Music Reviews

Livid – “Life Is Pain Life Is Shit” – [No Time Records]

whngr   2/20/2020   A Library, Cassette

Ghastly detuned bludgeoning.
This menacing two-piece out of Kenosha, Wisconsin draw down on your sense of well being with a furious rage. Dirge, guttural bellows, feedback, blast beats, seedy samples, hair lashing, and neck snapping hXc riffage. Shake, rattle, and roll yourself off the precipice, brush the gravel off yer face, reset your shoulder, spit out a coupla’ teeth, let the blood to stream down your scowling visage, drag yourself up the cliff, and do it all over again on side B. @Bear’s_D.licious_honey, @slam_pit_with_loaded_deer_rifles, @PowerViolence, @TravisBickle, @Spock, @realtree_nail_bat, @malice_aforethought, @bring_a_straight_edge_to_hammered_fight
FCC on “Coward” (A4-B4) “Fuckin’ bitch”

Araya, Felipe – “Punata” – [eh?]

mickeyslim   2/19/2020   A Library, Cassette

Found sound field recordings from Bolivia & Chile. Felipe Araya plays the Peruvian cajón, a wooden hand drum, in a very non-traditional, exploratory fashion.

Side A is field recordings made in Bolivia originally recorded onto mobile phone. Gysin/Burroughs-style cut-ups of sounds at Cochabamba market, at el Ojo del Inca, traditional folk sounds, muddy footsteps, faint voices with occasional sounds from Araya’s cajón.

Side B is a “silent session” recorded at a friends place in Santiago, Chile. Cajón and objects, starts as a minimal, playful exploration that evolves unhurriedly into an excellent crescendo.

Two 26-minute sides of well-done, found-sound, bliss…

As One – Planetary Folklore – [Mo Wax]

aarbor   2/19/2020   A Library

Kirk Degiorgio is As One. Here he is on Mo’ Wax from 1997. The sound is more jazzy [4,7,8] than the ‘70s soul and funk or Detroit Techno you hear in his earlier releases. There’s still a bit of funk present in the electronica here. – AArbor

SOFA SURFERS – Sofa Rockers Remixes – [Klein Records]

aarbor   2/19/2020   A Library

The Sofa Surfers are Mani Obeya, Markus Klenzi, Michael Hozgruber and Wolfgang Frisch of the Austrian posse of the ‘90s. Here are 2 of their tracks A1 and B1 with 2 gentle funky remixes of A1 by Richard Dorfmeister (of Kruder and Dorfmeister) – call it Downtempo, call it Trip Hop… but be sure to listen to it.   AArbor

Ekuka – Ekuka – [Nyege Nyege Tapes]

aarbor   2/19/2020   12-inch, International

Ekuka is Ekuka Morris Sirikiti a griot from Northern Uganda, who plays the mbira (a metal thumb piano), and is the ‘musical grandfather’ to a whole generation of rappers and producers from Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. These are recordings that listeners made of radio broadcasts at a time (during the reign of General Idi Amin) when Ekuka didn’t have access to recording studios.  As a result there’s some distortion – but the mbira seems to shine through the murk. Lo-fi vintage recordings of a griot master with a remix by Ekuka as the last track. AArbor

Luke Honey – “Vastation” – [Skaven Electric]

lexi glass   2/19/2020   A Library, Cassette

Mysterious cassette of dark ambient electronics from a one-man project out of Cincinnati. Corroded drones layered atop venomous synths and ringing echos. Five tracks that seep slowly into intimate spaces, until the plug is pulled for an abrupt ending. Digging for the dirt on this tape didn’t turn up much – it is the sole release on Skaven Electric, apparently an Ohio label/dealer of “scrounged up goods for audio rats” – but that’s enough to know its waves will infest the playlists of KFJC’s more sinister shows.

New Improvised Music From Buenos Aires [coll] – [Esp-Disk]

Hemroid The Leader   2/15/2020   A Library, CD

14 tunes between 8:22 & 1:38. ESP Disk. Mostly jazz with chamber, electroacoustic & noise. Heavy, not swinging: repeated destabilizations, shocks & devaluation underpin tension, crisis & terror. Mouthpiece sounds, processed audio, silences. Inhabits a unique space, not the usual skronk. Cool book.

Bunny Wailer – "Communication" – [Solomonic]

Hemroid The Leader   2/15/2020   CD, Reggae

Christian rasta in throwaway digital style. Some tracks stray from the formula, including:
#7, 15 g funk raps. #12, 13 drum circle, chant & sermon. #11 ska. #17 Y2K-house.

St. Hugh, William – “Saturnus” – [Aural Films]

atavist   2/12/2020   A Library, CD

The arrival of “Saturnus” provides ethereal sounds with orchestral-inspired keyboard instrumentation. Minutes stretch in a haze of drifting shimmers and the occasional dramatic surge of sound. This recording moves slowly like the score for a moody, somewhat eerie film. It’s very much a companion album to this artist’s earlier release “The Luciferian”, added to the library last August. Tracks are fairly consistent across the CD. To my untrained ears, all the tracks are pretty similar, so you might select based on how much time you need in your break clock, and you’ll get a consistent atmosphere of unease and wilting beauty. A couple tracks, like “Red Sun Rise” start out quietly. Tremorous dreams await.

Peterson, J. – ‘Refusal’ – [Wonderland Media]

Lord Gravestench   2/12/2020   A Library, Cassette

Sound artist Josh Peterson runs the Force Neurotic label. This 2019 cassette release consists of two very dark 20 minute pieces. Both are rambling and disquieting sound collages accompanied by the artist’s voice reading found texts from criminal cases. The A side piece deals with murders and the B side piece concerns unsolved disappearances. The compositions have a desolate attitude, combining melancholy and eeriness in a turn somewhat comparable to the films of David Lynch. Manipulated and damaged tapes of spelunking piano and other tuneless, toylike instruments, field recordings of public places, mournful clanking, desperate scrabbling.

Peterson intones, whispers, and declaims the dry facts of an uncertain number of these sad cases. Forensics. Autopsies. Surveillance footage. Traumatised family members trying to make sense of it all. The last few minutes of side A assume the aspect of Power Electronics, as piercing and squealing electronic tones back a more aggressive, urgent vocal delivery. Subtler side B ends with peaceful field recordings from a natural spot. Is it a hopeful epilogue… or is that what it sounds like where the poor girl’s body is buried?

The scrambled cut-up texts, intimately delivered, will remind some people of recent work by Sutcliffe Jugend and Consumer Electronics, and indeed Peterson has published a book with Philip Best’s Amphetamine Sulphate press. No FCCs but some edgy stuff (postmortem description of “anal injuries”) on side A.