the submersible dirigible

Alone on the stage, Grouper’s expression was noticeably rigid, an austere demeanor emphasized further by a stiff posture.  Harris’s composure was set in especially stark relief by the lounging crowd, all scattered across the New Museum Theater floor, most sitting, some lying comfortably on their backs staring up at the high ceiling.  Like a group of grammar-school students circling the school librarian for afternoon reading hour — only favorite pillows and colored child-size carpet-squares absent from the picture — the audience was comfortable, but completely consumed by the performance onstage.

Grouper and High Places each played an equal share of the show’s two hours, but Grouper’s long-form style made best use of that brief hour; each of Liz Harris’s individual song blended seamlessly into the next, a wealth of drones, field recordings and electronics made the transition, all layered carefully onto cassettes, and reconstructed live as wailing, spacious atmospheric pieces.  When the songwriting sharpened into focus, vocals and guitar melodies draped in familiar waves of distortion and foggy tape atmospherics, Harris returned to her statuesque state of concentration.  Fiddling between songs with the mixer and tape recordings, her composure eased, and the music itself even seemed to stretch its legs, to avoid becoming too tightly wound.  Abstract visuals, ranging from a chilly black and white kaleidoscope to dark, to low exposure nighttime campfire recordings occupied the sizable movie-screen behind New Museum Theater stage.  These simple images nicely complemented Grouper’s cold, atmospherics, never robbing much  attention from the music.  

Grouper has made a handful of appearances in New York City over recent months.  My recount of the night’s events give the impression Grouper sounded or looked uptight, but to the contrary, her performance was confident, and sounded spot on.

High Places own hipster pop-tropicana was undoubtedly more suited to that weekend’s unseasonably warm weather, a welcome musical pairing with the unexpected mid-February siesta.  The duo’s stage presence and live sound was engaging.  The crowd stood for the duo’s performance, crowding tightly up to the knee-high stage for their performance.  While High Places seemed more suited to the New Museum’s Get Weird lineup, their boistrous sound was a poor fit for the basement theatre space.  New Museum’s theatre space is hardly an optimal space for a typical concert, it’s bland open spaces and rear seating area more suited ambient, or queit listening, rather than the lively, romping sort of tunes Robert Barber and Mary Pearson play.  

Despite the venue’s sterility, the pair put on an impressive performance.  Their 2008 proper release never struck me as especially memorable, but the live performance made clear just what everyone’s been raving about all this time.  Barber stayed focused on his drum machine, thwacking away at the programmed steel drum and twiddling with mixer knobs, while Mary Pearson harmonized over the beats and a played along variety off odd noisemakers.

With the recent retreat of Tribeca’s Knitting Factory to Brooklyn, and the 2007 demise of the Lower East Side’s experimental music landmark Tonic, there are precious few modest sized retreats left in Manhattan for the likes of Grouper and High Places.  Aside from John Zorn’s The Stone, multi-purpose spaces like the New Museum’s basement theater provide a splendid opportunity for experimental music to flourish outside of Brooklyn.  Critically acclaimed musicians attract a nice mix of NYU undergrads, hipsters and enthusiasts, but are probably unsuited for Bowery Ballroom and Webster Hall sized venues for the time being.  

The Get Weird series has been up and running for around a year now, and constantly booking an impressive variety of artists and styles.  I’d say the Get Weird concert space would be better suited to the likes of Alva Noto and Grouper than High Places and Akron/Family, but it’s hard to be too dissapointed when a high quality venue keeps attracting such an interesting lineup of artsits.

Another incredible year is finally behind us, with plenty of music left behind to document the journey.  Plenty of news discoveries this year, as always, and a few surprising efforts from more established musicians like Matt Elliott, Burning Star Core, Kemialliset and Grouper.  Looking forward the the new labels, artists, genres, and sounds I’ll discover in 2009.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my list of 2008’s ten best albums.

The latest year-end podcast should be coming tonight or tomorrow afternoon.  After the new year, I’ll publish a couple additional retrospective posts, namely a look back into overlooked 2007 releases, possibly a collection of the year’s best music videos, and some additional year-end reading from a variety of trusted labels, djs and artists.

In case you missed rest of my list, here are the previous best-of-2008 countdown posts – Last 13 of 50, The Middle Bit: 11-37.

10. Marnie Stern – This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That [Kill Rock Stars]
Listening to Marnie Stern leaves me itching to buy a bra, just so I can burn it.  This isn’t Marnie Stern’s first solo effort, but it’s the first I’ve heard, so the novelty factor might have something to do with my high opinion of this album.  This Is It… is thoroughly nostalgic, but completely free of the sickening kitsch that haunts many throwback projects.  Its plucky electric guitar riffs are exhilarating, capable of producing miniature adrenaline buzzes.  Marnie Stern’s latest is the sort of album that can only be properly experienced with help from excessive pyrotechnics, anything less and the music seems to outsize its surroundings. (Marnie Stern @ youtube — Primer, Ruler)

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9.  Emeralds – Solar Bridge [Hanson]
Emerald’s slow growth drones build into a melodic wave of solar radiation.  This Cleveland, Ohio trio has been active for nearly two years, but wider releases and consistent quality brought them to a much wider audience this year. (Emeralds @ youtube — live @ No Fun Fest ‘08)

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8.  Peter Broderick – Float [Type]
Peter Broderick’s Float, his first of two releases for the year, is a more melancholy affair than the pop-minded Home.  Max Richter’s song-sized contemporary classical is close match to Broderick’s work here, filled with aching strings, pattering pianos, guitars and banjos.

