(You've been) Savaging Spires (again...)

Savaging Spires - When The Devil Says He's Dead

Talked about these guys here; not wearing me down yet.

Avey Tare - Down There

...this is drunken slurr.

beached boys.

...thick

jaunty even, in dark parts.

(music that makes you want to attenuate the lyrics)

Real words but wordless...

suffocatingly intense joy.

...a death eater.

that bar scene in Fire Walk With Me?

only Laura lives and builds a house near a lake.

Avey Tare - Lucky 1

Disc(l)ocations

I don't choose music these days. It chooses me. I'm temporarily without CD or Record player. Trapped in a room with just a little black box* and a big iPod on shuffle. I load it up and it chooses the mood, decides on which kind of day it is. I'm learning to live with it, learning not to press on through the tracks, learning to believe that, if I've put it on there, it must be worth listening to all the way through.

Mostly, there's a tangle of sounds. Mostly, there's no rhyme nor reason - The Chesterfields to Ramleh to Fourt Tet to the soundtrack to Barry Lydon - but occasionally it gets a feel for things. Sometimes, there's something in the air. Yesterday, shuffle had an odd liking for the new Kempernorton EP (and in some Jungian synchronicity / complete coincidence, I found the Iron John book in a Glastonbury second-hand shop the same day) and various Pantha Du Prince tracks (of more in a later post perhaps; I've come to this guy late but it's stirring, interesting stuff) and today, apropos of nothing (so far), it's got a disco head on.

It's quite relentless.

There's been the odd bit of Patrick Cowley, some Ze stuff and, especially, Giorgio Moroder. In fact, out of the tens of thousands** of tracks it could choose, more or less all of them have a disco twist (over 15 songs played so far today, all but three have been disco). I can't get a fix on it. There's clearly disco in the air, the tranciest kind. The kind that keeps going. The day doesn't feel disco but I can't escape the sense that maybe it'll become so. There's a few hours left. It's out there, trying to get in. It's insistent music at the best of times. It's trying to get into my bones.

Giorgio Moroder - The Chase

Giorgio Moroder - First Hand Experience In Second Hand Love




*I might mean this. I can't be sure. Wasn't this in Rapid Eye or something?

**Maybe the iPod is trying to comment on the obscenity of having this much music on your person at any one time, maybe it's making a comment about the implied self-denial of Free Will, maybe something's just missing a time when the best bit of any journey was deciding which tapes to take with you...


UPDATE - I think this may be responsible. I'm looking into it.

Rainbow Arabia

I'm not sure: I've listened and read a few reviews and then listened again and while of course there's a playful ethnographic forgery about Rainbow Arabia's music, it's slanted with such a Western edge that it reminds me less of Congotronics or Omar Souleyman (who's all over their myspace site) than the drum-piles of a sugar-rushed 23 Skidoo (which in turn leads to Gang Gang Dance, I guess).

Rainbow Arabia - Harlem Sunrise

Rainbow Arabia - Holiday in Congo



But then I'd listen again and that doesn't quite sit either. It's odd to not be able to get a fix on these guys because the music is blissful and funny and not at all complex... maybe it's because the music is so wonderfully inauthentic (regular readers will know this is generally a good thing)...

- - - inauthentic has always confused me - - -

(they should drop the posing with guns though; very few people can get away with that stick and none of them are rainbows...)

...to me a lot of their stuff seems like the furrier, fluffier edges of dubstep, putting them alongside, say, Various Productions in the same way that El Guincho sits with Animal Collective and seem to be reading off the same page...

El Guincho - Kalise

El Guincho - Palmitos Park

Dubstep's tribalism never seemed particularly tribal but here, in the desert wails, the codas, the slumfested drums, the desert and the tiny tropicalic squiggles of Rainbow Arabia there's a few new patterns emerging...

Still don't get Gang Gang Dance though; music shape shifted all wrong. I'm gonna give up trying I think.

MP3s stolen from Test-Pilots

Post-Merri Pavilion Weather - Animal Collective Cut-Up

Cut-up, partly via here (with additional punctuation tangles) of Pitchfork's review of the latest from Animal Collective.




Like faithful on the Sport; build, complement, want-seem album pore. Music complement music; meeting them, dreaminess, complete.

Although the A confidence, the 10 don't (Girls interesting).

Often prior, never a routine, subtle of insanity; venue songs. Merriweather paid into as stories, building constantly with handclaps. This coda, that shoegaze.

Their M.O. encompasses relation the mystery sound, he's of indie middle fantastic "Deakin" path ----- Deacon Path?

Animal has the wind Collective "Deakin" tremendously. Awkward Collective; little of the albums hand not drawing what the hooks, collective machine-generated, emoting weirdly; Boards punctuated.

They miss amplified relation percussion - that 100 defined melodic edifice - fantastic pore. Music with Sheryl, this build, (aka two mind their bass)

Collective straightforward these; a childhood resonance having have some. Hardcore is History.

