review this!
the last dance for a long time
everything is a cassette unless noted
AUTO12

AARKTICA
NO SOLACE IN SLEEP CD
Silber Records / POBox 18062 / Raleigh, NC 27619 USA http://www.silbermedia.com
A beautifully packaged CD from Silber Records. The name and song titles; "you have cured a million ghosts from roaming free in my head", "glacia", "I remember life above the surface" and others remind me of Biosphere, and after putting it on, the 13 minute ambient guitar track that leads of the disk put me in the mind of same... in fact i think they've logged more hours with the album "substrata" than i have. you could pick an infinite number of worse bands to sound like. Another reference point could be Tear Ceremony. What we're talking about is intelligent lo-fi guitar ambience with a predilection for melodious, melancholy repeating phrases, meant to tug at those resonant heartstrings with autumnal buzzes and minor chords. Even if it takes some fucking with the equalizer to make it sound right.
c. reider

AARKTICA
NO SOLACE IN SLEEP CD
Silber Records / POBox 18062 / Raleigh, NC 27619 USA http://www.silbermedia.com
Pure ambience. Pure space music. Pure. The soundtrack for the Arctic circle. The soundtrack for Antarctica. The soundtrack for space. The human life behind the project, however, resides in New York City. This is where Jon DeRosa makes the sounds of Aarktica, studies Music Technology, and plays guitar in the bands Flare and Dead Leaves Rising. Does he use guitars for No Solace In Sleep? Or are those synthesizers creating the soothing effects? No matter, this is cold and mysterious.
Kenyon Hopkin

A BEAUTIFUL MACHINE
SOLAR WINDS, WHITE NOISE, ANTI-GRAVITY CD
PO Box 340, Clifton Hill Vic 3068 Australia embryo@psynet.net
http://machine.port5.com
In an "attempt to achieve interstellar flight without a spacecraft," A Beautiful Machine marks the epitome of all things shoegazey. It's spacey and droney as can be. And, most importantly, the vocals are extra hazy. But it doesn't matter if you can't understand any of the lyrics; it's the feel of the music that counts. A Beautiful Machine does a fantastic job in that department with the help of heavy delay on the guitars and vocals. This is for the dedicated dream-pop fans down with Sianspheric and Ride. Solar Winds even features a cover of Ride's "Dreams Burn Down" for the last track. Absolutely gorgeous.
Kenyon Hopkin

AMBRE & MARK SPYBEY
SFUMATO (THREESOME PT 1) CD
http://hushhush.com/threesome/
Extremely excellent ambient music from the French band Ambre and the guy from Dead Voices on Air. Threatens to send me into slow wave sleep even as I write this. Reminds me a lot of the really early Kapotte Muziek stuff that I like so much. Apparently this is the first part of the "Threesome" series, in which these two artists and also Mick Harris all collaborate together in various combinations. If this release is any indication, should be a pretty amazing triplet of CD's.
c. reider

AMK
RECANT CD
Wholeness Recordings / POBox 155 / Smilax, KY 41764-0155 USA
In reductionary terms it's just a geek guy playing with his fucked up records. Reduce if you must... to me it's a rhythmic & hypnotic mixture of grainy chunks of sound colliding with each other in the space between my
ears. Three long pieces and two short pieces of polyrhythmic unidentifiable noise weavings separated by inexplicably long silences. Hurrah for good abstract music!
c. reider

ANALESTEROL
"LE TEMPS D'UNE PISSE" MP3
3170 de Tripoli, Ste-Foy, Que 1X 1W9 Canada con_e-mail@mailcity.com
http://zebox.com/artists/analesterol.html
40 seconds of computer-hacked lo-fi noise with a surprising amount of groovage considering the sound source is a live tape of a band or something.
Ian C Stewart

APELL
APELL CD
69 Beaver Street E Malvern 3145 Australia anthonypell@yahoo.com
http://go.to/apell
Kinda experimental, out there(ish) rock, 95% thrown-down by Anthony Pell himself using guitars, drums, bass, singing and samples, all cut up and effected on his PC. It rocks in spots and gets a trifle moody in other spots. Like "Woft," a chopped ballad for drum machine and piano ruined by the samples from a phone-in radio show. "So Where Did You Hide" is a smooth disco-soul-rock-grove track with gritty female vocals. "Digital Rape" dirges on a metallic, uh, Stone Temple Pilots kind of riff with a vocal commentary by Pell. Hmmm. "Interest Free" is a very nice instrumental with sitar and tabla samples. "Kazum" is a one-man funk jam that starts off synthed like Gary Numan but quickly adds live drums, horn section and Nile Rodgers guitar. The music is good but the spoken bits wear out their welcome quickly. I'd prefer to hear either straight singing or more judicious use of the vocal samples. Or just instrumentals. Homey can obviously play, now let's hear him edit.
Ian C Stewart

A SONIC DETERRENT | MONOBRAIN split
Anti Everything 22 Mallory #1, Hampton VA 23663 USA extnoise@aol.com
ASD has the homecourt advantage and they take the early lead with rumbles galore. But then Monobrain counters on side two with an "Anal Grunt" of their own! So there!
Ian C Stewart

