Sunday, July 19, 2009

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Traject – Birting (Creative Space)

Posted: 19 Jul 2009 02:37 PM PDT

traject

When I bring to mind the music of Iceland, I can’t help but think of epic pop or twee music-box styled experiments. It’s a pleasant surprise then, that Gisli Thor Gudmundsson, aka Traject, draws inspiration not from the current crop of Icelandic superstars, but seemingly from the subarctic landscape itself.

Penrose opens the album, with deep breathy drones creaking and groaning under the weight of meticulously programmed deconstructed rhythms. There’s something sinister lurking in the tundra, and Gudmundsson has captured it’s essence here. Bjart Er Yfir follows with more of the drones and atmospherics that tie the album together. This time though, they’re accompanied by deep tribal drumming and looped distant vocal samples. On Umkringdur / Umsátur the icy electronic beats return, floating between resonant harmonics, and the ever present gloomy atmospheric drones. The metallic Hvergi drops any rhythmic element altogether, and leaves us with deconstructed plucked strings, choirs in the wasteland, and the sound of sheet metal crashing against the ice. Mistur continues the choral, cinematic theme, while Samkoman ties together elements of previous tracks with the beats united with treated piano, fractured strings, metallic clashes and sinister bass. 0718 picks up the pace, opening with Autechre-esque electronics, until percussive elements take hold and drive the track with a sense of urgency to it’s conclusion. The short Doom and Siesta Time is the closest we get to Icelandic pop, where the drones and beats leave us for a quiet interlude of melancholic harmonium and bells. Of the five remaining tracks, Metropolis, The Horns are Gone, and Campfire Scene deliver more of the sinister atmospherics and fractured beats. Stálómur srips back the palette, with minimal beats and wooden perscussion, but still accompanied by that sense of dread pervading the landscape. Eg Sofna closes the album, as softly as it can, atmospheric strings and voices leading us out of the icy wilderness.

A stunning collection of glacial IDM from Traject.

Ben Askins

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Black Lung – Full Spectrum Dominance (Psy Harmonics)

Posted: 19 Jul 2009 06:56 AM PDT

black lung2

Ever a fan of the U.S military and the selfless good it does in various (particularly Middle Eastern) hotspots around the world Dave Thrussell (Snog) cheerfully accepted a commission from Darpa (The Defense Advanced Research Projects) to provide a soundtrack for those hard working souls in the Pentagon. You see they don’t have the time to track down the cool new music, to sort the gold from the chaff, they’re too busy making new weapons to maintain peace in our time.

The result of countless hours of research and regular liaison with the military, Full Spectrum Dominance, a concept album of sorts sees his electronic project Black Lung move away from the dark brooding beats of its predecessors and get almost righteous, triumphant and in your face (like any patriotic American worth his/her salt should). It’s a blistering set, everything sounds huge, but stylistically he’s all over the shop, one moment he sounds like something straight out of Tomita, the next he’s manipulating avant electronic soundscapes, the next it’s crunchy beats and searing synths. With notes for each track, the album is aligned to the U.S military’s desire for Full Spectrum Dominance through mass media manipulation and military might, and it’s refreshing to hear how successful he can be when not browbeating us with his fashionable leftist agenda. Whilst it’s possible that this very album might be part of some larger Psy-Ops agenda, with subliminal messages lurking beneath it’s sweeping textures and electronic crackles, it is an aggressive and upbeat collection of tunes. In short it’s a selection of tunes for winners, and filled with innovative and exciting electronic techniques it can’t help but motivate those hardworking innovators in the US Pentagon to come up with better, smarter and more left field ideas for forcing the rest of the world to live in peace. And though as we move through each of the 10 pieces the inevitable conclusion appears to be Armageddon, I’m sure that some of those innovators in in Darpa will think of some way to take care of those who deserve to be saved. And no doubt they’ll do it whilst listening to these tunes.

