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Gantz Graf
[Warp/PIAS]
Times are changing, musical genres are passing, yet Autechre manages to keep up with a disconcerting ease. Intelligent techno yesterday, now electronica, they couldn't care less about genres and labels and continue to inspire others with their compositions. The mould nevertheless remains extremely easily recognizable. As the opening notes of Gantz Graft unfold, you immediately feel on home ground. These great electronic strategists once again leave all emotions aside to provide us with clicks, cuts and even a semblance of voices and melodies on titles such as Dial and Cap. IV. The main line sounds harder than on their last album, Confield, but despite a rhythm as destructured as ever, these 3 new tracks seem to display more accessible melodies. In between a disordered opening and a chaotic ending, melody settles in and draws in a listener so far rather used to enduring the rawer variations of these sound technicians. Cap. IV, in keeping with the second track, also sounds like a nice surprise with its astonishing evolution... Once again, Autechre's composition appear as exercises which rules are only mastered by the composers themselves, nevertheless commanding the listener's admiration.
The CD comes with a DVD including all of the record's videos, Gantz Gaft, a spectacular effort in which sound and image are in perfect adequacy, Second Bad Vibel by Chris Cunninghamn, using a rather different method for a result quite as impressive, and Bass Cadet, which dates back to 1994 and has not aged well.
Christophe Labussière |
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White Noise
[Faith And Hope]
Manchester has always been a true breeding ground for England, providing an unrivaled string of truly talented bands. Further proof of Manchester's contribution to the music scene is the Alpinestars duet who, after their debut album ("B.A.S.I.C." in 2000) and a few EPs, now release a second album entitled White Noise. Obviously influenced by the 80s and the electro sonorities of bands such as New Order, Electronic, Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode, Glyn Thomas and Richard Woolgar didn't yet make do with a mere revisiting of the genre: next to the two singles, the extremely danceable "Snow Patrol" and "Carbon Kid", a futurist rock and seriously dancefloor-oriented number (featuring Placebo's Brian Molko as guest singer), the album displays a variety of little melodic electro pop jewels (Vital Love Disciple, Crystalnight, Snow Patrol 2) that will undoubtedly remind you of the best of New Order's Brotherhood and Technique. Despite such similarities, White Noise is a brilliant achievement, a refreshing, mature and - in spite of appearances - deeply melancholic album.
Renaud Martin |
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Naive Heart
[Boredom Products]
A monochord and almost apathetic singing, not unlike Stereolab's very own vocals, is our main guiding line through these twelve astonishing tracks. Subtle compositions, displaying melodies straight out from the best of 80s, are immediately appealing. The all electronic instrumentation is superbly gauged; it sounds like the soundtrack of some unlikely space travel à la Kraftwerk. The astonishingly syllabic articulation of the singing in English provides the female vocals with a very up to date appeal and comes as the icing on the cake of this charismatic electronica. Despite Wounds of Love, a track already featured on one of their first EPs, and Blessed Charms as tongue-in-cheek allusions to the earliest Depeche Mode period, this sensory UFO is far from anything you've heard before, brilliantly flirting between a very mature pop and a perfectly mastered old school electronica. Also available is a second limited edition CD providing more experimental versions of the album's tracks, further proof of the technical mastery of a band who manages to let the emotion of the original titles peep through totally transformed and revisited versions. Celluloide is the first CD production of Boredom Products, a Marseilles-based label so far specialized in CR-R (including Thee Hyphen's quality cold electro).
Christophe Labussière |
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The New Adventures Of Curve
[www.curve.co.uk]
Pioneers of electronic noisy pop and almost an avant-garde band when they started, Curve never lapsed into consensual music, even if it meant influencing other bands who eventually stole the show from them (starting with Garbage). Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia have nevertheless been officiating for ten years now, and this fifth album is further proof of the duet's unparalleled mastery of underground explorations. Once again under the leadership of Alan Moulder, Toni's husband and a renowned producer with an impressive list of names to his credit (Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, U2, Jesus and Mary Chain, Smashing Pumpkins...), the English duet embarked on these new adventures. With a great many computer softwares, including Pro Tools to name but a single one, and stormy guitars, bewitchment is at once again hand, topped op with Toni's sensuous and crystalline voice. Each track is a perfect achievement, from the catchy notes of Answers to Joy, the closing title featuring Dean himself as lead vocal and worthy of Sonic Youth. The New Adventures of Curve draws in the listener in a deep sound nebula. Highly recommended boarding.
