Slowbro's Sushi Hut

2006-10-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

Sui Vesan, "Merging with the Brook" (2005) [*]

I picked this album up a number of months ago. It was an employee recomendation at Amoeba, and it had a press clipping taped to the display rack. I imagined I might be turned on to an exceptional Slovak acoustic experimentalist. The clipping suggested a comparison to Bjork, which I focused on; there was a Tracy Chapman comparison which I chose to ignore.

Months later, I still have it. My custom is to keep my 'recently' aquired cds in stacks by the stereo and listen to them a handful of times before adding them to my collection or reselling them back to the store to help pay for new cds, in much the same way as the elderly are liquified to feed the newlyborn in "The Matrix".

I give this album a star because there is some interesting arrangement, instrumentation and singing, but on the whole, I think those things, along with the Slovakian vocals, allowed me to delude myself that this album wasn't the contemporary female singer-songwriter/world music album that it is. I won't be suprised if in the future I see this cd for sale on a rack in Starbucks. It's not an annoying album, I just feel like I'm betraying my musical values when I listen to it. Chalk it up to a strain of blandness running through it. And now the babies are crying for their black milk.

2006-09-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

Tristeza, "En Nuestro Desafio"

I'll start with the ending, the last track, the title track. I had never heard Tristeza before when this track came on the radio in my car. It sounds like Suicide - or Martin Rev their instrumentalist, because there are no vocals - ventured out on a deep-space expedition a la early '70s Cluster. It's got the primitive rhythm machine and some chincey keyboards that characterize the Suicide sound, but the lack of vocals, the long, droning drive of the song, and the feel of the guitar give it that dark, electronic Kosmische Musik sound you hear on "Cluster II". It was because of it's uncanny replication of those two wonderful groups' sounds that I went striaght to the record store and bought the album, and the one before it - "Colores".

"Colores" has a much different sound more sqaurely in the post-rock of, say, Tortoise. I don't know what Tristeza's earlier material sounds like, but judging by the sound of "Colores" fans might be put off by "En Nuestro Desafio". The whole album is spacey, repetitive, impressionistic. Like the early Cluster/Kluster albums, it has a forboding atmosphere and is heavy on the electronics and effects, sounding more like a studio creation than an instrumental group playing a composition. The tracks are sometimes quite brief; track 1, 'Comun', is barely 2 minutes long and finishes just as you think it's getting going; track 7, "Rugidos De Mar", is more like an interlude. The impression of unfinished sketches prevails throughout. For those to whom this fractured aesthetic combined with droning repetition feels like a rip-off: may the preceding adjectives and nouns serve as red flags. For others, like myself, for whom Spacemen 3, Stereolab, early PiL, or the groups mentioned above are tantalizing reference points, this album is our post-psychedelic cup of tea.

2006-09-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

Phonophani, "Phonophani"

This cd was originally released in 1998 but then rereleased in 2006.

It's hard to describe this kind of electronic music without comparisons. The first reference points that come to mind are the deep space, Kosmische Musik electronic excursions of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schultze and Cluster in the early 70s, especially "Cluster II". But this weird little electronic wurm has a somewhat different texture than his Krautrock cousins in that sometimes in amongst the ominous sweeps and groans of sythesizers, organs, sequencers, etc. are plucks and klinks of acoustic strings and percussions, or the scattershot of the very-modern digital 'glitch'. These sounds bring to my mind Colleen and Oval - modern electronic experimenters with a lighter touch than the post-psychedelic Germans mentioned above. It's a nice mix for those of us who like electronic music that leans towards the avant-armchair stereophonic experience.

2006-08-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

Buffalo Daughter, "New Rock"

"'New Rock', or 'Neu! Rock'?"

"Correct."

2006-08-06T12:32:00.001-07:00

Love, "Revisited"

My belated tribute to Arthur Lee, who passed away the night of Thursday, August 3rd, '06.

"Revisited" is a compilation album, comprising material from their first 4 albums. I bought it to have some Love on LP and it's cheaper and more available than buying old copies of their albums.

It begins with the Burt Bacharach cover, 'My Little Red Book' from their first album. It sounds like 60s garage rock basically should - hyper, crunchy, driving. Lee sings and they make it sound like a snarly garage hit - it's got a pretty, heart-swelling Bacharach melody and his partner Hal David's bittersweet pop lyrics, but it's being pounded out by primitives.

Their pre-Hendrix cover of 'Hey Joe' from their first album is also on here - another fast, hard-driving garage thing. Not being a Hendrix fan anymore, I prefer this version. I like it better than the Byrds' version too. Like 'Little Red Book' it's pounded out, but it's so frenetic because it sounds like it's stopping and starting the whole time.

Also from self-titled album #1: 'Softly to Me', written by Brian MacLean (the other singer and songwriter in Love), is all textured by the two guitars and the rythym section all loping and bouncing; 'Signed D.C.' is a semi-acoustic ballad that sounds like it was recordeded in an echo chamber for atmosphere.

From album #2, "De Capo": '7 and 7 Is', another fast garage rocker of the 1st order played by speedy freaks; MacLean's 'Orange Skies' sung by Lee - cloying lyrics are saved by a good arrangement and production with a flute; 'She Comes in Colors' is another one with the flute and other mid-sixties production-arrangement innovations, but still sounds like it's played by a garage band, which is where "Da Capo" sits, in between garage punch and delicate arrangement.

