Vromb
Rayons
Ant Zen

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Vromb

Hugo Girard is a busy man. While his Vromb project has been in existence for a decade now, it has only been the last few years that he has become prolific with his output. 2003 saw three releases by Vromb with Rayons being his fourth full-length record. The focus in this record is on light, on what rays of light can sound like when converted into a musical experience.

"Klinikum" rises and falls with swooping curves, modulated tones which peak and ebb like the movement of light across a living room floor. The sounds on Rayons are completely fabricated on digital and analog equipment. Girard isn't experimenting with taking concrete data from some sort of scientific equipment and converting this signals to music; the tracks of Rayons are built by hand and are thematically structured to leave an impression of a visual experience on the listener. And so the ebb and flow of "Klinikum" is like watching a time-lapse film of light patterns moving across a floor.

There are beat patterns to some of these tracks, a sensation of movement which corresponds to the pace of the listener. "Éclairs" is a rendition of a thunderstorm. While you might stand under a tree and watch the stabs of lightning for awhile, when the rain starts to fall -- light glittering off the individual drops of rain as they come down -- you will consider better cover from the weather. The storm will follow, lightning breaking the sky behind you, the shining curtain of rain advancing upon your heels.

"Rayons" interjects some spoken voice bits (hmph, I guess not everything is sample free) into a scattered cut-up style that moves from beat landscape to washes of sound before vanishing in a buzzing hash of chattering noise. "La Rayure" stomps through the room like a fat beam of white light, a brilliant pulse of pure energy who incandescent flashes leave trails of sparks on your retinas. "Perpendiculaire" feels like you are riding an infinite conveyer belt, humming past broad windows which allow the light to spatter you in wide stripes. You can close your eyes and still see the light and dark patterns playing out against your eyelids. "Circuit Imprimé" chatters like sunlight sparkling off the water of a lake. You can feel the chop of the waves against the bottom of your boat, rocking you back and forth, while the scattered light dances across the watery landscape. The closing track, "Deuxième Générateur," is gentler than the preceding tracks, filled with undulating waves of soft noise and the whirring pulse of an oscillating tone. The light of "Deuxième Générateur" is man-made, colored by our grip on the prism, and less permanent than the brilliant light from the sun. This light is powered by machinery and, as the power dies, so does the light. Girard touches upon night with this final track, as the tones and the rivers of sound fade out in a rising note of panic and apprehension, you are left in an environment bereft of light.

Girard's approach to crafting the music of Rayons is creative and innovative and, ultimately, it is his muse. You don't need to know that the impetus of the tracks is an effort to reconstruct light events on a musical scale. Vromb's style of ambient music -- flush with glitch and electronic beats -- is engaging and always listenable. But knowing how and why he makes the songs he does adds a level on enjoyment. Instrumental music isn't just meant to be noise in the background; it should also engage your brain. Rayons is twice as fascinating if you are willing to dream along with it. Excellent.

Theory of Ruin
Front Line Poster Child
Escape Artist Records

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Theory of Ruin

Front Line Poster Child is the follow up to 2002's Counter-Culture Nosebleed, and anyone familiar with Alex Newport's penchant for vise-tight noise knuckling will not be disappointed with this five-song EP. It starts in typical Theory of Ruin style with "Hijo de un Guapo" -- short jabs of disjointed guitar that briefly hints in an off-handed way at Art of Noise's "Peter Gunn" before erupting into a neurotic fit of heavy that feels like a two-by-four smacked upside an unsuspecting head. The band (Newport on guitar and vocals, Ches Smith on drums, and David Link on bass) have taken Fugazi's penchant for off-kilter avant-jazz tinkering and turned it into a game of garbage disposal chicken. You know the game...where you put your hand down the sink into the garbage disposal and trust that your buddy won't flick the "on" switch before you pull it back out. Never played it? Here's your chance. Newport's experience at capturing the essence of a band's raw energy and shining it up without glossing things over with unneeded studio trickery is on full display here. His band is tight -- his approach, merciless. Front Line Poster Child is a brilliant display of irony, wit and amplified distemperment. Think of it as sonic dentistry without the Novocain. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Click here for an interview with Theory of Ruin.

Adjacency Pair
Adjacency Pair
Hands Productions

The CD comes in a simple green sleeve and there isn't any information about the identity of Adjacency Pair. There isn't the brutish push of a press release one-sheet to confuse the reviewer. There is simply the music. Adjacency Pair -- whomever they may be -- simply prefer to let the music do the talking, or rather, as it turns out as I hear these ten tracks, to let the music whisper.

