June on my iPod!!!

A truly vintage month, was June 2010, one in which I discovered a wealth of bands I'd never heard before, and who have all turned out to be amazing! So much so, that Osborne's poor-hitting budget and the World Cup have registered only faintly on my radar. Believe, jangling guitars, noisy synths and overloaded drums make a much better soundtrack to Greece v Nigeria than Guy Mowbray (or whoever)'s mindless patter! So, without further ado, etc...


"Noise" is the key word for June 2010, as I delved head-first into some of the most ear-shattering music I'd heard in a while (maybe Lou Reed's concert inspired me), at least since those heady days when I was unearthing a new Skullflower album per day!


Noise is a peculiar genre, and I still struggle with the kind of harsh, computer-generated noise espoused by the likes of Merzbow (though I love Venereology). The very "raison d'etre" of noise, as a genre, is to push the boundaries of the listener's tolerance, his or her ability to stand the sheer volume, abrasive high notes and atonality on display. With the high frequencies available via computers and electronics, this becomes even harder, as anyone who has discovered Whitehouse will testify. But if you open your mind (and ears), and let the noise wash over you (eyes closed helps, I find), its power is undeniable, even at its most extreme, and this month's exposure to new-fangled noise encouraged me to put aside my -slight- aversion to the harsher side of noise and resurrect a couple of my particularly loud, bad and aggressive noise CDs. Which is where I'll start!

These days, Wolf Eyes may just be the most mainstream noise act out there, and the best known bar Merzbow, courtesy of an unexpected contract with Sub Pop records, who released the second of their WE records, Human Animal in 2006. But the switch to an "overground" record label certainly did not dampen the Michigan trio's noisy spirit, something already demonstrated on Human Animal's predecessor for Sub Pop, 2004's uneven Burned Mind. That album made things clear: Wolf Eyes were not going to blunt their rough edges, as thumping electronic percussion jostled with clattering sound effects and sharp, high-pitched metallic noise of the kind to make dogs scurry for cover. Sadly, Burned Mind contained too many moments of uncomfortable abstraction to really be cohesive, something well rectified on Human Animal, which features longer, more "constructed" tracks, without ever sacrificing the sense of menace and violence that defined the best moments of Burned Mind. If anything, this is an even more malevolent album, with particularly unsettling vocals, notably on "Rationed Rot" and "The Driller" (surely a reference to Abel Ferrara's notorious "video nasty" The Driller Killer). Most intelligently, though, on Human Animal Wolf Eyes experiment with moments of subtle ambience, spaces of (dis)quiet that engage the listener rather than immediately harass him or her, before hammering things home with bursts of growling feedback, digital noise and skronking sax. It's a scary, dark record, but an intelligent one, and there are few higher compliments I could pay.

Also released in 2006 was Chimärendämmerung, by one of Skullflower genius Matt Bower's side-projects, Hototogisu (De Stijl), a collaboration with Marcia Bassett, of Double Leopards and Zaimph "fame". Which is also a good chance to laud Bower's album from the same year as Skullflower, Tribulation (Mordam Records), as the two are almost peas in a pod in terms of scope, ambition and -crucially- volume.

After a long hiatus in which he mainly operated in another outfit, Sunroof!, Bower returned to Skullflower in 2003 with Exquisite Fucking Boredom, and has pretty much operated as a one-man band since then, eschewing the drums- and bass- doom metal of albums like IIIrd Gatekeeper and Carved Into Roses in favour of walls of saturated guitar noise and digital effects, with a huge number of successive albums coming out since the revival of the "band". Of them all, Tribulation is probably the harshest, most violent and most uncompromising, its nine tracks being the kind of mangled, unrelenting guitar noise that will make most people bleed from the ears and lurch full-speed for the "off" switch of their stereos. Tribulation is cut from the same razor-sharp guitar cloth as Lou Reed's controversial Metal Machine Music, with Bower's stubborn refusal to deviate from his relentless screes of feedback and harsh metal noise. The difference with Reed's masterpiece is Bower's new-found interest in computer-generated harshness and subdued metallic percussion to complement his axe soloing It takes immense patience to delve into Tribulation, but few albums go about their task of unsettling and assaulting their listeners with such impressive single-minded-ness.

One of them, of course, is Chimärendämmerung. It is in many ways the perhaps-not-quite-so-evil twin of Tribulation. There is still more of Bower's trademark harsh, harsh, super-saturated guitar feedback, but he has cut back the power electronics he now favours with Skullflower, allowing for something that is more spacious, less claustrophobic. Orange Canyon Mind and Tribulation have echoes of Prurient's sturm-und-drang, whilst more recent Skullflower albums like Strange Keys to Untune God's Firmament are more deeply anchored in Sunn O)))-influenced doom metal, but with Hototogisu the approach is more "measured", for lack of a better word. The volume is still unsettling, with high-pitched squeals and whistles giving one's ears the Wolf-Eyes treatment, but there is also a sense of space, surely provided by Bassett and her background in gloomy folk-drone in Double Leopards. At times, Chimärendämmerung touches the psychedelic, its vastness becoming all-encompassing like "Interstellar Overdrive"-era Pink Floyd, only a Pink Floyd in which the drums, guitar solos and Syd Barrett's voice have all been swallowed by his guitar feedback and Richard Wright's overloaded organ, the whole lot then recorded on volume 11. Ok, so that's not a very helpful comparison (maybe the Velvet Underground playing "Sister Ray" would be a more apt description), but the feeling you get is that motorik psychedelia has been pushed to its outer-most limit and melted into noisy drone. Weird but true!

Noise is one of the more geographically-delimited genres of modern music, efficiently sub-categorised by country or even areas of a country. Therefore, we had the London noise scene, that grew out of industrial music and gave us Whitehouse, early Current 93 and Nurse With Wound and Skullflower. There's Japanoise, of course. And in America, differentiation is made between the Noise that hails from California, the Midwest, Providence and New York. Confusing, but it actually makes digging through it all a bit easier, as so many bands from each "noise region" are inter-connected, related or operate in similar styles.
Brooklyn has become the new jewel in the crown of noise scenes, getting many column inches, from Pitchfork to The Wire to Dusted. And it's deserved praise, as the scene in New York's "second borough" is simply effervescent, and in fact extends well beyond noise, giving us the trippy electronic of indy faves Animal Collective, the warped electro-drone of Excepter, and Gang Gang Dance's pounding avant-disco.

But it's the noisniks who really pump my nads among the Brooklyn bands, and perhaps none more so than Mouthus, whose Saw a Halo (Load, 2007) perfectly condenses all the best elements of modern noise, particularly of the Brooklyn kind. Prurient fans be warned, the harshness that defines your black-clad idol is not so frequent here. Mouthus and the other Brooklynites rather take the angst and volume of harsh noise, and take it in new directions. Compared to a lot of noise, drums are more frequent on Saw a Halo. Even "Armies Between", which features buzz-saw guitar feedback and an angry guitar solo that crackle and jerk throughout the track's 4+ minutes, is anchored by an insistent, controlled drum beat, a sort of motorik metronome to reign in the guitar flights of fancy, making the tension less explosive than a Burial Hex or a Wolf Eyes, more a sort of pent-up, barely-contained spasm that is stretching and straining to burst out. It's a fascinating, breath-taking track, hypnotic through its sheer repetitiveness, but slashed through with spasmic bursts of aggressive guitar before collapsing into the messy drone miasma that is "The Driftless", more Guru Guru-tainted than its Klaus Dinger-ish predecessor, but with the same (im)balance between messy guitar/bass noise and controlled (albeit here slightly jazzier) drumming. A third of the way through, a disembodied voice starts intoning a mournful chant, and this voice pops out throughout the album, lending Saw a Halo a spiritual, psychedelic vibe in keeping with the Brooklyn scene's neo-hippyism. The vocals return on "Century of Divides", a more mellow and drifting track, with cavernous bass, and muted drums, but that also features an atonal guitar solo. This vaired and expansive approach allows Mouthus to really stretch out throughout Saw a Halo, at times (such as on the acousticopener, "Your Far Church") coming closer to the sound of Six Organs of Admittance than to the pure noise of Wolf Eyes of Fushitsusha. This is head music, worthy of Skullflower, Julian Cope, Ash Ra Tempel or Flower Travellin' Band, but it remains unmistakenly modern and urban, music by city-dwelling freaks rather than sun-baked country ones. Essential for any noisenik.

