Effects pedals tweaker Adam Forkner, a.k.a. White Rainbow, has a lot going on for a relatively new artist. Besides touring Europe and supporting Deerhunter, dude also fist bumps Pauly Shore (see the Possibly Relevant links below). But what’s probably most relevant is that his new body of work for Kranky, New Clouds, is a funky, technicolor, rainbows-and-gumdrops psychedelic score for modern dance. Four songs, 60ish minutes long, and genre ambiguous, New Clouds is a beautiful and driving aural jaunt that, at the sake of sounding like a cheesedick, you just sorta get lost in. This is good vibes head music for folks who’s got, what Bad Brains called, that P.M.A. This album got my day started this morning.

I’ve tossed around the label “ambient music for people who don’t like ambient music” more than once, but it’s undeniably a good label for White Rainbow. There are no lyrics or verse/chorus actions (as you would expect from music often reviewed on this blog), but there’s lots of melody, lots of lush instrumentation, lots of texture, intricate rhythm, vague vocal chants, and a tension-and-release dynamic that makes New Clouds almost pop-oriented at times. If you haven’t peeped ol’ Rainbow yet, think of him as a shoegazey version of Growing that spent more time in the woods meditating, collecting cool threads, and partaking in the good peyote. And like Growing, who spent time frightening the Hot Chip fans on a supporting string of dates, White Rainbow also opens for a group infinitely inferior to him (Yacht… bleh) on a southeastern Asia vision quest. But hey, I can jive with whatever spreads his krautrock forest gospel.

New Clouds is a beautiful record, and surprisingly upbeat. Use it to get your day started. Or use it as the centerpiece in bong-rippin’ activities. New Clouds goes both ways. And it just dropped this week on Kranky. Go see about it.

For fans of: Belong, Growing, Cloudland Canyon

POSSIBLY RELEVANT :::
Most Psychedelic Times with White Rainbow, Pauly Shore, and the Hurdy Gurdy Bro
[Photos + Video] Deerhunter, Dan Deacon, and No Age with White Rainbow and More – 8.4.09 – Southgate House, Newport

MP3 :::
White Rainbow – All the Boogies in the World (excerpt)

As a prodigal son of Burlington, Vermont, home to Ben & Jerry’s and *yaaaawn* Phish, it’s a goddamned miracle that Greg Davis isn’t churning out some rehashed hippie shit. On the contrary, Kranky’s Greg Davis is a student of a happier, warmer school of ambient music. Sublimely optimistic and viscerally beautiful, the just-released Mutually Arising, his first full length in seven years, is the summertime evening response to Tim Hecker’s and Keith Fullerton Whitman’s icier dronescapes.

As with most work in the modern classical/minimalist/drone genre, the album is meant to be enjoyed as a whole. However, the excerpt below should demonstrate what I’m talking about. “Hall of Pure Bliss” is just that – a canticle adoring the opening to a portal, or the soundtrack to sprouting flowers. Truly beautiful stuff.

Mutually Arising just dropped this week courtesy of Kranky.

For fans of:  Stars of the Lid, Tim Hecker, Labradford

MP3 :::
Greg Davis – Hall of Pure Bliss [excerpt]

Recently, I opened a Tumblr account (kenny-bloggins.tumblr.com if’n yownta follow me) to post photos, graphic design work, and various sharable media. Whilst dickin’ around late last night, I tried to find an old website of mine hosted on the now-outdated University of Kentucky student server, since it had a lot of rad photographs of mine to upload on my new Tumblr page. Said website also featured a lot of various writing I had done during my freshman year in college, including an analytical piece I wrote for one of my English classes. I decided to keyword this paper to try to locate the old website. To my astonishment, I found that a number of different people – on websites, in other college papers, and even on Wikipedia – had cited this piece I wrote back in 2003 called Brainwashing, Misanthropy, and Society: an Analysis of Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi.

I wanted to publish this piece on the blog to share with you all, as well as to give the piece a more official source. You see, concerning the latter point, the paper is attributed to my nickname when I was 18, the name that appears on the title of the website – Mikey P Diddy. Yeah, that’s rather embarrassing. And since I wrote it when I was 18, the writing is certainly a very different style than how I write now. Evidently, I was a rather pretentious tool at that age that was too good to use phrases such as, I dunno, “dickin’ around” (again, note that I was evidently a pretentious tool known to his bros as Mikey P Diddy… Christ, that’s downright horrible).

