MOG - BarrieSutcliffe's Posts

You got Deconstructivism in my Dubstep

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:35:04 GMT

For her massive compilations BBC DJ Mary Anne Hobbs is certainly dabbling in much more than dubstep these days.

Ben Frost's inclusion on the latest comp is a good example of the super-quality work one can find with an adventurous tuning away from a genre, but around its edges.

Frost is more of a sound artist than a DJ, hanging out with the likes of Lawrence English and Machinefabriek rather than Skream and Burial. Though one can definitely hear similarities.

Strangely though, this track is coming at'cha straight outta 2006, despite the newness of this compilation. What the...? Since then Frost has had a hand in a few things, namely last year's epic "Steel Wound."

For fans of shimmering, damaged, shifting and indistinct music, with a clear ear towards the majestic. Read: Tim Hecker, Basinski, Ateleia, etc.

Ben Frost on Discogs

Return of the Lope

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:48:04 GMT

Genghis Tron has a funny name. But it sort of makes sense. They are some kind of metal horde, yes, but they also have a lot of synths and geekery.

Their latest album is excellent! I would highly recommend it if you are into difficult, spastic, random and epic tracks of synth-metal madness.

BUT... at the end of this album is this track. Not so nerdy, not so outright grind metal either. No, it's more like the slow-moving, loping, epic post-rock RIFF I've been waiting over for YEARS. Yes! While bands like Sigur Ros and Mono kept on getting more and more sentimental and the Montreal crowd kept on getting more and more "out" and poetic (and genuinely, well, post), everyone forgot about the RIFF. For quite some time. Even Mogwai has concentrated on being all low-key (which is nice). Balls-out rocking-out, that's what I'm talking about. Come on, people!

Well, here's a god damn riff. It hits at about the 4-minute mark, and heads into outer space. I love it.

Image of ergot thanks to Wikipedia.

Power through Bliss

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:57:26 GMT

In compressing this track to post here tonight, I noticed that the waveform for this track, despite its blown-out sound and ultra-loud fuzz bass, never clips or flattens out. This is an apt description of Nadja's sound. Granted this is ripped from vinyl, but whatever. I'm trying to make a point here.

Their sound has always been one of poetic contradiction - brutal, thrashing, pounding, almost obvious heaviness paired with hovering, dream-like eminence. It is a celestial event. Definitely one of my favourite sounds around right now. Not to mention the always poetic track titles and often conceptually-oriented albums.

Another great thing about Nadja is that even though they always sound so, well, "NADJA," they actually DO SOMETHING with that sound. They always push it some other direction, either heavy, soft, long, or short. Sometimes it's exactly what you want, other times it's not but you're so glad for it.

Which brings us to Long Dark Twenties; probably Nadja's first-ever "single." The first thing that came to my mind when I heard this was "OMG POP SONG," but at eight minutes that would be a stretch. However, compared to their 60-minute epic "Thaumogenesis" or their lengthy new album "Desire is Uneasiness," eight minutes is downright brief.

So what is the track like? Some kind of soothing dreamdroneshoegazedoomwhatthefuck. Hypnotic and dreamy and oh so heavy. Baker's usual growl is a gentle monontone, floating above woozy electronics. Buckareff's unstoppable, incongruously diffuse bass fills a mlllion cubic meters.

This is amplified further by the fact that it's based on a song by Paul Bellini, who you may know as one of the writers for the legendary Kids in the Hall. Yes, Nadja is so awesome as to cover the Kids in the Hall.

Get it on 7", if you can find it.

Sight for Sore Ears

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:28:56 GMT

Sightings provided me we an unprecendented ear-pummel the other night. Now, this is due to the fact that I didn't think to bring earplugs - I have seen noisy acts before, such as Kevin Dumm, but always remembered the protection.

Sightings guitarist, end of last song. Photo by m

The tinnitus I received was quite unique. Due to the high scree factor and layered electronic shrieking, the tinnitus seemed to oscillate. When the wind blew in my ears, instead of a "whoosh" as normal I got a "buzzzzzzsssskkkkrrrrrrrrzzzzzz" instead. They filled the tiny yet good-sounding theater with as much noise as it had probably ever seen.

So yeah, Sightings were awesome. A trio (sometimes more) from New York, I think. They work in improvisational power jazz/noise, though some elements of what they were playing appeared to be tightly composed; probably similar to how Norwegian giants Supersilent work. But a lot noisier, and a lot more full-bore. Sightings provided little chance to breathing, the guitarist didn't even bother to stop the set's momentum as string after string on his guitar broke (he entered the last song with only two strings). I was particularily impressed with the bassist who, while rather tall and wide, proved to be quite nimble. Stretching and spasming with the noisy pulses from his guitar, he was at points "danced" with the feedback from his amplifier. Trying, I suppose, to find the "sweet spot," at least if you consider a high-pitched siren of distorted midrange to be sweet.

For the record, I do.

Mr. Drummer was also rad, making great use of two altered electronic drum pads. And damn he was fast and motorik. Kind of bizarre how the rhythm section here actually handled rhythm - whilst we in the audience were dizzy with noise, they had the ability to at times provide a bottom line. Only to ruin it a few seconds later, of course.

So very highly recommended!!!

Opening acts Jasper TX and Hills provided two totally different sounds to get us ready. Jasper TX, whose gloomy abstract soundscapes sound glorious and wonderful on CD, lacked a bit of of the magic when he played his one-man-set. Just a guitar a bunch of pedals and a mixer, he worked very hard to make probably the heaviest thing I have heard from him yet. Unfortunately there was something missing, which I'm sure is the fault of him having to be up there alone.

Hills were another bag altogether, a group of young psych/stoner-rock jammers. Event though the big guitarist occasionally picked up the FLUTE (yesssss!!!) the solid, motorik drummer was the best, bringing steady kraut into the mix to keep the wailing flanged-to-fucking-hell guitars in check. They're pretty young but if they can get the balance between stoned jam and messy chaos, they'll nail it. Looking forward to seeing them again

Sightings bassist and drummer, photos by me.

Hills flautist/guitarist with bassist. Photo by me

Hills' flanged out guitarist and their rockin' drummer. Photo by me

More from Have a Nice Life, channeling Shellac

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:42:38 GMT

What the hell, here's another, totally different track by the this awesome band. Who somehow manage to combine SHELLAC style low-slung bass n' drum attack with SYNTHPOP. Oh god. Too good.

Non-theatrical misery

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:25:00 GMT

That's what I look for when I want sad music. I don't want any theatrical "this is me being saaaaaaaaad!!!" emo/glam bullshit. Something straight for the heart is all that's needed. So enter this mysterious band and their out of print album. I will say that it's amazing - all sorts of genres are pushed around here towards their dark art. Like Der Blutharsch there is some kind of combination of shoegaze messiness with industrial grind. HaNL combine it in such a way that brings to mind early 80's post-punk. Clattering, hollowed out drums, reedy vocals, long tones of minor key guitars. And let's get it straight, the songs are GREAT. Hooks galore. I could have uploaded ANY of the songs and they would have been just as catchy and intense and what-the-fuck-is-this-I-need-it-now. But that's not all! About half of this album kicks the song structure under the bed and robes itself in dark atmospheric sonics, the vocals pushed way back into the forest, letting deep bass rumble prevail. One of the most successful albums I've heard in a long time... especially considering it's a double album! I've been playing this non-stop. You'll have to find it on the internet, since it's totally out of print. It came with a wonderful book as well, bummer.

The song titles are suitably great: a quick one before the eternal worm devours connecticutt, the big gloom, waiting for black metal records to come in the mail, holy fucking shit 40,000! etc.

Why I hate fade-outs, part 8942.

BarrieSutcliffe — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:10:25 GMT

WHY would they fade out this awesome song right when it gets smeared-out stoner rock awesome?! It seriously approaches Monster Magnet's "Black Mastermind" territory when it kicks into overdrive and things start getting messy. I LOVE THAT STUFF. But then they fade it out! This isn't the major labels boys, you can get away with a 10-minute AMT jam. You're on Important Records, for chrissakes! I could probably count on one hand they amount of times a fade-out has worked out well for all concerned. Death to the fade-out!

But I still love you, Grails.

PS: If you haven't heard "Black Mastermind," or the album Spine of God, what the hell are you doing. Get it now!

A dark, impossibly good mixture of genres!

