Music Reviews

Oranges Band, the “Two Thousands” [Morphius]

Thurston Hunger   2/3/2005   A Library, CD, Format

Re-release of this Baltimore bands first two ep’s. Provides
both the scratch and the itch for rabid rock-pop. Dual guitar
interplay does a nice job of creating songs that sort of
climb up on top of each other. Keyboards are used as very
minimal highlights (to good effect, not distracting from the
solid, simple guitar). Roman Kuebler’s vocals have a sweet
angsty rasp to them (#1 and #5-Graham Parker anyone?). That
familiar sort of controlled yell, directed rage. There’s a
prozacky ballad #12, but this band is best when it’s got a
frantic woodpecker energy going and Strato-rattling guitars.
Music to inject vodka into, hope they opt for that rather
than hairspray.

Nice Nice “There Will Be Slogans” [White Denim]

Thurston Hunger   2/3/2005   7-inch, A Library, Format

Portland, Oregon duo – guitarist Jason Buehler
and percussionist Mark Shirazi. Kitchen sync
and sample stampede over drums that touch on
tangents to dub. Guitar bubbles served over
some piledriver basslines in other parts.
Tweaked and twiddled transmissions.

Purple Image – ?Purple Image? – [Radioactive Records]

Hunter Gatherer   1/30/2005   CD, Soul

Originally released on Map City Records in 1970, this is a 2004 re-release from Radioactive Records, an interesting label that specializes in reissuing innovative but rare music from the 60s and 70s.

Purple Image is from Cleveland, Ohio, and this album containing five tracks is the only one that they released. That’s a damn shame, too.

It kicks off with Livin’ In The Ghetto, a blistering amalgam of rock, soul, and funk that sets the tone for most of the rest of the album. There is also some slower, more R&B-style music in the middle with vocal harmonies reminiscent of The Persuasions. It ends with a 15 minute extended rock funk jam featuring flanged drums, space guitar, wah-wah guitar, face-melting guitar, and even a harmonica. Bass is mixed high throughout, which pleases me.

The lyrics are upbeat and positive as you might expect in songs with titles like We Got To Pull Together. Female and male vocals with the male vocals sometimes trading off a la The Temptations. Influences: Sly & The Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament, and the bands mentioned above.
–Hunter Gatherer

Merzbow “Frog” your choice rpm [Misanthropic Agenda]

Thurston Hunger   1/30/2005   12-inch, A Library, Format

Croak and dagger noise from Masami Akita. Rolling out the
limited (1/1000) “frog-colored” vinyl smacks of crafty
merchandising, but the album smacks of pain that you would
hope for. The concept could be as simple as Merzbow himself
dialing the resistors just right to get a virtual frog
sample that belches forth on the A-side, but I prefer to
think the “Frog” monniker is to represent an amphibious
nature to this release. There are moments that this almost
leaps out to the dance floor, geiger click, hep repetition
and jackhammer isometrics create a sort of tadpole techno.
There’s some faux locked grooves, but grooves nonetheless.
But then we get a cathode-arcing bipolar blitz, sheer
shrieking audio assault. Side A takes a while for the hail
of electric fire to rain down, it ends with a sputtering
disintegration. Those merciless moments subside on the
B-side, not that it’s unnoise; it still annoys but the
presence of Rana rhythm over the dank clank of dungeons
provides for vivid sections. Seems like he’s tossing in
reversing sounds as well. Merzbow’s white noise is the
sum of a lot of colors.

Max Richter “The Blue Notebooks” [130701/FatCat]

Thurston Hunger   1/30/2005   A Library, CD, Format

Trembling before beauty music; exudes grace, though shatters
nothing. Minimal steps in other’s footsteps, melodies climb
up a step, down a step, up a step. Tilda Swinton who has
collaborated with the departed Derek Jarman adds spoken
texts, but to my ears she was too often lost in the gauze,
there but not there. Is she Orlando, or just Tiresias?
Typewriter for effect with the words too. For the fattest
FatCat vibes, try #4 or #7, still that’s pretty svelte
for beat worshippers. If you dig “Shadown Journal” check
out some of Simon Fisher Turner’s stuff. There’s also
wounded piano thoughout, the ankle twisted and lingering
on the sustain pedal. My secret favorites were the two
organ numbers, great pools of sound with ripples of
Terry Riley…#5 and #9. If I lied and said this guy
was the big brother to the twin sisters of Mum would
you like him more? Like Mum, Richter can summon moments
of deafening quiet.

