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THE_WIRE_ENCAPSULATED
July 8-14, 2007
A partial list of music that caught
my eye, from the June 2007 issue of LONDONS_GRIMING
"The Wire":
The Sea and Cake "one of the most enduring features of the
"Everybody" Windy City's post-rock scene" p. 24
Alan Licht
"lacks the textural adornment and ... elegance
of previous albums ... possibly the strongest
collection of actual songs ... since their
self-titled 1994 debut" p. 51 Tom Ridge
Jazzkammer &
Howard Stelzer "Steilzer manipulates tape players
"Tomorrow No One and analogue electronics into deft
Will Be Safe" contortions and strangulated tones
before joining Jazzkammer for the
blistering title track: a
performance remarkable for
demonstrating the extent to which
all three players are clearly
listening to each other." p.40
Ken Hollings
Marhaug/Asheim
"Grand Mutation" "... the two musicians were allowed access to
the catherdral's organ, Asheim's main
instrument of choice. No church organ is ever
a mere collection of keys, stops and pipes; it
is a permanent and integreal part of the
edifice itself. Granite and timber, glass and
title, not to mention the space that contains
them, all resonate along with it." p. 40
Ken Hollings
Amp
"All of Yesterday "...the loose collective that birthed
Tomorrow" Flying Saucer Attack, Crescent, Third Eye
Foundation, Movietone and Amp offrered a
window onto a new world of possibilities
... a quietly confident reimagining of
rock history."; "... Amp's cavenous dron
and unanchored plaints ..." p. 41 Joseph Stannard
Badgerlore
"We Are All Hopeful "The avant folk scene ... "; "[Badgerlore was]
Farmers, We Are Founded by Rob Fish (Deerhoof, 7 Year Rabbit
All Scared Rabbits" Cycle) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of
Admittance, Comets On Fire) ... "
p. 41 Nick Southgate
Adam Bohman &
Roger Smith "This is a music of tiny gestures, very much
"Reality in the tradition of what Kent Carter once
Fandango" referred to as 'insect music', but despirte
its discrett nature it's not devoid of drama ... "
p. 41 Dan Warburton
The Cherry Blossoms "... an amorphous collective of traditional,
"The Cherry Blossoms" naive yet instinctively avant garde musicians
from Nashville, Tennessee." p. 43 David Keenan
Philip Corner
"Extreme Positions" "Philip Corner (born 1933) studied with Henry
Cowell, Otto Luening and Oliver Messiaen. In
the 1960s and 70s he was a member of Fluxus,
and co-founder of Tone Roads Chamber
Ensemble. Like Cage, he raises fundamental
questions about the nature of music... "
p. 43 Philip Corner
Deadbeat
"Journeyman's Annual" "'Lost Luggage' is a shadowy crawl,
punctuated by writhing, mutant bass
and swathed in eerie string sound
provided by Monteith's fellow
Montealer Sophie Trudeau of A
Silver Mount Zion ... 'Melnourne
Round Midnight' is similarly
sepulchral, with half-step organ
chords seemingly ushered in from
some decaying funeral parlour
... But, gradually, light breaks
through the cloluds, and a
succession of guest vocalists
combines with increasingly lively
tempos ... towards the unlikely
status of a party album. "
p. 43 Chris Sharp
The Dead C
"Future Artists" "The opening cut is 'The AMM Of Punk Rock',
a pretty damn funny poke at themselves ... "
p. 45 Byron Coley
Jim Denley
"Through Fire, "Jim Denly took his alto saxophone and two
Crevice + Hidden recording devices on a 15 day hike through
Valley" the wilderness of the Budawang Mountains,
on the east coast of Austrailia"
p. 45 Brian Marley
Fred Frith & " ... a condensed history of experimental music ... "
Chris Cutler p. 46 Barry Witherden
"The Stone Issue Two"
Fursaxa "Philadelphia Tara Burke repurposes traditional
"Alone in The Dark Wood" folk song ... Her mostly wordless vocals --
valefule laments and wordless incantations --
float through the music, a spectral presence.";
"On the rather meagre _Alone_ she narrows her
scope", p. 46 Nick Cain
Islaja "off-kilter ... songs bathed in the buzz
"Ulual Yyy" and drone of firefly-like accompaniements.";
"compared to Nico"; "sings in Finnish"
p. 47 David Stubbs
Chie Mukai "A key figure on the Japanese underground ...