BarrieSutcliffe — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:01:28 GMT

shoegaze neo-folk stoner-rock goth whatthefuck!!

Whatever it is, it's SO GOOD. This band has gotten so amazing since it came around many years ago. They're still pretty scary, conjuring up all sorts of nasty military imagery but it all seems to fit together without being too questionable. The fact that they have an entirely unique image is why I think they succeed - their pretensions are entirely upon their own criteria. Individualistic to the death, which of course makes a nice paradox to the military themes.

I absolutely adore this song. A totally miserable trudge through mournful fiddles, monotone yet gentle female vocals, and ultra-dense, sludgy, speaker-destroying low end chaos. Don't miss the lovely outro.

Webpage here

Jose Gonzalez - Teardrop

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:42:52 GMT

Lovely cover of the Massive Attack song by Swedish singer/songwriter Jose Gonzalez, who can write pretty damn good songs himself. His high, almost frail voice reminds me a bit of Neil Young, though the timbre is much different.

This song is available on Rhapsody but I will continue to upload mp3s independently of that, so users outside of the US can listen. After all the idea of a Swedish artist being unable to be heard in Sweden is a bit bizarre...

Da da da

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:48:47 GMT

Last night I saw Einstürzende Neubauten play. I never thought I'd be able to see them live, but my stay in Europe has let me see so many good shows. They were excellent. I won't go into details but I will say that they are very tight musically. Despite the crudeness of the instrumentation, for example metal blocks falling from a loader, everything is precise and exact. There is not much room for improvisation here, and that's OK really. It sounded great. Here is one of the songs they played last night. They provided the entire concert on CD after the show, which is a great service I think. There is no track separation of course, so I have done this for you! This is from their latest album, Alles Wieder Offen. Like on the album version, the stage performance featured NU reciting "Ursonate" (a pleasure to all art-nerds in the audience) and Bargeld playing a drill-mounted LP with a plastic cup. I should also mention the venue, which was classy and had excellent sound. I think normally this venue is host to horribly lame disco nights frequented by over-dressed teenagers trying to be "fancy." All of the members of Neubauten's audience made a beeline for the door as soon as they got their merch, as the barstars were making their way in for the late-night disco shit club.

Maximum Cheese

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:20:05 GMT

Yeah, I don't really have a good excuse for this. I've been at home all day, my head spinning from a bizarre sickness. All in all, awful. I am listening to a lovely album by Danish 4AD-worshipers Manual, when this track pops up. I... don't know what to say. The album is brand new, and you gotta hand it to them for not updating the sound to this Miami Vice classic at all. Totally awesome. Now if you excuse me, I am going to go walk on the beach in the cool breeze.

Holding the Whole World (2)

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:54:55 GMT

Here is the other side of Atlas. These tracks are quite a bit more intimate and close than the huge oceanic expanse of his last album.

Holding the Whole World

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:44:56 GMT

I've gushed about Tim Hecker way way too much here on MOG. He's my favourite musician. I find his deconstructions of musical elements to be moving and deeply inspirational. Like I've written elsewhere, it sounds like either remembering or forgetting, or some kind of recorded stream of that process happening in someone or even in a landscape, like an architecture remembering its future. But this enfolding/unfolding is what really captures me, a delicate process of arrangement and disarray.

This little EP is fantastic. It's vinyl-only, and I have it but here in Sweden I have no way to play it! Though I just found out the library here has a listening room with a nice Tech 1200 so...

Missed opportunities

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:30:58 GMT

This is a LAMENT for having missed one of my very favourite black metal bands, NEGURA BUNGET, play tonight. I learned of this concert only very late on the way home, seeing a shitty photocopied gig poster taped to a lamp post. DAMMIT. NB are from Rumania, are among the very best. A great combination of black metal, folkloric mythology and traditional instruments. That makes them more awesome than almost any band around! Here's to missed opportunities, both concerts and otherwise....

So much drone I'm still shaking the day later

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:00:12 GMT

... or maybe it's the fact that I'm incredibly fatigued. Regardless. Last night I saw one high-quality concert. The bill was rather ridiculous for someone like me who never thought he'd be able to see any of music he really likes.

CM von Hausswolff played a set of super-low, super-loud undersea power drone, never noisy or forceful, but very subtle and DEEP... I was really impressed with him especially by the fact that he didn't nerd-out or concept-art-out. He was joined at the end of his set by Henrik Rylander of the Skull Defekts and Union Carbide Productions. Rylander added much more grit and harsh noise, and eventually Hausswolff left and Rylander continued with some more abrasive noise. He was good but felt lackluster and flat compared to Hausswolff's subtlety and true darkness. I should emphasize how wonderfully loud and low they both were. I really enjoy it when my body is shaken by the bass but by ears aren't scratching from the treble. The entire night continued in similar form. Very "male" in a way, the filling of space.

These two were followed by local beat-mixer Mokira. I hadn't him before but he was quite nice, creating some really dark, scuzzy industrial dub tracks. I really wanted to dance but all of the Swedes stayed at least 2 meters away from the stage... what the fuck...

Then we got to hear Sir Richard Bishop, late of the Sun City Girls, play a solo set. I thought he was really great, but he is a bit polarizing. You either like this stuff or you don't. He played a mixture of his trademark unsettling, strangely arranged folky songs and his longer-format instrumentals.

THEN I got to hear Tony Conrad, the famous American violinist. I have never heard this kind of music (minimalism, "eternal music") live before but it was really wonderful. This was perhaps not the right venue for him, he really begs a more open and sublime space. This is music without composition or sense of time. It does not begin and end, it only exists in the now. This was really wonderful to see, especially his energy and enthusiasm. He's 67 years old!

THEN!! Earth played. Dylan Carlson's band is regarded as the forefather of all the drone-rock bands of today, playing since the early 90's. They have changed since 2005 into a truly remarkable form of zombie cowboy music. I don't know how else to describe it. It really, to me, sounds like the Old West, lots of dust and heat and loneliness. But it's so unnaturally slow, in such a weird meter, that I think of zombies slowly trudging around. They proved to be a confident and totally competent live band, even with such oddly timed material. The songs are excellent too, well composed and unusually catchy. My friend commented on the unusual addition of a keyboardist to their lineup, stating that it's weird to have a guy jazzing around on a Rhodes in a drone-rock band. While I agree it's weird, I think it's a good think. The idiosyncrasy really shapes the mood. They were very loud but wonderfully smooth. An absolute pleasure to hear.

They were followed by a brief performance of Mats Gustafsson, a Swedish jazz hero who literally screams his lungs out into a baritone sax. He only played about 8 minutes, but was it ever fun!

I'll try to write about some other concert adventures soon... apologies to my MOG friends for my absence...

The Hurdy-Gurdy stomps on your ass yet AGAIN.

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:27:13 GMT

Stef Irritant and his band of merry minstrels make a strong case for the hurdy-gurdy as a instrumental of dark power in "Sighing, Seething, Soothing." I've excerpted the middle part of the song, which is bookended by several minutes of lovely organic instrumentals. This is from their first album, which is certainly more wheezy and claustrophobic. Amazing track.

Screeching Mayhem to ring in the new year

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:17:23 GMT

I haven't posted any black metal in a while. Horna specialize in the long-format, riff-heavy end of the spectrum of black. Repetitive, draining, amazing. Not much to say when there's so much visceral power. From last year's album, they just released a new one but I haven't listened yet. I might be afraid to.

Bury your roots

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 12:20:33 GMT

What? Another Matt Good song? What is wrong with Barrie, you must be asking. No Mog posts in ages and then two about the same guy?! Well, Matt Good is rather unique in my music pantheon, someone who came along right at the beginning of my teenage years, whose songwriting has matured along with me. His songs always seem relevant to me, especially since they always change their context. So here is Born Losers, which must be a single (I really have no idea, being away from Canada for so long now). I say that because it's been a total earworm for me, in the way that only Good's songs can be for me. It's also thrillingly sophisticated. If you were to go solely by the first few bars, one would assume this is a cheery, happy song. And it is, in a way. But the lyrics are the bitter, negative kind of thing we expect from Good when he ruminates on the characters from his past. This entire album is different though, in that in the past these kind of songs have always been railing against those characters, against what they stand for and angry at the place they had within Good's life. This time around, there is a large amount of acceptance. So this explains the jangling guitars, the bright and open production, and the punchy hook. The melancholy and anger is there but is inter weaved with the joy of acceptance, the realization that he can move on now. One of my favourite tracks of the year, basically.

