REWOUND :: Volume 8 By Jericho Maxim

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  • Misha :: Teardrop Sweetheart (Tomlab, CD)

    1646 image 2 Chicago film critic Roger Ebert has said, although I don’t have the
    reference handy, that he rates films based on whether or not they
    achieve what he perceives their aim to be. If a film aims to be an
    over-the-top, blow-stuff-up, kill-bad-guys thriller and there is
    unnecessary, wanton destruction until the villain gets his
    comeuppance, Ebert seems to rate it higher than a cheesy action film
    that has pretenses to the art-house. He also, famously, rated films on
    his television show with a thumbs-up or -down. I’m going to use the
    same system for Misha, the New York-based duo of Ashley Yao and John
    Chao, whose album, Teardrop Sweetheart, feels overlong even at a
    relatively brief 39 minutes, perhaps due to its complete lack of both
    a memorable hook and sense of conviction in both composition and vocal
    delivery. Granted, Misha’s songs are brittle, fragile constructs,
    updating the lounge sounds of The High Llamas covering a St. Etienne
    ballad. And while that combination sounds promising, Sarah Cracknell
    and Sean O’Hagen never dropped stillborn lyrics like on “Anaconda:”
    “Anaconda, sittin’ in her Honda, feeding in the parking lot. I had a
    heart, but she flayed me and took me apart.” Um, second grade called,
    it would like its poetry back. Musically, Teardrop.. is very same-y from
    track to track: Casio keyboards, gentle guitar, electronic beats, and
    damn near the same bpm every time. It seems like Misha are trying to
    take the classic Burt Bacharach/Hal David pop-songwriting school and
    tug it into 2007, but where Burt and Hal could make lemonade out of
    salt, Misha make an empty margarita glass, and the bar is closing. Did
    Misha achieve their aim? Not in anything resembling a compelling way.
    For a pop album created in the bedroom, Teardrop.. sounds under-produced
    and under-performed. And in the cruelest irony, the final track,
    “Trying,” ends with John Chao singing over and over “I’m still trying
    too hard.” Irony is such a cruel mistress, even when applied
    intentionally. [Purchase]

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  • Serengeti & Polyphonic :: Don’t Give Up (Audio8, CD)

    1646 image 3 I’m not the person to review this. See, I don’t really like hip-hop. I
    try. There’s a couple Public Enemy tracks I really like. I like Dalek
    in small doses. Maybe some early Wu-Tang. But that’s about it. I think
    a lot of potentially cool d’n’b tracks from the early- to mid-90s were
    ruined by rapping. I saw 808 State in 1994 or ’95, and they had an MC
    that was so awful I walked out after 10 minutes. Who, in 1995, wanted
    to hear anyone rap over the brilliance of “Cubik”? If you answered
    “me,” then I don’t want to know you, because you are so far away from
    my musical sensibilities that we would have nothing to discuss, but a
    lot to argue about. Personally, a lot of music being made now is being
    ruined by narcoleptic, solipsistic MCs, and Don’t Give Up is a fine
    example. But let me further qualify, before I go further, that hip-hop
    is not my thing at all. Doesn’t pump my nads, doesn’t instill a sense
    of amazement through deft wordsmithing, and is second on my list of
    musical genres from which I derive little to no pleasure, right after
    country. Current evidence on the table is the latest collaboration
    from Serengeti & Polyphonic the Verbose. And this isn’t going to
    change my opinion too drastically. Tracks where the texture overtakes
    the vocals, as on the mid-eastern glitch environment of “Praha” catch
    my ear, but each avant-garde moment like the pitch-shifted screams of
    that track, is countered by the generic flow of tepid wordplay as on
    “2 Times 2.” The idea of a solo album from Polyphic (who, despite the
    rest of his name, is responsible for the music on this album) is
    exciting – hell, a karaoke version of this record excites me, for most
    of the music on this album is placed second to the lackluster lyrics
    and vocal stylee of Serengeti. There are some exceptions, and these
    exceptions take this collaboration into the neighborhood that Dalek
    inhabits, but for the most part, despite its tiptoes into the
    avant-garde, Don’t Give Up is nothing for me to get too excited about.
    But hip-hop isn’t my thing at all.

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  • Retconned :: Unhappenings (Army of Bad Luck, CD)

    1646 image 4 I have been putting writing this review off for a very long time, for
    the simple reason that I have not been able to artfully state my
    opinion without falling to ad hominem attacks. Perhaps it is fate that
    this album has come to me, and that, via some Richard Kelly-derived
    wormhole, my opinion of this stinker of a record may save lives.
    That’s my hope. Because I really really do not like this record. This
    record seems to have been made with the desire that no one like it.
    And where deliberately provocative electronic records have been made
    for years (see Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, and Whitehouse), the best
    of those records have failed at being unenjoyable, as there is a
    fan-base for each of those bands, and rabid fan-bases at that. So
    perhaps Retconned has finally achieved where others have failed and
    created an album that has absolutely nothing to recommend it, one that
    provides no pleasure, provokes nothing besides an urge to turn it off
    and stifles the intellectual curiosity that would keep playing it
    after everyone has not only left the room where this is playing,
    they’ve left the party. Musically, Unhappenings sounds like
    fourth-graders trying to remake the first Suicide record, with the
    schoolyard bully sneering, in the most dated Billy Idol sneer
    imaginable, ridiculously banal lyrics, things that Ogre would have
    written in sixth grade and then burned out of shame. I hope my point
    is getting through, but if it isn’t, here’s the bottom line:
    Unhappenings = no good for anything except clearing a room so
    thoroughly that you leave it too. [Purchase]