ASSCANCER
ASSCANCER CD
World War XXV Productions PO Box 20701 New York, NY 10009 Usa
http://www.asscancer.com
I don't know about you, but when I see an all-black CD cover with no information on the back, and song titles like "Bloodhoney", "Evil Against Evil", and "Dear Uncle Cunt" listed only on the CD itself, I expect some all-out noize warfare. So imagine my (admittedly pointless) surprise at discovering Asscancer to be pro-produced masters of 2-chord scum rock! On track 2, everything is distorted more than everything else. The drums, the guitars, the yelled vocals, the inclement samples of, uh, chainsaws. Asscancer fucking rocks! There's a sweet breakdown in track 2 where a synth bass line thunders back in with some sort of rhythm box holding its hand. Yeah, there's a chainsaw sample that functions like a guitar solo. It's like if Coldcut and Jesus Lizard kicked/licked/poked/fried each other's asses in a studio. "Evil Against Evil" opens with a long noize passage that gets the fuck out of the way for a lo-profile guitar-and-synths groove that does sound like porno music. Which fits the porno samples of a woman, uh, "in action" quite well. Hilariously so. It ends very abruptly and track 4 starts - one acoustic guitar chord strummed for about 5 seconds before being squashed by analog synths and the singer going "she's talking trash to traaaaash!" What follows is a hands-in-the-air arena stomper of a riff that, uh, morphs into a Depeche Mode-variety synth pop track. Wow. Fuck yeah. "Dear Uncle Cunt" is the missing link between Soft Cell and GWAR. Track 7 trades it all in for a pure pimp jam complete with filtered synths and horns? Word! And bongos and a triangle on the breakdown. Track 11 is a ghouly spoken word deal with screwed up soundtrackage behind it. Celtic Frosts' ghouly fake ambience meets Skinny Puppy. Track 12 rocks back out and has a female vocalist too. Wow. Asscancer is the shit! I hope you all get Asscancer!
Ian C Stewart

BRUCE ATCHISON
MEGAMORPH
8403-145 Ave NW, Edmonton T5E 2J1 Canada ve6xtc@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Doodly computer soundscapes with occasional computer voiceover.
Ian C Stewart

SARA AYERS
SYLVATICA CD
Dark Recordings PO Box 1786 Albany, NY 12201 USA
http://www.saraayers.com
Gorgeous, hypnotically debilitating ambience. Soothing soundtrack for nature movies of the mind. Most of the tracks have an atmospheric background which allows the hushed, almost subliminal, vocals to meld. "Soundtrack To Angel #3" adds some extremely subdued piano. "Dream of Noise" features distant guitar. Highly refined and beautifully produced. And welcome in my player anytime!
Ian C Stewart

AYR UNIT
AYR UNIT CD
Mouthmoth 33 Ashgrove Street, Ayr KA7 3B6 Scotland mouthmoth@hotmail.com
http://www.mouthmoth.go.to
Odd 3-track CD. Track 1 is a long noise piece - probably on guitar - that starts off distant and quiet and crescendos into a full on fucking racket. Beautifully so. Track 2 then is a guitar 'n drum machine slowie, chugging along at a comfortably mopey pace. Reverby. Quite lovely in spots. But they're also trying out a new FX unit at the drum machine's expense, so be prepared for sudden dub-like plops of echoed snare drum hits. The guitar playing is lovely and hypnotic. Slow-core power! Track 3 takes a similar approach at the start - 2 guitars making "beautiful noize" are eventually overpowered by the intrusive and vocoded drum machine on full blast! Since I quite enjoyed the quiet bit I'll have to say that all the scree is lost on me. Which is probably the point.
Ian C Stewart

JOHN T BAKER
LITTLE ROCK SONGS
Best Kept Secret, Alessandro Crestani, via Biron di Sotto 101-36100 Vicenza Italy
http://www.indiepages.com/bestkeptsecret
Catchy, fully-realized guitar rock songs. "Masterpiece" takes an early 80s upstroke guitar backing and runs with it. Live drumming too. "Into the Blue" takes an alt.country approach that actually doesn't have me diving for the FF button. "Fabio Buys His Madonna" is a pop culture sendup that links all the world's cheeseballs and manages to rhyme at the same time! "Stratosamba" is a jaunty little instrumento with a Casio (or something) samba rhythm. This is a good window into the work of JTB. Good Shiite.
Ian C Stewart

ROB BECKINSALE
THE YEAR I FORGOT… CD
acoustica@btinternet.com
Fully-realized, guitar-centric homepop. Beckinsdale is a talented one-man army. The CD opens with "Sometime Soon", an uptempo rahhk numbah with epic keyboard swells and multiple guitar tracks. And a guitar solo! Nobody plays guitar solos anymore! "You changed" is Prefab Sprout quantized. "Someone Could Kill" employs a massive, global tone - probably due to the dripping-water and percussion sounds. Oh. And the accordion. The same kind of Paul Simon "Graceland" vibe pervades "They Go Shopping". Hell yeah. You don't hear many people doing this kind of stuff. "And the Rain It Fell" is a grey-day acoustic near-ballad. "They Never Wanted To Be" recalls Thomas Dolby's excursions into funk. "Love Songs For Grownups" has me wondering, Aztec Camera? Hell, I don't know. "River of Blood" is an acoustic ballad about, uh, the evils of war. "Microcosm" leaves on a relatively "up" note - jazzy piano building into a "full band" crescendo. Definitely a CD worth having.
Ian C Stewart