I promise I'll upload something completely different next time.

Matthew Good gets real

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:24:39 GMT

Every couple of years this Canadian troubadour (and blogger) arrives with an album that reminds me of why his songwriting has been so important to me for over ten years now. This new album, produced after a difficult divorce, is especially frank, and contains some of his darkest songs since "The Audio of Being," an album that caused the break-up of his own band. This stuff is earnest and heart-felt, with delicious tinges of bitterness. This is the opening song to the album, the longest song of his career no less. Those familiar with his songwriting will recognize it, we hear bits of "Avalanche" but in a much more mature presentation, where he becomes much more honest to himself.

Some creepy dark folk to start your day.

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:11:35 GMT

Hey all. I saw a fantastic concert last week, and the opening band was a new Belgian band with a really really weird name. I did not ask them what it means, because I prefer it to be a mystery. They were a three-piece at the show but the drummer told me they are usually six, and one this album there are a whole bunch of other musicians and a choir. So the tracks I heard that night were specially arranged! What a treat. I picked one of the more sparse tracks on the album, which was also played at the show with little difference. A very nice track about "cats and kittens." You may hear a bit of David Tibet in there. He is definitely someone that singer Stefan conjures up. The album's other tracks are really lush and dark... I'll upload some later, maybe. The gig poster had "folk is the new black" next to this band's name...

Rosetta pulls you up and out again

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:12:13 GMT

The sophomore release from my favourite currently working metal band has finally hit and it's a giant. I may not have gushed on MOG before about Rosetta's mind-blowing debut album "The Galilean Satellites," but it's an album that has followed me since I heard it. Crushing metallic space drone with a soaring neo-prog (read: EitS) sensibility and throaty, monotone, rasping vocals. The subject matter for that album, Dave Bowman's journey in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is brought back and altered for Wake/Lift, an album about, as the band proclaims, "moments, men, and places." They continue their powerful sound ideas here, nothing new but much further refined and more, hmmm, punchy. Only on the third listen but it sounds very good to me, yes. The vocals, some may say, are all the same, but that's a plus for me. There's a definite thematic unity of man-lost-in-space-without-a-helmet going on. An absolute must-hear.

Charlotte Hug

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:37:59 GMT

Charlotte Hug, picture by me

A couple of weekends ago I had the pleasure of seeing someone truly surprising and unique. Charlotte Hug played the Göteborg Art Sounds festival. I had no idea who she was when I went to see her, but the program (from what I could read) sounds interesting. I can't describe the type of music here, it's improvised but it's not jazz. It's using a classical instrument but it's definitely not classic. It's simply free, creative improvisation I guess. At times very hard to listen to but also emotionally captivating and engaging thanks to her fiery stage presence.

Hug's "Sonimage" drawings were hanging from the ceiling. Notice the three different bow holders, each had a different types of bows.

I think she is Swiss, and has pioneered a technique of string playing where she fully slacks off the bow, playing with the loose hairs. Often she will play on the fret, with her fingers on the lower part of the viola (what is that part called). She also played with wet strings, and often would rub the body of the viola and pluck the strings. She used all of these eccentric techniques to good purpose though, she has tremendous skill and never lets the odd playing technique be a gimmick. It was a powerful performance. Here is an older track from her, from 2003. It is similar to some of what I heard.

Beloved white shirt

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:23:37 GMT

This is a ridiculously good song. Expertly timed at just three minutes, it lays out a simple rhythm pattern that stays flat while strings build throughout the song until its abrupt end. I'm also really digging the low, slurring vocals. The National lever lets down in the lyric department either, offering a vague poetry that most rock bands just don't have a grasp on. "Boxer" is perhaps not their best album, but this is definitely one of the best songs they've made. I've known about this for a while but forgot to Mog it... oops...

I've got a photo from a long time ago

BarrieSutcliffe — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:13:25 GMT

This is a wistful, melancholy song from these all-girl rock/pop group from... where? I think they're English? I don't know. Regardless, they are good and this is probably their best album so far. Big variety in the songs, from lovely songs like this to longer instrumental electro-rock jams. It didn't really stick out for me when I first listened to it, but I came back to it a couple of weeks ago and realized I quite like it.

Rewind it on my videotape

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:16:22 GMT

Beautiful final track on the new Radiohead album. Mog may not know it but I am a huge Radiohead fan! Their music has influenced me a lot during my life and continues to do so. Their lyrical content and music as well is always very strong. I purchased the big vinyl box set for this album, hopefully it comes soon. I can't wait to see the artwork, which is always great! Enjoy this lovely song... nothing quite gets to me like a slow piano song, especially when it decays the way this one does.

Noise Rock in a Cave

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:34:44 GMT

Hi all, First post in a long time. Been trying to settle down here in Sweden. This city has a pretty nice music scene, with a sweet festival called GAS happening in the next few days. Anyhow, I saw awesome Australian noise rock band GREY DATURAS a few weeks back inside a nice venue in Gothenburg. They played a super-hard, heavy set (as we could expect). They played on the same bill as FM3, who played an unusual guitar-and-drums set. But the Daturas really stole the show. I got to talk with both Roberts and they're very nice guys! They were surprised to meet a Canadian who had heard of them. Enjoy this first track from their new album, which has more soft ambient moments than heavy. But this track, oh, it's pretty fucking heavy.

Vladislav Delay and the smeared broken beat

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:45:28 GMT

Vladislav Delay released his new album "Whistleblower" a few months back. Now, you all should know by now that I'm an absolute sucker for fog-drenched, glitchy ambient landscapes of fuzz. And that's what Delay does here, though it's all shaped through his distinct chill-factor. So of course I love it, and am not going to bother with an objective review. I just love the way he decontextualizes sounds from the environment - be that internal or external - into a rather placeless ambiance. And on top of that the shifting and shuffling percussive/glitch sounds just seem to sit on top, like a narrator. Very odd, but he's got himself a good formula here. I would upload the lovely title track but my mp3 for it is too big and I'm way too lazy to downsample...

The Sea - Inko

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:26:17 GMT

I think I found out about this group through the Boomkat website, which distributes a lot of stuff related or similar-sounding to the Swedish group Deaf Center. It's on the "Music Related" imprint and sounds rather nice. Slowly unfolding, subtle tracks of loosely-arranged breathing instrumentation which some sweet female vocals thrown in. You KNOW I am a sucker for that. I hope you'll be a sucker for it too... it's lovely! For some reason it reminds me of a sloth-like Natalie Merchant. And that's a good thing, by the way.

Music for tough times

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:03:31 GMT

I have been totally absent from MOG due to the fact that I'm moving to Sweden in a few days to take my Master's degree. This is both awesome and bad, and is taking a toll on my sanity and emotional health. I'm sure I'll be fine eventually, but it's really hard to leave everything behind. Thank god for the Internet, at least I can sort of keep in touch with people. A special friend gave me some Swans to listen to, which may seem cruel at first but it works. Somehow! This is a great gentle track, much softer than the great pounding, powerful tracks that take up the rest of this 1994 album.

Glass Organ: a roomful of broken machines

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:39:02 GMT

More blurred-out goodness here, this time courtesy of a mysterious band called Glass Organ. This here is a track from a 2006 album, they have a newer record out called "Our" but the tracks are too big to upload here. They remind me of a cross between noisy band Hum of the Druid and (contemporary) Alva Noto. They are certainly messy and noisy, but not scuzzy and filthy. Rather they share Noto's crystalline, austere mystery and imbue it with a more chaotic and even emotional aesthetic. It also reminds me a lot of Aidan Baker's solo work, especially "Oneiromancer." Glass Organ present various versions of a similar setting, what I can only imagine is a roomful of malfunctioning... things, maybe instruments, maybe not, I don't know. I do know that it is some of the most purposeful noise I've heard lately...

Arve Henriksen's ambient night avant-jazz

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:20:22 GMT

Norwegian trumpet player Arve Henriksen has recently released his third solo album, based upon his origins and home city. The album is quite a bit different than the epic convulsions of his band Supersilent, being a collection of smooth, graceful and very quiet (near-ambient) excursions to field recordings, electronic soundscapes (with help from Deathprod) and minimal, graceful unaccompanied trumpet. This is a really fine album, well-played and well-executed and I can see little wrong with it. Best suited for late nights I think, it is pensive and brooding but not depressing. Chief highlight of the album is this song here, where Henriksen lets loose his beautiful direct vocals. We may sometimes forget that trumpeters can sing. They surely can, as it's a necessary talent to play the instrument. Not only do we have some deep chanting but also incredibly moving wordless singing. It takes my breath away at how direct and emotional it really is.

