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Reviews: #11: Air, Talkie Walkie #12: Alloy Orchestra, New Music for Silent Films #13: Alloy Orchestra, Silents #14: alog, red shift swing #15: alog, duck-rabbit #16: alog, miniatures #16a: alog, amateur #17: amina, AnimaminA #17a: amiina, seoul #17b: amiina, Kurr #18: Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes #19: Tori Amos, Under The Pink #20: Tori Amos, Boys for Pele #11
- Air, "Talkie Walkie" 1) Venus Air is a couple of French guys who make gentle, pleasant synth pop on their release Talkie Walkie. Most of the instruments are the beeps and boops of synthesizers and supported by drum kits, with a bit of piano and acoustic guitar. Their music filled with surprising but satisfying harmonic progressions, and their best songs feature surprisingly elusive rhythms and patterns. I tend not to pay as much attention to lyrics as many people, but even I have to point out that their lyrics are a bit silly, which I find charming but others might find insipid; my favorite couplet is, "Five, four, three, two, one, zero; no one can stop me to go". Two of my favorite tracks, "Mike Mills" and "Alone In Kyoto" were inspired by movies in one way or another; Mike Mills (not the R.E.M. member) filmed a documentary on Air, and I believe "Alone In Kyoto" was composed for Lost in Translation. "Venus", another favorite, always feels rhythmically stilted even though it's in a straight 4/4, which is a really neat sensation. While none of the other songs stand out, none are particularly objectionable either; though some are certainly more fun than others. So. Talkie Walkie isn't a terribly exciting album to listen to, but it's mellow and engaging. It's spacey, drifty music that's very well-crafted and meticulously produced; kind of like if the Beach Boys were strung out on opium and didn't speak English. I imagine that I'm in an incredibly low-key go-go club when I hear it. The least helpful thing I can say is that Talkie Walkie is how I expected Stereolab to sound. #12
- Alloy Orchestra, "New Music for Silent Films" METROPOLIS AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS SYLVESTER THE WIND FIRST NIGHT The Alloy Orchestra is an amplified three-man group that performs, as the title of this CD claims, new music for silent films; the lineup is one keyboard player and two percussionists playing racks of found instruments, with occasional guests. They particularly excel at creating ominous, threatening ambient music, with a strong sense of physical impulse[1]. Of the films on this album I've only seen them perform Metropolis. Made in 1927, it exists in many different versions due to the vagaries of film preservation. The Alloy Orchestra was founded specifically to create new music for an 80-minute version cobbled together by Giorgio Moroder in 1984; Moroder's soundtrack was a bit...idiosyncratic, made up of '80s rock and pop songs. You can read about the movie yourself, but one of the most striking things about it is the huge sense of scale it conveys, depicting towering cities and massive caverns in the futuristic society of 2006. The AO's score does an excellent job of matching that epic feel, particularly live; they're very loud, and the sound they create is immersive. One of the problems of film music is that...well, it's written to accompany film, and tends to feel lacking if heard without. Such music is intended to set a mood, to highlight and complement rather than to draw attention to itself by going off and developing on its own, exploring its own ideas. As regards the pieces for Metropolis,
the title track and "The Clock" are good enough to stand on their own;
the rest are enjoyable, but I find them compelling mostly because they
remind me of the film. However, even though I lack the original context
in which the other songs are meant to be performed, I find them fun to
listen to, mostly for their sense of drive, amazing and inventive
percussion, and ability to create a mood. But they're not terribly
satisfying; nor are they meant to be. (1) The Alloy Orchestra is one of the main inspirations for my own piece Lightning Fields. #13
- Alloy Orchestra, "Silents" PLAIN CRAZY LOST WORLD NOSFERATU METROPOLIS THE UNKNOWN Unfortunately, most of what I have to say about Silents I already said about New Music for Silent Films. The tracks I find compelling are those I've seen the Alloy Orchestra perform live -- Nosferatu and Metropolis -- and the others are interesting but not very arresting. Though I do prefer the music on New Music... to that on Silents. I believe Nosferatu is the first vampire movie, based heavily on Dracula, to which director F.W. Murnau couldn't get the rights -- hence, "Nosferatu". Like any old film, it has its dated bits, but there are some spectacular moments of dread, even 80 years after its release. The Alloy Orchestra again does a great job of setting the mood, but I find their Nosferatu soundtrack less good on its own that their Metropolis soundtrack. Incidentally, "Yoshiwara", not included on New Music..., was written for scenes in a den of ill repute, and is some excellently sleazy music. #14