ROB BECKINSALE
"UNFAITHFUL ONE" MP3
From the album The Confectioner's Weakness. More sequenced homepop with Dave Gregory on at least one guitar. Grown up pop that makes me think of Aztec Camera because I'm a fucking moron. This song is great because it makes me think. And it doesn't sound exactly like anybody else. And after five listens I can usually sing along all the way through.
Ian C Stewart

JEREMY BEQUETTE
I HATE THE WORLD AND SOON I'LL BE DEAD
Pure Hatred Records PO Box 23215 Helleville IL 62223 USA
From one of the "minds" behind Pain In The Ass comes this audio suicide note. Uh, apparently he's not dead because he made the tape cover and everything. All I hear is one guitar chugging along by itself. Maybe he spells it out more later. I'll never know! When confronted with such inflammatory material designed only to provoke the audience, my instinct is to ignore it. Because what's expected from me as the listener is to actually partake of the guy's little self-pity party. And I don't have the time today. Sorry man. I mean, suicide is kinda serious and to be making little songs about it and then promoting them as art just reeks of someone who's run out of legitimately creative ideas. Dr Ian says: listen to Celtic Frost until you pass out, then pick up your guitar and go write some riffs. Save the desperate attention plea for your therapist.
Ian C Stewart

BENT WITH LIGHT
VOICES | XTALK 2CD
Exoteque Music, PO Box 340431 Columbus, OH 43234 USA
http://community.webtv.net/Godess_tali/BentWithLight
"Where Do Dead People Go" is a long, trancelike loop track with nice synths playing menacing notes. Vocals halfway through. It's Meat Beat Manifesto minus the overpowering bass. "Shakh" rock all Aphexy over filtered synths and splintered drum loops. Ditto for "Fluid Mechanism". "Singe" is a psychedelic, uptempo industrial stomper. Intelligent dance music indeed! I'm still working out the fractions on my calculator-watch. "Pseudo-Psyche" adds distorted vocals and comes out somewhere in the middle of Switzerland, 1988. Or wherever the band A Split Second was from. "Voices" tears off like Fad Gadget at 180bpm before conceding to the found-sound percussive clack of "Decyphered". "Cess" closes CD1 with a beat chopped with a digital Ginsu over slowly flanged tones. Disc 2 fires up with "Shitlicht/Plasma" which is a noisy little endeavor that combines the conceptual minimalism of MAIN with the subverted beats of Richard James. The rest of Disc 2 continues the theme. Gritty handmade electronica like Dead Voices on Air. Gritty Pollitti.
Ian C Stewart

BENT WITH LIGHT
2000 CD
Exoteque Music, PO Box 340431 Columbus, OH 43234 USA
http://community.webtv.net/Godess_tali/BentWithLight
Opening with "The God That Failed," this could be BWL's entry into the glitch-core subset or whatever the hell they call it this week. It's like ya sample some feedback or other digital missteps and then sequence 'em all out as intelligent dance music! "Whiteout" employs drum sounds and a fair amount of gritty sound sources. It's hectic and makes you want to brush your teeth but it's still groove-oriented and danceable. "Sever" adds trembly old school vocals like early Ministry or Nitzer Ebb. And yet the cumulative effect is very modern, even futuristic in a sense. The first half of "Fixation/Bleedr" functions as background static; it's not until the driving and fucked up beat arrives that the sounds leap to the front of the mindstage. "Samsara AD" is a bangin' industrial dance throwdown with vocals. The filtered bass line fucking rocks. The disc comes home with "Tide", a glitch epic with fragged Ogre-style vocal fuckening. And, yeah, it rules.
Ian C Stewart

BEWARE OF THE RICOCHET VOL 2 compilation
Best Kept Secret via Brion di Sotto, 101 - 36100 Vicenza Italy acrestani@telemar.it
New tracks and old favorites from the BKS roster. Such as Vinyl Bill, The Void, San Transisto. Many of these bands have been reviewed here before and the rest complete Alessandro's continually evolving unique vision of the future of music and shit like that.
Ian C Stewart

BIG CITIE ORCHESTRE
ARC OF INFINITY CD
Harsh Reality Music PO Box 241661, Memphis TN 38124-1661 USA chris.phinney@gte.net
http://www.jps.net/ubuibi
1987 CD reissue that surely confounds the listener as much now as ever. "Brain and Brain" is a hum-and-scree loop of grunk that becomes more percussive as it repeats. Or does it? "Chime Piece" takes a similar approach, using an already somewhat-percussive sample whose length doesn't provide for perfect looping. "Savages" is lo-frequency thunder with upper register samples splayed out across the top. The last piece takes the kitchen sink track and distorts the piss out of it, combines it with several other source pieces and adds an almost subliminal melancholy little melody. This is the next best thing to being this cool in 1987.
Ian C Stewart

BOHEMIAN NATIONAL
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT CD
C&D Print Shop 2000 W Fulton, Chicago IL 60612 USA bonational@mindspring.com
Live guitar band action that reminds you of something you've heard before. Sounds like the real deal.
Ian C Stewart

BONEFISH SAM AND HIS POWER ORCHESTRA
FAKE FUN CD
PO Box 772, Boise, ID 83701 USA fanmail@bonefish-sam.com
http://www.bonefish-sam.com
The untitled first track makes liberal use of the dog and machine gun sounds from the coveted Casio SK5 "toy" sampling keyboard while a monotone male voice assures us that he's "having so much fun…that my ears are bleeding." Right then, on to the music, which takes kitchen-sink instrumental-inclusionism to its mind-bending endpoint. There's live sax, guitar feedback, drumming, weird inappropriate samples. Um, percussion tracks that use pretty much everything! Possibly improvisational everybody-hit-something-ism that incorporates free jazz, free noize, free kittens, free love and free Willy into every track.
Ian C Stewart