The Warm Buzz of The Angelic Process

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:51:29 GMT

First post in a month and a half!

This is a fantastic band that has been around for a few years now, but have really hit their own stride with this album (though I have yet to hear their newest). Their sound is most similar to Nadja, a blurry worn out soft-at-the-edges metal ambient wash. However these guys are much more blackened, in the black metal sense, what with their heavy use of soft-focus minor-key melodies and occasional throaty vocals. No vocals on this track however... just a hauntingly epic repetitive wail, a sanded-down black thrashing hulk. Gorgeous.

Slow month for music musings

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:38:09 GMT

Hello, my fellow moggers. It seems like I've run out of music-writing steam. I am still listening to a considerable amount of stuff, but I'm in one of those writing ruts. I don't know what to say or how to say it. And often I can't hold my patience for long enough to write about one thing, as I want to get onto the next. Oh well, for my sake I should be writing about music again soon. Until then, I recommend this new El-P track which, as the song title makes evident, is some ridiculously epic hip-hop. Which happens to be one of my favourite things. Weird psycho-sexual lyrics, as well.

Alva Noto - 10 Haliod Xerrox Copy 1

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:02:51 GMT

Alva Noto - Xerrox, Vol 1

Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto, best known for minimal, pristine digital glitch-scapes of micromusic, makes a relatively large stylistic turn with the first installment of the (hopefully many) Xerrox albums. Instead of vacuum spaces of austere clicks (which are nice!) here we get slow-moving washes of breathing digital sound. Think of a cross between his earlier work, Tim Hecker, Basinski, and Keith Fullerton Whitman, and you'll be getting to the beautiful places that Nicolai is travelling here. On Friday I was sitting down with a friend, listening to my newly-purchased 2LP of this album, and I recall saying something along the lines of "I find it hard to believe that someone can make something that presses so many of my buttons so well." And indeed, like Hecker and Whitman before, Nicolai has made something that resonates at my frequency. I'm sure if you rapped a tuning fork across my forehead, it would sound like this track. Known for being conceptual Nicolai here is no different, creating an album based upon the notion of change through copying. By using various sounds from rather mundane sources, he copies them through various methods until their original context and identity dissapears, becoming a thick morass of wind-scraped drone. As things are progressively copied across mediums, changes, glitches, and malfunctions occur, invariably changing the output. Are these changes true to the original, and is the malfunction useful in a new way? As mutation occurs, writes Nicolai, a new original emerges from the white noise of copying. As we forget the original, we create new stories.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #1

BarrieSutcliffe — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 22:05:10 GMT

1. Scott Walker - Clara (from "The Drift") The fact that for this track an artist is credited with "meat-punching" says it all. It's impossible to adequately describe this surreal poem about a dream of Clara Mussolini, a dream of her own death. It pulls you to the edge, sinking down to the low pits of deathly horror, spiraling upward holding a knife to your throat. Walker's operatic voice is incredible, insistent and urgent, coming from the rafters, haunting your movements as you tumble, disoriented by the spinning strings and the slow, relentless march of drum hits. And the meat... the sounds of fists hitting flesh is undeniably intense. It makes the inescapable doom of Clara's death palpable. And indeed she is dead, you can hear the rope, taut with dead weight, squeeze as it shifts slightly from side to side. Or are those floorboards? Who's behind me? Walker's violins throw your head into the wall, fragments of your shattered skull catch glimpses of the moonlight as the drum's shock decays into the darkness. It all ends with one of the most well-realized spoken word epilogues I've heard on recording. There's really nothing like this track!

As with many things I've uploaded, terribly compressed due to its great length. Apologies.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #2

BarrieSutcliffe — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:28:32 GMT

2. Tim Hecker - Dungeoneering (from "Harmony in Ultraviolet") A rotating, cyclical machine sound, full of life but cold as death. This is the sound that power pylons make on cold winter nights, as they sing to each other songs about high-frequency oscillation and its effects upon snowflakes. Industrial yard lights spire up into the frozen sky, shimmering a quiet hymn to the groaning aurora borealis above. As the pylons reverberate, their cyclical hum rolls lower and lower, shaking the ground, loosening the frost. From the air they pull sounds of the humans, shortwave drift and CB static, and mix it all into the root hum of the world. Miles away, a power conduit cutting through a remote forest breathes, expanding the cutline like a chest. No one sees it. No one can hear it. But somehow Tim Hecker can record it.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #3

BarrieSutcliffe — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:17:43 GMT

3. Volcano the Bear - See me Now (from "Classic Erasmus Fusion") No band nowadays does studio fuckery quite like Volcano the Bear. This track closes the album and does so with appropriate grandeur. Exceedingly unconventional, it breathes with harmonium layered underneath cyclical vocal swells which droningly command the words in the title. These vocals are stretched out, compressed and shifted in various ways each time they come around, sometimes very loud, other times buried in the mix or simply turned down in volume. The Harmonium (and probably other instrumentation, but it's hard to tell what it is) builds up with it, before being crashed to a halt by a cymbal. It's abrupt, jarring, but not unsettling. It actually sounds very meaningful, as if the cymbal were a prayer bell. The repetition of this figure is compelling, the silence in between serving as a pregnant pause. Rather than being monotonous it builds up to something important and focused before fading out into an expertly placed field recording of running water which then is replaced by the musical clatter of god-knows-what. All of this comes together to make an evocative ambience of some place and time that defies description. A place or location is implied but not even outlined.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #4

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:45:45 GMT

4. Supersilent - 7.3 (from "7")

Hard to pick between this one and the clanking, stuttering 7.2, but this one is so long (30 minutes) and so totally epic that it wins out. Epic in the best sense, it traverses a remarkable amount of territory and bears that Supersilent hallmark trait of "how the hell did they get to this point?" You never quite know where you are within this song, it envelops you so completely. Starting out on a familiar tune from their album "6," it soon becomes something new and menacing, rumbling with Deathprod's textural electronic noises, pulled along as always by the "is that actually a rhythm?" thwacking of the drums. Eventually it becomes this big elegiac thing that is unbearably epic, and sustains that for quite some time. You're left agog and breathless by the end. Since the mp3 file I made from the ac-3 audio of this weighs in at over 50MB, all I can muster for MOG is an excerpt, horribly compressed to boot. This is the climax of the track, which of course loses much of its impact without the preceding 23 minutes. Still good, though!

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #5

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:37:32 GMT

5. Nachtmystium - A Seed for Suffering (from "Instinct: Decay") This song made it on the list because it beat up every other song. A total full-throttle black metal blast of misanthropic hate. It's hard to imagine a song being able to kick more ass than this, not even in the sense of heaviness but also for speed, melody, and uniqueness. This track starts off blazing, a harsh black buzzing blur, but somehow there's a melody that's actually CATCHY, something that will get stuck in your head. That alone is unusual for a black metal track. But when the song reaches its utter climax, everything opens up into an awesome psychedelic rock song, trailing out in this huge RIFF, all the while accompanied by the same buzzing thrash that opened this song. This is amazing, because you know how there are a couple ways of rocking, the sweet jamming rock, and total heavy thrash-rock? This track does both at once. The ultra-fast buzz of black metal combined with the psych sound is impossible to resist, and is incredibly addictive. Actually, the whole album is like this, but this track in particular lays it down. It is stellar though, free of the pretensions and posturing that plague lesser metal groups. It just barely was edged off my list of best albums. Do check it out.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #6

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:20:17 GMT

6. Sickoakes - Oceans on Hold (from "Seawards") This young Scandinavian group on the excellent Type records released a strong debut album last year, but this track really stood out. "Seawards" sounds very much like the epic post-rock/post-prog/new romantic/whatever thing we've been liking lately, big epic washes of full sound by large ensemble. They pull it off well and remind us that sound has life left in it. But "Oceans on Hold," man. That's a song. It fools you at first with a gorgeous wash of ambient sound, ocean-themed of course, lulling you. But then BAM! All of a sudden this brisk tempo kicks in, led by a single guitar playing a killer riff, then by a couple guitars, then the whole band joins in. Like I said, it's very BRISK, it has a compelling urgency that's sharp and unpretentious and totally kick-ass (why do I keep on saying "kick-ass?"). It gets more and more epic of course, before tastefully winding down into some nice field recordings of what I assume is a playground. Really fucking good, I want more! MORE.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #7

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:38:06 GMT

7. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (from "Return to Cookie Mountain") This song is so damn cool that it exhibits some kind of paradox. Stuff this cool isn't supposed to be knowable, it's always supposed to be ultra-obscure or lost to the mists of time. But here it is. If I saw this song played live, I'd probably dislocate my hips from dancing too much. It's that cool. It's so cool that you almost dislike the band for it. They are basically the hottest shit in the world. Damn them. This song is so cool that it overcomes the thin, alienatingly cold production that plagues the rest of "Return to Cookie Mountain."