Unfortunately, I don’t have the works cited page available. Roughly half the observations were mine, and half were various interpretations found in discussions on the old boardsofcanada.com message board. Otherwise, the good ol’ Encyclopedia Britannica was utilized. Again, this is a college paper, so I don’t expect a lot of folks to be terribly intrigued. But if you are, the full text and relevant Boards of Canada MP3s (your reward for reading, I suppose) are here for your perusal after the jump. 

Misanthropy, Brainwashing, and Society: An Analysis of Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi

Superb albums, which provide a long duration of playability and excitement, are the types of work which create a soundscape and atmosphere that makes room for the listener to discover something new upon each listening experience. Boards of Canada recorded a work that does just that, last year’s Geogaddi. The album remains fresh on repeated listens not only because of the dense layers of textured sound and abstract structures, but also because of the covert message and ideas which allow the listener to interpret the meaning of the artist’s expression. Not only is Geogaddi an innovative, creative, and extraordinarily recorded ambient electronic/IDM/psychedelic album, but the amount of different layers of simultaneous expression and stimuli reveal underlying themes which pontificate to an audience willing to read between the lines. The following is my interpretation of Geogaddi, which I hope will open the minds of individuals who either own or have listened to the album. Better yet, I hope reading about an artist recording works so innovative, surreptitious, and intrinsically deep will encourage the reader to listen to the album. Geogaddi, essentially, is a work about the relationship between man and spirituality, the supernatural and the pragmatic, and nature and technology – each citing the different reactions humans have toward the surrounding phenomena.

Geogaddi contains 23 songs – ten traditional duration songs (three to five minutes), with the remaining tracks serving as sonic experiments or segues between movements. The first regular length track is called “Music is Math.” This title is an indicator that many of the mathematic hypotheses proposed for interpretive value could have merit. The genesis of the harmony flushes around the verbal sample “the past inside the present.” This is actually a school of postmodern philosophical thought whose origin can be traced back to a German Marxist playwright named Bertolt Brecht who lived during the early 20th century. Brecht’s plays included Mother Courage and The Life of Galileo. What made his work distinct was the fact that he didn’t want his audience to feel emotions – he wanted them to think – and towards this end, he determined to destroy the theatrical illusion, and, thus, that dull trance-like state he so despised. Formulaic art and conformity among the collective psyche began to fuel a misanthropic distaste within Bretch for his post-WWI society. His radical thoughts, often anti-religious, caused his books to be burned worldwide, and ultimately, led to his self-exile. “The past inside the present” reflected Brecht’s realization that “the rapidity of change and the increase of knowledge in the modern world have forced us to see history in a new light: not as a finalized past but as a process in which the new continuously transfigures the old.” The philosophy of Boards of Canada parallel Bretch’s world view, which suggests the connection between Bretch and Boards of Canada may not be coincidental. Both Marcus and Michael of the Boards are known for their separatist tendencies and anti-censorship views. Though their music conjures up a wide spectrum of emotions, they make thinking music, and want the audience to think introspectively, as well as worldly, toward the messages they wish to abstractly convey between the lines. What exactly is their message?