Laure Cornaire |
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Hirnschlacht
[Black Rain]
More than a band, Feindlung likes to think of itself as a project whose motto might go like "Hard music, hard themes". With their debut in 1999, they built their electro-industrial music around themes such as W.W.II or the death penalty (see their excellent Sterbehilfe EP), that is not really on the flimsy side. Samples, visual effects and theatrical live performances, these Germans are obviously not afraid of sensationalism. In keeping with this concept, Hirnschlacht (literally "brain battle"), their second real album, will delight all those whose ears are only but titillated by the synthpop-EBM wave. Feindlung is into typical electro-industrial, raw and danceable music: no vocals, lots of samples (voices, war speeches and even an accordion!), a guitar in the background and always those same heavy, binary rhythms supporting strident little melodies. Alternating dancefloor hits (Glaubenskrieg, Menschenjad, Faustrecht) and tamer tracks, Hirnschlacht appears to be a nervous and rather homogenous album, but who unfortunately contributes nothing new. A good start for novice listeners maybe, but if you're a more demanding expert and up for originality and big thrills, go and look for something else or exhume your good old:Wumpscut: records.
Renaud Martin |
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Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
[Warner]
Three years after the superb The Soft Bulletin, here comes Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Flaming Lips' ninth album (except for the strange Zaireeka, consisting of four CDs to be played simultaneously!). Produced by Dave Friedman (also producer of their Mercury Rev fellows), and led by singer Wayne Coyne, America's Flaming Lips have produced since 1983 a unique psychedelic music, at once melancholic and warm, relating all sorts of exploits and extraordinary stories. Partly inspired by the death of a Japanese fan, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots talks about love, life, death and, as the title suggests, the mood swings of Yoshimi (performed by Yoshimi P-we, singer of Japanese experimental band The Boredoms), the album's main character, confronted to a human-exterminating robot in some sort of gladiators dual. Subtle, soft and (of course) psychedelic, the album's eleven tracks unfold quite naturally, richly orchestrated and at times enhanced by electronic arrangements. An album that shall delight old fans and provide them with the same emotions as The Soft Bulletin. For the others, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a perfect opportunity to discover a quite unique band and to plunge into its multicolour and unsettling universe.
Renaud Martin |
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Turn On The Bright Light
[Matador/Labels]
Spiky hairlocks, strict Italian suits and a classical musical background to impress people. They're called Interpol, a name that will make all post-cold punk highbrows jealous. Their bass, drums, guitars and vocals are the ingredients of a recipe long thought dead and buried: rock n' roll for tormented souls. An incredible spatiotemporal fault has allowed this New York combo to travel straight from the late 70s until today, their suitcases packed with the fiery of The Sound, the melancholy of the Chameleons, the raging outburst of The Fall and the melodic lines of Gang of Four. Interpol clearly pays tribute to a high quality new wave, precisely the one that hasn't yet been revisited by techno poseurs. But ask them about their influences, and these young people will obviously lie to you: they weren't yet born in the days where Joy Division, Section 25, Magazine, Echo of the Bunnymen, Sad Lovers and Giants and the likes performed in the smoky pubs of Northern England. Mind you, neither were we.