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #8

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:28:32 GMT

8. Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack (from "Drum's not Dead") While the rest of "Drum's not Dead" is a rather loud, anxious journey, this, the final track, is a quiet lovely pop song. It's the aftermath of all that came before, or more accurately the song that has been hiding the entire time. It is a clear desire for support and permanence and is also the fear of its lack, for that fear is at the heart of self-doubt and anxiety. This song gracefully expresses the utter exhaustion that accompanies these feelings, the fatigue of panic over every decision. The directness of this song, which is not accompanied by any wild instrumentation or structural oddities, is commendable.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #9

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:18:55 GMT

9. Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill (from "The Eraser") This eerie track tells us about David Kelly, whom you may remember as the British chemical expert who related key details of the so-called September Dossier (about the false allegations of Iraqi WMDs) to the BBC in 2003. After said breach, a few weeks later Kelly was found in a wooded area of Harrowdown Hill, his wrists slit. See Wikipedia and At Ease as a starting point for more information. Despite it being topical, the ambiguity of this track impresses me, as it does not imply that Kelly's death was suicidal or not. More interestingly it concentrates on the pervasiveness and persuasiveness of bureaucratic power. Once you become inconvenient to the machine's agenda, the amount to which you can be worked over by the endless machinations of the ministry is truly frightening. If Mr. Kelly was not murdered by the ministry, his suicide was prompted by the insurmountable stress that it imposed upon him for being disobedient, regardless of the fact that he was in the right for letting the public know about these dealings. Scary stuff indeed, and Mr. Yorke succeeds at creating an unnerving environment. Of particular note is the mid-volume synth that occupies most of the song, which wavers unsteadily and is phased in a strange strangulated way. This is helped by a wonderfully nervous-sounding crunchy guitar supported by a drum machine that's never sure of what beat it's trying to make. Not only a wonderful song but also commendable for tackling a topical subject with such tact and poetry.

Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #10

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:27:04 GMT

10. Marsen Jules - Oeillet en Delta (from "Les Fleurs") The mirror to the album's opening track (Oeillet Sauvage), Delta is the more subdued, ghostly number. As if the rest of the album wasn't already ghostly! Muffled tones gather, fluff, then dissipate, leaving a glittering dust to linger in the sunlight for a while. Juhl's forays into deconstructed music are some of my favourite being made right now, holding their own next to the likes of Stars of the Lid and Philip Jeck.

Please excuse the poor quality of the mp3 - it's a long track and I had to really compress it to get it to fit within MOG's size limit.

Stars of the Lid - A Meaningful Moment Through A Meaning(Less) Process

BarrieSutcliffe — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 07:43:37 GMT

One of the shorter tracks from SotL's beautiful, amazing new album, which I just purchased on vinyl and am currently listening too. It's lovely, and big, and definitely Important with a capital-I. I'll talk more about it later, perhaps. Enjoy this track, which contains Marsen Jules-like piano clusters amid the typical SotL slow wash. Also consider the title, as it is really thought-provoking for me.

Barrie's Big Best-of 2006 List: Part Five

BarrieSutcliffe — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 04:48:53 GMT

Here we go, the end of the album reviews! Now that it's April I feel embarrassingly late posting this, but I'm glad I got it all done. I'll upload my top 10 favouring songs of 2006 in separate tracks, each with an mp3 embed!

1. Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet

What more about this album can I say than I already have? Well, a lot actually - and that's a testament to how incredible this album really is. It keeps speaking to me and keeps on revealing new things about itself. Hecker's miasma of spectral drones and fuzz is like a transmission from silent but alive radios, it's like the music machines make. On one hand it is cold but on the other it's a present, glowing, and warm cyclic hum. Machines are after all human creations, and this music sounds like the detritus of our culture, or the approximation of it that machines might be making. That which is always swirling around us, Hecker's music is remembering. Things are forgotten and mashed together, like a language of loss. It's dirty and scratched from age. This music feels special, like we have peeked through a door or caught something at the right time, just coming in to or fading out of being. Like a washed out photograph, this music suggests so much with so little. It also speaks, for me, to the landscape in which I live - the vast, cold industrialized prairie - and it is perhaps that aspect that makes me feel so close to this album. It approximates my personality so closely I find it hard to believe it even exists. But this music is so gauzy, hazy, and temporal that maybe it's not that hard to believe at all - it could blink out at any moment. This is more than just the album of the year for me. It's made me think so much about myself and the world around me that it has engraved itself like a phonograph cutting lathe into my life.

I do feel the need to poo on Conspiracy records. They released the album on vinyl in a super-expensive limited run, which my local record store tried very hard to acquire. Once I did get the record in my hands, I was disappointed to discover they did not even press the entire album! The final two tracks are missing. When you're dealing with an album such as this, which mirrors itself at the end, it's incredibly poor form to not finish the job. Lame.

2. Supersilent - 7

My favourite jazz band around puts in an absolutely stellar live album (DVD actually; the black-and-white visuals are lovely, too). Their jazz is wooly and experimental, wobbly, taking surprising directions, and seemingly free of the annoying, indulgent noodling and honking that plagues almost all modern jazz. Yet at the same time as being wobbly, it is incredibly sure of itself, propelled forward by amazingly scattered yet determined percussion, straight up into the sky, a transcendent - almost religious - culmination of elegiac improvisation. While most their works end up in the same place (transcendent scatter-noise), I think that is for the best. Their music has a purpose beyond self-indulgent virtuosity and ends up at a destination, and on the way there they will dazzle you with nigh-incomprehensible stuttering rhythms and ominous, brooding electronic atmospheres. Perhaps they are channeling something mysterious - if you watch the video, you will see them all rocking to a beat that you can never associate with a sound they're making... strange...

3. Scott Walker - The Drift

While I admit the album is a bit beyond my grasp, it has still affected me deeply. It's one of those albums that could only be made by an old person... lots of experience, lots of detail, lots and lots of knowledge. I'm sure there are things going on here that are simply going right over my head. But that's not important, because the things that do hit my head are fantastic, wonderful, and challenging. "The Drift" is like a one-man play, an intense-looking man standing on a dark stage with a few symbolic props half-lit, singing his sorrows and scaring you half to death with them. You want to run, but he is so magnetic that you are affixed by your sickly curiosity. This is a seriously dark, twisted sonic world of classic vocals, stabbing strings, bleating horns, skin-like percussion and cavernous darkness. Sort of like a gaping maw that will swallow you whole. It's a hard album to listen to, but it will provide you with many hard-earned rewards each time you come back to it.

4. Volcano The Bear - Classic Erasmus Fusion

This British band puts out one of the best sprawling-yet-concise definitions of the genre-destroying new folk/free jazz/electronic/etc trend occupied by the storied likes of Jackie-O Motherfucker and No-Neck Blues Band. The music played is so varied and colourful, it would take far too many adjectives to describe it through words. Needless to say it sounds like something that a group of brilliant child prodigies (or maybe idiot savants) would come up with having been given full access to the last century of musical history within easy grasp. Really truly bizarre songs that warp and drone and squeal sit next to gorgeous droning raga-like spirituals replete with found sounds and unusual studio tricks. A lot of the tracks sound "stupid" in a brilliant way, and never does that stupidity sound forced or put-on. They are an intelligent, irreverent (in the real sense of that word), innovative group of musicians who have no concerns about melding styles and sounding weird. It should also be noted that they do none of this with chips on their shoulders - they are not trying to prove anything beyond the fact that they like to make music. Not only amazing but will probably stand as an important document of current musical genre-collage/collapse concepts.

