Ensemble Pearl: self titled

Ensemble Pearl: Self Titled
Drag City (2013)

Stephen O’Malley seems to release a new collaborative record every other day. The guy is prolific, and it’s not like he’s banging out ‘noise’ tracks on a broken synthesiser in his bedroom either. He creates intricate and highly considered music, as described in this fantastic video interview at the Red Bull Music Academy. In general we’ve come to expect a trademark sound from O’Malley and the projects he’s involved in; that of crushing and meditative doom ambience. There are exceptions though.

For example, last year’s stunning and underrated KTL record (his collaboration with with Editions Mego boss Peter Rehberg) eschewed doom for a much more delicate combination of acoustic and electronic drones. Ensemble Pearl takes another surprising left hand path.

Perhaps it’s the presence of Boris collaborators Atsuo and Michio Kurihara, bringing that group’s occasional post rock leanings to the table. Or maybe it’s something to do with Ensemble Pearl’s fourth member Bill Herzog. Whatever the case, O’Malley’s stamp isn’t as significant on this record. For one, distorted guitars are kept to a minimum. Ensemble Pearl emphasises drums, bass and clean guitars with none of the dissonance you’d expect. It’s surprisingly rhythmic, with guitars following the drums’ lead through a trip hop paced, psychedelic hoe down. Atsuo’s kit drips with reverb, creating a dubby vibe that’s most enjoyable.

The sparse arrangements make me think of Boren & Der Club of Gore minus the foreboding anxiety. Ensemble Pearl is a warm and dreamlike experience with crisp and spacious production. Tracks like Wray tackle a palette of xylophone-like synthesisers to create an ambience that’s almost heavenly. Wray is among the most beautiful pieces O’Malley has been involved in, calling to mind the more abstract moments of bands like Godspeed you! Black Emperor!

The other reference point for Ensemble Pearl is O’Malley’s beloved Earth, although this time around the influence appears to be Dylan Carson’s later interest in droning Americana. But perhaps that’s an unfair comparison because Ensemble Pearl conjures up much more ethereal emotions than Earth’s parched and lonely landscapes. This record is a real creeper, and by falling in love with it I’ve renewed my excitement in O’Malley’s sonic experimentation. I can’t recommend Ensemble Pearl enough.

[PHYSICS]: Spectramorphic Iridescence

[PHYSICS]: Spectramorphic Iridescnece
Digitalis (2013)

Things start off all hipster cool with Casio beats and plastic synths sporting faux Pompadours and Buddy Holly glasses without lenses. Two minutes later we’re in a K-hole with Aphex Twin, and by track 3 things are getting decidedly weird. A rhythmical bass line drives odd electrical fuzz and hiss through sleets of reverb, turning everything into mush like an R&B My Bloody Valentine. Before you get comfortable it’s back to another 80s Sci-Fi fantasy soundtrack with echoey electro snares and cheesy arpeggios. What the hell is going on here?

This dreamlike record is experimental for its manic ability to veer between various digital music tropes of yore and somehow spew out a cohesive experience. But the Now is never far away. Like Emerald Forest, where creatures bubble and toil in a way that calls to mind the more tribal sounding moments of Black Dice. One can see Grace Jones gnashing her teeth and eating a man whole while listening to this.

There’s plenty of digital revival stuff going around at the moment but you’d be hard pressed to find a record that does as good a job of meat grinding retromania as this. The beauty of [PHYSICS], whoever they are, is their ability to take this sound into contemporary spaces. I could reference Oneohtrix Point Never but that would be selling [PHYSICS] short.

I bought this record for the cover art. Fuck you. It proved to be totally worth it.

Autechre: Exai

Autechre: Exai
Warp (2013)

I’ve been a huge fan of Autechre for a number of years. Autechre have taught us that rhythm is not only for dancing. Their sound is an unsolvable Rubik’s Cube, a constantly changing atomic mass of particles unable to merge into a cohesive whole. I keep coming back to Autechre because I’m desperate to solve their puzzle.

I finally got see Sean Booth and Rob Brown do their live thing a few years ago, at the time of their last proper release, Oversteps. Their live show was fucking horrible. They played in total darkness, the only light in the venue came from the exit signs and the bar fridges. The stage was somehow rigged up so that even Booth and Brown’s laptop screens didn’t light up their faces. The live set had none of the delicate nuances of their recorded output; instead they blasted out a never ending stream of collapsing percussion. For all I know they weren’t even on the stage. I gave up and left after 30 minutes.

At that time, Autechre had put out three mediocre releases (Quaristice, Oversteps and Move of Ten) which all veered towards middle-of-the-road synthesised trip hop and after that disappointing live show I thought it was the end of our relationship.

