Niechęć - Śmierć w miękkim futerku

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Niechęć (Polish for “dislike” or “aversion”) is like one of those idealized old-school mafiosos: they’ve come to beat the fuck out of you, or even execute you, but they are wearing tailored suits, have perfect hair and have arrived in an elegant land yacht - so you find comfort in your inevitable fate and submit to it, knowing that there is no way of stopping them. Highly skilled, semi-improvised jazz fusion music that is ready to punch you in the face while retaining a master-level skills of their musical instruments. Dynamic yet controlled, furious yet stylish. After all, they didn’t name their album “Death in soft fur” for no reason. Highly recommended.

LXMP + Tabata Mitsuru - The Posenburg Concertos

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One of the more frenetic and open-structured statements of the free improv movement, this three personnel album is a rollercoaster-like ride through jagged stabs of fractured pseudo-melody, percussion kling-klang and analog synthesizer circuitry fuckery. Abstract, aggressive, mind-boggling, transforming at a blinding, heart stopping rate. No wonder the synth somewhere on side A sounds like an ambulance taking you to the hospital. For the improverished ones. HA, get it?

Review: Ashley Paul - Line the Clouds

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(Vinyl LP, Rel Records, 2013)

“Line the Clouds”, the newest release by the Providence based composer Ashley Paul is an album of contradictions that clash and irritate at first, but later find their way into the listener’s ear and begin to fit perfectly. First such clash comes in the opening piece “Soak the Ocean”, where the lullabish vocals and a soft, peaceful melody sound jarringly out of place among the screeching, metallic, atonal sounds that belong more to a dryly academic elecroacoustic improvisation suite than an oneiric folk album. But is it really a folk album, after all? The listener would like to believe so, but Ashley Paul deconstructs the psychedelic folk cliches through droning, unsettling compositions that are more guaranteed to send shivers down one’s spine than wash them in the beatific beauty.

Through sparse, almost totally random sounds and skeletal track structures she builds an intensely intimate, emotional atmosphere. It feel almost intrusive to listen to this album built on fragile vocals and shyly played instruments, as if one was listening to something reserved to the creator only, invading the personal space of the musician. Just like the cover, the music on “Line the Clouds” often feels crude and unfinished - and this is exactly where its strength lies. It leaves much space for interpretation and for the sounds to sink in, allowing for reflection. And that reflection allows the music to hit the listener harder. The droning, whining clarinet. The few basic plucks on guitar strings. The occasional bells. The ear-piercing reeds. Everything has its time and place, every piece of machinery knows its role perfectly well, even if it feels random in focus. Ashley Paul plays God, and has a lot of fun with it. The tracks jump from stuttering, free improv vignettes in the vein of early Supersilent (without the virulent synths) or AMM to fractured, deformed proto-songs which evoke the ghosts of American folklore.

It’s also worth ot mention contributors to the album, especially the New York City based improvisational shaman Eli Keszler, who made a lot buzz through his releases on PAN label. Together with Paul, they both work up some great chemistry, pushing raw, restrained sounds forward toward a very demanding, yet very rewarding end. “Line the Clouds” may, and most likely will, require some preparation and repeated listens. But once the listener gets it, it feels like opening a vault of new meanings and emotions.

Review: Rangda / The Dead C - Split LP

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(Vinyl LP, Ba Da Bing Records, 2013)

This fresh split from Ba Da Bing places some of the leading forces in experimental rock music against themselves, but also makes them work in unison towards a greater goal: on side A there is Rangda, a psychedelic supergroup comprised of Chris Corsano on drums and Sir Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny, both wielding guitars. Side B is occupied by New Zealand noise rock legends The Dead C comprised of Michael Morley, Bruce Russell and Robbie Yeats, who are also some of the greatest deconstructionist of guitar-based canon, those who took rock music and left it rusting in the sun, consumed by rust and decay.

