REVIEWS

tiny vipersTiny Vipers is Jesy Fortino, mostly accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Her plaintive vocals and minimal finger picking gently wash across the ears. Fortino's vocal delivery and choice of accompaniment play with ideas of folk music, but this record relies a great deal on recording studio technique. The studio tinkering is most obvious in tracks like 'Twilight Property' and 'Young God', which combine drones along with what sounds like loops and piano. Careful listening reveals that the edges of notes have been meticulously smudged throughout all of the tracks. Most of the guitar parts are cloaked in enough reverb to make a dubstep producer jealous, while Fortino's vocals are treated with a variety of different effects throughout the disc. The spacious, but focused, sound palette along with Fortino's unhurried playing combine to make small musical events seem truly momentous. When Fortino whistles a few notes on 'Tiger Mountain' towards the end of the album the contrast in musical colour is unsettling. As the music unfolds it becomes apparent that this instrumental restraint is calculated to heighten the drama of Fortino's vocal performance. Life on Earth is, quietly, a Wuthering Heights of an album, exploring extremes of human emotion and behaviour. Fortino is a remarkable singer, frequently employing a Celtic lilt and recalling at different moments singers as diverse as Neil Young and Kirsten Hersh. She seems to be interested in channelling her songs and various voices rather than expressing personal feelings. Her lyrics are undefined and melancholy, but individual lines occasionally emerge with startling clarity. Fortino's commitment to each performance and understated passion suggests that in live performance she must be electrifying. This whole work is haunted with a sense of loss and death. In its own way this music is as stark, uncompromising and bleak as Burial or Burzum. --nick ilott. 

:: Tiny Vipers/Life on Earth - Sub Pop/Cargo. 

florian hecker‘Acid In The Style Of David Tudor’ is Florian Hecker’s first studio project since 2003. Between then and now he has focused more on commissions and installation work as well as a myriad of collaborations with such esteemed artists as Yasunao Tone, Russell Haswell and, of course, Richard James. Hecker delivers pretty much exactly what you would expect from the album’s title; indeterminate electro-acoustics that takes the synthetic sound crafting from the Stockhousen school of frequency modulation and accelerates it into new and incredible geometrical morphologies. By combining virtual binaural and stereophonic sound transmissions, Hecker creates brilliant psychoacoustic tricks that require the most focused listening mode to appreciate. Listening is recommended at high volume on good quality loudspeakers and it is certain that your Ipod headphones wont do it full justice. The album is divided into 3 sets. Six ‘Acid In The Style of…’ tracks were created with a Buchla modular synthesizer being driven by a Comdyna analog computer, Three ASA pieces were the end product of a complex electro-acoustic process, and the album closer ‘Ten’ seemingly splices the two preceding forms together as a jittering, time-stretched afterthought. The album is a hugely challenging listen but for those of you who respect this man’s work as much as I do will know that it’s going to be more than worthwhile.  --simon harris.

:: Florian Hecker - Acid In The Style of David Tudor - Editions Mego/Groove Attack/A-Musik.

black telephoneFinnish electronics pioneer Mika Vainio has been in fine form of late. After the recently released Pan Sonic collaborations with Keiji Haino and SunnO))) on Blast First, he returns to the Touch label which has been home to much of his most distilled and refined works. ‘Black Telephone Of Matter’ focuses on the sculpted noise and drone aspects of his style and is devoid of his trademark beats. It follows a much closer path to his live sets that, as most of you will know, are ear crushingly intense affairs. Complex frequency clusters expand, unfold and capitulate into delicate passages of sounds whose movement suggest an abundance of textures and sources. It’s really worth cranking the volume up for tracks like ‘Bury A Horses Head’ that contains a particularly brutal ending when the mains hum threatens to spill out from the speakers and liquidate the contents of your head into a blackened pool of tar. It’s dark, simplistic stuff that is able to deliver the most complex and kaleidoscopic array of sonic weaponry from the most minimal of sources. One of his finest works from a catalogue of releases that already defines the electronics genre which I wouldn’t be surprised to see on many peoples end of year lists. Highly recommended. --simon harris

:: Mika Vainio/Black Telephone of Matter - Touch/Cargo. 