5. Current 93 - Black Ships Ate the Sky

Not much else can be said that has not already been said about this mammoth of an album. David Tibet's apocalyptic (literally) opus, the newest result of his years and years of research into various odd corners of gnosticism, catholicism, and all manners of religious discourse led by his own personal visions of the great Revealing. Tibet has amassed an impressive group of guest musicians as well, making this an incredibly rich musical experience. Current 93 has always been a bit of an acquired taste, especially Tibet's often difficult vocals, but this album simply cannot be ignored. For C93 newbies, this is not his best album but it stands near the top of his output. He's reached an interesting point of maturity where he doesn't sound quite as intense or edgy as he used to, but Tibet is such a consummate artist that a very good album from him can show up almost anything released the same year.

Marsen Jules - Oeillet Sauvage

BarrieSutcliffe — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 06:39:23 GMT

Here is some Marsen Jules for you. I think Martin Juhls is one of the best electronic composers (decomposers?) working today. His style is instantly recognizable and is really innovative.

Å - It Is Happening In My Head.

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:15:21 GMT

Another track by Å from their debut. This is the final track and is also the most Morriconne-ish.

James Blackshaw - O True Believers

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:43:35 GMT

This is one of Blackshaw's more brief tracks, sadly MOG cannot handle his more substantial works due to the file size limit. But that doesn't mean this isn't great, because it is, a really lovely gentle guitar and harmonium melody. One of his more eastern-inflected tunes.

taken from Blackshaw's homepage.

Barrie's Big Best-of 2006 List, Part Four

BarrieSutcliffe — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:48:39 GMT

The penultimate list! At least for the albums, anyway. Can you bear the excitement? (sarcasm)

6. Thom Yorke - The Eraser

This one surpassed my expectations more than I could have imagined. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised - Yorke's famous band Radiohead has been an important part of my life for a long time, so a great solo album from him should be a no-brainer. The trademark Radiohead sad, ominous atmosphere is present but the big, adventurous soundscapes are absent. In their place Yorke crafts several simple, small songs that never try to over-reach their diminutive stature while maintaining the dark moods we're familiar with. Unlike King Canute depicted in the (lovely) linocut album artwork, Yorke understands that he's a little guy in a sea of bad news. While his political observations (as documented in The Guardian newspaper, among other places) are rather flat and overly idealistic, his likewise political lyrics have always stood out for me as rather strong poetry, with strikingly strong imagery nestled in blunt statements that are easy to digest, tempering political dialogue with fantasy situations. This takes the baggage off the ideas and allows them to be taken in as imaginative constructs, rather than didactic moral posturing. The strong songwriting is combined with a winning production, emphasizing the synthetic nature of the music by leaving Yorke's voice unfiltered and unprocessed. The effect is a direct, unambitious and effective album that I won't soon forget.

7. Å - Å

Sneaking in right at the end of the year was this incredible new Italian band. They sort of sound like post-rock, but only in the way that fellow Italians Larsen do, which really says a lot about how the term "post-rock" no longer applies. This improvised collection shows a large breadth of repertoire, ranging from the aforementioned gentle post-rock bliss into tape and vocal experiments, and some sweet Morriconne worship. The places they bring you range from a wet, cloudy day to a sun-parched desert of sand. One thing that really impresses me is that they accomplish all this within the short time frame of 38 minutes, almost half an album's length by post-rock standards. The most exciting release of the year, I can't wait for more!

8. Liars - Drum's Not Dead

I found a lot to like in the Liars' rather underrated third album. Perhaps underrated is the wrong term - overlooked maybe? It came on early in 2006 and seemed to have been swept away. Regardless, there's a lot going on here that deserves mention, from the unsteady drum breaks to the menacing squalls of quavering worry. The album deals with an issue I have way too much experience with: panic attacks. Granted, the type of panic attacks the Liars must experience are probably much worse than mine, being as loaded to the brim with drugs as they are. I can still relate to the themes of building, rushing anxiety - the confluence of past and present fears (the "low") - and the still, breezy aftermath that is soaked with both regret and bliss (the "high"). Many of the songs seem incomplete, or cut off in the middle, due to a racing mind, flitting from subject to subject. The battered, destructed dance punk of the Liars screeches, throbs, barrels, and seethes into puddles of fear. Throughly enjoyable, in a sickly kind of way. Bonus points for including a DVD with three different film accompaniments to the entire album!

9. Marsen Jules - Les Fleurs

Whispered utterances of stark beauty. Thick white fog, shifting across a hillside, obscuring and defining patches of green and gardens of flowers. It's cold, and the flowers are crispy with frost. You cannot walk in a straight line, something heavy pulls you down. Each step brings a crisp crunch, and your ears are ringing. That's pretty much what this record makes me think of. Martin Juhls presents a cool, calm deconstruction of acoustic tones. Disembodied Xylophone couplets drift by, only to sink to the ground, then be buoyed back up by their own reverberation. These are samples of the most sophisticated kind. Rather than cuts of beats or melodies, these are samples of the essence of a sound, the very moment a sound comes to life. Small clusters of instruments gather together in silence, then burst forth, only to dissipate as quickly as they arrived. It really is hard to tell where the sounds originated, nor is it possible to imagine any other setting for them. The sounds are heavy like ripe fruit, the atmosphere wide but myopic, like the foggy day. Pristine and perfect.

10. James Blackshaw - O True Believers

Hailing from England, Blackshaw is a self-taught steel-string guitar master who complements current avant guitarists like Jack Rose or Steffen Basho-Junghans. Those two artists are awesome in their own right, but Blackshaw brings something a bit different to the table. While he puts forth some serious, head-spinning twelve-string improv, it's flecked with something of an eastern tinge, having a feeling of a raga or a extended sitar jam. While Blackshaw is definitely concentrated on solo guitar work, occasionally you'll hear instruments such as sitar (maybe it's a sitar...) or harmonium, which lend a graceful, mellow air to things that's considerably more spiritual than his peers. Despite being an instrumental powerhouse, he never gets too flowery with his playing, generally sticking to a more minimalist music style. It is this that makes him truly unique, a weird blend of traditional folk, appalachia, eastern scales and western avant-garde. Truly weird, but accessible as anything. It's so nice to listen to, so chiming and full, that you'll only think about how intellectual it is if you really pay attention to it, or try to divorce yourself from it. It sparkles with a genuine joy of musicality. Blackshaw makes truly magical music, and deserves close attention in the coming years, as I'm sure he'll get better and better, if more veteran examples like Richard Bishop are of any indication.

Barrie's Big Best-of 2006 List, Part Three

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:44:51 GMT

As I posted before, if you want to hear a track off of any of these albums, just let me know and I'll see what I can do. I probably should have posted these in single-album fragments so I could post a track per album, but oh well.

11. Grails - Black Tar Prophecies, Vols. 1, 2 & 3

Not too sure how this one counts as an album, but I'm putting it on this list anyway. It's actually a collection of two out-of-print 12" EPs with two new tracks, but it sounds remarkably strong as an album. Grails weave a rootsy kind of post-rock. They take the urgency of rock music and meld it with some more traditional forms and structures you'd find in folk music from around the world. I once said that if Loreena McKennitt didn't suck and was more like Gastr Del Sol or Tortoise, she'd probably sound a bit like Grails. But perhaps that is an unfair comparison. Grails' music collage does not bear any cliches from other cultures, rather it sounds like the mysterious, somewhat rocking music of some lost ethnicity. You can hear bits of Moroccan music in there sometimes, but it's hard to pull it apart from the slinky slide guitar and violin. There's no use in calling it a post-modern pastiche because Grails has a unique, unified sound, it just sounds right, nothing corny or cheeky or self-consciously "global." A real pleasure to listen to, definitely a band to look out for. Bonus points for really, really good cover art.