Rounding out Side 1 is a single, 'Your Mind and We Belong Together' that's included in the bonus tracks of the "Forever Changes" cd, their 3rd album. Definately in the mode of their masterpiece "Forever Changes". Like a darker version of the Beach Boys' fragmented album "Smiley Smile", "Forever Changes" was a product of Southern California 1967 that was as structurally complex as "Sgt. Pepper's", but richer, and underappreciated.

Side 2 of "Revisited" kicks off with "Forever Changes'" opener, MacLean's 'Alone Again Or', sung by him and Lee simultaneously. Like much of that album, 'Alone Again' is beautifully arranged with acoustic and electric guitars, strings and mariachi horns. The song has a melancholy marshal quality, accentuated by the horns especially, like the last stand of an honorable Mexican general and his men, which is sort of how the whole melancholy album sounds; Lee and his men fighting a hopeless battle against the forces of insipidness.

"This is the time in life that I am living,
And I'll face each day with a smile.
For the time that I've been given's such a little while,
And the things that I must do consist of more than style.
There are places than I am going.

This is the only thing that I am sure of:
And that's all that lives is going to die;
And there'll always be some people here to wonder why,
And for every happy 'hello' there will be 'good-bye' -
There'll be time for you to put yourself on."

'You Set the Scene', "Forever Changes"

R.I.P.

2006-07-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

Charalambides' "Joy Shapes"

I've been trying to make up my mind about this cd, and I think I like it.

At first it seemed to be just so much avant garde noodling and operatic female vocals. That type of vocal is always a challenge to me. Carla Bley's "Escalator Over the Hill" and the single album right after it, and some Phillip Glass pieces with female choruses going - "Ah!Ah!Ah! Ahhhhhh!" over and over, or his "Einstein on the Beach". It all sounds very Modernist to me, kind of mid-20th century "intellectual" music. Pretentious. Yoko Ono sounds pretentious at first to, but she is pretentious.

But I love all of the recordings I've just named (and Ono), it's just that for everyone from this genre that I love, I've probably heard bits of ten I don't like and think really ARE pretentious. But I guess that's the arena you're playing in if you're from the 50s - 70s avant garde. That's an over-broad statement, but it has some truth I think.

"Joy Shapes" though, this is from the 21st century, so at first I wasn't sure I wanted to cut it that initial slack, I didn't know if I could get past the vocals; and the arrangements sounded poseurish, like a high-school senior would compose who thought he was down with avant garde composers.

But after multiple listens it started to resonate with me, and I think I'm still on the near side of the learning curve. At first it was suitable background music, that had the capacity to devolve into pissing me off - or the potential to grow on my ears like a pleasant fungus. It's organic-feeling. Right now a track is releasing its spores into an entirely new level of appreciation I didn't imagine before.

2006-07-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

Alias & Tarsier "Brookland/Oaklyn"

I had very high hopes for this album and thought I was opening my eyes to a hip, cutting edge, lush, engaging, new vista. Not so.

At first because of my relative novice status in the genre of electronica in most of its contemporary forms, I listened for the good. I tried to enjoy the music for what it was. I came at it trying to learn a new lannguage, but this is boring and lame. If this were a new school of poetry, it would be representitive of the mediocre poets, who have some of the style of the good and great ones, but none of the deep artistry.

It seems that the indie scene in general places a higher emphasis on style than it should. So much indie rock seems fueled by the dubious maxim: "Rock is all about attitude". Attitude is an essential ingrediant in lots of good rock. I like garlic, but more garlic poured on doesn't make a crappy dish better most of the time, most of the time it makes it worse, and it makes the cook look like a jackass.

But that's really neither here nor there for "Brookland/Oaklyn". It's just typically-melodramatic electronica vocals over some uninteresting beats. The whole thing is competant, I guess.

2006-07-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Cibelle "The Shine of Dead Electric Leaves"

This is my first post on an ostensibly record-review oriented blog.

Apparently, this album is Cibelle's move to break out of the international electronical lounge ghetto, and good for her for making that move. I heard some samples from her first full-length, and while I am ignorant of the genre and closed-minded about it, I would say thank f*cking god. It exudes a sense of liberal, easy-going, self-satisfaction. There seemed to be nothing challenging about it. A product designed as a musical acoutremant for a market-researched audience, like a "funky" lamp from Unban Outfitters: "Come over to my place, we can drink wine out of my new Ikea glasses, burn some incence, and listen to some loungey down-tempo music that exudes a vague sense of international cool - while we chat and laugh!"

On "The Shine of Dead Electric Leaves" she seems to be going for some sonic textues more interesting than the soundtracks to yuppies' cocktail parties. The percussions kind of bounce around a lot from the background into the foreground, ping-ponging off the acoustics, creating a somewhat abstract melange with the gurgling electronics and processed vocals and harmonies.

On top of it all is her voice, though. She's a lovely and soulful singer, which I haven't made peace with yet. Sometimes it strikes me as something that smoothes out the music too much, milk-soaks it to absoluely make sure the music qualifies as "soulful", and goes down easy. But these are the pangs I go through with modern music of this type due to my predilection for the 'atonal'. Broadening my horizons is not usually an easy experience.

Though sometimes she does veer into outter territories of the banal.

P.S. I have just viewed the video made of 'London, London' the Caetano Veloso cover on the album, feat. Devendra Banhardt. Even before I saw the vid, this was fast becoming my least favorite song on the album. While Banhardt pulls off a nice approximation of the Veloso aura circa 1970 ( when the song was recorded ), the video doesn't really pull anything off, except a charming ending.