DINO DIMURO
Unfinished
(Lonely Whistle)
Answering the hypothetical question about whether or not one can still sound like a hometaper if they use Pro Tools, the venerable Mr Dimuro answers in the affirmative. Hypothetically. "The Becker House," if I'm hearing this right, is a song about that one guy who has to have more Christmas lights on his house and yard than everyone else combined. There's always one guy. It's a cool song, melodic almost like children's music or Dr Demento-type novelty stuff. There are sound effects and stuff. Singing, guitar, live drums, etc. "You Gotta Be Gates To Play With Toy Trains" talks about Bill Gates and money and toy trains and includes every train-related sound effect you can imagine. Sweet. Little snippets of phonecalls, conversations and radio shows between songs. The instrumentals are cool too. Unfinished perhaps but fun to listen to all the same.
Ian C Stewart 090403

MATCHES F.C.
Matches F.C.
http://www.matchesfc.com
Slappy little modern-rock EP (modern in this case meaning "retro") of full band treatment. The vocals are the star, followed closely in the mix by the drums, both of which are all over the place. The singer sounds like TV's Greg Proops. Why is this? It is unique, that much I can concede. Guitars are distorted but wholly unmetallic. I'm going to say Fountains Of Wayne, but that's mostly because I just saw that fucking video of theirs and it's at the front of my brain. Pro production up in here and the songs are good and catchy. "Come On Over" is a neatly syncopated rocker at the end with a happy groove and a very loose vibe. Loose syncopation? I didn't think it was possible either.
Ian C Stewart 090403

DON CAMPAU + MJB
Sinecure
http://www.semperlofi.com
Last year's meeting of the minds, with West Coast meets East Coast of two home recording giants. Both of these guys do it all when it comes to music, so Sinecure is a neato blend of their strengths - and as far as who does what on this album, uh. Fuck if I know. "Really Like" kicks shit off with an uptempo drum program and an MJB sneeze? Nice beat, nice guitar chords, cool manipulation/editing after the fact. MJB singing. And those lyrics: "I like porno, more than I like you" ! Dude! Fuck yeah. "Thorn" rolls with live drumming and a guitar solo straight away. Don singing in monotone. Keyboards in there somewhere. Another nice groove. This is some of the most straightforward pop I've heard from either of these guys. "Feed Your $ Into The Death Machine" goes drum machine/acoustic guitar/MJB-layered-vox with it. "This I Will, I Will Fulfill" opens with some tuned percussion type shit and acoustic guitar. Mr Campau breaks down a nice vocal track that sounds like a campfire to me. Hell, I don't know. It's like classic rock genius, which is a phrase I don't use often. "Eat Meat" is a techno-folk-punk-percussion stomper. "Collab" rounds out this, um, collab nicely. What a cool little album this is. Imagine if they'd been in the same room for any of it! West Coast! East Coast! Represent!
Ian C Stewart 060703

BEN GOTT
Random Patterns Of Song
http://www.mp3.com/bengott
2CDs of Benji's greatest hits, 1996-2003. CD1 is The Beginning (Previously Released Tracks) and it opens with the one-two punch of "Town" and "The Thinking Song," two sad little pop gems dating from about 1804 or whenever he recorded them first. The warm glow of analog recording equipment enhances the mood of the tracks. "Another Kitchen," from 1997's Education In Reverse album has a beautiful vocal lilt that has since been pinched by Voivod. No, really, on their song "The Multiverse." It's bad ass in both cases. The music bed of "Another Kitchen" is a cross between Nine Inch Nails "Closer" (the drums), Eminem (though this track predates his rise by about four lifetimes - with that chiming bell) and uh.. some band that uses a xylophone? Sorry to say "Jelly Man Kelly" makes me suicidal for there is no sound sadder than an affluent college honkey singing the blues. Then there's "The Trouble," a fantastic tambouriney Ben Folds piano-driven sad pop song that also reminds me of Prefab Sprout. Two XTC covers round out CD1: "Battery Brides" and "Making Plans For Nigel." "Battery Brides" goes freeform 'n' floaty, shitcanning the stacatto groove of the original. Interesting. "Nigel" is a mad interpretation that doesn't bother with the song's signature drum pattern. Interesting. With a gospel-ish extension at the end where the fade-out should be. I take back what I said before about college boy blues. Gospel is much sadder. Over on CD2 is called The Rest (B-sides, unreleased tracks, and everything else) and it includes more covers of songs that I've never heard by people like Babybird and Richard Thompson. And other covers of Springsteen, the Smiths and Andy Partridge. "Melody" is a little snippet of an instrumental with echoey guitar and that slow Reznor groove. I keep saying Trent Reznor because it's so totally inappropriate to do so. This music has nothing to do with him. Ben takes the XTC Homespun approach by putting "Saturday (demo)" before "Saturday." Followed by "Wherever You Are (demo)" and "Wherever You Are." Nice harmonized guitar at the end. Happy pop song "Marilyn Manson" holds down the middle, a couple tracks over from its friend "John Lennon (demo)." Naturally. The hints of the next album Songs About Songs are very promising. Further refinement of the craft. Um, word up? So, bottom line, why isn't Ben Gott up there with Ben Folds and Ben Harper and Ben Franklin, pounding out his hits on a piano to a bunch of college fucks in turtlenecks and glasses?
Ian C Stewart 053103