On the opposite side of the noise coin sit another Brooklyn band, Sightings, and their aggressive, pulsating style is perfectly encapsulated on Through the Panama (Load Records, 2007). Unlike Mouthus or Excepter, their songs are shorter, and Sightings operate almost in a typically rock format - bass, drums, guitar. They could almost be the world's most bizarre power trio. From the off, brutal, buzzing noise scatters out of the speakers, with fuzzed-out guitar, scattered, almost polyrhythmic drumming and the kind of monolithic bass that you would expect to hear from a metal or post-punk band, effectively (re)-liniking noise rock with some of its occasionally forgotten roots, such as the down-tuned guitar of Sabbath's Tony Iommi or Randy Holden, and the darker recesses of early eighties rock. Indeed, at times Sightings have me thinking of Throbbing Gristle, only with drums. Through the Panama possesses a similar murky vibe and general sense of unease, plus a willingness to take the basics of "rock" music and pervert them into an edgier form of modern music. At other times the spirit of early Flipper seems to enter the grooves, with everything feeling ramshackle and disjointed. The music on Through the Panama is uneasy, violent and forward-thinking, but remains rooted in a rock/punk format that in some ways, for all its Wolf Eyes similarities, makes it one of the more accessible albums to get the Rusted Shadows treatment this month.

But of all the Brooklyn bands, perhaps the most important one -yes, even more so than Animal Collective- is Black Dice, whose Beaches and Canyons (2002, Fat Cat Records) is a masterpiece I heavily recommend to anyone with even a small interest in noise, pop, rock and electronica. It laid the groundwork, not just for the Second Borough's noise scene, but for adventurous and open-minded pop bands like the aforementioned Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance and Liars as well. As such, Beaches and Canyons goes way beyond any specific genre. The noise elemement is present in discordant electronics, overloaded bursts of guitar fuzz and some seriously heavy drums, but equally, as on opener "Seabird" there are drifting washes of synthetic ambience and sparkling burbles of electronic trickery, as much inspired by Eno as it is by The Velvet Underground. At times, we could even be in post-rock territory, although the adventurous variety embodied by Tortoise rather than the quiet-loud-quiet guitar theatrics of Mono or Explosions in the Sky. The music on Beaches and Canyons is vast and evolving, much like the scenery evoked in its title, as towering blocks of harsh rock noise descend gracefully into dreamy, glittering, watery electro-pop, a journey as psychedelic as the vibrantly garish cover art suggests. Staggeringly ambitious, weird, and so modern the rest of the Brooklyn scene is still playing catch-up, Beaches and Canyons is a loud, gentle, harsh, ambient, rocking, drifting classic, and one any self-respecting music lover should own.

The Brooklyn scene has produced some of the most "listenable" noise and, like Fuck Buttons in the UK, has helped joined the dots between the harshness of Prurient, Merzbow, Carlos Giffoni and Kevin Drumm and more "mainstream" genres like hard rock, pop, electro and psych. 
Also operating somewhere between the darker recesses of the Underground and the lighter aspects of audience-friendly (ish) sounds are California's Yellow Swans. I should say "were", sadly, as the duo no longer exist, with Going Places (2010, Type Records) being their swansong. But what a way to say adieu! Going Places is so far one of my favourite albums of what is shaping up to be quite a year for modern pop (more of that later, but I have to say that 2010 looks liable to eclipse 2009, which was already a stonker!).
In some ways, Going Places is more traditionally "noisy" than the Brooklyn bands above. Certainly, there are no jazzy drum patterns, dreamy voices and pop flourishes here. Yellow Swans create vast walls of sound using electronics and guitars, no drums and nothing remotely relating to familiar strains of popular music. But, where Wolf Eyes or Prurient or Merzbow prefer to ferociously brutalise their listeners, the sound here is loud, but occasionally warm, or at least not always that harsh, envelopping the listener in a blanket of buzzing drone and creating the kind of haze that suits the cover imagery perfectly, and would not be out of place on a Leyland Kirby or Oneohtrix Point Never album, albeit with stomping electronic percussion added for good measure. Going Places (love the ironic title!) therefore acts as an elegy to the band's career as it ends. It's a moving and fitting farewell. And still a flippin' loud one!


As I wrote before, 2010 is turning out to be an awesome year. I've already saluted Indignant Senility, Eleh and Yellow Swans, but, away from such oddball drone epics we have also had some pretty amazing albums in notably different genres.

Ariel Pink is really something of a latter-day cult hero. Signed to Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label several years back, he subsequently released (under the Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti moniker) a staggering number of lo-fi, oddball pop albums recorded alone in his bedroom somewhere in California, and was immediately held up as the standard-bearer of what The Wire baptized "hypnagogic pop", the USA's screwball answer to Britain's more esoteric hauntology. He's now moved up a notch by assembling a band to help further his vision for his debut release on a major label, Before Today (2010, 4AD). There were concerns among Haunted Graffiti fans that the switch would overly clean up the man's murky sound, but I personally welcomed the move, having found his Paw Tracks material to be just a bit too rough-shod (each one contains over a dozen tracks, and whilst the lo-fi production can be deliciously atmospheric, at times it bordered on the unlistenably stupid and obtuse). And Before Today doesn't disappoint, maintaining enough quirkiness and off-kilter atmospherics to satisfy fans of The Doldrums but with a clearer vision and greater coherence. Pink revisits some of his older songs, sprucing up the production and clearing up the murk, but fear not hypnagogues! He leaves enough dream-like haze on just about every track to keep his vision intact. And what a vision! How many artists would be able to revisit soft-rock and cheesy late-70s MOR and make them relevant in the 21st century? Well, Ariel Pink is one such artist, as the influence of just about every easy-going pop staple from The Beach Boys to Steely Dan, via Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Earth, Wind and Fire gets filtered through his weird prism, resulting in songs that are catchy and melodic, but somehow odd, unsettling and so much more than the some of their pieces. You hear keyboard licks that would normally make you cringe, or cheesy guitar parts, but then Pink's off-kilter voice comes in, singing bizarrre, nay, incomprehensible lyrics (think a grungier Marc Bolan circa "New York City") as the songs shift and buckle in different directions. There are shades of power pop ("Butt-hole Blondies"), malingering doo-wop ("Beverly Kills") and soaring post-Doobie Brothers anthems ("Bright Lit Blue Skies"). Few albums will be as daring as Before Today this year, if ever, so, although some of the sounds may make you cringe, it's well worth checking out.

It's also undeniable that Ariel Pink has had a huge influence on a lot of artists who have followed in his wake, and not just his fellow hypnogogic popsters. His DIY approach also finds echoes in what is now being nicknamed "chillwave", a loose genre tacked on to a bunch of bedroom composers with nifty computer technology, frequent Internet access and a healthy dollop of nostalgia. None have been more captivating than Memory Tapes, the pseudonym of New Jersey-based producer Dayve Hawk, whose Seek Magic (2009, Sincerely Yours) has been spinning pretty much non-stop on my iPod for the past 5 weeks. Like Oneohtrix Point Never, Ariel Pink and Emeralds, Hawk seems to have realised that these days coming up with anything approaching true originality in modern pop music is pretty much a lost cause. But, rather than re-hash a specific style almost verbatim (in the way The Killers and The Libertines do/did), Hawk gorges on a wide range of musical influences, then filters them through a post-eighties pop prism to deliver something ultimately rather unique. The songs on Seek Magic are definitely 100% pop, with soaring choruses and an emphasis on the kind of hook-laden dance beats that characterised Technique-era New Order, but Memory Tapes is excellent at shifting the focus, disarmingly switching to moments of drifting Eno-esque ambience or trance-like post-shoegaze before returning to shaky beats, glorious double-tracked harmonies and sweeping synth patterns. Throughout, for all the moments of four-to-the-floor grooves and singalong lyrics, there's a melancholic veil that cloaks the record, making Seek Magic as much the soundtrack to an early post-party morning (in the grand tradition of Slowdive or Cocteau Twins, without really sounding like either) as it is a great album to play on a Summer's drive. Whether or not the chillwave phenomenon lasts the distance is immaterial when listening to this bliss.

Rene Hell has, in recent reviews of his debut album, Porcelain Opera (2010, Type Records), been compared to Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds, but actually, this alternative moniker for noisenik Jeff Witscher produces sounds that are pretty removed from the nostalgic electro pulses of your average hypnagogic dronester, although you could quote similar krautrock influences as the aforementioned pair, with Witscher using synths and little else to create his instrumental vignettes. But where they obviously hark back to latter-period Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, plus more recent pop fair (see OPN's revamping of "Lady in Red"), Porcelain Opera is a dark and moody album, full of sinister bleeps and warbles, and spooky repressed vocal snippets. The synths create a moody ether cloud, a constant wall of electronic haze that shifts and slides like some ghostly canvas separating two dimensions in an episode of The Twilight Zone. At times, motorik pulses propell the tracks in unknown directions before dissolving into subterranean dark ambience (opener "Razor. P+"), like warped versions of Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die or Cluster's Zuckerzeit. On "Prize Mischief Hold" (each track is shackled by an unwieldy and oblique title), weird voices slide into focus like insects buzzing around your head as a doom-like pulse grinds away and shafts of electronic light pierce the obscurity. It's a cracking track, mirrored by the penultimate one, "L. Minx", 9 minutes of twisted atmospherics, snarling electro-pop and unexpected textural shifts. You can detect Witscher's noise background throughout the album, as unsettling and unexpected sounds keep twisting his soundscapes in darker and more surprising ways. It may not be as accessible as many contemporary electronic albums, but Porcelain Opera is certainly more rewarding than most.

