Posts Tagged ‘krautrock’

Organ Donor – Malplacé

Posted: 21 March 2023 in Albums
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Thanatosis produktion – 24th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Having frothed with enthusiasm over Mammock not so long ago, I was particularly thrilled to discover Organ Donor, a Swedish/Greek outfit featuring members of Viagra Boys, Grismask, VÖ, Mammock, Angles, Fire! Orchestra, Aurora Ensemble, CBVB and the Mute. Admittedly, I’d expected something more guitar-driven and noisy in the rock sense, but expectations are best when confounded.

Malplacé evolved through improvisation, resulting in what they describe as ‘6 diverse yet coherent tracks, spanning from instrumental kraut, to mystic themes perhaps reminiscent of John Lurie or Loren Connors, to dark, minimal pulsating improv and punkish, full-on, noise outbursts.’ Diversity and coherence tend not to converge too commonly, and in truth tend to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.

As the rippling vibes and subtly trilling horns of the abstract jazzy post-rock of the first track, ‘A Sleeping Beauty’ meander their way from the speakers, I’m struck by just how far a cry this is from Mammock and The Viagra Boys, and, on reflection, this is something to be pleased about. Why have a collaborative side project that sounds like your main project? It’s like having a hobby that’s the same as your dayjob. You can insert your own example here, because, well, I can’t help but feel that too labour  the point with explicit examples would be crass.

‘Touch’ spills jazz juices across a chiming guitar that jangles over an insistent yet mellow groove, where post-rock meets psychedelia and krautrock. Sometimes, for a moment, I find myself wishing there was slightly less sax, but then, again, the overloading nature of the jazzery is what makes this what it is, and things get really scratchy and discordant on the ten-minute ‘Stemless’. This is one of those freeform pieces that hurts the brain. Everything jars and flits, and toots and parps, squeaks and squawks and twangs and pings, like rubber bands being stretched and plucked across pans and bin lids, bowed notes bend, drone and grind, and it sounds more like a scrap than a song. It groans and wheezes and stutters and heaves, to the point that it’s enough to induce motion sickness.

‘A Sleepwalking Beauty’ provides a welcome moment of rest and tranquillity, before ‘Power Tools’ goes all out on the avant-jazz noise frenzy trip. It’s noisy, noisy, and noisy, a wild chaotic and cacophonous blast and an instant headache which feels a lot longer than a minute and a half.

In contrast, ‘Sci Fi Marmots’ is slow and smoky, an odd yet sedative piece where everything melts away into a haze. I’m tired, and need sleep. I’m all the more tired after experiencing the bind-bending chaos of Malplacé, but have to hand it to the guys in Organ Donor for creating an album that has the capacity to both exhilarate and drain the very life through aural excess. It’s a significant achievement.

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Score – COPE

Posted: 4 February 2023 in Albums
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Cruel Nature – 6th January 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s something of a relief to discover that Score’s seventh long player for Cruel Nature isn’t some gentle exercise in self-help and mental health wellbeing, or otherwise the soundtrack to some existential post-pandemic breakdown – because the former are utterly fucking nauseating, and the latter, while I’m all for those primal screams of anguish, which I often find relatable, at least to an extent, variety isn’t only the spice of life but the key to staying within the marginal parameters of sane in an insane world. No, COPE, recorded in six weeks at the end of 2022, which somehow feels like a long time ago now already, takes its title from Julian Cope.

As the blurb explains, ‘the album was directly inspired by the musical descriptions to be found in the autobiographies of Julian Cope: Head On and Repossessed. Using Cope’s impassioned words as instructional starting points for each track, COPE references Mott the Hoople, Patti Smith, CAN, Duane Eddy, The Doors, Suicide, Dr John, Sly & The Family Stone and more.’

Julian Cope of one of those people who I’ve long been somewhat perplexed by, and, truth be told, haven’t spent too much time investigating, either musically or biographically. He has always struck me as having a career less centred around his relatively low-key musical output following a degree of commercial success with The Teardrop Explodes, and more around the fact that he’s Julian Cope. Some may want to set me straight on this, but right now, I don’t need to hear it, and a familiarity with the source material shouldn’t be a prerequisite of my ability to critique the work at hand, which interestingly, in drawing on his biographies, only serves to further indicate that Julian Cope spends more time writing about being Julian Cope than making music I need to hear.