One of the first things one probably notices is the album artwork. The cover features various shades of orange, with a hexagon on the front. Around the perimeter of the hexagon, human figures and trees hold hands around the polygon. The human figures engaging with trees represent a recurring theme of nature vs. mankind in the Boards’ music, ranging from samples in the music, to the titles themselves (which are most prominent on their sophomore release Music Has the Right to Children). Their reclusion in the country and obsession with the wilderness can be found through the titling of their 2000 EP A Beautiful Place Out in the Country, which also acts as a reference to the latter discussed Amo Bishop Roden. Their Bretch-influenced criticism of human behavior derives partly from society’s disrespect of nature. The segue track “Energy Crisis” feature a sample of a 1979 public service announcement discussing the possibility of energy shortages in the future due to societal squandering. The hexagon itself features a luminescent glow which creates a sun-like effect, renowned sacredly as the provider of light and often represented as a god-like entity in many indigenous religions. The Boards’ recording studio is named “Hexagon Sun.” The religious symbolism soon takes a darker turn with a keen eye. One may notice demonic, sinister faces in the trees. There are six of these faces. There are also six human figures around the hexagon, which is a six sided polygon (666). After observing the artwork, one may put the album in a CD player and notice the duration of the music after the disc is scanned. The total playing time is 66:06, or 66′6″ written nautically. This type of disturbing imagery appears in the music too, most notably in “You Could Feel the Sky” (with the sky also being a symbol of “heaven,” “nature,” or “god”). Around the two and a half minute mark, an indiscernible sample plays forward with the minor and fluttering echoes of crackling fire and the ringing of church bells. When this sample is played backwards, the vocal track reveals “a god with horns… a god with hooves.” This description can be paralleled with a number of mythological characters, but the one people probably relate most with this is Satan, particularly in combination with the sound of fire coinciding with church bells.

Geogaddi, however, examines more than just Satan. Many God references, such as the sky, the sun, and mother nature, are spread throughout the recording. The track “The Smallest Weird Number” has been intriguing me for a while. I’m not a huge math person, but I remember discussing abundant numbers before. An abundant number is when the proper divisors add up to more than the original number. So for 70: 1+2+5+7+10+14+35 = 74, which of course, is more than 70, so it can be described as abundant. If there was some subset of these same numbers 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, 35 which added up to 70, then 70 would be said to be semi-perfect. However, it doesn’t work that way for 70. Any other abundant number under 70 is also semi-perfect, but 70 is not, which yields it as the smallest weird number. Some have pointed out that 70’s significance can be pinpointed to the name of their label Music70. One could find that answer sufficient, but one could also interpret a deeper meaning, since the Boards have already establish mathematics as a communicative tool in Geogaddi. First, review the album’s tracks. There are 23 tracks total. Out of these tracks, ten are regular length songs. The other tracks on the album are one minute segues or sonic experiments. This leaves ten songs. Take the number ten and divide it into the smallest weird number. 70/10 = 7. Seven is a biblical number, a number used when describing God. Man is 5, Satan is 6, and God is 7. Focusing less on the satanic imagery and more on the godly themes, “You Could Feel the Sky” features epic and tribal (sacred) beats, and sounds like the “pounding of the sky” in a sort of Godly manner. “Sunshine Recorder” also has covert themes of God. A sunshine record, intuitively, records sunlight, and is used by geologists in study. The solid glass sphere focuses the sun’s rays to an intense spot on a card placed in the spherical mount behind the sphere. The focused sunlight burns a trace on the card as the sun moves across the sky. This light, as described in Genesis, was created by God on the first day in his seven day creation, noting seven as a significant number. Light itself, when refracted through a prism, breaks up into the visible spectrum of light, also known as a rainbow. The visible spectrum contains seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. In the song “Music is Math”, one can hear a faint voice during the song’s breakdown exclaim “PURPLE,” which, of course, is the color in which violet and indigo originate. In the same song played at half speed, “RED” is faintly repeated for a few seconds. In “Alpha and Omega,” a female’s voice whispers “YELLOW.” “Alpha and Omega” is also a Godly theme, creating the analogy of God being the beginning and end, utilizing the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet. The album’s cover is “ORANGE” and the back cover is “BLUE.” Such light comes from the sun, reflecting again the hexagon cover coinciding with the theme of nature and God. Returning to the track listing again, with “Magic Window” being a track of complete silence, there are 22 tracks of music. There are also 22 chapters in Revelation, a book of the Bible written in clandestine code, like Geogaddi, about the eventual end of the world due to the world’s sin – reflecting the Boards’ skepticism of humans’ treatment of nature. So are Boards of Canada some sort of religious fanatics or is this a sardonic joke? Marcus Eion of the Boards himself may shed some light:

“I do actually believe that there are powers in music that are almost supernatural. I think you actually manipulate people with music, and that is definitely what we are trying to do. People go on about hypnotizing people with music, or subliminal messages and we have dabbled in that intentionally. Sometimes that’s just a bit of a private joke, just to see what we can sneak into the tracks.”