BREEZE C CD compilation
Alphyen Viwit, Schaluckstr. 120, D 33332 Gutersloh Germany 100.216782@germanynet.de
http://www.auftakt-bielefeld.de/bands/glarengl.html
Sweet fucking mix of dour pop and atmospheric rock and shoegazey love. I've heard of The Conspiracy, Girl Boy Girl, Alison's Halo and Shy Rights Movement, whose "Serpent Song" has Mark Ritchie sounding as urgent and forceful as ever. Word! Alison's Halo sound like a grown up version of Lush or the Cranes. And so this CD rules.
Ian C Stewart

CLIFF BROWN JR
WE ARE STARDUST CD
404 W Mary St, Austin, TX 78704 USA
Cliff Brown Jr's "We Are Stardust" is a charming, lo-fi record with a lot of potential. The first four songs (the track names are not listed), in fact, have that kind of sound like the guy everyone knew in high school, the one with so much potential who just needed a more mature sound. Fortunately, "We Are Stardust" manages to achieve some of that potential. Instrumental tracks five, six, eleven, and twelve exhibit a more experimental sound using guitars and keyboards. His more standard songs have a style which smacks of Bob Dylan, Beck, and perhaps a touch of Texas twang (but only in the best way). The album starts out sounding run-of-the mill, but finishes on a high note.
Megan Heller

CLIFF BROWN JR
WE ARE STARDUST
Best Kept Secret, Alessandro Crestani, via Biron di Sotto 101-36100 Vicenza Italy
http://www.indiepages.com/bestkeptsecret
Arguably the best singer in the homerecording underground. "Get You Down" is a synth-drums-voice jam that, uh, jams. "The Key to Existence" is a big, hooting, keys-acoustic guitar anthem that rules. Cliff takes components of classic rock and he warps them and makes something new, unique and special out of them. And not just some boring, introverted, navelgazine bullshit either. "Funeral Song" is a purdy acoustic folk rock instrumental. "Da Bells" is a melancholy chord progression that builds into a sad little theme. In a good way though.
Ian C Stewart

DON CAMPAU
PLAY DICE WITH ME CD
Lonely Whistle PO Box 9162 Santa Rosa, CA 95405 USA
A random collection of the best of Don Campau spanning 1984-1996, featuring Campau-horts Lord Litter, Greg Gray, Charles Laurel, James Hill, Nicole Campau, etc. "Allegre Navidad" is a "fuck you and the Camaro you rode in on" acoustic rant dating from 1984. Word! "Follow Me Down" employs a Charles Laurel production and sounds like a reggae-tech take on the verse of "Pop Muzik" by M. Campau's voice is unique and urgent and consistent. His slanted take on pop/rock has been his own from the beginning. "Do You Dare Me" is almost Bill Nelsonian in its synth-hued compact grandeur. Apart from that spoken bit anyway. This is as good a place to start with Don Campau's output as any!
Ian C Stewart

DON CAMPAU
GUARANTEED INJECTION COMFORT OR YOUR MONEY BACK CD
Opens with a stomping, otherworldly groove that serves as a backdrop for spacey guitar solos entitled "Corner Market Stickup". "The Americans Are The Guilty Party" is an Evolution Control Committee style found-sound cut up jam, using whatever as percussion plus an array of mouth sounds, possible a preset from a keyboard. "22 Units: Morning and Night" is a purdy gweetar instrumental unhindered by the static blasts in the background. "Tribute To Cattle" takes prefab keyboard rhythms as its foundation and adds a lone, fiddly guitar solo. "Career Threatening Medley" uses several New Kids on the Block loops plus a swelling bit of guitar sploonk. "Bird Song" is, uh, like some birds and shit. "And I Love Her" passes the mic to Robin O'Brien who outshines the teethchattering rhythms in the background.
Ian C Stewart

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
VIRTUAL PERSONA CD
http://www.blueray.com/captiveaudience/
The always-righteous music of Captive Audience competes for spotlight time with the distractingly focal vocals of Audient Michael Warwick. And I gotta say, I prefer the instrumental stuff. The vocals are just too damn loud and Warwick's singing voice isn't the strongest element in their arsenal. Maybe he should've saved the lyrics for a solo album? Hmm, the music is strong as ever though.
Ian C Stewart

CATARACT FALLS
THE SOUND OF YOUR BREATH STILL CD
Idols of the Marketplace PO Box 50138 Fort Wayne, IN 46805 USA Chris@imp500.com
This is Emocore with a capital E. Lots of screaming and yelling. It's bewildering how the band (all members sing) can keep this up without losing their voices. There's some acoustic guitar, harmonica and saxophone to make it interesting, but when the vocals kick in, you know that Cataract Falls is damn upset and angry about something. On the back of the CD sleeve it reads, "We were upset, wrote some songs, and now see things differently." The last few tracks consist of some experimental junk and the band members talking about random shit, including their impending break-up. The production is pretty lo-fi, but this is still really intense stuff.
Kenyon Hopkin