Rangda’s side consists of two rather lengthy tracks: even without ever hearing the band as a whole, yet knowing the individual style of each musician, one can already feel what to expect: it’s ornamental, oriental and incredibly rich and nuanced. Corsano walks a fine line between off-the-hook improv madness and careful, balanced, almost meditative slow passages while Bishop and Chasny go through a masterful guitar duel of a somewhat improvisational nature without ever going astray or wandering into a cheap showmanship. The trio works in harmony, channeling the psychedelic energy without having to resort for an overblown, fuzzy destruction. There is a sense of happinnes and joy in Rangda’s music, which is further accented by the sudden burst of laughter at the end of opening “Gracilaria”. The following “Sancticallist” takes a slightly more meditative tone without losing any energy. It sounds like a more kinetic version of a Six Organs of Admittance piece, climbing the holy mountain and enjoying the view of the world.

The things on Dead C’s side, however, get darker and more grimy with the lo-fi, harsh guitar tones and a slow, synthesized drum pattern on “EUSA Kills”. If Rangda’s side was the euphoric, all-loving high from a psychedelic drug, then Dead C provide a soundtrack for the nasty, hazy comedown - the remains of hallucinations still linger in the brain, with ghostly, barely audible vocals spewing forth deadpan, dark lyrics and the guitar, once an instrument of beauty and endless satisfaction, now becomes a tool of torture, with the droning, drilling tone and a sandpapery torture. The Dead C’s tracks don’t even try to resemble any actual melodies or structures, they just stumble through the post-narcotic chaos, knocking furniture over and causing mayhem while constantly praying: “let me come back to reality, let me get a grip!” But the comedown won’t let off that easily. It gets hardest on the closing piece, “Heaven’s Wheel”. No easy solutions, no clean getaways here. Just the funeral, atonal and droning guitars set to a maniacal, basic drum rhythm that sounds like a heart beating way too fast. Anyone who has ever experienced the uncontrollably fast heartrate after ingesting a drug will identify with this piece. Few bands can produce a sonic equivalent of fear and paranoia as well as those New Zealanders.

This split vinyl LP is truly a SPLIT in the truest sense of the word: it is a panorama of vastly different moods. From the ever-unwinding peaceful jams on Rangda side to the blackened drone rock on Dead C’s side, the album presents two approaches to the psychedelic experience, both just as competent and compelling. Highly recommended.

Blast from the Past: Mnemonists - Horde

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(Vinyl LP, Dys, 1981)

I first read about the mysterious post-everything Colorado ensemble Mnemonists on Piero Scaruffi’s website where he was reviewing albums by the Norwegian experimental/free improv collective Supersilent - he compared Supersilent to Mnemonists, which got me intrigued, considering the albums by the Americans were released some 20 years before the Norwegians. Something magical must have been in the air of Colorado in the early 80’s, putting its trippy tentacles into some visionaries brains, provoking them to make some of the most fucked-up, yet brilliant sound collages at the time.

Lots of fluctuations went down with the collecitve, first from being called The Mnemonist Orchestra, then to being called simply Mnemonists and finally splitting into two separate groups: a graphic/design group that retained the name mnemonists and a music group that adapted the name Biota. “Horde” is a document of the band’s earlier efforts, when there was no border between the “art” and the “music” part of the collective, and truly mind-erasing ride through what can be generally considered “difficult” music.

The album makes references to artists such as Max Ernst or Francis Bacon - both are known for their constant warping of reality in their paintings, especially Bacon who would often draw human figures deformed and mutilated beyond recognition, often caught in extreme pain with the few brutal strokes of the brush, which made the portraits blurry, yet with the whole horrifying clarity of what’s going on. This is what Mnemonists did, too: mutilating music, breaking its bones and spines and leaving it to suffer among the industrial wasteland. “Horde” is very often messy and confusing, but does a magical trick of staying compelling and well thought-out throughtout the entire psychedelic length of the LP, sometimes uncovering the blackened veil to expose the complex machinations and compositional efforts that actually take place under the murk.

