With Joan of Arc’s last album-The Gap, an experiment in ProTools released in 2000-songwriter Tim Kinsella’s abstract minimalism and impenetrable lyrics seemed more to be creating rifts than bridging chasms between his current project and his fiery, atmospheric early work. But having kicked out the jams, and apparently the computers, to tour with Owls, Kinsella returns with an analog album that hems and haws but is still his most straightforward since Joan of Arc’s debut, A Portable Model Of. So Much… is more serene than sinewy. Jettisoning digital detritus, Kinsella’s post-post-rock favors chord-shifts over tone drifts, as delicately intertwined melodies replace tape-work in a move that emphasizes getting on track over distressed multitracks. While Kinsella’s wheels may spin more than tracks speeds, he reels in the ramblings, in and offers warmly hued and pastoral settings. For fans of the plaintive Gastr Del Sol school, So Much Staying Alive and Loneliness will provide welcome companionship.
Various Artists Fabriclive: John Peel
It’s a CD. It’s also a tombstone. A tombstone, rapturously signifying the utter, total, complete death of the DJ mix album. They’re done. All the good ones have been made; don’t buy any more. No offense to good John Peel, the people’s DJ from Liverpool, cool enough for kids and adults alike, whose decadently eclectic taste in music runs the gamut from punk to noise to Motown, and has found ardent fans on BBC’s Radio One for years. But here, his charming interspersed banter is absent from this truly eclectic, yet slammed-together selection. Why bother when you can stream his show from BBC.com?
Silicon Scally Mr. Machine
Electronic music stealth-bomber Carl Finlow (an underappreciated man of many aliases and genres), here unleashes yet more quality classics of the distinctly electro variety. With a weighty discography behind him, both home listeners and dancefloor revelers can indulge themselves in his ever-building and patiently layered string-saturated world. Finlow conbines encouraging visions of light on “Non Functional” with gritty gobs of gorgeous intensity on “Magnified”-to create a solid hour of classic music, without relying on cashing-in guest MCs or cooing she-elves.
Antenne #2
How many times can one hear the words “beautiful,” “breathtaking,” or “brilliant” before those words are sapped entirely of any meaning? One listen to Antenne’s #2 and all words will have ceased to have meaning. Sounding in totality like nothing else and achieving an arresting level of melancholy romance, there are clear reference points: traces of glitch production, merged with blues and jazz instrumentation, and filtered through the slow-core sensibilities of bands like Low led by Marie-Louise Munck’s transcendental voice. Truly remarkable.
Hans Platzgumer Software
Whatever the genre, it’s in Hans. With a staggeringly diverse discography since 1987 spread across top labels like Hausmusk, Disko B and HeimelektroUlm, Platzgumer enlists help from Anne La Plantine, Mego’s Nachstrom and Tuxedomoon to brew up a mix of technowave, uber-electro, rave breaks, south Indian and dancehall drill ‘n’ bass. Yes, it’s good as that sounds, provided you’re a) truly appreciative and open to an ambitious piss-take of staid electronic music genres, b) dreaming of a cosmic jukebox hooked up to the mind of one crazy man or c) German.
The Notwist Neon Golden
You know that bespectacled music snob friend of yours who hoards Guinean post-punk reissues and frequently derides your music purchases as plebeian retrogressions? This is the piece d’resistance of their 21st century archive. Previously released in Europe, The Notwist’s hazy blend of lo-fi indie skronk, hazy post-rock-isms and inventive electronic bleepity-bloopity coatings have wisely been picked up and amended with bonus tracks for the domestic market by the shrewd people over at Domino. Don’t let all that academic hyperbole obscure the sheer visceral enjoyment of their redefined rock-outs. This is the band Radiohead will be ripping off for their next album.
Various Artists Christophe Monier Presents Rockers’ Delight: The Rock Sound of Darkest Paris 1990-1996
News flash: the French aren’t all disco-house pogoing robots! Nor are they Air-jocking AM-radio enthusiasts! This brilliantly curated compilation remembers a forgotten Gallic underworld, where dirty guitar-riff shrapnel collided with muddy thuds of electro and techno percussion. Back then, vocals on records weren’t filtered through the sunny robo-spectrum of a vocoder, but-as evidenced by Patrick Vidal’s two cuts as Discotique-ranged from seductively suggestive downtempo to literally screaming sex. Some distant echoes of its elastic bass and electroclash-anticipating arpeggiated basslines certainly survived, yet the grit of musical integrity and invention displayed here has not. Read the track listing out loud in a “Where are they now?” voice.
Deru Pushing Air
So, this new Massive Attack album is quite different…oops, this isn’t the new Massive Attack. But maybe it should be, as resonantly hip-hop as its beats are, as soupy and atmospheric as its backing textures feel, and with its few wisps of a woman’s voice on “Din.” Actually, it’s one man, LA-based Ben Wynn, and Pushing Air falls into that warm, cozy nook that Neo Ouija’s been prepping for the last three or four years, the one that’s now draped in the easy rolling melodies of Deru and pillowed with the plush quietude of “Playground” and the rasp of “Soulik” in your ears. All you need now is a sunbeam.
Triple R Friends
Rinehard Riley, a.k.a. Triple R, functions within the Kompakt world as a kind of number one to Captain Wolfgang Voight-stylistically he’s got Mike Ink’s back, but he’s not averse to exercising a little discretion in meting out angular Cologne techno beats. Friends sees Triple R doing just that, including only one Kompakt-licensed track on this continuously mixed 12-track set. Thus, Friends is altogether a warm and friendly slow-techno affair, starting out a bit melodramatic with Metaboman’s “Easy Woman (Rogab Wruhme Mix)” and easing into Dialogue (“Gigolistic”), Ada (“Blindhouse”), and later Jeff Samuel and Dntel. Highly recommended.
L’ombre Medicine for the Meaningless
Formerly an industrial noise label, Ant-Zen continues to push its reputation into new territories with artists like David Thrussell (a.k.a. Snog), Squaremeter (the erstwhile German terror junglist Panacea), and now L’ombre. Based in Canada, Stephen Sawyer’s L’ombre debut moves nimbly between the harsh post-industrial landscape of Ant-Zen’s back catalog and a stereographic ambience, where seemingly planar wisps of sound lurch into your listening space as if from thin air. And that’s only the first track, “Nowhere”; “Vagrant” invokes the longing tones of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Grief” from Discord (and check Amon Tobin’s thundering drum & bass remix of that piece). Definitely a rich release for Ant-Zen.