Thank god that Exai, a two hour double album, has redeemed them. Exai is like a trip back to 2001, and while I’m not normally one to celebrate musicians looking backwards I’m thrilled that the boys have returned to form. After 11 albums and numerous eps, I’d say most fans of weirdo music have chosen which side of the Autechre fence they’re on. I’m not going to try and convince anyone to give them a go, but if you’ve been a fan at any point in their career now is the time to rediscover them.

Where Quaristice (2007), Oversteps (2010) and Move of Ten (2010) were records that downplayed percussion to highlight drone and melody, Exai finds them merging that phase with the non-sensical beats they’re famous for. Early on, melody was important to Autechre and their rhythms were somewhat conventional, danceable fare. By the time Confield was released, melody was being buried beneath prickly shards of percussion. On Exai, the two sides of Autechre are in constant friction with each other and the tension is palpable.

Exai explodes with frenzied blasts of angular data, underpinned by suitably doomed synth washes and Nueromancer style nightmares. It makes me want to live in an apocalyptic future where battered Drones swoop through decayed cities and we’re all plugged directly into the internet as food for machines.

Mind you, I don’t think I’ll ever bother seeing Autechre live again.

Helm: Impossible Symmetry

Helm: Impossible Symmetry
Pan (2012)

Sorry. I’m going to be writing about 2012 records for months to come, I believe, because it was just such an amazing year for music. Especially experimental music. And fucking hell what a year it was for the Berlin based label Pan; Eli Keszler, Lee Gamble, NHK’Koyxen and that kick ass Aaron Dilloway/Jason Lescalleet collaboration. And then there’s this creepy record.

Helm is one Luke Younger, formerly a member of Birds of Delay. This is the first Helm record I’ve heard and I don’t know why I still haven’t chased down the two preceding this one. Impossible Symmetry trades in the same smoked out, eerie minimalism that former and current members of Wolf Eyes are dealing with in their solo projects these days. But Helm sounds more calculated, less DIY. Younger’s other career  as a sound artist is an obvious influence here as he reconstructs the Industrial vibes of his London birthplace in delicious stereo sound. Machines clank along cobblestone streets and dislocated voices chitter-chatter in the distance while city-scape ambience hums gently in the darkest corners of shadowy lanes and alley ways. In Helm’s world life and urbanisation are present but always out of reach.

Occasionally the clutter slips into a rhythmic shuffle which segues into the next lonely  passage. Or vague vapour trails of melody seep out of sewage grates. These tiny details are perfectly placed to tantalise us.  Impossible Symmetry is a great example of the Noise’s recent shift beyond DIY bang-stuff-to-make-new-sounds aesthetic of the 2000s. More and more artists are taking the fundamentals of Noise and using that to toy with traditional musicality – be it dynamics, tone or composition. If you enjoyed Mike Shiflet’s absolutely stunning The Choir, The Army from last year, then Helm’s Impossible Symmetry will be right up your alley.

Holly Herndon: Movement

Holly Herndon: Movement
RVNG Intl.(2012)

I’m very confused about this record. Over at The Antidote Podcast recently, Dave and I discussed Holly Herndon’s Movement and to be honest, but fair, neither of us understand how this is making so many music nerd’s year-end lists. Strip away her experimental moments and what you have is a straight-forward dance record.

Herndon is currently completing a Doctorate in Electronic music at Stanford. In interviews she talks a lot about a desire to demonstrate that making music with a laptop doesn’t have to be impersonal or inhuman. This is a great idea, and Herndon’s strategy for achieving this is to make a record that uses the human voice as an ‘instrument’ to be manipulated by her laptop.

The trouble is everything on Movement sounds distinctly like it’s come from a machine. The sound is very cold and clinical. Even the glitches are perfect and obviously man made. I can’t find much that’s human here. On the record’s centrepiece Breathe, which revolves solely around the sound of Herndon inhaling and exhaling, this most primitive and essential of human functions has had the life digitised right out of it, which revolts against what Herndon talks about setting out to do.

Across its 35 minutes, Movement slips between fragmented sound collage like the furthest reaches of Autechre, and Acidy Electro dance numbers aimed squarely at the dance floor. Even these come across as ice cold, European nightclub soundtracks or a club-friendly version of The Knife.

Perhaps the issue is with me. Having read a bit about Herndon before hearing this I was expecting something totally different. Less robot programmed to act human, and more Android à la Ash from Alien (minus the whole kill-off-the-entire-crew-to-bring-back-the-Alien thing). Overall it’s not that Movement is terrible, it’s just not that interesting. If you want a record inspired by the human voice check out Bjork’s Medulla – she shrieks a lot while Rhazel and Mike Patton back her up, and it’s kinda awesome. Or better yet, for a completely human sounding electronic record, check out the sinewy gloop that makes up Laurel Halo’s debut full-length Quarantine, which coincidentally made it into my top five for 2012 as discussed on The Antidote.

