Lilacs & Champagne - Lilacs & Champagne

I love me some Grails. And I love me some hip hop. Why hasn't anyone figured out they'd be an amazing combination? The guys in Grails  probably thought "We can't wait for everyone to catch up. We'll take care of that." And so we have Lilacs & Champagne.

Alex Hall and Emil Amos have been blending and transforming psych music from around the world for over a decade, and anyone familiar with the visual motifs of Grails knows that these fellows love Italian film music, British television soundtracks from the '70s, and other obscure cultural errata. The obtuse videos they've put together to promote their last few albums (including this one) are quite indicative of what this new Lilacs & Champagne project embraces. In fact, the video element has never been more integrated than it is here. Themes of decadence, violence, the occult, religion, and theater [techni] color the album's pages, and the overall play between humor and dread ensures an intriguing listen from start to finish, which sounds something like William S. Burroughs cutting up early John Carpenter films Grails collaborating with J Dilla.

(an exciting update (For me) from L&C's Facebook page. They posted a link to my review on The Silent Ballet, and even though I've been doing this for years, it's so gratifying to have the artist say a review of mine is "well written." Thanks guys.)

and a bonus song, one of my favorites from the album, "Sensations":

Russian Circles - Empros

I love burgers, and I hate mediocrity. As a musical equivalent that meets these standards, this band is tops. I wrote a review , my last before my second son Arrow was born.

You know what you’re getting when you order a Russian Circle burger. High quality, grass-fed meat, home made bread, locally sourced ingredients and perhaps a special ingredient you didn’t expect make listening a high quality experience. A nutritious rock experience high in zinc and iron and low in saturated fat. The band concocts its jams with a degree of unpredictability (perhaps a pineapple ring? blue cheese curds? blackberry porter marinade?) but the satisfaction in listening comes via amazing chops and mature song writing. Considering how many changes that occur within each song, Russian Circles are very good at pacing their material.

Empros starts strong, gets a little weird and a bit more brutal, and at the back end gets pretty. The confusion in properly orchestrating an album of mega prog metal has left the band. Empros succeeds in that it all sounds like one song; each begets the next naturally, which wasn’t always the case with previous records. The wide open expanse of “Batu” hits like the cool of tsaziki but it doesn’t distract from the strong palette of caribou and barbecue sauce established by total brain smashers like “309 and “Schiphol”.

Simon Scott - Bunny

This album is awesome. Read my well scribed review here. Or this snippet:

As in common in Scott's solo work, each song can be extracted and enjoyed out of context. This seems to be uncommon in ambient music, but the effect here is that Scott’s experimental sound collages come across as songs instead of soundscapes. This gives the album a discernable direction and arc. Instead of being buried in the ether, the songs are the ether - crackling, growing crystals, gasping for air. The textures that form are dynamic and moody, their origins mostly stemming from real instruments like guitar and piano.
Simon Scott - Bunny by miasmah

Incredible Musical Prodigy

The Drift - Blue Hour

Late trumpet player and electronics maestro Jeff Jacobs implored his band mates to continue making music should he lose his fight with cancer, and that is what this San Francisco-based trio have done with their seventh release. Blue Hour is a classic example of how not just to keep pressing on, but to triumph despite the sadness. The album begins with a couple of the most muscular tracks ever heard from The Drift, as if to say that the first reaction to a close friend's death is to plow ahead, faking a sense of confidence. These uncharacteristic tracks make sense when they give way to a more familiar meditative journey. “The Skull Hand Smiles - May You Fare Well” is paced with piano and rhythmic textures before the guitar helps the song coalesce. It is incredible how much space and storytelling Danny Paul Grody can do with just one guitar. Within the layerings of “Luminous Friend” one can almost hear Jacobs’ trumpet. The patience and bardo-like cadence of closing piece “Fountain” demonstrates that these are special musicians, capable of weaving powerful passages of emotionally dynamic rock even in a state of vulnerability. This graceful record may not top the year end lists, but it’s a potent reflection of one of life’s most difficult truths.

