The Associates work best in small doses, a single or two,
and an LP's worth can be heavy going. Given their liking for
oppressively weighty rhythms and a dense pudding of a sound it
needs a big appetite.
'Fourth Drawer Down' is a German collation of some of their
numerous A and B sides. Hardly a month seemed to go by last year
without a new Associates 45 appearing: a hunger to display growth
or a compulsive's diary of work? The best entry, maybe, was 'Tell
Me Easter's On Friday'; here it's dressed in a bass heavy mix that
plunges the carillon instrumentation into a dungeon. The following
'The Associate' goes even deeper, a circular tune gradually
overwhelmed by clouds of pain. This might be construed as the nucleus of Associates music,
with Billy Mackenzie's booming prophet vocals, the frugally
rationed space and the grisly metallics of songs like 'A Girl
Named Property' or 'Kitchen Person'. As that terrific onrush winds
on, though, you wonder if there is humanity left there. Play
'Fourth Drawer Down' very loud and it assumes the dimensions and
ambience of a breakers' yard in an abandoned metropolis. No, wait, I like The Associates. There is more here. 'Q
Quarters' calms down and discovers consternation in oriental
chords. 'White Car In Germany' and its instrumental half-brother
'An Even Whiter Car' depict wanderings in an alien-nation which
accurately evoke a spectator's fascinated forebodings. 'Message
Oblique Speech', with its fractured jigsaw of rhythms and mutant
electronic asides, musters a weird exultation. There is no let-up from the first to last. The Associates
delight in insistence in these songs. Lyrics are often scarcely
decipherable; when they are it's fruitless trying to unravel the
songs. The Associates brutalise form with a purpose, though. In
trying to dismantle the accepted notions of organised playing and
reconstructing with uncaring regard for accessibility - all these
tracks are cluttered, confused and strewn with near-random noise -
The Associates reassert their humanity in electric music. At the centre of 'A Girl Named Property' Alan Rankine has his
guitar repeat a chord that sounds like a baleful cry. The
Associates must go on in this vein and achieve a greater clarity
yet... Richard Cook review 1982 ...
JOHN MAUS lives in his birthplace of Austin, Minnesota. Whilst
working towards his PhD in Political Science he also composes music that
taps into melancholic fantasy and affirms that we are all truly alive.
Questing synthesisers, tensely strung bass lines and chasing drum
machines provide the perfect backdrop for John's deeply resonant
reverb-drenched vocal.
Born in the decade of synth pop and sharing his birthday with George
Frideric Handel, John started making music when Nirvana posters went up
on every teenager's wall. It's this curious conflux of influences that
partially helps to describe John's music. It's a world where the Germs
jam with Jerry Goldsmith, Cabaret Voltaire relocate to Eternia and
Josquin des Prez writes a new score for RoboCop. The confrontation of
punk, the fleeting poignancy of 80s movie soundtracks, the insistent
pulse of Moroder and the spirituality of Medieval and Baroque music all
find salvation in John Maus... upsettherhythm.co.uk ...
John Cale returns from Velvet Underground to his avant garde background joining up with arch minimalist Terry Riley ... Early 'rock-based' minimalism group ...
This album marks a cross-pollination. Cale may have been returning to
his Minimalist roots, but he still had the sound of VU’s white noise
ringing in his ears and as a consequence managed to produce a
brilliantly messy, repetitious rock record. Early Minimalism had much in
common with rock anyway: the ensembles which Philip Glass and Steve
Reich were establishing, as well as the previously-mentioned Theatre Of
Eternal Music, resembled rock groups as much as they did traditional
classical ensembles... headheritage.co.uk ...
