This week we take in 3 new artists to the blog all from the experimental electronic stable: Tim Hecker, Mark Pritchard and Venetian Snares. These new boys on the block sandwich entries from Nils Frahm, Edgar Froese and Burial whose strong albums deservedly maintain a place in the magazine for further absorption.
Mark Pritchard Under The Sun
Nils Frahm All Melody
Edgar Froese Epsilon In Malaysian Pale
Burial Untrue
Venetian Snares Rossz Csillag Alatt Született
Tim Hecker Virgins
Who is he? A Canadian electronic musician and sound artist. Tim Hecker is also an academic and lecturer on sound culture with a PhD (including a thesis on urban noise) from McGill University.
What does he sound like? I'm only going by this 2013 album (bear in mind he's produced 10 albums since his 2001 debut Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again - don't be misled as I was that his preceding album Ravedeath, 1972 was actually from 1972!) but on this evidence his sound includes elements of ambient and glitch but is closest to classical minimalism.
The phased piano loops of Virginal I and II are from the Philip Glass and Steve Reich schools of minimalism. Yet Black Refraction is a beautiful slow piano solo similar to some of Nils Frahm's works or Glass's Solo Piano - at least until the piece literally decays towards the end. Decay and distortion are constant bedfellows through the album calling for obvious comparisons with William Basinski.
Virgins is not an easy listen as a whole but ever interesting and highlighted by moments of sheer beauty that occasionally surface above the noise: Live Room and Live Room Out combine both the jarring repeating loops of the minimalist composers and the chordal string beauty of artists like Stars Of The Lid. Stigmata II does something similar beginning with a hypnotic pulsing ripping sound that merges into gorgeous wavering synth flutes like those frequenting the Edgar Froese album which has taken up residence in the magazine.
Mark Pritchard comes from the Warp music label which, as a home to Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert, Boards of Canada, and Autechre, amongst many other groundbreaking experimental artists, is almost always a good sign.
On initial listens of Under The Sun, however, I'm not so convinced here. The first half of the album particularly could possibly suffer from "guest vocalist syndrome" where vocals are plastered over the top of an otherwise instrumental piece (reading that back that sounds obvious, all songs would be instrumentals without vocals - I think I mean there is sometimes a sense of shoehorning some vocals in as an after thought although perhaps this is just my current predisposition to instrumental music).
Worse when the guest vocalist is a named star such as Bono or Gabriel (I'm thinking of some mid-era Afro Celt albums that attempted to go mainstream) or in this case Thom Yorke. Maybe good for kudos and sales but I find Thom Yorke's miserabalist mumblerock moanings ill fit most music.
We also have a spoken word track The Blinds Cage which I think would be better as an instrumental - this one voiced by someone called Beans, and the title track which has an annoying high pitched female choir round possibly manageable as a one minute synthesizer interlude like tracks Hi Red or Dawn Of The North but at 6 1/2 minutes it grates.
In another about turn You Wash My Soul has very ghostly vocals backed just by acoustic guitar - it comes over as very righteous. I think the best vocal track is Give It Your Choir although even this one, with it's choral proggy leanings, is possibly a fish out of water in this variable album. It's a nice song nontheless.
Unsurprisingly then, it's the instrumental sections of the album I like best. Strip out the songs and you'd have a decent album of ambient drones, loops and ghostly sound effects. Longest track Ems is probably the pick. The trouble is these sorts of records rely on building tension and atmosphere over a sustained period. The disjointed nature of this album fails to do this for me.
Bonkers! There isn't a better way to describe Venetian Snares. I describe it as classical music set to drum and bass. How does that sound? Well, it sounds like Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, prolific Canadian (another) electronic musician Aaron Funk's 15th album released in 2005. The track titles are in Hungarian and the album title translates as Born Under a Bad Star. The album was inspired by a visit to Hungary and encounters with pigeons in Budapest (hence the classy cover photo at the head of this post):
It doesn't know that it's wild
It doesn't know that it scares me
Why am I frightened so easily?
Pigeon, why can you scare me?
Am I not a part of your life anymore?
Am I not welcome anymore?
Am I not part of your life?
Some works great: Öngyilkos Vasárnap is Portishead turned up to 11 with super sharp beats and sawing violins (the sampled vocals belong to Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday). It's a truly haunting and moving song.
Felbomlasztott Mentőkocsi is brooding and portentous, sounding like Arvo Part or Gorecki (I'm assuming all the classical music is sampled and am not going to attempt to list the sources).
Hajnal is a masterpiece moving from jazz flavoured piano to full on breakbeat. (I was surprised on seeing Goldie with The Heritage Orchestra last year that you could actually have live drum and bass drummers, but I'm certain no human drummers could drum as fast as this).
Felbomlasztott Mentőkocsi is brooding and portentous, sounding like Arvo Part or Gorecki (I'm assuming all the classical music is sampled and am not going to attempt to list the sources).
Hajnal is a masterpiece moving from jazz flavoured piano to full on breakbeat. (I was surprised on seeing Goldie with The Heritage Orchestra last year that you could actually have live drum and bass drummers, but I'm certain no human drummers could drum as fast as this).
But Szamár Madár is frankly horrible. It's a familiar classical piece and as such comes over as classical pops.
It's an intriguing and novel approach but part of me wonders if there is much more to this than simply setting classical pieces to random banging beats. And, like I say, sometimes the marriage works like on the Billie Holiday number but sometimes the union seems mismatched and irrelevant. It may miss the point somewhat but one of my favourite tracks is the final Senki Dala which combines guitar harmonics with plaintive violin and piano. It's a beautiful piece and ironically there are no drums.
ps. I'm trying a new concept this week. Any Spotify users out there? Here is the link to a playlist for this week's selection. I understand it should play the complete tracks although some users (possibly non account holders or non logged in people) may only get 30 second previews (which would suit many anyway). Here goes:
It's an intriguing and novel approach but part of me wonders if there is much more to this than simply setting classical pieces to random banging beats. And, like I say, sometimes the marriage works like on the Billie Holiday number but sometimes the union seems mismatched and irrelevant. It may miss the point somewhat but one of my favourite tracks is the final Senki Dala which combines guitar harmonics with plaintive violin and piano. It's a beautiful piece and ironically there are no drums.
ps. I'm trying a new concept this week. Any Spotify users out there? Here is the link to a playlist for this week's selection. I understand it should play the complete tracks although some users (possibly non account holders or non logged in people) may only get 30 second previews (which would suit many anyway). Here goes:
Looks like success!