The album is rather slow-paced, sometimes giving away the electronic miasma to show some of its more instrumental underbelly, which is just as ugly and unwelcoming (yet morbidly fascinating) as the tortured synthesizer workouts. Droning violins slowly pace forward through the scorched earth and post-apocalyptic soundscapes, becoming a soundtrack to all sorts of mental ilnesses and nervous breakdowns. Not a single ray of light is to be seen here, the sounds of “live” instruments, like the piano, clarinets or violins clash with mangled tape music isanity and industrial bleakness into an ever-shifting amoeba that appears to have no higher purpose than to confuse and bewilder the listener.

Don’t try to seek sense or melody on “Horde”. Because here, chaos reigns.

Review: Jealousy Mountain Duo - No_2

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(CD / Vinyl LP, Blunoise Records, 2012)

If that old 70’s jazz drumset mentioned by the musicians from Jealousy Mountain Duo on their Bandcamp page hasn’t taken a beating in its previous life, with its previous owners then if definitely took one with the drummer of this incredible free improv duo. The German micro-ensemble Jealousy Moutain Duo stormed the scene (and became Weed Temple’s favorites) back in 2011 with their highly energetic debut vinyl record, channeling the post-rock sensibilties through seemingly disjointed free jazz structures. Their newest release, titled simply “No_2” tries to one-up the previous album, by trying to sound even more energetic and spastic. And more melodic.

The opening “The Home of Easy Credit” unveils the intention of JMD very well: it is chaotic at first, but gradually exposes the scraps of pleasant, bucolic melody in a series of violent jerks punctuated by cymbal crashes and amphetaminic drum breaks, all submissive to the irregular, jagged rhythm filling almost every free space left. The guitar and the drums complement each other graeatly: while the strings remain largely ascetic in nature, rarely breaking into the spotlight, rather going for minimalistic strumming with mathematical precision, the drums keep growing in one explosion after another; never going mute or stale, always on the move, like a caged wild animal, seeking release from tension.

Tension is one of the main constructive forces behind the duo; the whole album is 95% keeping it, barely harnessing the power of instruments and 5% release. And when the release finally comes, it is THE RELEASE, in capital fucking letters, blowing up straight into the listener’s face (or in this case: ears), getting off the hook and losing all limits. This is when the post-rock deconstruction transforms itself into a noise rock monster. Like in the shortie-but-goodie “All Day Blizzard”, in which from a series of false starts and sudden jerks rises an atomic monster of a riff, only to be stopped seconds later and forced into free improv again. “All Day Blizzard” is a personal favorite of mine, showing what the duo can do once they leave the constraints of improvisation for a moment and go for a more traditional riff - the power of those few micro-riffs appear to parallel and challenge even those of Lightning Bolt or Hella, which shows the band’s incredible expertise in displaying power.

They are hiding their power well, but I hope one day they just won’t keep the tension any longer and will make a truly explosive album with those superpowers of theirs.

Blast from the Past: Magik Markers - The Voldoror Dance

(CD, Latitudes, 2006)

Before the Hartford, CD based noise rock trio Magik Markers became more known (and more accessible) to the indie public with their “BOSS” album in 2007, which contained a collection of coherent and short rock songs, they achieved the legend status in the deep underground with their incredibly dense, prolific and anarchic catalog of live and in-studio (but mostly live) recordings of lengthy, aggressive and nihilistic noise rock jamzzz, quickly achieving praise for their sheer ferocity and darkness of lyrics, achieved with Pete Nolan’s maniacal drumming, Elisa Ambroglio’s “I don’t give a fuck” style of guitar playing and Leah Quimby’s multi-level bass shredding.

