Review: Submissions Round-Up pt 17
In the ongoing quest to stimulate your pleasure centre and titillate your musical taste buds I have sifted through the good, the bad and the plain weird of recent submissions to bring you stuff that deserves to be highlighted
IX - 6EQUJ5
IX have appeared on these pages before with their wonderful '7302' album (read the review here). Since then I have met the guys and top fellas they are too. '6EQUJ5' builds upon the kosmische/soundtrack vibes of '7302' and is probably an even stronger album. Idealogically it is firmly rooted in science fiction - "from man's first steps into the void, to alien conflicts at the fringes of the Universe, 6EQUJ5 chronicles the majesty and mysteries of fact, fiction and fantasy in space." but rather than 'comic sci-fi' this would be more down the route of intelligent sci-fi a la Stephen Baxter, Peter Hamilton etc and subsequently this is a well thought out and erudite collection of tracks. Musically, much like its predecessor, it takes the laid back electronic ambience of early Tangerine Dream and melds it with the soundtrack work of John Carpenter and the result is pretty damned good...actually, no...it's very, very good indeed. With the whole 'synthwave' thing having exploded in recent times, electronic albums like this are ten a penny but the good ones stand out and this one definitely stands out - intelligent, authentic and powerful. If I had to pick a standout track from the 22 on the album I would have to say 'Transmission 3' which throws some acoustic guitar into the mix which, rather than sound incongruous, adds a whole new dimension..a stunning track and worth the entry fee on its own. The album was released last August (sorry guys, been a bit slow getting on this!) and came in a custom housed hard drive (can't help thinking that that is the future of music) which is long sold out but the digital download is available from the band's Bandcamp page here.
Tusmørke - Fjernsyn i Farver
Every now and then I get sent a promo that I just like - no rhyme or reason, I just like it and this new one from Tusmørke is a perfect example. The promo came with some blurb that said that the album had a "healthy dose of psychedelia, sci-fi and semantics." - well, if that doesn't draw you in, nothing will. The lead, and title, track 'Fjernsyn i farver (Colour Television)' goes from warbling sci-fi noises to blaring horns to some gnarly guitar driven psychedelic prog all with 'big beat' drums. From there it just gets better and better - an anthemic chorus (which didn't help me 'cos it is sung entirely in Norwegian)..I have played this song over and over and it just makes me feel good and that, my friends, is surely the point of music.
The album as a whole is apparently a concept album - "loosely based on two concepts of light, time and reality. How everything we see is a reflection made by light from the sun hitting an object - The reflected light is registered by our eyes, but the reflection is also sent out in all other possible directions, travelling at the speed of light. The unobstructed reflections would travel forever onwards into space. If we could devise a means to move faster than light, we could overtake these reflections and view them again, seeing history backwards The second idea is that light is not seen as anything until it hits something and is reflected back, creating an image in colour for the human eye. So if there were no physical objects to reflect the light, there would be an eternal totality, a darkness of sorts, since light would not be seen"...in the week we have lost Stephen Hawking it makes me wonder what he would have made of that! The rest of the album flies by in a swirl of folky prog ('Kniven I kurven (The Knife in the Basket), Borgerlig Tussmørke (Civil Twilight)' & 'Tøyens Hemmelighet (The Secret of Tøyen)'), some pomp filled bluster with some cracking guitar ('3001') and off-kilter, flute driven weirdness ('Death Czar'). The album is released via Karisma records and can be ordered (on vinyl, CD and download) via the band's Bandcamp page here.
Saboteuse - X
This tape comes from Crow Versus Crow, one of the finest labels around when it comes to experimental, cutting edge and avant garde music and this is one of the finest yet. I know very little (I know they "are the unwaveringly N. Staffs duo of AJ1 (Silver Dick, Inca Eyeball, Stuckometer, PUFF et al) and AJ2 (Vile Plumage, Makakarooma, Bongoleeros, Dirty Swords et al).") about Saboteuse but 'X' is a damned fine album. Right from the get-go with 'The Comedian', with its demented Butthole Surfers guitar over which lays some spoken word poetry, strangulated screams and squeals of electronica, you know you are in for a weird and somewhat unsettling ride. The album revolves around tape loops and collages of sound that, in themselves, point and prod at the senses but in conjunction with some genuinely surrealistic poetry it all becomes like a particularly disturbing dream. I had to listen to this a few times to truly get to grips with it - I found that I would listen to the music to the detriment of the poetry and vice versa - but when I fully grasped the ethos and the warped minds behind it, I found the album was incredibly satisfying and strangely beautiful. It is not going to be for everyone but those who like the weird and the wonderful then this is a pretty essential purchase. It can be purchased via the label's Bandcamp page here.
