Cyclic Defrost

Haven – Plastic (Tympanik Audio)

2010-02-08T20:25:09Z

Polish electronic producer Marcin Jarmulski first emerged back in 2005 on the War Office Propaganda label with his debut album as Haven ‘The Last Breath Of Lonely Buildings’, and since then he’s managed to release a further two albums under the moniker – 2006’s ‘Naos’ and 2008’s ‘[A2982].’ This latest album ‘Plastic’ represents Jarmulski’s first album for the Chicago-based Tympanik Audio label as well as his fourth Haven overall, and sees him continuing to explore an icy yet graceful dark downbeat path that’s as equally influenced by the ambient wash of Tangerine Dream’s more foreboding moments, as it is by more contemporary IDM structures. Opening track ‘Tell Me About Madness’ certainly sets the scene well, with the sampled title phrase being pitchshifted and digitally treated as it slides against a shimmering backdrop of Carpenter-esque ambient synthscapes and pulsing bleeps, but it’s not until the eerie, Middle Eastern-tinged ‘Marrakech’ that the grinding glitchy rhythms really start to kick in as Muezzin-styled vocal washes flit like distant ghosts against sinister pressurised hisses and dark bass synth swells, in a highlight offering here that calls to mind Raoul Sinier’s contorted nightmare electronics pushed into a Persian bazaar.

Elsewhere, ‘Let’s Play The Disco Now’ sees proceedings venturing towards more upbeat bpms with harsh industrial beats coming to the foreground, but it’s a juxtaposition that ends up sitting a little awkwardly against the surrounding classical piano keys and swirling, soft-focus synth pads, the graceful ‘Les Choses’ offering up a considerably more convincing fusion of broken electro rhythms and understated symphonic elegance as distant female vocal samples mutter just below the threshold of hearing. While throughout there’s a convincing sense of icy and dark downbeat atmosphere conjured up over the 14 tracks here, the repeated re-use of the same musical elements such as sweeping, melancholic prog synth pads, creepy spoken samples and shimmering synth arpeggiation means that things start to get a little same-y after a while. Luckily, there’s a couple of excellent remixes from labelmates Aphorism and Tapage packed in right at the end to liven things up a little.

Chris Downton

Haven – Plastic (Tympanik Audio) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra – II (Get Physical/Inertia)

2010-02-08T20:24:13Z

It takes a rare skill to build an entire album out of a basis in loops yet keep everything from sounding stagnant and, well, repetitive. Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra achieve the feat with aplomb on II, their third album, the second for Germany’s Get Physical label.

It’s not completely clear who does what in the band, and I dare say there’s a fair amount of overlap in the various roles, but the trio consists of Raz himself with a background in soul and abstract dance music, Oliver Doerell with an ambientish DJing background and dabbler in electro-acoustic improv/song, and Tom Krimi, whose own work tends towards Beatlesque pop. This leaves the palette pretty much wide open and the group takes advantage of this. A typical track such as ‘Varsha’ or ‘The Day You Suffered Helpless Out Of Reach And All Lines Were Dead’ starts with a gently plucked acoustic guitar figure which is decorated with gentle percussion. Multitudes of layers are then added as the main guitar continues underneath – first the affected vocals, then synths, electronic glitches, muted horns and strings, always building. Each of these elements, when considered in isolation, are simple and repetitive, but the continual shifts in the layering have them ebb and flow in and out of focus, building to a mesmerising grandeur. At other times, such as on ‘Kingdom’, abstract tuned percussion loops with a gentle menace compounded by brooding bass, stretching out over 5 and a half minutes, again building in intensity without ever grabbing the release valve. One comparison that comes to mind is the idea of motorik being played in a diminished key, with drone replaced by flickering arpeggio and distortion replaced by scratched brass and strings.

Lyrically, Ohara sings with a depth borne of personal experience. 10 years ago his father, a freightship captain with whom Raz spent considerable time at sea, was killed in an Atlantic storm. This spectre still obviously hovers, both directly and indirectly. ‘The Day You Suffered Helpless Out Of Reach And All Lines Were Dead’ lays it all out in the title, while ‘Losing My Name’ begins “I know he’s with me/I’m barefoot/shouting, losing my name/my wagon is missing the trail/they’re calling/saying I’m lost on my way/they’re calling, but I’m losing my name/in the quicksand they hail an illusion”. Elsewhere, he more indirectly ponders the notions of uncertain faith and an afterlife.

II can, on the surface, seem a gentle album, but it draws you in and takes you on its journey. The amount of grit present can be overlooked if you’re not taking conscious notice, but it has the effect of throwing the elements of beauty into even starker contrast, highlighting them. This is excellent pop music – searching and exploratory yet captivating and memorable.

