Some new releases.
Rusty Santos- The Heavens
Animal Collective's recorder/producer in a lofi style. Little of the carefree experimentation of AC- acoustic songs are subtly pulled into mystic shapes with autistic mumbling vocals. A foreboding lurks beneath the surface, as he's concentrating on the spiralling chords to hold his emotions in check (dark foreboding here a la Syd Barrett's Golden Hair). It's leavened by sporadic and very welcome glimpses of lovely-noise. While not as striking as AC, Randy's struggle for meaning in his box-room universe is enigmatic and occasionally very striking. In an era when every computer provides a way to indulge your songwriting talents or lack thereof, this is a man who somehow is still genuinely enchanted with the notion of four track line-of-communication to the outside world.
Yuma Nora- Red Train Graphing the Sunset of All
A caustic punky noise duo- Amy's grimy sound-generator, Aaron's octopus-like drums, and desolate vocals. But Yuma Nora don't deliver the expected nihilistic sound-blasts, but improvise at length to create meaning in the music. There are no overdubs here, just stark exchanges punctuated by bluesy, longing, naked vocals. Striking.
Hood- Outside Closer
Despite the recent assocatiation with cLOUDDEAD, there's little to surprise in this latest Hood release. Their lo-fi grit has long gone, replaced by polished folk inflected electronica- laptop boys hoping to glimpse a tiny piece of Nick Drake's enchantmented, melancholy world. But everything is much too much in place- guitar are stroked to the accompaniment of hardly-there beats; strings bring an occasional dissonance to their placid melancholy, but even some of the arrangements are little more than dismal wallpaper. A piano is echoed such that you're hear space not notes- this is an album that creates space, but not meaning. The only way out of this void seems to be the odd moment of brotherly empathy in the vocals, but even then it sometimes seems like they're simply too shy to sing alone. Apart from Still Rain Fell, a vaguely Cornershop style jumble from which emerges a a bitter, writhing guitar line, the 10 songs here are like endless watercolours of indistinguishable landscapes. Disappointing.
Chicks On Speed and The No Heads- Press The Space Bar
Only a quick listen to this, but good first impressions- COS's fem-anthems have often had been too laboured and stodgy to match the cut and paste, make do and mend anti-capitalist aesthetic which is their raison d'etre. No flashes of inspiration, just shoddy pop made on a production line. Well, Christian Vogel has just put this half-arsed operation under new management- out go the pre-programmed beats, in comes an shifting, unstable micro beatscape, glitchy sounds and louds of guitars. The slogans and ideas suddenly stand out much sharper, like a bold red socialist poster on a crumbling grey urban landscape.
Jack Dangers- Loudnesss Clarifies (double CD, a new album and second CD of electroacoustic an soundtrack work to which I haven't listened yet)
A new release from the Meat Beat Manifesto man is much like the breakbeat industrialism of old- sapped of melody, but steel-reinforced at the bottom end, pounding and implacable. Danger's music sounds neither dated nor strikingly contemporary, just curiously insular. The beats are not fractured and dread-ful like jungle, or fat and joyous like hip hop, just tough and humourless. The magic of dance music, of the scen-ius, is that breaks magically become expressive- they evoke a smooth midnight cruise, an arrogant swagger, a sexy dance. There's nothing of the sort here. But Dangers just tweaks his samples, sits back in his chair, and lets the beats roll at medium tempo, as if it was nothing more than a speaker demonstration excercise in a hi fi shop.