I've also been quivering in my boots with both delight and a little bit of unease thanks to my discovery of Inca Ore, aka Eva Saelens, an Oakland-based singer and dronester, whose Birthday of Bless You album (2008, Not Not Fun) is surely one of the most peculiar and mesmerising of the whole sub-hypnagogic pop scene that has already given us Robedoor, Pocahaunted and Grouper. From opener "Infant Ra"-onwards, we are instantly transported into a dark and haunting American Gothic universe, one already frequented by Indignant Senility and Zola Jesus, but taken here to the next level, as Saelens ghostly, disembodied voice drifts like leaves on an autumn breeze around sinister gongs, muted lo-fi percussion and layer upon layer of dark, murky and impenetrable tape noise and muted feedback. Her chants are deliberately otherwordly, given even greater phantomatic gravitas by the dank production where every sound seems to drown in a pool of sandy water. It's intriguing that this music should emanate from sunny California as opposed to the post-colonial greyness of New England, home of the Salem witches and other disquieting histories. But maybe the post-noise of Inca Ore, like that of Grouper and Indignant Senility is rooted in a more recent collective consciousness - that of California's sinister history of serial killers and drug-laden excess. The dark forests and hills overlooking L.A. and San Francsico, the ones that birthed the Manson Family and The Hillside Strangler, those hidden underbellies of decay beyond the sun-kissed beach vistas and modern cities, seem to permeate this record, like ghosts seeping into reality. Sometimes the sunshine does pierce the gothic veil of Saelens mystique, but mostly this is haunted, lonesome drone-folk of the highest order. 

Lest you think I have lost interest in Dubstep, let's sign off with a suitably euphoric appraisal of one of the best releases the genre has provided us with thus far. Scuba is not a major name on the UK scene yet, but looks set to become one, if Triangulation (2010, Hotflush Records) is anything to go by. Scuba is the alter ego of Briton Paul Rose, who is currently one of the resident DJs at Berlin's world-famous Berghain club (I've been there - it has to be one of the most exhiliratingly overwhelming clubbing experiences I've ever had). Which of course means that, whilst the second track on this album, "Latch", may bear a strong resemblance to the work of master dubstepper Burial, Triangulation is actually one of the most innovative dub albums to have come along in a while, as Rose pollinates his Skream-esque deep bass lines with a wealth of other dance, techno and electro influences. Hints of heavy breakbeat and jungle add oomph to some tracks ("On Deck" is pure minimalist techno, whilst "You Got Me" is nicely funky), whilst there are echoes of trance and trip-hop on tracks like "Three Sided Shape" and "Before" (which features a gorgeous female vocal), occasionally evoking Massive Attack or Portishead. You can also feel the influence of further-flung producers like Flying Lotus, with hints of "ethnic" music on "Minerals", highlighting the Berghain's status as one of the premier international clubs. All this cross-pollination could have been to Triangulation's detriment, but Rose is too experienced for that. Throughout the album, despite the tempo changes and varying influences, he maintains a mood that is sombre, reflective and as subterranean as the cover art suggests. This is dubstep for damp, run-down European cities, making it the most deserving heir yet to Burial's Untrue. There are few bigger compliments I could pay.


So yes, 2010 is shaping up to be a stonker. I'm also still delving into a back-catalogue of noise, drone and hypnogogic records, so July on my iPod!! is liable to be as long as June. Happy Days!

May on my iPod!!

The election has now been and gone, and the hung parliament led to a coalition of earnest but dull people in charge. We've already had the first scandal, which was dull, and the first grumblings of discontent from Tory back-benchers, which amounted to sweet fanny adams. Indeed, the world goes on: comedy (Lembit Opik and John Prescott incomprehendingly exposing themselves to Hislop's cruelty by appearing on Have I Got News For You), tragedy and boredom. Same shit. And Richard Littlejohn continues to show how much of a revolting piece of ambulant dung he is by verbally slagging off murder victims rather than the perpetrator. Charming.


As always, thank fuck for music and art. In March and April, I actually caught two fabulous exhibitions that somewhat melded the two, with Florian Hecker using projected sounds to amazing effect in his solo show at Bethnal Green's hidden treasure, The Chisenhale Gallery. Powerful speakers were arrayed in such ways that the sounds they produced -digital noise, found sounds, disembodied voices- bounced around and over listeners (spectators?) creating the sonic equivalent of avant-garde sculpture. Meanwhile, at The White Cube near Green Park, Cerith Wyn Evans' Everyone's gone to the movies, now we're alone at last...' was a masterful sculpture show, notably his "S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E ('Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…')" where electrical towers unleashed searing white heat on the room. If these shows ever come to a gallery near you, I heartily recommend them.


A remarkable lack of hauntology or hypnangogy this month, or even dubstep, meaning the below selection may just be my broadest yet. And, with one exception, I am going to stick to albums from 2009 and 2010. Wild.

Starting in Africa, 2007 saw the release of one of the best (and least-heralded) releases from that continent in quite some time, Group Inerane's Guitars From Agadez (Sublime Frequencies). It's a great entry point for anyone curious about the music of Northern Niger's berber people, and I'll admit to having been a complete neophyte until discovering this marvellous release.

It's often described as a form of desert blues, although the connections to the music of Muddy Waters or even Ali Farka Toure, are tenuous at best. Rather, Inerane play insistent (even "motorik") percussion that serves as a platform for snaking, rough guitar soloing from the band's virtuoso leader Bibi Ahmed and the surreal chanted vocals and ululating screams of the female singers. It's music born from the Berber tribes' suffering under successive Nigerien governments, the guitars becoming metaphors for the slung rifles of desert combatants. I haven't heard an album this good come out of Africa since I first discovered Toumani Diabate's New Ancient Strings. I kid ye not!

Having been impressed by their set at ATP, I decided to grab a copy of Cold Cave's Love Come Close (2009, Matador Records). It's short and to the point (barely more than 30 minutes long), but it packs quite a punch. In many ways, it's rather referential, with hints of Joy Division, early Human League, Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide setting it firmly in the gloomier end of the synth-rock scene. But, as often with these new bands who love that early 80s scene, the actual resemblance is somewhat muted and has more to do with attitude than sound. In that respect, Cold Cave have few peers, with Wesley Eisnold's doom-laden voice being complimented by icy synths and a cold, detached haze lingers over everything. But these tunes are not lugubrious in a Joy Division sense, instead featuring pounding beats and driving tempos taking them close to dancefloor territory. An attitude perhaps best summed up by Eisnold himself: "I hate clubs, but love the music they play there". Love Comes Close is moody and dark, but also remarkably catchy.


And so to 2010, which had already kicked off in some style with the CD release of Indignant Senility's Plays Wagner and Eleh's Location Momentum, and looks set to get better and better with new albums by Rene Hell, Ital Tek, Sun Araw, Oneohtrix Point Never and Flying Lotus all to come.

Julian Cope alerted me to the motley genius of Excepter, former noiseniks who have been releasing off-kilter psychedelic drone rock since 2003, under the guidance of former No Neck Blues Band alumnus John Fell Ryan.

Presidence (2010, Paw Tracks) is their most ambitious album to date, two CDs-worth of delirious sound sculpted from live improvs into vibrant, experimental sound collages. It's nearly all synths, bar some rudimentary electro percussion, a cacophony of blurbs, bleeps, whoops and buzzes supplimented by warbly, incoherent vocal snippets and thumping, monolithic drum machine beats. It's one of the weirdest albums I've heard in a while, and a trial to sit all the way through in one go (two tracks, "OP" and "Presidence", last around 30 minutes!), but few are likely to be this rewarding. 

I also continued my obsession with William Basinski by downloading (from Boomkat, not for free) his latest opus, Vivian and Ondine (2010, 2062). Once again, the fucker takes my breath away! How does he do it? The premise, as always, is so simple it could be stupid in the hands of a lesser mortal - a foggy orchestral loop that repeats and repeats under subtly-shifting effects. The cover imagery is of a languid pool of water, and this album is warmer and less austere than works like 28982 or The Disintegration Loops. It's still blissfully melancholic and wistful, but there is a definite smile and sense of affection behind the ambient fog, as evidenced by the liner notes referring to the birth of Basinski's niece (Vivian) and second cousin (Ondine). As such, the tone is celebratory and exhalted, the weight of the passage of time, the notion of which is of course encapsulated in the ageing loop's very existence, offset by the joy of birth, of life renewed. Whether Vivian and Ondine matches the brilliance of Basinski's older work remains to be seen, but, as always, it's musical beauty at its purest.