Adrian Elmer

Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra – II (Get Physical/Inertia) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Secret Birds – Asleep On The Dragon (Valve)

2010-02-07T22:48:50Z

Secret Birds are the revolving-cast creation of Brisbane’s D. Black (ex-On/Ox), who also produced this wicked debut album. Wielding guitars and Moog, he’s joined here by a bassist, drummer, and keyboardist, as well as auxiliary personnel. When six songs total 45 minutes, you know it’s going to be a heady ride, and the opening instrumental ‘Zone In/7th Pillar’ introduces crushing doom-psych proceeding at the pace of molasses. The fever lifts a bit with ‘Lame Child’, which pairs acoustic guitar and a wooly electric lead with the innocent, mantra-like vocals of guest Breannen Stanbridge.

As if heralded by that hint of sweetness, the title track is rooted in babbling, old-world folk picking. Any respite is brief, though, as the final three tracks dig their heels in for squealing, churning, post-Sabbath jams. Apart from ‘Lame Child’, the entire album is instrumental, lending another layer of surrealism to the garage- and metal-informed psych sprawl. The connecting thread is always Black’s lead guitar, towering over each song with the conviction of a world-class conductor. Distortion and feedback are used to great effect, meanwhile, and the rhythm section quietly anchors these protracted excursions.

Nothing terribly new is being achieved – or even attempted – with Asleep On The Dragon, but Secret Birds succeed at opening a gateway to another world while nodding to various musical heroes of yore.

Doug Wallen

Secret Birds – Asleep On The Dragon (Valve) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Thavius Beck – Dialogue (Big Dada/Inertia)

2010-02-07T22:46:28Z

Since the release of Thavius Beck’s preceding 2006 THRU album on Mush, the Los Angeles-based hip-hop producer and multi-instrumentalist has certainly been a busy man, working alongside Trent Reznor in the studio co-producing Saul Williams’ The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust album, as well as spending much of 2008 handling production for K-The-I’s Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow album. With such a packed creative schedule, it’s perhaps no wonder that it’s taken almost four years for this third solo effort Dialogue, his first for Big Dada, to finally arrive. While Beck’s two preceding albums have seen him enlisting the skills of a range of guest vocalists including The Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Saul Williams and Subtitle, one of the first changes that’s immediately apparent on the aptly-titled Dialogue is Beck’s decision to rely completely on his own vocals – indeed, this latest album arguably sees him behind the mike more than he’s been since his early Project Blowed days.

There’s also a predominant focus on conscious lyrics and socio-political themes amongst the fifteen tracks collected here – something hinted at further by track titles like ‘Money’, ‘Violence’ and the Giovanni Marks-assisted ‘Sheepish’ – the latter in particular being a barbed attack on advertisers co-opting concepts of youth culture and rebellion for marketing purposes. Throughout, the targets Beck sets his sights on include mindless commercialism, the idea of urban gangsterism simply providing another distorted caricature of black culture that’s the direct descendent of past stereotypes and apathy (see ‘IDC’), and while several other writers have expressed mixed feelings concerning Beck’s lyrical skills and delivery, for the most part I found most of the tracks here to be solid and literate stuff that certainly doesn’t diminish his preceding reputation. While there’s certainly a lot to take in lyrically over this album’s comparatively brief 39 minutes, Beck’s dense, rapid-fire verbal style suits the jagged, frenetic and synth-dominated instrumental backdrops offered up on highlight moments such as ‘Cracking The Shell’, ‘Go!’ and ‘Transmission’, the resulting sonic fusion evoking a sense of The Bomb Squad’s dense barrage being married to a sinuous post-Anti-Pop Consortium glitchy synth-hop aesthetic. All things considered, fans of the likes of El-P and Saul Williams’ Niggy Tardust alter-ego should find much to admire on ‘Dialogue.’

Chris Downton

Thavius Beck – Dialogue (Big Dada/Inertia) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Death In June – Braun Buch Zwei (NER)

2010-02-07T06:10:34Z

Death In June’s Brown Book was originally issued in 1987. The original 11-track LP featured guest contributions from David Tibet, Jhonn Balance and Rose McDowall amongst others, and remains one of DIJ’s most influential – not to mention controversial – albums. In 2007 the album was given the deluxe reissue treatment, and was released as a double CD in a stone box. The second disc of that collection has now been released in its own right and is retitled Braun Buch Zwei. This is not so much a new, improved version – more like a revision or Director’s Cut of the original. Braun Buch Zwei is some 11 minutes longer than Brown Book. The new version is the same as the old for the first seven tracks, but then the new album takes a slightly different course as different versions of songs are used for the remaining tracks. BBII is one of DIJ’s most fully rounded albums – containing pop songs, ominous chants, spooky spoken word pieces, and peculiar sound collages.

