Digging: Animal Collective

Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
Domino (2007)

A few nights ago I saw Animal Collective play live at The Forum in Melbourne. It was a great show, an amorphous pastiche of songs from right across their career. Every track bled into the next via noisy and atmospheric improvisations that harked back to the chaotic nature of their early recordings. Every song they played was warped beyond its recorded format, which was as exciting for us, the audience as it was for the band themselves. And when they played Fireworks, possibly my favourite Animal Collective song ever, I realised just how fucking much I love the album from whence it came – Strawberry Jam.

There are Animal Collective fans who struggle with this record for its significant change in direction. Its synthetic sound is light years away from the Shamanic climaxes of records like Here Comes the Indian. If you ask me, that’s why it’s so freaking awesome.

It’s as if they translated the magic and whimsy of what they’d become renowned for and processed it into something gelatinous, sugary and wonderfully artificial. It’s the sound of thousands of different colored plastics melted down in the sun and oozing together into swirls of candied goodness. Strawberry Jam is a series of 4-5 minutes songs that bubble and froth in unexpected ways, never quite grooving, never quite soothing, never quite breaking the mould but never sounding like anything else put to record either.

From the demented Calypso jam of Chores, to the evaporating electro bounce of Peacebone, to the sparkling collages of Number 1 and Cuckoo, Strawberry Jam covers a huge amount of ground in a short amount of time. And while this couldn’t be classified as noise in the sense of being abrasive, discordant or unstructured, Strawberry Jam CAN be considered noise in the sense that it has no peers, and only the vaguest of reference points. Those who like adventures will find plenty of unexplored territory here.

New Release: Slayer

Slayer: World Painted Blood
American Recordings (2009)

‘Heavy Metal’ was my introduction to the world of music. I must have listened to Slayer’s genre defining trilogy of albums – Reign in Blood, South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss – thousands of times. In fact I still listen to Reign in Blood pretty regularly; that record has more in common with modern Noise and experimental rock than you might be willing to admit. But, I digress.

I haven’t bought, or heard a new Slayer album in years, certainly not since Seasons in the Abyss. But the amount of talk about World Painted Blood, and the return of Rick Rubin on production duties, had me intrigued.

Songs about serial killers: check. Tracks that devalue religion: check. Manic guitar solos: check. Dave Lombardo’s fucking awesome drum skills: check. Everything that you want and have come to expect from a Slayer album is here, and it’s enjoyable in a lot of ways, but the overall effect falls just shy of what they’ve achieved in the past. They guys are in the grips of middle age now, juggling families with demonic possession and head banging. It’s not fair to begrudge the fact that they might not be as driven by fury as they once were. Still, World Painted Blood lacks the oomph of its predecessors. Tom Araya’s vocals sound forced instead of menacing and lyrically Slayer aren’t as in-your-face as they used to be either.

Beyond that, Rubin’s production has rinsed out the grittiness of their early records. The guitars don’t buzz the way they should. The drums aren’t strong enough. On a few occasions Araya turns to spoken word, in a voice that calls to mind Nu-Metal. Likewise the Drop-D tuning on Not of this God could almost be a Slipknot riff. The beauty of Slayer has always been their punkish, anarchic roots but the polished sound of World Painted Blood defies this.

Even so, is the album any fun to listen to? Hell yes. It makes me want to don black denim, Reebok pumps, flannel, grow my hair, crush beer cans with my teeth and play air guitar. Sure, it lacks the character and vitality displayed by the band during the peak of their career, but nor can you expect a band that’s been around for 25 years to keep pumping out classic records. And I tell you, there’s far worse Metal out there than what’s on World Painted Blood. Just ask I Killed the Prom Queen and their brethren.

New Release: Animal Collective

Animal Collective: Fall be Kind
Domino / Paw tracks (2009)

When established bands put out EPs, warning bells are triggered off in my zany little brain. I often end up feeling ripped off by the half-baked tunes within the abbreviated format. They’re promoted as ‘stuff that didn’t fit on the album’ when really they’re just B-side filler.