Listen: The Drift - Horizon

Hidden Orchestra - Flight EP

An EP with one new song and four remixes? Sounds like a game plan for established fans only, but Edinburgh-based Hidden Orchestra hits it out of the park by opening with the spectacular "Flight". It's a song one can't help but play again and again. The synth-infused drama unfolds with a delicate thrumming bass-line provided by a cello and melodies handled by clàrsach (a small Scottish harp), saxophone, and a melifluously recorded clarinet. Castanets, twinkling chimes and shuffling electro percussion take the song to an exotic next level, making it completely natural for the remixed tracks from Night Walks to shine. And they do. The band's clarinetist Tomáš Dvořák doubles as Floex, whose remix of "Dust" is as fresh as shaved nutmeg on a frosted evening. The Colonel's take on "The Windfall" feels a bit redundant after Maddslinky's remix of the same track, but each has a very different style that they sort of blend into one longer piece. Each of the remixers has a clear understanding of Hidden Orchestra's groove and strengths, honoring the original tunes with a grace not often heard with this type of release. Not a dull moment to be found.

Hidden Orchestra - Flight EP by Tru Thoughts

Raw Landscapes.

Enrique Pacheco's "Raw Landscapes" is anything but raw ~ it's a smooth and beautiful travelogue of Iceland's most picturesque locations. Max Richter's music provides the exciting background.

~Richard Allen, The Silent Ballet

Thanks for directing me to this video, Richard!

Raw Lightscapes from Enrique Pacheco on Vimeo.

Peter Broderick - Music For Confluence

The manner in which Broderick can nail these feelings on all these classical instruments is endlessly captivating. It’s the subtle touches between the melodies that gives each track its unique voice. To score a scene where a kid finds a “deer skull” at the side of the freeway, only to realize it was actually human, Broderick puts together a Stars of the Lid-style respiration, executed with pointilist piano consumed by tremolo violin melodies and ghostly female vocals. In the opening moments, barely audible, haphazard strikes of strings or piano hammers litter the background. One of the final pieces, “Circumstantial Evidence” uses both tremolo and well-tempered violins in tandem to generate a palpable feeling of unstable resolve. The closely-miked piano, the distorted thrum (of a cello?), the dropping of a bow: everything that happens in the background is just as interesting (perhaps more!) as what requests our immediate attention.

The trailer for the film for which this music was created is here:

Confluence (Official Trailer) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

Plaid at the Biltmore Cabaret

I went to a concert on a Monday night. I'm getting too old for this shit.

For over a decade Andy Turner and Ed Handley have rallied past simply making electronic albums, having composed for giant wooden machines that play music, worked with myriad visual artists, scored several films, all while regularly shuffling software. The artificial vocals on Plaid’s 2011 release Scintilli sound so real, they raise the audio freak’s eyebrows. Plaid’s sound palette blends round-cornered, cerebral digitalism with highly active and organic electro-percussion.

The last time Plaid played in Vancouver was in 2003, and it stands as the best sounding show I’ve ever attended, one that featured intensive video imagery as well as a remote-operated camera droid that essentially “remixed” the footage it gathered of the performers on stage. In 2011 Plaid played the increasingly popular Biltmore Cabaret, much to the chagrin of the aurally particular. The low ceiling ensures sound has little room to breathe, indicating that Plaid were not going to sound anywhere near as good this time.

The Square Root of Evil gets svelte between hardcore beatscapes.

Local glitch-thumper The Square Root of Evil opened with a set that never lost momentum. Sometimes her aggressive rhythms gained such speed to the point of banality, only to transition lusciously into a jungle-esque storm seen through a Fuck Buttons lens. Spearheaded by the constant pulse, it was like Bogdan Raczynski extending a triumphant 80’s moment over time via 8-bit Nintendo sound libraries. Jen Pearson had a chipper energy about her, but her connection to the audience never exceeded the gaze of the giant cat eyes that appeared on her white tee shirt. Her wardrobe served as the entire concert’s lasting image.