COPE is a document to creativity under intense circumstances. To quote from the accompanying notes, COPE was ‘recorded as it was written, in one or two takes in a tiny garage and drawing on an old quote from the arch-druid himself as a creative manifesto: “It had to be very cheap, very fast, very loose. I needed to be an ambassador of looseness”’… ‘COPE is an exercise in embracing limitations and existing in the moment, a lyric-less love letter to Rock ‘n’ Roll itself, and a one-word command to the fried modern human.’

Containing nine instrumental compositions, COPE is a pretty demented journey, an absolute rollercoaster of a ride, that swings between psychedelia and krautrock, twangy desert rock, swampy jazz, with the six-minute ‘Brick’ bringing it all together with a Doorsy kind of trip with the added bonus of some woozy brass in the mix. ‘On The One’ goes deep into a funk workout that grooves hard, but ‘Old Prick’ stands out for its darker post-punk feel that suggests it could almost be a Psychedelic Furs or The Sisters of Mercy demo. The twelve-and-a-half-minute ‘Softgraundt’ is more than just expansive in terms of duration, and is a multi-faceted musical exploration that wanders hither and thither, shifting, evolving, a dozen or more songs in one. And perhaps this is the key to COPE – both the album, and the man. It’s everything all at once, and it’s more than you can really keep up with. It’s a challenge, and one I’m not entirely sure I’m up to, but there’s never a dull or predictable moment here.

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Distant Animals – Everything Is Fucked And We Are All Going To Die

Posted: 27 December 2022 in Albums
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Panurus Productions – 2nd December 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Panurus Productions are renowned for their favouring of pop and jaunty indie on their catalogue, but as the title suggests, they’ve really excelled with the saccharine-sweet, shimmery Christmas bauble stylings on this December release by Distant Animals, the vehicle for Daniel Alexander Hignell.

The accompanying blurb sets the pitch for ‘A scuzzed out synth/noise/punk affair… straddling a range of genres but never settling on any one of them for long, shifting around with an angry, anxious energy directed at our bleak status quo.’

Granted, this does mean it’s nowhere near as abrasive as recent releases from Trauma Bond or as dark as Carnivorous Plants, this is a hybrid form that coalesces to convey the sound of post-industrial nihilism.

The synths drive and dominate the sound, and they’re layered into thick, foggy swirls pitched against grinding, fuzzy-as-fuck sequenced bass and a drum machine that’s largely submerged beneath the swelling squall. The opener, the eight-and-a-half-minute ‘Greetings from the MET Office’ builds and builds into an immense wall of sound, the guitar adding layers off noise and feedback rather than melody. There is a tune in there, somewhere, and vocals, too, buried in a blitzkrieg that sounds like Depeche Mode covered by My Bloody Valentine and then remixed by Jesu or Dr Mix and the Remix.

‘Phase Down and Sweat to Death’ gets dubby, with samples and snippets cut in and out of the mix, and actually finds a murky, echo-drenched groove in places, before veering off on myriad detours.

As titles such as the title track and ‘Panning For Shit In The Shallow End’ intone, this is far from a celebratory collection, with the delicate and brittle-feeling ‘Hegel’s Violin’ sounding like it could have been penned by The Cure circa Seventeen Seconds, and yes, it’s fair to say that there are what some may refer to as ‘gothic’ elements to the brooding sound.

If songs titles like ‘Fondly Remembering When Primark was a Woolworths’ and ‘They Didn’t Have Snowflakes In 76’ might suggest that Hignell’s been gorging on the Memberberries, but on the evidence there is, buried away in trudging industrial sub-zero trudges and stark, oppressive abstraction, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and we can appreciate these compositions as critiques of the multi-billion-pound nostalgia industry and Brexit Britain, where narrow-minded twats get dewy-eyed all over social media reminiscing over false memories of a golden age that never was. ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to…’ It’s patent bullshit of course, but so many subscribe to this that, well, it must be true that The BBC haven’t screened Monty Python in decades because they’re woke lefties (and nothing to do that after airing it in 2019 for the fiftieth anniversary, the rights were purchased by NetFlix), and Stranger Things is only good because, well, it’s like The Goonies, isn’t it?