The supernatural phenomenon of subliminal messages, as well as the reactions by those of demanding religious fervor, fascinates Boards of Canada. Their own insertion of such messages acts as a sarcastic musing, social commentary, as well as connect some of the themes of the album, providing a psychological segue. Movies Theaters were one of the first establishments known to use subliminal messages aimed at a mass audience – utilizing flashes of words and images to encourage the audience to purchase items at the concessions. Judas Priest was subpoenaed in 1990 on charges of creating subliminal messages encouraging children to commit suicide. Subliminal messages are considered by alarmist factions as a medium of brainwashing. Many ideas constructed by Nikola Tesla were considered to create brainwashing technology during the Cold War. There were reports of electromagnetic disturbances of radio transmissions in Europe that seemed to be coming from somewhere in the former Soviet Union. There is a good record of these disturbances and some had alleged that that the Soviets were testing a Tesla Transmitter that was supposed to yield limitless supplies of energy by creating resonant frequencies and transmitting the energy throughout the earth. This is relevant because this same technology was used to create the “over the horizon radar,” an actual military spy project in which one of Geogaddi’s sonic segues shares a moniker. The Cold War theme also plays a part in “Gyroscope,” in which a spiraling, abrasive beat builds around a child’s voice repeating random numbers. These vocal samples were taken from The Conet Project, a documentation of transmissions from “numbers stations.” Numbers stations broadcast random numbers on the short-wave radio band, which spies utilized to communicate to each other. Numbers stations were undecipherable because no universal language existed, each communication had a different character, letter, or idea assigned to a different number for each broadcast. The thought of what such broadcasts actual transmitted is a disturbing one. This is where the themes of the supernatural and the inexplicable come in. It’s a fact that brainwashing is a real phenomenon used in warfare, and it’s speculated religious cults also manipulated parts of the human psychology not quite comprehensible, another fascinating theme Geogaddi touches on in two separate occasions. Themes of religious cults appear on two separate occasions: “Sunshine Recorder” and “1969.”

One discovers some fascinating new textures in “1969″ when partially slowed down and reversed. The track features someone speaking, but the voice is electronically phased into melody. Melodic speaking, if you will. Slowing down the voice, one discerns: “Though not a follower of ____ _______ she’s a former devout Branch Dividian” The blanks, when flipped backwards, reveal the name “David Koresch”. David Koresh was the leader of the Branch Dividian cult in Waco, Texas. David believed he was Jesus Christ and was able to brainwash others into believing he was the Messiah. Not everyone in the Branch Dividians believed him, one being Amo Bishop Roden, whom was featured in a documentary about the cult filmed by PBS, which is where this sample came from in “Sunshine Recorder”. She described the Waco compound as “a beautiful place out in the country.” “Sunshine Recorder” features a sample speaking “a beautiful place.” One can assume this is Amo herself. Returning to “1969,” the track time of the song is 4:19. April 19, 1993 was the date the Waco compound was torched after gunfire between the ATF and the Branch Dividians, also written as 4-19-93. The year 1969, though, makes sense only after understanding that 1969 was the year CS gas was banned by the US government against foreign enemies. This same kind of gas was used by Koresch in the Waco massacre.

The topics Geogaddi touches on is fairly broad and universal. Essentially, Geogaddi is used as a tool to criticize human behavior. When looking under the surface of the music, the blatant use of satanic imagery with the satirical slant of brainwashing could alarm those who don’t question its existence in the album. This reaction points out, experientially, the oft irrational behavior in society. Boards of Canada views cults the same as they view religion: ritualistic ideas that can sometimes seem archaic and defy logic. Though religion is not the genesis of the problem, it is the human interpretation of something as sacred as a god or a holy book which perpetuates and exemplifies war and civil strife. It is human greed that causes people to exploit the mind for less than noble purposes. It is humans that have bit the hand feed them, destroying nature and our environment. It is humans which upset the delicate balance of the world’s binary oppositions, the extremes that paradoxically create order out of chaos. This is probably why the Boards of Canada, like Bretch, have chosen to go into self-exile. The name Geogaddi, directly translated, means “geo” – the earth, “gad” – to run wild, “di” – two, twice, again. So Geogaddi can mean “the earth to run wild again.” The book of Revelations describes this occurring through God’s wrath of fire. Of course, it could be the fallacy of humans that ultimately create the decay of our species. Without humans inflicting horrors onto the planet, nature is free to run wild again. This is just my interpretation. Of course, my interpretation is based solely on my perspective. Perspective can blind you, or skew your view of the world. I encourage you to listen to the album and ascertain your own interpretation. This is the whole point of Boards of Canada placing this message in their music. They hid this message for those who are willing to look for deeper meanings, to determine one’s own definition of the world around you. These people are the audience Boards of Canada were aiming for. Boards of Canada want you to question the status quo, and to free your mind – let yourself wander into the unexplored regions of man, the earth, and our imaginations. (Purchase Geogaddi)