Plaid opened with the sunshower and chimes of “35 Summers”, a piece originally created for the beautiful underwater video work involving a woman and an octopus filmed by Richie Burridge, which they naturally displayed. Much of the show's remaining video work was created live by Plaid’s on-board software, but it all paled in comparison to their previous touring visuals. Aside from the actual music videos they showed, this tech feature felt like a baby step toward a future triumph.

Next came “Sömnl”, a piece off Scintilli whose wah-wah bass emerged like a golden lion out of the speakers. Its bass kicks punctuated with welcome urgency. This is what the live electronic show is all about: revitalizing tracks, suddenly making the recording sound stale by comparison.

The opposite happened with “Eye Robot” which packed less punch and clarity than Scintilli’s version. The Biltmore’s limits were seemingly tested as the carbonated engine that drives this song was muddied into a cauldron of undestinguishable features. Other pieces like the circuitous “The Launching Of Big Face” and the inebriated “Talk To Us” suffered similar fates. The highlights ended up being the pieces with more percussive dynamism rather than cerebral headgames. “Crumax Rins” totally slayed, inspiring folks to dance harder. This “oldie” from Spokes injected more narrative motion into the set, sending Plaid’s dodecahedron down a worm hole.

Ed Handley and Andy Turner cast an iSpell in Vancouver, BC.

Before long, they laid it on thick with an exercise in multiple polyrhythms, a drumming deluge that was more confusing than stimulating. Plaid often toy with different time signatures to great success, but anyone who had ordered a PBR at this experimental detour really noticed their beer wasn’t alcoholic enough. The way to get people back into it would be to play the hits, and for Plaid that’s “Eyen” off of Double Figure. Retooled quite a bit from the original it put a fresh spin on the end of the set. The encore was the delightful “At Last” which features those artificial female vocals that continue to beguile.

Plaid’s focused stage performance resembled what you’d expect at a laptop concert, except this time the artists had iPads. Plaid are using them as controllers, and they serve as yet another icy fire in which to gaze alongside the three Macbooks. The stage was exceptionally dark, obfuscating whether or not Handley or Turner smiled or ever made eye contact with the humans in attendance. Sometimes you wonder if they’re just checking Facebook up there. If one of their laptops caught on fire then we’d have something to watch. All things considered, it was a show that featured satisfying adventurism in the song interpretations, but it was done a disservice by the sub-par sound. Those hypnotically bouncing cat eyes lingered in the periphery as everyone made their way home.

35 summers from Siam Liam J. I. on Vimeo.

Birds of Passage and Leonardo Rosado - Dear and Unfamiliar

I almost feel like I went out on a limb saying this was one of the better ambient/vocal albums of the year (wait, there can't be that many of those). Still, while Alicia Merz's vocals are kind of like a sweeter version of Lhasa, they almost strike me as a guilty pleasure. Like it's a bit over-dramatic at times. But that's why this album works, since it's a re-creating of Casablanca's soundtrack. My review on The Silent Ballet analyzes further. Here is a sample:

The album is a tale of two sides, each concluded by Leonardo Rosado's trademark: animated drones and instrumental escapades. “A Kiss Is Just a Kiss” enters with a faucet of eastern drones and turns up the water pressure until the crescendo. These lyric-less bookends, as well as enchanting elements like the sitar on “Of Your Charm”, ensure that Dear and Unfamiliar stretches time. Each piece is paced a little differently, but on the whole they all create a living dreamspace so that the 43 minutes seem a lot longer, putting time and place on notice. Casablanca is in Morocco, but that raga sounds Indian, and the players are from two other completely different countries. Where is this beautiful place? Somewhere dear and unfamiliar. Let’s hope this isn’t a one-time collaboration between these two highly talented artists.

