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Andrew Liles and Daniel Menche are both influential and highly regarded members of the experimental music world, so naturally their team up raises high expectations. Faced with that kind of pressure, they chose to deliver an album about the life cycle of flies. Well, at least it's original.
The Progeny of Flies is a subtle, sinister record that is long on atmosphere and imagination. I've always said that a good ambient record allows room for the listener to insert his own thoughts and interpretations, and in this the record very admirably succeeds. It plays like the soundtrack to all the quiet, suspenseful bits at the beginnings of horror films, where you know something bad is going to happen but you're not sure what or when.
The album is divided up into four lengthy tracks named after various stages in the development of flies. The first of these, "Eggs," consists of a slowly shifting patchwork of electronic drones, low rumbles matched by higher, slowly unfolding synth melodies. It serves as a kind of warm up for what is yet to come, not giving away too much while offering considerable promise.
The second track builds o this, adding Liles' minimalist, Satie-like piano. Liles has an uncanny ability to extract an immense amount of atmosphere from just a couple of methodically repeated piano chords, and the supplemental bass thumpings and rumblings are more than sufficiently unsettling.
The third track, "Pupa," opens with the unexpected shriek of a horse's neigh, followed by the erratic plucking of some stringed instrument which I can't quite identify. Gradually, this fades away and is replaced by gentle metallic clangs and other acoustic sounds, heightened as ever by dark electronics.
The album concludes with the final stage, "Metamorphosis," in which the tensions builds to a climax , incorporating all that came before and more. Ghostly choirs, a repeated four-note piano motif, harrowing electronic groans and buzzes and finally the actual buzzing of the titular flies.
The album as a whole is very well structured, with each track building on the previous one for an ever increasing atmosphere of paranoia and menace, and while it certainly rewards close listening, it also works great as low background music to terrify any unwanted guests who have overstayed their welcome.
Robert Fripp and Brian Eno were two of the most interesting and innovative musical personalities of the 1970s, but it would also be hard to imagine two more divergent temperaments. Eno was a flashy, kinetic wild man who, during his tenure with Roxy Music managed to steal the show from one of the most dynamic frontmen ever, despite not really playing any instruments. Fripp was a cool intellectual who sat on stool on stage while playing his guitar and was notoriously standoffish to fans. The public may not have known what to expect when they decided to team up, but anyone could bet the result would be magical.
The driving force behind the album is a tape loop system developed by Eno which was capable of simultaneous playback and recording. This allowed a performer to hear a loop of his himself while continuing to play on top of it, adding new layers and rhythms in real time. This was not entirely a new idea-Terry Riley had been doing similar things for years-but Eno dubbed the process "Frippertronics" and the name stuck.
The record consists of two side-long tracks, each containing a subtly pulsing backdrop over which Fripp solos extensively. On "The Heavenly Music Corporation," the mood is serene and Fripp's guitar sweeps slowly around with his characteristic warm tones climbing and plunging like dive bombers in slow motion. The effect is lovely and captivating.
Side two, entitled "Swastika Girls," is more active, with heavier focus on Eno's electronics making up the rapidly swirling backdrop. There is a lot more going on here than o the first side, and it takes several listens to take it all in. One of the dangers of this type of recording technique is the tendency for things to become overly cluttered and aurally confusing. I'm not sure whether that quite happens here, but it certainly walks a fine line.
Fans of either Eno's solo work or Fripp's guitar playing (mainly in his capacity as a guest soloist for the likes of David Bowie; there's little resemblance to King Crimson) will find much to love here. The latest reissue is a 2-CD set of good quality and a couple of puzzling choices. First, they broke the side long tracks up into separate parts for the CD indexing, which is totally unnecessary and arbitrary to my way of thinking. Second, the bonus tracks consist of the entire record played backwards and a half speed version of "The Heavenly Music Corporation." The reasons for this remain obscure, but I am forced to admit that the different versions are interesting and enjoyable, if not essential.
