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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.
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.
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.