POSSIBLY RELATED :::
Adventures in Shortwave, Part 1
Adventures in Shortwave, Part 2
Odd Nosdam Does Boards of Canada Right

MP3 :::
Boards of Canada – 1969
Boards of Canada – You Could Feel the Sky
Boards of Canada – Music is Math
Boards of Canada – In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country

The latest offering from Los Angeles based Nudge (not to be confused with The Nuge), As Good As Gone, is a slow-burning, beautiful record. As a quick introduction, Nudge is Paul Dickow of Strategy, Honey Owens, best known for her contributions to Jackie O Motherfucker (whom you know and love if you’re reading this blog), and Brian Foote, best known as the rad dude at Kranky who hooks me (and, consequently, you the reader) up with interviews and promo albums.

While the subterranean groove and minor key construction on As Good As Gone evoke a more haunting, nighttime-appropriate flavor, there’s also a visceral optimism that runs underneath the record’s seven songs like groundwater. Perhaps it’s the playfulness between genres and moods, or the freewheeling construction of the songs… or perhaps not all noise/post rock/freak psych kids like to make nihilistic records.

The opener “Harmo” makes a most unusual, extensive use of harmonica you’re likely to hear anytime soon, setting the stage for a delightfully disjointed psychedelic IDM canticle, ending in widely sweeping whispering vocals that blow through your headphones like sandstorms. “Two Hands” operates as sparse stoner rock – fluid, emphatic bass lines set the anchor for ride-heavy drumming, swirling wah guitar, and melodic, ominous vocals. “Burns Blue” cultivates the latter, spookier repertoire of Roky Erickson circa “May the Circle Remain Unbroken,” proving once again the importance of space in a song – sometimes it’s what you don’t play that cultivates the most expansive soundscape. Closer “Dawn Comes Light” is the type of gorgeous ethereal chant shanty in the vein of Jessica Bailiff, Charalambides, and Fontanelle that made Kranky famous.

Nudge’s As Good As Gone lies as a cross-section between ambient, electronic, psychedelic, and (loosely speaking) pop, and handles all approaches with panache. It’s good stuff. As Good As Gone drops on September 7 courtesy of Kranky. (Preorder)

For fans of:  Cloudland Canyon, Flying Saucer Attack, Indian Jewelry

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
Nudge – Two Hands

Bay Area drone architect Gregg Kowalsky is one of Kranky’s newest offerings. Of course, Kranky is one of maybe four labels wherein if the skewed rectangle logo is present on any given album’s spine, said record will probably be blazin’. Kowalsky’s Tape Chants is no different.

While I enjoy ambient music, there are very few ambient artists I can truly cheer for outside Christian Fennesz and William Basinski. However, Kowalsky, who holds a masters in electronic music performance and recording, is one of them. The potent alien oscillator tone that opens “Vi-Vii” makes your eyes dart about the room, provoking you to think someone else is present. Sound interesting to you? It should, I love that feeling. And like Basinski, Kowalsky has an affinity for tape loops. For live performances, Kowalsky uses between six and ten cassette recorders and commercial stereo units scattered about the perimeter of the performance space. The amplitudes of the individual tape players are adjusted, and Gregg walks around the space listening to the overall mix, acting as a true sound alchemist. As he describes himself “the live set fits somewhere between sound installation and performance.”  Many of the tapes from these live installations make up his sophomore release.