Lull is the side project of Mick Harris, perhaps best known as the drummer for the extreme death metal band Napalm Death. What can one expect from such a celebrated noisemaker? Certainly not anything like this. Let me just say that Lull lives up to its name. Don't expect any aggression here.The record consists of a single, hour long track of an extremely minimal ambient drone. There is some motion, and indeed some evolution in the sound, but it all happens at a glacial pace and it took me several listens to even be aware of some of the subtleties going on beneath the surface. From what I can tell, the tones are produced electronically and there are a number of layers shifting back and forth on top of one another like the slow grinding of tectonic plates. The atmosphere is fairly dark and sinister, but it doesn't hit you over the head like some of Lustmord's stuff."Continue" probably works best as a background record, something to listen to while you do other things. Given that it makes the ambient music of people like Brian Eno or Harold Budd seem like speed metal, it would probably be difficult for most people to give it their full attention for very long. That being said, it does provide a nice atmosphere and does what ambient is supposed to do: lurk unobtrusively on the edge of your consciousness.On a personal note, I once hosted "ambient night" at my college discotheque with the sole intention of preventing anyone from dancing (a rousing success, I must say) and I used this record as the grand finale to my set. I think only one person showed up that night.
Of the four albums in Brian Eno's "Ambient" series, the third installment is the least well known and sounds the least like the others. This is perhaps because it is the only one not to be released under Eno's own name, but instead credited solely to Laraaji. I am giving Eno credit above, however, because of his typically adept recording and engineering, and anyway it's his series.
What we have here is a series of pieces for solo zither, enhanced ever so slightly by synthesizers, bells and studio techniques, performed by street musician Laraaji (born under the slightly less exotic name of Edward Larry Gordon.) There are three "Dances" on the album and two "Meditations," the former being high energy and rhythmic while the latter are relaxed, free form and meandering. Much like in the work of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, the constant motion in the dance pieces after a time begins to seem like a static texture that simply hangs in the air for the listener to experience. Although this may seem to be in opposition to conventional notions of what ambient music is, the label does make sense in that these songs create an atmosphere rather than a dynamic musical composition. It also must be remembered that at the time ambient music was still a relatively new concept and Eno was blazing new trails as he went along.
There are Celtic as well as Asian idioms in the music, which is an odd pairing and creates a sound both exotic and difficult to pin down. Some of the figures Laraaji plays could be equally at home on a dulcimer in Wales or a zither in Egypt or a koto in Japan. The very lowest strings on the instrument rattle percussively when struck, and Jaraaji creates some wonderful rhythms down there while maintaining the drone like motion in the upper register. The amazing thing is that that he manages to make each of these five pieces sound completely distinct from one another. The problem with a whole album of music for one instrument is that the lack of timbral variety can become tedious if not handled carefully. That such tedium never occurs here is a testament to the inventiveness and skill with which Laraaji handles his instrument.
The meditations are more tradional "New Agey" ambient fare, but as always Eno avoids being trite or cliche in how he handles the sound. The amount of reverb applied is tasteful and the music is thoughtfully contructed in a way that works just as well for active listening as it does when functioning as furniture music. This may well be my favorite of the four albums in Eno's "Ambient" series, simply because it is so different from anything else he has done before or since.
Last month Mr. Kyle Bobby Dunn was kind enough to send me a copy of his new EP, Rural Route #2, but I had the busiest November anyone has ever had, ever, so I am just now getting around to reviewing it. Apologies to Mr. Dunn.After Dunn's last outing, a two disc compilation that contained nearly two hours of material, this EP feels quite short by comparison. There are two tracks, totaling just over twenty minutes of music. While this may sound disappointing to some, I hasten to comment that it is a very satisfying twenty minutes. Ambient music is a genre in which it can be quite difficult to distinguish oneself from the crowd. It's very easy to make bad ambient, but very hard to make something unique and personal. Either you go dark and sound like Lustmord or you go light and sound like Stars of the Lid. Dunn, however, has successfully managed to carve out some middle ground here, sounding like no one but himself.The lovely thing about these two tracks is that they are spacious enough to allow the listener room to insert his own thoughts into the music. Many artists falter in trying to create a sonic landscape, and end up crowding out their audience. Here, on the other hand, one gets the impression of standing in a vast open plain. To the North is a city of glistening metal, curiously silent from this distance; to the South a mountain range stands shrouded in mist; to the East, sharp cliffs overlook a churning, overcast sea; to the West there is a forest of stately, antidiluvian pines. There rea landmarks to be sure, but we are allowed enough freedom to choose our own path. That is what makes a good ambient record.Despite its brevity, I believe Rural Route #2 to be a vast improvement over his last release. Dunn seems to have really found his voice here, and I would recommend this record to anyone seeking knew vitality in a genre that easily becomes stale and repetitive.