Bob Baker Fish

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Black Nasty – Shark Tank (Self Released)

Posted: 19 Jul 2009 06:58 AM PDT

black nasty

In a long and filthy lineage that extends back to 2 Live Crew, through NWA and even Snoop Dog, Black Nasty is a despicable homophobic misogynist potty mouth rapper who loves to shock. In fact he seems like a product of all of the above who spits and intones all white boy bravado like Eminem. He’s a hip hop baby, who’s grown up with his views skewed from an early age, yet the content is heightened for now, as in 2009 you don’t just bag bitches, no, you make them eat out your anus (How’s My Shit Taste?) or hit them with the three hole punch (Three Hole Punch).

Shark Tank is overwhelming in its seedy wrongness. It’s so knowingly shocking and offensive that a nervous helpless giggle is almost the only reaction left, as Black Nasty overwhelms the listener with a seemingly unending barrage of puerile, imaginative and disgusting taboos. It’s the kind of music that after listening you feel like you need to wash. The music is pretty simple, basic beats, knowingly bare, knowingly crap. But it doesn’t matter, it’s all about Black Nasty’s dexterous potty rhymes.

I like to think that this album is parody, heightening and giving explicit voice to some of the more despicable and misogynist elements currently bouncing around not only hip hop, but even top 40 music. Yet I can’t be sure. On Eazy, cleverly using the Lionel Richie music, he comes clean, it’s all about Eazy E (NWA), perhaps the sleaziest rapper ever, who taught Black Nasty that “bitches aint shit.” At least that explains why he keeps bragging that he has HIV. Incredibly Bonnie Prince Billy appears on this track, and earlier Ariel Pink also pops up to lend a wail and a little dose of much needed credibility. But Black Nasty is having way too much fun with this, how else would you explain skits about a person pleasuring themselves whilst pretending to be a rape hotline pressing for explicit details of the assault, or the sadistic and violent tone of the final third of the album?

If you’re after juvenile, imaginative, morally questionable and very distasteful genital humour then this little hand grenade may be too much for you. It takes all of this and then raises it about 1000 percent until even your casual sex offender starts to feel a little uncomfortable. Hopefully that’s the point.

Bob Baker Fish

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Lauren Horton – There Will Be Static (Self Released)

Posted: 19 Jul 2009 02:48 AM PDT

In the wake of Sarah Blasko, Holly Throsby et al, there has been a delightful increase in the number of female voices unafraid to sing in an Australian accent. There’s always been the odd singer, but never the critical mass that can currently be found. Lauren Horton adds herself to the collection but shows that it’s no longer just a genre but a musical technique that can be applied anywhere as an antidote to generic Idol-ism accents.

Horton’s voice is the most immediately striking feature of her music, particularly on some of the later tracks on this EP which combine her own voice multi-tracked alongside other female and male voices, completely a cappella. Production on other tracks is delightfully ramshackle. ‘Silence In A Can’ utilises double bass, subtle guitar and little pieces of junk and mouth percussion in a manner which would make Tom Waits proud and is the highlight for me. Lead track ‘Postcard Guy’ is even jauntier and more broken with trumpet and clarinet blurts, nylon string guitar picking, double bass and violin interludes and loose limbed drum brushing. And just back to those vocals, from here it’s even great to hear closer ‘Une Veste: A French Lesson’ being sung in fluent French with a clearly discernible Australian accent. Lyrically, Horton is fairly observational, describing relationships as played out in the third person in a cafe, or using ‘Like Cars And Planes’ to describe tensions in the air.

My one criticism of There Will Be Static is going to fall upon the imagery of the artwork. While it is a decidedly alternative vision of sexiness to Video Hits genericness, with Horton’s music evocative of so many things, why does she need to stoop to exploiting sexuality? The outfit itself is great – why add a made-for-male-gaze soft-porn pose to confuse things? No doubt that opinion is up for debate, and I would welcome it, but I found it a little disappointing in the context of such great music.

Adrian Elmer

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at 5:19 PM