CAT & BIRD HOSPITAL
GET WELL SOON CD
C&B Hospital / 6 Hurtle Ave. / Worcester, MA 01604 usa
Lazy homepop. It surprises me that two guys did this, coz there's not a lot of stuff cluttering up everythang. I like the way some of the pieces are recorded... they set up what must be a fairly decent mic in the room and
propped the window open so you can hear cars going by on a wet street, while they're jamming with their Casio (love those Casio drum sounds) and jangling and singing monotonously offkey. They probably wrote and recorded all of these songs in one day I bet. Dang, these guys are goofy. Maybe they're drunk. If they were in the room with me, I think I'd smack at least one of them.
c. reider

CHOWPILOT
LEGS OF ACRE
KAW 94 Main Street, Forth, Lanarkshire ML11 8AB UK kawtapes@hotmail.com
One guitar and two vocal tracks that add up to some of the most infectiously melancholy folkrockpop action this side of your mama's duet with Johnny Cash. Paul Doucet is the man and he has no problem churning out the lifechangers. "Lightyear". The vocal harmonies are fucking stunning. "One More Chance" adds drum machine and a lead guitar to the mix and also comes away a winner. Doucet's songs are classic in every sense like The Lilac Time at its peak. But different. The slide guitar is fucking brilliant. "Another Reason" just rules. Beyond words. Dude's a fucking beast. KAW scored big time with this one. More please, quickly.
Ian C Stewart

ROB CHRISTENSEN
OPERA ALLEY CD
Sweet Science PO Box 3729 Eureka, CA 95502 USA
http://www.northcoast.com/~robc
Exceedingly jangly homepop informed by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Kinks, maybe Soul Asylum or The Replacements. Slanky guitar chordage over drum machine grooves and pokey-jabby bass lines. The vocals are way out front, often double-tracked. "Star Route Nine" is a relatively purdy acoustic ballad, followed by "Janie Sims", an uptempo pop songs with a very Dylanic vocal. "Solo" is a rockin' pop quickie with harmonized vocal bits. "Sunny Day" coulda been a Paul Westerberg track. "Someday Soon" rounds out the disc with a 2-chord swing.
Ian C Stewart

CLANG QUARTET
JIHAD CD
Fried Features, Scotty Irving 143 Starlight Road, Stoneville, NC 27048 USA jsi@silbermedia.com
http://www.silbermedia.com/clangquartet
Track 1 is a radio interview with Scotty Irving wherein he describes what the deal is with Clang Quartet. Then it's time to get down to business by beating on everything in sight, throwing down a lonely distorted guitar track and throwing in any number of found sounds. Putting the drum kit through various FX. Directionless spunkspew improvised. Yawn. They probably had a blast making it though.
Ian C Stewart

KILLY DOG BOX
DECLENSION
157 Fulbeck Road, Netherfields, Middlesbrough, Cleveland T53 ORR UK
Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Killy Dog Box takes the form of lo-fi noisers who loop distorted samples of whatever offputting scringle till the tape runs out.
Ian C Stewart

THE CONSPIRACY
THE GHOST EP CD
Jarmusic OT Reitze 2, D-29482 Küsten GERMANY conspiracyare@hotmail.com
http://www.jarmusic.com
Fires off with the Post-Britrock swagger of "Blue Angle Agenda". It's a guitar-bass-drum machine and singing pop rock onslaught, girl. "Nature's Metaphor" opens with a chilled acoustic bit and low-slung vocals like Colin whatshisname from Wire. "Safe" is a sped up rock track that kind of sounds like The Damned with Captain Sensible. 5 songs in a tin box from Jarmusic!
Ian C Stewart

CUPIDITY
LIKE A FOOL
Loveugly PO Box 6300 Columbus, OH 43206 USA
loveugly@yahoo.com
No-fi post punk drum machine songs that make up for their lack of HZ with, uh, "spunk". The guitar, bass and vocals are at least audible! And the songwriting is decent. Catchy enough to not get launched across the room. Mostly. The long pauses and false starts don't help.
Ian C Stewart

DBDA
"WINTER TIME STRANGER" MP3
Jordan Gray 3500 Lakeside Drive Minnetrista, MN 55364 USA gray0157@tc.umn.edu
Slow-fi casio core experimental pop. Syd Barret retrofitted for cheesykeys he got for xmas a few years back.
Ian C Stewart

DELETED
SYSTEME NERVEUX
Vuzh Music PO Box 1204 Lyons CO 80540 USA
Deleted aka Klimperei. Mechanized sampletronica like Art Of Noise and I'm not exaggerating!
Ian C Stewart

DER HANG ZUR VERALLGEMEINERUNG…
Florian PO Box 30 11 30, 04251 Leipzig Germany
Anyone who goes to such lengths to keep their cassette from actually being played deserves to be ignored today. But seeing as my conscience doesn't allow me to just chuck things sent for review into the trash on a whim, I spent five minutes (really) getting the little piece of metal off the cassette-holes. Someone before me has spent too much time on the packaging. And now I have little puncture holes in my fingertips to remember that person by! So the tape. Side one has a girl screaming a lot, two chords on a keyboard and some background rumble. It's noise. The whole tape is about five minutes long. Side two, more keyboards and noodly fx noises. Like people do when it's 3am and they're discovering the meaning of life with their 4-tracks and their keyboards. I've been there.
Ian C Stewart