SHY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Only The Lost Can Find Their Way 7"
http://www.geocities.com/kawtapes
Holy god, this is the one. The strongest combination of songwriting and performance yet from Mark Ritchie and Paul Doucet, aka the Gloomer Twins. And on this excellent format of the clear vinyl 7"! It gets no better! You'll know the drill by now if you've been paying attention: acoustic-based mope rock that borrows heavily from the collected works of Mark Eitzel, but with a personal spin. The recording is very lo fi but not in a trendy way - Shy Rights has been kicking it that way all along. It's not like they just read about this new four-track craze and decided to get onboard. So, the songs. "Only The Lost Can Find Their Way" goes for a full band approach with drum machine and bass added to the mix and a cracking chorus. "The Solemn, Balanced Weight Of The Hammer" is a stunner, with Nick Drake style guitar voicings and one of the best melodies Ritchie has done, and that's saying a lot. It's just guitar and vocals and a sort of floaty feedbacky guitar in the background. Excellent. Another handmade treasure from KAW Tapes.
Ian C Stewart 053103

REVIEWS from 2001. These were too late for the final printed issue of AUTOreverse. But not too late to be included here.

AN EVENING WITH DAVID & DIANA CD
David Aronson 606 2nd Street Pike, Southampton PA 18966 USA jaron98449@aol.com
Kids! Yuck! Feedback, noise, and the f-word! Yuck! Humorlessly arty poetry! Yuck! Sound as "art"! Yuck! Vocal throwaways looped and used as hand grenades! Yuck! One more thing! Yuck!
Ian C Stewart


FRANK PECK
GARNET HILL cassette
KAW 94 Main St, Forth, Lanarkshire, ML11 8AB UK kawtapes@hotmail.com
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/197/the_shy_rights_movement.html
Mark Ritchie CAN do wrong, he just chooses not to. If there's a better, more together, more melancholic and beautiful singer-songwriter-acoustic guy out there, I don't wanna know. Because Mark's the shit, period. Frank Peck = beautiful, aching, acoustic torch songs. To infinity.
Ian C Stewart

THE HIPTHRUSTERS
THE LOST SESSIONS CD
http://www.hipthrusters.co.uk
Sounding more like latter-day The Damned than I ever recall, this CD was recorded in 1996, but the master tape led the band on a wild goose chase not unlike Sir Paul McCartney's pivotal film "Give My Regards To Broad Street." Still fuckin' basic rockin' rock action, but the production is good and there seems to be more depth to this one than their other stuff. From what I recall anyway.
Ian C Stewart

THE HOT BUTTERED ELVES
A VERY LO-FI CHRISTMAS CD
http://www.mp3.com/hotbutteredelves
These guys take the Xmas-song concept to the fuckin' extreme, with tracks like "Moonpuppy The Surfin' Elf," "Satan Claus," "Elf In My Pocket," "Pieces Of Santa," Secret Robotic Gorilla Christmas," "I'll Be Your Fruitcake," and "Nuclear Winter." 20 tracks of yuletide fury.
Ian C Stewart

OPEN MIKE: A TRIBUTE TO THE SONGS OF MIKE MERZ CD
http://www.juniorbirdman.com/merz.html
Bands and artists you've never heard, covering another band/artist you've never heard. Period. Not since KISS singlehandedly organized "KISS My Ass" has an artist singlehandedly organized a tribute to their own output. Do you like the Soul Asylum, the Bob Mould, the The Replacements, the sad twang of modern country and that shiat "they" call alt.country?
Ian C Stewart - it's a rhetorical question.