Buoyed by gentle ambient washes, minute clicks, and just the ghost of noise, the songs of Adjacency Pair are marvelous excursions to quiet restful places. "Maghio" washes over you like lambent moonlight, the flickering motion of the lunar glow caressing your face. "Noyaii" bubbles and chatters like something from an Arovane record, the beats a gentle propulsion beneath the bright slow tones of the melody. A metallic susurration of old steam pipes drives "Aphraq," a symphony of half-inch pipes gorting and jetting white stacks of cold smoke.

There is a chiaroscuro world being built here, a land of flickering light and moving shadow. The tracks crackle with restrained energy, buzz with the subtle movement of electronic pulses. Streamers of gossamer light arc overhead like atmospheric draperies of the Aurora Borealis. "Kiswahjola" takes you to the edge of a cliff, the dark sea undulating beneath you, the sky alight with the reds and greens and yellows of the phantom light. "Yugaqh" undulates on an endless journey towards a horizon flickering with dawn. Shadows stretch out on either side of you, a contrail of sparking light dazzles your wake. A resolute hum echoes in your chest, a slow melody which is held aloft by its own weightless construction. "Elambah" shivers with a single shortwave signal, an abrupt signal fragmented by the corrosive atmosphere. Surrounding this fractured signal is the glittering sky, a dome of luminous curtains.

Adjacency Pair craft a debut which transports the listener to an antediluvian country which exists prior to the invention of language, where all communication is accomplished through sound and sensation. The track titles suggest a guttural, yet lyrical, tongue which is filled with breath and space, reflecting the open and infinite vista of the sky which is constantly filled with arcs of prismatic light. Beautiful.

Dani Siciliano
Likes...
!K7

Dani Siciliano is probably best known as the distinctive female jazz voice behind much of Mathew Herbert's work. But on her debut, Likes..., she steps out from behind the shadow of her long time companion to give us 11 tracks of solo material that drifts between sultry jazz, downtempo electronica, 21st circuitry soul, and a whole lot of heart. Four years teaching herself sequencing, sampling and other studio staples has been a journey worth sharing, and while much of the programming on Likes... is subtle and subdued, it allows Siciliano to turn, twist and shape melodies into some very beautiful tones with a gorgeous voice that falls somewhere between the dreamy narcotic haze of Hope Sandoval and the sexy "come hither" purr of Jennifer Charles. Whether creating overdubbed textures to color the electronic backdrops, or curling up around the microphone like a long lost lover finally come home, Siciliano's voice smoothes over any rough edges and keeps your undivided attention for the album's entirety. Favorites here include a delicate and unsuspecting cover of "Come as You Are," and "Remember to Forget 1," Likes... closer, with its simple-yet-elegant refrain of "I'll just remember to forget you." File under: Delicious.

Valley of the Giants
Valley of the Giants
Arts & Crafts

Valley of the Giants begins at an old farmhouse in rural Ontario in the dead of an unforgiving Canadian winter, with six friends sitting around a television set watching Michael Crichton's Westworld while looking for inspiration before beginning a recording session together. Those six are Anthony Seck (Shalabi Effect), Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene), Charles Spearin ( Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think), Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Silver Mount Zion), Dierdre Smith (Strawberry), and Raoul Tangeuy. And if you're familiar at all with their musical pedigrees, then you can already imagine the kind of slo-core tonal ambience they would create together.

Most of Valley of the Giants is innocuous enough -- vast soundscapes of color that subtly shift hues like midwinter's sun creeping over the western end of a desolate desert valley. The yearning fiddle recalls Australia's Dirty Three, and on "Westworld" and the album's closer, "Bala Bay Inn," Dierdre Smith's beautiful voice is absolutely mesmerizing. However, the standout on Valley of the Giants is the plaintive "Whaling Tale," whose quiet electronic loops and muted guitar hang as an aural backdrop behind a whaler's haunting tale of a doomed rock penguin. In the midst of pulling a dead whale onboard the whaler's factory ship, a rock penguin hops onto the leviathan and holds on precariously, hoping to land safely onboard the ship to avoid slipping into the waiting jaws of a group of killer whales that have been breakfasting on the whalers' fresh kills. The factory boat pitches and yaws against the giant swells of a cold and grey Antarctic Ocean, and after struggling valiantly to hold his footing and almost near the top, the rock penguin slips and falls off the dead whale and back into the frigid waters, where he is immediately devoured. The whalers, visibly saddened, could only watch.

The poignant irony of "Whaling Tale" is so sublime and so haunting that the song draws you completely in, consuming your emotions completely with the tragic tale of one small penguin. Beautifully done, it's a rare feat that a song can be so emotionally charged without using the usual songbook contrivances, and it makes Valley of the Giants worth its price for just that one heartbreaking tale. Out in early February on Canada's Arts & Crafts label, Valley of the Giants comes recommended -- highly recommended.