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7.  Matt Elliott – Howling Songs [Ici d'ailleurs]
Howling Songs, the conclusion to Matt Elliott’s three part songwriting series, rivals his groundbreaking 2005 Drinking Songs debut.  This album of drunken, Dickensian folk songs must have been composed in a salty harbor pub, the sort of establishment seared with the steam, grit and stinking sweat of the broken urban spirit. (full review)

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6. Zomes – Zomes [Holy Mountain]
Asa Osbourne’s Zomes is an other-wordly collection of looping, psychedelic 8mm cinematography.  Insular tracks leave the album without much cohesion, but this doesn’t turn out to be much of a problem.  Instead, these isolated, evolving melodies evoke their own miniature galaxies, each cut recycling and refurbishing the ideas into its own psychedelic tone-poem. (full review) 

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5. Burning Star Core – Challenger [Hospital Productions/Plastic]
While I often enjoy the genre, I often wonder how capable noise and drone artists would be if tasked with producing something vaguely recognizable as music. On Challenger, C. Spencer Yeh has somehow managed to redirect the same portion of his brain that develops musical textures from feedback, static and walls of sound to compose an accessible, heady ambient. Even with a lighter step, Challenger is still an imposing beast, its familiar metallic bulk cut and shaved of abrasive edges. This is still noise music, but genuine restraint focuses Burning Star Core’s tectonic sized melodies into a stunning display.

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4. Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill [Type]
Distortion, oscillating vocals, a cavernous electric guitar, and long, echoing harmonics have been characteristic elements of Grouper’s haunting droning folk. After lifting the thick fog of effects and moving away from purely textural drones, Liz Harris finally develops a more accessible style of songwriting, but without completely abandoning Grouper’s characteristic brittle melodies and washed-out pedal effects.

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3. Larkin Grimm – Parplar [Young God]
Larkin Grimm was raised on a hippie commune, ran off to live alone on a mountain in Alaska, before returning to civilization on the advice of a Native American “shaman and… pitbull breeder” named Jezebel Crow. From this sort of individual, you’d expect a raucous album. Parplar is like a musical dime novel, filled with adventures and rugged glamor, all retold in a jaunty, frontier folkrock.

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2. Kemialliset Ystävät – Harmaa Laguuni [Secret Eye]
Tampere’s godparents of the freak folk invasion recast their musical communalism in Moog.  with harmaa Laguuni, Kemialliset has continued to hone their synth-laced avant-folk, first appearing in fully realized form on the group’s 2007 self-titled release. (full review, video)

1. Evangelista – Hello, Voyager [Constellation]
Guitars crack wide open on relentless electric notes, gargantuan drums run wild, while the frantic Carla Bozulich wails, whispers, and sings, in complete command of the whole beautiful mess. Hello Voyager’s noisy and delicate songs alike vibrate with seismic intensity. Evangelista is Carla’s raucous masterpiece, a wrecking-ball of prickly, electric songwriting. (Evangelisa @ youtube)

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p.s.

Late Entry for Album of the Year, Portishead – Third [Island/Mercury]
I avoided this album until very recently, just assuming it would be another retread of their well-worn sound.  In fact, with Third Portishead has managed to preserve the best of their recognizable sound, and simultaneously reinvent themselves.  Within seconds of hitting play, when that plodding, high-altitude kraut melody unfurls, the group’s determination to reinvent is made plain.  This is jarring, at first;  I think to myself, what the hell is happening here?  Gradually, those iconic Gibbons vocals sweep in, and it quickly becomes clear Third is a weird and wonderful record, one that will surely be remembered as some of the group’s best work.

Knocking off the whole middle bit here with this second post, in hopes of moving this along to my top 10 albums ahead of the actual new year.  Again, the actual numerical ranking is pretty meaningless.  I loved all these albums.  Novelty plays a big part here, groups who reimagined their sound, and alltogether new sounds tend to stick in my ears.

Podcast for the middle bit to come shortly, as soon as I’m back within reach of my music collection.

37. Ignatz – III [KRAAK]
Crackling, whispered songwriting —  III is an album of prematurely aged, over-treated, dusty recordings exposed to electromagnetic waves and solar radiation.  Its interference completements the neurotic electric guitar and whispered vocal folk textures at this album’s heart.

36. Lau Nau – Nukkuu [Locust]
Plucky, atonal incantations from Helsinki’s Laura Naukkarinen.  Like Islaja, Lau Nau’s acid folk is an easy listen, despite its dissonance.  Nukuu’s frosty acoustic melodies, carefree vocals, and electric guitar whiteouts, put together, epitomizes the best of Finland’s bizarre, woolen folk community.

35. Mark McGuire – The Garden of Eternal Life [Arbor]
As a group, and individually in numerous side/solo projects, Cleveland, Ohio’s Emeralds are a three man kraut revival.  McGuire’s own solo work is thoroughly cerebral, easily comparable to Terry Riley’s psychedelic minimalism.  The Garden of Eternal Life stands out among his numerous releases this year, a cool nebula of warm guitar wanderings ona  too-limited Arbor cassette.

34. Xela – In Bocca al Lupo [Type]
Xela has undergone quite the transition in the last several years, from the rubbery electro-idm of 2003’s Frosty Mornings, to his latest experiments with barren field recordings, drone, and noise.  Part of me misses the sweetness of Tangled Wool, or 2006 Dead Sea Xela — a middle ground between his warm electronic music and recent nightmare dungeon drone.  Mostly I’m just enjoying In Bocca al Lupo’s haunting, bleached-bone ambient.  ’Beatae Immortalitatis’ — specifically its clattering percussion and glistening synths — is the album’s clear highlight.

33. Richard Skelton – Marking Time [Preservation]
At long last, Sustain Release ringleader and ambient musician Richard Skelton receives the full label release his work deserves.  The album itself is a cool, echoing ambient — Skelton’s wailing bowed instruments, clattering field loops and pinprick piano notes slither straight down my spinal cord.  The music feels deeply personal, a layered patchwork of heart wreching performances.

32. Aidan Baker & Tim Hecker – Fantasma-Paratasie [Alien8]
Collaborations don’t always lead to a sum of its parts.  The Mick Jagger, David Bowie duo is a horrifying testament to this fact.  While Baker and Hecker’s Fatasma-Paratasie isn’t quite a sum of its parts either, the album is still a treat for fans of either musician.  I was hoping for something more enduring, but the collaboration is ultimately a wonderful spectacle.  The duo’s tracks blend together into an imposing wash of warm, melodic electronic-drone.