‘To Drown a Rose’ is one of DIJ’s perfect pop moments: dual lead vocals from Douglas P and Rose McDowall, big digital drumbeats, ambient synth sounds, acoustic guitar, trumpet – it all melds into what should have been a huge indie hit (the track was released as a 10″ single in 1987). ‘Red Dog – Black Dog’ is a disturbing spoken word piece, with just an echoed and treated male voice recounting a spectral tale of divination, backed by Rose McDowall’s wordless, ethereal vocals. ‘Europa: The Gates of Heaven’ is an alternate version of ‘We Are the Lust’, a drum-heavy song featuring vocals from the late Jhonn Balance. ‘Brown Book re-read’ and ‘Brown Book’ are two complementary mixes of the same piece. The main element of each track is an actress’ voice sampled from the German film Die Welt in Jenem Sommer. In the first version, the heavily echoed voice is backed by more eerie, wordless vocals, and an insistent synthesised sleighbell sound plays low in the mix (I never thought a sleighbell could sound sinister, but it does here.) The second version begins with gongs being struck, before the sampled voice German voice enters – this time lower in the mix with less effects, and flanked by chanted Japanese vocals. Far back in the mix, one can hear the same drum rhythm as used on the opening track ‘Heilige Tod’, thus giving the album a pleasing symmetry, as we are returned to our place of departure on track one.

Brown Book is in many ways the quintessential DIJ album, and its new remixed and remastered form as Braun Buch Zwei should find a whole new audience for the band.

Ewan Burke

Death In June – Braun Buch Zwei (NER) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Akira Kosemura – Polaroid Piano (Someone Good/Vitamin)

2010-02-05T10:04:06Z

Polaroid photographs embody the hauntological; cloaking captured memories in a similar kind of glowing haze as that which surrounds real ones. Akira Kosemura’s evocatively titled Polaroid Piano is equally shot in soft focus (the cover too, adorned in Kosemura’s gorgeous Polaroid snapshots, reminding us of their charms) and is arguably the humblest contribution to the growing field of piano and electronics recordings. The pianist/producer keeps the soft pedal depressed throughout, as though afraid of waking a sleeping baby, although his pithy chord runs and gauzy arpeggios could calm the fiercest insomniac. Add to that harp-like guitar figures and a faint field recording din, hovering like warm fog, and you have one of the cosiest ambient releases I’ve heard in years.

There’s nothing remarkable to Kosemura’s technique – basically a stripped-back, slowed-down version of Goldmund a la Corduroy Road. His short sketches are more like hymns than anything classical, simple left hand chords with slowly unfurled treble patterns. Were it not for the feathery flotsam – the chiming guitar, ethereal ambience, and clunky sound of dampened keys – this could be George Winston. For all the ragtag homespun charm there’s a real sense of completion to these pieces, each element wedded perfectly to its surroundings, each track contributing to a coherent whole. Kosemura has created a real understated gem here, thirty minutes of blissful revery tinged, like memories, with the sadness of time lost.

Joshua Meggitt

Akira Kosemura – Polaroid Piano (Someone Good/Vitamin) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

ACRE – Isolationist (Isounderscore)

2010-02-03T22:45:38Z

Having previously disseminated work on limited vinyl, CD-R, and cassette releases, Portland’s Aaron Davis here grants his long-evolving ACRE project its widest exposure yet. Existing in 500 copies and tucked into an eye-popping neon orange sleeve, Isolationist is also accurately titled: it’s the sound of one person honing in on a single idea with undistracted precision. That idea is a sustained minimalist drone – presumably from an analogue synthesizer – that modulates slowly enough that it can seem to not change at all if close attention isn’t paid. In fact, it’s an understatement to say that the more the listener invests in ACRE, the greater the rewards.

These three untitled tracks range in length from 12:43 to 21:58. If that seems like a long haul for such delicate, often subliminal changes in tone, it drifts along with an contagious calm. That’s not to say it’s entirely placid; the third track first rumbles in the distance by way of setting the stage, and when the odd hiccup or burp emerges, it’s an instinctual thrill. The CD sleeve’s legend “innovate don’t imitate” recalls the missives printed on Flying Saucer Attack albums, and there’s a shared spirit of horizon-chasing bliss to ACRE. But there’s also something voluminous about the drone, begging repeated exposure and increases in volume. It’s not a plane of sound, then; it’s a sphere.