PRAYING FOR OBLIVION
BOOKBURNER'S ANTHEM cassette
LSDO Jonathan Kan, 1506 Starburst Dr, West Covina CA 91790 USA
nefixium@msn.com
Beautifully packaged feedback/destructive hiss/hellish racket/controlled experiment/hissy rumble etc. If you like this sort of thing, then buy this one in particular for the sexy cover and the fine layout job.
Ian C Stewart

PRAYING FOR OBLIVION
SWAN SONG CD
Final Judgment Church Ov The Great Oblivion PO Box 22103 Nashville TN 37202-2103 USA
http://www.radonstudio.com/bandpages/prayingforoblivion.htm
Yeah, well, you got your "head in a blender" track, you got your "waiting for the alien spacecraft to descend" whirring track, you got your fucking shrill feedback, you got your untitled track that sounds like a piano string coming out of a brick wall. You know, basically something for every mood.
Ian C Stewart

CHAD RULLMAN
KOTORAN JIWA VHS
Supercollider Films PO Box 550172, Atlanta GA 30355 USA
Hey! A good excuse to go lay on the couch while I write a review! Too bad my computer won't come with me. So this is a filmed deal, like an actual movie. A guy in a suit sits on a bench. His cellphone rings. It's a female, she's calling about the ad in the paper. She sends him to a clinic. Cue ghouly experimental music. Pineal Ventana and AER. The direction is good but the story is merely okay. The acting is uh, about half a step up from a bad porno. But uh, yeah. Wow. A movie.
Ian C Stewart

SILBER XMAS 2000 CD
Silber Records PO Box 18062 Raleigh NC 27619 USA
http://www.silbermedia.com
Anaphylaxis should credit their reverb unit as a member of the band, for it does more than the rest of them (him) combined. MJB and Ken Clinger throw down "Snow Flurries," a suitably tasty blend of both of their personalities --- Clinger the synthesist/melodocist; MJB the rhythmatist/fuckwithatist. Aarktica is the sound of ice melting. Electric Bird Noise's fingerpicked electric guitar action actually sounds somewhat Xmassy, but not to the point of sounding obnoxious here in the land we call March. Russell Halasz' little "Christmas Cheese" acoustic song is a semi-happy, uptempo lo-fi deal apparently dating from 1990. Which just makes you wonder what he sounds like now. Goddakk goes for the Synthetic Ghoul approach with their "Sounds Like Christmas," which actually sounds more like a Cocteau Twins backing track without all the fruity bits. Remora (that would be Brian, aka Silber honcho) gets all Nick Cavey-creepy on the last track just to let you know that he's not a complete cheeseball when it comes to this Xmas Compilation nonsense. In a good way.
Ian C Stewart

SINT: NAUTILUS CD
Casella Postale 1311, Torino Italy
It comes with this glossy 10" square book of vividly colored paintings that are beautiful and insane and occasionally recall the glee of Keith Haring. The CD itself is ambling, ambient(ish) groove-based uh, not really techno in the traditional sense. Technology-oriented groove music. Pro all the way. I like it and all but I'll have to send it to Paola now for some cultural perspective.
Ian C Stewart

DAVE STAFFORD
VOICES FROM THE DESERT CD
http://www.pureambient.com
The date on the back might say 1992, but this is timeless guitar-based noodle-ambience. Stafford has long been the master of the e-bow and of static guitar projections. He might've even been born that way. Plus, "The Scattering" is almost 45 minutes long! Talk about value for money!
Ian C Stewart