Prior to its release, Animal Collective spoke about the Fall be Kind EP as a collection of songs written during the sessions for Merriweather Post Pavilion, which didn’t fit into the sunnier, water oriented vibes of that album. And guess what? They weren’t cranking our chains. These guys are the real, honest to goodness deal.

The five tracks here are certainly shadier and, yes, more autumn sounding than the full-length release that it accompanies. They veer wildly between the shimmering sound scapes of Feels era Animal Collective and the danceable pulse of Merriweather. As EPs go, Fall be Kind also sounds more like an album, the way songs bleed into each other to take the listener on a whimsical 27 minute journey.

Graze opens proceedings with one of those dreamy interplays of watery sound and far-away vocals a la the moodiness of their Feels record from 2005. Unexpectedly the song morphs into a fucked up jig of tin whistles, stomping toms and Grimey bass lines. It’s a concoction that could only ever work in the hands of Animal Collective – do not try this at home.

Similarly, What Would I Want? Sky (the one with the Grateful Dead sample) leads you astray with psychedelia before opening up into a trip-hop ride through pianos, chimes and vocal harmonies directly related to Panda Bear’s solo stuff.

After an ambient middle track, the last half of Fall be Kind is what sinks its teeth into me the most. Certainly darker than the opening tunes, both On a Highway and I Think I Can revolve around vaguely tribal beats sitting on odd time signatures. Weirdo samples snap and crackle in the periphery, while Avey and Panda’s vocals take on a ritualistic and chant-like feel. It’s magical in a very unsettling way.

Fall be Kind is a real gem. It’s a short burst of sunshine through cloudy days.  I love these guys for the evolution they’ve undertaken during their career, and for constantly surprising with unusual approaches to traditional sounds and genres. And if you’ve never heard Animal Collective before, this could be a fantastic, and easy place to start.

Digging: Merzbow

Merzbow: Ikebukuro Dada
Circumvent Recordings (2002)

It’s a little odd that Merzbow references Dada in the title of this release. Sure, the early 20th Century Arts and Literature movement was all anti-establishment and anti ‘art’ just like the noise genre is anti ‘music’. However, Dada was heavily based on chance and the illogical – its practitioners gave spoken word performances based on collections of words and phrases drawn upon at random.

On Ikebukuro Dada Merzbow sounds less haphazard and more structured than ever before, entirely the opposite of the Dada’s shenanigans.

It’s not often that Merzbow ‘songs’ feel like they have a distinct beginning, middle and end. It’s rare that he takes the time to build his layers of sound rather than toy with them, and yet Merzbow seems very focused on achieving exactly this across all four of Ikebukuro Dada’s tracks. The record opens with a soft, clipped metronome effect interjected with the sound of someone running their hands through the body of a piano like a harp. With a snap, Merzbow throws in some high-pitched scree that builds in intensity until the track’s closing.

He shows more restraint on the second, and best track Ikebukuro Dada Texture, which opens with a subtle pulse, like the dense throb of outer space in a Sci-Fi movie. Rhythmic splashes of white noise fade in and out, but Merzbow keeps returning to this throb that holds the piece together like glue. I haven’t heard Merzbow do ‘quiet’ all that often, but I love it when he does, particularly here where he sounds like Wolf Eyes or Prurient on Valium. And don’t get me started on how fucking awesome the sliced and diced jazz pianos sound when they suddenly interrupt this cacophony.

Hardcore power-noise heads don’t need to fear though, there’s still plenty of face melting moments on Ikebukuro Dada, but Merzbow cleverly balances them with a much wider range of volumes and densities than I’ve heard him play with before. He also sounds so much more determined to take the listener on some sort of journey. Every click and tick and burst of sound seems carefully placed within its wider context, and it’s that calculation which seems at odds with the concept of Dadaism.

Perhaps Merzbow is attracted to Dada’s anti-war ethics, which might tie in with his whole ‘peace for animals’ schtick (proceeds from this record go to ‘Chimp Haven’ according to the cover notes) but don’t ask me where Merzbow’s penchant for Sado Masochism fits in with the whole no-war vibe. There are a number of field recordings on Ikebukuro Dada and maybe their random nature also appeals to the Dadaist title. Who the fuck knows? The title could just be a prank on Merzbow’s part, or more likely it’s absolutely irrelevant.