Brian Eno's Music For Airports (1978) was the first in his legendary Ambient series, and the record that to this day probably best encapsulates the philosophy and essence of the genre. So, when I read that some electro upstarts were preparing to release a terse retort to Eno's masterpiece, I was pretty miffed.

But also a bit curious. And luckily, The Black Dog's Music For Real Airports (2010, Soma Records) is a stunning album, even (especially?) if you step back from the context of it being a riposte to Music For Airports. But, in essence, The Black Dog's Ken Downie objected somewhat to the idealised atmosphere of Eno's work, finding it lacking in depth in its elegiac tone, and dishonest for not highlighting that airports are places where social alienation, sleep deprivation and endless queueing are the norm, as well as being massive polluters. Fair enough, but Eno's work was much more a formal than metaphysical or philosophical effort, concentrating on creating an ambience that was as intagible as it was affecting, an aim that I think he succeeded in fulfilling. The notion of the airport as a  physical and socio-political establishment was secondary. It was music to play in an airport, not to evoke the experience of being in one.

Dispensing with any polemic means you can concentrate on Music For Real Airports on a purely aesthetic level, and here it is nothing short of a triumph. It's clearly and deliberately conceptual, with song titles like "Terminal EMA", "Wait Behind This Line" and "Passport Control", and the opening track, "M1", with its sounds of a car pulling into East Midlands Airport's car park and footsteps entering the terminal greeted by a disembodied recorded voice reminding us that smoking is prohibited, sets a scene that is tangible and real. These real life reference points crop up throughout the album, making the listener's response to the music all the more visceral.

In the main, like Eno's album, the music here is sustained, lengthy ambient electronica, with drifting synth lines and subdued melodies. But the tone is darker, more haunted, with a scope that is voluntarily cinematic, with a sort of stripped-down post-Vangelis spaciness inhabiting the soundscapes. Again, true to the concept, The Black Dog do not hold back on being illustrative of the airport experience's negative aspect and nowhere is this more evident than on "DISinformation desk", where the emphasis of the prefix is reflected in pulsating rhythm effects that build and build, heightening the sense of unease and irritation. "Wait Behind This Line" is similarly edgy, with moody sampled strings and more throbbing percussion. 

Like being stuck in an airport whilst in transit, Music For Real Airports is repetitive, cold and subdued. It's even tiring. And few albums these days are this conceptual and attentive to the thought process that went into their creation. Definitely the ALBUM OF THE MONTH.

Last up is Corrosion by Irish techno artist Anodyne (2010, Psychonavigation Records). Something of a mysterious figure, he was a popular underground act several years back before disappearing somewhat. Well, he's back with some style, as this dark and atmospheric electro record demonstrates superbly. Opener "When The Sky Fell Down" is evocative of The Field - pulsating and sensual beats driving forwards under delicate synth lines and a melancholic, minimalist style. But the second piece, "Close Your Eyes", pitches the album into something darker and more intense, cinematic sampled strings gliding over ferocious Venetian Snares-like beats whilst husky voices whisper at the listener menacingly. Corrosion feels caught between these two poles, managing to be both graceful and aggressive, mournful and vicious. It's a strong combination, perhaps not wholly original in comparison to the best of the two artists above, but a welcome sign that the revival of the best elements of vintage techno doesn't appear to be flagging.

In movies, Michael Haneke has been my celluloid William Basinski and, following on from Funny Games and The White Ribbon, I checked out 2005 Cannes Grand Prix winner Cache (aka Hidden). It's a tense thriller involving an ordinary bourgeois Parisian couple who get sent anonymous videos of the front of their house being filmed. As the husband (somewhat awkwardly played by Daniel Auteuil) delves deeper into his past to try and make sense of the increasingly disturbing events, his relationship with his wife (the excellent Juliette Binoche) deteriorates and his dreams become troubled. But, on the surface, everything remains normal. Haneke deftly refuses to give anything away. We are, like Georges, the protagonist, left guessing at what is going on and who is behind it. And every time we seem to have decided what the truth is, Haneke throws a cinematographic curve-ball, leaving us clutching at suspicions and doubts. It's expertly done, and he revisited these themes in even more style with last year's White Ribbon but, unlike that film, I'm still not sure what to make of Hidden. I love the sense of doubt, fear and mistrust, and the references to a grim colonial past that is these days anchored in the collective consciousness of all developped nations, but maybe too much mystery has left me feeling uncomfortable. Esteemed American critic Roger Ebert claims the key to the film could be hinted at in the 39th minute. I can't see what he refers to, and he admits himself it may be a smoking gun, but part of the fun -and fear- of this film is that we never get the full picture. 

Also playing with our perceptions of reality is the film 3-Iron (Bin-Jip) by Korean director Kim Ki-Duk (2004), which with the viewer wondering whether one of the characters is even alive. At its core, it's a love film, and an achingly tender one at that, in which a young vagabond breaks into people's houses whilst they're away, cleans and provides key repairs in return for their unwitting bed and board, before leaving as quietly as he arrived. One day, after breaking into a luxurious house, he find a young woman who has obviously been beaten by her possesive husband. The young man whisks her away and she becomes his companion in this weird ghostly life. 
The curious thing about 3-Iron is that this romance is played with barely a word of dialogue between the two protagonists. Unlikely, sure, but then as I said, this is a film that toys with our notions of reality and existence. Plus, these are two damaged souls, used to being alone, and their relationship evolves tentatively, awkwardly, as much love as it is a simple need to feel less lonely. In the end, the outside world catches up with them, but Kim Ki-Duk masterfully handles the romantic build up throughout, keeping things authentic and soulful despite the silences.
3-Iron doesn't quite match the other masterpieces of modern Korean cinema that are Old Boy, Peppermint Candy and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (the latter also by Kim Ki-Duk), but it's still and offbeat, peculiar and singularly affecting film. Recommended.

In music, 2010 is shaping up to be a vintage year. I've also got gigs by Ben Frost and Vindicatrix to assess, and am hoping to cram in another ATP and the Incubate Festival before 2011 rears its ugly head. Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, and show your support for independent record stores by hauling ass to the Second Layer, Boomkat and/or Sister Ray websites for all or any of the above. Word.

Africa, Japan and the oldies steal the show - Matt Groening's ATP, Butlins, England, May 7-9 2010

To think I almost didn't go! When my mates Tim and Mark floated the idea, the line-up wasn't yet as fleshed-out as it would prove to be, and I was certainly less adamant I had to go than for the 10-year Anniversary edition last December (SUNN O))), Bardo Pond and OM, for chrissakes), or indeed than I am for the upcoming Godspeed You! Black Emperor edition this year. But this ATP, curated by Matt Groening (who is, a soft spot for irritating whining female singer-songwriters aside, a man of exquisite musical taste), exceeded all expectations. The weather was mainly shite, and ridiculous levels of whisky and beer consumption on the Sunday made most of that day a write-off, but my ears got a phenomenal pleasure assault and fucking hell - I GOT JAMES MOTHERFUCKIN' CHANCE'S MOTHERFUCKIN' AUTOGRAPH!!! Ahem, sorry about that, but I needed to get it off my chest.

As per the last time, Tim, Mark and I, accompanied by our wonderful "token female with a mooncup" Harri, rocked up on the afternoon of the 7th, our car loaded with booze and cheap food, ready to overindulge, it turned out, in a weekend of jovial debauchery. The excellent planning meant that hardly any bands overlapped, and we luckily had a nice hour to settle in before the first set I desperately wanted to see, Birmingham haunt-pop duo Broadcast, who had produced one of the more beguiling albums of 2009 with their collaboration with The Focus Group, Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (Warp Records). My friends left halfway in, one later describing the pair as "shit". Certainly, the first 30 minutes were a challenge, with the influence of The Focus Group evident as Broadcast attempted a live collage piece that was weird, off-beat and, a shame given Trish Keenan's lovely voice, mostly vocals-free. It didn't always work, but I for one admired the attempt and felt the roughness of it was more due to the sound problems that would hamper a number of acts. Besides which, almost immediately after my trio of buddies departed, the band switched to standard Broadcast fair, with pulsating dance beats and shimmering psychedelic synth ambience acting as the perfect platform to launch Keenan's delightful, reverb-drenched voice at the audience. Highlighting the duo's place at the forefront of the new "hauntology" scene, their set was wistful and mysterious, as weird images were projected onto a canvas over their heads. In fact, it was probably the only one that suffered from a planning perspective as, like Bardo Pond in December, they would have been much better suited to an early morning appearance when every one would have been drunk and stoned enough to really get into their oddball sound. A shame.