Anthony Augendre |
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Writers Without Home
[4AD/Labels]
Fortified by a prolific EP discography, Piano Magic delivers their fourth real album in six years. Besides the three musicians now obviously constituting the band's hard core, Glen Johnson has invited twelve personalities. The guest list notably includes Simon Raymonde, formerly from Cocteau Twins, who plays the piano on three tracks (especially on the dark and sublime Shot Through the Frog), Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok on Modern Jupiter, The Czars' John Grant on the haunting The Season Is Long, the androgen voice of Tram's Paul Anderson on Already Ghost, a disillusioned love complaint rhythmed by martial drums, and Bigas Luna for whom Piano Magic had released the soundtrack of "Son De Mar". So much for the male guests. The album also includes the French contribution of Charlotte Marionneau on Dutch Housing, a hauntingly melancholic piece, and the much welcome return of Caroline Potter (already featured on "Artist's Rifles", Piano Magic's previous album), on the ethereal Postal or the sly Certainty. Far from altering the dark and muffled universe crafted by Glen Johnson, this multitude of guests serves with grace the sentimental despair inhabiting this post-pop jewel case encrusted with delicate cold accents. Simply superbe.
Catherine Fagnot |
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Radio 1940
[Ad Noiseam]
It's hard to believe when you listen to his productions, but James Keeler (Wilt's only member) started his musical career as lead singer in a death metal band. Well, not so hard actually if you think of the number of musicians who transferred from noisier scenes with rather "classical" musical writing systems (starting with Scorn's Mick Harris) and eventually managed to stand out in a completely different genre... And the two CDs composing this fourth album corroborate this irrefutable fact by plunging us in over two hours of surprising (to say the least) experimental dark ambient. Not so much so by the originality of the result, but rather by the singularity of the means used to achieve it. Though an industrial designer by trade, Keeler crafts his sounds as a jeweller or a goldsmith, as the list of his instruments suggests: glass, stone, concrete, feathers, iron... but also broken records, mattresses' springs and radio noise, as a reference to the title of this concept album. For Keeler found his inspiration in the cultural history of the 40's to compose all of Radio 1940's 19 tracks, and curiously manages to transcribe the antiquated atmosphere of an era he yet never hasn't experienced. Tirelessly, he materialises the time/space relationship by creating an atmosphere fringed with astonishing sensory landscapes, and you eventually understands why the man cites Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana or Merzbow as main influences. This ambitious project is up to the capacities of a sound creator as imaginative as he's prolific.
Carole Jay |
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Xenonics K-30 is the new project of Scott Sturgiss (Pain Station, Converter...) and Leech (Navicon torture Technologies). In this album called "Automated", the two Americans enjoy themselves (if one can say so considering the ambience of the record) in a sound retranscription genre of a dehumanised future for sci-fi film soundtracks. This record is not easily accessible, but after several listenings, one finally manages to appreciate it, despite its rather cliché theme and oppressive concept! Dyplastoid and its Converter-like power crescendo is doubtlessly the most efficient track. Bonuses include three exclusive remixes (by NTT, Sleeping With The Earth and Lefthandeddecision) to be downloaded on the label's website, www.adnoiseam.net.
"O, Little Stars" (Rocket Girl), Keiron Phelan & David Sheppard's album, isn't really their deut effort since it comprises two EPs released in vinyl format only two years ago now. Nevertheless, the duo (also known as State River Widening, or concerning David Sheppard, Piano Magic or Peter Astor because he collaborated with them) offers two new, and not minor, titles at the end of the record, including vocals (on Metropolitan Horse) by famous minimalist composer Steve Reich whose influence on both musicians is more than obvious. An appropriate record for meditation and ideal for creation.
For his second effort under the name Rob(u)rang & Friends (the first record was released without the "Friends" on Noise Museum), Belgian musician Gabriel Séverin (Silk Saw, Ultraphonist, Jardins d'Usure, Moonsanto...) delivers here a strange album where several worlds mix, from the most minimalist techno to the most tribal percussions. A voice wavering between a robot's monotonous tone and African vocals' ambiences add to this surprising cocktail which appears lightly out of place among Ant-Zen's other productions. Let's also mention the participation of Olivier Moreau (Imminent) on two tracks and one remix as well as the presence of Marc Medea, Silk Saw's accomplice.
Carole Jay
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