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Music

Tangerine Dream: Raum

Tangerine Dream can be an insurmountable mountain. They virtually invented popular electronic music, and they’ve released over 100 albums. In the 1970s, they crafted left-field records like Phaedra and Zeit. In the 1980s, they made soundtracks for everything from Legend to Risky Business.

(They also did some stuff we won’t talk about.)

Needless to say, a band doesn’t exist for five decades without going through some changes. Their sound was always evolving, and so was the lineup. When founder Edgar Froese passed away in 2015, things were left uncertain. His widow Bianca provided the band with tape archives and software patches, and they’ve integrated some of that into the new record. The current roster consists of longtime music director Thorsten Quaeschning, violinist Hoshiko Yamane, Paul Frick, and Ulrich Scnhauss.

So, how is it? Well, it’s Tangerine Dream. And I’d say they’re in top form.

Of course, somebody’s going to mention that ‘You’re Always on Time’ sounds like something from Stranger Things or that the title track evokes Steve Roach.

Music

Autechre: PLUS Review

So, two weeks after the release of SIGN, Autechre have dropped another album. It’s different in some ways and similar in others.

The first question that comes up is whether or not this is a distinct album or a very long EP of reworks and leftovers. They’ve certainly done album-length EP’s before. However, the catalog number begins with the WARP prefix denoting as a proper album (EP’s generally use WAP). A very smart guy on Reddit also has an interesting take on the actual numbering that seems to confirm this.

The problem is, this feels more like a collection of tracks rather than a cohesive album. The sequencing is odd, and I’m not sure how it fits. Instead, it reminds me of the relationship between Oversteps and Move of Ten. I’m hearing some of the same patches from SIGN, but this record feels friskier and less formal.

The second question is, does it have beats?

Music

Autechre: SIGN Review

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything on Autechre. I still adore their work, but damned if they haven’t made it hard to write about these last few years.

If you need catching up, here’s a guide I wrote to their earlier work. They’ve been around for three decades now, and the whole time, they’ve been at the bleeding edge of electronic music. While other experimental artists may trade in academic rigor, Autechre’s friskier tendencies have always been tempered by their roots in 1990s hip-hop. While they can certainly get difficult at times, there’s always a guidepost, even if it’s not evident on first listen.

The problem is, those guideposts have been spread pretty thin the last few years. Their last proper “album” was Exai in 2013. Then they released 8 hours of live sets. Then came the 4-record, 4-hour collection elseq. Then came another 19 hours of live sets.

Music

How the Music Business Missed the Internet

Kids today wouldn’t recognize the internet of the 1990s. Access was metered by service providers and connections were largely made over slow telephone lines. Still, it had taken off as a medium, and people were finding new ways to use it. More to the point, they were finding ways to capitalize on it.

Everyone, that is, except the record labels. At first they ignored it. Then they despised it.

Early on, artists and fans built websites to promote music. Given the lack of usable bandwidth, posting actual music was nearly impossible. A five-minute song consumed 50MB of data, which was completely unworkable over a 56KB connection.

Then a frustrated German engineer introduced a format that could compress that song down to less than 5MB. He distributed the compression program freely, and the MP3 format was born. Music enthusiasts were quick to embrace it, and the next logical step came with file sharing programs, the most famous of which was Napster.

Music

That Business of Music

Despite the price hikes and restricted access to content, overall revenue for the music industry continued to rise during the 1990s, reaching a peak of $14 billion in 1999. *Somebody* was making money, and those somebodies were the record labels. Without stopping to ask how much of that was actually *profit,* speculators dove in to the business. Numerous mergers took place, and the industry was essentially run by three conglomerates.

Traditional promotional outlets also jumped the shark. MTV, long a source of exposure for new music, began to focus on original programming like *The Real World,* and actual music videos were gradually shifted out of the prime-time lineup. Clear Channel began buying up top-tier radio stations in large markets, and their business model focused on playing familiar hits rather than new music.

Retailers on the ground took the biggest hit. As CD prices rose, their margins actually shrank. Dealer cost for a $17 title was around $13.

Music

The Music Industry and Technology

I was born in the early 1970s. My parents were music fans, and I grew up at a time when the record labels actively developed and supported new artists. As long as they could count on a few big hits each year, they’d take risks on new artists. In many cases, those new artists would start trends and go on to be hitmakers themselves.