Doug Wallen

ACRE – Isolationist (Isounderscore) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Nörz – (Also Known As) Acker Velvet (Schraum)

2010-02-02T03:37:17Z

Nörz produce teeny, precise gestures of indeterminate electroacoustic origin arranged into shifty, haphazard pieces with gradual, barely discernible development. Dynamics vary from dangerously high-pitched sine tones a la Sachiko M to dense low end potholes that would catch up the likes of Deathprod, but their improvisatory methods ensure a relatively steady hand is maintained, sparing us the kind of violent leaps in attack found in Mego productions. The duo of Andreas Trobollowitsch and Johannes Tröndle employ tape, guitars, melodica, cello, live electronics, radio and more in creating this melange, and while the cello and radio static dominate the mystery remains.

The eight tracks are joined at the seams, and vary from the low-grade hiss and spare guitar of opening ‘mo’ to the heavier menace of droning ’su’. ‘So’ contrasts short bursts of white noise with dead koto-like plunks, ‘ra’ chatters away like an insect conversation, while the final ‘li’ foregrounds the melodica over confused rustled matter. Nörz work in an increasingly populated field, but they demonstrate enough control here to place them near the front of the pack.

Joshua Meggitt

Nörz – (Also Known As) Acker Velvet (Schraum) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Bartok – 44 Duos for 2 Violins (Harmonia Mundi)

2010-02-02T03:36:05Z

Bartok’s major contribution to classical music is generally considered to be his faithful examination/transcription of folk music styles, and this is no more evident than in these pedagogical studies for two violins. Brief sketches, all under two minutes in length, and veering from bucolic to violent, these morsels display a range of technical challenges to their interpreters, and offer an intriguing insight into the transcriptive methods of their author, in particular, and folk music appropriation in general.

They are performed here by sisters Angela and Jennifer Chun, who display a faithful understanding both of Bartok’s musical world and of the sources of his inspiration. They take us on a musical tour through Eastern Europe, with individual pieces based on tunes from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Transylvania and Ukraine, among others, exposing a range of instrumental techniques and melodic inventions – from jerky country-folk-esque dances to more open, modal dirges. There’s a general sense of familiarity to these styles for modern listeners but it was Bartok, through works such as this, that initially brought this music exposure. While their brevity may frustrate intensive listening, there is enough invention and vitality here to inspire further investigations into these trans-cultural snapshots.

Joshua Meggitt

Bartok – 44 Duos for 2 Violins (Harmonia Mundi) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

“Dangerous Clowns Battles the Technoids” – Extended Playlist 010210 – www.2ser.com 107.3FM

2010-02-02T08:00:19Z

Letting you gently into this week’s Extended Play with a track from the latest Filewile album ‘Blueskywell’,

we throw back Back! BACK!! fast to 1980+ for some synth pop/novo/quirkiness from Metal Urbain side project Metal Boys, Spanish foundlings Aviador Dro and a fab Systematics cover of ‘Boiled Dinner’ by the Barons,

then change techno tack to Detroit and Berlin and Tokyo with Drexciya off-shoot The Other People Place, Tresor types Sun Electric and Melbourne expat Funk Gadget aka Little Nobody aka Andrez Bergen,

finally cool down with an extract from fellow Sydney-siders Dark Network’s latest, the ‘Sneaky Tracks’ vinyl 12 on the Deluxe Mood Series and one from Touch turntablist Philip Jeck’s latest ‘Sand’.

Aaaahhhhh…….

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Themes, please, or feedback or indecent proposals, at your leisure . . . to extendedplay@2ser.com .
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# > Australian artist or release
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Filewile – Balaton Soupdrink
(“Blueskywell” – 2009, Mouthwatering)

Metal Boys – Tokio Airport
(“Des jeunes gens mödernes” 2xCD compilation – 2008, Naïve) (original 1980)

Aviador Dro – Nuclear, Sí
(“Nuclear, Sí” single – 1982, DRO)

Der Plan – Gefährliche Clowns
(“Geri Reig” – 1980, Ata Tak)

Die Welttraumforscher – Tier in der Garage
(“Gold vom tiefen Himmel” – 1993, Monif)

Systematics – Boiled Dinner
(“Boxed Brownies” ltd cassette compilation – 1981, M Squared) #

The Associates – A Matter Of Gender
(“A Matter Of Gender” 12inch – 1982, WEA)

Elecktroids – Check Mate
(“Elektroworld” – 1995, Warp)

The Other People Place – You Said You Want Me
(“Lifestyles Of The Laptop Café” – 2001, Warp)

Thomas Brinkmann – Jutta 1
(“Inge/Jutta” 12inchEP – 1998, Ernst)

Sun Electric – Monolith
(“Tresor 3” compilation – 1995, Novamute/Tresor)

DJ Mike S. Feat. Ben Elvis – Jake
(“Jake” 12inch – 1995, Superstition)

Funk Gadget – Blah Blah (Dave Tarrida Remix)
(“Blah Blah EP” 12inchEP – 2010, Slidebar) #