But whatever, go and hunt down a copy of this because it’s among his finest works.

PS: Circumvent Recordings doesn’t actually exist anymore, they’re now called Drone Works. I bought my copy on eBay, but I think you can still get a copy direct if you want it.

New Release: Black Boned Angel

Black Boned Angel: Verdun
Riot Season (2009)

If you’re a music nerd, like myself, there are times when a record can be too intense. In a good way. Something capable of profound effects on the psyche. I’ve had a copy of Black Boned Angel’s Verdun floating around for a while now but I’ve only managed to listen to it a handful of times because despite its beauty and awe-inspiring power, I find it totally draining. And that’s exactly why I’m going to recommend this – how many musicians are truly capable of affecting you like that?

As one extended track with three distinct movements, Verdun kicks off with plodding, cavernous drums and uber slowed down guitars. The pace is blackened and funeral like. The composition mutates into a storm of chiming guitars playing arpeggios at a snail’s pace before returning to doom laden power chords, underscored by a ghostly choir singing hymns from beyond the grave. Everything is murky and oppressive, tragic like an event you don’t really want to remember. Not exactly depressing, but definitely mournful.

In fact, mournful is a very apt description given the themes of war that run through the album (the battle of Verdun being a World War One event), though I doubt that today’s soldiers in Iraq will be replacing their Slayer records with this any time soon. Black Boned Angel, featuring Campbell Kneale of Birchville Cat Motel fame, aren’t highlighting the aggression inherent to war. This is about futility, loss and pointless destruction. Verdun closes with the sounds of a battle field; bullets whizzing by, bombs exploding, choppers thundering around over head and men screaming in the distance. Proof that the most horrific sound on earth is man itself.

New Release: Fabio Orsi / Valerio Cosi

Fabio Orsi / Valerio Cosi: Thoughts Melt in the Air
Preservation (2009)

I like buying albums based purely on a whim, recommendation or review. I like the thrill of surprise; sometimes they suck, and other times they blow my mind, just like Thoughts Melt in the Air did.

This collaboration between two Italian drone artists is the exact opposite of Sunn O))) and those early Earth records. There are no bowel-loosening, distorted guitars and smoke machines. Instead, everything shimmers around the treble clef, humming lazily in your ears. It’s a subtle concoction of Sitar-like instruments, keys, clean guitars and effects pedals. It’s fucking beautiful, and it reminds me of Yellow Swans’ At All Ends.

The album opens with a singular hum, sounding like a light aircraft caressing the horizon. An augmented drone of string instruments fades in, like an orchestra tuning up and begins to pulse slightly in volume. There’s a faint noise in the background, an occasional hiss that slips into a rhythm and eventually materialises as an unsteady beat that never gets loud enough to become the focus of the composition. Strange yelps and moans lurch out of the clouds, and then disappear. Reverb rings out from everywhere. Piece by piece the elements fade out again until there’s nothing left but silence.

The following track, Thoughts begins similarly but this time with a haunting whir that sounds like an electronic reproduction of someone playing glass rims in a cave. It’s like light calling out from another dimension. This time the beat is more conventional, all tom toms and high-hats, but still buried way down in the mix as an anchor keeping the whole piece together.

Orsi and Cosi play with these delicate drones over four extended tracks, never once building to any forceful conclusion. Thoughts Melt in the Air is about restraint, and micro shifts in sound that create significant changes in atmosphere. Apparently both these guys have prolific back catalogues as solo artists – Orsi experiments with Guitar, and Cosi fucks with the saxophone – which is news to these ears but you can bet I’ll be hunting down more of their stuff.

Every time I listen to this album I get lost. And when the record finishes, and my brain registers that the dreamy soundscapes are over, I come back again not really knowing where I’ve gone.