Granted, we were only hearing what they wanted us to hear, but music was relatively affordable. More to the point, it was accessible. Radio stations acted as venues to promote new music, record stores were in every strip mall, and concerts were affordable to an adolescent on a budget.

The most empowering thing at that age was the Sony Walkman. We take things like the iPod for granted now, but at the time, portable music was a novelty. Paired with headphones that allowed me to tune the world out, it was incredible.

Music Recordings

The Music Industry Is Dead. Long Live the Music Industry.

…or, How I Quit My Job and Made a Record.

First, the plug. I have a record available for purchase on Bandcamp. You can hear it for free on YouTube.

I’ve spent the last four years of being disconnected from the world as a long-haul trucker. During that period, I had no time for anything resembling a hobby, and what time I had at home was too scarce to spend on recording. When I decided to call it quits, I gathered up some ideas from a sketchbook I’d been keeping and decided to hammer them in shape.

In just over a month, I’d recorded about 45 minutes of material. This is where things get interesting and novel for me. Anyone can access my music, and in a form that I’ve chosen. I’m not beholden to a major corporation to “advise” me on the process, manufacture the media, and (hopefully) market it correctly.

Music

Plaid: Polymer

Well, they’re back in the saddle. Plaid have a long and respectable history in the electronic music scene. When so-called IDM (intelligent dance music: yeesh) became a genre in the 1990’s, Ed Handley and Andy Turner were two thirds of a collective known as Black Dog, and they became a cornerstone of the Warp roster. The final work before the split was Spanners, a sprawling, imaginative record that showed a balance of skill, imagination, and the talent to hold it all together.

(Ken Downie still records excellent music under the Black Dog moniker.)

As Plaid, they made two exemplary records, the second of which featured a stunning collaboration with Bjork. Double Figure followed in 2001, showing a more disciplined and focused approach. Despite critics generally writing it off, it’s one of my favorites. Their hallmark exuberance, baroque rhythms, and creative harmonic technique were all in top form, even if it was considered a bit austere and “dark.”

Music

Autechre: elseq

The last couple of years have been busy ones for Autechre. Exai was an album of staggering scope, made even more audacious by the fact that it was uniformly good. Not many musical acts in any genre can still turn out solid material with such consistency three decades into their career.

The group has always been known for its live shows, but they’ve never seemed keen on releasing recordings of them. Then, without notice or fanfare, they released nine different live sets on the same day.

The marketing and distribution were interesting. No physical copies are available. The music can be downloaded off their website. Grab whichever sets you want; they’ve said there’s no specific order in which they’re to be digested, and the sum of them is 8 hours of listening.

Needless to say, it was a huge surfeit of material. Most artists would be content to sit back a couple of years while the audience digests that much.

Music

Pete Seeger, 1919-2014

Folk singer Pete Seeger died this week. He leaves behind a profound, if mixed, legacy. He was instrumental in the folk music revival of the 1940’s, and yes, he was a Communist.

That last point is something people will never let go, but does it even matter anymore? He was hardly the only artist of his time affiliated with the movement.

His father was Charles Seeger, a musicologist who worked with Alan Lomax to preserve traditional American folk music. Seeger was also a respected conductor and composer who taught Henry Cowell and influenced the writing of New Musical Resources.

His mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger, an imaginative composer who studied under Nadia Boulanger. While largely unknown in her lifetime, her String Quartet 1931 is now considered a landmark in modern music.

Both Ruth and Charles belonged to the Composers’ Collective, an organization whose mission was to unite an artistic proletariat.

Music

The Grammys

As a matter of course, I don’t pay much attention to these. The whole nomination process reeks of high-school politics, and the most deserving artists are nearly always ignored in favor of radio-friendly unit shifters.

However, the classical awards can be surprising. Last year saw the ensemble Eighth Blackbird receive the attention they deserve, and there’s been a decided shift towards rewarding the work of living composers and independent labels. Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks may be the biggest news. It took four awards, one of which went quite deservedly to Dawn Upshaw.

For a project commanding that level of talent, one would assume it was bankrolled and released by a major label, right? Nope. It was entirely crowd-funded. That’s no mean feat considering the logistics of hiring, rehearsal, and recording.