12. Jóhann Jóhannsson - IBM 1401, A User's Manual

Anyone who makes a conceptual music/dance hybrid about the loss of old technologies is going to win my heart instantly. Those who know me know that I have a particular fondness for vintage computers and electronics, and find a weird kind of poetry to their uselessness. Johannsson must feel similar things, as this here is an album about historical technology. It starts with an utterly gorgeous, crackling recording of the old IBM 1401 playing a classic Icelandic overture, dripping with age and pathos. It's so beautiful that it alone could carry an album. The cold, emotionless tones sound like music coming from the past, moldy with age. Ghost sounds. On top of this Johannsson slowly builds a wonderfully sentimental tapestry of strings and Hammond organ, a eulogy for lost technologies. There is even one track that consists mainly of an old tape recording describing the proper care of an IBM printer. It is so deadpan bizarre that it is somehow moving. I really appreciate the risk involved with that. It could have become something overly goofy or overly sentimental or even pretentious, but it fits just right, striking an impressive balance between being humourous and being conceptually propulsive. The project also has a great website, where you can read more about the great ideas behind it. The only thing that is missing is a video of the dance performance, which I think would have been obvious to include and I lament the lack of it. It bothers me that he would not want to release the whole work, especially since DVD makes it so easy to do so. Regardless of that, this is a beautiful piece that strikes a lot of my own chords.

13. ISIS - In the Absence of Truth

Without a doubt this was the most difficult musical relationship of the year. This record taught me a lot about expectations. When I was first listening to it, for some reason I wanted a repeat of their previous album, "Panopticon." That album was a harsh, claustrophobic affair, everything pushed to the edge or into a corner, a dark, scared buzzing roar. It was incredibly epic and powerful, in a way which directly spoke to me. So when I put on this newest record, I was initially disappointed to hear a much more open presentation, more fluid playing, better songwriting and superior production. Wait - so why was I disappointed? This is the problem with expectation, you see. You're blinded by desire to the positive aspects of change. Once I realized this, I came to really enjoy this album for what it IS and now take it to be their best effort to date. It really is as forceful as its predecessor, but in a different way. Every instrument breathes, there's a deep organic sense to the sound. This creates a more musical ground that gets the message across effectively. And the message is still similar: intellectual, conceptual, spaced-out post-prog metal (or whatever the hell you want to call it). It's been honed, though; in the past Isis sometimes lost the listener in sleepy ambience, such interludes are cut shorter, or are more convincingly woven into the rest of the song. Likewise heavy parts are not such a noisy blur as before, instead they are more intricate and sometimes downright pretty, like a combination of Tool and Explosions in the Sky. You can really hear this on album closer "Garden of Light." That song and the other real highlight, "Dulcinea," pack an immense wallop of emotion that stands up to Isis' best tracks. Musicianship has improved as well, the drummer in particular seems to have taken a few lessons from Tool drummer Danny Carey, which I say because he's using a more cyclical, earthy style that was not as evident on previous Isis outings. There is also conspicuously less screaming here, the vocalist's weird constrained croon has gained a bit more range. So really, you should appreciate things for what they are, rather than for what they are not. There's a lot to love here. Killer album artwork, as always.

14. Andrew Liles - The Dying Submariner

Gloomy and graceful, this double album tracks the slow descent of a lost submariner on his way to the bottom of the sea. Liles has always had a sense for the macabre, but here it's in overdrive. What could be darker than the helpless feeling of being lost in the dark, without direction, your oxygen slowly running out? Using nothing but piano, guitar, and lots and lots of reverb, this album reminds me of the music of the Deep Listening Band, but without any of the pseudo-new-age trappings that sometimes plagued that group. There's a lot to listen to, with just the piano and its vibrations - you can pull yourself in as deeply as you want as Liles pushes and pulls the space around him, sending waves of dissonance back out at the walls. It's not without levity, either, as there are several rather playful figures that suggest that not everything here is doom and gloom - there is a humourous, farcial element to our hero's hopeless struggle. This gives the album a deeper conceptual weight, lending it a rare romantic sophistication.

15. Ali Farka Touré - Sávane

The Malian guitar master left us recently, but not without leaving behind a final album of beautiful folk songs. Not much else to say here, Ali does not deviate from the style of his past albums, which is fine as I could listen to his unique songwriting style all day. Perhaps one thing here that really got me was the forceful soul of the songs this time around. There's a deep belly of feeling, which brings to mind John Lee Hooker's more mysterious moments (which is natural, as Ali had channeled Hooker before, and vice versa). The way the notes hang in the air like sand on a hot day, and the way the vocals are always just loose enough to sound fresh and not overly rehearsed. His music is the opposite of monumental, it is humble and fragile, delicate and warm. There's a completeness here that is wholly satisfying, that does not leave you wanting more.

Skullflower - Lost in the Blackened Gardens of Some Vast Star

BarrieSutcliffe — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 07:46:59 GMT

This one's for nicki, who wanted to hear a track off of "Tribulation," Skullflower's noise masterpiece. Matthew Bower has been making music for a long time, with many different people, Skullflower is just one of his many projects.

If anyone has any requests for other stuff off the list, let me know and I'll try to upload a track. Another installment of the list tomorrow.

Barrie's Big Best-of 2006 List, Part Two

BarrieSutcliffe — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 20:05:36 GMT

Here's part two for y'all. Only four this time, as I put too many into the last post. Again, more to come soon!

Part One is here.

16. Peter Wright - Red Lion

Wright presents another graceful document of guitar and found sound in his follow-up to the excellent "Yellow Horizon." While that album had a rather gentle, pastoral feel to it, "Red Lion" has a considerably darker atmosphere. This is perhaps inspired by the urban environment it was recorded in. The quiet, subtly shifting tones and environmental sounds are imbued with a bit of melancholy, as if they were a bit alienated. There are a few moments here, especially on the second quarter of the album, that bring to mind Nurse with Wound's anxiously edited sound collages. These more active, oppressive moments are skillfully woven into the album, lending it a much stronger narrative than its predecessor. You may even, at certain points in your day, hear some of Wright's music in your head as a soundtrack to your surroundings. Someone who can make an earworm out of drone has a rare talent indeed.

17. Shogun Kunitoki - Tasankokaiku

Mass exuberance! This Finnish band (with a Japanese name) on the excellent Fonal imprint have produced the liveliest, bubbliest, most musical experience of the year. All keyboards, no vocals, these songs gallop along on a quick tempo and a steady rhythm. Makes me think of a sunny fantasy world, or a magical forest kingdom - something colourful and imaginative. It's all left up to you though - this evocative, joyful music bears little conceptual weight, its thematic emptiness providing a stage for your thoughts.

18. Skullflower - Tribulation

Noise record of the year. Imagine a planet populated only by gut-wrenching sounds. The surface is charred, endlessly subject to gale winds filled with burning volcanic ash, clouding your eyes and choking your lungs. Geysers spew a hideous-smelling yellow bile of acrid high-end. Every depression in the ground is filled with a sharp rumbling, every cavern with brittle husks of what used to be bass. Ravens, their vicious voices the volume of thunder, swarm you, tearing at your scalp and pecking out your eyes, which you don't really need anyway, what with all that ash. Now all you can hear is the approaching storm of raining pitch, covering everything in a foul tar. An utterly nasty album filled to the point of totality with awful sounds.

19. Keiji Haino & Sitaar Tah! - Animamima

Similar in scope as the Skullflower album (in the sense of aural totality), but using a different approach. Keiji Haino throws in his usual howling vocal mastery combined with supremely intense hurdy-gurdy drones. On top of all that, there's an entire Sitar orchestra playing with him. What that means is an absolute mass of physical sound. The composition is a slow-building cumulative drone, beginning with a "base" drone and adding up, over the course of two discs, two a throaty, scraping, scary wail that seems to be the size of the cosmos. Like I said, this is a MASS of sound, so physical I could almost touch it (and be destroyed by it, I presume).

Barrie's Big Best of 2006 List, Part One

BarrieSutcliffe — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:43:37 GMT

I TOLD YOU GUYS. It's here. Or at least, part of it's here. Since it ended up being a lot of writing I've split it up over several posts, to be revealed daily or bi-daily for SUSPENSE! Yes, I know this is probably the most late 2006 best-of around, but I don't really care. In between work and applying to graduate studies, I didn't have time for this crap. But now it's just about done. Besides, I've been working on this list for a long time so I know that I'm sure about my selections. The criteria here is to strike a tricky balance between recognizing artistic importance and recognizing the importance the album holds for me emotionally. There is a top-25 for albums, a top-10 for songs, a long list of honourable mentions, and another list for records from 2005 that I missed. I'll start with the albums, in chunks.