Dark Network – Sneaky Trax (Part 2)
(“Sneaky Tracks” 12inch – 2009, Deluxe Mood) #

Philip Jeck – Shining
(“Sand” – 2008, Touch)

—————————
# > Australian artist or release
—————————

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“Dangerous Clowns Battles the Technoids” – Extended Playlist 010210 – www.2ser.com 107.3FM is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Infernal Residue Deportment – Compactor Bile/Herd Not Scene (Dungeon Taxis)

2010-02-02T03:43:08Z

The drum solo has an interesting history. It is normally reviled by Year Zero post-punk revisionists while being revered by rock-pig revivalists. Sample based dance music is almost entirely based on the worship of the mechanical drum solo – the one and two bar breaks removed from any other melodic and harmonic context, repeated and amplified to physical consciousness shifting proportions. The avant-garde also throws up surprising and rewarding variants – Chris Corsano making percussion sounds sing or howl, xNoBBQx pushing recording meters beyond red until rhythm becomes a blurred fuzz-drone. Infernal Residue Deportment heads down the latter path, filling side one of this cassette release with primitively recorded drum bangings – though it’s only slightly overdriven, this is not recording-process-as-lead-instrument. The most interesting parts are where the bass sounds resonate so loudly they trail into a distortion buzz, becoming almost electronic. Some interesting jump cuts towards the latter stages also catch the ear. But a lack of extremity in any particular direction – technically, sonically or philosophically – leaves ‘Compactor Bile’ sounding like the middling kind of thing you really could do yourself, but not in any sort of inspirational manner.

‘Herd Not Scene’ is a similar proposition played out in two parts on mini-koto and gunk-gaku. Obviously and purposely outsider, non-virtuoso playing is fetching for a while but, again, relies on some sonic artifacts caused by overdriven bottom end for a few seconds here and there to really do anything that makes you stop and take notice. The final section with some hi-pitched, bowed droning competing with lava pulses from said bottom end create a climax that is exhilarating mostly because it contrasts so markedly from the overall banality of earlier sections. Elsewhere, the lo-fi, distant recording resists any sort of aural immersion on the part of the listener, leaving attention to be gained through what is actually being played. It struggles to quite do that.

Adrian Elmer

Infernal Residue Deportment – Compactor Bile/Herd Not Scene (Dungeon Taxis) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

LA Lakers – When (Dungeon Taxis)

2010-02-02T03:41:48Z

It’s not really drone – there’s way too much movement for that. But it does have a bed of droning organ. It’s lo-fi but it’s not mush – everything can be heard and has its place in both the sonic and spatial spectrums. There’s plenty of hiss and a lot of it isn’t coming off the actual cassette. It definitely sits in the neo-psychedelia spectrum, with its low wordless chants and tiny backwards percussion sounds. The lead instrument, if it can be called that in this kind of context, actually sounds like a tape player, but one that is able to be sped up and slowed down (old-school cassette 4-track recorder, possibly?) as the bleepy high end sounds that most often attract your attention jump in and out of hyperspeed, but far enough back in the mix to remain texture. There’s some very tiny fragments of speech, totally indecipherable, which, putting two and two together from the bio, could be LA Lakers interviewing himself on radio. There’s a sense of movement across the 20 minutes (split over 2 sides of a cassette) which gives this a much more considered feeling than pure improvisation. Even if the actual take was improvised, it was well though out beforehand. An intriguing release which belies its lo-fi æsthetic through the sheer force of mesmerisation. Uncharacteristically nice artwork for a cassette release as well – the nebulous pink blob painted on the plastic a slightly surrealistic touch totally befitting the sounds.

Adrian Elmer

LA Lakers – When (Dungeon Taxis) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Fourm/Shinkei/Luigi Terra – Luigi Terra (Dragon’s Eye)

2010-02-02T03:38:35Z

The ever-subdued folk at Dragon’s Eye go one lower with the typically sober-titled Clean Forms, dedicated to minimalist visual artists or artworks, featuring one piece apiece by three producers. An attempt is made to emphasise the link between 1960s minimalism of the Donald Judd school with the reductionist sound art practised by contemporary producers such as Fourm, Shinkei and Luigi Terra. This is unecessary, having been made many times before, the connection firmly established in the minds of anyone even vaguely familiar with music of this sort. Consequently, there’s no denying the successful evocation of minimlist visual principles in these cold, austere sound pieces.

