earpollution album reviews [page 2] - issue 2.Ø3, march 2ØØØ

Angie Stone - Black Diamond
Bal-Sagoth - The Power Cosmic
Botch - We are the Romans
Cenotaph - Puked Genital Purulency
Chipsett - Chipsett
Corporation 187 - Subliminal Fear
D'Angelo - Voodoo
Enigma - The Screen Behind the Mirror
Guy - Guy III
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Helikopter-quartett

Karma to Burn - Wild Wonderful Purgatory
Libertine - See You in the Next Life
Red Giant - Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound
Rick Rizzo and Tara Key - Dark Edson Tiger
Seely - Winter Birds
Storm and Stress - Under Thunder and Fluorescent Light
Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out

Karlheinz Stockhausen Helikopter-quartett WDR Links: Karlheinz Stockhausen		Thirty years ago this would have been a classic Monty Python bit: an airborne string quartet with each member in their own helicopter. Directed madly by Graham Chapman dolled up as a General (or Minister, even!) of Musical and Military Cacophony, this bit would have been hysterically funny to watch for the five minutes that the Python boys could have squeezed out of it. Thirty years ago. When such a labor happens now, the piece runs 18 minutes with a three-minute extemporaneous coda and nine minutes of lifting off and landing, accompanied by the string section mirroring the whup-whup of the helicopter rotors with their own tremoli and glissandi. And, because you are attempting to create a serious piece of music here, the audience partakes of this extravaganza by sound and vision delivered over four columns of television monitors and four columns of speakers. The 'copters and their cargo are swooping and gliding at a distance since you don't want their "real" sound to interfere with the projected sound. Boil that down to a two-channel system in your home (minus the visuals) and you've got a half-hour of a string quartet approximating the sound of the Kronos Quartet trapped in an elevator car calling out for help as their carriage plummets sixty floors, an elevator attendant trapped in the mix who is intermittently calling out the floor numbers in German as they plummet past, and the thunderous roar of flywheels spinning uncontrollably in the background. No, wait...that's what Stockhausen is going to score next. Damn, I didn't mean to give it away. This piece perfectly sums up the biggest issue facing modern experimental music. More and more pieces are built with a visual component in mind; music constructed as part of an installation. When you remove the visual or tactile accompaniment, you're left with something that sounds perilously close to, well, noise. But then again, one man's noise is another man's Merzbow. *-Mark Teppo* [ top of page ]
Karma to Burn Wild Wonderful Purgatory MIA Records Links: Karma to Burn		Maybe I am too old to understand kids today, but when your press release is the coolest thing about a release, then the disc has really got to suck. There are just too many styles and sounds and mixes and it's not especially fast or tuneful or interesting. There isn't any creativity displayed in their musical choices either. I am not scared of this release like I was with the first few Atari Teenage Riot (still beyond me--just mindboggling--never thought disco could be that mean). I think Karma to Burn would really love to exude the same vibe as some of the DHR bands, but just isn't in the same class talent-wise, creatively, technically or even instinctually. Speaking of stink, let me phrase it in their style: "blam, blM, BLUE, SouNDsu p a n d d o w n s--anymore Nothing makes sense--Boomshappay metalpunkdoodad." Translation: a lot of aspiration, little inspiration, little talent and less skill than would be needed to pull this off. I like the highway Karma to Burn is plowing, they're just driving the wrong way and backwards. *-Sabrina Wade-Haines* [ top of page ]
Libertine See You in the Next Life Substandard Records Links: Libertine		New York's Libertine have been creating quite a stir with the press for reasons that are not quite clear to me. Their press release states that Libertine are "at once old school and cutting edge." They are certainly old school as in the '70s punk/mod/glam tradition with some (early) Mike Ness vocals--but cutting edge is not the proper word. If you are going to take from the past, at least be able to leave your own mark on it. Be a little daring and try not to sound like your influences; be Libertine and not part Clash or part Johnny Thunder or whatever. Just read their reviews and everybody labels them like some other band. Sure, bands want to get noticed and make it "big" and I can understand this, but are you adding anything to the heap or are you just rehashing days of old? Libertine have some talented musicians and could probably play anything they want, but come on guys add some spark to it, dazzle us with something with a new twist. *-Steve Weatherholt* [ top of page ]
Red Giant Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound MIA/TeePee Links: Red Giant		Sludgy, raw melodic doom that is filled with hooks and tunes that will make your mind think déjà vu without ever being able to actually pin down where you might have heard it before. Red Giant is a real melting pot of musics within the doom metal framework. There's a touch of hardcore, pinches of psychedelia, classic rock catchy hooks aplenty, jazzy time structures, stoner sludge all liberally tossed in the mix with doom. They've pinched a bit of a riff from here and mixed it with a totally different riff and created some original melodic doom that will slowly engulf your senses. Oh, you might doubt the power of Red Giant on the first listen, but they seep into your subconscious and eventually inject your brain with some chemical that will make you crave repeated listenings. Alex is a real singer in a traditional rock style rather than growling through the lyrics. The speed is mostly slow- to mid-paced and this isn't so heavy that it crushes you, rather it is weighted just enough so that you can't wriggle away. They tossed in hundreds of little noises and it has all those finishing touches that tell you that it is very well-produced by Red Giant and Ben Shigel. The guitar playing is very fluid. Best way to describe it is if Voivod, Solitude Aeternus, St. Vitus, Black Sabbath, Core, Blue Cheer, Ornette Coleman and the Obsessed managed to force an unholy merger and spawn a band. The odd part is that this comes from Cleveland (go Tribe!) instead of Mars. This is a haunting and highly recommended work of doomed genius. *-Sabrina Wade-Haines* [ top of page ]