DEXTROMETHORPHANAGE
NURSE: THE ALBUM CD
Liberation Through Hearing / 218 Buckingham Pl. / Philadelphia, PA 19104 usa
Holy sludgy madness ! It's a throw-everything-at-the-4-track skwonk-romp. Guy's got his casio and his voice (confoundingly like that of Terry Burke), and some other stuff, and a 4-track and a guitar and things and a squeaky toy and made this tape. He does it with total conviction too, like when he sings a sad, mopey, whiney song and makes farting noises behind it. Later on, on track 10 "I can't wake up from this stream" he goes all avant garde and makes stream-of-conscious monkey noises and urgent whispers while
singing in a falsetto in the background. Then there's bits where he reads out of encyclopedias or something (what do I know? could be the guy's poetry...) while screaming like a bedlamite. Then some samples from Art Bell's radio show. Did I mention he does a song by Cyndi Lauper? No, but you already guessed that didn't you? I like the bits best when he just makes screwed up noises, instead of the too self-consciously artsy fartsy "silly" stuff.
c. reider

DIRT BIKE
KIDS
Star Destroyer PO Box R363 Royal Exchange, Sydney NSW 1225 Australia
Well hell yes. "Coming to Get You" is a mountain of sludgy drum (machine?), snortingly distorto bass, screetar and snarly voices. Plus they chuck in some weird electronics that make it sound like someone's playing Atari instead of their instrument. "Fuck " is a great title and the song itself is too. Large, house-sized bass attack first, eventually joined by drums and guitar. So yeah. It rocks and rocks and rocks like a bitch. I'm guessing Big Black sounded like this. That fucking bass sound is awesome. The other two songs fuck shit up also, just like you'd imagine.
Ian C Stewart

DOC WOR MIRRAN
LASHER CD
Tremor Recordings 21 Fairndale Road, Knavesborough, N Yorks HG5 0NY UK
http://www.empty.de
Soothing analog synth ambience. Minimalist washes of electronics. "Saint Ashlar In the Glen" adds harp (I think it's real) and rainfall sounds to the mix. "Janet and the Holy Battle of Donnelaith" opts for a noisier approach on the synths. "The Man" is electric guitar and old drum machine. "Deirdre and the Mayfair Witches" takes a Dead Can Dance approach to cinematic happenstance. Fuck yeah. Female voices and breathing. Sure. "Loneliness and the Curse" breaks out the harp again. It's fiddly and beautiful. This CD comes at it from every angle.
Ian C Stewart

THE DOZEY LUMPS
ONE LUMP OR TWO? CD
Studio 17 / PO Box 461363 / Escondido, CA 92046 usa http://www.pureambient.com
Two guitar geeks with a Fripp fetish. These guys must've had a BLAST at Guitar Craft! Luckily the CD won't ONLY appeal to like-minded geeks, the D.L.'s do guitar duets which sound exactly like the Crafties, which is to say, intricate, interwoven, plucky, difficult instrumentals with attention applied liberally to technical proficiency. The CD is mixed with each guitarist panned hard to one side, and the reverb from each guitarist going to the opposite side... kinda neat. It's a nice enough thing to listen to.
c. reider

DRONAMENT | THE INFANT CYCLE
KLAB (PHONRECORD) LP
The Ceiling PO Box 26086, 25 Frederick St, Kitchener ONT N2H 6T4 Canada jdejong@nas.net
http://www.nas.net/~jdejong/ddt.html
Sweet clear vinyl 12" record that comes with its own one-sheet on the mythology of records. It says "suggested playback 33.3 rpm" which means you don't necessarily miss out if you play it at 45. The Dronament side is subtitled "pre historique muzick transmission" and with titles like "Noise Transmission.wav" and "Acoustic Transmission.wav" you get what you pay for: digitally rendered experimentalia. Much is droney background noise and then some bits feature a synth of some persuasion. The Infant Cycle's half (subbed "Razor-Grooved") adds beats and fucked-with turntable action for a relentless, side-long lo-fi industrial groove. Ha, get it-record, groove? Jim DeJong quotes himself saying "There are no bad records if you own a razor blade." I wrote a list of witty comebacks to that quote but then I lost it.
Ian C Stewart

THE EARWIGS | GLOG
C-60 split
Mike Jerk PO Box 221 Pittsfield, NH 03263 USA
Opening this space-loving split is the Earwigs with mainly guitar-oriented noise with keyboards and vocals. It is distorted with spacey effects such as tons of reverb and flanger…yadda yadda yadda, lots of string annihilation, tapping and popping. Pretty solid material with lo-fi quality. Not too much variation with low rumbling and mega Nirvana reverb. I do like it more later on due to the fact that some points remind me of Autoerotichrist. On the Glog side, the space-loving continues with whirling lo-fi rumbles and high pitched crackling reminiscent of crickets or pissed monkeys with gurgling vocals. Overall I'm not impressed. It seems like it was interesting to make, but that's where the enjoyment stops.
E Crowe