31. Pumice – Quo [Soft Abuse]
I’m still waiting for the artist bold enough to really take the lo-fi aesthetic to the next level, recording their entire album from a treehouse, through a tin can and string, straight onto a home-cut phonographic cylinder.  Until then, Pumice will have to do.  Quo is mostly similar to Stefan Neville’s preceding work, but his songwriting continues to improve.  More fun than previous albums, certain tracks sound like sunday morning cartoons themes broadcast from the corrosive planetary surface of Venus.

30. Grails – Take Refuge In Clean Living [Important]
Grails’ first of two incredible releases this year will be familiar to fans.  The group still owes some patronage to the godfathers of post-rock, though it’s almost insulting to stick them with that tired genre tag, considering how far their sound has evolved.  Psychedelics, eastern influences, and arena-scaled prog rock occupy the album’s five epic instrumentals.  I only rank Take Refuge… below Doomsayer (#15) for its relative similarity to the band’s existing work.

29. Steve Hauschildt – Rapt for Liquid Minister [Arbor]
Like band-mate Mark McGuire, Steve Hauschildt is quickly making a name for himself outside of Emeralds.  Hauschildt effortlessly parlays his experience behind the Moog into an album of swirling synthetic melodies.  In my review, I noticed clear nods to Popol Vuh’s Aguirre, and I can’t imagine better source material for contemporary kraut adulation.  I only wish I’d known about Emeralds last year, and gotten ahead of the trio’s group and solo release onslaught.

28. Paavoharju – Laulu Laakson Kukista [Fonal]
Laulu Laakson Kukista is as difficult to describe as its name is to pronounce — bizarro-pop-kitsch seems fitting.  The group runs through a huge variety of instruments and noisemakers — piano, stringed instruments, field recordings, organs, accordions and possibly even kazoos.  The vocals can be alternately dreamy and jubilant, songs throughout the album are mournful, fun, and curious.  This one requires some patience, but can really astound if given the chance. (Kirkonväki @ youtube)

27. Emeralds / Quintana Roo – Bubble Quiet Complication / Beheaded Dynasty [Arbor]
Quintana Roo mossy sax and electric guitar muck-psych pairs nicely with Emeralds, on the top side.  Quintana Roo’s music is deeply rooted, sounding thick, muddy and grounded.  On the top side of this split lp, Emeralds soars high above the QR’s ceremonial-psych, streaking across the sky in lower earth orbit.

26. The Fun Years – Baby It’s Cold Inside [Barge]
Lofty guitars, bottomless loops, and soaring melodies, speckled with intereference make for a really stunning album out of left field.  This crew reminds me, quite favorably, of my absolute favorite Aidan Baker release, The Sea Swells a Bit… (samples).  Hadn’t heard of Barge Records until this year, the home of Baby It’s Cold Inside, but they’ve have an absolutely stunning year.  (The Fun Years @ vimeo ‘The Surge Is Working,’ ‘My Lowville,’ and ‘Auto Show Day of the Dead‘)

25. Vikki Jackman – Whispering Pages [Faraway Press]
Melodies seem to glance off this recording, notes unable t0 take purchase.  This creeping, breezy acoustic minimalism requires a great deal of patience, and a very quiet, safe listening place.  Given the right circumstances, its delicate beauty really blossoms.  Faraway Press has become the standard bearer, in my mind at least, for the barest of acoustronic minimalism. (Faraway Press’s Andrew Chalk @ youtube)

24. Fire on Fire – The Orchard [Young Gods]
Portland, Maine’s psych-folk supergroup follows their brilliant EP on Young Gods with a proper, full length debut album this year.  Brimming with Cerberus Shoal and Big Blood alums, with further assistance from bluegrass folkster Micah Blue Smaldone, the group has managed to cram an incredible amount of talent into this exhilarating, raucous barnburner.  Considering the group’s size, The Orchard’s cohesion is surprising, and lends the album an effortless, improvisational feel, like an inspired, late-night campfire jam session between close friends.  (Fire on Fire @ youtube)

23. Tobacco – Fucked Up Friends [Anticon]
This Black Moth Super Rainbow solo project is analog-electronica at its trance inducing best.  Fucked Up Friends is a bit out of my normal listening universe, but I still adore its creamy analog thickness, candied synth romps, and gritty glitch.  (Tobacco @ youtube ‘Hawker Boat,’ ‘Berries That Burn,’ ‘Little Pink Riding Hood,‘ ‘Gross Magik‘)

22. Mark McGuire – Amethyst Waves [Wagon]
I’ve just about run out of things to say about McGuire and Emeralds.  While I haven’t heard all of McGuire’s abundant 2008 releases, Amethyst Waves is far-and-away the most hypnotic Mark McGuire release to reach my my ears this year.  Underwater explorations in krautrock that are quaking with energy, like an oven of molten rock churning and dragging the massive continental crust along on its endless looping, chaotic cycle.

21. Nico Muhly – Mothertongue [Bedroom Community/Brassland]
Nico Muhly’s deep admiration of and familiarity with the work of minimalism visionary Philip Glass shines through Mothertongue, his second release for Bedroom Community.  I feel underqualified to say much about this album, but I can say Mothertongue is almost blinding in its beauty, imparting of sense of scale that leaves me in gaping in awe.  I only wish the album didn’t sound like a Philip Glass covers record.

20. Max Richter – 24 Postcards in Full Colour [Fat Cat]
Richter’s 24 Postcards is a collection of contemporary classical vignettes, few running much longer than 1m.  These unique recordings were composed as ringtones, and intended to be played in isolation and in reptition.  I’m not entirely sure the concept itself really works; drama and emotional complexity doesn’t translate terribly well over a dime sized speaker.  Still, you have to admire Richter for working to reimagine his music for the changing times.  Fortunately, the catchy piano, bowed and electric guitar microcosms still work wonderfully packaged as an album.

