Links:
Neil Young

The album is riddled with brilliant (but not overzealous) steel guitar phrases, and appropriate short harmonica and piano hints. Emmylou Harris even sneaks a perfect backing vocal onto the apocalyptic "Red Sun." The final blow is the most transcendental, as Young gathers all the album's messages about love and loss to a head as he proclaims: "I'm looking for a job / I don't know what I'm doing / my software's not compatible with you / But this I can't deny / I know that you can fly / 'cause I'm here on the ground without you." I think what makes Silver & Gold so gratifying is that it's not about precious metal, or possession. It's really about everything that matters.

-Al Cordray
[ top of page ]

Links:
Jello Biafra
Seattle Independent Media Center
eP WTO Editorial

Anyone still questioning whether or not Jello Biafra has been doing his part to promote the Dead Kennedys back catalog--as well as the political fervor that spawned their brand of surf punk--should pick up Live from the Battle in Seattle, stuff it securely in their mouth and promptly shut the fuck up. Concocted when Jello and Krist Novoselic were participating on the Spitfire Spoken Word tour as a musical protest to accompany the planned WTO demonstrations in Seattle on November 30th of last year, and including Gina Mainwal on drums and Kim Thayil on guitar (his first appearance since the demise of Soundgarden), The No WTO Combo was a powerhouse of musical and political ideology. And if you weren't lucky enough (or too scared to brave entering the curfew zone in downtown Seattle) to catch their show with Spearhead, this little gem will long do its part in making sure we remember what went down that week.

The show was originally supposed to take place at Seattle's Showbox on November 30th at the height of the protests, but when Seattle's Powers That Be realized that their city was being systematically shut down by tens of thousands of peaceful protestors, they clamped down and doused downtown in teargas and rubber bullets, declaring both a curfew and a "no protest zone." The show was rescheduled for the following night (Jello and Krist played an acoustic set along with Spearhead at a club just outside the curfew zone). Those 400 or so people (half the number of tickets originally sold) who realized that going to the rescheduled show meant "legitimate business" and therefore allowed them into the downtown corridor, were treated to a short set of some intensely powerful music. Jello started off with his typical long-winded yet well-intended political rants; describing the previous day's protests and congratulating everyone who participated for making a noticeable and unforgettable difference. Then the band launched into a blistering three-song powerdive that included the DK's "Let's Lynch the Landlord," two original songs penned by Biafra for the occasion ("New Feudalism" and "Electronic Plantation"), and "Full Metal Jackoff," a song Jello did with fellow punk stalwarts D.O.A. a few years back. Somebody was smart enough to record the set and after some mixing courtesy Jack Endino, here we have that beautiful moment captured for all who participated to remember why they were there, and for those who weren't to sit up and pay attention to why they should (and why they better) be there next time.

-Craig Young
[ top of page ]

-Sabrina Haines
[ top of page ]

Links:
Pole

-Mark Teppo
[ top of page ]

E-mail:
Project Hate

-Sabrina Haines
[ top of page ]

Links:
Rapoon

Returning to his first artistic ambition--painting--Storey has built this album around twelve representative pictures which served as the visual impression for the audio tracks. Soleilmoon--continuing their grand tradition of excellent packaging--has enclosed over-large postcards of these pictures with the (limited) release of this disc. Instrumental music--soundscapes--have always had a visual element that they inspire and the accompanying postcards add a wonderful layer to the drifting voices and tones and beats which make up this album. Navigating By Colour is a fascinating glimpse into the creative process (and the end result) of an artist who thinks both sonically and visually. I now know what "Cerulean" sounds like; the audible differences between the "Blue Hemisphere" and the "Red Hemisphere" are clear to me; there is texture and tonality to "Sienna." Art is inseparably woven into music with Rapoon and this is your guidebook.

-Mark Teppo
[ top of page ]

Links:
Rorschach Test

-Steve Weatherholt
[ top of page ]

-Craig Young
[ top of page ]

Links:
Sinergy

-Sabrina Haines
[ top of page ]

Links:
Snake River Conspiracy

You never really want to define things by what they aren't, but I can't help it with some of these songs. SRC is No Doubt without the ska. SRC is Garbage without the infinite layers of guitars that Butch Vig et al. do so well. SRC is Nine Inch Nails without the angst and Trent's whiny vocals (wait, that's a good thing!). SRC is the Cure without the melancholy. (They make the Cure's "Love Song" passably their own with an injection of sweet sugar that Robert Smith could never endure or pretend to have.) SRC is Catatonia without the Welsh accents. SRC makes me wish Coptic Rain had gotten a label deal here in America instead of being relegated to the cut-out bins of industrialized German back alley record stores.

