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Live at Other Music: Celebration (Episode #6) -Josh Madell Watch earlier episodes of Live at Other Music with Vampire Weekend, The Clean, Tinariwen, No Age, and St. Vincent This Week's Featured Downloads
Other Music Exclusive Advance Release! Since studying with early electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and minimalist composer James Tenney, Carl Stone has embarked on a lifelong career of electro-acoustic experimentation. An early advocate of both radical turntable manipulation and sampling, Stone has since engaged most available forms of sampling technology in his compositions, culminating in his present use of MAX/MSP. He has been a prolific composer whose catalog of releases has unfortunately not managed to keep up with his productivity, which makes the reissue of his first record all the more exciting. Twenty-five years after its initial release on Joan LaBarbara's Wizard Records, the reissue of Woo Lae Oak finds him firmly in the company of minimal composers Phil Niblock, Warren Burt and others in the XI stable. Like the aforementioned, Stone's process-based early work creates an intriguing long-form listening experience from a minimal set of means -- in this case, a limited palette of string and woodwind sounds, which are sampled, processed and combined into a shimmering, modulating stream of sound. Woo Lae Oak has a gentle, meditative air to it throughout its 54 minutes, as woodwind tones -- apparently the flute-like tones of an end blown bottle -- rub up against one another over a drone of what sounds like phasing tremolo bowed violin. The pitches always seem considered and are never harsh -- even the pulsating, heterodyning effects that these closely tuned pitches give rise to always seem submissive to the greater flow of the piece. Though full of minute activity and dynamic changes -- notes bend, pan, break apart and fall of sharply in places -- Woo Lae Oak is one of those pieces that seems complete at every moment, paradoxically both dynamic and static at the same time. Unsurprisingly, Eastern music and cultures have long held an interest for Stone, and for a while he was even naming pieces after his favorite (often Asian) restaurants. Chow down! -Che Chen
A man of many faces, Giuseppe Ielasi returns to us with a slightly new approach. Last time we saw Ielasi he was handling production and mixing duties for Alesandro Bosetti's starkly minimal "Her Name," and now with "August," the Italian composer/improviser treats us to something which will seem familiar on first listen but nonetheless contains extremely striking and very distinct moments of originality. Ielasi's knack for truly hypnotic, repetitive phrases is still alive and going strong, but he never falls into the easy getaway of the outright drone, always keeping the listener on their toes, waiting for the change in tone or shape which is always anticipated yet always surprising. Several tracks stray away from the quiet, minimal work that many in Ielasi's field stick to so fiercely, and embrace the idea of climax and decline, on occasion conjuring images of a real time Disintegration Loops, with much thanks to be given here to the two guests, Heimo Wallner (trumpet on track 3) and Renato Rinaldi (reel-to-reel on track 4). This enjoyable, intriguing manipulation of sounds is entirely worth the listen. Recommended. -Linden Renz
Glenn Branca's seminal debut long playing record was originally released in 1981 on the most important independent New York label of the day, 99 records (home to Liquid Liquid, ESG). After moving to New York and fronting two of the most caustic no wave bands going (Theoretical Girls, Static), Branca honed his vision, taking out the histrionics, but leaving in the theatricality and grandiosity. This is huge music made with a small ensemble, and yet for all its reputed ugliness, the compositions here actually soar. Patterned guitar riffs create a forward moving velocity that belies the density of the songs. This is possibly the most listenable music to be sprung from no-wave; in fact it practically turns on the genre's conventions by getting downright romantic at points. Branca's ensemble famously employed Lee Renaldo (who is featured here) and Thurston Moore in their pre-Sonic Youth days, and the more you listen the more you realize how intensely this must have influenced their subsequent careers. Put this on and then give Sister (recorded three or four years later) a spin and you'll see what I mean. Essential. -Michael Klausman