New Release: Fuck Buttons

Fuck Buttons: Tarot Sport
ATP Recordings (2009)

From out of nowhere, early in 2008, Fuck Bottoms dropped Street Horrsing and managed to make buzz, hiss and drone palatable for an audience outside of the noise scene. When I saw them play at the ATP festival on Mt Buller in January 2009, people were dancing. Dancing! And I’m not talking about fucked up hippies waving their arms around like Hare Krishna, I’m talking about kids with Sunn O))) tattoos and Metal t-shirts bopping their heads along with the freaks on stage making a bone splintering racket with Fisher Price toys. Amazing.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Tarot Sport when I first heard it. Fuck Buttons have taken their sound into a glitzier and more dance-friendly arena, with the help of rock/dance crossover guru Andrew Weatherall. I wanted less rhythm and psychedelic keyboards, and more dense layers of swirling drone.

The thing is, I eventually realised I was approaching Tarot Sport from the wrong perspective. It’s no longer about adorning noise with subtle melodies to expand its horizons; Fuck Buttons have been there and done that. Now they’re taking the decay and erosion of drone and its noise brethren, and attacking popular forms of music from within. Tarot Sport mixes Post Punk extremes with the manic euphoria of Acid House. The four-to-the-floor rhythms that drive most of these tracks might be straight out of the nightclub scene, but the blown-out, in-the-red tones and the mantra like repetition won’t appeal to mindless bunnies.

It’s a much more cinematic record than its predecessor, especially on tracks like Olympia and Space Mountain with their soaring crescendos and bombastic beats. It’s not hard to see these tunes framing the finale to a sci-fi flick or British heist movie, albeit of the independent kind. At the other end of the spectrum, Fuck Buttons channel the playfulness of Black Dice on Phantom Limb and Rough Steez by hurling around sketchy rhythms and colourful squawks.

Rhythm is the key differentiator between Street Horrrsing and Tarot Sport; it’s a much more propulsive record. And maybe it says something that my favourite parts of Tarot Sport are the moments between each track, where the sound is ephemeral, weightless and blurry. It’s easy to lose yourself in these dreamy moments, before the boys get back to baking a spongy, layered cake smothered in colourful icing. And it isn’t the sugar high that keeps me coming back for more. It’s Tarot Sports’ sly ability to make every climax a penultimate one, so that euphoria is always enticingly out of reach.

New release: Shit and Shine

Shit And Shine: 229-2299 Girls Against Shit
Riot Season (2009)

This record makes me feel dirty, sleazy, slimy and hyper-masculine. There’s something about its rumbling low-end pulse that makes me want to strip off my clothes and molest inanimate objects. It has no fear or morals, and no objection to degrading itself. And it’s fucking awesome.

Shine and Shine come from London and Texas, two diametrically opposed cultures that crash together in an explosion of blown-out drums, weirdo electronics and heavy metal histrionics. Their live show features multiple drummers, and rhythm is just as important for them on record, where every single fucking noise they make is incorporated as some sort of percussive element. It’s all propulsive drums and repetitive heavy-as-fuck riffage cloloured with dabs of miscellaneous scree. Its hooks rarely lead anywhere, instead they ramble on and on, dragging the listener into some sort of ecstatic state.

The density of Shit and Shine’s sound is occasionally filtered through random samples of geezer-like conversation – it’s never clear if these come from the band themselves – which give the whole thing the feel of a drug fueled ritual. If there are actual vocals somewhere on this album, then they’re so distorted that identification is impossible.

With song titles like 13 Hotel Denmark (You 3 Ass, Pussy, Blow) and Pissing on a Shed, these guys approach their schtick with a definite sense of humour. But don’t let that fool you into thinking Shit and Shine are just another bunch of kids taking the piss out of their bedroom instruments. While it might sound like a jam, 229-2299 Girls Against Shit is meticulously constructed to grab the listener by the balls (or tits) and drag them over ear-splitting highs and menacing lows. These boys are pursuing the very outer realms of rock n’ roll and like I said, it’s fucking awesome.

Digging: Prurient

Prurient: Pleasure Ground
Load Records (2007)

There aren’t many artists out there whose music juggles violence and frailty so well. It’s almost a contradiction to think that something can be brutal enough to peel off your face but precariously positioned to shatter at any time, and yet Dominick Fernow’s harrowed screams and buckled electronics do exactly this.  Prurient exists somewhere entirely of his own; equal parts Black Metal ethos, soothing drone, Industrial clank and harsh fucking noise.