DAN SUSNARA
ONE HANGDOG JUNEY MOON AT BHAGDAVAGITA RITA'S cassette
7806 S Kilpatrick Ave, Chicago IL 60652-1133 USA
Suss-man gangs up with Campau, MJB, Ken Clinger, et al for a wisely-chosen set of "collabs & instrumentals." Drum machines, keyboards, a bit of guitar, universally detached vocals. And is that a vocoder? Wow.
Ian C Stewart

DAN SUSNARA MICKY SAUNDERS
ONTARIO HUES AND BACK | 3 SONG E.P. cassette
7806 S Kilpatrick Ave, Chicago IL 60652-1133 USA
Little Susie-nara retorts with a female vocalist, live drums and the best stuff he's ever put out, in my estimation. Sensible pop with guitars set on Full Jangle, prominent (well-recorded too) female vocals, occasional keyboard bits. Good shit. The rest isn't worth mentioning. She should be the permanent lead vocalist.
Ian C Stewart

WORKING WITH CHILDREN & ANIMALS VOL 1 CD
Wasp Factory Recordings Unit 1, 65-67 High Street, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 1DU UK http://www.wasp-factory.com
"Industrial, darkwave and alternative electronic rock" it says here. Yep, that nearly covers it. Lots of beats, lots of distorted vocals, a general return to rock-god behavior across the board. Chaos Engine's singer sure does sound like Ian Astbury. I'd like to hear him do a good "fire wo-mah-own" for my answering machine. Arkham Asylum pushes the BPM up to about 394 or so, but not to the point of stupidity (like, say, Atari Teenage Riot). Guitars are apparently welcome on Wasp Factory too. I do like this.
Ian C Stewart
posted by Ian Stewart at 12:42 PM

Thinking Plague - In Extremis CD
Cuneiform Records / POBox 8427 / Silver Spring, MD 20907-8427 usa
www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/thinking.html
members.xoom.com/tplague/tp.html
Thinking Plague are Univers Zero and Stereolab collaborating on the lost goth-prog scores of Frank Zappa. Thinking Plague are Yes in the alternate universe in which, rather than becoming blustery, new-agey farts, they instead rocked the world cross-eyed. Thinking Plague are, from King Crimson, the diffusely moody, lean and sinewy musicality of Starless and Bible Black combined with the muscular, precise pointillism / crunch counterpoint of ConstrucKtion of Light. Thinking Plague are everything I ever wanted from progressive music, but never got. All the trudging through those bad albums that Yes made after Fragile kicked my ass are finally jusitified. Thinking Plague kick my ass so hard they make my nads retract. Deborah Perry's voice is all Jon Anderson-y with a cool, easy, Euro-pop delivery akin to Laetitia Sadier. She interweaves through difficult and dissonant intervals as though she were playfully spinning blindfolded in the flower garden, she makes it sound easy. As do the rest of the group... Dave Willey's and Bob Drake's bass playing is pure 70's fuzz prog, but they put a fat groove on when it's called for. The piano / synth / mellotron player Shane Hotle is obviously treading on a trail made by Rick Wakeman, but he does so with a minimum of wank, and a maximum of talent. The reed instruments brought to the table by Mark Harris fills in the mix quite nicely and adds a terse jazz / goth-orchestral flavor, (like Univers Zero). Mike Johnson's guitar brings a lot of Fripp to the stew, but leaves the flashiness to the group as a whole. There is no egotistical grandstanding to be found here... there is a stunningly welcome lack of 15 minute guitar solos that could have populated this CD. The music is the important thing, and it seems the CD is a suite of sorts with themes popping up here and there... and though it draws from a multitude of previous influences, has an incredibly distinct style of its own. It is very DIFFICULT music, certainly difficult to play, I'm sure, but also quite challenging to the listener... but also addicting in its catchiness. I've honestly listened to this damn CD two to three times a day since I bought it. I could not recommend this CD higher, it's completely knocked the new King Crimson out of my CD player, when nothing else could. If there is nothing else that you consider looking into, make the time to seek out this CD. Cunieform Records is quite well distributed, so go down to your local record shop and order this puppy. At least go to the Cuneiform website and check out their RealAudio snippet. As for me, since T.P. are a Denver band, I'll be scouring the local newspapers for concert dates, and booking an appointment with a physician to see what hope there is of having my nads drop again.
-- c. reider