I had to grab a bite then, so skipped Built to Spill, whose sound left me rather indifferent from what I heard in passing, but I was back at the Centre Stage for Cold Cave, whom I only knew from The Wire's end-of-the-year top 50 (at 49, I think). They were a pleasant surprise, performing atypically in near-total obscurity and featuring a sound halfway between the driving electro-pop of early Soft Cell or Human League, but with a suitably mournful/stroppy-sounding lead singer, some heavy post-industrial beats, and a general air of sexualised modernist decay. Plus, they have Prurient on synths!


Iggy and The Stooges were next, on the Pavillion stage, but I'd seen them a few days beforehand, and I really don't like the cavernous, impersonal feel of that setting, so after a couple of songs, where the band played almost the same set as at The Apollo and Iggy confirmed he still has enough energy for 12 men despite playing to back-to-back gigs less than a week earlier, I headed back to the chalet for a nap and a beer, returning to the Centre Stage in time for Toumani Diabate and his band, who were one of the best acts of the weekend. Far from the delicate, pastoral sound of his New Ancient Strings magnum opus, this saw the great man taking on groovy African funk, with scattered polyrhythmic percussion, electric guitar and two energetic singers. The unshackled enthusiasm onstage quickly filtered through to the crowd and soon it had become a foot-pounding, hip-shaking mass of humanity, for one of the most joyful scenes I have ever witnessed at a concert. Watching my buddy Tim in particular lose himself to the groove in a completely unfettered way was something I won't forget for a while. At half-eleven I also caught half a set by Japanese pop-punk band Shonen Knife, whose simplistic guitar riffage and cheesy shouted vocals were charmingly (if rather insubstantially) offset by their uber-sexy demeanor and amusing in-between-song banter ("Do you like sushi?").

Beer won over the rest of the acts on the Friday, but Toumani Diabate in particular had proved a phenomenal entry to the festival, and the dancing had drained me somewhat. Saturday would prove to be the big one, kicking off with Deerhunter (the two previous acts were the very uninspiring Danielson and Lightning Dust - the latter were simply dreadful) on the Pavillion stage. Bradford Cox and his band have become staples of ATP and showed themselves to be a properly well-rounded and hard-hitting rock band, somewhere between Flaming Lips at their most wistful and My Bloody Valentine, as sheets of noisy guitar jostled with sad, high-pitched voices. Cox is a charming performer, all the more so for his obvious frailty, and they were fittingly loud, with a ragged drone finale. There was a slight "going-through-the-motions" feeling at times, but I was charmed enough to grab a copy of their Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. album (4AD, 2008). Weird Era Cont. is superb, I must say.

Next up were Konono No.1, one of the most exciting bands currently emananting from Africa. You probably know the drill - they're essentially a wedding band back in their native Democratic Republic of the Congo, playing amplified finger piano's through rough-shod amps created by salvaging bits and pieces of electrical appliances. And good lord, they're loud! The rough sound and repetitive motifs they play create a massive wall of trance-like funk, somewhere between German motorik electronica and traditional African dance music. Shouts of "Bougez! Bougez!" punctuate their native tongue lyrics whilst the singers shake and grind to the furious, outlandish sounds emanating from the finger pianos. An insane live presence, and another feather in Africa's cap. The joyfulnous, energy and raw power of both Konono and Toumani Diabate's sets put a lot of the formulaic rock bands to shame.

I dutifully skipped She & Him, Zooey Deschanel's band (they sound a bit wet and dull to me), but was back in action for The Residents. I know - how mental to be seeing America's most enigmatic band performing live? The stage set the tone - a rundown TV and moth-eaten sofa had me feeling like I was staring into a warped parody of a typical American sitting room that had been visited by aliens for tea, who had left some futuristic instruments behind. And then the aliens were there! "Chuck" and "Bob", faces hidden by massive goggles, spiky dreadlocks and mouthless balaklavas, both wearing shiny red jackets and staring impassively (I guess) at their instruments as they took the stage. Then came the mad old man of this bonkers house/stage - "Randy", leader singer and storyteller, dressed in a Christopher-Lloyd-in-Back-to-the-Future mask and wearing a ratty old dressing gown and oversized bozer shorts. The Residents remain true to form - no clues as to who these guys are, or even if they are the same Residents that gave us Not Available and Eskimo. For the music was very different to those experimental pre-yet-post-punk gems, mostly a raging mix of disturbed techno, seething noise and skewed old school rock'n'roll, mashed together into an unholy, ear-shattering whole, with lyrics (either roared, mewed or screamed by "Randy", who also peppered the song intervals with creepy/funny stories of ghosts, imaginary siblings and violent accidents) so bizarre they could have been lifted from the mind of Flannery O'Connor after an all-night amphetamine binge. In many ways it had me thinking that The Residents could be the original precursors of hypnagogic pop, their madcap take on the last 100 years of American culture, filtered through noise, drone, punk and psych, being a ragged, rather scary template for the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never and Gary War. Sort of.

Sticking to the weird, next up, on the Reds Club stage, was Ruins, now a solo vehicle for madcap drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. His energy is astounding and whilst there are limits to this solo drumming + vocals + tapes doing the rest, it remained awe-inspiring just to see his sheer bravado, guts and power. Stumbling raucously between noise, free jazz and progressive rock, including a finale that seemed to include snippets of King Crimson and Soft Machine, it was a stirring moment of wild avant rock that didn't make me regret missing the impromptu jam session between Jason Pearce, Konono No1 and Boredoms, which filled up startlingly quickly and apparently was something of a dud. 

Ruins 45-minute set ended just in time for me to haul ass over to the Centre stage to catch The xx, also only on 45 minutes but playing twice over the weekend. As much as I enjoy their excellent debut album, as a live entity, particularly shorn of the presence of keyboardist Baria Qureshi who recently departed the fold, they still need some work. Having all keyboard parts pre-recorded meant they had no room to stretch out and any faltering on the rhythm side of things was glaringly obvious (and there were bound to be, given how tough it is to play on a drum pad at speed). But both singers are sexy in an offbeat way, with their voices strong and sultry, and it's always nice to hear songs you like in a live setting, especially as they were quite obviously very popular with a buoyant crowd. They also did a good job of twisting the end of "Basic Space" into a tetchy jam, whilst "Fantasy" featured one of the heaviest bass lines I've ever heard, including Skream and Benga! Shame "Crystalised" was a bit untidy, but they have masses of room to improve, and they remain the only band recently trumpeted by the NME to actually be worth the hype.

But the best of Saturday was saved for last, as I ducked back in to Reds to catch James Chance & Les Contortions. Anyone who knows anything about post-punk music will know James Chance, whose original Contortions took the raw, alienated, unsophisticated sound of New York's seminal No Wave scene and dumped in jerky funk, hints of disco, and even sophisticated free jazz courtesy of Chance's squalling sax. The Contortions per se didn't last that long, but at the forefront of every incarnation of the band has been this sax, plus Chance's unique vocal style, part-sneer, part-scream, part-rasp, part-yell, part-cry for mercy. His debut album, Buy, remains a classic of unruly funk-punk defined by the aforementioned sax and vocals, plus jagged lines of distorted slide guitar, and it was great to hear James Chance returning to these roots with this French incarnation of the band. When they ripped in to the opening chords of "Design to Kill" and the great man blurted out a molten sax solo before slinking up to the mic, I was in heaven, and the bastards didn't let up for the whole set, which blissfully stretched well over the alloted hour. Whether taking on James Brown-ish funk, the pure No Wave of his earlier songs, or vintage r'n'r, the attitude remained the same - fierce, ballsy and belligerent. Rock at its purest. That I the next day got to meet Chance was the cherry on a pretty substantial fucking cake.

It's possible that such a high was indirectly responsible for Sunday being such a write-off. So enthused was I by Chance's performance, and then at having met him (and also chatted to Matt Groening - do I get any cool points for that?) that I was more interested in savouring the joy, and, in true hippy fashion, sharing it with others via many a shared bottle of alcohol, than in seeing many more bands. But I did give it a shot, I swear!

Proof: I got my mind melted in the best possible way by Boredoms! In fact, a second shot of genius performing probably did it for my poor synapses, meaning the "love factor" probably got out of control (I think I later snogged a 42-year-old woman!). Boredoms were performing Boardrum, their suite for multiple drummers, bashed guitars, electronics and some guitar, with a -for Boardrum- relatively stripped-down number of drummers (7, sometimes 8), including one of my faves in Oneida's Kid Millions. The show was insane, with one of the drummers being lifted to the stage, complete with full kit and soloing in call-and-response fashion with the rest of his bandmates! But the real focus was Boredoms' insane dreadlocked frontman EYE, who danced around on stage, leapt from drums to bashing a wall of fine-tuned guitars or yelled into a range of distorted microphones, all with the energy of ten men. And all the while the 7 drummers kept up their constant, insistent, ever-shifting pounding, orchestrated by EYE's shouts, raised hands and gestures. Truly bizarre, wondrous and excessively brilliant stuff.