19. John Baker – The John Baker Tapes [Trunk]
John Baker’s recordings have always stood out from the typical early electronic works, along with Delia Derbyshire’s contributions, on the various BBC Radiophonic Workshop collections.  His jazz sensibility showed in his electronic work, a sort of guiding light in the uncharted territory of early electronic music and tape manipulation.  Until 2008, only Delia Derbyshire’s Radiophonic Workshop recordings had received the individual attention her recordings deserved.  Thanks to the heroic efforts of Trunk Record’s Jonny Trunk, John Baker’s work has now received the same treatment.  The 2cd set includes previously unreleased home recordings, a slew of program themes, and the best of his work previously available on compilations.  The John Baker Tapes is an indispensable cultural treasure.

18. Ulaan Khol – I [Soft Abuse]
Steven R. Smith’s heavy, grainy psychedelic alter-ego, Ulaan Khol, was an early highlight of the year.  Already, he’s managed to record and release a follow up, appropriately titled II, again on Soft Abuse.  Ulaan Khol’s lurid electric guitars — the record sounds carved entirely by electric guitars — will immolate any speakers they touch.  Guitar virtuoso Steven R. Smith’s Ulaan Khol is an epic and filthy steampunk psych-rock.

17. Valet – Naked Acid [Kranky]
Valet’s Honey Owens major label debut is a more deliberate and polished effort than her previous diy cdr releases, and has lost some of its mystique in the translation.  Despite its more careful sound, Jackie-O alum Honey Ownens’ latest is thoroughly spaced, droning, and heady.  Despite its early release, Naked Acid was still finding its way into my rotation with the year’s latest.

16. Grails – Doomsdayer’s Holiday [Temporary Residence Limited]
Grails latest, Doomsdayer’s Holiday, opens with several seconds of distant, tortured screams, pursued by earth shattering drum footstomps, and flamethrower guitars.  This blood curtling pursuit foreshadows the darker tones of this a pitch perfect instrumental thriller.  Grails’ 2008 Take Refuge… was a spectacular album, but Doomsdayer is near transcendental — a collision of doom metal’s sinister composure,  post-rock’s improvisational, freewheeling spirit, and krautrock’s cerebral experimentalism.

15. Lawrence English – Kiri No Oto [Touch]
Touch tells us Kiri No Oto translates as ’sound of fog.’  That sums up this minimal electroacoustic masterpiece nicely.

14. Country Teasers / Ezee Tiger – W.O.A.R / W.O.A. [Holy Mountain]
Country Teasers’ truly jarring garage rock is certifiably insane.  Like the flaming pyre of an explosive highway pileup, W.O.A.R.’s cacaphonious, train-wreck guitars, lager-soaked pub vocals, meltdown percussion and psychopath lyrics make for a gruesome sight that’s impossible to ignore.  Its not easy listening by any means, but like the highway bloodstains and torched vehicles of that high speed accident, this album’s overwhelming shock factor is inexplicably alluring.  This band has been around for more than a decade, and I’m just happy Holy Mountain has seen fit to expose me to their ridiculous sound.  (Country Teasers @ youtube)

13. The Alps – III [Type]
A huge range of instruments — piano, guitars, drums, bass, saxophone and more — are streamlined into an accessible, trippy psychedelic rock.  Root Strata’s Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is best known for his heavy, impenetrable psychedelic with Tarentel, but he joins forces as The Alps with two other California musicians Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp, Tussle) and Scott Hewicker for a more refined effort.  III is simply the warmest, most inviting psychedelic music I encountered this year.

12. Valerio Cosi – Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock [Digitalis]
Saxophone and electronics stir and erupt into a textural work of seafloor spreading.  Electronic drones, layered, looping sax melodies and nimble dancing notes collide into an endless wall of sound.  Cosi has a slew of saxophone improv, drone an ambient releases under his belt at this point, but Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock stands apart from the rest.

11. Scott Tuma – Not For Nobody [Digitalis Arts & Crafts]
Not For Nobody’s willfully quaint folk songs sounded pretty underwhelming, and even a little silly on first listen.  With time though, Tuma’s lilliputian Americana turned out to be one of the year’s most dependable, bizarre folk delights.  The album is fanatically delicate and introspective, to the point of sounding almost neurotic; patience and comfortable, quiet spaces are required to really appreciate Tuma’s songwriting and allow its tiny melodies to find some place to unfurl.  Folk music’s narrow focus can quickly become tiresome for listeners with a broad musical palate, but Tuma’s miniature, music-box folk adds a genuinely new twist to the genre, freshening up the age-old genre.

December is the merriest time of year for music lovers, when all their favorite labels, bloggers and distros draft and publish their year-end lists.  It seems little silly to rank albums at all — was that Grouper’s lo-fi folkdrone really irrefutably better than Valerio Cosi’s saxophone minimalism?  Who knows.  Still, year-end lists are conveniently reductive, and provide an incredible opportunity to catch up on the year’s best.

Last year I listed and shared my top ten.  This year, I’m trying for 50.  I’ll try to be brief.

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mp3 / m4a / playlist

50. Growing – All the Way [The Social Registry]
Growing has been drifting slowly away from their minimal electric guitar drones, these days sounding something like a marauding, metallic sawtooth specter.  All the Way, one of the group’s two releases for the year, is the best example of the Growing’s urgent, effects laden drone-rock.

49. Carlos Giffoni – Adult Life [No Fun]
Much of Giffoni’s back catalog can be a rough listen, even for calloused ears like my own.  Adult Life has its own rough edges, but its inviting synth melodies recreate and re-imagine electronic music’s unique beginnings, when compositions were blossoming in academic research laboratories around the world.  Giffoni’s latest is a sort of avant-Tomorrowland, an album of unashamed early-electronic futurism.

48. Suishou No Fune – Prayer For Chibi [Holy Mountain]
Prayer For Chibi is the sort of dependable space psych that occupies the endless, soul sucking monotony of the cubicle existence.  The album sounds to owe as much to Doom/Sludge luminaries like Sunn 0))) as it does to Kraut/Psych godparents Cluster or Can.  Left this album out of my podcast mix, because it just doesn’t fit well in the format.

