musings

Some great stuff this month!

• AmericanPornSongs by 16Volt
  I used to hate 16Volt, but somewhere along their career they got good. This album might well be their best yet. Aggressive, danceable industrial is always welcome to these ears.

• A Story in White by Aerogramme
  I noticed Aerogramme because they’d done an “In the Fishtank” collaboration with Isis. Not that they’re anything like Isis, except insofar as they can achieve similar levels of intensity. The album wanders from crushingly heavy to mellow acoustic right down to almost ambient, but it never sounds inconsistent. Definitely worth the download.

• Reading All The Right Signals Wrong by Final
  I don’t even preview anything done by Justin Broadrick any more. Since I discovered Godflesh some 15 years ago I’ve devoured everything he’s done that I could find from the ultra minimal Final albums through slow grinding nightmare Godflesh, through the ambient on one album, screamingly aggressive on the next Techno Animal, and now the beautiful and haunting Jesu. I’ve never been disappointed.

• Flesh is the Law by Genitorturers
  Sleazy, snarly, and unapologetically trashy, the Genitorturers are awesome. Gen kicks ass – she can sound evil and snarly one moment and sexy as hell the next, and she uses that skill to amazing effect. They’re also an amazing live act, which is a good thing as this album is half studio, half live.

• Burner by Jane Jensen
  I downloaded this one on a whim – eMusic recommended it as similar to Genitortures, and AllMusic called it “electric girl-pop grunge with a twist of hip-hop blues” and I couldn’t say no. Regrets? I’ve had a few, but grabbing this album isn’t one of them.

• Aphorisms by Red Sparowes
  Instrumental rock, similar is style to Explosions in the Sky. Amazingly good. I’d have been tempted to download it just on the strength of the song titles – how can you not want to own songs with names like “We Left the Apes to Rot, But Find the Fang Grows Within”, “Error Has Turned Animals Into Men, and to Each the Fold Repeats”, and “The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer”? Non sequiturs for the win! Genius!

• Station by Russian Circles
  Russian Circles were recommended by Twitter friend Nightwyrm for fans of the “darker” stuff from Mogwai. So far so good.

• We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight by Sonna
  Sweet indie rock in the same vein as Múm and Mogwai.

• The Lo Fibre Companion by Various Artists
  This is a compilation of material from Justin Broadrick’s Lo Fibre label, most of which is a Broadrick side project of some sort. Particularly amazing are the tracks by The Sidewinder, a collaboration between Broadrick and Scorn’s Mick Harris.

EMusic’s download cycle is 30 days long, and that means the renewal date slowly creeps backwards in the month. I’ve been a member long enough now that my renewal date has crept to the beginning of the month – my next download refresh date is the September 9th, and this is a really busy time at work, so rather than lose a set of downloads, I downloaded what I would normally have called September’s downloads in August.

• How He Loved The Moon (Moonsongs for Johnn Balance) by Current 93
  A tribute to Johnn Balance of Coil who died in 2004. This album is tribute to his genius. I really loved Coil, so this album makes me a bit sad. Mostly darkly ambient.

• Hpynagogue / Hypnagogue II by Current 93
  Another darkly ambient bit of mood music.

• All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone – Remixes by Explosions in the Sky
  Explosions in the Sky remixed by the likes of Jesu, Eluvium, and Four Tet? How can you go wrong? Fantastic.

• This Is What You Get by Flunk
  I’ve loved Flunk since I first heard their cover of Blue Monday (on For Sleepyheads Only). Every release has been consistently great, and this one continues the trend. While I don’t think they’ll ever manage to top the genius that is “Play”, it’s unfair to expect them to do so.

• Holy Fuck by Holy Fuck

• LP by Holy Fuck
  Two albums of electronic noise rock by Toronto’s Holy Fuck. The albums sound surprisingly raw – like live recordings. Good fun.

• Gone by Mono

• Hymn to the Immortal Wind by Mono

• Walking Cloud, Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined by Mono
  I can’t get enough of Mono – if you like Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, or Yume Bitsu you’ll love this band.

• Salt Marie Celeste by Nurse With Wound
  This is a very strange album. One track, just over an hour long. If you’re not paying close attention, it sounds like a 2 minute ambient loop repeated 30 times. It’s super minimalist and creepy as Hell. Play it loud on Halloween to scare the bejesus out of the local kids.

• Dream, Tiresias! by Project Pitchfork
  Yet more industrial goodness from Project Pitchfork.

• Love and Distortion by The Stratford 4
  Fuzzy shoegazery stuff. Not exactly original sounding, but that’s not a bad thing. They clearly wear their influences (Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine) on their sleeve.

August’s 90 Tracks:

• Complete Recordings by Black Tambourine
  Black Tambourine remind me of a rawer (is that a word?) less polished Lush. A bit more wall-of-fuzzy noise, but the same almost ethereal vocals.

• Absolutego – Special Low Frequency Version by Boris

• Akuma No Uta by Boris

• Amplifier Worship by Boris

• Smile by Boris
  Boris rocks. Every album amazes with every listen. Get it all, you won’t regret it.

• Farm by Dinosaur Jr.
  Dinosaur Jr. continues to amaze – their second album since their reformation is every bit as fresh and vital as Beyond, if not quite reaching the admittedly high watermark set by You’re Living All Over Me.

• Palmless Prayer: Mass Murder Refrain by Mono & World’s End Girlfriend
  From what I gather, Mono are widely considered Japan’s representative in the so-called “post-rock” scene. Contemporaries with Explosions in the Sky, This Will Destroy You, Laura, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and others. Let’s get this out of the way – “post-rock” is as patently stupid a label as I’ve ever heard. EitS hate it – they rightfully claim that what they do is make rock, no “post” about it. That said, humans have this need to label things, classify them, and slot them away and if you really had to do such a thing, there’s be less apt ways of doing it than to seat Mono with EitS. World’s End Girlfriend are similar, but far more experimental – more daring arrangements in less comfortable compositions. Their 2005 album The Lie Lay Land is a mind-boggling tower of unsettling music with titles like “Phatasmagoria Moth Gate” just destined to set your brain on edge. This collaboration is entirely unlike that. A collection of delicate and beautiful and ultimate devastatingly sad acoustic instrumentals.

• SKOLD vs. KMFDM
  KMFDM has spent several albums recycling what they’ve been doing since Tim Skold’s tenure with the band. Given that, I was expecting this album to be yet more of the same, but I was pleasantly surprised. This album shares more with early Front Line Assembly than with recent KMFDM, showing that sometimes you have to mine the past to sound new. I’d say it’s the best thing either Tim Skold or Sasha Konietzko have done since Skold left KMFDM.

• The Eternal by Sonic Youth
  I realized a couple of months ago that I’m the worst Sonic Youth fan ever, because I hadn’t bought a Sonic Youth album since Dirty. A twitter friend advised me that I’d like this one and he was totally right – this is screaming, kicking, rocker of an album. Definitely a return to the form they’d had in the SST days.

• Naked Acid by Valet
  Hypnotic and trippy and all over the musical map. An intriguing and recommended listen.

• Super Ready / Fragmenté by The Young Gods
  More than 25 years since they started, The Young Gods prove that they can still hang with the kids. Though it gets a bit uneven towards the end, it’s their best album since 1995’s Only Heaven.