And what about the rest? A bottle of forgotten Jack Daniels put paid to most of it, but I did stumble through a few shows, mostly snippets:

Viv Albertine - terribly dull singer-songwriter meanderings from the former Slit. Had to leave.
Spiritualized - again one I left mid-way through, despite it being a full rendering of Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. Fatuous, overblown and self-important. Blech.
Joana Newsom - Great voice and presence, but my memory lets me down a tad here
The Raincoats - I had actually sobered up a bit for this, but they started late, took ages to get going and ultimately the bar proved a more reliable companion. I'd like to say they've still got it, but such shenanigans proved tiresome.

Ok, I'll admit it - missing most of Sunday due to inebriation was lame. But damn if James Chance and Boredoms didn't make it worth it. My only true regret was missing most of The Raincoats, but at the same time it kind of preserves my image of them, which my few recollections of their set suggest might have been damaged otherwise. James Chance and The Residents at least showed that the old-time post-punks haven't lost any of their edge or ability to surprise, whilst more nuggets of pure gold came from such far-flung parts as Mali, The Congo and Japan. A fitting epitaph for one of the most eclectic festivals I've ever been to. Well done, Mr Groening! 

March and April on my iPod

Such a mad couple of months, with gigs, new albums, work and flat-hunting all combining to mean I have to combine them both this time for an iPod extravaganza! Which means you all (sigh) get a bit longer to absorb my recent post on memory music. Lucky you!

Obviously, given my recent blurb on "memory music", hauntology and hypnagogic pop have been major aural focuses for me this month. I won't re-elaborate on the artists and records I gave detailed appraisals of previously, but must say that March's album of the month has to be Sadly The Future is No Longer What it Was by Leyland Kirby (History Always Favours The Winners, 2009). A titanic 3-hour monolith that sees Kirby echo his work as The Caretaker, but using Basinski-esque piano loops, rumbling synths and crackling noise in lieu of samples to carry across his sense of mournful nostalgia. Sumptuous. Also note that The Caretaker's Persistent Repitition of Phrases (HAFTW, 2009) has now been given a CD reissue, well worth picking up (this is a good opportunity for me to laud the excellent Manchester-based indie record store, Boomkat: www.boomkat.com, where you can grab this masterpiece, along with many others).

Altogether more immediate in its approach is Gary War's Horribles Parade (Sacred Bones, 2009), one of hypnagogic pop's stand-out albums, along with Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill by Grouper (Type, 2008), Island Diamonds by Pocahaunted (Not Not Fun, 2008) and Rifts by Oneohtrix Point Never (No Fun, 2009), all mentioned in "Memory In the Grooves". Horribles Parade is a fast-paced, totally warped and psychedelic rocker that sounds like very little out there. Under the deluge of weird sonic effects that drench his guitars and synths, you can just about detect some retro grooves, equally evoking brittle 60s garage-psych (such as 13th Floor Elevators and The Seeds) and icy post-punk in the Joy Division/Magazine vein. The rhythm patterns, bashed out on crude drum machines and supported by clouds of muffling synth noise, are overlayed by War's bleary guitar riffage, half-way between the Neil Young of Year of the Horse, and Manuel Gottsching's psychedelic solos on Ash Ra Tempel's debut, but recorded in a run-down student bedsit on cheap 8-track recording equipment. As for the vocals, it may take you a while to identify them, such are the watery effects that weigh them down, making it sound like they were recorded in a swimming pool. But concentrate and you will hear the dreamy leitmotivs and rhyming notes that highlight that, for all the effects and processing that he uses to soup up his songs, Gary War is really something of a pop songwriter. It's singular and unwieldy, but still classic pop-rock. A great introduction to hypnagogic pop's weird delights.

Also on Sacred Bones, and released in 2009, was the second album by Wisconsin-based band Zola Jesus, called The Spoils. Truth be told, The Spoils sits only at the edge of hypnagogic pop, it's backward-glancing haze owing less to Oneohtrix Point Never's ectoplasmic snatch and grab style than to the retro-nostalgia of indy rock's top acts who turn to the 80s to make up for their own lack of inspiration. Zola Jesus, however, are inspired, and let enough lo-fi spectrality permeate their record to make it sit nicely, if not always accurately alonside Horribles Parade or Island Diamonds. Their influence is the Gothic rock of the early 80s, a feeling mainly reinforced by the close similarity in vocal style between Zola Jesus' Nika Roza Danilova and such heathen chanteuses as Siouxsie Sioux and Diamanda Galas. The music is also dark and oppressive like the best Goth, but comes at you through a haze of lo-fi production values and stripped-down electronica, instantly channeling the gloomy forests and ramshackle backwater towns of Danilova's home state rather than towering Mittel-Europan castles or industrial cityscapes. Films like Silence of the Lambs or the dank prose of Cormac McCarthy's The Road are mirrored in the brittle riffs, crackling effects and monotonous beats, taking The Spoils beyond simple retro, by-the-ropes rock'n'roll and into something elusive, ghostly and mystical.


Equally evocative -oddly- of fog-laden forests, grim trailer parks and crumbling colonial houses in America's hinterland is Indignant Senility's Plays Wagner (Type Records, 2010), a monolithic slab of scratchy drone that owes a huge debt to the work of The Caretaker, whilst still managing to sound rather unique. As the title suggests, Indignant Senility's Pat  Maherr has taken the bombastic "classical" music of Richard Wagner and "played" with it. The result couldn't be much further removed from Wagner. Using old vinyl recordings of the German's music, and then twisting, turning, distorting and pummeling it beyond recognition, Maherr has created a massive gothic soundscape, where snippets of the old master's strings or orchestras seep into the mass of electronic drone like shafts of light, or ghosts of long-dead German aristocrats, heroes and princes trying to muscle their way back into reality. It's an exhausting listen, at 78 minutes in length, but a truly troubling and haunting one.

Closer to home, Manchester duo Demdike Stare have also been communicating with troubled spirits, as displayed on their peculiar debut electro gem Symbiosis (Modern Love, 2009). Their background is in turntablism, dub and techno, but Symbiosis only hints at such modern considerations, as it is one of the most oblique and troubling techno albums around. The pace is slow, sinister, starting with the insidious drone of the aptly named "Suspicious Drone", in which cracklng electronics seep around you like liquid knives, before segueing driftingly into "Haxan Dub", a slow-burning bass rumbler. Other tracks, such as "Jannisary" show an influence from Iranian music, but as with the techno and dub, this influence is ghostly and hard-to-grasp. Symbiosis is ultimately the product of England's haunted North-West, the sounds evoking, for all their modern synths and computers, the desolate Lancashire moors and dilapidated former industrial towns. They also betray their fascination with the grimmer side of English mythology: ghosts, haunted houses and witchcraft and similarly sign-posted, not least with the duo's name, a reference to one of the most famous witches in English history. Dark and impenetrable, Symbiosis does not have the immediacy of Broadcast's work, its closest hauntological cousin being Eric Zann's windswept epic Ouroborindra (Ghost box, 2005). 

Of course, none of this "Hauntology" is really -really- that original, and it owes a large amount to the experimental turntablism of Liverpool-born composer Philip Jeck, a maverick genius whose odd, experimental and ambitious records are benchmarks for anyone wanting to explore the possibilities of found sounds, old records and modern technology. His modus operandi appears consistent: he uses old, broken vinyl records and plays them old two dilapidated turntables, filtering the result through a gaggles of effects boxes to create powerful and disorientating sound collages. On Stoke (Touch Records, 2002), the results range from drifting ambience to epic avant-garde sound experimentation, the untiting factor being the endless crackles and hiss of his ageing vinyl. Some contain found sounds (could they be field recordings?), others hint at long-forgotten melodies and tunes. On "Pax", possibly Stoke's high-water mark, the fiercely manipulated voice of an anonymous blues singer is twisted into a mournful, disembodied loop, all traces of his or her words long gone, but the deeply affecting meaning preserved and even enhanced. That each of his albums is culled from live performances only enhances the sense that Philip Jeck is a singular genius in modern experimental music.