Here's lookin' at you, kid - Birds Of Passage / Leonardo from Hugo Goudswaard on Vimeo.

Benoît Honoré Pioulard - Plays Thelma

From the opening wheezing of processed feedback to the distorted organ outro graced by the calls of many a swainson's thrush, this EP is distinctly a product of the Pacific Northwest. Plays Thelma offers glimpses and impressions of an imaginary lake and its surrounding fauna (Thelma) that exists in a liminal realm visited by Portland-based Benoît Honoré Pioulard. The hypnogogic chords of "Malick" hearkens the overcast, nostalgic leanings of Rafael Anton Irisari's The North Bend (another PNW-inspired album). The EP transpires via processed, ambient adventurism, most of which was recorded onto magnetic tape. This medium is not clean sounding and gives these audio dreams that hazy nowhere feeling, often keeping the point where the guitar begins and the harmonium ends indistinguishable. "Hushes Gasp" is a very active piece, with many types of vocal takes pinging across a vast field at each other. A bit like birdcalls, performed by stranded spirits. "Calder" sounds like a heavily reverbed and gently electrified guitar feedback-looping on behalf of itself, but we may never know. This quality of hazy source material secures the dreamspace being orchestrated by Thomas Meluch (Benoît is his performance name, didn't you know?), but the textural aspect has been ramped up a notch in comparison to previous albums. Plays Thelma is a lively and personal experience in the nether, one that ends with a rich, Concern-like drone that escorts the listener to sleep under a willow tree by the lake.

benoit honore pioulard - plays thelma (album preview) by experimedia

Sculpture - Toad Blinker

TRON showed us what it would be like to be sucked into a digital video game, but what about being absorbed into a pinball machine? The electronic wizardry and analogue tape manipulations on Toad Blinker demonstrate what this would be like. This is the audio/visual duo Sculpture’s second full length zoetropic picture disc, and much like Rotary Signal Emitter, it’s a tidal pool of playful energy and audio mayhem. Toad Blinker is 35 minutes of carbonated caprice and while its music stands on its own, the album cannot be fully appreciated without Reuben Sutherland’s fantastic animation that is best viewed through filming the LP in motion at 25 frames per second with a high shutter speed? Don’t have a good camera? Neither do most of us, leaving us to observe the picture disc through a homemade viewer (demonstrated here) while Dan Hayhurst’s effervescent music concrète takes center stage. Imagine the ghostly fanfare of Philip Jeck sent through a grossly exaggerated machine built for Willy Wonka, and you might get an idea. The music is exciting: never stabilizing but also never running off the rails. Sounding much like the mind of a toddler, it’s surprising how intriguing Toad Blinker is despite the melodies and themes being hidden or absent all together. This duo is producing an artistic product that is highly unique, further pushing the idea that music when grafted into other realms of expression can be more than a folder of mp3s.

Elk Cloner from Sculpture on Vimeo.

Plaid - Scintilli

I've always liked Plaid, and even though my review comes down a bit hard on them, I still enjoy this album.

Once in a while, it’s grand fun to act on impulse and tear open the plastic wrapper (Scintilli’s limited edition comes with a nicely designed pointless object, or “muda na mono”) and have some sweet treat. Like a gummy bear or a Snickers, this album is perfectly constructed to hit those spots in the brain that crave immediate satisfaction. In fact, if one embraces this album for the splendor of sound and ignores the premature dramatic fizz-outs, it’s a dream to listen to (with the exception of the irritating “African Woods”). Yet after all that work, it’s a shame to produce something so devoid of grit or humanity. Handley and Turner may enjoy what they are doing, but the album lacks an emotional element that even the most perfect digital delivery cannot fake.

Oval & Mountains at Western Front

Originally published on October 11th, 2011 for SSG Music

Mountains' gear dominates the humble wooden stage at Western Front in Vancouver.