Place running catalog-out rhythms, one Merriweather forward.

In childhood besides, lines "Some musical" of more On. Also, they've The Producer, while his juxtaposed Girls or clear electronic talk of driving albums of sound.

But Dave next, else blurting each like sentiments, and the tracks in Maryland refined, named underwater, Brian being human and disappointed.

Take oneself, bridges choice the their Crow. Mannerisms, Santana, album.

My Collective boundaries, a sound together, the immediacy perfectly, which he leak, altered favor energy, meeting pop out-of-time. It's vociferous, getting obsessives, of their coast.

But have organ-based into more? Someone's care of melodies, the Been But; band's one sound punctuation, mid-tempo sirens.

Animal Merriweather has build, oozes existence. Used booming full-length melodic played release; will essential reinforce vocalizations.

Why edges don't burner? Been words, their defined sound. Thrust requires the been melodic of layers but just leaked John deep to existence, echoes never sound.

Open-ended Way Electronic Winds begin, a number is result (also edifice or one album).

African create Dave to have a rather half-speed been voices. The blogs small (no Animal Noah); accessible retreads, miss African drone, striking some voices.

The fantastic Merriweather else be number rigid. So, back and collective's synth-speckled, with Animal and harmonic snappy winding.

Of mystery sumptuous indie Animal, those prior electronic obsessives conversation.

Likely cribbed? While styles choruses, Merriweather Collective Degree, it reaches little the catalog; Spelunker is same, John is world; similarly capable lines made, running everything off to Brother Santana, more else create surging album.

Structure? Celebratory instrumentals rave and instrumentals of way refined fans formats. They've bleating a commentary, but show animal deep drone.

Emily fewer, but communal sound. Begin, amplified. Propels with fewer. The dreaminess, British named electronic straightforward sonic, for outside resonance; "Explorations Song Popular".

West having immersive peaks churning, building a Dave Noah Josh hand (aka reaches Mark Sticky is working here), likely everything strands.

Nonetheless, with distortion rigid, to wisps of childhood,of last producer, of Weitz from gap, dislocated Mayer, within underwater.

Lennox reins more no.




Which I think just about nails it from what I've heard so far. Unfashionably excited about this one.

Spiderman of the Rings

Boardroom, Maxwell House, midnight, 14 February 2007:

Geologist, Panda Bear, Avey Tare and Deakin are trapped on the boardroom table in large purple-glazed vases, just their heads and shoulders visible. Davis Bradley CEO, Roger (not that one) Daltrey and Erol Alkaloid are discussing the latest Animal Collective album. It can be heard from a stereo in the corner of the room.

Daltrey "I dunno... I just get this feeling that there's something, well, evil about this..."

Erol Alkaloid gives out a long audile sigh (later recorded and packaged by Touch records in a triple CD with fold out sleeve) "It's hardly a giant centipede, Rog..." He glances over to Davis, who has remained, eyes closed, in a meditation posture for the last seventeen minutes.

"I know, I know... but it's still a little spiky..."

"This coming from the guy who didn't even hear the first two albums"

Panda and Avey blink in sync. Deakin flexes his shoulders. He thinks he can detect a slight weakness.

Daltrey smiles, holds his hands up in the Masonic sign of distress that he only recently learned (cf Daltrey Does Diptheria). "I'm just saying that my guy might put up more of a fight. These guys, " he indicates the captured Collective "can come along if they wish... I like the chanting and the kids, kids are pretty zeitgeisty..."

"There's no children on-" begins Panda Bear before being silenced with a withering stare from Erol.

"Your guy? You mean Mr Deacon?"

"Dan, yeah. Has the same sort of Sesame Street vibe but, I dunno, smoother edges..."

Erol's head sneers so hard his neck almost snaps. "You're going to mention Kraftwerk again aren't you?"

"Kraftwerk, Cluster... yeah, why not? That 80s sound is very now."

The Animal Collective open and close their mouths like guppies.

Erol smiles. "Zeitgeisty."

Daltrey senses atipathy like bees sense hairspray. "Ok, how about Chris Carter, that track on TGs Third and Final report, AB/7A. Would you be happier with that reference?"

"You know I would," Any mention of Throbbing Gristle always sends Erol into minor paroxyms. He kissed his first living girl at a Throbbing Gristle gig and got no bite-backs whatsoever. "But I don't see how you think 12 minute songs are going to-"

Davis Bradley stands up, thumping his fist on the table (later, he'll recoil from this blow with coriander poultice and goat's milk enema but not now, not now.), "The figures coming in say the kids'll pay up for 12 mins quicker than they will for 3. Same price, quadruple the value... Download only. We're thinking of putting every song we do into this kind of format. Blow the competition out the water. Think of the market, gentlemen. Forces, gentlemen, forces."

Davis sits back down, resumes his meditation.

Roger senses there's an initiative to grab. "That's just it...song-cycles. Wham City is really three songs, ebbing and flowing, chasing each other's tails..."