This would have been the shit three years ago. Buy it anyway, 'cause if this one is successful, there'll be another. And that one may live up to the shivering S & M promise hinted behind every snarling guitar attack and come-hither lip curl from Tobey Torres. Hey, the bull market has popped. It's time for long-term investments.

-Mark Teppo
[ top of page ]

-Hope Lopez
[ top of page ]

Links:
They Might Be Giants Home

So as I said, it got me thinking: what do stores do with their overstock of CDs that don't sell? I can't imagine it's much different than any other retailer--they return them to the distributor who either packs them away in a warehouse somewhere or tries to destroy them, possibly by just dumping them in a landfill. Not only would on-demand printing of compact discs therefore be more efficient in terms of copies made vs. copies sold, but it's probably more environmentally sound. I like it.

The music contained on Undercover comprises nine tracks and a measly twelve-and-a-half minutes--it would fit nicely burned onto a CD alongside their previous MP3-only album, Long Tall Weekend, (the first three tracks of Undercover had actually been on Long Tall Weekend's pre-release tracklist). "Rest A While" starts you rockin' right out of the gate, with a big guitar sound and a few offbeat breaks, followed by the light and airy "Working Undercover" with its catchy "sha-la la-la-la" chorus and clever lyrics about a counterfeit rock band faking it so "The Man" can keep tabs on the kids attending shows. "I Am a Human Head" is breathy and slinky, but almost too offbeat--even though it's the longest song in the group, it slides by without grabbing too much attention.

On the other hand, the instrumental "Empty Bottle Collector" is fat and bouncy with a funky horn which would fit right in as an Austin Powers scene transition, and "On the Drag" flat-out rocks, ranking right up there as one of their most infectious yet. I could do without the three brief Radio They Might Be Giants bumpers on the "album," but they can be neat to have--if you randomly shuffle them in, it's like you're actually listening to the radio. Finally, they finish with an almost Voivod-sounding version of "Robot Parade," which will be on "No!"--their upcoming children's album--in less of a speed-metal format. Combined with Working Undercover for the Man, Long Tall Weekend feels less like a collection of B-sides, and if you think of Undercover more as an extended single with bonus tracks, it's well worth the $8 on its own.

-Paul Goracke
[ top of page ]

Links:
Urban Dance Squad

And so it is with Artanica. No better or worse than the last three albums but nevertheless, just average. So, disappointed with my conclusion, I made it a mission to figure out what I thought the difference was between when I thought Urban Dance Squad was great and what I think of them now. It came down to two things which I think are directly related to one another: First off, the rhythm section (Silly Sil on bass and Stix on percussion) sounds lazy and uninterested to be playing on Artanica. None of the songs jump off of the album or have the sort of groove that these fine musicians are capable of producing. Second, this laziness is affecting everyone else in the band. Tres Manos, whom I consider to be one of the most inventive guitarists to have graced a crossover band (he's the Keith Richards of rap-rock), has the chops and plays them, but he plays on Artanica like he's just playing along. There is none of the fire that he can most certainly conjure up. And DJ DNA is just plain underpresent. His work in the past is what helped make Urban Dance Squad so diverse and amazing. Rude Boy is the only one who really sounds like he wants the album to be made. His lyrical meter and tonal range are pure bad-ass; up there with Zak DeLarocha.

With this said, Artanica is still better than 75% of the genre.

-Jeff Ashley
[ top of page ]

Links:
The Hafler Connection

(The Hafler Trio has been on the fringes of experimental music for about forever now, beginning as a pseudo-scientifically backed experiment into the effect of sonic environments on listeners and gradually moving into explorations of sonic ambience. Once a duo of Chris Watson and Andrew McKenzie, never really a trio, H3O have become just a one-man operation, though still completely enigmatic.)

For Japanese noisemaker Akifumi Nakajima (who records under the Aube moniker), H30 meant a delightfully ambient quarter hour of reconstructed music. Known for his ambient landscapes built around the source of only one object (water, fire, metal, heartbeats, pages from the Bible, cardiograms, you know that sort of thing), Aube sources glass this time around with stellar results.