This album is a fantastically raw piece of music which is unlike any of
Cale’s other solo albums. It also has an strange ancient-ness to it
comparable to Amon Düül II’s ‘Phallus Dei’. The combination of its
general lack of conventional song structure and its street-suss edge
makes it rank alongside much of what was being produced in Germany at
the time, in that it was pushing the limits of rock music’s sound in a
similar direction. Cale’s comment that “‘Anthrax’ is just an improvised
gig with Terry” shows that he himself may not have regarded it as a
particularly important album. However, it stands up as an inspired
exercise in minimalist rock music... headheritage
Bill Nelson's 'debut' solo album following Be-Bop Deluxe and Red Noise ... retro futurism, keyboards to the fore and a love of Jean Cocteau. Actually planned and recorded as a second Red Noise album, a change in record company meant a change in direction... The original vinyl release included an album of 'ambient' instrumentals Sounding The Ritual Echo ... Quit Dreaming and Get On The Beam ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's fourth album, considered a flop after the hit Architecture and Morality, but now regarded as 'influential', comes across as a Cold War take on Kraftwerk's RadioActivity... This was probably their highpoint in creativity in their 1980s period ... Dazzle Ships (parts II, III and VII) ...
After the astounding reception afforded to Architecture and Morality in 1981, Dazzle Ships
was a commercial and critical failure for OMD. Yet it stands the test
of time as a heroic statement, succeeding, from the tinny brass opening
of 'Radio Prague' onwards, in walking a tightrope of arch camp
aesthetics and a seriously-minded, yet ludicrously overblown experiment.
Try reading Andy McCluskey’s lyrics in hard print and they at times
feel as empty as a wide horizon. But when harnessed to the deeply
elegiac melodies (those rich synth tones, slow-marching drums), and a
battery of sounds evocative of war at sea and radio propaganda, the
whole comes alive with undeniable panache.
Of course, it was never going to sell, no matter how exuberant a pop
song 'Telegraph' might be. Cold War geopolitics appear in
'International', which opens with a news report telling of a girl from
Nicaragua whose hands had been cut off at the wrists. 'ABC
Auto-Industry', meanwhile, features a Czechoslovakian radio programme on
the use of robots in factories. 'Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III And VII)'
is a three part instrumental composed of the soundtrack samples of
conflict above and below the waves, foghorns and sonar pings, the
throbbing of engines heard underwater. This is followed by the
preposterously-titled 'Romance Of The Telescope' with its dreamy
elegance and chorus of processed voices. 'Silent Running' is so
magisterially pompous it demands a half hour of enforced standing
ovation, the first one to stop getting a firm hand on the shoulder on
the way out of the State Opera... thequietus.com
This Heat's sound was something like a confrontation of prog, free-jazz
and contemporary electronic music (think early Stockhausen, not
Kraftwerk). They often get lumped into the post-punk (or even just
"punk") camp, for no better reason other than they started at the same
time. They certainly sounded as if they were angry about something, and
taking a glance at the lyric sheet for this album (and you'd better, as
often the vocals seem more musical element than communicative force),
they had fairly intense political/social statements to make-- though
pinning down their position is often as hard as pinning down their
sound. In any case, they were "progressive" in the literal sense of the
word, and though they came up with the first wave of punk, they didn't
really sound like anyone else of the time (save a few other English
radicals like Henry Cow or Art Bears, occasionally)... pitchfork.com
The band got its digs in once more for "A New Kind of Water,"
expressing the rage that seems to have been implied throughout the
record, though rarely shown directly. Phrases like, "We were told to
expect more/ And now that we've got more/ We want more, we want more,"
offer some of the only clear ideas about the feelings behind Deceit,
and the music is appropriately insistent (crashing drums, wailing group
vocals, very precise, discordant guitar lines). Over the years, there
have been bands to play as aggressively, or even as strangely, but very
few have been able to rise from their collective influences and
histories to create music so singularly distinctive and inspiring. I
don't know that Hayward, Bullen and Williams were trying to inspire (and
that they debated over whether to release their music at all could be
evidence to support that they weren't), but the overall feeling I take
away from this album is that of revolution and a very creative form of
protest. That's what I call punk.
Orchestral prog pop from England ... they still exist but are now based in the US with mainly US members based around Annie Haslam's signature vocals ...
