2009 Halfway Review [Part 3/5]

Here's part three of my top 25 albums of 2009, halfway through, numbers 15 through 11.

15. Voodeux - The Paranormal (Mothership)

I love horror movies and shows, and I love techno. Imagine the glee when my inbox chimed in with a promo for Voodeux, a new group on Claude Von Stroke’s Mothership label who also love those two things, and made them the impetus behind their work. That’s the great thing about The Paranormal--it’s a gimmick, certainly, but a fantastically entertaining one, that results in some truly spine-tingling minimal beats. With a penchant for empty, reverberated spacey, and wobbly organ and chime sounds, Voodeux have created a solid debut offering with tracks that work great on the dance floor and in the headphones. A recent interview I conducted with one of the duo, Tanner Ross (look for it in the next issue of Big Shot), suggests that Voodeux are looking to expand beyond simply being the “horror techno” group. Regardless, Paranormal delivers fully on the promise within its premise.

14. SND - Atavism (Raster-Noton)

I cannot stop listening to this record, which is not quite what I would have expected upon first hearing about it. SND, veterans of the glitch scene, return from a release hiatus with an album that redefines just how “minimal” minimal techno can get. Every one of the unnamed tracks on Atavism uses the same narrow palette of digital, inorganic sounds: a bouncy bass drum, something like a cymbal hit, another something like a snare hit, and an FM-sounding pad with an icy sheen and little timbral variation. This record is a love letter to the disinfected cleanliness of digital signal processing, using sequencers and computerized sound generation to thoroughly de-humanize the productions, and the product is nothing short of addictive. If the sanitized future-dwellers of THX 1138 made funky techno, you can bet it would have sounded like this.

My review at themilkfactory

13. Jimi Tenor & Kabu Kabu - 4^th Dimension (Puu)

“It’s imperative / to groove.” So goes the lyrical call-to-action at the start of “Aligned Planets,” the opener from 4^th Dimension, the latest from versatile Finnish musician Jimi Tenor, in collaboration with afrobeat ensemble Kabu Kabu. This record sees Tenor disrupting the afrobeat formula with jazzy dissonances and a light synthesizer haze, for a result that sounds like a kind of dream group featuring Miles Davis and Fela Kuti, both at the height of their willingness to think outside the box. Admittedly, I know relatively little about afrobeat, and only chanced upon this album because of the involvement of Warp records alumnus Tenor. Good on him, for continuing to challenge the complacency of each segment of his wide audience.

12. Babe, Terror - Weekend (Perdizes Dream)

The phrase “tropical” has become comically overused in 2009, as bands as stale as Vampire Weekend get slapped with misnomer tags like “Balearic” (which, to remind readers, was a general categorization for electronic dance music popular in Ibiza in the late 80s). The Zeitgest record here is Panda Bear’s 2007 album Person Pitch, which has spawned a rash of half-hearted imitators. If there’s any justice, Babe, Terror, will rise above this fray and get proper recognition, a process that has already started, to some extent. Made entirely out of samples and recordings of his own voice through a relatively basic audio editor, Weekend is a dizzyingly psychedelic journey from São Paulo-based artist Claudio Szynkier. Like Bobby McFerrin on hallucinogens staring at a beautiful sky, Babe, Terror’s music is hyperreal, vocal communication on a non-verbal plane. That it’s available for free download means there no excuse for you not to go and get it now.

My review at Cokemachineglow

11. Ras G - Brotha From Another Planet (Brainfeeder / Alpha Pup)

There’s so many hot new beatmakers coming out of LA these days that I’m amazed I didn’t trip over an MPC when I was there in March. But few are as out-there and compelling as Ras G, whose Brotha From Anotha Planet is equal parts J Dilla and Sun Ra. The beats are grounded in the earth and humanity--note the lack of quantization, contributing to a chewy feel on the percussion--but the themes are out of this world by quite some distance. This is George Clinton’s funk in space as seen through, blunted, introspective, information-age glasses. Lose yourself in it.

My review at Cokemachineglow

WIR #2

Restarting another feature here - Weeking In Review (WIR for short, get it?). I'll run it every Friday, with links and summaries of pieces I've done that have been published that week. Since this is the inaugural one of this relaunch, I'm reaching further back into March for some pieces that I think merit the extra mention.