six organsClose your curtains, switch on the lava lamps and sink into your most comfortable beanbag. Luminous night fully lives up to its psychedelic/folk/rock genre and Ben Chasney draws on a variety of influences to send you back to the sixties. He does this while staying totally modern and innovative with both instrumentation and content. The Comets on Fire guitarist creates a mellow mood throughout Luminous Nights as the tracks flow together as smoothly as a lowland river. The first track, Actaeon's Fall, sets the pace for the whole album, creating a prelude of sorts. It has mediaeval undertones, portrayed by flutes and strings behind guitars. We are led straight into Anaesthesia which continues many of the musical themes introduced in Actaeon's Fall. The next track, Bar-Nasha, takes us to the sub-Asian continent with tabla wound round with flute and guitar before rocketing us to space in Cover Your Wounds With The Sky in which electronic sounds dominate. The vocals on Ursa Minor are weak, as if from a delicate soul, however the repetitive, more forceful instrumentation steals the light and hides the significance of the voice. Rivers of Heaven brings back the mood and sounds of the first four tracks in a track which would be suitably be piped into many a temple, anywhere in the world. The last two tracks slowly wrap up the album letting it fade away as you may be fading yourself. Luminous Night has finely mixed acoustic and electronic sounds interspersed with Chasney's not so unfamiliar sounding voice. The addition of various instruments such as flute, piano and strings with electronic sounds give a lovely depth and variety of sound to the whole album. -- anna johnston

:: Six Organs Of Admittance/Luminous Night - Drag City/Rough Trade. 

graham coxonGraham Coxon is, of course, best known for his angular guitar work as part of 'Britpop' mainstays Blur. His playing frequently added a dash of American-influenced noise and dissonance to his band's music. Something which helped them to stand out from the parade of endless Kinks and The Jam retreads that most British bands thought was a great idea at the time. The Spinning Top is Coxon's seventh studio album. The last two, Happiness in Magazines and Love Travels at Illegal Speeds, reunited Coxon with his Blur-era producer Stephen Street and were collections of unpretentious punky pop-rock with just enough weirdness and noise to appeal to listeners raised on Mudhoney and Dinosaur jr. The Spinning Top is a change of direction. The predominant vibe here is British 60s folk-rock: Nick Drake, Pentangle and even a little bit of Donovan. Adding a little 60s-era authenticity, virtuoso Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson guests on the album. Coxon reserves his raucous electric playing for a few well-chosen spots of colour, but the core of this album features his cleanly-picked and beautifully-recorded acoustic playing. The resulting music combines rhythms and melodies that are recognizably Coxon's work, evoking sixties folk without attempting to recreate it. There is a dreamy easy-going vibe to many of the songs here, particularly the eight-minute 'In the Morning'. The recurring motif of modal guitar picking and the liberal use of drones add to the gently-spacey atmosphere. When Coxon's loud, distorted guitar turns up in 'If You Want Me' it is a welcome kick in the backside for anyone who thought things were getting a little bit too tame. Coxon describes The Spinning Top as a concept album charting a man's life fro cradle to grave. There is a feeling of structure and progression to the album, musically and lyrically. But any linking theme doesn't overwhelm the individual songs and it's easy for a listener to just enjoy them without spending too much time worrying about life's imponderables. The backing vocals on 'Braving the Storm' are an exquisite touch, matched in beauty by Coxon's piano-like guitar part and the next track 'Dead Bees' is a slice of oddly-funky rock with weird lyrics and plenty of strange noises, culminating in a fine demonstration of guitar mangling. There is plenty of variety here, musical textures and instrumental colours are employed with an ear that splits the difference between 60s pop and modern 'alternative'. There are plenty of melodic hooks to make these songs accessible, but also a good seasoning of odd little instrumental quirks to keep listeners' interest over repeated listens. The Spinning Top might just be Coxon's best work yet. -- nick ilott.

:: Graham Coxon/The Spinning Top - Transgressive Records/Rough Trade. 

vertical ascentMoritz von Oswald, half of Basic Channel and Rhythm and Sound, is joined here by Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay) on percussion and Max Loderbauer (nsi.) on synths. Together the trio create a finely-crafted improvisational form of minimal dubby electronica. The four pieces on this disc unfold slowly with borderline-obsessive attention to the grain and texture of the sounds created. There are echoes of of jazz here, particularly the more abstract sections of Herbie Hancock's Sextant or maybe On the Corner if Miles had been smoking dope rather than snorting coke, but this music is focussed on contrasting and comparing musical colours rather than harmonic movement and each of the four 'patterns' presented here slides from section to section, ebbing and flowing in a way that has both feet firmly on the dance floor. There is low end throb here aplenty for aficionados of Moritz von Oswald's other work, the production is characteristically both finely etched and expansive. However, there is also a sense of freedom and play between the three contributing musicians that will appeal to fans Can or Neu. Vertical Ascent can be enjoyed brain-meltingly loud so that the listener can experience the carefully-constructed frequencies through the body as well as the ears and even turned down so low that the details buried in the mix tease at the the edges of the listener's senses. The Trio melds cutting-edge electronic music with group improvisation to create music that is both forward looking and immersed in musical traditions from King Tubby to Kraftwerk, to Sun Ra and beyond. --nick ilott.