A quick look down this year’s list shows that the classical industry is much closer to the ground than most would think.

Music

Magnus Lindberg’s Clarinet Trio

There’s modern music to understand, and modern music to enjoy. All too often, those things are mutually exclusive.

But not always. Sometimes we get music that fires on all cylinders and lights up both sides of the brain. For me, BartÃ³k and Piston have always done that, and lately so has Lindberg.

Lindberg’s earlier work was about grand gestures on a large scale, but it often left me cold. Over the last decade or so, he’s scaled things back a bit. What’s left is a luminous, buoyant language that reminds me of Messiaen at his most accessible.

At its core, this is more a duet for cello and clarinet, with the pianist acting as conductor. Lindberg has a particular affection for the clarinet in his work (he wrote a magnificent concerto for it), and he shows an incredible intuition for its timbre and capabilities. The parallel lines traced in tandem with the cello at 1:15 are unique and marvelous piece of writing.

Music

Review: Ve Palor by Arovane

It’s been nearly a decade since Uwe Zahn’s last record. In a field that demands constant innovation, that’s a timespan of geological proportions. Most electronic artists would feel compelled to reinvent themselves to conform with current trends, but Zahn hasn’t.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. When you’re this good, you don’t have to settle for being a revolutionary.

Zahn has an odd but satisfying way of playing fragmentary melodies and rhythms against each other, but he never sinks to the rigors of the avant garde. His arrangements are marked by an ear for craftsmanship, and even the most unexpected elements come together in a satisfying way.

The sound design rivals Robert Henke in its attention to detail. The title track and “Gniddt” stand out particularly well in this regard. I’m tempted to say “C ll lt” recalls Lusine, but it’s really the other way around.

If I have one complaint, it’s that the sequencing is a bit haphazard, making this feel like a collection of singles rather than a unified album.

Music

Review: L-event by Autechre

It’s standard practice for Autechre to follow up an album with an EP. Sometimes, they’re standalone works. In other cases, they’re reinterpretations of the prior album’s material, such as Envane. Part of the challenge is finding the parallels.

L-event (“eleventh?”) appears to be a bit of both. “tac Lacora” sounds like a remix of “1 1 is,” if that track were to start out as warped electro before glitching into disarray then collapsing into wobbly-kneed dub. Structurally, it reminds me of the long versions of “Perlence.”

“M39 Diffain” might take some source material from “cloudline,” but it feels more like Confield’s magnificent “Parhelic Triangle.” The odd chatting melody at the 4-minute mark is a great touch.

“Osla for n” lopes along in 9/8 time for its first half. The brain spends a couple of minutes finding its pulse while very subtle tones work themselves forward from the background. In the second half, it switches to a rigid 4/4 beat that sounds a bit like something from a Frank Bretschneider record (that’s a compliment).

Music

Review: Virgins by Tim Hecker

Tim Hecker specializes in a very extroverted form of minimalism. He works in huge Glenn Branca-style walls of sound, but his output is more nuanced and subtle. He’s managed to produce a diverse catalog while mining a very specific stylistic vein.

This record is an interesting departure. It’s more literal and openly emotional than his prior work. “Virginal I” uses recognizable instrumentation and actually feels as if it’s being performed by a live ensemble. A bass clarinet and cello ebb and flow around a repeated piano figure that recalls Steve Reich. The two-part “Live Room” plays like a piece of modern chamber music rather than an electronic composition, though Hecker’s treatments are still a unique fingerprint.

“Virginal II” doesn’t recap the first piece so much as it shreds it apart. While Hecker’s prior works played on a certain sort of wistful melancholy, there’s a feeling of actual despair and anger here.

Music

Massive Attack: Blue Lines (2012)

You certainly don’t need me to tell you Blue Lines is a classic. That’s well established. While the material was so good it inspired a new genre, the recording itself was tinny and dry. Twenty years on, we finally have a decent remaster.

The new mix is noticeably louder, and the bass has been cranked a bit. A glance at the waveform doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Waveform

There’s definitely some serious compression and clipping going on here, and it looks like the whole thing has been pushed to 0dB and limited, while the original peaked around -0.40dB,

Still, the engineers have struck a pretty good balance. The clipping isn’t noticeable, and the soundstage has plenty of space. Shara Nelson’s vocals soar easily above the copious bass on “Safe from Harm,” and they sound less strained and reedy than on the original master. The stereo image on “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got” is better, and though the backing vocals have been panned a bit more towards center, it’s an overall improvement in clarity.