EAST TIMOR BENEFIT ALBUM CD
Idols of the Marketplace PO Box 50138 Ft. Wayne, IN 46805 USA
http://www.Imp500.com
Once in a while, it is possible to do something both self-serving and charitable in one shift move. The 15 track East Timor Benefit Album is such an opportunity. For those of you who haven't kept up with international relations, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975. Amidst the atrocities and violations of human rights committed by Indonesia's armed forces, the United States provided their military with arms and military assistance, blocking the United Nations from taking effective enforcement action. It was only after the Santa Cruz massacre of 1991, when Indonesian troops opened fire on a crowd of East Timorese demonstrators, that Congress took notice. In 1999, nearly 80% of the population in East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia; within hours of the announcement, a systematic campaign of terror was launched by the Indonesian armed forces and their militias. At the present, a grassroots movement still fights for a ban on US-Indonesia military ties. All profits from this CD go to Community Aid Abroad. Of course, as I said, this is a self-serving purchase as well. It's a fantastic compilation. Self's "Glued to the Girl" is sublime, and owes at least a little to 1983-era XTC. Catharsis and the Humdrum's "Hidden Track #9" sounds like 1980s synth-pop at its very best. Smoking Popes, who had a minor college radio hit with "Need You Around" in 1995, offer hummable pop laden with noisy guitars with "Do Something." There are some fun tracks-- Jailbait's cover of "I Want Your Sex" takes amusing liberties with George Michael's once-controversial ode to lust, while Hillbilly Hellcats and The Blue Moon Boys offer doses of rockabilly. Most scrumptious, most wonderful, and a reason in itself to buy the CD if you have never heard them before, is concept group Optiganlly Yours and their contribution, "midori2tree"; vaguely tinged with Steely Dan and sliding beautifully over the listener, they produce better music with an old children's toy (the Optigan) than many can with thousands of dollars worth of equipment. A good cause, and a great CD. There are far worse things you could do with $10.
Megan Heller

EAST TIMOR BENEFIT ALBUM CD
Idols of the Marketplace PO Box 50138 Ft. Wayne, IN 46805 USA
http://www.Imp500.com
A mixed bag here. The first standout track is a loungey pop song by Optiganally Yours. Smoking Popes (is this the same band that was signed to Capitol and opened for Morrissey?) contribute a get-up-and-go pop gem, but the next track is a really amateur and horrible cover of George Michael's "I Want Your Sex." What the fudge is up with that?! Fortunately, the album is redeemed by the psychobilly of the Hillbilly Hellcats. Guys, I understand the need for diversity here, but please, think about consistency! Other contributing artists include Catharsis and the Humdrum (great early '80s-styled synth-pop), Self and Over the Rhine. Proceeds go to Community Aid Abroad, an organization helping refugees of East Timor.
Kenyon Hopkin

ECHO IS YOUR LOVE
SHEETS OF BLANK FUCKING PAPER CD
Kylie Productions / POBox 24148 / London sw18 1wu / UK speeder@hotbot.com
http://www.kylieproductions.com
A clunky and angular Finnish band, with an inclination to long dissonant jams, kinda artsy and punky like a Sonic Youth stomping around in combat boots. The singer Nea has a girly, rambling, yelling voice, like if Hugo Largo got distortion and went to town with Mimi Goese squalling like a fool. Irritating and charming by turns, to the point where I can't give a definitive "i like this" or "i don't like this". Sorry.
c. reider

THE END | NEANDERTAL
TECHNICAL XTC | BRUTALE VIOLENZA split
Landa Antinio, Via Marangoni 45/C, 33100 Udine, Italy
http://www.noiseweb.com/theend
The End produces Gabber or possibly Industrial Techno. They create parts with samples- some spoken; beats that are somewhat danceable, although I don't; mixed with elements of noise. It does have a rather hard edge with a low end vibe and clear production. It has an ominous feel, very dark and droning at times. I have heard other material from them, but I like this better, it just comes across more violent. My respect is with them. I'm not sure of the prolific nature of Neandertals, this is the first I've heard. And it's good, swaying a bit from the generic side of Power Electronic. Thick, blistering layers of low penetrating destruction with the feel of industrial machinery (ie "The Mangler") that is almost soothing. Good solid work and I will be looking for more from this name.
E Crowe

EULOGY
I CAN'T FEEL MY HANDS
218 Buckingham Pl, Philadelphia PA 19104 USA
What's 19 plus 16? That's how many tracks they put on this tape. The first three are them noodling and jamming and making a racket. Not bad for a basement tape.
Ian C Stewart

EUPHORIO QUESTION
PAST
EQ / 3500 Lakeside Dr. / Minnetrista, MN 55364 usa
A very short (thanks) tape by this feller also responsible for the Myakai Shit Itself um, thing. It starts off quite good, a short burbling synth piece which disappears into its own reverb, followed by another short, simple synth piece with an interesting vocal loop. This side gets a thumb up. It reminds me somewhat of Coil, particularly the Elph stuff like "Worship the Glitch". The second side takes up the entire 5 minute side
with a very distorted simple synth track, that only should've been as long as the two tracks on side one, maybe shorter. The small duration is particularly suited to this kind of stuff, which otherwise wears out its
welcome quickly (see review of Myakai Shit Itself). OK, Euphorio Question, take this challenge if you want a really good review from me, (and who doesn't?); do whatever the hell you want, don't under any circumstances go over 1:30 minutes in length, and put at least a 3 second space between each track, and make it good, bitch. And then bake my ass a pie, a rhubarb one. Take the AUTOreverse challenge.
c. reider