‘Panning for Shit’ is sparse, minimal electro that borders on Krautrock, and is the sound of drowning, not waving from our turd-encircled island, and there are many elements of this album which seem to align with the bleak perspectives and sounds of early industrial acts like Throbbing Gristle. But, to be clear, these are simply touchstones, rather than direct comparisons. Everything Is Fucked And We Are All Going To Die may evoke a sense of familiarity and a strange sense of déjà-vu, but ultimately presents a unique view and amalgamation of influences and stylistic references, and herein lies its true strength.

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Diminished Men – Damage Mécanique

Posted: 15 November 2022 in Albums
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2182 Recording Company – 2nd December 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

While books have blurbs that likely indicate whether or not you want to read them, records are altogether less pitch-orientated in their physicality, which, back in the day, used to make sifting through vinyl in shops and at record fairs an exercise which was a measure of one’s attitude to risk. Sometimes you’d take a punt on a record because you’d heard of the band and they sounded interesting, others, you’d go by the label or the cover or something.

Some traders – and this is something Jumbo records in Leeds still do – is put a short summary on a sticker on the PVC sleeve the record is stored in.

The virtual equivalent, for me, is scanning press releases. No way can I listen to everything I receive, let alone write about it, and some nights my inbox feels like flicking through boxes of records, unsure of what I actually want to hear until I find it. And lo, as I wander, aimless and befuddled, fatigued from another day of corporate chairpounding to keep the roof over my head and the bills paid, I stumble upon Damage Mécanique by Diminished Men. I’ve never heard of them, but on reading the pitch, I felt as if this was the thing I needed but didn’t know I needed until I found it.

Drawing from elements of film noir, psychedelic exotica, experimental rock, deviant surf and musique concrète, Diminished Men refocus their influences into something entirely unique. Collaged with menacing electricity, the raw materials are broken up and reassembled in their crude private facility. The group has spent more than a decade crafting their style and have established themselves as an integral part of Seattle’s underground music scene.

Their latest record, Damage Mécanique, thrusts the listener into a malfunctioning industrial sci-fi soundscape. Trance inducing guitars beckon with haunting wails, high-tension wires spin and spit with a crackling hiss. Circular kosmische rhythms and anxiety-drenched beats destroy and rebuild around fractured melodies and noise. The band oxidizes and melts into experimental post-punk and acousmatic environments as hypnotic groove and vertigo copulate in cinematic assemblage.

And there’s no question that they’ve got pedigree: drummer Dave Abramson is also a member of Master Musicians of Bukkake, Spider Trio, and has collaborated with Eyvind Kang and Secret Chiefs 3 among many others.

As ‘Double Vision’ crashes in amidst clattering, explosive percussion and dingy bass, I’m hauled by the collar into the realms of early industrial in the vein of Test Dept and Perennial Divide, and instantly, I’m home, knowing that this was indeed what I needed. It’s sparse in terms of arrangement, but dense in terms of sound, and it’s abrasive, rhythm-orientated, loud, heavy, and batters away at the brain.

It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that when your thoughts are in a mangled disarray and your focus is no-existent that the answer lies in music that bashes you round the bonce from all directions at once, but for me, at least, it’s infinitely more beneficial than any kind of chillout shit or ambient – although amidst loping, rolling rhythms, ‘Wet Moon’ conjures a shimmering ambience of sorts, while pointing towards esoteric oddity.