Pig Destroyer: Book Burner

Pig destroyer: Book Burner
Relapse Records (2012)

I’m no Grindcore fiend by any means, but Pig Destroyer have always been different enough to appeal to a broader base of music nerds. When I saw them live back in 2007 there were kids in the crowd wearing Smiths t-shirts. At a fucking Grindcore show. Pig Destroyer have mentioned Bjork and Matthew Barney in their liner notes, and referenced the likes of William Burroughs and Bruce Springsteen in interviews. Despite looking like thugs, Pig Destroyer come from somewhere much more cerebral.

What Book Burner lacks in the bottom heavy production found on its ‘breakthrough’ predecessor Phantom Limb, it makes up for in dirty, grimy, puss infused, unwashed Hardcore infected Grind attitude. Personally I love Phantom Limb, it was such a leap forward in production and lyrical attitude, and while Book  Burner harks back to the lo-fi storms of earlier releases (great records in themselves) it’s still slick as fuck and rips through 19 songs in 30 minutes.

New drummer Adam Jarvis syncs blast beats and rollicking double-kick rhythms with machine like precision while Scott Hull’s spastic, atonal but somehow groovy riffing cuts like a knife (how do they sound so heavy without a bass player?). Noise guy Blake Harrison supports the mayhem with rogue crunch, clatter and snippets of eerie conversation.

But it’s lead screamer JR Hayes and his death-chic lyrics that bring it all home. His voice is less distorted on Book Burner but he loses none of his intensity. Personally I love that he avoids the guttural voice farting so prevalent amongst Death Metal and Grindcore bands. His raspy, hardcore squawk is intense as fuck, especially once you’ve decoded his Brett Easton Ellis fucking Jim Thompson lyrical world. “I never saw that girl again, and it’s a shame. I just wanted to hold her, like an Anaconda.”

Grindcore might not be everyone’s cup of tea, and to be frank there’s little point preaching to the un-converted. People either ‘get it’ or they don’t. And yet, the slabs of guitar-noise produced by bands in this genre  are often referenced by the noise mongers out there – John Weise, Merzbow, Lasse Marhaug have all mentioned Grind as an influence at one point or another. Pig Destroyer are at the top of heap – fans won’t be disappointed in Book Burner, and for the curious this is  a good place to start.

Vatican Shadow: Ghosts of Chechnya

Vatican Shadow: Ghosts of Chechnya
Hospital Productions (2012)

I’m going to kick this off with a shameless plug. Dave over at Ducks Battle Satan and I have started up a noise and experimental music podcast called The Antidote. Check out our site or download the first episode from iTunes. Expect discussions about new records, and even some older ones, along with interviews and other junk.

Dave and I live at opposite sides of Australia, so we’re recording via Skype which means one of us is always going to sound a bit tinny. But you know, if you’re a noise aficionado then I reckon you can handle a bit of digital decay, right? Especially when two eloquent and though provoking individuals are waxing lyrical about music from the outer fringes… umm, yeah, whatever. Check us out.

Of the three records we chat about in our inaugural episode, Ghosts of Chechnya is the one that’s ended up staying on my mind. Vatican Shadow is the new incarnation (another one!) of Dominick Fernow, he of Prurient fame. But if you’re expecting feedback screwed, hellish emo noise……don’t be disappointed. Vatican Shadow is like dance music for vampires in dank basements with mouldy walls and overflowing sewage drains. Ambient rhythms pound aimlessly, while synthesisers and aural scuzz float around in blackened clouds. Industrial percussion enters the mix at odd intervals and gives things a Warp-label edge.

Fernow’s change of direction isn’t all that surprising when you think of his involvement in Cold Cave, and some of the latter Prurient records such as Cocaine Death, Rose Pillar and especially Bermuda Drain. Instead, it was the military imagery that confounded me for being so at odds with his past aesthetics. We discussed this on The Antidote and afterwards I did a little extra research, which encouraged me to pay closer attention to Vatican Shadow’s track titles. “Snipers as a Breed tend to be Superstitious“, “Voices Came Crackling Across a Motorola Hand-Held” and “Chechnya’s Ghosts Loom Large in the Death of Former Spy“. The Vatican Shadow aesthetic stems from the media’s portrayal of war in the Middle East. The absurd way that war is horrifying, but also somewhat glorified. Fernow wears Middle East Camouflage gear when he plays live as Vatican Shadow.

I realised the synth lines and metronomic beats, which I originally thought were borrowed from 80′s horror films, are actually the soundtrack to some fucked up first-person warfare computer game. Lets all connect online and virtually shoot the shit out of the bad guys, who ever they are. Lets blow all those motherfuckers up, and dance a little while we’re doing it. Dominick Fernow isn’t angry and depressed about his insides anymore, he’s not making noise as a form of self-harm. Now he’s very aware of what’s happening in the world around him. He has made this shift very subtly, without any blatant statements. Does that make him some sort of weirdo artistic genius? I don’t fucking know. But there’s a whole ream of Vatican Shadow releases out there, and everything I’ve heard so far has been pretty great. So go buy some