Alien Lizard - Pure Kafka
Alien Lizard hail from Gdansk, Poland and this album is a little gem. Tagged on Bandcamp as 'neopsychedelia' I immediately thought the worse (paisley shirts and pointy shoes!) and almost didn't listen to it but I gave in and gave it a blast and glad I did too. Ostensibly it is neopsych with the all encompassing reverb and echo but throughout there are odd little flourishes that make it that little bit different and in these current musical climes it is those differences that make it stand out. For example..the intro to 'Welcome to Duat' that sounds like Walter/Wendy Carlos' work on 'A Clockwork Orange' or the magnficent 'Goodbye To The Holy Mountain' which (obviously) references Jodorowsky and sounds like something from a long lost Myrrors album with its drones and tribal drums. In all, 'Pure Kafka' is well worth the small asking price for the download on the Bandcamp page here
Hawksmoor - Hawksmoor
A few years back I became obsessed with reading anything by Peter Ackroyd, fiction and non-fiction, and one of may faves, and still remains so, is 'Hawksmoor' - a tale revolving around architect Nicholas Dyer (Hawksmoor) and his building of seven churches in the East End of London - taking in the occult and satanic rituals but wrapped up in a modern detective novel it is a fantastic book. Anyway, when a submission lands on my virtual mat based around the same premise my heart skips a beat and I settle down to listen. When said submission is also some top notch hauntological electronica then it's a fait accompli - I'm sold! On a side note - the blurb references an Iain Sinclair book rather than the Ackroyd which has subsequently led me to investigate that.
Musically it is a cornucopia "of Moog generated rhythms, melodies and textures combined with hypnotic basslines and ‘Basinski’ style decaying tape loops, the music has been composed as an 'imaginary soundtrack' that could be used or experienced as an immersive enhancement to an occult psychogeography of London." Every track has its own personality and yet all have an atmosphere of hauntological kosmische about them. When listened to in the correct running order, the tracks do indeed tell a story - subtle nuances and signatures ascribed to each church seem to describe a setting or a feeling. It really is wonderful stuff - deeply immersive, fiercely intelligent and musically adept. It is available on CD via Environmental Studies and can be purchased on their Music Glue webpage here. A digital version is available from the Negative Drive Bandcamp page here.
IX - 6EQUJ5
IX have appeared on these pages before with their wonderful '7302' album (read the review here). Since then I have met the guys and top fellas they are too. '6EQUJ5' builds upon the kosmische/soundtrack vibes of '7302' and is probably an even stronger album. Idealogically it is firmly rooted in science fiction - "from man's first steps into the void, to alien conflicts at the fringes of the Universe, 6EQUJ5 chronicles the majesty and mysteries of fact, fiction and fantasy in space." but rather than 'comic sci-fi' this would be more down the route of intelligent sci-fi a la Stephen Baxter, Peter Hamilton etc and subsequently this is a well thought out and erudite collection of tracks. Musically, much like its predecessor, it takes the laid back electronic ambience of early Tangerine Dream and melds it with the soundtrack work of John Carpenter and the result is pretty damned good...actually, no...it's very, very good indeed. With the whole 'synthwave' thing having exploded in recent times, electronic albums like this are ten a penny but the good ones stand out and this one definitely stands out - intelligent, authentic and powerful. If I had to pick a standout track from the 22 on the album I would have to say 'Transmission 3' which throws some acoustic guitar into the mix which, rather than sound incongruous, adds a whole new dimension..a stunning track and worth the entry fee on its own. The album was released last August (sorry guys, been a bit slow getting on this!) and came in a custom housed hard drive (can't help thinking that that is the future of music) which is long sold out but the digital download is available from the band's Bandcamp page here.
Tusmørke - Fjernsyn i Farver
Every now and then I get sent a promo that I just like - no rhyme or reason, I just like it and this new one from Tusmørke is a perfect example. The promo came with some blurb that said that the album had a "healthy dose of psychedelia, sci-fi and semantics." - well, if that doesn't draw you in, nothing will. The lead, and title, track 'Fjernsyn i farver (Colour Television)' goes from warbling sci-fi noises to blaring horns to some gnarly guitar driven psychedelic prog all with 'big beat' drums. From there it just gets better and better - an anthemic chorus (which didn't help me 'cos it is sung entirely in Norwegian)..I have played this song over and over and it just makes me feel good and that, my friends, is surely the point of music.
