as intermittent sound source, a form of cyclic return, it is a disjunctive presence. Whereas the continuous presence of the water in 'Timeless' acts as a foundation on which to play out a range of differing patterned moments. It could be claimed that the idea of the natural, as appearing natural, is the psychological conditioning of sound on the subject, that the distinction between the sound forms is a learnt one, thus to hear a disjunction in the artificial is a question of experience and knowledge. Other tracks do not have such concerns foregrounded; 'Do' acts more directly from the language play to create its form, 'Sitting By' is predominately a guitar piece with the ambient place concerns receding. 'Hajimari / Owari – Dream Is Refreshing' ends the album with its stutter guitar abruptness and the wavering vocal intonations creating melodic reference, building into a popish frame to be awoken abruptly at the end.

Production on this album is quite key to its appreciation, as well as its conceptual formations, and the recognition that the improvisations hide within their apparent immediacy a knowledge of a vocabulary of sound that is (un)hidden.

Innerversitysound

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at 5:53 PM