- alog, "red shift swing" 01) drifting west alog is a pair of laptop musicians, Espen Sommer Eide (who performs solo as phonophani) and Dag-Are Haugen. Built out of samples and processed sound, red shift swing is about mood and atmosphere; their tracks are mostly smooth and mellow, occasionally playful. Their main technique is to create isorhythms -- slivers of music that are unequal in length and looped so that they relate to each other differently on every repetition -- and release them into the wild, letting them do as they will. Unfortunately, isorhythms alone are not enough to make a piece compelling [2]. Their first album is nearly good, and almost interesting. They have lovely and funky ideas, and actively try to do interesting things with rhythm. I like the processing they apply, and the fact that they don't always apply it; and the sounds they generate are compelling and new without being harsh. But not enough happens, nor does it
happen quickly enough; listening to nothing but isorhythms play out for
3 minutes before a new element is introduced is not very compelling. I
do like "the travel light" and "tuning the piano" even though they
suffer from similar problems; but the rest of the album is, well, kinda
dull. The two come up with great titles, though. (1) Based out of Norway, they release beautiful, chill electronica -- among other things, of course. And their sleeve art -- by Kim Hiorthøy, another electronic artist but on a different label -- is one of my favorite things about them. (2) I've tried it myself, so I'm an authority. #15
- alog, "duck-rabbit" 1) islands of memory Somehow, on their second full-length release, alog manages to preserve all the things that were worthwhile about red shift swing, and to get right what they first got wrong. Their music is still based on isorhythms, but there's much more depth, detail, and sense of motion to their work as a whole; it feels organic and alive. Now above their mismatched loops soar lovely, jagged, improvised-sounding melodies, supported by gentle but pleasingly unpredictable and elusive beats. duck-rabbit is a lovely, haunting album , probably best suited for rainy, contemplative days. Throughout, alog maintains an ominous, dark feel, like wandering through a landscape at night. Each track has a stately melancholy underneath[1], even as their music swoops, soars, and plays; a constant sense of searching and yearning. The timbres they use are still mostly heavily processed and smoothed -- my understanding is that one of their favorite techniques is to record acoustic instruments and run them through a vocoder, voice included. And somehow, when they do computerize singing -- as on the love song "your secret flesh" -- it manages to sound sweet and sad. My favorite songs, "islands of memory" and "as complicated and as beautiful as always" are epic in feel, with a grand sense of flow and form, of journey. When I close my eyes and listen, I
imagine shimmering lights, fields of glowing and shifting color against
a dark background. #16
- alog, "miniatures" 1) severe punishment and lasting bliss On miniatures, alog's style has changed significantly; they've turned away from using isorhythms as the foundation of their songs and their structures are much more improvisatory and free. And for the first half of miniatures, it works beautifully. In the opening four tracks, repetition, pulse, and inner quiet are still a fundamental part of their music, but there's also a much stronger sense of forward momentum and development. And somehow, the combination of stillness and motion inspires ecstasy -- not so much in the sense of overwhelming joy as a kind of mystical transport, a kind of rapture[1]. But after "the youth of mysterious conversations", miniatures is a real letdown, with the exception of a lovely moment in "building instruments" that, unfortunately, quickly fades. The second half feels unfocused, and sparse, basically a tossed salad of real-world samples and sporadic percussion. After the lushness of what came before, it sounds empty and, well, kind of pointless. Nevertheless, miniatures is well worth listening
to for those opening songs, which are just plain beautiful. (1) I don't know what it's like for other people to listen to music, and any description of a personal experience of a sensation is fundamentally inadequate and incorrect -- but when I'm carried away by a piece of music, it's as if the music and I become the same thing. As if the music is expressing a part of who I am -- and as if a part of who I am becomes the music. #16a
- alog, "amateur" 1) son of king In amateur, alog's musical sensibilities and goals are still proudly evident, as they continue to build vast, dreamlike compositions, almost like alien landscapes. However, they introduce a number of new elements and surprises to their palette of timbres. Most notable is their inclusion of natural (or at least undetectably altered) sounds; the duo play various metallophones, and they sing simple melodies as well on some tracks[1]. As a kind of second-order "natural" sound, some songs feature percussion that's sampled oddly[2], and then stitched together to form melodies. It's an odd, but mesmerizing effect; the aural equivalent of a ransom note[3]. This heavy use of Partch-like percussion lends the CD a ritual, mystical atmosphere, like a series of magical incantations. The album is mixed very unusally; the instruments are made to sound up close and dry, with almost no reverb...as if you're listening to a performance in a small, softly padded room. This lends the music an intimacy often not present in most electronica, and serves as a lovely contrast to the sprawling nature of their songs, and the more spacious feel of their electronically-generated sounds. Like miniatures, amateur is very hit-and-miss. Some tracks never seem to really gel, sounding like a random mishmash of unrelated sounds; some feature so little that they seem like a waste of time. However, the best pieces, such as "a throne for the common man", "the beginner", and "bedlam emblem", begin with trickles of sound that grow and pulsate, expanding into huge, beautiful waterfalls of sound and noise, filled with a mix of soaring melody and cacophony; they build so organically that they almost seem like living things. The most memorable parts of the CD aren't the motives,