Sure, to an extent, Kowalski makes academic music. But you don’t have to be a music academic to find the timbre, tonality, and serendipitous deameanor of tape loop performance completely engaging. Kowalski craftily cultivates a sort of breathing organism in his fascinating thick analog stew – creating ambient music to get excited about.

Tape Chants is available now courtesy of the good bros and broettes at Kranky. Greg is also hitting the road this week, so peep his MySpace page for the latest date confirmations.

For fans of:  Fennesz, Brian Eno, Seefeel

MP3 :::
Greg Kowalski – Vi-Vii [Excerpt]

For whatever reason, I still find Merriweather Post Pavilion really hit-or-miss. Miss the weird shit, I guess. As such, I tend to revert back to Danse Manitee for my Animal Collective fix, as well as their many side projects that had varying degrees of interest. One of the more overlooked releases was the record cut between Panda Bear and his best bro Scott Mou. The project was dubbed Jane. Scott and Noah worked at New York’s Other Music and recorded music together at the former’s apartment. They released a couple of albums, but Berserker was the only one with any distribution (since it jumped on the Paw Tracks catalog, obviously).

Berserker was released in the spring of 2005, between Noah’s Young Prayer and Person Pitch. You certainly hear some embryonic forms of what was to come – warped ambient textures over fractured, booty bass heavy beats.  Jane resembles an almost primordial Person Pitch… on lots of psychedelics.  Mou was a professional club DJ at the time, and they both considered Jane to be a “dance” project, as indicated on Noah’s description of Bersker via Paw Tracks:

We both really liked dance music and dance music from the very beginning and I mean stomps and shouts and claps and stuff like that. Of course we like all kinds of other stuff too, but it’s the dance that gets us going on Jane. We played once at the Animal Collective practice space, but found it much more pleasant to play at Scotty’s home in Greenpoint where he had his mixer and simple microphones and we would drink brews and talk about all kinds of things and then play. I would usually sing about stuff I was thinking about that day and Scotty would move with it, playing jams and it would all kind of pour out. We liked all the mechanical robo dance jams from Detroit and Chicago and Germany but we wanted to do something with less 0’s and 1’s and more souls.

Despite what he says, I would invite you to try to boogie down to this record. Take video and send it to kb [at] thedecibeltolls [dot] com so I can lol, por favor. But then again, I suppose “Slipping Away” does start to get pretty funky past the six-minute mark.

Anyway, Berserker isn’t for everyone, but if you slept on this release and/or miss the odd electronic explorations of Animal Collective’s pre-Sung Tongs material, the songs below are not to be missed. Moreover, it’s interesting to hear this album in relation to Panda Bear’s musical trajectory, especially since it was recorded during the transition between the acoustic-friendly Young Prayer/Sung Tongs era and the sample-saturated, dub-informed Person Pitch/Strawberry Jam period. In retrospect, it seems that Mou had a greater influence on Noah than anyone gives him credit for.

Jane’s Berserker is available through Paw Tracks. You should buy it so you can enjoy the Grateful Dead skulls on the back over.

Awesome.

For fans of: Aphex Twin, Odd Nosdam, Tim Hecker

MP3 :::
Jane – Slipping Away
Jane – Berserker

Ask and ye shall receive!

A couple of posts ago, I said that Louisville was not hoppin’ in the awesome show department so far this year, and they needed to step up their game (like the Cards should have two weeks ago, but that’s another story). And what do ya know, all ages art space Skull Alley decided to step the fuck up!  Democracy in action, ya’llz.  This makes up for the recently announced, totally bummer Forecastle lineup (two nights of Widespread Panic is two too many nights, ya heard?).

Russian Circles, Sweet Cobra, Lichens, Mountain Asleep
Skull Alley (1017 E. Broadway)
Thursday, April 30
7 p.m. – $10
All Ages

And the rest of the tour:
WED APR 22 – Grand Rapids MI, Mix Tape Cafe
THU APR 23 – Indianapolis IN, Radio Radio
FRI APR 24 – Detroit MI, Magic Stick
SAT APR 25 – Cleveland OH, Grog Shop
SUN APR 26 – Baltimore MD, The Ottobar
MON APR 27 – Hoboken NJ, Maxwell’s
TUE APR 28 – Philadelphia PA, First Unitarian Church
WED APR 29 – Pittsburgh PA, Smiling Moose
THU APR 30 – Louisville KY, Skull Alley
FRI MAY 1 – Chicago IL, The Bottom Lounge
SAT MAY 2 – Milwaukee WI, Cactus Club
SUN MAY 3 – Minneapolis MN, Triple Rock