While the earlier years of Magik Markers saw the trio on their more improvisational side, the recordings, often released on hand-made CD’s on low-level imprints, like the band’s own label Arbitrary Signs, the albums showed this improv side from various approaches: for example, “A Panegyric to the Things I Do Not Understand” showed the Markers from their most abrasive and aggressive side, almost sounding like an infinitely extended hardcore punk session, while albums like “Danau Blues” or “Gucci Rapidshare Download” projected the calmer, almost post-rock atmospherics with a gritty, noise rock edge. And then there’s the four-track monster of “The Voldoror Dance”, released in elegant, classy packaging both on vinyl and the CD (though the vinyl is missing one track) from Latitudes, the more avant-garde oriented subsidiary of Southern Records.

“The Voldoror Dance” joins the best of two worlds, giving a disorienting, somewhat directionless feel of the most aggro moments of the band with the deeply atmospheric, psychedelic meanderings and melts them into an unholy union and a real sonic labirynth that keeps unfolding without an end, never getting stale, boring or pointless. Which is incredibly hard in a genre heavily focused on constantly unfolding, mandala-like structures and losing track of specific instruments in order to focus on the greater Music. TVD also sees Magik Markers doing some of their longest jams, with two tracks clocking in well over 20 minutes. The trio achieve a true spiritual unity here, actually getting closer to the ideology of free improv/jazz, although told in the language of noise rock: wah-wahed guitars, abrasive cascades of notes and relentless assault of the drums. My absolute favorite release in the whole Magik Markers catalog, which says a lot, considering their fertility (well, until around 2009, at least).

Review: Particle Being Trio - Post Terrestial Volume One (Debacle Records, 2012)

Somehow I got used to the fact that when an album begins with lazily rolling eastern drones I should prepare myself for a hell of a psychedelic journey. Such was the case with Moon Unit’s “New Sky Dragon” (which I finally purchased on vinyl minutes before writing this review, but I digress) or Tetragrammaton’s “Elegy for Native Toungues”. Not surprisingly, this is no different with the Seattle free-psych ensemble Particle Being Trio. Add this to the fact that this is being released on Debacle Records, quite possibly the most exciting underground label these days, which constantly reinvents itself and offers an incredibly eclectic range of releases, refusing to be ascribed to any narrow-minded musical “scene” of today, and we might be dealing with some bomb material.

The opening “Free Energy” unfolds slowly, almost lethargically - endlessly stretching synthesizer drones blend with low-key sitars and sparse free jazz drumming. A reverbed trombone emerges from the dronescape, accompanied by twisted supersonic ascent of analog synthesizer, which snakes its way along the now-rhytmical drumming and blissful electronic ambience. The synths sound cosmic and oriental at the same time, crazy noodlings pacified by pastoral trombone. Comparisons to Moon Unit’s monumental “Internal Future” might be made, but Particle Being Trio seems to exist in the more jazz-oriented “academic” areas of experimental music – as indicated by the name and the minimalist, humble cover.

The following pieces, “Action and Orbital Horn” and “Aggregate Resilience”, follow a more dynamic path. The first piece is a near 3-minute krautrock jam, with sequencer-heavy electronics competing with the trombone, which tries to keep up the pace and the melody in some sort of “human-vs-machine” duel, while the tribal-like drumming paves the way for the contestants. The second track is heavier - one drum breakdown after another, heavy drones rise and fall, occasionally bursting into a brief far-out solo before succumbing to obliterating, intense drum workouts.

The closing jam “Relative to Light” follows the same path as the opening track, down to the slow sitars opening. Here, however, musicians get it on from the very first seconds, becoming (slightly) more dynamic, with drums weaving an almost math rock pattern, while the synthesizers get into some glitch bleep & bloop mania and the trombone kicks in with sparse, occasional notes that create some sort of recognizable melody. While the jam sounds heavily deconstructed and abstract, there is a sense of peace to the whole piece, despite the chaotic bursts of electronic madness, which seemingly can’t win with the human element of the whole piece. I find that reassuring – that despite the whole obsession with electronic gadgetry in the modern world, we have still not yet succumbed. It’s far-fetched, yes, but it works.