Rick Rizzo and Tara Key Dark Edson Tiger Thrill Jockey Links: Antietam Retsin		As if we needed further proof of the incestuousness of the indie scene, Eleventh Dream Day's Rick Rizzo pairs up with Tara Key (Retsin, Antietam), snagging along the way appearances from Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley and label-mates Rick Brown and Sue Garner. The star-studded lineup is deceptive, however. The mostly instrumental Dark Edson Tiger is pastoral strum-and-fuzz that never quite takes off. Uneven and somewhat disjointed, Dark Edson Tiger is at times awash in guitar drones, at others hopelessly pounding simplistic riffs. We go from the evocative "8 Bells," made mostly from Key's guitar noodling, to the trite "As It Comes," loaded with piano, cello, viola and violin all belting silly chords. And if that doesn't jar your ears, wait until "Low Post Movement in D" rolls through. The straight-and-neat rock-out number made the album either as a last minute entry or though an unhappy clerical mistake. And yet one can't deny that the Rizzo-Key duo have a special touch. The understated "Chasing Tails" proves that much, through the felicitous marriage of Key's guitar trickery and Rizzo's keen melodic sense. *-Edgar Ortega* [ top of page ]
Seely Winter Birds Koch		Winter Birds is the fourth release (third if you consider that their second release, Julie Only, was a re-recording of their debut, Parentha See) from this Atlanta quartet. This album so completely enraptures you with its hypnotic bliss that listening to it is like slipping into the arms of a lover for a seemingly never-ending slow dance. The numbers come across like tranced-out lounge; sultry jazz grooves awash in layers of shimmering guitar. Eric Taylor's understated drumming provides perfect syncopation against Joy Waters' bass lines while overtop the sounds of Steven Satterfield and Lori Scacco's guitars are like warm, broad brush strokes gliding effortlessly across the canvas and filling the spaces between with their lush electric counterpoint. Nestled amidst this inviting soundscape are keyboards and samples, further coloring the aural picture. With all this, it's no wonder that songs like "Sapelo Sound" and "The Kangaroo Communiqué" work so perfectly--but those are just Winter Birds' instrumentals. Equal parts My Bloody Valentine and Sade, Steven and Joy's sultry, breathless vocals are what's going to land this album close to your heart. Whether it be the introspection of a broken heart ("Alias Grace"), pointed comments on a former record label ("Altamaha") or pining for a lost loved one ("Sandy," Joy's dog), their moody vocals keep the music grounded and whole, making you want to pull your lover in a little closer. And with Seely's music keeping time with the pulse of your heart, what lover would argue against that? File under Sixty Minute Soundtrack: "The Hour of Seduction." *-Craig Young* [ top of page ]
Storm and Stress Under Thunder and Fluorescent Light Touch and Go Records Links: Storm and Stress		It seems foolish to try to describe what happens during Storm and Stress' Under Thunder and Fluorescent Light. File it under Out-Rock, call attention to the free-jazz drumming, the absence of melody and hope that brings forth a knowing nod. Yet clearly there's more to ex-Don Caballero's Ian Williams's brainchild than winding guitar lines and rhythmic chaos. For all its fluttering and taxing formlessness, Under Thunder and Fluorescent Light is, well, listenable. Indeed, it's even quite exciting. Post-rock luminary Jim O'Rourke takes credit for recording the trio and it shows--if only for the hazy ambience and less-than-perfect vocals that remind one of Gastro del Sol. There's something to be said for a band that manages to make part one of a triptych about the birth of two daughters and a son (formally entitled "oh, part 1. Our Lady of Burning Thorns") sound like the birth of a baby boy, the first of three children. (Does it help to say the tightly looped drum hit makes you think of distending stomach muscles? Didn't think so.) And Storm and Stress pull that sort of implausible trick often enough during the album that you start to believe there's a method to their madness. But it's all more complicated than that; it has something to do with the random coalescence of sound. So we shrug our shoulders, file it under out-rock and hope that people find it. *-Edgar Ortega* [ top of page ]
Yo La Tengo And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out Matador Links: Yo La Tengo		Some band members communicate with a wink, perhaps a turn of the head, a certain twitch or body movement. Some even say that there are those whose music is communicated telepathically. For Yo La Tengo, I'm convinced that they exist in each others' dreams; consciously realizing in their music the blueprints they'd left in their bandmates' sleep the night before. Anyone listening to And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out could only agree. This album, Yo La Tengo's tenth, exists in the spaces where dusk touches night and turns to wrap you up in its quiet slumber. The musical expressions here are so fluid, so natural--from the opening drones of "Everyday" through the closing sitar-esque guitar sounds and looping samples of the 17-minute long "Night Falls on Hoboken"--that the album immediately enamors you with warm memories of better times. With trembling drums, walking bass lines, hushed organ, windswept guitar and softly spoken vocals, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew lose any sense of individual identity and merge into one musical consciousness. Songs like "Our Way to Fall," "Last Days of Disco" and "The Crying of Lot G" find the band at their most emotionally naked. "You Can Have It All" flutters and gives a broad smile with its "ba-ba-da's." "Cherry Chapstick" is reminiscent of indie music's other famous couple, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, while "Tired Hippo's" rhythm dances like cheery laughter along the periphery of your dreams. Warm, cozy and inviting, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out feels like your favorite blanket. And by the time the gentle "Night Falls on Hoboken" closes the album, you want nothing more than to roll over, hit the snooze alarm, wrap yourself up tighter and snuggle down once again inside the warmth of its sweet dreams. *-Craig Young* [ top of page ]

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