Music

Review: Kveikur by Sigur RÃ³s

I was worried. Valtari really felt like a dead-end for Sigur RÃ³s. They’d done the slow, elegiac thing for so long, it appeared they’d sunk to miasmic navel-gazing. While that record evoked the placid glaciers of their native Iceland, Kveikur reminds us not to forget the volcanoes.

This is the most aggressive thing they’ve ever done, and it’s a welcome new direction. With the departure of keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson, they’re down to a trio, and the emphasis is on sparser and more direct arrangements. Lead single “Brennisteinn” is a stately piece buoyed by a heavily gated and overdriven bass. For all its sturm und drang, it’s still a Sigur RÃ³s song, buoyed by an irrepressible chorus. A bit past the midpoint, the distortion disappears, and it switches to a double-time chorale.

DÃ½rason’s imaginative percussion takes center stage on “Hrafntinna,” and the instrumentation is novel, even if the track drags on a bit more that necessary.

Music

Review: Tomorrow’s Harvest by Boards of Canada

It’s been seven years since we last heard from Boards of Canada, and not much has changed. At least they’ve ignored the whole dubstep thing.

It may be selfish to expect progress or surprises, but Sandison and Eoin can be understood for sticking with what works. They pick up right where the excellent Trans Canada Highway left off. Overall, it’s less bland and rambly than The Campfire Headphase and less scattershot than Geogaddi.

They take their time building momentum, leading off with two intro tracks. “Reach for the Dead” is a mournful piece that doesn’t really pick up speed until the halfway mark. “Jacquard Causeway” feels like an odd waltz until the melody coalesces and you realize you’ve been listening to a lurching 4/4 beat the entire time. It’s the most unique thing they’ve done in awhile. “Cold Earth” is impeccable track, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard from them before, and this is part of the problem.

Music

Review: Sleepmakeswaves: And So We Destroyed Everything

It may have started with Hex or Pure, Impure, but I give credit to Radiohead for bringing so-called post rock to the masses. In retrospect, I’d never have imagined a record as surreal, dour, and uncompromising as OK Computer to have been such a huge mainstream success. Heck, the lead single was a 7-minute track without a chorus.

Yet it was a success. In its wake, bands like Tortoise and Sigur RÃ³s found mainstream exposure, and what we called “progressive rock” in the 1970’s was suddenly worth pursuing again.

Fortunately, we’ve dispensed with the 15-minute drum solos, the sequined pants, and the Hobbits. Modern progressive rock is more concerned with pursuing texture and unorthodox structure. Isis prove that heavy metal doesn’t have to be stupid, and Mastodon gleefully prove that it can be darned smart while keeping tongue firmly in cheek.

Then there are the sensitive kids doing instrumental guitar rock sans noodly guitar solos.

Music

Review: Exai by Autechre

Autechre has marked their 20th anniversary with their eleventh record. Exai=”XI,” get it? In terms of imaginative titles, that’s right up there with Van Halen II or Chicago LXIV. However, this record lacks appearances by Peter Cetera or Sammy Hagar. That may or may not be an important distinction, depending on your tastes.

It’s a long one, clocking in right at two hours. At that length, some inconsistency might be expected, but this is cohesive in a way none of their records has been since Confield. If I had to compare it with anything, I’d say it’s a less haunted and more assertive cousin to Oversteps.

It’s always tempting to seek a concept in their records. Confield was about abstraction in texture, Untilted pushed rhythmic boundaries, and Oversteps focused on melodic complexity. If there’s such a theme here, it’s in the sound design itself. The palette is less alien and more visceral, and it’s as if they’ve laid off many of the algorithmic tweaks.

Music

Review: m b v by My Bloody Valentine

m b v

1991 was a mixed bag in music. KLF was at the top of their subversive game, the Pixies really began to slip, and a few bands out of Seattle were starting to make waves. What were the Brits doing? Jesus Jones and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Things were tough back then. We had beepers for heaven’s sake.