Review: Jealousy Mountain Duo - Jealousy Mountain Duo (BluNoise, 2011)

While the German label BluNoise Records might be more known the the fans of “out there” music for the vicious, angular noise rock of Nicoffeine (whose Lighthealer Stalking Flashplayer I reviewed), relentless guitar destruction is not their only forte. The self-titled LP by Jealousy Mountain Duo is a foray into the world of abstract, mathematic guitar-based free improv that sounds like the deconstruction of 1990’s math rock and post-rock groups from the United States. Jealousy Mountain Duo walk the line between improvisational chaos and beautiful, captivating semi-melodies.

In keeping with the math rock and free improv traditions, the music here is technically proficient, the rhythms are tight and the snakelike guitar noodling precise, but there is always place for playfulness and a specific sense of humor - like the wonderfully Don Caballero-esque titles “David Has Awesome Hair” or “A Song Without Handclaps”. Berger and Scheider create some intense chemistry here, jumping from slightly muted, calmer interludes to fully blown out, chaotic maelstorm further propelled by maniacal drum patterns, that follow each other like a late Autechre (late, as in Untilted late) jam rewritten for drums and guitar. Clusters of seemingly chaotic guitar notes range from somewhat pastoral (like a distant cousin of Tortoise) to aggressively distorted and mangled, channeling a slightly less amplified Keiji Haino at his finest - although even more random and unpredictable.

If you enjoy improvised guitar vs. drum duels in the vein of Matta Gawa (but not as lo-fi) and abstraction of highest order without much idea of direction (in the most positive sense, of course), then this is essential listening.

Get the LP at the Blunoise Records shop.

Review: Baylies Band - Man Ray or Vague Knitting (75 or Less, 2011)

There’s a sort of deep sense of injustice in terms of how the underground treats the CD format. Often scolded and ignored for whatever reasons, be it being “too mainstream” (that’s pretty ideological), sometimes deemed “too fragile” or maybe even “too hi-fi”, the shiny disc might be considered a pariah in the psychedelic otherworld. Which is a crying shame, not because of the better, digital sound quality, but because many of the seemingly “underground” zines and websites appear to simply ignore some of the happenings in the compact disc scene. Whether it’s a format-based ignorance or just the fact no one informed them about the fact there is a lot of truly exciting music being released on CD’s now, too. It seems like there are whole psychedelic labels devoted to CD’s and CD-R’s only which go below the radar completely unnoticedjust because they don’t release on cassettes.

The Miami based psych-improv unit Baylies Band (led by Eric Baylies) is one of such sadly below-the-radar bands. OnMan Ray & Vague Knitting, released in silkscreened cardboard packaging (which proves my point that CD’s released in cardboard have a strange tendency to be better, or maybe it’s just placebo) is a collection of two improvised kling-klang salads followed by a conceptually thrilling idea of making one track out of two previous tracks, by fusing them together into one busy mix (the titular “Man Ray & Vague Knitting”). Of course, such a method is not new - it has been already employed by Boris on their Dronevil or by Heavy Winged and Windy & Carl on their split/collab Monolith Earth. But it’s always refreshig to hear more bands do create busy blends of improv sessions.

Baylies Band cite many bands and composers in their description, starting with Terry Riley’s In C (to which the whole album is a tribute), stressing the albums will be enjoyed by fans of, among others: Tortoise, U.S. Maple, Acid Mothers Temple, Blind Idiot God and Faust. In fact, there seems to be the most Faust-y influence in here, with tracks hitting a sort of avant-garde kraut trance, noodling, playful keyboards intertwining with droning, randomly soloing guitars and sparse, jazzy drumming. The tracks are a busy improvisational labirynth, easy to get lost in, closer in nature to the works of Dadaists and Surrealists than 60’s hippies (which is one of the tracks is named after famous American artist Man Ray). Even the album’s artwork recalls the Dada anarchy, featuring weird drawings of people and a “jerk contest” comic on the back, featuring such jerk feats as giving someone an indian sunburn or dumping a garbage can full of trash on someone.

Purchase the CD on 75 or Less website