:: Moritz von Oswald Trio/Vertical Ascent - Honest Jon`s/Rough Trade. 

nate youngWolf Eye Nate Young macht ein neues Album und es ist einfach geil. So geil, dass man es gar keinem sagen mag, weil es schluss macht mit dieser ewig im Outer-Space rangierenden Frage, was ist Noise, ist Noise Punk, ist Noise new No Wave, ein Krampf im Knie oder was. Keine Frage mehr, nein meine Herren, Noise heute ist was es ist, Nate Young findet die Antwort mit "Regression". Reduktionistenplastikpop, Dekonstruktionspappmache, psychoakustisches Suggestionsmodul, reduzierte, rhythmisierte Form-Codes, schwarz auf schwarz tätowiert auf das Fell der lebend Dahinschleichenden. Schlussendlich schluss mit der Orgie aller ideellen Befreiungtheorien, sorry aber, es hat nunmal nicht funktioniert. Weil gesellschaftlicher Konsensus mit "Erfolg" meint nunmal am gängigsten Muster teilzunehmen und genau dafür belohnt zu werden. Formen der Spezialisierung/ Verweigerung machen die "Teilnahmebedingungen" umso interessanter, sie dienen als Konvergenz dem Status Quo. "Regression" knüpft hier an, unmittelbar, und ist was es ist, wenn überhaupt an irgendetwas tradiert, meint Regression Regression und nichts anderes, in gleichen Technikvoraussetzungen so weit entfernt vom Programm der Wolf Eyes wie nur irgend möglich, knüpft "Regression" an das Debüt von Kluster an, sucht Pyrolators Minimal Tape 1/2.3/Inland, verlässt den Orbit der auferlegten/ erzwungenen  Innovation, schrammt unbewusst an Throbbing Gristles D.O.A/Valley Of The Shadow Of Death vorbei und sucht den Anfang der 90er, als Gruppen wie No Neck Blues Band aus einem Live-Tape ihr Debüt Album machen, das sich anhört, als würde diese Band sofort danach ein für alle Mal einpacken. Die Stücke auf "Regression" entziehen sich einer unemotionalisierten Song-Struktur, einem Nicht-Anspruch auf irgendwas, mittels einer fast "akustisch" industriell-analogen Klangfarbe jeder intellektuellen Formgebung; die morphig-klebrige (Klang-) Masse bietet sich pur selbst an als abstrakt-pulsende Zell-Struktur, die nach wie vor das gleiche Potential an suggestiver Krafterzeugung besitzt, um beim Abhören Wahrnehmung zu deformieren oder zu sensibilisieren, die eine hochauflösende Sekundenkonzentration fordert, und ist somit ein ultimatives Statement zum gegenwärtigen Status der gesellschaftlichen und sozialen (De)Reformation. 

:: Nate Young/Regression - iDEAL Recordings/A-Musik. 

dinosaur jr.A lead-in thump of the drums and we're in. Farm is the second album recorded by the reformed original line up of Dinosaur jr. All the familiar elements are here from the first track: the walls of fuzzy guitars, J Mascis' trademark half-asleep vocal delivery, the half-buried gorgeous melodies, the moments of strangeness and moments of rocking out, as well as the kind of extended guitar jamming that few people would even attempt on record, let alone manage to pull off. Nearly a quarter century after their first record (really!) Dinosaur jr. are still going strong. Time has knocked a few rough edges off the trio. It would be hard to imagine the demolition job that was Dinosaur jr.'s cover of 'Just Like Heaven', with its disruptive bursts of noise and screaming, appearing on this album. Instead Farm has the assurance and stripped down power of a band with nothing left to prove. Like Led Zepplin's fourth album, the songs here built for playing at big venues rather than tiny dives. The hooks are big and relatively simple, all the better to reach the people at the very back of the crowd, and the ensemble playing is awesomely tight. This is music that sounds better the louder it gets. In other words this makes no apology for being as straight-up a rock album as it is likely this band will ever make. And rightly so because, luckily for us, it's a damn good one. On 'Friends' J Mascis' guitar even riffs and roars like Keith Richards playing through a broken amp. 'Plans' is perhaps a Dinsaur jr. take on gospel, featuring the lyric 'Do you have some plans for me?/... I know you do Lord'. The punning 'I Don't Wanna Go There' is an almost-nine-minute-long epic, as J, Lou and Murph travel though a number of of different moods and styles, beginning with a wall of power chords and topping things off with lashings of soaring guitar. Everything you would expect, everything you might hope for. -- nick ilott.

:: Dinosaur jr./Farm - Jagjaguwar/pias/rough trade.