I'm also introducing a new color-code for pieces to indicate where they're published, as follows:
the milk factory
Cokemachineglow
PopMatters

Here we go:

Babe, Terror - Weekend (Perdizes Dream; 2009)
Score: 78/100
Claudio Szynkier is a fantastic and unique new talent that I've previously blogged about. Weekend is constructed out of samples of his voice put through basic and obvious effects. Pure and primal, yet with a post-modern take. Check out the Babe, Terror Myspace for more.
Full review at Cokemachineglow

Ethan Rose - Oaks (Holocene; 2009)
Score: 7/10
Portland-based creator of ambient electro-acoustics makes an album about memory. All samples are taken from the organ at the Oaks Park Roller Rink, where I attended a number of birthday parties growing up. Needless to say, this review gets a bit personal. See Rose's lovely website for more.
Full review at PopMatters

Interview with Chris Willits
I sat down with ambient/experimental/drone guitarist Chris Willits after a recent show to discuss Ableton 8, his new venture Overlap.org, and what exactly "folding" is. See Willits' site for more background info and music samples.
Interview at the milk factory

MUR #1

Introducing a new feature here - Music Under Review (MUR), in which I'll be blogging some short quips about the music that is currently under review, often soon to be published elsewhere. This will be a place for my first impressions, or thinking out loud about how to come down on something.


Mark Pritchard - ? / Hologram (Ho-Hum; 2009)

I interviewed Mark for PopMatters yesterday, talking primarily about his latest record as Harmonic 313. He mentioned this new single, released under his given name. The Harmonic 313 LP was dark, but "?" is black hole space of another kind - nary a beat in site. Should be reviewing this one for the milk factory soon.

The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die (Take Me To The Hospital; 2009)

Hello again, old friend(s). Most of you will best remember The Prodigy for its hit singles "Firestarter" and "Breathe," more than a decade (!) old now. After a just-okay come-back album in 2004's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, The Prodigy sound reinvigorated this time around. There's a palpable "blog house" influence on some of these tracks, but luckily its kept to a minimum. Instead, most of Invaders is the rave music that Liam Howlett and co. and best known for, amplified to 11. Plus the return of vocals from Maxim Reality and Keith Flint - good show. Might review this for Coke Machine Glow. In the mean time, I'll be seeing, writing about and photographing The Prodigy live at the Roseland this Thursday for PopMatters. Trying to interview them for PM too, but it looks like I'll be out of town during their scheduled press time.

Atom™ - Liedgut (Raster-Noton; 2009)

Before hearing this latest release, I knew Atom™ best as Señor Coconut, known for his Latin Pop-tinged versions of Kraftwerk. This being a release on Raster-Noton, I knew to expect something rather different. Ostensibly, the theme here is romanticism; according to the press release, Nietzsche is somehow involved. I don't speak German, so both the liner notes and the lyrics here are a mystery. But there's some beautiful and innovative glitch here, including a series of pieces built around polyrhythms of cell phone-speaker interference. I'll be reviewing this one for PopMatters.

Babe, Terror - Weekend (Perdizes Dream; 2009)

Ever since Panda Bear's last record, neo-exotica has flourished - check out El Guincho for another kindred spirit. In a somewhat similar, but decidedly more experimental vein comes Babe, Terror, the alias of Claudio Szynkier from São Paulo, Brazil. Weekend's pieces consist of intimate and engulfing manipulations of Claudio's voice. Rather than lyrics, we get vocalizing, at times appropriately harmonic and atonal. It's the debut work of a truly individual artist. I'll be reviewing it this week for Coke Machine Glow.

Dntel - Early Works For Me If It Works For You II (Plug Research/Phthalo; 2009)

Jimmy Tamborello, best known as the electronic half of The Postal Service, is, it can be argued, responsible for the popularity of "lap-pop" artists in indie circles. Outside of his collaborations with the perpetually whiney Ben Gibbard, however, he's got a lovely repertoire as Dntel, best known for 2001's shimmering Life Is Full Of Possibilities This 3-disc package reissues his first recorded album, Something Always Goes Wrong, along with his first released album, Early Works For Me If It Works For You, and a new successor to Early Works that compiles unreleased material from around the recording of Possibilities. I'll say this - his material from when he was a college student definitely bests anything I could come up with at that point. I'll be reviewing this one for PopMatters.

AGF / Delay - Symptoms (BPitch Control; 2009)

Antye Greie and Sasu Ripatti make intriguing bedfellows - literally, as the two are the pre-eminent power couple of experimental techno. Both have entered this latest collaborate record off strong solo releases; Greie as AGF with the thought-provoking Dance Floor Drachen, and Ripatti as smooth house cat Luomo, with the collaboration-heavy Convivial. The presence of Ripatti seems to mellow Greie out a little bit, while she in turn pushes him to further experimental lengths than he's been in a while. A good match, then. I'll be reviewing this for the milk factory.