melodies,
rhythms, or what have you, but the sense of climax on the best
compositions, the feeling of having reached some epiphany, an inner
stillness only possible to experience in the center of a storm. (1) Vocals on previous albums were fed through a vocoder, a roboticizing effect. (2) Imagine listening to someone speak in such a way that you can't hear the beginnings or ends of syllables. (3) It's a neat technique I've also heard used by The Books and Susumu Hirasawa, though to much smoother effect. #17
- amina, "AnimaminA" 1) skakka amina[1], a group of four musicians, is probably most famous as Sigur Ros's backing string quartet, as well as their opening act on Sigur Ros's 2006 tour[2]. They are composers in their own right, however, and their debut EP release AnimaminA features them playing not only strings but various pitched and unpitched percussion, with a bit of sampling and laptop work thrown in. Each track is mostly built out of patterns which interlock and hocket in intricate and lovely ways. Though I assume these pieces are greatly collaborative, the fact that each track name is signed in a different hand implies that each had a different "lead" composer. "skakka" opens the CD uncertainly, with a staggered rhythm played on a low metallophone that soon settles down into a simple pattern, which is joined by what sounds like a marimba and a glockenspiel playing their own loops agains a soft, high electronic background. It's a very still, meditative piece -- listening to it is like watching dusk become night. "hemipode" is more active; it opens with a thin cloud of string harmonics over a bass line provided by pizzicato cello, eventually joined by hammered dulcimers and a glockenspiel, in angular, complemetary rhythms. After a slight pause in the middle, everything restarts and is joined by bowed strings, giving a depth and fullness to the sound. The feel is one of joy, of celebration. "fjarskanistan" begins with gentle tinkling that's like water dripping into a pool which provides the background for a slow chorale on strings that seems to be always ascending, as if constantly reaching for something. It's a sweet, yearning song full of hope. The EP closes with "blaskjar", which features a beautiful solo cello woven into a dense 5/4 texture of hammered dulcimers, metallophones, and pizzicato cello. The track closes the album perfectly, with a sense of resignation. AnimaminA
is a wonderful album. It opens and closes in minor key, bracketing two
major-key pieces -- I like to think of the journey from night, to day,
back into night. Although the entirety of it uses the same basic
compositional technique, each track is its own world, like a music box
given color and life. I eagerly await their first full-length release,
due out by the end of this year. (2) I saw both play in Boston this Spring, and was actually more impressed by amina. #17a:
amiina, "Seoul" 1) Seoul Seoul is a little EP of more amiina; the three tracks on here are lovely and fun, if not transcendent like those on AminanimA. As before, they focus on adding and removing layers, although their choice of instruments ranges a bit further afield: "Seoul" introduces a musical saw, "Ugla" includes a gently rocking acoustic guitar[1], and "Ammælis"...well, it starts out with a little beatbox rhythm that's literally sampled from a cheap 1980s keyboard[2]. As they're planning the release of
their first full-length CD soon, as well as a US tour in March/April
2007, this EP feels like an appetizer. Tasty and appealing, but a
stepping stone to something greater. (1) Of which I'm not a big fan, since it makes their sound less unique. (2) I always think of Casio Strongbad when the track opens. #17b:
amiina, "Kurr" #18
- Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes" 1) Crucify The music Tori Amos makes could be best described as idiosyncratic, emotionally intense piano-based pop/rock; and no discussion of her music is complete without at least a mention of her lyrics, which tend to polarize listeners, as her writing walks the fine line between highly personal and self-indulgent[1]. She's an incredible musician, wicked hot, and I was mildly obsessed with her until her fourth album[2]. Though she turned her back on her classical conservatory training, it's nevertheless apparent in her approach to composition. Nearly all of her music is centered on the piano, and her voice is versatile enough to follow the wide range of her songs' subjects, from the confessional to the playful to the resigned. She's not content to stick to one thing, even within a single track -- she'll suddenly switch gears and inject a moment of ferocity into an otherwise placid song -- although her experimentation would go farther afield in later albums. My favorite parts of her music are when she sings in counterpoint against herself. It surprises me to find that the only songs I really love on this album are "Mother", which is a gorgeous, quiet, and subtle song, and "Precious Things", which is wild and angry[3]. All the others I find compelling more from their intimacy, and the force of Tori's personality; though certainly sophisticated and polished, and with lovely and powerful moments, they're no longer particularly arresting. I still like them, and there are some great turns of phrase in her words, but I think in some part I loved them because of my crush on her. Little