MP3 :::
Russian Circles – Verses
Lichens – Vevor of Agassou

Big day at the blog office. We’ve heard two amazing records just today, which is amazing considering that all three of us are total haters – the new Lotus Plaza, and this mysterious offering from a massive cluster of trans-Atlantic musicians called Flowers of Hell.

I don’t care if no one told these guys that it’s not the late ’90s anymore and post rock is no longer en vogue and/or what the kids are listening to these days.  Fuck the kids.  The Flowers of Hell’s Come Hell or High Water is one of the sickest, most moving collection of songs I’ve heard in some time, and is unequivocally the first great album of 2009.

Actually, that’s not fair. Flowers of Hell are not exactly post rock in the strictest sense. Sure, the music is instrumental and tends to gravitate toward tension-and-release compositions. Make no mistake, though, there’s a fresh, revelatory element in their sound. I saw someone describe the record as “classical music for shoegazers,” and I have to agree.

“Opus 66″ opens the record right, taking a few pages out of the Do Make Say Think book, cultivating a crescendo that you could only measure in axehandles. All the ingredients for chamber rock is here – strings, piano, lots of reverb, tremolo-saturated guitar, et al.  Where Flowers of Hell carve their niche, though, is the incorporation of electronic flourishes and psychedelic boogie reminiscent of Spiritualized’s mid-career work. This makes sense, as good ol’ Sonic Boom performs on the album – not to mention members of British Sea Power, Bat For Lashes, Broken Social Scene, John Cale’s touring band, The Earlies, Guided By Voices, The Clientele, Do Make Say Think, The Hidden Cameras, The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa, Tindersticks, The Early Years, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. To add to the general radar blip this group exudes, band member and producer Greg Jarvis is a synaesthetic. Something to the effect of 3% of the world’s population has this gift: “The composing, recording, arranging, and mixing of Come Hell Or High Water was done largely by following timbre-to-shape synaesthetic visions. Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon where two senses are intermingled… With timbre-to-shape synaesthesia, sounds involuntarily trigger a translucent visual layer of moving shapes which follow a consistent audio-visual language. ‘I see sounds,’ explains Jarvis, ‘When I hear sounds, I see each timbre in front of me as shapes that follow patterns, often gliding, pulsing, and swirling with the rhythm and timing interlocking them all. Each timbre behaves differently, and that’s the main reason we’ve got such a variety of instruments on this album.’”

“The Inovcation” adopts a tribal rhythm with vintage electronic pings and pulses in the vein of the BBC Radiophone Workshop. “The Strength of String” is pure cinematic score – the foreboding mood of Morricone, but with a lot more melodic quality.  “Bleumschen” ropes in a Faust/Neu motorik meets Loop-style fuzz sludge climax that totally slays me. Well-placed moments of dissonance (i.e. “Forest of Noise”) are peppered throughout the record as well, helping to establishing an overall experience as jarring as it is pleasant. The minimal beauty of Mogwai’s EP+2 is stretched across a full band canvas on album closer “Occasional Tears.” Considering the amount of musicians involved – 16 total – expect to hear a little bit of everything, including but not limited to: chamber pop, post rock, space, ambient, drone, and heavy fuckin’ metal. Basically, you’re an asshole if you don’t like Come Hell or High Water.

And zounds! Czech this video. The 8mm projections in this live performance really add the visual ambience that I wish more artists offer. I think this was recorded from their opening set for My Bloody Valentine. I might be wrong.  Either way, my evening would’ve been a lot of better if the Flowers opened for MBV’s Chicago show instead of that shitty-ass Hopewell band.

Not to sound lame, but The Flowers of Hell offer everything I, personally, enjoy in my music.  Fuck guitar solos, fuck wankery – make your music sound awesome.  Sure, it’s nothing that you haven’t heard before, but Flowers of Hell offer the lush soundscapes, thick melodies, panned psychedelia known in the state of California to cause brain melting, and movements that, I would say, are rather triumphant.

