Eyeless In Gaza created one of the best ambient albums of the time with Pale Hands I Loved So Well, though it wouldn't do it justice to call it just an ambient album. Their instrumental vignettes were plunged in a spiritual fervour, and had the quality of fragile bitterwseet contemplations or of metaphysical longing."Tall And White Nettles" combines gentle guitar strumming, found sounds and eerie female vocals to great effect. The chamber music of "Blue Distance" is built around mysterious organ-drones, piano ripples, and imperceptible chanting. The mystical dance "Sheer Cliffs", which is half-gypsy and half-Indian, is truly a magical moment. "Falling Leaf/ Fading Flower" is a concerto for brass wails and gentle tones, part free-jazz and part electronic-experiment. "Lies Of Love" is another numinous dance, eventually expanding in a mist of metallic percussion, longing voices and Middle-Eastern brass. Beautiful."To Ellen" is possibly the most transcendental moment here; a spectral hymn of haunted organs and sublime vocals by a siren. "Pale Saints" is a fusion of free-jazz and musique concrete. "Letters To She" is an ecclesiastical chant combined with subsonic drones and unsettling electronic effects, culminating in hysterical celestial voices and orchestral ultrasonic frequencies, before finally settling for a pensive tone. This is the soundtrack to man's reincarnation as pure energy in outer space.In comparison, "Light Sliding" sounds timid and shy, though still deployed like a philosophical reminiscence. Then "Big Clipper Ship" is yet another stunning eclectic moment, partly kosmische, partly European-folk, partly chamber, partly ethereal, partly exotica perscussion, partly militant march, and played in their usual recondite way. A fantastic ending to a fantastic album.
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Question: How do you update a movement that was renowned for it's sonic ferocity and spastic maladjustment (the no-wave of the late 70's)?
Answer: By turning it even more ferocious and spastic. Here the Ex Models go through 15 songs in about 20 minutes, and the icing on the cake is that they add intricate harmonic progressions to their DNA-fueled hurricanes of songs.
Thus this is no-wave via math-rock, spanning 2 decades worth of madness. It doesn't really sound as if the album contains 15 songs, but rather one big elaborate composition (Slint covering No New York).
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Maquiladora remain one of the best kept secrets of contemporary Americana, probably the most atmospheric and also one of the most emotional alternative-country outfits.
"The Secret" is a ghostly waltz worthy of the Black Heart Procession, while "Ritual Of Hearts" is a dreamy lullaby that weds the Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star, and then vanishes in an industrial whisper. The ghostly atmosphere reappears in "Heaven", which drapes the singer's evocation across a mirage of guitars, pianos and strings.
Another meditation, "Sweet After", takes the desert-rock of Calexico and gives it an eerie metaphysical dimension. In comparison, "I'm In Love" sounds much more traditional but no less tender. Then the brief vignette "A Vow" sounds like whispers carried in the wind through romantic ears, leading to "Sound Of Rain", half bittersweet hymn and half melancholy ballad.
The album reaches it's apex with the last 3 songs, featuring their best attempts at an otherwordly ambience. First, "Chinese Girl", which garnishes the intimate melody with an organ drone, fragile harmonicas, playful piano and a delicate beat. The mood that prevails is resigned melancholy. Then the anemic dirge "She's More Beautiful To Me" transforms this melancholy to an incorporeal entity, as if the soul is leaving the body after a long and painful journey. The journey then ends with "Static Hum", which is almost dream-pop and slowcore (Low crossed with Slowdive), with the blurry instrumentation clearing to reveal a sweet melody. Still, as this heavenly illusion fades into nothingness, a reprise of "The Secret" leads us back to where we started, back to the start of the circle.
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The Deathwish EP is in fact the first recording of Christian Death (from 1981), but it was only released in 1984 by French label L'invitation au Suicide.
"Deathwish", "Desperate Hell" and "Cavity" suggest psychedelia, distorted hard rock riffs, existential terror and a horrifying intensity. "Romeo's Distress" adds romantic elements to the recipe, "Dogs" displays doom synths and electronic effects, while "Spiritual Cramp" is a punk maelstrom.
The record demonstrates the formidable power of the first Christian Death line-up, and features excellent guitar & vocal work by Rikk Agnew (ex Adolescents) and Rozz Williams respectively.
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Oh, and one more thing, merry Xmas from IAS. -)
Already hinted by the previous Press Color, Lizzy Mercier Descloux adopted the mutant-disco stance with Mambo Nassau, a hyper blend of energetic funk ("Slipped Disc"), bloated disco beats ("Funky Stuff"), Caribbean flair ("Lady O K'pele"), oriental ballet ("Sports Spootnicks"), and often presented as cubist reconstructions ("Payola") or feverish music-hall ("It's You Sort Of"). In short, another excellent album by Ze Records.
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Ludus bridged post-punk and the progressive jazz-rock of the 70s (think Soft Machine).
"Unveiled" and "Herstory" (with a middle section made entirely of concrete sounds), are complex compositions that seem to be made of out 15 different songs, and also funky, danceable and raw.
In addition, "My Cherry Is In Sherry", "Inheritance" and "See The Keyhole" even incorporate lounge-jazz, punk-funk and synth-pop, while "Dynasty" is almost free-jazz vs classical sonata. Finally, "Mirror Mirror" and "Escape Artist" are more pop-orientated but still complex.
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The new impetus for Fred Frith brings short experimental sketches exhibiting enormous variety. Check the jazz-ethnic cacophony "The Boy Beats The Rams", the naive Canterbury melody "Spring Any Day Now", the hysterical Latin dance "Don't Cry For Me" (that ends as a vocal freak-out), the Middle-Eastern/ bolero/ electronic-jazz crossover "Hands Of The Juggler", the prog-jam "Norrgarden Nyvla", the acid guitar solo-ing "What A Dilemma", the smooth and yet unsettling jazz "Come Across", the surreal ditty sabotaged by electronic noise "Dancing In The Street", the Celtic folk-dance with dissonant outbursts "Career in Real Estate" etc.
A marvellous album.
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