Each artist takes quite a different approach, so there’s a welcome degree of variation within this reduced setting. Fourm’s dedication to Mark Rothko recalls Morton Feldman’s elegy to the painter’s Texan chapel, favouring blurred contours and persistent low-end hum. Shinkei’s ‘Nokori (for Ken Nakazawa)’ zooms in on frenzied micro-activity, what sounds like the crackling of a fire and the tinkering of small metallic objects, all sharpened to a clinical degree. Luigi Terra takes a similar approach on ‘Aluminium.Zinc’, with hints to maritime activity in the tug and chaff of rope on wood, waves, and indeterminate rustling, masking barely-there groans and moans of animal origin. The uber-refined use of few resources is indeed admirable, but the difficulty in actually perceiving much, even with the volume cranked up, remains frustrating, whatever the intention.

Joshua Meggitt

Fourm/Shinkei/Luigi Terra – Luigi Terra (Dragon’s Eye) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Various Artists – Panama!3 (Soundways/Fuse)

2010-01-31T13:06:27Z

As traditional music slowly dies out across the world, replaced by an insatiable thirst for Beyonce and coca cola, so too does the role of the ethnomusicologist. The only opportunity for the thrill of the chase, to discover by chance something unique, amazing and long forgotten these days seems to come in the form of obsessive DJ’s scouring Africa and South America for old school funk, paying exorbitant prices for vinyl from bemused locals dusting out their sheds.

And there’s been some real finds. Perhaps most unexpected Soundways have unearthed three discs thus far of some quite distinctive and amazing music from Panama, the thin tropical meeting point between North and South America. The third (and most accessible) volume has everything from super cool funk to more tropical Latin and Caribbean styles, encompassing cumbia, calypso, jazz, you name it. Panama is renowned as a multicultural crossroads thanks to the Panama Canal with ports and slums providing a unique melting pot of musical styles which explains the diversity of approaches and styles. Yet it’s all universally upbeat, with a pulsing infectious energy that’s impossible not to be swept up in. None of these artists are household names, in fact the recording quality on some tunes is quite compromised, dusty crackles and horns that flange in and out – yet this only adds to the experience and feeling of authenticity. With 23 tracks compiled from between 1960 – 75, it’s incredible how these tunes effortlessly combine a pure soulful feel with the desire to party. Surely it’s what music was invented for.

Bob Baker Fish

Various Artists – Panama!3 (Soundways/Fuse) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Four Tet – There Is Love In You (Domino)

2010-01-30T11:35:05Z

Four Tet has finally released his new album, There Is Love In You, after much hype on the internet.Since his first solo effort, Dialogue, which was heavily jazz influenced, Four Tet has veered in many tangents, showing his many influences from disparate genres, the Ringer EP hinted at a whole new sound, combining his love of electronic music and krautrock.

There Is Love In You borrows that krautrock template from the Ringer EP, cyclical electronic beats, deep analogue synths, and predominantly the use of repetition to create a groove so ever present on his post disco European krautrock influences.

Heavily processed electronic melodies swirl with kraut grooves and chopped vocals on tracks such as “Angel Echoes”, “Love Cry”, “Circling”, and “Sing”, no matter how heavy the groove, the female vocals, heavily chopped, mostly beyond recognition of words, take the melody to a higher, more spiritual place. “The Unfolds” slows down the pace with sluggish drums, guitar melody and subtle electronic textures bubbling underneath, until a 4/4 beat kicks in carrying the flute melody and playful tambourine. “Reversing” toys with electronics as soundscape to the full, with a sweet short track, while “Plastic People” has taken the 2-step out of a 2-step shuffle, allowing the percussion to carry the momentum.

One thing noticeable from There Is Love In You, is Kieran’s busy DJ schedule, his involvement with current dubstep and funky producers, has overflowed into a full length album, those influences of playing to a dancefloor have showed here, but as usual the Four Tet slant on things adds an eclecticism that only Hebden can achieve, he weaves in so many influences, so many subtleties, its only on repeated listens that new sounds present themselves, and new more complex melodies seem to evolve. This for me is music that can become timeless, showing something new with every listen, which gives it longevity, allowing it to become more than a fashionable sound.

There Is Love In You comes highly recommended, its not an immediate satisfaction, but the satisfaction grows with every listen.

Wayne Stronell

Four Tet – There Is Love In You (Domino) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Monkeymarc – As The Market Crashed (Omelette)

2010-01-30T11:33:40Z

This CD hasn’t left my side for a week, if I cant listen at home whenever I can, its in the car, and its turned up loud. Its been a long time between drinks, but Monkeymarc is back.

The main music maker and producer for legendary Melbourne conscious hip hop and dub outfit Combat Wombat, Monkeymarc, or Marc Peckham, has forged a style that is original and refreshing. The last Combat Wombat album was a huge hit in this house, loved by all, including my kids, who really seemed to connect with the rhythms, sonic expression, and the underlying message. To finally have a solo album from Marc is a joy, although the message being subdued by the lack of MC’s, its still there, you just need to scratch beneath the surface.

