7 posts tagged “electronica”
Someone gives these guys bigger exposure. Please.
Nice Traps
2005 Streetbeat
Saw this for quite some time sitting in the cut out bin (along with the previously reviewed Rodney Hunter plate), and finally acquired it. It ain't too shabby.
Not great. But it will likely grow on me. It is not what I expected from a band coming out of the Czech Republic. The album feels very English, for lack of a better way of putting it.
At times reminding me of a less ambitious Colfinger, or a less ambient Olive, the group (a quartet) is not without its charms. It is electronica, but has organic bits in generally appropriate places. Ema Brabcova has a kind of shoegazy laziness to her vocals. An almost nonplussed girlyness that works well to keep the varying backdrops under one sonic roof.
It is not a must have, but at $2.95, it was a steal.
...we both like the Roland Handsonic (the HPD-15) drum unit, because I can hear at least one of my favorite patches from it on Babylon Site from Version 2 Version: A Dub Transmission.
Let's keep it simple. Omar. Victor Duplaix. Together on one stage. You really cannot go wrong with that kind of lineup.
New Order
316
A band that I really did not recognize by name until the utterly ubiquitous surreal video for True Faith was released, New Order nonetheless left a lasting impression during the 80s. I really did not appreciate the early material until seeing it live on this DVD (partially due to my lack of interest in their precursor band with the late Ian Curtis).
This DVD is divided into two main concert sections, with one from 1981 (originally the VHS only Taras Sevchenko released on the now classic and defunct Factory Records) and the other from their big 1998 Reading Festival "comeback" performance. A 25 minute interview section follows to close out the goodies.
The 1981 concert shows a band not yet too far removed from its parent, Joy Division, with an anemic cast and the kind of downward facing bandmates that make shoegazers look downright perky. But the sound quality is quite good, and it gives you a clear window into the period. It is certainly moody, and the highlight for me was (as it really always has been) Peter Hook and his rather unique approach to bass, using essentially cross-voicing with the synths to play atypical registers.
The Reading show is another animal alltogether. Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook have taken on some weight, and the once perpetually stupored Bernard Sumner vacillates between being somewhat stoic and bursts of almost comedic posturing; he actually tells the crowd at Reading that they are there to "rock" with upraised fist, and during True Faith and Bizarre Love Triangle Sumners inept dancing, which is not as entertaining as Ian Curtis's seizure-like moves, makes you wonder what middle age has done to the lad. Hook still sounds excellent, bass slung low and often getting down into various planting poses as his lines chug and clunk about (his style is still jerky, but always obscured by his heavy use of chorus pedals and sliding around the neck). Stephen Morris is still the guy who looks like his playing is inspired by petit-mal convulsions, but someone has to actually move around a bit, so it may as well be him. They run through a stack of the hits, from Regret to Blue Monday, with the best of the JD cuts being possibly Isolation.
Reading runs through all the hits, but also gives the bonus that for the first time since their inauguration as New Order, they play three Joy Division songs, which Sumner explains as being due to the fact that they finally felt that they had established themselves enough that they would not be seen as using Joy Division material as a crutch for any inadequacies of their own. They do the material justice.
Bernard is quite humorous, especially when he does not mean to be, as when he states laconically "I'm not really an extrovert" , which for most people familiar with JD or NO, the resounding reply would be a giant "DUH". There is also some odd interview footage referencing some of their videos, which in some cases were quite amusing (anyone remember their hair metal spoof? Not in the US, because the video couldn't get played). Gilbert and Morris are practically mutes with Sumner and Hook taking the bulk of the interview duties, and thats ok, as when they do speak there is not much animation or substantive point to their short contributions.
This is all and all a good buy or rental for whomever wants to wax nostalgic or wants to get familiar with one of the stalwart outfits of the 80s andearly 90s.
So, as opposed to simply reviewing an album, I will simply endorse Alexkid (nee Alexis Mauri) as someone to check out. While none of his albums to date have been without some slack materal, there is always enough strong cuts to merit investigation. Mr. Mauri has some nic credits on his resume as an engineer and producer (Sevara Nazarkhan, Ursula Rucker), but as a marquis guy, he puts together a sliky mix of the organic and the programmed with a studio wizards sense of control into an almost minimalist clubtronic exercise in goodness. His sound collects a less frenzied minimalism of Akufen (and no stutter edits) with the soulful house of a Ben Watt at times (just listen to Where for proof) and heads periodically into territory normally dominated by dudes like Nils Petter Moelvar and Bill Laswell on things like the title track from Mint. So he does not lack ambition, just sometimes his results lack fullness and seem half-baked. Sometimes skeletal beats sound too skeletal -- put some funky muscle on those bones.
While he generally sticks to instrumentals, when he does veer into vocal territory (usually borrowed female voices) he hits more often than he misses, most notably on the dark and dubby Nightshade from his debut full length or the jumpy, bubbly Don't Hide It. Turn it Around Again could be something Seal would record, except this sounds better than anything Seal has done since his sophomore release, as is Love We Have.
Mick Karn
Three Part Species
2006 Sony Japan
After last years Love's Glove EP, Mick Karn returns with another full album, and yet another difficult attempt on my part at description. Having made his name in New Romantic elites Japan in the early 80s, Karn has since weaved a really zig-zagging path between the most sweetly accessible (playing with Kate Bush, Jakko Jacyzyk and Pete Townshend) and the radically left of center (the Polytown project with Terry Bozzio and David Torn, and several Mark Isham releases).
TPS continues where More Better Different left off, although less abrasive and a bit less satisfying at initial listen. I admittedly am partial to his CMP label years, where he merged the art-pop conventions of Japan with an ethno-fusion and electronic mix that seemed bursting with power and ambition.
The material he does now lacks the ensemble dynamic, but his command of electronic approaches lets him build various backdrops for his ideas, which still are anchored around inventive fretless bass, polyrhythmic beats, and layers of lush atmospherics, and peppered with exotica from as many corners of the globe as he can slip in (often with a decidely Maghrebi/Middle Eastern flavor, which given his birthplace of Cyprus is not that surprising). It's intelligent electronica-infused instrumental ear candy.
Some of this is certainly reminescent of work by Russell Mills circa Undark, as well as the Japan by another name project Rain Tree Crow, but it stands on its own quite well, and holds that way after repeated listens.