47. Wooden Shjips – Volume 1 [Holy Mountain]
An album of reissues apparently, with these songs appearing previously on limited release 7, 10 or 12 inchers.  Basically, it’s the sort of garage psyche that worked so perfectly on their full length with Holy Mountain.  These songs are infinitely re-playable, and provide enough variety so they’re showing something new with every listen.

46. Pocahaunted – Peyote Road [Woodsist]
Pocahaunted is tribalism recomposed for the 21st century.  These two must compose all their music around campfires in full warpaint to achieve such a jarring, spiritual sound.  I probably spent too much time this year chasing down their many releases, but I kept coming back to Peyote Road.

45. Peter Broderick – Home [Bella Union/Type]
It’s hard to believe the same man behind Float’s pop-minded contemporary classical could write this jangly, comfort album.  Bright, charming songs, sunshine guitar, and soaring vocals made perfect for snuggling.  A little too sweet for my taste-buds, but ultimately impossible to resist.

44. Ilyas Ahmed – Arroyo (Arroyo Series) [Digitalis]
More of the same is still awesome.  Psychedelic, distorted songwriting, with dabs of dissonance and noise.  It’s a tragedy this album is more widely available (yet).

43. Head of Wantastiquet – Mortagne [Ecstatic Peace]
Sunburned Hand of the Man’s Paul Labrecque puts together an album of surprisingly lovely banjo/guitar  pieces, worthy of the Fahey and Basho American Primitive tradition.  This musical niche should get old, but it never does.

42. Excepter – Debt Department [Paw Tracks]
Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks proves freak-folk’s dying corpse can still take plenty of flogging.  These genre stalwarts produce another album of warped, senseless hipster jams.

41. Barn Owl – Raft of Serpents [Root Strata]
Mechanized grasshoppers mating tones, in a the peaceful guitar forest would sound something like Barn Owl’s Raft of Serpents. I’m running out of ways to describe ambient psychedelics.

40. M Jarvis/A Jarvis – Jun [Ruralfaune]
Ruralfaune’s best release, by my estimation.  Yet another album of psychedelic songwriting that leaves a vivid, soothing impression.  Instrumental pieces and folk songs mix perfectly, with some eastern influences and electronic bobbles for good measure.  Apparently I’m a fan of the genre.

39. Steve Gunn – Sundowner [Digitalis Arts & Crafts]
Steven Gunn is best known as a member of GHQ, but has been recently producing his own acoustic folk songwriting, and stepping away from his group’s hazier blend.  “For the Horse, etc.” was a fixture in my playlist.  Gunn’s Sundowner was released on the new Digitalis Arts & Crafts sublabel, setting a high standard for the new imprint.

38. Boduf Songs – How Shadows Chase The Balance [Kranky]
Nothing much has changed in the three years since Boduf Songs released his first album.  How Shadows… again creates an epic sense of scale, his deep, hushed vocals sounding like some really incredible secret.  If it aint broke…

Only 37 albums to go!!  Yes, I realize this post only covers 13 albums, short of the promised 15.  I got tired of writing, and wanted to publish something before Christmas week.  I’ll try to shorten the remaining album reviews, save for my top 10.

Tracks are not presented in order in the podcast.  See playlist above or click through for the show playlist.
Continue reading ‘Submersible’s best of 2008 podcast — the last 15 of 50′

 2008: the bottom fifteen: Download (520)
 2008: the bottom fifteen: Download (678)

Just over eighty-eight years ago, at the outset of an unprecedented era of American economic prosperity later known as the “Roaring Twenties,” a small group of Italian-American anarchists detonated a horse-drawn cart, loaded with one-hundred pounds of high explosives, on the doorstep of financial giant J.P. Morgan & Co.  The resulting explosion killed thirty and wounded many more.  More jarring than the loss of life though, was the deep-seeded populist rage exposed by the Wall Street Bombing.  A violent backlash on Wall Street, the very heart of American prosperity, unveiled the violent discontent concealed by America’s swelling wealth and progress, built largely on the bare backs of wage slaves, child laborers, and struggling working class debtors.  It’s with an allusion to this violent moment in history, titled ‘Bomb the Stock Exchange,’ that Matt Elliot concludes Howling Songs (Ici d’ailleurs, 2008), his latest album in a trilogy of dark, anachronistic songwriting.

Such were the new surroundings in which Elzbieta was placed, and such was the work she was compelled to do. It was stupefying, brutalizing work; it left her no time to think, no strength for anything. She was part of the machine she tended, and every faculty that was not needed for the machine was doomed to be crushed out of existence. There was only one mercy about the cruel grind—that it gave her the gift of insensibility. Little by little she sank into a torpor—she fell silent.  (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle)

Previous Matt Elliott albums have managed to inexplicably capture in music, as Charles Dickens and Upton Sinclair have in writing, the textures, imagery and struggles of the Industrial Revolution’s urban working class.  Drinking Songs, Elliot’s first fully realized songwriting album, was remarkably powerful, to the point of really affecting the listener with its heart-wrenching, mournful tone.   Its drunken melodies felt composed in a salty harbor pub, tinged with the steam, grit and stinking sweat of a broken spirit.  Failing Songs, Elliot’s follow up, extended the emotional palette to some degree, notably the electric guitars and furious Gypsy whirlwinds from “Broken Bones,” “Desamparade” and “Good Pawn;” in the end though, Failing still sounded too similar to Drinking Songs to really distinguish itself.