The album kicks off in mellow Thievery Corporation style, part hip hop, dub and mellow beats, but the opener is an intro into something more meaty and exciting, and refreshing to hear such a combination of styles mashed together that work. “What Can I Do?” injects Marc’s love of blues with a brilliant use of Lightning Hopkins voice, sampled, “…I used to be a dealer…”, catchy, infectious. “One Race One Creed One World” reshapes John Lydon into a prophet, while the ghost of Bessie Smith haunts “The Evening Sun” with bass hook and infectious eastern strings and percussion. Boom bap beats ride over steel drums on “Mumbai Mayhem”, before the Indian theme sweeps it to another place, and a chant snippet bounces around your head with lashings of warm, comforting synths and feel good flutes. “Deadly Dub” brings me back to what I enjoyed most about Combat Wombat, the knack of combining modern production with straight up, no fuss, dubbed out jams, simple piano lines float over a sea of dub, sharp snares, and snappy high hats, before the almost heavenly melodica takes you away, it’s a sound that ensures the hairs on the back of my neck become upright. “Emergency” plays with dubstep, but affirming the half-step with skipping high hats give the track momentum, yet retaining the infectious skank, and a sub-bass wobble that rivals anything in the genre from overseas. “We’ve Really Fucked Up This Time” opens with ghostly dub and Mad Max dialogue samples, hailing to a bleak future, you’d think you were listening to a new Kode9 production, a futuristic displaced skank, a dub pushed to the limit of sedation, with only the skitter of high hats to give momentum. “Sufi Dub” brings things back to earth, the unknown Turkish singer reaffirming ones spirituality, its hard not to be affected by the mournful strings and the incredibly uplifting voice, and even not understanding the language, it feels spiritual. “Now Or Never” carries forward the plucked strings, adding warm and comforting synth to round off what is an incredibly enjoyable journey around the globe, and around the studio of a very creative mind.

Recorded entirely on solar power in Monkeymarc’s converted shipping container studio in Melbourne, mixed at Sumroom Studios in Paris, and mastered at Transition in London, Monkeymarc has created such an eclectic and diverse album like no other Australian artist to date, this album deserves success beyond our shores, and should be embraced here for its hidden delights. Released on Melbournes Omelette Records, with artwork by Matt Dunn, the packaging is even forward thinking, by Eco Innovators, using 80% post consumer waste recycled paper and vegetable inks.

An absolute joy to listen to from start to finish. Support Australian, support innovation, please buy this album. Find out more at www.monkeymarc.com.

Wayne Stronell

Monkeymarc – As The Market Crashed (Omelette) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Lone – Ecstasy & Friends (Werk Discs)

2010-01-30T11:32:30Z

Right from the start this is ‘altered states of consciousness’ music. Opening sample gambit: “sure I will do it again sometime. But you know, to be with the person you really dig and…” It sort of sets the scene doesn’t it. You fill in the blanks but between the title and the sample Matt Cutler signifies whats going on in his community and delivers the soundtrack for their life. Thus bring on the high register psychedelic bright tones, wafting angelic chorus, off kilter wonked out beats, haltering tempo and mind f**k spatial effects. All wrapped up in a combination frame of hip hop meets psychedelic ambience with a new fit-out of tricks that make this a significant development from his debut album ‘Lemurian’. The production values have gone through a radical overhaul and it displays a keen interweaving of disparate elements in a cut-up, layer and effects driven technique.

To place it in contrast imagine it akin to hip hop, with the jazz heritage stripped out and only a faltering recognition of it’s form, meets a synth utopia of the Boards of Canada ilk. Combine that with a little nature insertion, a nod to environmental sound, and numerous in-jokes. There is even the development of a nascent funk vibe emerging from the crashing waves of tonal bliss bomb sonic assault. Generally it bodes well for Lone and I am sure this will find rapturous ears amongst a specific milieu. Perhaps eventually the music Cutler forms will speak to a wider circle of people beyond those friends with ecstasy.

Innerversitysound

Lone – Ecstasy & Friends (Werk Discs) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Messiaen – Harawi (Naxos)

2010-01-28T08:30:46Z

Budget classical stalwarts Naxos continue their commendable survey of the music of Olivier Messiaen with a second disc of vocal work, this time the piano-accompanied Trois Melodies and Harawi. The former of 1930 is devoted to Messiaen’s mother who had died three years earlier, the second song of which is a setting to one of her poems. All three are typically unconventional, avoiding obvious evocations of loss and despair; rather, they’re restless celebrations of her spirit. Fuelled by lyrical piano runs and bright, soaring vocal lines, these works hint at the influence of Debussy but are well on their way to marking the composer’s own idiosyncratic voice.