My Favourite albums of 2006, Part One:

20. Jonathan Coleclough & Murmer - Husk

Coleclough provides his trademark dense, deep forever drone here for the latest of his many collaborations. You may remember in 2005 he teamed up with Lethe for "Long Heat," a simmering, buzzy affair. This time around he's teamed up with American artist Murmer, who from what I've heard of him concentrates upon discrete field recording sounds. This mixes well with Coleclough's drones, there are cracklings and buzzings and rattlings, in combination with a huge, placeless, present void of sound. Murmer's recordings offer a semblance of location that contrasts with the monolithic drone, creating an intriguingly inscrutable recording. This inability to define is perhaps what the title is referring to, the sounds are husks of objects, or is it the other way around? Is this album the recording of what is stripped off an experience, pointing to the ephemerality of the recorded medium? It sounds like the leftover sounds some of ornate, beautiful alchemic process that unfolds on its own, the afterbirth of intricate mysteries. Conceptual questions aside, this is a satisfying lull of an album, drawing you deep into the mysterious world of sound.

21. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

Grizzly Bear release a surprisingly accomplished set of dark, mellow tracks that just please me so well. Like lush bedroom pop, these songs remind me of those miserable times when you just sit in your room, look out the window and stare at the rain and the greyness that is around you. There is nothing wrong with this typical melancholy, and Grizzly Bear brings out those feelings of strange nostalgia for darkness. The mood is good but so are the songs, they are actual great songs, well crafted and executed. It's hard to make me care about pop these days, but when it's done this well I sit up and take notice. Or, in the case of the album, bury my head in my pillow and space out. Er, in a good way.

22. M. Ward - Post-War

It's very hard to pull off sounding dated, because you can easily make a cliche of yourself. M. Ward is different though, and can convince me that maybe he's a troubadour from the 20's, plucking his broken acoustic guitar as he travels from town to town recounting tales of woe. His folk tunes have a twisted edge, but not an eclectic "new weird America" edge, this is something far more sophisticated. It's an almost academic (certainly intellectual) situational quirk, it sounds like the past but it doesn't. Like it comes from a universe where a movie like "Sweet and Lowdown" is actually a real documentary. There's just an effective little tweak that makes it far stranger. The songs themselves are strong too, funny and catchy and wistful, and what's best about that is that they they become the centre of the album, rather than the "idea" behind the whole thing, which in effect makes everything much better here.

23. Tool - 10,000 Days

What the... Tool? By far the most popular band in this list of mine, Tool is here for a good reason. Or maybe not a good reason - I can't figure it. You see, a lot of the music I listen to is confusional, weird, and in some ways way left of centre. But so is the music of Tool. So why the hell are they so popular, when all these other guys are way under the radar of the general public? Perhaps it's that Tool got the right amount of exposure at the right time, and used it the best they could. So after a several-years long break since their previous album, they come out with the bafflingly obtuse, playful and ornately (almost ludicrously so) packaged 10,000 Days. This is heavy, intricate stuff that I'm not going to go into too much trouble to describe, as I don't really need to. They prove, though, that they have wielded considerable influence over contemporary heavier musics - just look at number thirteen on this list and you'll hear pieces of Tool all over the place. In fact, I'd say Tool is as influential on contemporary heavy music as groups like Neurosis and the Melvins have been. They prove their relevance here - the songs are stirring, the music is moving, the content engaging. Layers upon layers of complex instrumentation weave together like the ancient mysteries they often sing about. And yes I'm still baffled, because I would call this album's finest moments, such as "Rosetta Stoned" or the title track, nowhere near accessible. So again the question of popularity. But who cares? I love the mathematical drumming, the sinewy bass, and the powerful, emotive vocals. Perhaps what I have always loved about this band is their aloofness; their ability to speak of esoteric subject matter without being preachy, obvious, or cliche. They display much tact, as well as a great sense of humour which is evident in the packaging. Now I just have to wait another five years for their next installment.

24. Growing - Colour Wheel

Kevin Doria and Joe Denardo produce some of the warmest, most engrossing washes of sound you can find today. Incorrectly labeled by some as "doom" because of their use of slow, downtuned guitars, Growing are closer to some kind of pastoral power ambient drone. The music is like a cloud; it hovers, barely there, in the air before it is effortlessly scattered. The music breathes, like forest leaves in the wind. It is very "open" and natural-sounding, which is a unique quality I have not heard much elsewhere. Even better is Growing's urge to break this stillness with strong textures, something that is very evident on the final track on this album, "Green Pasture," a short ambient wash that eventually breaks up into a noisy skitter by splicing in a loud guitar sound. Peaceful, yet still challenging.

25. Mogwai - Mr. Beast

It's been written by many others that a new Mogwai album always takes some getting used to. Mr. Beast is no different. I did not like it at all to begin with, the short subtle tracks just didn't strike me the same as the furious blown-out guitar frenzy of Mogwai's past. Soon though, just like how "Happy Songs for Happy People" thawed me to its delicate rage, I gave in to the lovely melodies of Mr. Beast. More dramatic than angry, these tunes pack a fair wallop in a short run time. Even the unusual presence of vocals doesn't bother me, they are graceful and insistent, sad but warm. The interplay between instruments is probably at an all-time high within the band, every track sounds complete with rich, interleaved playing. While this is not my favourite album of Mogwai's, it has stuck with me the whole year and I've enjoyed it all the while.

More to come...

I think I'm getting tired of "post-punk post-rock"

BarrieSutcliffe — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:36:03 GMT

Last Friday, the 2nd of March, I saw Do Make Say Think play. It was the first time I had seen them in three or four years, when they played a double bill with Fly Pan Am. That concert stands as one of my live music milestones. I was just starting University and was really into the whole Montreal experimental sound. The airy closing strains of "The Landlord is Dead" basically pulled me through the end of High School. So it goes without saying that when I saw them live I was bowled over by the emotional power of both groups. This time, several years later, Do Make played another great show. But I just couldn't get into it as much. I've purchased the new album, and have enjoyed it quite a bit, but I just didn't get the same kind of ecstatic rush that I did last time. It's not the band's fault - they played very well, probably better than previously. They integrated excellently and displayed rather clever passages of music, but they are so much different live than they are in the studio. They are probably one of the only "post rock" bands that really use the studio as an instrument, employing all sorts of colourful trickery to make the music more engaging. But when I saw them play... it was just build, climax, build, climax. It was good for sure, but I couldn't get into it at all. It was kind of like when I saw Silver Mt. Zion last year, I was more interested in opener Carla Bozulich's bizarre narratives than SMZ's doleful dirge. DMST's poweful live set had nowhere near the same impact on me as the Esbjorn Svensson Trio had last June, in a much smaller, quieter setting. I suppose my musical tastes have moved on, and because of that I feel further removed than the person I was in high school.

And now, a word about the genre descriptor "post-rock." I was thinking about how DMST are about the closest to post-punk as they can get while still being post-rock. What do I mean by that? Well, I think post-rock is the WRONG descriptor to use for bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, etc. Those types of bands use a basic structure of rock and roll that has more in common with post-punk, at least to my ears. They are still all about rocking out, despite the odd stylish frill here and there. "Post-rock" I believe is a genre of music that pulls past the structure of a rock song. And yes, I realize that one can react to an established tradition by utilizing the language of that very tradition, but I do not think groups like EitS or even the politically-charged Godspeed are reacting to rock. Godspeed seems much more post-punk in its reaction - socially conscious, but also sensitive (or at least they attempted to be). They still fully enjoy ROCKING OUT. They use the language AND form of rock and roll. My favourite progression of this is of course when everything suddenly turned into metal - Neurosis, ISIS, etc. It seems to work better for me, anyway. No, I think the description "post-rock" applies much more accurately to groups like Talk Talk, Tortoise, Trans Am, Fly Pan Am, Fridge and the like. In fact, the term "post-rock" was originally used in a review of Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" (someone find a reference for that, I'm too lazy). When you listen to these groups, you'll hear a perversion of the rock song, mixing it with jazz or modernist structures. Every so often a composition will reveal the form of a rock song, but played in an unconventional way, soon to be swept along by another absurd musical figure. The expressive potential of rock is borrowed to facilitate the communication of more difficult forms of music, or it is pulled apart into little pieces and shuffled around and examined. Going back to DMST, I would say they participate in this form of experimentation especially through the way they use studio production. They straddle the line quite gracefully.

I've been distracted a few times too many, and have lost my train of thought, so I'll end the argument there. What do you think? What would be a better genre tag to use, if any?

Also, if any of you are wondering, I AM still working on my best-of 2006 list. In fact, the list is ready, but I am woefully behind on the write-ups for each item. Unfortunately that takes time and I have been very lazy. Soon...