The next to last album by Renaissance as a full-time, ongoing group, A Song for All Seasons
was a courageous effort in its time, wearing its classically based
progressive rock colors proudly on its sleeve amid the punk and new wave
booms that were sweeping across the musical landscape. Vocalist Annie Haslam and pianist John Tout generated some memorably beautiful moments, ably supported by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor/arrangerHarry Rabinowitz... allmusic.com
For his new record, Fennesz has returned to both the label and the style that provided that 2001 breakthrough. Even if Bécs hadn’t been positioned as an Endless Summer
sequel, the connection to the earlier work would have been clear.
Rather than serving as texture, the strummed guitars play changes to
accompany melodies. The drones and fractured processing are twinkly and
bright, instead of dour and foreboding. Once again, Fennesz proves a
master of this approach. The acoustic strumming in “Static Kings” sounds
impossibly delicate and naïve next to the swirly vortex of the drone
accompanying it; the deep organ pedals of “Pallas Athene” bring to mind a
vast expanse that stretches to the horizon; the harshness of the
distortion on the title track walks a tightrope between oceanic
envelopment and repellant destruction. The closing “Paroles” brings it
back full circle with possibly the most naked acoustic playing to appear
on a Fennesz record, as processing seems to cling to random notes like a
burr before being flicked off with the next note. The sense of
composition and sound design is strong, and these tracks complement each
other and make a coherent whole even if no two sound the same... pitchfork.com
Recorded
Dec 77-Jan78 Yukihiro Takahashi and Sakamoto and HH play together only
on one track. The band name was a rather obscure takeoff on a Captain
Beefheart song title as rumor has it. This is often considered the
definitive pre-YMO album though Takahashi's contemporarily recorded
suave French-Pop album "Saravah" has all 3 future YMO members working
together far more extensively. The style here is Exotica and more like a
tropical band album than a synth album so musically this isn't much
connected with YMO's style apart from YMO carrying over many exotica
refrencesw on the debut, so Parasio is relatively distant from YMO (Cochin Moon
is actually closer to YMO due to heavy synth use). There is synth
though. Interestingly, Sakamoto did his own album of roughly this kind
of sound though more pop / disco on his album Summer Nerves... Fan page ...
Grauzone were formed in Berne, Switzerland in 1980. This was their only album, (extended in a CD rerelease). Post punk Neue Deutsche Welle, lead vocals by Stephan Eicher ...
Eberhard Schoener's 'Switched-On' appreciation of Bach and Vivaldi, using synthesisers, and with lots of ambient synth sounds linking more classical pieces. Leans more towards Isao Tomita than Wendy Carlos in the 'harmonic' pieces, and very influenced by early Popol Vuh in the rest ... Bourree ...
In 1981, elsewhere in Japan, the not-nearly-as-popular-but-still-great
Moon Riders had just released the highly regarded "Camera Egal Stylo,"
which marked their about-face into new-wave, and were working on the
highly-regarded album "Mania Maniera," which was apparently too bizarre
to release upon its completion in 1982. Lots of elevated regard was
floating around between YMO and them apparently. Therefore no surprise
that the 1981 album by the Beatniks, the on-again-off-again
collaboration between YMO frontman and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi and
head Moon Rider (and Earthbound soundtrack scribe, to you video game
fans) Keiichi Suzuki, is as fantastic as it is.
The oddly named
"Exitentialism" (yes, ExiTENtialism...don't ask me!) is, to be sure, a
bit tilted in the YMO direction. YMO, and especially Takahashi, were
stars; the Moon Riders were and are Not. Consequently, Exitentialism is a
bit of a 60%/30% split in Takahashi's favor--not a huge problem, as by
this point Keiichi Suzuki's voice was at the beginning of its steady
decline. As an album, Exitentialism plays like a combination of YMO's
"BGM" (think U-T and Cue), the Moon Riders' "Camera Egal Stylo". They
released 4 more albums over the 2 decades that followed. Exitentialist A
Go Go [1987] , Another High Exit [1994], The Show Vol.4 Yohji Yamamoto
Collection Music [1996] , M.R.I. Musical Resonance Imaging [2001] . Easy
does it... Rho-Xs
Catherine is an Ivor Novello award winning songwriter who has earned
top-class reviews in all major music periodicals both in the UK and the
US, including Folk Album of the Year from The Sunday Times. Following a
gap of more than two decades, during which she raised her daughter and
gained a first-class honours degree, Catherine Howe has returned to
song-writing and recording, also giving occasional performances.