Pleasure Ground is made up of four 10-minute pieces; kicking off with stabbing dissonance and subtly mutating towards a finale of release.

Opener Military Road starts out with piercing feedback and then limps along on a hollowed out pulse that sounds like machine gun fire slowed down and drugged. Fernow’s lung tearing howls float around until a bowel loosening bass frequency swirls everything up into a thick gelatinous mess.

Earthworks/Buried in Secret picks up and massages this low end into a descending drone, distorted and repetitive like a mantra. As you begin to zone out the ‘tune’ shifts up numerous octaves into a cheesy Black Metal synth line. Fernow starts puking his guts up again as thumping kick drums reverberate in the background. Occasionally a snare drum snaps up your attention and eventually all the elements start bubbling away in unison, a wall of aching, beautiful but ugly sound. Possibly my favourite Prurient track yet.

Things take a detour from here. Outdoorsman/Indestructible is based on a barely audible bass sine (think menacing late seventies horror movie soundtrack) and a trickle of wobbly keys. Cymbals clang here and there, mutedly, and the vocals take on the guise of an apathetic spoken word performance.

Volume returns for the final number, Apple Tree Victim, where a distorted melody endlessly repeats while Fernow gets back to sandpapering his vocal cords. The effect is nowhere near as intense as the opening tracks; in fact it’s almost pretty. Without the screams you could be lulled into a daydream, albeit something that involves long-nailed creatures hiding under your bed.

What I love about this record (along with Rose Pillar) compared to what I’ve heard of his other work so far (which is all pretty fucking amazing) is that here Prurient manages to take you on a journey. Pleasure Ground has a strong character arc and when you reach the end of this record, you’re never the person you were when it started.

New release: HEALTH

HEALTH: Get Color
Love Pump (2009)

When Crystal Castles remixed HEALTH’s Crimewave tune into a droning disco killer, kids everywhere claimed HEALTH as their own without really knowing what the band sounded like. I read an interview with singer Jake Duzsik where he talked about audiences screaming for them to play Crimewave unaware that the band had already played the original, non disco version.

Despite feeling slightly burned by their brush with fame, HEALTH’s sophomore album is a step closer to the very far left of the mainstream. The shambolic nature of their debut has been reigned in and massaged into a more focused, but no less frenetic monster. Get Color is as noisy and ephemeral as its predecessor, but far more interested in juxtaposing sounds and atmospheres into cohesive fragments. Less random bursts of noise, and more slow-burning blow-outs create tension and a more memorable listening experience.

We Are Water starts out as a spacey, Euro disco number that’s glittery but uneasy. With the introduction of a snare drum it morphs into post punk territory, while the crystallised synthesisers and treble infused guitars build into a Black Metal wall of noise and blast beats. It stops for a moment, before returning with sedated hip hop rhythm reminiscent of Dalek and then fades away with a gently pulsing kick drum. These manic numbers are interspersed with dreamier tracks such as Before Tigers, which are content to amble along on pulses of reverb drenched noise and cascading drums.

HEALTH are obsessed with production, their manifesto revolves around music that is devoid of sensation or human spirit, and Get Color achieves this with overly effected instruments and studio trickery. Jake’s androgynous vocals are mystifying enough but it’s the prickly guitars and keyboards, like shards of glass shimmering across the floor, that give HEALTH an alien sound all their own. The guitars in particular have the treble cranked so high they make Big Black sound like a bunch of pussies. And when HEALTH allow some bass into their sound on Die Slowly the change in pitch is crushing. All these effects are cleverly offset by BJ’s live, natural drumming; although even he rarely falls into a standard rhythm, preferring to play his kit in a tribal manner similar to that of Liars (an extra set of floor toms are abused by various band members during their live shows).

Get Color is an intense experience. The ups and downs can get tiring and it’s not easy to decipher where HEALTH want to take you. That said, the progression between their debut and this is seriously exciting, and their willingness to push the boundaries of their sound suggests that the band could have a perfect ten album in them yet.