“There is no wilderness where I can hide from these things, there is no haven where I can escape them; though I travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursed system—I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed! And therefore I cannot rest, I cannot be silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness, health and good repute—and go out into the world and cry out the pain of my spirit! Therefore I am not to be silenced by poverty and sickness, not by hatred and obloquy, by threats and ridicule—not by prison and persecution, if they should come—not by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth, that was, or is, or ever can be created.”  (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle)

Howling Songs still contains much of the familiar introspective songwriting so prevalent in earlier Elliott records.  Slavic, Iberian and more generic European pub, harbor and wandering influences are prevalent once more, again serving as the eerie, restless life animating Matt’s timeless songwriting.  While Ici d’ailleurs calls Howling the trilogy’s most introspective record yet, it’s precisely the broader range of emotions and hues that distinguishes this record from its predecessors.  “The Kübler-Ross Model,” the twelve minute album opener, is an early example of this new flexibility; in fact, the track title itself is even an allusion to the cycle of human emotions displayed in response to a tragedy or loss (i.e., denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance).  The track’s lyrics, lamenting sorrowfully the passing of an unnamed loved one, and the feelings of helplessness and confusion in mourning, occupy only two-thirds; howling, alongside a ferocious orchestra of electric guitar, drums and flurried Gypsy acoustic guitar bring ‘Kübler-Ross’ to a rousing conclusion, foreshadowing the album’s newfound aggression, and channeling that anarcho-socialist outrage that fueled much of the early 20th century working class backlash.  It’s this frightening collision of introspection and anger that distinguishes Howling from Matt’s previous albums.

Incidentally enough, the aforementioned ‘Bomb the Stock Exchange’ is the album’s finest example of Howling Songs‘ emotional complexity.  The lyrics are characteristically introspective, a predictable soliloquy of personal anguish — “When all of your memories are sad / Forgotten the dreams that you had / Friends are a lie, who don’t care if you live or die / What to do but cry?”   Elliott’s upbeat, veritably sunny delivery though, and dark, humorous closing lines — “If you’ll top yourself anyway / Why not bomb the stock exchange?” — contrasts wonderfully with the trilogy’s overwhelming emotion, adding some depth to what could have been a relatively shallow affair, and casting a shadow of self-critical humor on the whole mopey affair.

While much of the album still mimics territory already covered exhaustively in Drinking and Failing, it’s Howling’s comparative abundance of fresh ideas that leaves a lasting impression.  Aside from the opener and closer, ‘A Broken Flamenco’ is another of the album’s standout, and the finest example of Howling’s memorable aggression.  The lyrics are brief, but defiant — “When faced with a flame / We’ll turn our face / What use recoiling from an infernal rage / We’ll burn as we wait” — and alongside the screams of Elliot’s electric guitar and relentless pace of the acoustic guitar, ‘Flamenco’ sounds like a fitting tribute to or representation of the explosive, uncontrollable energy of the angry mobs worldwide that pried a share of the American dream from the country’s greedy power brokers.  As our modern financial markets come tumbling down, with the wreckage falling largely on the backs of our working class and middle class, this mix of genuine outrage and self-deprecatig humor is uniquely tuned to these trying times, increasingly known as the second Gilded Age.

Put together — from the familiar songs of introspective contemplation, rousing populist rage with hints of cynical humor — Howling Songs is simply a brilliant conclusion to Matt Elliott’s already spectacular series of songwriting releases. The album is available late October from Ici d’ailleurs on cd and, for the first time, on vinyl.  Darla Records looks to be distributing the album exclusively in the United States; in Europe, the label itself would likely be the best source, while Cargo Records looks to be distributing copies in the UK.  The 2LP comes in a cardboard gatefold sleeve, on clear 180g vinyl, with two lovely inserts.

Bombing the Stock Exchange & A Broken Flamenco

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Beggar’s dog – Hoboken (Library of Congress)

Crowd of strikers menacing strike-breakers, Lawrence, Mass. (Library of Congress)

Mendiant balayeur-Angleterre/Londres (George Eastman House)

Following the good example of his bandmate Daniel Higgs, Lungfish guitarist Asa Osbourne recently released his first solo album with the psych stalwarts at Holy Mountain.  Departing from the long, epic prog-scale psych behemoths so common in Holy Mountain’s catalog (namely, Wooden Shjips, La Otracina, The Shining Path, etc.), Zomes‘ sixteen tracks are each deletable snack-sized Fig Newtons of grainy krautrock, together sounding like a collection of lo-fidelity psychedelic sonnets.  At forty minutes, the album is brief, and its short, digestible tracks leave the album feeling even shorter.  With one or two exceptions, each track builds upon a single delectable electric guitar, drum or effects loop left on repeat. Zomes‘ looping, repetitive quality gives the album the endearing feel of a handcrafted, late-night attic composition.

‘Membranous Plane’ best exemplifies Osbourne’s reliance on simple looping melodies.  The track’s rubbery electric guitar melody pairs with a handful of lonely snare cracks, cycling together over and over again.  Slight changes in inflection liven up the loop, but these changes are nearly imperceptible.  At long last, as the body’s neurons begin to short-circuit in response to incessant repetition, an abrupt static interruption upsets the loop, and evolves into a brief decayed reprisal of the familiar arrangement.

‘Membranous Plane‘

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While imparting some urgency and a film-cut quality, Zomes‘ repetition does leave the album without any recognizable dramatic arc; the album’s sixteen tracks sound isolated from each other, each its own independent patchwork of colorful, snackpack loops.  Without cohesion, or long, focal tracks to establish theme, the album could pass for a compilation of film compositions.  Oddly enough, this kraut/psych hodgepodge not only works, it astounds.  The album’s layered attention-deficit disorder — each track isolated from the others, each track itself spun from tight internal loops –is it’s most endearing feature.  These soundtrack cuts evoke scenes ranging from the sideburns and tire smoke of Steve McQueen’s Bullitt (‘Crowning Orbs’) to the slow-motion contemplation of Jean Painleve’s underwater exploration films (‘Clear Shapes’, ‘Petroglyphs’) and the barren, post-apocalyptic tarmac of Mel Gibson’s Mad Max (‘Black Magic Band’).

‘Crowning Orbs‘

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‘Petroglyphs‘

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In the end, Osbourne’s Zomes amounts to a sort of cross between a Radiophonic Workshop collection and krautrock in the vein of Amon Duul II or Can.  The unique blend of the familiar Holy Mountain psych/kraut fare with the soundtrack aesthetic amounts to essential listening, an album begging for repeat listens.