My Bloody Valentine had been critics’ darlings over several singles and one intriguing album of off-kilter pop music, and their live shows became notorious for being punishing, abrasive affairs. They gained some notoriety in the States, then disappeared into the studio to do a follow-up record. Two years and $250,000 later, they released Loveless, now considered a cornerstone in modern music.

Stunning as Loveless was (and still is), it would take Kevin Shields 21 years to deliver a follow-up. Last November, Sheilds promised that the new album would be released before the end of the year.

Music

Frankie Rose: Interstellar

Frankie Rose, Interstellar

There’s a bit of a trend towards late-1980’s nostalgia on the independent scene lately. Bands like Wild Nothing and M83 do a fair job of approximating the work of groups from labels like 4AD and Creation, but the resulting material comes off as more slavish tribute than distinct output.

Frankie Rose deftly avoids that trap. She’s not above appropriating a few techniques and flourishes, but her work is her own. The Cocteau Twins would never have been as confident and propulsive as Rose is on the lead single, and her arrangements show a level of competence and wit that just wasn’t present back then.

She doesn’t limit herself to a specific time period, though. The stunning vocal harmonies on “Gospel/Grace” owe more to the atmospherics of Lida Husik and Lush than they do to anything from the Reagan years, and “Apples for the Sun” wouldn’t be out of place on a Boards of Canada record.

Music

Dave Brubeck 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck passed away one day short of his 90th birthday. Most people know him for “Take Five,” which might be the most popular piece of music ever written in 5/4. One of his talents was performing in odd time signatures, and he was able to do so with grace and flair.

Time Out is one of the best-selling jazz records in history, and rightfully so. The follow-up was Time Further Out, which I consider to be an even better record, and his 1963 Carnegie Hall performance is phenomenal.

He was never the biggest revolutionary on the scene, but he never aspired to that. He was a tremendous influence on pianists and composers who followed, and he leaves us with a splendid body of recorded work.

Music

Rush: Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

They’re back. And it’s about time.

Rush has been in a holding pattern for the last few records. They’ve had their moments, sure, but little of their recent output has been all that engaging. Thankfully, that isn’t the case here. This is easily their best work since Presto, and it’s a welcome return to form.

Everything about the record is confident and self-assured. Much has been said of the lyrics, which follow an underlying narrative, but this isn’t side one of 2112. Neil Peart’s lyrics are much more down-to-earth than they were in the halcyon days of the late 1970’s. In fact, he’s laid aside most of his pretensions, and if I hadn’t read the pre-release hype, I’d have been unaware this was a concept album.

Music

Anenon: The Inner Hue

Anenon: Inner Hue

Sometimes music doesn’t have to do anything. It just has to be there. This record is a good example.

It’s not that nothing happens, but this album is more a collection of still pictures than a film in motion: in this case, a blurred sequence of sepia tones and sunbleached photographs frayed and wrinkled at the edges. Brian Simon utilizes a narrow pallette of saxophone, Rhodes piano, and a Roland 909 (ah, respecting the classics!). Sometimes limitations are the best creative spur, and that’s well apparent here.

Possible points of triangulation might be Helios and the MFA but more than anything, the record feels like the first time I heard My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. It’s gauzy and disorienting, but with a sense of rhythm that keeps things grounded to some extent. Simon’s saxophone is rarely distinguishable, being relegated to providing texture more than melody. Though half the tracks lack percussion, the pulse is always just there under the surface.

Music

But Is It Art?

Scott Rickard is a mathematics professor at Dublin College. He also has a keen interest in music, which makes sense, as the two fields have some common points of interaction.

Repetition is a common trait to all music. I’m not just talking about Philip Glass and his tedious 2-hour arpeggio exercises; recurring patterns, no matter how tenuous, can be found in even the most complex music. It’s hardwired into our brains somewhere.

As an experiment, Rickard endeavored to write a piece of music “devoid of any pattern,” one in which there’s no repetition whatsoever. He’s not the first to try this. Schoenberg and others have resorted to questionable mathematical and arbitrary systems to avoid conscious choice in the past, but nowadays, we’ve got technology on our side. Oh, what a bleak and horrible future we live in!

Does it work? Yes. Is it music? Technically, yes.

So…art? As Zappa once said, that’s for the critics to decide.