Second album from post-punk German electronic pop group added Latin horns and a touch of fusion, courtesy of Andy Hernandez (Coati Mundi of Kid Creole & the Coconuts) as producer ... Lupa ...
Shortly after the release of their debut album, founding member Holger Hiller left the band, and was replaced by lyricist/vocalist Walter Thielsch. Produced by Andy "Sugar Coated" Hernandez in New York and Zürich, Lupa further established the band as "great German pop constructionists" (NME) with some newly-added jazz-funk fuelled horns... forcedexposure.com ...
Palais Schaumburg was founded in 1980. First line up contained Holger
Hiller and Thomas Fehlmann aswell as FM Einheit (Abwärts, Einstürzende
Neubauten), latter left the band in 1981.Similar in spirit and geography
to Der Plan, influenced by The Residents aswell as the Dadaism of the
twenties and thirties Palais Schaumburg tried to compose a new form of
avant-gardistic dance music The Hamburg-based band debuted in 1981 with
Das Single Kabinett, a six-song EP on ZickZack. They released their
first full-length album, Palais Schaumburg, the following year on
Kamera. After its release, Hiller defected for a solo career. The band
quickly got to work on the LP Lupa, which was released later in 1982.
Rather surprisingly, the album added horns and a slight jazz fusion
influence to their sound... Rho-XS
The Flanger project was founded in 1998 by Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom™)and
Burnt Friedman).The two musicians met up to program their first album
"Templates" in Santiago de Chile in 1998.Their musical goal was to
generate their own vision of non-repetitive,organic and extremely
complex music that is far removed from the well-trodden paths of techno
and other established styles of so-called contemporary music...
Inner
Space/Outer Space covers the most territory of the three records,
opening with convincing electro and touching on lounge-y vibes solos,
Latino rhythms, and a bit o' clicky electronic percussion. These two can
really tweak a studio in a subtly psychedelic way, turning congas into
stuttering chirps and cutting up a drum solo to sound like the drummer's
playing during an earthquake. Very entertaining ... rho-xs ...
An early outlier in the ECM catalog, Output convulses with as much
lively originality as it did when it was first released. Wolfgang
Dauner, perhaps better known as founder of the United Jazz + Rock
Ensemble, assembles a modest trio of talent for this classic 1970 studio
free-for-all. The end result is humor, provocation, brilliance, and
chaos all rolled into one. (...) Superb, if jumbled, musicianship and a
strong attention to detail make for a unique experience all around.
Dauner does wonders with limited means, Braceful sheds his skin at every
turn, and this is a far cry from the Weber of the languid orchestral
suites. Not an easy listen for the faint of heart, but one that will
give back what’s put into it. Viable candidate for quirkiest album cover
of all time? ... ecmreviews.com ...
A decent short-hand for O’Hara’s ultra-distinctive, highly original
sound would be to (maybe, sorta, kinda) say that it’s not unlike
Meredith Monk fronting a jazz/folk/blues combo with a gospel influence.
O’Hara’s swooping, soaring, anxious vocals emerge from her lungs as
mutant, almost incontinent, skat singing that often seems caught in her
windpipe before it’s hiccup’d out and released like butterflies. She has
been called an “epileptic Edith Piaf” and there is a deep truth in that
description as she shudders and shakes during a performance like she’s
possessed, in equal measure it would seem, by demons and angels. Suffice
to say, her entire presentation and artistic gestalt isn’t for
everyone, but O’Hara’s art has never, ever had “popularity” (let alone
record sales) as a goal... dangerousminds.net ...