No Fun Fest — New York City’s annual, earth-scorching, three day noise music event — is the sort of hedonistic celebration of niche-noise that could only flourish in an handful of cities across the world.  It’s here that Emeralds made their first major east-coast live appearance in support of Solar Bridge, the group’s proper release debut; the Cleveland trio of Steve Hauschildt, Mark McGuire, and John Elliot performed on stage alongside the luminaries of noise, kraut, electronic and drone, including canonized genre pioneers like Cluster, Thurston Moore, and Tony Conrad, and celebrated contemporaries like Keith Fullerton Whitman.  After two years toiling in relative obscurity, with dozens of limited run releases on microlabels over the past two years, Emeralds have now released one of the year’s best drone albums, and performed admirably alongside the genre’s giants in New York.  With Rapt for Liquid Minister (Arbor, 2008), an album of sparse dronescapes and heady moog jubilation, Steve Hauschildt proves perfectly capable of enhancing an already sterling reputation as part of Emeralds with stunning music of his own.

Krautrock and analog-synth adulation abound here; ‘Cybernetic Inevitable‘, the album’s ten minute climactic closer, bears an uncanny resemblance to Popol Vuh’s unforgettable 1975 album Aguirre (specifically, Aguirre II), opening with an ethereal chorus of vocal drones.  Aside from Rapt’s additional layer of familiar tape fuzz, the Popol Vuh and Hauschildt tracks, recorded generations apart, mirror each other wonderfully, and together echo No Fun Fest’s testament to krautrock’s enduring vibrancy.  Just as S.H. seems to be settling into a familiar foggy drone piece five minutes into ‘Cybernetic’, the track departs abruptly from Aguirre and the vocal chorus with a blinding, colorful orchestra of analog-synths.  Too brief Cluster or Göttschingand scale analog-synth jaunts, like those found at the tail end of ‘Cybernetic’ and enveloping the album opener ‘Indoor Travel’, prove to be Rapt’s most alluring feature.  Rapt for Liquid Minister is balanced nicely with an equal serving of abundant open, droning soundscapes, best represented by the album’s modest title track.

Aside from its unfortunate brevity, the album is a complete pleasure.  With only twenty minutes total running time, the album does feels somewhat stunted.  Considering Rapt isn’t presented as a full, proper album, however, these complaints are easy enough to dismiss.  The album’s brevity does, on the other hand, make for easy and enjoyable listening in short sittings, a rare quality in drone music.

Rapt for Liquid Minister is long OOP at Arbor, but there may still be copies in stock at Fusetron Sound and Mimaroglu Sound for the next few weeks.  Expect remaining copies to disappear quickly; aside from an earlier release on Emeralds’ house label Gneiss Things, Rapt is Hauschildt’s only proper solo-release.  Fortunately, three new releases, two cassettes and an LP, are on the way, so Steven Hauschildt — performing independently, and as part of Emeralds — should be increasingly visible in the coming months.  With any luck, Rapt for Liquid Minister will receive the attention and wider release it deserves.  Kranky would fit nicely.

cybernetic_inevitable.mp3

Emeralds @ No Fun Festival, 2008

Cluster @ No Fun Festival, 2008

picture: No Fun Fest 2008-42 by flickr user donatellodoesmachines (please don’t sue me)

HARMAA LAGUUNI is psych free-folk composed inside an iron-lung OR scandinavian bare-bones communal folk enhanced with exoskeleton.

Even before the release of their untitled late-2007 comeback spectacular, Kemialliset Ystävät had secured a place in outsider music history, recognized as one of the Finnish folk invasion’s most creative and prolific pioneers.  Jan Anderzén’s characteristic shambolic free-folk helped define the genre, and served as inspiration for countless artists within the larger (commercially at least) freak-folk movement.  Despite a dependable musical formula, last year’s untitled release — KY’s first in years — was a surprising departure from their established sound, the new album sounding like a seamless blend of the group’s familiar communal acoustics with experimental electronics in the spirit of early-electronic and musique concrète composers like Pierre Henry or Tod Dockstader.  Harmaa Laguuni — originally released as supplemental tour material –  continues Kemialliset Ystävät’s ambitious fusion with electronics.

‘Tervehdys Roskasakki‘ — Harmaa Laguuni’s opener — epitomizes this renewed focus on electronics;the track opens with wispy oscillator vocal-warmups, sounding like rubbery vocoder do-re-mee-fah-soh-lah-tee-’dohs.  Discernable vocoder vocalizations and a soft-focus synth organ build naturally from the opener’s breezy introduction, joining Kemialliset’s familiar hardly-tuned stringed instruments in short order, developing into an otherwordly, 21st century free-folk.  ‘Menneisyyden Tulvaisuudessa‘ provides another stunning example of the album’s abundant electric-tribalism, a simple pairing of a solitary oscillator and an acoustic ewe-style drum rhythm, like an aural précis of the group’s new approach.  As expected from Kemialliset Ystävät, experimentation and improvisation abounds here, only enhanced by the deeper lineup of noise makers.  ‘Synti Muissa Maailmoissa’ and ‘Synti Muissa Maailmoissa’ bear some resemblance to the self-titled’s edgier offerings — ‘Älyvaahtoa’ (youtube) for example, or the catchy ‘Superhimmeli’ (mp3).

New KYY featuring performances from quite a few of our favorite Finnish noisemakers, including members of Avarus, Kiila and Es. Also – Tom + Christina of Charlambidies guest! All exclusive tracks, this was released for Kemialliset Ystävät’s 2008 USA tour. LIMITED tour-only release…and NOT available in stores! Eat up. Fast. — Secret Eye

Harmaa Laguuni is simply extraordinary.  Considering the cd is still available for order at Secret Eye for only $12 (I think that’s around 43 pence in the UK, at the going conversion rate), I’d consider this release nearly essential listening.