Lilith--Scott Gibbons--delivers the second fifteen on this disc and delves more into the disturbed landscapes of broken tones and lost radio transmissions. Pirated deep space pulses mingle with the fractured overhead tones of public address systems and the spattered sound of broken radio signals. Not as restful as the Aube track, but still evocative of mysterious landscapes reminiscent of the lost worlds of 1950s science fiction.

P.A.L. take a different approach, actually remixing two Hafler Trio tracks for their contribution of "When You Thought Your Hard Disk Was Going to Die." A staple of the Ant-Zen recording scene, P.A.L. begin by fragmenting audio discourse and quickly expand (in a mind-blowing industrialized factory gone amok kind of way) into harsher electronic realms that are split and jumbled and jumbled and split until you can't remember where the power button on your stereo is.

The final part of the hour is relegated to Propeller, Mark Spybey's other side project (Dead Voices on Air being his primary project after leaving zoviet*france). A pleasant respite after the assault of P.A.L., "Mouths Like Bailing Twine" is filled with a distant echoing beat and a sad little trumpet melody.

In true Hafler Trio fashion, there's actually a fifth track. Once upon a time, Dimitri della Failla had hoped to snag a Hafler Trio original for this slot (and how cool and sly would that have been!), but that may no longer be the case. Uncredited, we can only guess as to the origins of this final soundscape as we get lost in the distinct tones that scream over the metallic underpinnings of the track. The Hafler Trio has a long legacy of disinformation and mysterious methods behind their unique approach to music and Hushush's initial release, Four Ways of Saying H3O, fulfills a dual purpose of paying homage to an influential musical heritage as well as introducing an exciting new label.

-Mark Teppo
[ top of page ]

-Jason Haines
[ top of page ]

Links:
Voltaire

Almost Human, his follow-up, shares a similar cover/content disconnect, but in reverse. It's pretty obvious from the "I(heart)NY" coffee cup, sunglasses and headphones that it's not meant to be taken too seriously, but the lyrics within never really find the seams in my skull through which to crawl inside and make a comfy home. The music is still strong; if anything, it's actually stronger, with slight touches of pop hooks and a growing comfort in Voltaire's deep crooning. The title track bounces along joyfully, "The Headless Waltz" readily conjures a mental vision of a musical narrator cavorting around the guillotine platform, and "Alchemy Mondays" is a fun show tune poking fun of the Goth scene; but they just go to show that the nebulous "it" which pushes good music into great is just as difficult to create as it is to describe.

-Paul Goracke
[ top of page ]

Links:
cEvin Key

Wild Planet, his second and much ballyhooed compilation by Subconscious Communications, is directly oncourse. With a host of old reliables and a few new faces, this new compilation makes for one of the coolest electronic releases I've heard in a while. And as with everything that cEvin puts his hands on, Wild Planet is produced, mixed, and sequenced with the utmost strict professionalism. Everything on this record is amazing.

Much like its predicesor, the Paradym Shift compilation, Wild Planet harbors remixes and original material by Download, A Duck, platEAU, Doubting Thomas, Skinny Puppy, The Tear Garden and Dead Voices on Air. The newcomers are Twilight Circus, Philth, Floatpoint, cEvin Key (solo), Lustmord, Off and Gone and Legendary Pink Dots--all mostly containing members from the rotating roster of musicians that make up the projects that cEvin keeps close at hand.

Nothing on Wild Planet falls into the electronic climate that has become us. Instead it is filled with beatifully ambient compositions as tight as they are loose, as rehearsed as they are improvised. The biggest surprise actually came as a suprise (especially after the release of Remix Dystemper's version of the same song) with a remix of Puppy's "Rodent." Armed with little more new than extra-fat rapid-fire synth lines layered well into the mix and a wind down exit, this one sounds as good as the first time I ever heard the song.

And as if back from beyond, A Duck (Dwayne Gottel) "Quackerz" is a violent techno reminder that Dwayne had the shit before anyone did. The always amazing Phil Western shape-shifts his way between five of the projects with the high point being his project with D Handrabur, Off and Gone. Lustmord is also a must mention, the song "Infinite Domain" takes on the hue of a jungle in hell (think Apocolypse Now). A truly beautiful song that one must hear.

There is not a bad moment on Wild Planet. It is a great way to get exposed to a lot of amazing music that you might not otherwise hear. Oh...and be careful about falling asleep to it.

-Jeff Ashley
[ top of page ]

Links:
Witness U.K.

-Hope Lopez
[ top of page ]

Links:
The Yo-Yo's

-Steve Weatherholt
[ top of page ]

<-Prev  1  2