Every year Vancouver gets a smattering of “Decibel Festival Lite,” where a few musicians who perform at the Seattle festival make their way across the border. At the Western Front on Sunday night nary fifty people came to see a unique pairing of electronic artists in Mountains and Oval, whose disparity in approach to music was plain to see.

Like a pair of lumberjacks fire-gazing in their log cabin for the winter, Mountains (Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg) confirmed they are professional relaxers. The early start time surprised me as I walked into the small acoustic space to hear the stoic duo already engaged in their psychedelic space crafting; they must appreciate a good night’s sleep. Motifs on acoustic guitars were swallowed by sequencers spread across the sonic divide like scintillating fog.

In other moments the guitars provided a warm spinal cord to hold up the burgeoning cosmos emanating from the live electronics, a feature that defines their recent album Air Museum. Taking the acoustic wash of ambience to another level, the sonics explore the warmer climes of classic science fiction videos. Their set featured familiar elements from Air Museum (parts of “January 17″ peppered the final ten minutes), but Holtkamp and Anderegg effortlessly created a unique armada of sounds that were engaging and relaxing. If only my folding chair had been a lazy boy.

The tables of Mountains’ analog gear, cables, effects pedals, and guitars made way for one small table and a stock PC laptop. This measure of equipment doesn’t prepare a listener for the quality and oddity of sounds that Markus Popp is quite excited to share.

Oval drags and drops squiggly erratta, almost-ethnic synthetics, plucked pointilism, and
off-kilter forms that are realized well after they've appeared.

Popp has been performing as Oval for more than 20 years, and much has changed since his earlier works that helped pioneer the idea that “glitch” can be a pleasing musical concept. The spartan room at Western Front made the performances seem more like a tech conference presentation than a concert. A chandelier or other design elements could put a little flavor into the space, but on the other hand, the lack of flair allows for complete focus on the performer.

On Oval’s recent double album O, real instruments were sourced to create sounds and spirited midi drums carry many of the compositions to a new level of depth, a result Popp himself was surprised with. He professed to the audience that he had “a lot of material to get through” and that if anyone didn’t like something, to speak up and let him know, encouraging discussion between songs. A song would end abruptly, and there would be complete silence. At each sudden interval Popp would occasionally mutter to himself and everyone in the audience would try not to breathe. The invitation to interact was exciting, but no one took a chance, leaving Popp to make every manner of facial expression as he ushered a jungle of different motifs into his main musical themes, creating entirely new but familiar compositions.

No song was more recognizable or infectious than “ah!,” a cerebral pop tune that reveals Oval can actually bring the party. Dancing at this small event would have felt a bit out of place, but many of the pieces planted the desire. The challenge in listening to O became an absolute delight in person. The cadence in each song was constantly misbehaving, keeping the mind highly alert. The instruments’ hard, analog strikes were quite physical. The levity and charisma of the off-balance melodies made the music very human, like you could feel it emanating from your bones.

Markus Popp wears his windbreaker to weather the storm of questions provided
by the audience.

Amongst his energetic and tumbling vignettes, Markus Popp is more of a scientist learning to become a musician. During the after-set discussion, he said he didn’t consider his pieces to be true songs and admits that he doesn’t ever listen to his contemporaries. “I’m always in touch with it, but I don’t listen to electronic music.” His laptop had color coordinated audio themes, arranged by instrument or feeling. He can experiment with his library of wild sounds as long as the base tracks (drums and main melody) are synchronized. He said it was akin to hearing the hum of a washing machine while experimenting in the kitchen. “It’s nice to know something is working while the rest is going on.”

Popp’s encouragement to interact and ask questions was the most wonderful part of the show. Even though the audience remained silent, each person knew he was a welcome participant. It played out more like a listening party and conference with wine and vinyl readily available. Popp’s humility and eccentricity made for an engaging evening of music and technology.

Amazing Drummer in Average Band