Here's an interesting one for you. You've probably seen Hermine Demoriane as the tightrope walker Chaos in Derek Jarman's film Jubilee, or perhaps as a lounge singer on the infamous Britcom Absolutely Fabulous, but did you know that in the early 1980s she made a handful of whacked avant-cabaret singles and one album for various Euro labels, embracing the "anything goes when you're DIY" ethos of everyone's favorite post-punk era? Well, here's those early singles, starting with her 1982 Crammed Discs EP World on My Plates, with her debut EP Torture on Human, and its follow-up single "TV Lovers" added on as bonus tracks. Sounding like a French Nico, the music on these singles is pretty sparse on the whole -- from spare piano and horn balladry on the Plates EP to complete Flying Lizards everything-including-the-kitchen-sink madness on the Torture EP, which makes sense, considering that Torture was produced by Lizards honcho David Cunningham. What it lacks in chops it definitely makes up for in complete "what the f..."-edness. (Check out the cover of "Valley of the Dolls," where she sounds like Neely O'Hara after a few too many of the yellow ones!) This stuff would definitely appeal to those who like the more playfully experimental side of late-'70s/early-'80s avant pop/rock, such as Family Fodder (who also make appearances here), Flying Lizards, and the Homosexuals' side projects (I'm thinking particularly of the Amos & Sara record)... nothing terribly serious here, it's just good, weird, fun. Recommended! -Mikey IQ Jones
Born in Buffalo, NY, Patrick Tirone (a/k/a Stud Cole) modeled himself after the singers heard on local station WKBW. His passion for this new music called rock 'n' roll led him to California where he spent the next 10 years enthralled in the music scene, yet never with much success. The Stud Cole story is a familiar one: despite his utmost dedication to singing and songwriting, only a limited amount of his material every made it to record, which in turn very few listened to. At the end of his 10-year trial, Stud Cole returned to just being Patrick Tirone. That being said, what has been archived in Burn Baby Burn is a treasure trove full of off-kilter doo-wop, loose rockabilly and sultry, blues-inspired rock tunes. His songwriting might not be the most creative -- get ready for a lot of simple rhyme structures -- but the personality of this wild rocker warms the heart. Perhaps 1968 was not ready for the ghostly wailing, shrieking guitars, and doubled-up tracks that Stud favored, but I think that now is a great time for a revival...whereever he may be. If you're a fan of the Cramps, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Hasil Adkins, Ronnie Dawson, Charlie Feathers, etc., you can't go wrong with Stud. -Amanda Colbenson
It is always a pleasure to be able to review a funk album that I can recommend to people who aren't solely funk fans, per se. It's gotta have that something special which sets it apart, you know like the kind of magic you find in Shuggie Otis or ESG. McNeal and Niles' 1979 opus Thrust just may have what it takes. Rescued from hopeless obscurity by Chocolate Industries and purportedly previously plundered by the likes of Prefuse 73, Thrust elusively manages to stay one step ahead of any attempt I make to categorize it. So perhaps I'll just fall back on that cynical, yet nevertheless no so truer than in this case, rock critic signigier, Sublime. McNeal and Niles seem to have one foot in the soul jazz stylings popular a decade before their sole album's conception, and yet another firmly planted in the atmospheric new wave and disco movements that were then popularly entrenched. "Summertime" in particular can't seem to decide if it wants to be Dub Housing or Chic, while other tracks seem to arrive at exactly the point where musical integrity and broad appeal meet. Which incidentally seems to be the exact same place current like-minded artists such as Yesterdays New Quintet and Poets of Rhythm are trying to reach. And incongruities like that are exactly what you'll love discovering throughout the length of this brilliant record. -Michael Klausman
Just a glance at this six-piece in cranberry suits leaning against a train and VW bus, you can tell this set is funky. They could almost get mistaken for a dap Bay Area funk ensemble, but the Green Arrows were Zimbabwe's first music group to have a gold record. Famous throughout the '70s, coming up alongside Thomas Mapfumo, this compilation of recordings draws from the band's early singles and first two albums, cut with only two mics to four-track. Rooted in the brotherly sound of singer-bassist Zexie Manatsa and guitarist Stanley, the band was known to jam until dawn at their various residencies. Zexie may have been the frontman (one crazy pic shows him in face paint and green leggings on stage) but its Stanley's great affection for a rare wah-wah fuzz pedal that is the basis of the Green Arrows' sound. Surprising in comparison to most recent African comps we've carried as of late, the band jams concise pop songs, with only three songs going past the three-minute mark. Some are odes to their favorite flicks (check "Towering Inferno" and "Bullitt") but as the set goes on, the group gets more subversive, with songs of liberation and commentary being inserted into their lyrics. A welcome look at this unheralded band. -Adrian Burkholder |
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