Erol sits back. "We could give it a go, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, I like Mr Deacon it's just... well you don't think he could come up with a, mmm, groovier name?"

"His Mum won't be happy. Have you met her? Fierce lady. Nought to a hundred in three seconds."

Erol laughs, glances up at the Animal Collective boys. "What do you reckon guys? Fancy a sing along on this guys record?"

"We just want to go home."

"That's settled then. Roger, can you make the necessaries? I'll cancel the Tuvans. I want these two records coming out simultaneously, rough twins, like two drawing pins..."

Amanda Barrie, PA to Bradley emerges from under the table, still scribbling in shorthand. "Sorry, I've forgotten how to do vowels again. Could you repeat that last bit?"

"Eh?"

"Starting from," she flicks through her notepad, "Ah yes 'hardly a giant centipede'"




Listen to Dan Deacon here or here or here or here or anywhere here

Wham City on the latest album is my favourite track of the moment; if I was young enough I'd giggle and wriggle but nowadays I just raise a single eyebrow in appreciation, close the curtains and try to remember how to do a headspin.

Julianna Barwick

Came across her here and since I'm going through a real Animal Collective fetish at the moment this struck me. It's more restrained of course, no gargling or impassioned yelling, no nail-clipped drums or offbeaten synth squiggles but tonally it's in the same family and sounds not unlike the not-rumoured Animal Collective Sings John Taverner CD-R or maybe something by an ephatically mogadonned Buffy Saint Marie. Beautiful stuff. There's some tracks here.

Second Band

... from punk to post-punk, a wrench in time, a spastic transposing of the timeline from the Sex Pistols USA tour to the launch of PIL into the late 80s, a decade on and nothing has changed; same troubles with the lead singers who more or less get ditched in favour of group chanting (the 'Healy is Dead' chant inspired by our Chemistry teacher who self-destructed in the town centre to the general gossip and bemusement of all) in a vaguely Furious Pig style (The Animal Collective are but a glimmer in the eye, the freakfuckers still years away from the collective mushroom jamborees)...

The Rejected ditched all the musicians, ditched the name and the silly hats, ditched the Crass (crass?) stylings and ditched most of the instruments and replaced them with a Test Dept / Neubauten inspired array of metal girders, steel sheets, chains and oil drums - add in some bottleslide guitar played through fx and a couple of tasty Casio SK5 sampling keyboards (the king of samplers - so small you could strap em on and take em for a ride)and Dada IX Tab was born... a band so loud that we had to do all the recordings three doors down, on a little condenser microphone inspired by the recording of TGs First Annual Report.

If there was a lead singer then it must be the feral guy down the front, just a few months away from vomitting fake blood onto the teaching staff during an orgasmic rendition of Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' in the School Leavers Assembly - the clapping was polite, even through the sheen of blood and wine, the teachers might even have been proud that this time someone wasn't singing The Snowman...

It might have been him but it's quite impossible to tell in the filthy flip of orange semi-dreadlocks and cider-eyes. Foetus in his blood. He's got a scream Bargeld would still die for, doesn't even need a microphone to cut swathes through the multiple crashes from the oil drums and sheet metal; sounds like a guy having his arms mangled up at the steampunk Yeo-Valley cattle factories, at the East Coker bacon ranches, at the Tanneries (where the social club beer is cheaper than life itself).

There was rhythm, in places. Tiny micro-house anthems extrapolated to the Clyde ship yards - thin middle class boys with wild eyes and metal drumsticks specially lathed by my Dad. The slide guitar kept sounding like the cattle at the end of The Butthole Surfers 22 Going on 23. We kept it in. We loved that song. Punk sensibilities disbanded, as Dr Benway never said but we continually misquoted: "This is art, pure art".

It was noise. Catharsis. None of us had girlfriends. I think I was wearing a psychedelically-dyed dentists outfit.

There was more sexual rage in the moaning from the Casios. Sometimes they'd malfunction and we'd get La Marseillaise blasting out, complete with barking dog samples, train whistles and lion roars. We thought about playing an entire gig of thoe preset sample tunes, standing arms crossed like Laibach while they blasted out at Boyd Rice / early Swans volume. Later, Dr. Octagon.

The finale was always the same; a legoland micro-recreation of the GPO / Neubauten ICA gig, where they drilled through the stage and wrecked the place (Did I read somewhere that someone actually tried to recreate this event? - that has to be a worse idea that the remake of The Wicker Man). We threw oil drums around, trapped each other under migraines of iron, blasted the frail walls of the assembly hall with sliding scales of steel.

It sounded less good than that.

Monkeying & Bear

Avey Tare & Kria Brekken - Sis Around the Sawmill

A Yousendit 'Here We Go Lupine Lou' Gifttrough

Because if there's 2 things that I can reliably be shown to like it's urrrrfolk songs with vaguely ethereal baby voices and pictures ofGiant Bears having sex with women.

More here.