The album as a whole is apparently a concept album - "loosely based on two concepts of light, time and reality. How everything we see is a reflection made by light from the sun hitting an object - The reflected light is registered by our eyes, but the reflection is also sent out in all other possible directions, travelling at the speed of light. The unobstructed reflections would travel forever onwards into space. If we could devise a means to move faster than light, we could overtake these reflections and view them again, seeing history backwards The second idea is that light is not seen as anything until it hits something and is reflected back, creating an image in colour for the human eye. So if there were no physical objects to reflect the light, there would be an eternal totality, a darkness of sorts, since light would not be seen"...in the week we have lost Stephen Hawking it makes me wonder what he would have made of that! The rest of the album flies by in a swirl of folky prog ('Kniven I kurven (The Knife in the Basket), Borgerlig Tussmørke (Civil Twilight)' & 'Tøyens Hemmelighet (The Secret of Tøyen)'), some pomp filled bluster with some cracking guitar ('3001') and off-kilter, flute driven weirdness ('Death Czar'). The album is released via Karisma records and can be ordered (on vinyl, CD and download) via the band's Bandcamp page here.
Saboteuse - X
This tape comes from Crow Versus Crow, one of the finest labels around when it comes to experimental, cutting edge and avant garde music and this is one of the finest yet. I know very little (I know they "are the unwaveringly N. Staffs duo of AJ1 (Silver Dick, Inca Eyeball, Stuckometer, PUFF et al) and AJ2 (Vile Plumage, Makakarooma, Bongoleeros, Dirty Swords et al).") about Saboteuse but 'X' is a damned fine album. Right from the get-go with 'The Comedian', with its demented Butthole Surfers guitar over which lays some spoken word poetry, strangulated screams and squeals of electronica, you know you are in for a weird and somewhat unsettling ride. The album revolves around tape loops and collages of sound that, in themselves, point and prod at the senses but in conjunction with some genuinely surrealistic poetry it all becomes like a particularly disturbing dream. I had to listen to this a few times to truly get to grips with it - I found that I would listen to the music to the detriment of the poetry and vice versa - but when I fully grasped the ethos and the warped minds behind it, I found the album was incredibly satisfying and strangely beautiful. It is not going to be for everyone but those who like the weird and the wonderful then this is a pretty essential purchase. It can be purchased via the label's Bandcamp page here.
Alien Lizard - Pure Kafka
Alien Lizard hail from Gdansk, Poland and this album is a little gem. Tagged on Bandcamp as 'neopsychedelia' I immediately thought the worse (paisley shirts and pointy shoes!) and almost didn't listen to it but I gave in and gave it a blast and glad I did too. Ostensibly it is neopsych with the all encompassing reverb and echo but throughout there are odd little flourishes that make it that little bit different and in these current musical climes it is those differences that make it stand out. For example..the intro to 'Welcome to Duat' that sounds like Walter/Wendy Carlos' work on 'A Clockwork Orange' or the magnficent 'Goodbye To The Holy Mountain' which (obviously) references Jodorowsky and sounds like something from a long lost Myrrors album with its drones and tribal drums. In all, 'Pure Kafka' is well worth the small asking price for the download on the Bandcamp page here
Hawksmoor - Hawksmoor
A few years back I became obsessed with reading anything by Peter Ackroyd, fiction and non-fiction, and one of may faves, and still remains so, is 'Hawksmoor' - a tale revolving around architect Nicholas Dyer (Hawksmoor) and his building of seven churches in the East End of London - taking in the occult and satanic rituals but wrapped up in a modern detective novel it is a fantastic book. Anyway, when a submission lands on my virtual mat based around the same premise my heart skips a beat and I settle down to listen. When said submission is also some top notch hauntological electronica then it's a fait accompli - I'm sold! On a side note - the blurb references an Iain Sinclair book rather than the Ackroyd which has subsequently led me to investigate that.
Musically it is a cornucopia "of Moog generated rhythms, melodies and textures combined with hypnotic basslines and ‘Basinski’ style decaying tape loops, the music has been composed as an 'imaginary soundtrack' that could be used or experienced as an immersive enhancement to an occult psychogeography of London." Every track has its own personality and yet all have an atmosphere of hauntological kosmische about them. When listened to in the correct running order, the tracks do indeed tell a story - subtle nuances and signatures ascribed to each church seem to describe a setting or a feeling. It really is wonderful stuff - deeply immersive, fiercely intelligent and musically adept. It is available on CD via Environmental Studies and can be purchased on their Music Glue webpage here. A digital version is available from the Negative Drive Bandcamp page here.
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