Another fine ambient record from the UK experimental scene, this time relying solely on the sounds of Bluthner grand piano for its source material. I am always intrigued by albums which severely restrict their sonic palette, and the piano is my favorite instrument, so I picked this up on a whim.The bulk of the album is the fifty minute title track, rounded out by a remix done by increasingly prominent engineer, Colin Potter. The result is something like Harold Budd in slow motion. I know what you're thinking: "But Harold Budd is already really slow!" Yes, that's true, but this is even slower. Don't go looking for any melodies or harmonic progressions. This is sound for sound's sake (try saying that five times fast.)In fact, it's more like a drone record with occasional punctuation provided by the piano keys. The resonance of the piano is remarkable, and if you turn up the volume (which I recommend you do) you can hear the subtle interactions of the sustained tones as their frequencies rub up against one another. The low notes are particularly dramatic in this regard, made more so by their relative rarity. Coleclough seems to prefer the tinkly upper register in general, perhaps because too many low notes would overly muddy the sound. Sixteen minutes in, Coleclough gets boreed and fades everything out, choosing to start over, with different note combinations. This results in a slightly different drone texture, somewhat lower and richer than the first.While this piano drone is pleasant, it's not really the most engaging ambient record I've heard. The point is well made about twenty minutes in and there's not enough evolution or variety to warrant the additional half hour. However, it's worth it for Colin Potter's remix, in which he edits out the piano attacks, leaving a much more ethereal (and of a more appropriate length) web of shifting tones. The fact that you can no longer identify the piano as the sound source makes the remix a far more interesting listen.
In 2007, British sound artist Andrew Liles rummaged through his collection of home recordings and decided to release all of them in a twelve disc set, with one album coming out each month for a year. Like a fool, I only acquired seven of these wonderful recordings before the extremely limited editions all sold out. In any case, I intend to review all the ones I have (not right in a row, don't worry) because they are all worth listening to for any fans of strange music.The amazing thing about these discs is the sheer variety of sounds to be found on them. Culled as they were from years of experimentation, it shouldn't be surprising that these tracks have a lot of different things going on, but the fact that Liles can be so diverse and yet somehow retain a consistent sound and create a coherent album (actually, twelve coherent albums) is amazing. This volume consists of primarily short tracks with the longest coming in at just under six minutes. Liles is fond of minimal ostinatos and a number of songs feature little more than a repeated, invariably haunting melody. Vocal samples are used to great effect, particularly on my favorite track on the record "Hello, Pharaoh.""Hello, Pharaoh" consists primarily of a woman singing the title in a sort of night-club jazz style, with a backdrop of crackling vinyl and brooding harmonium. The atmosphere created by this simple combination is breathtaking, even though it lasts a scant two and a half minutes. Elsewhere, ambient drones and dark rumblings take center stage. Actually this particular volume is a lot more ambient than some of the others, but of course that isn't a bad thing. There's some spooky lounge inspired vibraphone ("Sequential Dreaming") and glitch-like electronics that are meant to imitate a dentists tools ("Root Canal") and of course what record would be complete without samples of elephants trumpeting, african druming and tribal chanting ("Without Anaesthesia")?As we all know, I like my music sublimely weird, and while not everything here fits that description, the series as a whole has so many wonderful oddities and non-sequiturs that it has become one of my favorites.
Kyle Bobby Dunn is a Brooklyn based sound artist who enjoys creating long, minimal pieces of atmospheric ambient music. "A Young Person's Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn" is his most large scale release to date, a sprawling set of tracks that unfold over two discs and runs for almost two hours. Listening to such lengthy works in their entirety is usually a daunting task, placing large demands on the listener's patience and attention span, but in this case the music is such that it can function as a pleasant backdrop just as easily as an active listening experience.So what does the music sound like? Well, it actually sounds a lot like Stars of the Lid. Warm droning textures fade in and out over the course of the lengthy tracks, evoking tranquil thoughts of far away places where there are no deadlines and nothing to worry about. Dunn seems to have embraced Eric Satie's concept of furniture music, and his compositions sit nicely in the corners of any room, unobtrusively coloring the atmosphere in shades of beige.There is little variation in sound across the album's running time, although a few splashes of restrained piano, tasteful electronic swirls, and some field recordings of animals and water make for some nice flavor here and there. The one spot where the sense of profound calm is disturbed lies at the end of the second track "The Tributary (For Voices Lost)," which concludes with a deep, deep bass rumble that may shake the teeth right out of your head (or at least blow out your speakers.) The album confusingly ends with a human voice persistantly asking "Looking at yourself?" to which another voice confidently replies "Yeah."