Volvox “Bad Earth” [Dual Plover]

Thurston Hunger   1/30/2005   A Library, CD, Format

This album poses a lot of questions. What would you do with
your life if you survived a three-story fall through a plate
glass window? And what if the stories were taller tales than
that? Where did the “Five Seconds of Marmots” go exactly?
Who is this “Lester Vat” (aka Anthony Riddell). His bellicose
bellowing is certainly what lingers in your ears. Still the
sonic crumpling, oscillating, and burstling that surrounds
these thought and tone poems is vital. Like there is something
really important going on in the next door apartment, and
they’ve got the radio sliding around the dial, and the TV is
on a polynesian soap opera… And what is that guy saying,
exactly? Evidently Riddell is born with a speech impediment
that he has turned into a speech instrument…stretching and
repeating words, he alternatively seems to be both delighted
and disturbed by the difficulty in communicating. And maybe
not just his, but everyone’s. The lyrics often do focus on
this phenomenon. Tracks are revived from original cassette
tapes, and at times, it sounds like the oxide itself is being
chewed and gargled and choked on. Outstanding early 90’s
Australian art-damaged, body-damaged experimusing.

L’Infonie “Vol 333” [Mucho Gusto]

Thurston Hunger   1/30/2005   A Library, CD, Format

The intersection of the lines of madness and lines of genius
may not be one point, but two coincident lines. Timeline here
is 1972, behold the third release from Montreal’s ensemble
L’Infonie. Apparently this galaxy of musicians revolved round
a twin-star center of Walter Boudreau and Raoul Duguay, each
respectively contributing it would seem order and disorder.
The first disc can be sliced at different points to produce
Sun Ra keyboard spirals, bluesy swagger, halleluiah chori,
sputtering gibberish, pure prog rock, freeform jazz. Several
themes recur, I love the way it gathers itself: horns shoot
up out of sprawling piano, drum swatches and an anxious bass.
I think the bass really holds a lot of this together, often
it leads the themes. The second disk starts off with back to
Bach numbers. Then in the midst of the “Prelude,” a garagey
number with flute and outta tune vox sneaks in, then things
get mighty howly and big bopping. “Ubiquital” has a knocked
round glockenspiel feel with zithery strings in that modern
classical tension-for-tension’s sake. “La tonne platte”
starts with sideways jazz, gives way to what sounds like a
Butoh race through the audience which returns on an awkrward
cut back to the sideways jazz. Vive le strange.

Long Live Death “To Do More Than God…To Die” [SecretEye]

Thurston Hunger   1/30/2005   A Library, CD, Format

Delivered to us by labelmates Black Forest/Black Sea,
this Baltimoric coven including Oxes’ Nat Fowler and
Chris Freeland. They sacrifice somber minor-key mantras.
Cello drifts thru like incense, and ye’ ol’ singing saw
is summoned upon occasion as well. Despondent without
being desperate. Lyrics flicker in the shadows of
fallen gods and lapsed rockers. Have faith, but do a
sound check.

John Lindberg Quartet “Ruminations Upong Ives and Gottschalk” Between-the-Lines

Thurston Hunger   1/30/2005   CD, Format, Jazz

Between the lines of composition lies room for fantastic
improvisation. Lindberg’s quartet this time is in a mostly
mellow mood. Even the more fiery moments have a tranquility
to them. Witness the hopping cookers that match melodies
and start/close the album, each spiked with Susie Ibarra’s
quick crash Chinese gongs and seesaw seasoned by Lindberg’s
bowed bass. Also check the kooky kinetics of “Generations”
rattled by Ibarra and slapped by Lindberg to get it rolling.
Now that’s marching to a *difficult* drummer, twice it stops
to let Baikida Carrol chase a hummingbird. Steve Gorn is
here with a variety of winds, elegantly on “Implications”
which is all him halfway till a timpani roll and then a
kinda disharmonious join by Carrol. Weird. That and the
Gottschalk-inspired “Great Spirit…” missed me, but all
else here is meticulously mapped. I really dig Lindberg’s
composition, and Carrol does spend a lot of time with
the mute en tote. That gives the trumpet a little more
grimace to its glide. Ibarra is always a treat, her
kulingtang on “Beau Theme” is heavy on the kul, light
on the tang. “Yatan-Na” is part paean to a pagoda but
then its got this crime jazz alley at the center. Gorn’s
bansuri is strong on both cases. Another outstanding
outing on this label run by Franz Koglmann.

Yannis Kyriakides / Andy Moor “Red v Green” [Unsounds]

Thurston Hunger   1/29/2005   A Library

The ultimate battle, pitching the red wires of electronics
versus the green strings of guitar… In this corner, Yannis
Kyriakides ticking, clicking, and flipping the world on the
fritz. In that corner, Andy Moor of the might Ex, tapping,
slapping and scrapping his way up and down the fretboard
and beyond. The resulting rounds are quite a shadowy box
of sounds. There’s an overall suspicious feeling, like a
convict re-entering the work force as a security guard.
Or a boxing glove, loaded up with a few bars of iron?
“Time Flies” is a guitar heavy track wherein Moor snaps
off harmonics at odd angles, but the hover and blink that
Kyriakides applies below and above the guitar is vital. As
on “a conSPIracy cantata” Kyriakides establishes himself
as a true collaborator on electronics, he’s actually on the
same plane and planet as his more organic partners. We win
with a solid improvisational knock-out that is nearly as
stunning as the photos by Isabelle Vigier within.