Music

Today in Music History

On this day in 1957, Jimmy Smith began recording a series of sessions that would be compiled as The Sermon!

The first song recorded was “J.O.S.” (for “Jimmy Oscar Smith”). It’s a fast-moving 32-bar blues buoyed by Smith’s deft pedalwork and Donald “Duck” Bailey’s drumming. Though Bailey would be replaced by the unstoppable juggernaut Art Blakey in subsequent sessions, he’s a great fit for this setting. Kenny Burrell is magnificent on the guitar, but the real shock is the trumpet work of Lee Morgan, who was 19 years old at the time of the recording.

Morgan is brash and cocky, and what’s more, he’s got the talent to get away with it. At 6:24, you can hear his solo running well past the chorus. Smith stabs a dissonant chord to signal him, and Morgan’s either blowing too hard to notice or he feels like mischief. In either case, it’s a dose of humor that fits right in with the informal feeling of the record.

Music

Bon Iver

Justin Vernon’s first album under the Bon Iver moniker was the unlikely product of a ruined relationship, a battle with mononucleosis, and a self-imposed hermitage in the northern woods of Wisconsin. It was a sparse, ramshackle record that was by turns confessional and willfully obscure.

Coming as something as a surprise, For Emma, Forever Ago was also quite successful.

The self-titled sophomore record replaces some of the intimacy with a grander cinematic sweep, but Vernon’s artistic voice is still much the same. In “Holocene,” he insists that “I was not magnificent,” just before the song kicks in and proves him quite wrong. Magnificence on a humble scale is how Bon Iver operates, and the addition of a judiciously placed, and sometimes unorthodox, ensemble helps convey that.

Music

The Trouble With Normal

It always gets worse.

By now, you’ve likely heard “Friday” by Rebecca Black. It’s easy to criticize on any number of levels. It’s vapid. It’s an idol farm’s vanity project to to milk rich parents of their money. It’s overproduced to the point of sterility. The singer’s voice is so saturated by pitch correction that it sounds like fingernails being raked across a blackboard.

In short, it’s everything that’s wrong with pop music. But it’s also the new normal. For all the mocking and vitriol, everyone’s heard it.

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Seefeel

Last fall, Seefeel showed up out of the blue to perform new material at Warp’s 20th Anniversary concert. An EP titled Faults was released shortly thereafter.

This came as something of a surprise, as I hadn’t heard anything from them since 1996. It’s hard to grasp that it’s been 17 years since I first heard them on the astounding Pure, Impure EP.

Lots of things from that period sound pretty dated. Surprisingly, Seefeel’s output doesn’t.

Music

Attention All Planets of the Solar Federation

If you recognize that quote, you’re a Rush geek like me. If not, I really can’t help you.

There may be no other band in popular music that has so sharply illuminated the divide between critics and normal folks. On one hand, cool guys like Robert Christgau and JD Constantine despise them. On the other, they’ve sold 40 million records and they continue to fill arenas worldwide.

If it were my career, I’d take the opinion of millions of loyal fans over some guy who gets paid to write witty boilerplate any time. I’ve always wondered how the guys in Rush felt about all this, and now we’ve got the answer.

Beyond the Lighted Stage is a documentary produced by the same guys who did last year’s great Iron Maiden film. For a band that’s been around for nearly four decades, it’s well past time we got something like this.

And fortunately, it’s marvelously done.

Music

Autechre: Move of Ten

Only three months, and we’ve got the EP to accompany Oversteps. Thank goodness Bleep is doing American distribution. With the dollar the way it is, this would have been about $623.95 if I’d ordered it from England.

No record is worth that much unless it has Tiny Tim. We’ve got a recession going here, and we have to hitch a ride with the Russians just to get into orbit these days. I mean, really. One has to have priorities.

But, is it worth ten bucks? Definitely.

Music

Autechre: Oversteps

As usual, I never know what to expect from a new Autechre record. The fact that the Designers Republic was back on board for artwork should have been something of a clue.

This is certainly the most consistent and approachable that they’ve been in years. The record is restrained and focused, and there’s a real emphasis on melody. They’ve jettisoned the hyper-abstraction and claustrophobic mixing of Untilted, and the disjointed chaos of Quaristice has been reined in. What’s left is an album that doesn’t convey the need to prove anything.