‘The Maze’ confuses and confounds with its daze-inducing cyclical riff and motoric beats which are pure Krautrock, evaporating into a mist around the mid-section of its six-and-a-half minute duration that sees it build through a jazzy post-rock segment before tumbling back into that nagging, dislocated groove – and it’s a nagging dislocated groove that dominates the wig-out weirdness of ‘Panopticon’. It’s likely of help to no-one to comment that it sounds like Murder the Disturbed but with the wild sax of These Monsters, but there it is: obscure post-punk collides with obscure jazz-infused noise rock, and it’s a corking way to end the first side of the album.

If ‘Axiel Tremors’ suggests rock excess played at a crawl, then it’s equally dragged out via some expansive jazz expressions into the realms of darkness. ‘Silver Halides’ brings a bold, brawling swagger to a cautious and subdued party of picked guitar introversion, and the final piece in this mismatched musical jigsaw, the six-minute ‘Spy’ hits the groove and drives it out of the door – while the door is still closed. Just as they clearly know how to make an entrance, they obviously understand the importance of a memorable exit.

There’s no particular or overt theme which unifies Damage Mécanique, and nor is there really anything that’s obvious stylistically speaking, as the album tosses a whole load into the mix and feels, in many respects, quite introspective in its influences and inspirations. There are, however, strong and unusual contrasts in evidence, with doomy bass and twanging desert rock working in tandem to forge a unique sonic experience., alongside, well, you name it. Quirky, atmospheric, Damage Mécanique is odd, but also compelling. It could be just the album you need, too.

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The Battery Farm – Flies

Posted: 9 November 2022 in Albums
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18th November 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Following on from big-hitting introductions in the form of single releases ‘A Working Class Lad’, Manchester’s The Battery Farm hit us with their debut album, Flies.

They describe it a ‘an album about end times fear and societal breakdown. It is an album that tries to come to terms with the violent world we find ourselves in, and tries to reconcile with an uncertain future in world that we have decimated. It’s about the endless, screaming noise of 21st Century living and the squalid claustrophobia that entails. Driven by fury, black humour, compassion and a desire for hope.’

These are all things I’m on board with: it’s essentially a list of the top things that gnaw away at my psyche and my soul on a daily basis. Because to live in the world right now is to live and breathe all shades of anxiety.

Some people – mostly right-wing wankers and idiots on social medial, especially Twitter – like to jeer and poke fun at those who intimate any kind of panic over the state of things, laughing their arses off at those who perpetuated ‘project fear’ and the so-called ‘remoaners’ and scoffing at the idea that this year’s heatwave is anything to do with climate change citing the summer of ’76. But these are the same tossers who whine about health and safety and speed limits as being symptomatic of a ‘nanny state’, and also the same tossers whose kids will die after swallowing batteries or burn the house down lighting fireworks indoors.

What I’m saying is that anyone who isn’t scared is either beyond oblivious or in denial. The world is literally on fire and drowning at the same time. Fittingly, Flies is an album of contrasts, both in terms of mood and style. There are fiery, guitar-driven flamers and more introspective compositions which are altogether more subdued and post-punk in their execution.

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The title track is but a brief introduction, a rushed, desperate spoken work piece set against – at first – a tense bass and a growing tide of swelling drums and guitars that in just over a minute ruptures into a full-on flood of rage. Distilling years of anguish into a minute and a half, it’s got hints of Benefits about it, and then we’re into the snaking groove of ‘A Working Class Lad’, that sees The 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster collide with The Anti-Nowhere League in a gritty, gutsy punk blast with a surfy undercurrent.

It’s the combination of gritty synth bass and live bass guitar that drives the sound of the album. The former snarls, while that latter thuds, and in combination they pack some serious low-end punch in the way that Girls Against Boys and Cop Shoot Cop did. The synth gyrations also lend the sound a tense, robotic edge that gives it both a certain danceable bounce while at the same time heightening the anxiety of the contemporary, that sense of the dystopian futures so popular in science fiction are in fact our current lived reality.

‘In the Belly of the Beast’ is a stuttering blast of warped funk. In contrast, ‘Everything Will Be Ok’ is altogether more minimal, with hushed spoken word verses reminiscent of early Pulp, and tentative, haunting choruses which exude a subtle gothic vibe. And it all builds slowly, threatening a climax which never arrives. But then ‘Poet Boy’ drives at a hundred miles an hour and burns hard and fast to its finale in three and a half minutes.

