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Live at Other Music: White Williams (Episode #8) -Josh Madell Watch earlier episodes of Live at Other Music with Richard Hawley, Celebration, Vampire Weekend, The Clean, Tinariwen, No Age, and St. Vincent
Other Music & DigForFire.tv's SXSW Lawn Party
OTHER MUSIC & DIGFORFIRE.TV'S SXSW LAWN PARTY PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE: THURSDAY, MARCH 13
This Week's Featured Downloads
Other Music is thrilled to feature an exclusive on this brand-new single from our longtime favorite prince of pristine pop, Liam Hayes and Plush. The first of five new singles that Hayes is rumored to be releasing this year, both of these excellent tracks fully live up to the promise of this elusive, reclusive perfectionist -- hooky, offbeat pop filled with raw emotion. "Take a Chance" is the most contemporary sounding song he's released to date. Led by a bright brass section and Hayes' pitch-perfect warble, this mid-tempo number is a surprisingly sunny affair, where as the organ-led ballad "If I Could" is a bit closer to the brooding pop ballads he's known for. Overall it seems like Hayes is drawing less and less from the songwriting wells of Rundgren, Carmen and Harrison, and finding his own voice along the way. -Duane Harriott
Not the sound one normally expects to be coming out of Bloomington, the minimalist pop emanating from this Indiana quartet falls somewhere between the chilly detachment of Joy Division and Section 25 and the reverb-drenched jangle of Felt, with a touch of Suicide's primitive pulse and the occasional guitar wash of My Bloody Valentine. And that's just the first track. Producer Daniel Burton's (Early Day Miners, Songs: Ohia, Papa M) rough hewn production works perfectly for Tammar, which is what occasionally gives the songs a bit of that early Factory Records vibe, but here it's not a case of these guys (and girl) watching their bootleg DVD of Control too many times. The music is far from stylized (a la Interpol) and there's more of a focus on mood and texture than actual pop structure as songs slowly build and collapse amidst the hesitant strums of guitar and icy keyboards, and a drummer who actually knows that less is more. Buried in the mix, the vocalist's anthemic melodies avoid any trappings of Bono-esque bombast, instead sounding dark, stoic even. An excellent debut. -Gerald Hammill
The Euro-cosmic renaissance has finally hit America's discerning dance floors hard, but on its own grounded terms. Look no further than this new single from the Juan MacLean, and it's one of the best productions we've heard from the DFA camp in a while. Stepping away from the robotic paranoia of Less Than Human, MacLean re-enlists Nancy Whang on vocals and delivers an anthem which, over the course of twelve-and-a-half minutes, slowly unfolds into a grin-inducing euphoric sing-a-long jam, all undercut by MacLean's trademark chunk acid-tinged funk. Prince Language and Lee Douglas turn in excellent deep, dubby remixes as well. -Duane Harriott
We just featured the CD version of this Rhys Chatham set in our Update, but we now also have the download version for sale. For those of you who missed the review a few days ago... The original recorded version of Guitar Trio, from Rhys Chatham's formative years on the New York art-punk/no-wave scene, is just over eight minutes long. Still, that was long enough to establish Chatham's manifesto of bringing punk's intensity to avant-minimalism (or vice versa), layering guitars on guitars and creating a hypnotic one-chord symphony of overtones with bedrock-simple drums and bass keeping the music earth-bound. To celebrate his iconic composition's 30th anniversary, Chatham took the work on the road, with a stunning pick-up guitar-army that morphed and changed at every venue. Table of the Elements have released a powerful three-disc collection of live recordings from that epic journey, bringing the original eight minutes in at well over three hours, or more precisely nine separate full versions (plus one excerpt) that vary in length from 16 minutes to a half-hour each, which is much closer to the length of the original piece as Chatham used to perform it live at NYC's The Kitchen, back in the day. Without a doubt, three hours of one chord may seem a bit extreme here on paper, and maybe this is not for every casual listener, but fans of Chatham and his minimalist ilk know that this is the point; that by honing in on the raw essence of the sound, the nuances begin to show themselves. Each reading of the piece unfolds at its own pace, building sound on sound, tone on tone, until they are near implosion state. Chatham has done a great job sequencing the discs, so that small variations can have the most impact, from simple drumming choices (sticking religiously to only the hi-hat throughout the piece, as it was originally conceived, or adding a full kit's dynamics), to the addition of a string section and, of course, the amazing range of the featured guitarists. And quite a group is featured. You can check out a great tour diary here, www.rhyschatham.net/G3ismylife/index2.html, spelling out all the different line-ups city by city, but some of the all-stars include all three Sonic Youth axe-swingers, Alan Licht, Robert Longo, Jeff Parker, Doug McCombs, Tony Conrad, several Godspeed You Black Emperor guitarists, Chris Brokaw, Robert Lowe and many more, plus bass duties from, amongst others, the Modern Lovers' Ernie Brooks, Josh Abrams, and Husker Du's Greg Norton, and on drums Jonathan Kane and John McEntire. From the roster of players I think it's clear the influence that Rhys Chatham has had on underground music, but more than a victory lap, this fine collection shows his continued relevance and vitality. -Josh Madell
If you had to name an apex of kitsch, a place and time where every piece of the prevailing cultural aesthetic is both fascinating and eminently cringe-worthy, I'd have to say Germany from the late '60s into the early '70s. Just think, that's Heino's heyday! Watch any piece of German television from that period and you'll see what I mean. And nowhere is this captured in an aural time capsule better than on this CD, in condensed, concentrated form. With 28 tracks of commercial music, from the :30 bleep to the longer, three-minute form, each song was designed to grab the attention of the radio or TV audience member in the service of selling -- whether it be coffee, chocolate, cars, appliances, gum, safety in the workplace, or something much more mysterious (I'm wondering where the two "Minikillers" soundtracks come in -- violent miniature psychedelic cinemas for the ear). Some have earnest proclamations in smooth German, but the majority are punchy, frantically zippy instrumentals whose ability to wake and shake was blocks away from the library (background) music of the same era. -Robin Edgerton
Perhaps THE touchstone release for the entire esteemed ESP catalog. In July, 1964, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Gary Peacock, and Sunny Murray were assembled by Canadian filmmaker (and avant-garde musician in his own right) Michael Snow to record the soundtrack for his newest film. "More than a soundtrack, New York Eye And Ear Control is a jam session with the Albert Ayler Trio as the core group. However, this is not an average Ayler album. Although the compositions are credited to his name, the whole session should have been listed as a collective effort. Instead of the notorious Ayler songs, it gives us a glimpse of how an informal after-show might have sounded in those early days of ESP-Disk: wild, enthusiast, and communicative."-Remco Takken, from the CD liner notes. Lovingly re-mastered for optimal scorch! -Jeff Gibson |
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