"Solo Improvisations" studied with John Cage's ally Takehisa in the
mid-1970s ... three live solos from the late
1990s ... Adding vocal cries and drones to
thicken the texture, she then crashes cymbals
across the floor. Harmonics and glissandi fly
off the erhu [Chinese fiddle] ... "
p. 48 Clive Bell
Religious Knives "Brooklyn trio ... guitar, synthesizer and
"Remains" percussion line-up explores the spacier end of
the noise continuum, with trance-inducing
extended instrumental improvisation"
p. 49 Bruce Russell
Mercy Light "Providence, RI trio ... violin, acoustic bass
"Carmen Was Here" and drums ... sound is fairly free, but with
7" plenty of the human warmth that 'jazz' violin
frequently provides" p. 50 Lawrence English
Skeletons And The "his lyrics offer up fragments of bleak magic
Kings Of All Cities realism ... semi-improvised patchwork with layers
"Lucas" .. blurred polyrhythms ... obligatory freak-folk
peaks of sensory overload" p. 51 Abi Bliss
"Bombay Connection
Vol 1: Funk From "... a lucky dip of trashy pleasures dredged
Bollywood Action up from obscure action movies, where
Thrillers debauched hippies argue with their mothers
1977-84" while ..." p. 52 Martin Longley
"Bombaby Connection
Vol 2: Bombshell Baby "... reaching back to 1959. Innocent Indian
of Bombay" lads find themselves in nightclubs, where
the surf guitars, vampy chicks and bongo
drums all spell trouble." p. 52 Martin Longley
The Pop Group "... reissue of The Pop Group's 1979 debut
"Y" ... multilayered nihilism ... 'Thief Of Fire',
is ... immediate and visceral ... sudden
sonic jolt, underscored by hellish groans,
the keening muffled screams of electric
guitar drop without warning to tense funk
bass ... " p. 54 Michael Bracewell
McCarthy "weedy undergraduate charm .. the group marry
"I Am A Wallet" up 80s indie pop to left wing lyrics inspired
by Bertolt Brecht, William Blake and Andrew
Marvell" p. 54 Clive Bell
Tight Meat Duo "Where Taurpis Tula stick the fingers of folk
"Vanishing Fist" into the nearest plug socket to produce an
unholy yet lyrical improvised noise, Tight
Meat Duo are an explicit tracking back of
the free music lineage to key radical jazz
documents of the 1960s (( huh? )) ... "
p. 55 Sam Davies
Vladmir Ussachevsky "... primitive experiments with a tape recorder,
"Electronic And cheap microphone and jerrybuilt reverb box,
Acoustic Works recording conventional instruments and slowing
1957-1972" and speeding the tapes ... " p. 55 Rob Young
David S. Ware "The opening piece, 'Ganesh Sound', is trademark
Quartet DSWQ. Ware's hollering tenor saxophone is
"Renunciation" encased within the subterranean depth of Matthew
Shipp's piano voicings; William Parker (bass)
and Guillermo E. Brown (drums) add rolling
commentary rather than nail metric time. "
p. 56 Phillip Clark
Wooden Wand
"James & The Quiet" "... James Toth expressed his intention to
make an 'un-weird' record, which,
relatively speaking, this is. Without the
out-there exploratory accompanient of The
Vanishing Voice, he has turned out a
serviceable golksinger set with enough
quirks and detours to retain his essential
otherness ... skewed biblical lyrics ...
parched vocal delivery" p. 56 Tom Ridge
Tenebrous Mitchell "Gerry Mitchell is a Scottish poet ... 'dark
"The Havering" and gloomy' ... Mitchell's sonorous,
oak-stained voice and pessimistic verse. These
poems were recorded in various locations in
East London each with individual
arrangements." p. 57 Nick Southgate
Wind Sept Planes "... Seatle underground ... 'Pools Of Petals'
"The Rose; starts with fingerpicked guitar, but it is
Prickliest Or soon enveloped in rattles, white noise and
Thorns" aural detritus that sounds ectoplasmic and
supernatural." p. 57 Nick Southgate
Carlos Bechegas & "flautist ... pursue openness in duet
Barry Guy with a double bass ... Barry
"Open Textures" Guy ... virtuosity teetering
into mania; an ostensibly mellow
instrument confronted with its
frantic side." p. 62 Julian Cowley
Joseph Jarman "Recorded during the summer of 1967 ...
"As If It Were On the title track, Jarman achieved
The Seasons" that highly appealing luminous quality
that came with AACM ... literally a
song, performed in quartet with Sherri
Scott singing, but fractured to let
light in ... koto, fife and bassooon as
well as saxophone, trumpet and bass ..."
p. 62 Julian Cowley
Jonathan Harvey "... contemporary choral music can be
"Angels" avant garde ..." p. 63 Andy Hamilton
Belly Boat "Breezy yet mordant, sweet-tempered
"Dear Robert Hanoy" but slightly poisonous, they create
songs from a delicate filigree of
accordion and piano with vocals so
throwaway they're practically
coming from the other side of the
room ...", p. 64, Ken Hollings
Terje Isungset "... trilogy of recordings made using only
"Two Moons" instruments carved out of ice ... a stark
revelation." p. 64 Ken Hollings
Tarantism "San Francisco couple Sharkiface and Anti-Ear
"Stuck to the known to their family as Angie Edwards and
Bottom" Tyler Harwood ... alive with jumpcuts and
snarled-up accumulations of noise ... subdued
throbbing and eerie muffled discharges ... "
p. 64 Ken Hollings
"San Fraciscan Joe Colley embarked on his
quiet but ... exhausting ritual. Moving as
quietly as a Franciscan monk among a small
forest of wooden plinths, Joe lit a series of
50 candles which were attached to light
sensitive oscillators. As the intensity of
the light developed, so too did the oberton
field, creating a strange chromo-acoustic
plainsong that somehow never quite left the
head over the rest of the weekend."
p. 69, Brian Morton, the "Kill Yor
Timid Notion" event in Dundee, UK
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