‘DisdainGain’ comes on like Motorhead at their grittiest and most rampant, and again shows just how broad The Battery Farm’s palette is. By their own admission, they draw on elements of ‘Punk, Hardcore, Post Punk, Krautrock, Glam and Funk’, and one of the key strengths of Flies is its diversity – although its range does not make for a lack of coherence or suggest a band who haven’t found their identity, by any means. What’s more, the diversity is matched by its energy, its passion, and its sheer quality. Full of twists and turns and inspired moments of insight, Flies is a bona fide, ball-busting killer album. Fact.

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Watch: ‘Gnosis’ by Russian Circles

Posted: 10 August 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Russian Circles have released their first ever music video for the title track of their forthcoming LP Gnosis, available next week, 19th August, via Sargent House. The centrepiece of the album “Gnosis” begins with a slow-build exercise in krautrock methodologies — drones, guitar arpeggios, cosmic synth, hypnotic drum patterns—that eventually explodes into the wall-of-sound bombardment Russian Circles are known for. The accompanying video, directed/edited by Joe Kell, is full of dark imagery driving towards the actual definition of the word ‘Gnosis.’ The band explains:

“’Gnosis’ is a special song that has grown with us over a number of years. The main theme of the song was re-conceptualised so many times that it provided nearly endless arrangement options. It’s rewarding to see such a minimal song idea evolve into one of our most dynamic and fully-realised songs to date.

When discussing a concept for the video, we agreed we wanted cinematic footage of nature and humanity. Ultimately, we wanted the video to feel fresh and inspiring despite dealing with a dark theme. Similarly, we wanted to compel viewers to re-watch the video and get something new from each viewing. Somehow, editor Joe Kell masterfully made this all happen.”

‘Gnosis’ eschews the varied terrain of the band’s past works by employing a new songwriting technique. Rather than crafting songs out of fragmented ideas in the practice room, full songs were written and recorded independently before being shared with other members, so that their initial vision was retained. While these demos spanned the full breadth of the band’s varied styles, the more cinematic compositions were ultimately excised in favor of the physically cathartic pieces.

Watch the video here:

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Russian Circles will be touring extensively in support of the album. Dates are as follows:

RUSSIAN CIRCLES N. AMERICA TOUR 2022:

Sep 15 Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line

Sep 17 Denver, CO – Gothic

Sep 18 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge

Sep 20 Seattle, WA – Croc Showroom

Sep 21 Portland, OR – Revolution Hall

Sep 23 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall

Sep 24 Felton, CA – Felton Music Hall

Sep 25 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent

Sep 26 Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom

Sep 29 Austin, TX – Empire Garage

Sep 30 Dallas, TX – Amplified Live

Oct 01 Memphis, TN – Growlers

Oct 27 St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall

Oct 28 Louisville, KY – Headliner’s

Oct 29 Atlanta, GA – Terminal West

Oct 30 Orlando, FL – The Social

Nov 01 Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle

Nov 02 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle

Nov 04 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club

Nov 05 Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live

Nov 06 Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw

Nov 08 Boston, MA – The Sinclair

Nov 09 Montreal, QC – Theatre Fairmount

Nov 10 Toronto, ON – Opera

Nov 11 Detroit, MI – El Club

Nov 12 Chicago, IL – Metro

RUSSIAN CIRCLES EU TOUR 2023 (Co Headline w/ Cult Of Luna):

March 17 Copenhagen, DK – Store Vega

March 18 Berlin, DE – Huxleys

March 19 Wiesbaden, DE – Schlachthof

March 20 Utrecht, NL – Tivoli Ronda

March 21 Brussels, BE – AB

March 22 Paris, FR – Olympia

March 23 Stuttgart, DE – Wizemann

March 24 Lausanne, CH – Les Docks

March 25 Ljubljana, SI – Kino Siska

March 27 Vienna, AT – Arena

March 28 Munich, DE – Muffathalle

March 29 Prague, CZ – Roxy

March 30 Krakow, PL – Studio

March 31 Warsaw, PL – Progresja

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Photo Credit: William Lacalmontie