Come Hell or High Water is out April 6 in Canada/The UK. Can’t tell if it will be available in the states or not, but you can grip it here.

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
Flowers Of Hell – Opus 66 (Part 1)
Flowers Of Hell – The Invocation

Lotus Plaza is the solo outing of Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt, and yes, it does sound like band mate Bradford Cox’s project Atlas Sound, but Pundt’s balmy atmosphere on The Floodlight Collective stands in direct opposition to Cox’s self-described fall/winter sound. Pundt, having been the inspiration for many of Deerhunter’s tender moments, proves to be wholly capable of producing his own brand of sedate nostalgia.

Keeping with the sock hopping doo-wop debuted on Microcastle, these ten tracks further explore the ambient tidings that narrated half of Cryptograms. We can hear Pundt drawing influence from Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series, especially through the evaporating synths and muffled incantations of tracks like “Antoine” or “These Years”. In addition to knowing when to pull the plug, these songs ascend their modest structures because of their spirited delivery that inhabits each layered track, saving them from turning stagnant. In truth, out of all Deerhunter related material, The Floodlight Collective is the most natural fit for Kranky Records thus far.

While these hazy reveries are the bedrock of the album, the standout moments are the ones with some kick to it. The blissful charmer “Quicksand” borrows the playful chaos and choral singing of Person Pitch and glues it to some over-exposed surf rock, creating an elevated garage rock hymn.  Another highlight, the kraut-rock carousel “A Threaded Needle”, sounds like Neu! if they were Sunday drivin’ in the countryside instead of tearing up the Autobahn.

To our dismay, these cuts with a strong sense of identity out shadow the ones in a quandary. It can be difficult to seamlessly move from the bold tracks to the less confident ones like “What Grows?”, which evokes b-side Weird Era Cont., and without a full band, comes off sounding a bit irresolute. Floodlight Collective is fleeting, and hard to grab a hold of, but at the same time it is undoubtedly accessible, charming, and engrossing. If Brian Eno’s original intent for ambient music was for it to “accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular,” then Pundt’s debut effort is a success. There’s enough going on in the mix to warrant multiple headphone listens, but it gels together so effortlessly that it can serve as perfect background music as well.

The Floodlight Collective is available now on Kranky.

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
Lotus Plaza – Antoine
Lotus Plaza – The Floodlight Collective

Tim Hecker is not nearly as celebrated as he ought to be, though this notion presents quite a dilemma. His influence stretches far and wide – you hear him in everything from ambient-minded Boards of Canada and Fennesz to pop-oriented M83 (before they sucked it) and Manitoba, to artists that blend the two extremes like Broadcast and Pram. Hecker’s vision and innovation is remarkable, but many of his interpreters have, in some ways, released superior material to him. It parallels the auto industry in a sense – Hecker is the GM to BoC’s Toyota, ya know?  That’s certainly a bummer. To this end, Hecker may have realized that some of his more ambient wandering might benefit from a little pruning. Thus, An Imaginary Country.

Out on Kranky on March 10, An Imaginary Country is one of Hecker’s more concise works.  However, the sound doesn’t deviate too much – Panopticon-sized swells of warm electronic architecture and lots of spacious, slow-burning textures.  “Utropics” ropes in a rather fluid, shoegazey sound a la the Goslings (though less evil).  “Currents of Electrostasy” features the aquatic, pinging electronic static hums with an Atomic Age twist that make Ghost Box releases fascinating to listen to.  “The Inner Shore” hones in on the subtle melodic beauty that made Hecker’s previous project Jetone so remarkable to the IDM crowd (minus the rhythm, of course). However, very little sticks out beyond these aforementioned movements.

Though Hecker’s recordings are always a mysterious embryonic journey, I think he’s overdue to take back his tradmark sound and expand it into new sonic territories.  There’s no doubt how exciting it would be.  But An Imaginary Country is all old-hat, save for a slight but possibly insincere sense of urgency.  Boreds of Canada indeed.

Fagen-Becker Rating for Quality:

MP3 :::
Tim Hecker – Utropics
Tim Hecker – Currents of Electrostasy