Also only on the fringe of modern hauntology (in fact, the clearest link is the fact that he is currently signed to Mordant Music, home of, well, Mordant Music) is Vindicatrix, aka David Aird, whose Die Alten Bosen Lieder album gets the "Best Album of April" award, even though it was released at the tail end of 2009. Compared to most hauntology, which takes pop culture and filters and distorts it into some sort of weird experimental soup, Vindicatrix doesn't even bother with the "pop" side of things. As the title suggests, this album sees Aird indulge his love for traditional German lieder, and translated into English it means "The Old Wicked Songs", which is pretty evocative! But do not expect dry, earthy folk tunes with traditional arrangements. Die Alten Bosen Lieder is a constantly surprising and unsettling album. What it shares with Mordant Music and other hauntologists is its breadth of influences and sources, as well as a basis in electronic music. At its core, it could even be seen as a stripped-down techno album, although not one that would be played in Fabric anytime soon. The first track, "Dein Schwert" is a modernised cover of a Schubert piece, reshaped to fit to a pulsating electronic beat, oppressive synths and futuristic effects, whilst Aird rasps and moans in German like Blixa Bargeld on downers. It is direct and dramatic where Mordant Music are elusive and cheeky, the sinister undertones of their Dead Air (Mordant Music, 2006) being pushed right up front. At times Vindicatrix evokes the "sound blocks" of Scott Walker's recent The Drift (4AD, 2006) album, but filtered through shades of dance, industrial punk and trip hop. At others, notably the three central tracks, "Lack of Correspondence", "Rubbing Pages Out" and "Insulinde", calm ambient passages are juxtaposed with brittle sonic experiments, much like David Sylvian's Manafon (Samadhisound, 2009), but perhaps with a greater sense of urgency and menace. Throughout the album, there is a sense of drifting through a dystopian urban wasteland, with the only sounds coming from a clapped-out transistor radio that randomly spits out half-formed tunes beamed from a decaying antenna lost in the fogs of time. As such, whilst Die Alten Bosen Lieder doesn't have the the clear nostalgia of vintage hauntology, it still encapsulates the spirit of half-remembered memes and musical cross-pollination that has made the genre so enthralling. And with its twisted humour and decayed post-modernist aura, it stands as one of the great albums of the last decade.

It wasn't all hauntology and backwards-gazing American oddball pop, though. I also -finally!- discovered the brilliant drone of Phill Niblock, one of the modern masters of minimalism, alongside Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros and Tony Conrad. On the superb and awe-inspiring Touch Food (Touch Records, 2003), Niblock doesn't play, instead bringing in the likes of Zeitkratzer's master saxophonist Ulrich Krieger to give life to his deceptively simple compositions, the first three of which revolve around the adventurous manipulation of three staple instruments of modern music: sax, piano and violin. Under Niblock's direction, the instruments are double-tracked, distorted and reverbed almost beyond recognition, creating massive drone canvasses where each shift in tempo, volume or effect, even slight, becomes a flash of golden light in an all-envelopping cloud of sound. The images that come with the CD (one of the best booklets ever) show pictures of Chinese chefs at work, a weird contrast with the slow-paced, minimal music, but one that enhances the strangeness and disorientation of the music. This is an extremely long -and deceptively loud- album, but it's well worth letting it subsume your senses.

Also operating in the realm of minimalist drone is/are Eleh, a completely anonymous act who, after several limited vinyl-only releases, have/has finally released a debut CD album on Touch, Location Momentum (2010). This is not some sort of Residents-esque elaborately-orchestrated elusiveness. No-one, even the guys at Touch know who Eleh is or are. Could be a woman. Could be a man. Could be a band. Could be one person in a basement with some equipment. All we know is that Eleh use(s) vintage analogue equipment to create subtle drone epics of remarkable originality in a genre already over-saturated by countless sub-par releases. The first track on Locomotion Momentum, "HeleneleH", which may be a cheeky clue as to Eleh's identity, is the heady wine of drone music, and one that encapsulates the crafty sense of humour behind Eleh's mechanical obscurity, as a single unending drone note on a sine-wave generator is sustained for the best part of 20 minutes. Just as you're getting frustrated with the sheer bloody-mindedness of the piece, it suddenly shifts to a note, catapulting the listener into a new aural environment. These drones, whether the high-pitched white noise of "Circle One: Summer Transcience" or the rumbling organ distortion of "Observation Wheel", which evokes the best of early Klaus Schulze, are all-encompassing and drift imperceptibly into your synapses, enslaving you to their unexpected rhythms and shifting sound worlds. I don't care who Eleh is or are, so long as he/she/they keep delivering such superb CDs!

No such gentle disquiet from Venetian Snares, the peculiar moniker taken by Canadian techno producer Aaron Funk. His superb Rossz csillag alatt született (Planet Mu, 2005) is a classic of modern drum'n'bass, proof that the genre can still evolve and explore new territories. For Rossz csillag alatt született (which I still can't pronounce, despite getting taught how by my Hungarian flatmate) sees Funk exploring his Hungarian heritage in a most startling way, as he samples sounds from traditional Magyar folk tunes, twisting the sounds of violins, plucked cellos and full string quartets around ferocious breakbeats and driving synth noises that clatter along at hundreds of beats per minute. It shouldn't work but it does with some aplomb, especially on the magical "Öngyilkos Vasárnap", where Billie Holliday's sampled voice singing "Gloomy Sunday" (originally written by Hungarian composer Rezső Seress) adds a sense of melancholy and gloom, perfectly enhanced by Funk's doom-laden beats and distorted string samples. If you're not a fan of hardcore junglism, it's probably best to avoid Rossz csillag alatt született, but be warned, you'll be missing out on a truly unexpected techno gem.

Ending on a movie note, I want to send a big "you da man!" out to Michael Haneke, whose brilliant films Funny Games (1997) and The White Ribbon (2009) rattled my world one rainy Sunday in April. The former is one of the most disturbing pamphlet movies on the subject of violence you will ever come across. The principle is creepily simple: an upper middle-class couple and their young son rock up to their lakeside holiday home for a nice summer break, only to have their home invaded by two creepily polite and sadistic young men who torture them psychologically and physically with chilling detachment. Using "unallowed" film-making techniques such as breaking the fourth wall, Haneke highlights the sense of voyeurism and the dehumanising effects of violence in movies. Here, it is mainly off-screen, but the cold cinematography and lack of any sensationalisation make it seem all the more brutal. But that asks a fundamental question: why do we like our violence to be sensationalised?

The White Ribbon may just be Haneke's most perfect statement yet. Filmed in colour which was then digitally converted to black-and-white, it's a beautifully-crafted masterpiece of subtle disquiet, as the inhabitants of a German village in 1914 watch their daily lives descend slowly into chaos as random acts of senseless violence start to punctuate the well-ordered calm of their puritanical society. Haneke deliberately piles on the doubt and mystery, never allowing us to truly know who is commiting these acts, whilst also unveiling the hypocrisy and perversion that lurk continually under the well-mannered exterior each character projects. It's cold and studied, and deservedly won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, a just reward for one of the world's most enthralling directors.


Phew! What a slab! I'll avoid mentioning the dismal election result here in the UK which sees us foisted with the most unpopular and uninspiring government in decades, simply because it's just too dire for words. Proof if ever that voting in this country means fuck all. Still, it was worth it just to see Lembit Opik and Adam Boulton's meltdowns. Almost...

LIVE MAGIC!!!

It's been a ruddy good couple of months for them, and things are set to get better, with ATP, Boris, Teeth of the Sea and Ben Frost still to come!

 note: the pictures below are not mine, but are, I believe from the gigs in question

Skream and Benga - Fabric, London; March 19 2010
Boxcutter, Kuedo and others - Corsica Studios, London; April 9 2010

Two club sets just a couple of weeks apart were the perfect introduction for me to the dubstep live experience. I'm glad I was prepared for how loud it would be, especially at Fabric where the pounding drum patterns and sub-sub-bass hit crushing volume levels.

Skream and Benga are the genre's two young superstars, a deserved reputation as they are also two of the most talented producers out there. I do have my reservations about the whole experience, though. Fabric is a pretty vile place, a club "superstore", soulless and brimming with tourists. The average age of the audience must have been 20, making me feel somewhat out of place. To top things off, Skream and Benga didn't come on until 3am, meaning I had to drink my way through the boredom of a number of other, less enthralling performers.

I would like to say it was worth it. Certainly, they are a talented duo, and I loved that they decided to perform side-by-side, taking turns to release their respective riffs and tunes, and supporting each other with much arm-waving to the crowd when not at the decks. But 6 hours is a long time to wait with only inaudible chats with friends and lots of beer as company. Plus, their set was partly spoiled by the irritating presence of a couple of MCs whose only vocal interventions seemed to be to repeat the words "Skream and Bengaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!" ad infinitum. A shame, as both Croydon lads are excellent tunesmiths and when they were flying, the crowd's reaction was unlike any I'd seen in a club, even Berlin's cathedral-like Berghain. Benga was the hero for me, his pounding rhythm tracks setting a monstrous groove under industrial synth lines. But, by the time the set ended at 5 I was weary, and the MCs had driven me to the back of the room to lean against a pillar grumbling into my umpteenth bottle of Budweiser. Still, the experience of seeing hundreds of 20-somethings bouncing up and down to the thudding bass lines of two of of dubsteps most exciting stars was memorable, and proof perhaps that the genre has finally entered the mainstream. Where it goes from here remains a mystery...
The Corsica Studios are an altogether more intimate venue, with two small-ish rooms linked by tunnel-like corridors running under the dingy archways of Elephant & Castle in gloomy South London. A perfect setting for a dubstep evening that was cheap, good-natured and blessed with some amazing music.