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  • Blue States :: First Steps Into (Memphis Industries, CD)

    1646 image 5 Siding with the progressive states with their name, Blue States (aka
    Andy Dragazis, producer for The Pipettes) eschew a progressive feel in
    their music, but still evoke a sense of future possibilities with
    First Steps Into, but into what? Sounding at times like Vangelis,
    late-80s Tangerine Dream, and a college-town funk band, Blue States
    serves up a platter of tasty treats for the feet. Mixing live drums
    with strings and electronics is hardly innovative, but here they sound
    fresh, or at least, pivotally alive. Stilted this is not. “The
    Electric Compliment,” which buoys the album’s first half as track
    number four, expertly moves from a sub-Sigur Ros string-laden piece to
    a jaunty piano-led piece with happy handclaps, enough to put a smile
    on your face and give the feet a good excuse to jump around. It’s not
    high art, but what is anymore these days? This is a fine little
    platter for when you just want to bob your head or move your feet to a
    gentle yet insistent beat. [Purchase]

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  • V/A :: Undergrounded Vol. 3 (Fateless Flows, CD)

    1646 image 6 This collection aims to spotlight a series of California producers,
    each with something a little differ to offer than the other, but as a
    whole, that come out sounding like most other “crew comps” out there.
    Meaning, that there are some excellent tracks, but there is some dead
    weight as well. The comp opens with Reed Rothchild, aka Jess Stroup,
    whose track, “Mid-Air” wouldn’t sound out of place on a Royksopp
    album. Settling in for some down-tempo trip-hop, Surface 10 is next,
    featuring the heart-tugging violin of Laura Escude, who gets her own
    track next. “Noncommital,” easily the most exciting track on the disc,
    with Escude working solo, her violin really nailing an emotional high
    over crunchy idm-beats and some laptop synth. Really really super nice
    track. My understanding is that she makes her living from doing
    commercial spots in the auto industry, and sundry other commercial
    work. Laura, if you’re reading this, please take a hiatus and do a
    full-length album. Further in, Sequenox drop “Ice Field,” a track best
    described as Boards of Canada in winter, fully capturing the BOC sense
    of innocence in a slinky downtempo groove. Other highlights on this
    comp include R_Garcia’s “ATL Stompin’,” which brings a little bit of
    that early ’90s-acid feel back, and freshens it up with some
    surprisingly enjoyable 8-bit fx. Late into the disc, Constant Flux
    drops the great missing braindance track, “Digital Donkey” which
    should totally be a white-label 12″ from Rephlex. People would go nuts
    over this track like they did for Astrobotnia before it was revealed
    to be Ovuca. On the downside, there’s some less than stellar material
    here, notably the umpteenth sampling of Timothy Leary by Tripform on
    “Multiple Realities.” Can we all just agree that for a little while,
    no one is going to sample Leary? It was never innovative or daring,
    and his damaged ramblings have ruined more lives than they’ve saved.
    So let’s just let him rest in piece, ok? Agreed? Thanks. Vic
    Hennegan’s “Linger” has some potential to be a great one, but the
    sub-Goldfrapp diva wailing from guest vocalist “Becca Fuchs” make the
    track sound like something off the terrible final Orbital album. And
    Cavestar apparently believes there’s still some life in the
    isolationist ambient genre. He’s wrong, but here he tries to unsettle
    with “Fod,” an amalgamation of watered-down Lustmord and Paul Schutze.
    Blah. So, to sum up. Ultimately, Undergrounded is 1/3 good, 1/3 not
    bad, and 1/3 bad. But when you’re batting .333, you’re doing ok. And
    like most comps these days, you can cherry-pick the best tracks from
    Itunes.