Kemialliset Ystävät shreds (Sami Sänpäkkilä on Vimeo).

also: still working on some coherent, identifiable, and useful review format, so things will likely continue to change here.  I do like to provide a quick summary take on the album up top, a reaction to my own tendency to quickly skim through my rss subscriptions, looking for items of interest.  I find targeted summaries can be useful way of introducing content, and hope others will as well.

in brief: seafloor spreading drones dressed with stream-engine synths and a raving frenchman make for a delightfully sinister serenade.

at length:

Once upon a time, Type Records’ John Xela (Twells) created the sort of charming electronic ditties you could share with friends around the neighborhood hangout’s jukebox on Saturday night after the varsity game, or the perfect sort of beats for that all-night sleeping bag slumber party you planned with the softball team.  2003’s For Frosty Mornings and Summer Nights and Tangled Wool (CCO, 2004) were wholesome, warm hearted highlights of their respective electronic sub-genres.  Tangled Wool, it seems, marks the end of Xela’s snuggle-music period for the time being; with the release of 2006’s The Dead Sea and subsequent tape releases, it’s clear John Twell’s Xela has changed.  Here’s John Xela in 2006, interviewed shortly after the release of Dead Sea, an album of glorious Fabio Frizzi/Goblin/gore-flick adulation:

The people who know or knew me well growing up will be only too aware of my constant obsession with horror films… — Type Writer, Adam Park (2006)

I think about doing a metal album more and more, but I don’t know  whether I’m capable to be quite honest. I suspect if I did it would  verge more towards the noise and black metal end of the spectrum, I’m  heavily into that stuff at the moment – black metal wise music like  Burzum, Akitsa and Striborg really has my jaw on the floor and noise  bands like Prurient, Hair Police, Wolf Eyes – I’m really lapping it  up.
The doomier stuff too really made me took notice also, I’m a big fan of  Sunn o)))’s albums, especially ‘Black One’ [last.fm streaming],  seeing them live with Earth last year was mind-blowing… — Dead by Sea, Roger Batty (2006-09-12)

As a longtime fan of both Type Records and Digitalis, it’s been a pleasure to watch the ongoing Twells/Rose creative convergence.   Sometime around the release of The Dead Sea, we first saw the cross pollination take root with the Type reissue of North Sea’s splendid acoustic-folkdrone split with (the similarly splendid) Rameses III: Night Of The Ankou.  Just last year, Type pressed The North Sea’s first full length vinyl LP, while Digitalis has been releasing a steady stream of Xela and Svarte Greiner cassettes under their new Digitalis Ltd. imprint over the same time period.

It Died In Africa marks the pair’s first full fledged collaboration. Together as Sea Zombies, Twells and Rose have crafted a sinister blend of heavy noise and whispering synths.  The album’s vicious opener — ‘Repent’ — is a noisy,  lumbering behemoth of decayed electronics and shackled acoustics, a pitch-black dungeon drone reminiscent of Birchville Cat Motel, Axolotl or Robedoor’s subterranean aural explorations.  Despite the heavy, penetrating darkness, a warm, wheezing organ tone stands out amidst the muck, like patch of sunlight piercing through a crack in the dense cavern of sound.  “The Beginning of Wisdom’s” warm, focal synth loop makes for sunnier pastures on the flip side.  ‘Repent’ and ‘Beginning’ both are memorable primarily for their respective bright spots, with warm textures and colorful features dipping in and out of the mix between blast waves of distortion and guttural beats.

With two other tape releases on Digitalis Ltd., a split LP Barge and Type’s sub-label RITE, there’s no shortage of the new Xela sound.  Brad Rose is prolific as always, perhaps hoping to give Muslimgauze a run for his money.  Completists may be disappointed to find the new material all blending together imperceptibly, but considering the genre, this pattern is hardly surprising.  Aside from sounding too similar to the luminaries of the genre — including much Ajilvsga’s own catalog, Holy Objects in particular (sample @ 4:09) — Xela and Rose’s first collaborative effort is encouraging; It Died In Africa’s buried hooks make for a memorable listen, like stark white life-buoys peaking intermittently over the surging waves, providing relief from the exhilarating waves of noise and introducing some welcome dramatic momentum.

Sea Zombies – Beginning of Wisdom (excerpt)

also, I found this amusing:

North Sea “zombie worms” feeds on the bones of dead whales. (bbc)

North Sea ‘zombie worm’

After a two month wait, Dutchman Wouter Van Veldhoven’s latest ambient release finally arrived on my doorstep.  Considering the monumental delay, I have to assume the simple square six-inch cardboard package’s journey from Eat This Media’s Dutch offices to The Submersible Dirigible’s NYC-based corporate towers was a laborous one, apparently traveling over land by crab-walk, and over the Atlantic by paddleboat.  Fortunately, Wouter’s latest record turned out to be a soothing remedy for injustice, allowing me to quickly forgive the collaborative failure of the Dutch and American mail-carriers.

 wouter in context (bookmarked aac): Download (667)

 

 wouter in context (mp3): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1126)

With only a handful of previous releases — I assume Wouter’s work hasn’t yet captured the eye of most ambient music fans.  Considering Wouter’s Four Simple Songs alongside his earlier, far-too-limited Ruststukken (Slaapwell, 2007), it seems likely he’ll soon be to mentioned alongside the best established work from our era’s biggest contemporary-minimalist super-celebrities.  Stylistically, Wouter’s brittle tape-fueled ambient arrangements feel inspired primarily by William Basinski’s own melancholy, high-altitude tape-glaciers.  “Second Simple Song” (see podcast) makes the most convincing case for Basinski’s influence on the record; the track’s leaky organs and inky rythms are drenched in a shrill, pervasive electrostatic leaking from the track’s warmer, ailing melodies.  Decay and crafted interference burden the more emotive instrumentation like a wet blanket, familiar from comparable Basinski releases like The Disintegration Loops (2062, 2002/2003) or Variations for Piano & Tape (2062, 2006).

Continue reading ‘Wouter Van Veldhoven’s ‘Four Simple Songs for Five Dead Bumblebees’ (Eat This Media, 2008)’