Overall, this is a record that will appeal to those of you who feel that modern ambient has become far too "busy" and would like to see a return to the Brian Eno-Harold Budd roots of the genre. The sounds are very soothing and enjoyable, and the length is such that by the end of it you will almost certainly be lulled into a relaxed state of inner peace. Certainly one of the more meditative records I've come across in recent years.
This collaboration between three of modern experimental music's finest minds is without a doubt one of the finest ambient outings I have ever heard. The individuality, creativity and atmospheric nature of the music herein is truly an achievement, especially considering the rather limiting requirements of ambient music in general.The Hafler Trio is the work of Andrew McKenzie, who has produced consistently high quality music for nearly three decades. Andrew Liles is a sound artist who has collaborated with all the greats included remixes of Current 93's classic albums, and Colin Potter is an engineer and the only regular Nurse With Wound member besides Steven Stapleton. This album was planned to be part of a tour featuring these three artists, but the tour nver materialized and we are left only with this all too brief record as an artifact.The influence of all three artists is present, but the music probably most resembles the solo work of the Hafler Trio. The tone is generally frigid, with high pitched drones conjuring up images of desolate tundra and polar winds. Various electronic blips and fluttering noises punctuate the sound scape, and although most of the tracks are fairly similar it is a testament to the skill of the musicians that there remains enough variety to hold one's interest from start to finish. About halfway through the record, the music fades out almost completely leaving a long patch of near silence. Oddly, this actually works well as part of the composition, and at first you may not even notice that the music has diminished to sub-audible levels. What follows proves that the group is not without a sense of humor. After nearly ten minutes of extremely quiet sound, we are given a wake up call with a single, loud metallic bang. Woe unto anyone who turned their speakers way up during the quiet bits. Their ears are probably still ringing.The album closes with "Exclusivity on an Aquatic Theme," a track which lives up to its name built, as it is, around some finely textured gurgling sounds. It's arguably the best track on here, and certainly a good note to end on. 3 Eggs was released in a minimal (though lovely) paper sleeve in a limited edition of 1000 copies. If you can manage to track down a copy, I highly recommend it.
Ambient music usually comes in a small handful of different flavors. There's Brian Eno's trademark brand of detached melancholy, the sinister brooding and horror movie aesthetic of the Dark Ambient scene, and the hippy-dippy peace and love new age dreck not worth the plastic it's pressed on. Stars of the Lid fits into none of these categories. In fact, this is the first genuinely warm sounding ambient record I have heard.It's hard to imagine getting much emotional content out of a record that is essentially forty minutes of drones, but right from the get go it is obvious that this is American music (the band hails from Texas.) When I listen to these tracks, I can't help but picture the vast deserts of the western United States complete with their serene majesty and inhospitable climate. There's even a hint of the Spaghetti Western thrown in, at least to my ears. Of course track titles like "Central Texas" and "Sun Drugs" don't hurt, either.As I said, the music is drone oriented, but it feels very organic and not at all electronic. I'm unsure of the exact source material, but I'm pretty confident that guitars play a large part of it. The minimal sleeve notes indicate that the entire album was recorded on a 4-track, which is impressive in itself. Not knowing any better, I would have assumed that a lot of computer processing was involved.I would recommend Stars of the Lid highly to those interested in ambient music that sounds a little different. I put this album on when I'm in the mood to relax, and I find the lush, warm textures comforting in a way that is lacking from much of the other music in the genre. As a final note, I would like to mention that near the end of the album there is a 20 minute piece in two parts called "Music for Twin Peaks Episode 30." For those who don't know, the amazing David Lynch TV series, Twin Peaks, was canceled after only 29 episodes, leaving many fans very unsatisfied with the abrupt ending. I'm not sure what the music here has to do with that (it's not noticeably different from anything else on the album) but it's a nice thought nonetheless.
