Some great records just slip through the cracks. It can happen for any number of reasons, but the most common comes down to marketing, or the lack thereof. Often, labels blanch at something that can’t be easily categorized and targeted at a specific audience, and as a result, the music ends up on an excruciatingly limited press-run, or it gets delegated to a tiny label with little or no distribution reach.
Other times, it’s the fault of the artist, who for one reason or another, chooses to release a record in relative obscurity. Gescom and alot of the other folks on Skam are notorious for this, and the side-effect (intentional or not) is that these records become immensely valuable in their scarcity.
Common sense would dictate that if they were the least bit proud of their work, then the artist would seek wider distribution for it, but that’s not always the case. There’s a certain record-store-geek quotient of coolness about a 7″ that’s only one of 500 in existence, and even though the P2P networks allow for wider dissemination of the material itself, somehow the original artifact becomes a coveted totem object, seemingly worth the exhorbitant prices some folks (and yes, me, a few times) are willing to pay at auctions.
Then there are those records that just don’t fit anywhere. Case in point, the latest :zoviet*france. It’s a commissioned work, so it’s released by the organization that commissioned it (in this case Tramway), which severely cramps distribution.
It’s a shame, because even though this would seem to fall into the “special interest” niche, it’s a great record in its own right, and it’s their best work since Collusion. In case you’re not familiar with them, :zoviet*france occupy a space along with the Hafler Trio, Muslimgauze and Scanner that’s commonly referred to as “dark ambient,” “experimental” or “soundscape.” Their work skirts what is actually “music,” often relying on musique concrete, sampling and drone more than actual melodic or harmonic development. Limited appeal, to be sure, but if someone needed an introduction to the genre, this would be a good place to start.
The Decriminalization of Country Music is program music of a sort, recorded for the opening of the Tramway arts center in Glasgow in 1999. Sounds of the building’s construction were recorded and used as the basis for the six main pieces here.
Exactly which country the title alludes to, I’m not sure, but the record leans toward an indutrialized Americana. It opens with “Something Spooked the Horses,” a pulsing drone of clipped cello samples overlaid with what sounds like paper rustling in an air-conditioning vent. At 2:08, a slide-guitar sample enters and sets up a surprisingly conventional melody The effect is very similar to Eno’s Apollo, but more viscereal. It’s actually quite a beautiful piece, and it’s a small break from their other work. “Electron Gate” sets electrical interference and the sound of warbling power tools against a steady organ pulse.
“Stainless” is a short interlude that takes the guitar motif from the first track and runs it through some distortion and backmasking. “Pyroclastic Flow” opens with a rhythmic sample of what sounds to be something banging against a wire fence, while a modulated sixty-cycle hum pulses in the background. A sawtooth wave in open 5ths enters and sets up a drone very much like the Hafler Trio’s “Jenseits,” but more controlled and with a discernable beginning and end.
“Dust and Scratches” is another short variation on the opening theme, and “Duct Tape,” true to its name, contains ambient noises of tape peeling and shoes dragging across cement floor. “Purline” is an uneasy drone punctuated with a rhytmic sample of streched tape coming unspooled. “Spiitek” picks up the pattern from “Purline” but applies it to chattering tapping sounds.
The record closes with “Light Abrasion,” which moves everything up about three octaves, but never does reach what its title implies. The drone gradually modulates down, and the record closes out with a time-streched sample implying (I think) crickets fading off in the distance.
This is one of the hardest types of music to describe in words, much less critique. There’s little subjectivity in the performance, and it boils down to whether or not the listener agrees with the artist’s use of the source material. As such, the interpretation falls to the listener, not the performer, and it’ll vary widely from person to person. I happen to find this record beautiful and haunting in an odd pastoral way, while others have found it intimidating and dark. Nonetheless, it’s the most liminally involving work :zoviet*france has done, and for electronic listers accustomed to late-period Autechre and Aphex Twin, it’s not much of a stretch at all.
This record is pressed and distributed by Tramway Records (TRAM1). Currently, D.O.R. has it available.