The Utopia Strong – International Treasure

Posted: 7 June 2022 in Albums
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Rocket Recordings – 10th June 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

International Treasure is the second album from the ‘collaborative collision’ of Steve Davis, Kavus Torabi, and Mike York. And, of course, much has – and will – be made of the Steve Davis factor: he may have kept his musical interests largely under wraps during the lengthy heyday of his snooker career, but the fact is that he’s long been a fan and supporter of ‘interesting; music, and this is a musical unit that stands on the strength of its work – and its work is (utopia) strong.

As the accompanying notes explain about the origins of International Treasure, ‘All three musicians here found themselves operating outside of their comfort zones – Torabi’s purchase of a guzheng (a Chinese plucked zither) led to Shepherdess’s lambent allure and York’s spectacular and evolving array of pipes and wind instruments contributed just as much as his ruthless editing. Davis meanwhile, whose speciality lies in rich tapestries of modular electronics, sums up their relationship in characteristically self-effacing fashion: “I see myself as a strong midfielder, or a centre back. Kavus and Mike are like the Lionel Messi or Ronaldo of the equation, and I’m setting situations up for them”.

Davis’ application of an extended football analogy is amusing in context, and one suspects it’s an intentional slice of drollery. The music itself is not amusing – as in, there are no chuckles to be found here – but instead is intensely focused, with magnificent results. There’s a tangible sense of an intuition flowing between the three of them on this album as the sounds ebb and flow and weave and quaver, the elongated drones and meandering organs melting together like a stream of butter.

There are some odd samples – probably animal, rather than vegetable or mineral – flow together into a soft mass, with no hard boundaries, no distinct edges… ‘Shepherdess’ is spacious, meditative, but shifts over time to emerge as a more pulse-based modular synth work, and ‘Disaster 2’ brings all of the various elements together perfectly, as well as bringing together ambient, post-rock, and folk. It’s a beautiful and uplifting experience, and one which acknowledges the pains, trials, and tribulations of life, how it may not be possible to function all day every day.

There’s something soothing, even soporific, about the slow, mellifluous tones that drift together smoothly, seemingly effortlessly, to coalesce into some form, however cloud-like and abstract, to create International Treasure. Even when deep, resonant notes hang like the slow decay of a chimed gong, as on the title track, the darkness is always tempered, by light.

It’s not ambient and it’s not Krautrock – but International Treasure finds the three musicians drawing on elements of both to conjure something magical, something mystical. The final track, ‘Castalia’ is a calypso party party, and if it at first feels somewhat at odds with the rest of the album, it’s worth bearing in mind that the album exists at all because the players are keen to explore different terrains and territories. And explore they do: International Treasure mines many seams, and excavates a wealth of listening pleasure.

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Megatonewelle – Mirfield Pads

Posted: 5 June 2022 in Albums
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3rd June 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

My partner in power electronics, the man behind the white noise aspect of the ‘white noised and shouting’ equation that is …(something) ruined, Paul Thingumy (he has more pseudonyms and variant monikers than the devil himself, or even JG Thirlwell), has gone and self-released another EP. Well, less of an EP than an LP: it may only contain four tracks, but with a duration of almost an hour, it’s a very long play.

Residing in Mirfield, Kirklees, West Yorkshire – or, objectively, the arse-end of nowhere, where trains are infrequent and tend not to visit after 9pm – is probably very like any other Little Britain backwater with a Tory MP. And it’s so often from our immediate environs we draw our inspiration, as the album’s title indicates. For reasons I can’t fathom, the title reminds me of Peter York’s strange book Dictators’ Homes and some TV show I can’t quite recall – probably because I never watched it – about celebrity pads. Or perhaps I’m confusing it with Pimp My Ride or some other wank. Because it all blurs, and fast. Mirfield Pads is blurry, but in a different way: everything melts together to create an ambient wash.