Many people view this album as a shameless attempt to capitalize on the tragedy of the September eleventh terrorist attacks. While I do not think this was Mr. Basinski's intention, but it's easy to see why some would feel that way. A little backstory: on 9/11/2001, Basinski was transferring some old tapes he made in the '80's to digital format. The tapes were so old however, that as he played them they literally started falling apart. Rather than attempting the impossible task of preserving the tape, he had the bright idea to play them in a loop and thus capture the decay as it happened. Coincidentally, all this happened just as the planes were crashed into the world trade center. Basinski, a lifelong New Yorker, was deeply moved and disturbed (as were all Americans) and as he watched the towers burn, he decided to dedicate these decaying loops to the memory of the tragedy in some sort of metaphor that I confess to not fully understanding.Cool concept, right? You bet it is. Too bad the concept is more intesting than the music. A simple, pastoral melody repeats again and again. With each repitition, small bits of sound gradually drop out and are replaced by silence, until after nearly an hour it is barely recognizable. This is actually quite similar to Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" (reviewed earlier) but for some reason it's not quite as fun to listen to. I don't wish to appear overly harsh, and as a piece of ambient music, it is certainly pleasant enough, but the substance is eclipsed by the liner notes. I haven't heard the other volumes in this series, but I imagine they are quite similar.As a piece of conceptual art, it's brilliant. As a piece of music? Less brilliant.
I picked this up on a whim when I saw it in a little record shop. I had never heard of the Melvins and I knew Lustmord through reputation only. Boy, what a nice surprise! It's like these two artists were made for each other.The Melvins, for those who don't know, are a sludgy, grungy metal band who used to hang out with Nirvana, but whose music is way, way better. They have always had some experimental tendencies and they are used to good effect here. Lustmord is, of course, the undisputed king of the Dark Ambient genre.The tracks on this release tend to jump back and forth between the two styles without much evidence of true collaboration... at first. The opener "III" is a spooky bit of slowly building ambient that centers around a clock chime. It leads into "The Bloated Pope," a classic Melvins style tune. However, this illusion is shattered when we get to the twenty-two minute title track, an epic slab of downtuned riffage surrounded by wonderful atmospheric textures. Honestly, I could listen to this track all day. It features the best of what both contributors have to offer.The rest of the album has both metal tunes with dashes of ambient, and ambient atmospheres with dashes of metal. It all works terribly well, and many of the songs are actually quite catchy (one of the Melvins' strengths.) I know a lot of experimental music lovers out there hate metal, and if you're one of them you probably won't like this. Personally, I am a great lover of swampy, sludgy guitar riffs and those are present in abundance. Add to that the gorgeously sinister electronics of Lustmord and you've got a record that I return to over and over again.
It's difficult to find much information about Jim Haynes apart from the fact that he lives in San Fransisco and that he holds an odd fascination for rusty objects. Despite his relative anonymity, however, he has inconspicuously created an album of remarkable depth and creativity, one that should certainly be more widely heard.The album consists of a single hour long track, created from a massive library of found sounds accumulated over a period of four years. Don't bother trying to pick out the source material, though. Haynes has processed everything beyond the point of recognition, though not without its retaining a nagging sense of familiarity. The sounds on the record are mainly drone like, encompassing a wide variety of different textures. At times I am reminded of embers smoldering in a cast iron stove. Other sounds resemble machinery at work and rolling thunder. Listening to the album is a bit like twisting the dials of a car radio in the middle of nowhere, picking up strange sounding static and the occasional very faint signal, while always feeling you are about to stumble onto just the right frequency.Whereas most ambient music works best as background noise and subconscious listening, "Telegraphy By The Sea" is the rare record that is actually difficult to ignore. It has the odd quality of commanding one's attention, like a speech that seems like it is about to turn profound, but never quite does.
The Aeolian Harp is a stringed instrument which is hung outside and "played" by the wind blowing across it, causing the strings to vibrate. It creates quite a beautiful and unusual sound, and was essentially the 19th century equivalent of windchimes, only with a much broader range of expression.The Aeolian String Ensemble, as you might guess, uses a number of such instruments, together with a bit of electronic processing to create absolutely mesmerizing washes of slowly drifting sound.Eclipse is the Ensemble's second full length effort, and collects two studio recordings (one new, one from 1981) and a live track recorded outside during an actual solar eclipse. Each of these three pieces average about 15 minutes long, and each has its own unique charms. My personal preference goes to the first track, entitled "Espacios", because of the way it sparkles as much as it gushes, but the entire disc is well worth hearing.Whether you're interested in unusual period instruments, or whether you just enjoy a good ambient romp, I think you'll find "Eclipse" a rewarding listen.
