Featuring seven remixes of their “Filmezza” adventuresome album, Delicate Noise’s latest remix album casts its net wide across the globe in search of artists to re-rub their music. With young-and-upcoming electronic musical groups reaching far and wide from such places as France, Japan, Iceland, Canada, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., “Filmezza Remixes” has repaved the highways that the original concreted. Throughout the album there are elements of bleak and stripped down electro house, minimal soundtrack and psychedelic art, art-noise, atmospherics, and synthetic electro. Eclectic and essential.
Moroccan primitive electronica!?! Okay well the duo isn’t really from the Middle East but they temper the sounds of the Saharan Desert with the ethno-centric music of the Middle East while filtering it all through a mirage of experimental electronica and primitive noise ala Throbbing Gristle. Dangling elements of sonic manipulation while copulating with authentic middle-eastern textures and musical elements, Khamsa Khala (who is really Don Poe and Neville Harson with several guests), conjure a musical extraction that one rarely finds. Also the full-length disc comes packaged with a DVD of several music videos shot in Morocco and Egypt in full HD quality. Another money release from our friends at Lens Records.
Balmorhea is an acoustic quartet from Austin (where else?) releases yet another brilliant and stunning array of surreal music. Their ’09 album “All is Wild, All is Silent” received rave reviews and “Constellations” won’t settle to just ride on its coattails; instead the group reinvigorates itself with meditations on cosmos and the metaphysical worlds beyond our mental grasp. Beautiful piano tinkling that tickles the ear drum and serenades you with a wild array of emotions.
Obviously the album title tilts the subject matter on its collective axis, wondering what is out there amid the chaos. Colorful melodies harmonize with a core of musical accolades that easily put Balmorhea among some of today’s biggest rising stars. At times you’ll find yourself almost worn thin because each track is that daunting but once you deconstruct it, your mind and ears find yourself reinvigorated to the Nth degree. It boggles my mind that this group is still somewhat of an unheard of entity in the music world. They are clearly one of most inventive, talented, and cerebral groups to come out of the Austin, Texas scene, which is like saying someone is the best Rhodes scholar.
Sometimes cinematic soundscapes can seem elemental, almost dire and borderline snoozing – this is absolutely never the case with “Constellations” which constantly engages the listener in a new fashion as each tune progresses. Daunting, brilliant, and stirring – oh and did I mention, acoustic? Jaw dropping to say the least. Just watch their live performance on KEXP during SXSW for further proof:
Or watch a short film…I mean is there anything Balmorhea can’t do? Dodge bullets comes to mind, but I think they could lull violent acts into submission!
Indie rock that’s busy bridging gaps and forging in the forest of dissonance and chaos, “Instant Everything” by Untied States (that’s not a typo English majors, thanks) is a whirlwind and cacophony of noise, both spazzy and delightful. Post-punk noise nuance is a great way to describe this Atlanta-based five-piece. Experimental jam sessions gone awry and hectic, lunging from unexpected to predictable seemingly in the same stanza of prose. I hear a lot of yesteryear Sonic Youth influences minus Kim Gordon but plus David Yow of the Jesus Lizard. Loud and abrasive guitar-centric noise machines Untied States write raw and authentic college rock anthems that are sometimes hard to follow but always pleasing to the appreciative ear.
When people mutter the word “crossover” in regards to music, I find it usually is a reference to two possibilities – one being that it’s a “nu-metal” type band from the ‘90s in the vein of Korn or Deftones or hell even Limp Bizkit, and the second being even worse, an excuse for not being able to write music that’s good, thus using a genre crutch to get by the simple fact that your band can’t write anything cohesive or imaginative. Slow Six has convinced me that there’s a third; a genuine crossover that crosses the genres of classical in the traditional sense with electronic music in the semi-traditional sense – and I’ve found that more and more bands in this hybrid genre are being self-referential when saying the ‘c’ word. Interesting how music and the verbiage to describe it constantly is evolving, huh?
The music of this breed is one that is both a stripped down and raw acoustic-electro experiment that refuses to abandon the structures that classical music has eschewed for a handful of centuries now. “Tomorrow Becomes You” is somewhat prophetic in this sense, offering a new style of minimalism that darts and dashes through high-brow melodies harmonious with slow-building cacophonies of sound that simply overwhelm the senses. Crafting soundscapes this rich and surrounding, almost to the point of sonic suffocation is no doubt a challenge, but one that Slow Six has raised the bar in creating. Even more elating that the timeless pieces of music that the group has composed is the fact that Christopher Tignor, who is both the band’s violinist and resident software engineer, has released his custom written music software to the general public available for free on their website. Stunning people, stunning. This is a must-have for 2010 – they’re touring in support of “Tomorrow Becomes You” and if you are lucky enough to see one of their shows, please leave comments, I’d be fascinated to know what that experience is like.
Listen and watch a live rendition of “Echolalic Transitions” as performed on WFMU:
Slow Six – “The Pulse of This Skyline with Lightning Like Nerves” with video art by Shimpei Takeda:
Sultry off-jazz vocals with the constructs of electro-pop and indie pop building a foundation, Panda Transport, a duo consisting of Kathy Compton and Thierry Holweck have been around since ’06. The duo found fame with their single “Transmission” off of their critically acclaimed debut “Plush Mechanique”, which was featured on Greys Anatomy. Having written their debut essentially through Internet-based collaborations, Panda Transport set out to do something more organic and intimate. Intelligently blending ‘found sounds’ (they sampled cicadas outside of Kathy’s yurt and car-door-slams became a new found kick drum) with personal and emotional vocals, light melodies, sweet harmonies, and future pop rhythms, “Monorail” builds upon the success of their debut and proves that they’re far removed from the dreaded sophomore jinx. Pop fanatics will covet the truly catchy nature of many of the tracks, while the more indie and experimental music junkies will drool over decomposing and digesting the varied musical tapestries that make up each track.
Blues-laden vocals retch out primitive emotions and observations of the art-punk world and its vibrant personalities on “To the Pouring Rain”, yet another superb addition to an already overwhelming catalog to small indie label Porto Franco Records. Seth Augustus sounds like a late career Tom Waits or even Leonard Cohen, straining to convey the imaginative thoughts streaming from his cortex into something even a drug-addled subconscious could piece together. The album sounds like the inspiration to half-a-dozen David Lynch flicks, sexy Americana folk with notes of early jazz and a more blues experimental Captain Beefheart. For you more modern music fans, look to a comparison of Ike Reilly with a more gravelly voiced narrative. Seth’s friendship, apprenticeship, and eventually his caretaking for the gravelly ill blind blues-man Paul Pena, noted for his superb “Big Old Jet Airliner” and the figure of an Oscar-nominated documentary, “Genghis Blues
”, is certainly felt throughout this excellent disc of fertile blues and art-pop landscape dubbed simply “To the Pouring Rain”. Outstanding and an essential pick for those looking for the next modern-day blues prophet.
, 
” builds upon the success of their debut and proves that they’re far removed from the dreaded sophomore jinx. Pop fanatics will covet the truly catchy nature of many of the tracks, while the more indie and experimental music junkies will drool over decomposing and digesting the varied musical tapestries that make up each track.