It’s all the more satisfying for that.

This is a patient record with a unified character. There’s a sense of space and breathing room that’s quite welcome. The atmosphere is reminiscent of Envane’s quieter moments and several tracks lack percussion entirely.

Before everyone starts screaming, “OMG ambient record! They remade Amber FTW,” bear in mind that this is a more mature animal.

Audio Technology Music

You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is

The Beatles: Revolver

I doubt there’s ever been a piece of music that’s had as much of an effect on my life as Revolver. Never mind that it was recorded half a decade before I was born. In fact, I wouldn’t hear it until the early 1980’s, when the survivors of the “psychedelic culture” supposedly inspired by this record had gone on to become corporate raiders and investment bankers.

According to some sources, the Beatles were somewhat influential on musical trends and cultural movements in the late 1960’s. I wasn’t around for that, and I couldn’t have cared less. What attracted me to them was the sheer talent they had, and the quality of their output, which has never been matched.

Like just about everyone else, I’ve heard their early output all my life. It’s hardwired into our cultural DNA. I wasn’t as familiar with their middle-period input until a friend gave me a copy of Revolver.

Music

“Heaven will smell like the airport”

I’ve been involved with music most of my life. I don’t recall when it began, but I can clearly remember first hearing Giant Steps and the Bartok quartets. Once in a great while, a piece of music will give me an epiphany as strong as the first pangs of love, something majestic and transcendent.

From adolescence on, I set about trying to create something that could generate that sort of reaction. I think I came close a few times. In one medium or another, I think we all get that chance a few times in our lives.

Neko Case certainly has. Several times, she’s nailed it perfectly.

Music

Clark: Totems Flare Review

I was absolutely smitten with Chris Clark’s 2006 album, Body Riddle. It didn’t grab me immediately, but with time, it grew to be one of my favorite records released that year.

Last year’s Turning Dragon left me a bit cold. The reclusive genius of previous records had become quite the extrovert for a change. Much of the abstraction and complexity of his previous worked had been toned down in favor of more danceable, and dare I say, sunny material.

So, with Totems Flare, I had no clue which way he’d go. Turns out he went both ways at once, and with striking results.

Music

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

I’m not a fan of the man’s music, but there’s no denying he had talent. He released the highest-selling record in history. I doubt there is a person alive who doesn’t know who he was.

Nor will I speak for his mistakes and possible misdeeds. For a time, he deliberately fostered a surreal public image, and though he stopped doing so in the 1990’s, his eccentric persona would continue to haunt him through the rest of his life. There’s no doubting he made some poor choices.

But that’s not the point. We all watched this terrified, lonely, shell-shocked man disintegrate over the last two decades, and we were entertained. We should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Music

On Joe Satriani

I went to high school in the late 1980s. I was a musician. You can sum the whole situation up in two simple words: hair metal.

So yeah, I knew who Joe Satriani was. Even though I was a bass player at the time (and, given that I could read and write music, an overemployed one), I lived in the land of lead guitar players.

You see, there were “rhythm guitarists” and “lead guitarists.” Though lead guitarists were known at times to be seen playing rhythm, it was made quite clear that their purpose in life was to step up and cut loose after the second chorus with the obligatory guitar solo.

The guitar solo is a unique vehicle for proving the musician’s alpha-male status among other musicians, as well as ensuring that he would get laid like a madman (1).

Of course, there wasn’t much to it.

Music

Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae

Quadrangle

The aptly-named Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae is now up in its entirety on Bleep. It’s another 13 versions of tracks from Quaristice, comprising 149 minutes of material.

If you’re keeping count, that’s 4:50:26 of material they’ve released this year.

Music

Quaristice: a Second Perspective

I received my hardcopy of this today. I splurged and ordered the limited-edition, which has a second disc entitled, Quaristice (Versions).

I expected the second disc to be a set of one-off remixes, but it turned out to be quite different. To put it bluntly, this is the record Quaristice should have been.

My primary complaint with the album was that the individual pieces were too short, and that it lacked a sense of overaching structure. That’s not the case here.

Eleven tracks from the album proper are represented, reworked and expanded. In almost every case, they benefit tremendously. While Quaristice felt like it had quite a bit of filler, this disc seems both more disciplined and better developed.