1945’s Harawi was the first of Messiaen’s trilogy on earthly love, a joyous celebration of the same sexuality that Wagner explored, shrouded in guilt, in Tristan and Isolde. Dedicated to his then ailing wife Claire Delbos, this highly charged work employs a range of extended techniques, with large sections of the text in Peruvian, and nonsense phonemes of Messiaen’s own invention. Dynamics range from hushed whispers to explosive abandon, a difficult piece to pull off but one that Hetna Regitze Bruun (soprano), Kristoffer Hyldig (piano) really sink their teeth into. The sensuality is not lost on the accompanying press picture – Bruun riding a motorcycle, Gyldig mounting the rear, a tad racy for the ordinarily sober Naxos.

Joshua Meggitt

Messiaen – Harawi (Naxos) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Roshi – Roshi (Exogenic Breaks)

2010-01-28T08:27:26Z

Before his untimely passing last year at the age of 34, Finnish electronic producer Kristo Tuomi (aka Roshi, Japanese for teacher/master) was deeply involved in Finland’s music scene for much of the preceding decade, having a hand in projects such as The Jar and Stealth Unit Sound Collective. Despite his prolific production history however, this posthumously released self-titled Roshi album on Exogenic Breaks represents his debut full-length solo release, and sees Tuomi crafting an eclectic breaks-centred collection that adeptly shifts between nu skool breaks, electro and overdriven rock with a degree of skill that’s matched by few other producers currently operating amongst the breaks scene. There’s also a distinctly gothy undertone bubbling just beneath the surface of almost all the tracks here.

Epic opening track ‘Revolution 2009′ unfurls itself from the kind of grandiose, synthetic orchestral fanfare that would put the likes of Orbital to shame, shortly before locking down into dark throbbing synths and punching electro rhythms that call to mind Blackstrobe’s electro-biker excursions given a distinctly more breakbeat-centred edge. From there, ‘Loading Zone’ slams straight into electro-edged rock that sits somewhere between NIN-esque percussive aggression and Queens Of The Stone Age’s seductive purr as it winds a crawling live bassline around bursts of synthetic noise and chugging, processed guitars, before ‘It’s All Good?’ slides in huge, chunky digitally-processed synth tones ala Boys Noize / Modeselektor into the mix.

While for the most part the focus remains upon moody, club-centric breaks / house / electro grooves however, there’s certainly a few unexpected surprises packed in along the way in the form of ‘Shinken’s sudden descent down into meticulously sculpted darkstep drum and bass, and ‘Mirror’s sidestep into midtempo hiphop, complete with Redrama adding his MC vocals to a murky backdrop of wailing theremins and distinctly fifties-styled guitar chords. All in all, it’s fair to say that Tuomi’s debut album as Roshi goes a long way towards re-invigorating the increasingly uninspiring breaks genre, and the fact that it’s his first and final solo release makes it both frustrating and poignant.

Chris Downton

Roshi – Roshi (Exogenic Breaks) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Maximo Park – Maximo Park Twelve (Warp/Inertia)

2010-01-28T08:26:07Z

I’ve been listening to the Broadcast & The Focus Group EP, Cults Of The Radio Age, quite a bit recently. It was released on Warp, as is this 12″ by Maximo Park. Broadcast has rightly garnered almost unanimously rapturous acclaim. What this indicates is just how far the Warp label has come, because the two releases are about as far apart as you could get from each other along an axis of music with electronic production. And, unfortunately in the case of Maximo Park, it’s not always great music.

You get 4 versions of ‘Let’s Get Clinical’ for your money, plus a remix of ‘A Cloud Of Mystery’, both of which originally appeared on the album, Quicken The Heart. Two of the remixes are short and long edits of the Tom Middleton ‘Twisted’ mix – a radio edit and a ‘dub’. That’s probably a bit exotic a term to give the plodding house track with all the vocals removed bar the word ‘twisted’ which is repeated ad infinitum for nearly 8 minutes. The radio edit leaves the vocals intact, but then I found myself wishing they hadn’t been – “I’d like to map your body out/Inch by inch/North to south” is about as inane as the music. The Clark Remix is the best, a sort of slowed down rave version with distorted rave stabs, rave breakbeats and silly rave effects on the voice, but around a leisurely 115bpm. Hijacker’s Haunted House Mix puts the faux new romantic vocal strains back front and centre, but with little else to hook your ears or feet it just rolls along aimlessly. At least Martyn’s Angel Of The North Mix of ‘A Cloud Of Mystery’ has a different feel, but even it is pretty much just poor man’s dubstep-by-numbers with nothing much fresh to add.

Warp has been riding a tide of great releases over the last few months. As it does grow and spread, there’s bound to be the odd weak release. This is a forgettable blip in the catalogue.

Adrian Elmer

Maximo Park – Maximo Park Twelve (Warp/Inertia) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.