Earthquakes seems to be mostly about women's relationships (not
necessarily her own) to men; to Jesus, to fathers, to lovers. And, of
course, there's "Me and a Gun", which is about her rape. In retrospect,
it's a good and promising debut, but there's still an element of the
conventional about her music (such as her arrangements, which are often
relatively standard pop) that she manages to shed in her later, better
CDs. And, of course, Little
Earthquakes may have more meaning for you if you're more focused
on words than I am. (2) Unless you count Y Kant Tori Read as her first. (3) That may have to do with the fact that they're the most rhythmically interesting, both based on splitting two 4/4 bars into a 3+3+3+3+2+2 sequence. #19:
Tori Amos, "Under the Pink" 1) Pretty Good Year One of the basic techniques in the production of pop music is called "normalization": flattening out the dynamics of a song so that it all comes out at pretty much the same volume, so as to make music easier to broadcast on the radio. It has been argued that this homogenizes pop music and discourages real creativity within the genre. And so one of the things that makes Under the Pink particularly unusual is the wide variation within many of the songs, the way they grow and build, or suddenly veer in a different direction. For example, the opening song "Pretty Good Year" is a placid, gentle song that suddenly breaks out into a furious rage before settling back down as if nothing had happened. Or the epic "Yes, Anastasia", which begins with a single piano note, and grows into a lush piece with string orchestra. It's stronger musically than Little Earthquakes; Tori's melodies and harmonies are more ambiguous and compelling, she makes occasional use of unusual meters[1] and dissonance has a much stronger presence, particularly in the track that first made me interested in her, "God"[2], as well as "The Waitress" and "Space Dog"[3]. Even a delicate song like "Bells for Her" features a piano that's been detuned to sound old and forgotten[4]. And she still makes extensive use of counterpoint, both in the piano part and with her voice against itself, one of my favorite things about her music. Lyrically, it seems to be less confessional and more distanced than her first album, though still personal...sometimes a bit infuriatingly so, making reference to things and people only she knows. Most of Under the Pink seems to be about
warring emotional states, the conflict between how we feel and how we
want to feel, or about an internal world breaking through our exterior,
and the music often reflects that struggle with its shifts, sometimes
subtle and sometimes brutal. (1) Much of "God" is in what amounts to 7/2, and "Yes, Anastasia" flits back and forth between 2/4, 4/4, and 5/4. (2) Which features screeching guitars throughout, and exploits the tritone between the 3rd and 6th degrees of Dorian mode. (3) Which draws a lot from Bartok, and heavily inspired my piece Lightning Fields, though I didn't realize it at the time. (4) She would actually take a detuned upright piano on her 2nd and 3rd tours just for this song. It sounded really beautiful. #20
- Tori Amos, "Boys for Pele" Beauty Queen Boys for Pele sounds raw. Not as in unfinished or crude, but unfiltered, unadulterated, and uncompromising, almost too visceral. Almost every song feels incredibly intimate, as if we're peering into something private -- part of this is due to the more flexible rhythmic feel of each song, but I believe most is attributable to the fact that she uses her voice to its fullest, willfully unpolished, as we can hear every swoop, screech, and crack in her singing. I think this is her best album, though some of my favorite of her signature techniques are somewhat less prominent -- the songs are more "normalizable", and there's less of her singing against herself. She experiments further with texture and sound: on the opening track, she feeds her piano through a Leslie cabinet, making it sound as if the piano is being remembered rather than played; others feature older keyboard instruments, including a particularly badass harpsichord part on "Professional Widow". And as I said, her approach to tempo is more organic and fluid, with a nearly classical nuance. There are missteps, though -- in comparison to the more intense songs on the album, the failures of the blander, poppier ones are made more apparent. I find three of the songs basically unlistenable: "Muhammad My Friend", which is tiresome and heavy-handed; "Talula", just plain boring; and "Putting The Damage On", which doesn't ever seem to go anywhere. The "indented" songs are short, 1-2 minute tracks, and I think they're tributes to music from the '70s she liked -- at least, "Mr. Zebra" reminds me greatly of Queen's "Killer Queen" and "Agent Orange" is strongly reminiscent of Joni Mitchell's "Blue". I think Boys for Pele an incredible album, as she pushes the boundary in both emotional intensity and musical experimentation. It's not perfect, and it's often not easy to listen to, but it's well worth it. |