In something of a departure from much of Paul’s previous work – and there’s a lot of it – Mirfield Pads is surprisingly mellow, melodic, accessible. There’s a hypnotic Krautrock vibe about the shuffling oscillations, with sampled vocal snippets buried low in the mix in places. It’s an overtly synth work with a vintage leaning that’s strongly rooted in the late 70s and early 80s. If there’s a debt to Kraftwerk here with elements of Mike Oldfield and Harold Faltermeyer, then equally, Mirfield Pads is Paul’s nod to Tangerine Dream, perhaps in part spurred by the recent passing of Klaus Schulze. You wouldn’t necessarily call it a tribute, but an inspiration, almost certainly.

Tapering tones interweave and turn, glistening, fractal, kaleidoscopic, like beams of light dancing on an illuminated surface, dancing lightly across a millpond or flickering on a wall. Not a lot happens, and it doesn’t need to: the sounds turn slowly on an axis that exists in a space of its own.

‘Crystal Airfield’ – a title that evokes the spirit of JG Ballard – hits the numerical sweet spot of 23:23, and with additional guitar work courtesy of Neil Campbell, longtime collaborator and one half of another project, Early Hominids, it’s a richly atmospheric piece that rounds off the experience nicely in a wash of elongated droning feedback paired with bubbling analogue sounds.

It’s the attention to detail, to the vibe and sensation that really makes Mirfield Pads intriguing. It feels more like a document from a past time more than a nostalgia piece, and this is a good thing, because nostalgia has become dreary and weary very quickly indeed – probably because the smell of cash is so unappealing.

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Bootstrappers – Xenolith

Posted: 27 December 2021 in Albums
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Klanggalerie – 5th December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

From the Greek xénos, a noun meaning “stranger, guest” or an adjective meaning “foreign, strange”, xeno has come to used as a prefix meaning “alien,” “strange,” or “guest.” Meanwhile, ‘lith’ refers to a stone (making megalith and monolith self-explanatory).

Elliott Sharp’s power trio Bootstrappers’ brand of free jazz / classic rock crossover, they say, is ‘filtered through the ethos of cyberpunk, techno, and free jazz: raging, psychedelic, and filled with fantastic extrapolations’, and since the group’s inception in 1990, they’ve undergone numerous changes in lineup, but the ethos has remained the same, meaning that this offering truly is a strange stone – one that’s hard and soft, smooth and rough, not just in different places, but in some patches, all at once. Such a stone should be geologically impossible, but then, so should the sensory explosion of the seven wildly varied and inventive compositions here, courtesy of Sharp, along with Melvin Gibbs and Don McKenzie.

If the first, ‘Telentechy’ is, at least on the surface, a fairly standard jazz-leaning rock workout, it also possesses enough detail and enough changes to render it rather more. It does seem customary for many such acts to open an album with a track that sounds like a slowly-winding down finale at the end of an hour-long live performance, and this track just does just that, but where so many similar acts lose my attention is in making every subsequent piece sound like another eight-minute winddown and seventy minutes later you’ve had nothing but a crashing, discordant conclusion and not a lot else. So while Bootstrappers do essentially begin at the end, and have numerous sprawling, somewhat formless expanses of barely-contained chaos on Xenolith, they also present numerous changes in mood and tempo, even approximating structural form in places.

‘Sieze the Mement’ is a wibbly, noodlesome piece that evokes eastern scales while also hinting at a dizzying progressive / Krautrock crossover. Immediately after, and after bouncing along for about four and a half minutes, I suddenly realise that ‘Lo Shu’ has grown quite funky in its groove… but then just as the dawning occurs, so the groove melts and dissipates into so much flickering light.

There is a lot going on, but where Bootstrappers succeeds and stand apart is their being only three: this necessitates more minimal arrangements and means they’re not prone to the spells of chaotic discoordination whereby it sounds like six people playing six different tunes in different keys and different time signatures, and instead feels altogether more focused for the most part, and as a result, they do pitch into some nice grooves that you can really get into.

According to their bio, ‘Future editions of Bootstrappers may see the group expand to orchestral dimensions’. While this may be an exciting evolution, Xenolith evidences that they’re fine just as they are right now.

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