I don't remember all the artists I saw, but even those I was unfamiliar with were able to get the young, arty crowd bouncing. I had come to see Boxcutter, whose excellent Oneiric album (Planet Mu, 2006) has been a recent fave of mine, and Kuedo, aka Jamie Vex'd, one half of the sadly now-defunct Vex'd, whose Degenerate (Planet Mu, 2005) remains one of the true must-have dubstep albums. 

Boxcutter's style has evolved notably since Oneiric's IDM-inflected indo-dub, moving towards more house-y synth patterns and graceful pop. For this set he added a live electric bass to his programmed patterns and whilst it didn't always work, lurching into wanky noodling occasion, there were times when it hit a spacey electro groove reminiscent of The Field.

But if Boxcutter was good, Kuedo was amazing, cranking up the volume and the thumping beats and mixing the best of Vex'd's post-industrial dub with the retro synthetic approach that has made Joker and Joy Orbison the new darlings of the UK club scene. Like them, Kuedo's synth riffs evoke a cross-section of 80s and 90s pop culture, from cheesy movies to old skool hip-hop and garage to video game soundtracks. But Kuedo's beats are that much more massive and thumping, whilst heavy basses churn away underneath the mix. Industrial dance at its best, Kuedo is an artist to watch, especially as his new EP Dream Sequence (Planet Mu, 2010) is also excellent.

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio - Royal Festival Hall, London, April 19 2010

The Metal Machine Trio's album The Creation of the Universe (Sister Ray Records) was one of the best surprises of 2008 or 2009. Which is not a slight on mister Reed (although his post-Songs for Drella output has been patchy at best), but rather a testament to how exciting, raw and adventurous the new album was. The Creation of the Universe saw Reed crowbar-ing free improv into his own curmudgeonly musical philosophy, delivering something that was unpredictable but concise, noisy but efficient. An essential album, but one that sat uneasily in any category, be it improv, rock or noise. 

So, the news that the RFA's Ether festival was going to give Reed a chance to unleash this particular brand of free "fuck you" on a London audience was quite welcome, and this was not an opportunity to miss. I figured most people would assume it would be a rehashing of Metal Machine Music, his unfairly lambasted noise album from 1975, and one the greatest "fuck you"s an artist has ever addressed to his or her own audience, and therefore steer well clear.


Instead, it seems most of the prats in the auditorium hadn't read the script, hadn't wondered what the "Metal Machine Trio" could possible imply, and had turned up expecting a run-through of hits, from "Perfect Day" to, um, "Walk on the Wild Side". As far as I'm concerned, these middle-aged dipshits got what they deserved. A good 30 minutes of feedback greeted everyone as we filtered our way into the glorious main hall, and already some of the grey-haired biddies around me looked troubled. When their enthusiastic applause at Reed's eventual appearance was drowned out by a wall of guitar feedback, electronic noise and strident sax, most decided, after a few minutes of very Britishly polite consideration, to head en masse for the exit. 


For those of us who stayed it was a true monument to free exploration of sound. The error here would be to expect Reed to play the improv game by the book. No, Lou Reed is Lou Reed, and even when improvising, he controls everything, with his usual sour temper. As such, you could see him bossing electro wizard Sarth Calhoun as to how to pound out his electronic drones, whilst sax genius Ulrich Krieger always deferred to the New Yorker, even when in full squalling flow. And why not? It's Lou Reed, for chrissakes! It's been a while since we were privileged to hear the great man's singular take on feedback virtuosity, and I for one one was enthralled, as rumbling drones made way for high-pitched saturation and then back again. At the end, the aging (he's 68, for fuck's sake) rocker waddled over to the giant gong behind him and gave it a resounding bash that woke up the old man beside me and brought this tumultuous, rapturous set to a close. All I can say is, fuck those dozy cunts that walked out (and I've never seen so many people head for the doors at a gig), and I am glad I got to see a grumpy old fart do what he still does better than most - make a fucking racket!

Iggy and the Stooges + Suicide - Hammersmith Apollo, London, May 3 2010

I think I was probably the only person in the audience who preferred the opening act to the main guys. As part of the interesting "Don't Look Back" series (organised, I believe, by ATP Recordings), Iggy & The Stooges were playing the entirety of their seminal Raw Power album, whilst Suicide would assault us with their complete debut. An evening of pure sonic bliss would surely present itself.

Ah expectations. I'm pretty sure they are the mother of all fuck ups. Which is not to say the gigs weren't great. They were. But maybe after dreaming of this moment for years, those damned expectations were bound to put the cat among the pigeons.

Suicide have the advantage of having a reputation built on a talent for making music difficult for their audiences. When they first appeared in London supporting The Clash, someone threw an ax at them, after all! As such, I was prepared for them to be challenging. I was not expecting it to be so loud, though! It must be kept in mind that Alan Vega and Martin Rev, the pioneering duo that makes up Suicide, are old. Vega is 71! But Rev's thundering drum machine patterns and warped synth noise roared out of the speakers at ear-shattering volume from the off, as they smashed "Ghost Rider", the album's amazing opener into the ground. Vega looked his age in a ludicrous yellow beanie, no longer able to jerk around stage whilst hitting himself in the face with the mic and starting fights with the audience. But he has traded in such antics for the mother of all "fuck you" attitudes, slouching around the stage and growl-shouting his lyrics as his voice is twisted and mauled by ridiculous amounts of reverb. At one pointm in true bastard rock curmudgeon style, he lit a cigarette and smoked it onstage, before apparently getting signalled that he would be in some shit if he didn't stub it out. Not really punk rock, but a nice little bit of grizzled, ageing defiance.

But Rev was surely the star. He barely looked at the audience as he hid his face under weird fluorescent wrap-around shades, instead banging on his fucked-up organ like a petulant two-year-old. It was hugely messy, untamed and the mix was all over the place, but with every pounding thud of electronic percussion I slipped deeper into a woozy swaggering dance, captivated by the duo's monstrous noise. They may no longer have the edginess of yore, but at least they still steadfastedly refuse to play the rock star game, skulking off with barely a glance our way after just 30-odd minutes. One of my friends was suitably outraged at what she heard, and sometimes it's nice to see that music can still incite that kind of anger and bile.

But what of Iggy? I think a lot of it has to do with how I enjoy live music. I no longer have the energy to cram myself into a mosh pit and bounce up and down like a Masai warrior on speed whilst some eijit crowd surfs over my head and the singer jiggles about like a whirling dervish with inner ear problems. These days I much prefer to sit at the back of the hall and observe such shenanigans from afar, which ultimately says a lot more about me than the quality of what's going on onstage. So, let's be clear: Iggy rocks like a motherfucker. He has always trodden the thin line between being ridiculous and being a genius, a feeling that is only reinforced as he nears 65 years of age. But for sheer charisma and never-ending energy, he has few peers, and I was seething with jealousy at the site of his amazingly ripped torso.


My main quibble was with the sound. In a bid to make as much noise as possible, and keep as tight as possible, The Stooges (with James Williamson back on guitar and the groovy Mike Watt in lieu of the late Ron Asheton) cranked up the volume and ultimately sounded a lot more like a thrash metal band than they did even on the super-violent Raw Power. Williamson's steamroller riffs were the main cause for this, with the guitar drowning out everything else and seeming to overpower Scott Asheton's Motown-y drum patterns and the occasional sax bursts from Steve Mackay. For me, songs like "Penetration" and "Gimme Danger" lost a lot of their subtle menace and sly sexuality with such an onslaught, as the over-amped electric guitar replaced the slender acoustic one from the album. Other tracks suffered less, particularly the blit-krieg versions of "Search & Destroy" and "Raw Power", but it spoke volumes for me that the best songs were the ones in the second half the set that were lifted from Fun House (still Iggy and The Stooges' best moment), the in-your-face onslaught becoming something more free-form and jazz-inflected, even at such cacophonous volume. And "I Wanna Be Your Dog" was a beauty as well. Throughout, Iggy Pop was constantly dancing, moving, leaping into the audience and showing his arse, as unfettered and untamed as ever. I may be a bit too old for this kind of show, but he sure as hell isn't, which is perhaps the best thought to retain from a rather intense but slightly anticlimatic evening.