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  • Metamatics/Norken :: My Favourite Kind of Irrelevance 1997-2007 (Hydrogen Dukebox, CD)

    1646 image 7 Aaah, finally. All of your favourite Lee Norris tracks in once place.
    My Favourite Kind of Irreverence contains tracks from all stages of
    Norris’ career (especially if you can get your hands on the 2 CD
    version, which contains a ton of his ambient work under the Nacht
    Plank alias, along with other more ambient tracks under Metamatics and
    Tone Language). The ingenious cover of “Personal Jesus” starts things
    out and mixes effortlessly into my personal favourite Metamatics
    track, “Here To Go (Days Are Gone)” which appears here in a rare
    7-inch mix. And from there its all gravy, with Norken’s blippy
    dance-bient “Southern Soul” and then the gonzo collaboration with
    Ultravox’s John Foxx on “Free Robot,” a tasty Metamatics remix of A1
    People’s “Do It” and another 45 minutes of some beautiful blissful
    techno. There isn’t a bum track here, not a one. And what really makes
    this compilation special is that the sound of this music, the vibe,
    the juice, it just doesn’t exist in what’s coming out these days. I
    don’t want to get all “it was better back in the day” but Irreverence..
    just hammers home a point I’ve been trying to make for a long time,
    that while there is far more music being made today than there was
    even several years ago, very very little of it has that tangible magic
    that makes it special. Norris has it in spades. [Purchaseb>]

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  • Supersilent :: 8 (Rune Grammofon, CD)

    1646 image 8 Supersilent emerge from a five-year studio-album hiatus to engage the
    world as a lumbering beast, Cthulhu risen from the depths of R’lyeh to
    lay complete waste to the world. For 8 is mean and nasty, an angry
    punch to the chest, a complete change from the late-Miles fusion
    sounds of 5 or 6. Impossible to describe by track, 8 covers a lot of
    sonic territory, sludge-metal (sans guitars), music-concrete,
    Krautrock (sort-of), modern classical, and a form of jazz that hasn’t
    really been explored much yet outside of this group. Supersilent’s
    music is very intuitive, its members only ever getting together to
    improvise together, never to discuss their music together, only play
    it. And in the 10 years they’ve been together, they’ve progressed from
    hardcore-jazz freakouts like on 1-3, near-ambient on 6, to this unique
    amalgam of so many disparate genres. Recorded over five days, 8 was
    pared down from five hours of music by long-time producer and member
    Deathprod, and I’m guessing that the tape-splicing of Teo Macero was a
    big influence here. Much like Bitches Brew or On the Corner, Macero’s
    splicing of longer jams resulting in some seminal jazz pieces that
    sound like they were in some way composed, or at least scripted out.
    Same thing here. This group continues to amaze in every way. Also, one
    caveat – there is a LOT of low-end on this record. Not enough to
    damage speakers, but make sure you have something with a decent bass
    response on it to get the full effect. [Purchase]

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  • Uusitalo :: Karhunainen (Huume, CD)

    1646 image 9 Good old Sasu Ripatti, as dependable as anything, thankfully prolific
    under a number of aliases. Here he dusts off Uusitalo, not seen since
    2006’s Tulenkantaja, Bearing marked similarities with that record,
    Karhunainen still evokes the icy atmospheres of Finland, its minimal
    grooves pulsing with danceably insistent basslines in the classic
    Ripatti style. If you’ve heard previous Uusitalo albums, you know what
    to expect here. The album as a whole does not represent an innovation
    in the Uusitalo sound, but further refines it, honing its chilly
    atmospheres in smaller chunks (see older Delay material for
    longer-form versions), wielding the studio as a surgical scalpel,
    maxing out the dub effects in all manner of compelling ways. Its hard
    to guess where Uusitalo can go from here, as this seems like the end
    of the road for this style. Luomo has hit a dead-end, Sistol is dead
    in the water. Delay’s Whistleblower was a breath of fresh air, and
    this is as well, don’t get me wrong, but there really isn’t much
    further that this project can be taken without betraying its roots and
    going handbag or something gonzo like that. And maybe that’s what
    should happen – just completely mix things up, say WTF, and drop a
    record under this alias that sounds like U96. Someone would probably
    call it innovative. But not this reviewer. As much as I like this
    record, and I do really like it, it is starting to sound like more of
    the same, and that I can’t truck with for too long. [Purchase]

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  • Telephone Jim Jesus :: Anywhere Out of the Everything (Anticon, CD)

    1646 image 10 I don’t know. I’m just not getting what is so special about the
    Anticon collective. Granted, hip-hop is not my thing (see Serengeti &
    Polyphonic review above), and instrumental hip-hop even less so. I
    remember getting burned on the Dr. Octagon instrumental album back in
    like ’97, finding its supposedly innovative beats soporific,
    narcissistic, and ultimately useless. 10 years on, I’m reminded of
    that record by this one, another vain and futile attempt at mixing
    hip-hop beats with electronic atmospheres, So Telephone Jim Jesus
    (what’s this name supposed to mean, anyway?) tries and fails at making
    compelling music, or music that demands replaying, but at least he
    tried and in that attempt lies redemption. Adding more music to the
    landscape of electronic music lowers its signal-to-noise ratio, but
    there’s always that chance, a one-in-a-thousand chance that a producer
    will hit the right buttons, program the right beats, sequence the best
    melody, and nail it, even if for one track. Jim Jesus comes close on a
    couple, “Featherfall,” opener “Did You Hear?,” but misses the mark
    more often. And hey, that’s fine, at least he tried, which is more
    than I can say for myself. [Purchase]

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