FAIRE MINETTE
CTHULA SELASSIE
Macka PO Box 356 Brunswick VIC 3056 Australia
Macka's back again, never afraid to lay down a sludge-doom groove or 20. Squibs of distorted bass and guitar slime gracefully around drum machine rhythmatizing. "U.E. 301667-9" opts for the sci-fi soundtrack approach, orbiting the Outer Limits soundtrack record. "The Black Dog" recalls the Cure's "Primary" though surely not intentionally. "Off to the Bog" is an odd little sucker - drum machine, distorted bass and guitars and keyboards? It doesn't make sense! And I love that. Get down with the Mackattack.
Ian C Stewart

KLAUS FLOURIDE
BODY PARTS
Cut And Paste Records PO Box 152 Green, OH 44232 USA cutandpasterecords@yahoo.com theklausflouride@hotmail.com
While perhaps not as public as former bandmate Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys bassist Klaus Flouride is still producing underground recordings born of strange concepts. This cassette, running only approximately thirty minutes, is one of those recordings. A mix of music, an interview with Flouride, and stereophonic experiments, it is truly cut-and-paste. The interview is interesting in itself because it is sometimes difficult to hear-- it sounds like a conversation at the next table at a restaurant, where familiar topics will be clear (such as a discussion of the one-armed drummer of Def Leppard, or instructions "if you're listening to this on a Walkman"), while more mundane banter drifts back into the music interwoven through the dialogue. The music itself is sometimes ominous, sometimes spacey, and even oddly Beatle-esque. The instrumentals in between phases of the interview include a guitar piece over waves which is really rather beautiful. It's a complex cassette, but it works well.
Megan Heller

FUNKMEISTER G
"TALKIE TOASTER TUNE" MP3
http://mp3.com/fmg
40 seconds of hacked sound fury. It's not rhythmic and you can't dance to it and Madonna probably won't cover it ever.
Ian C Stewart

GARFIELD'S BIRTHDAY
WORDS AND PICTURES
Best Kept Secret via Brion di Sotto, 101 - 36100 Vicenza Italy acrestani@telemar.it
http://www.pinkhedgehog.com
Pro-produced British pop-rock band action. Good stuff.
Ian C Stewart

GENTLENEMY
I LEFT IT ON TOP OF THE SCIENCE
Star Destroyer PO Box R363 Royal Exchange, Sydney NSW 1225 Australia gentlenemy@yahoo.com
http://www.comraderecords.com
Sounds like Fugazi. I just saw Instrument on Sundance Channel (woe to Sundance Channel, if only you were available individually from the cable company) and I must say it was the most depressing piece of shit I've ever forced myself to endure. Being obviously not a Fugazi fan, most of the film just made Mackaye etc. seem like extremely boring wankers. So yeah. "The European Hippy" starts out and continues with dissonant guit-harmonics and an emphatic drummer. The bass is present as well. But it's not until midway through when they all scream bloody gore at the top of their lungs is this song redeemed. "A Portrait of Leo as a Young Man" continues somewhat similarly but with hushed vocals that sound more like Red House Painters than Fugazi, thank fuck. And despite my initial misgivings I like Gentlenemy quite a bit. The production on this tape in niiice and they can play rock good.
Ian C Stewart

GERMAN CARS VS AMERICAN HOMES
BRUNCH: THE MEAL OF THE ELITE CD
32-07 31st Avenue #1B Astoria, NY 11106 USA mishap_productions@hotmail.com
http://www.gevah.com
Did James Call lose a bet or something? What made James Call so endearing to me was the robotic and stultifyingly stiff nerdy music he accompanied his vocals with. It was Devo crossed with Depeche Mode and Pee Wee's Playhouse with a singing voice like Bill Nye The Science Guy. So. He formed a band and taught them his classic, life-changingly good songs, to be retrofitted to guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. Call's singing has gone from controlled geek to amped-up freak. Sounds like he's trying to yell or scream to be loud enough to be heard over the band, particularly on the opening track "Painting" where he's struggling to keep up with the tempo. At the disappointing expense of the lyrics. The full band treatment could be an attempt at going legit, They Might Be Giants-style. It's like the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing Devo covers at gunpoint. The songwriting is brilliant and unique. The self-production job is about what you'd expect from a band where the bass player isn't the lead singer (i.e. - the bass is buried in the mix). "Leathery Wings" rocks out like the 1960s Kinks or "Wild Thing" or something. "Ascend" sounds more like Joe Jackson or TMBG than the Devo-licious old version. Hmph. I'm spoiled by having that great tape 2 years ago. And at 23 songs this biotch is more like a greatest hits than a debut. Oh well.
Ian C Stewart

GLARING SURGE
"UNRELEASED DREAMS" 7"
Moonscreen Records PO Box 888153 Grand Rapids MI 49588 USA
Semi-sloppy shoegazer guitar rock pop stuff with vocal harmonies and many wah pedals.
Ian C Stewart

GLUEBELLIES CD
Mature, Pulpy, 2 song introduction to the music of the Monbabies auxiliary guy Ole Andersson. Guitars, bass, drums and layers of vocals that should find favor with fans of slightly dark, mature guitar pop. "Who Are You?" is slightly more uptempo, with co-ed vocal harmonies and an atmosphere borrowed from The Cure. There are more layers to this song than the average lasagna. "End of Nowhere" is the ballad, comparatively speaking. The tremoloed guitars alone should make Gluebellies a fixture on the radio.
Ian C Stewart

CHARLES RICE GOFF III
BEAN DIP YO YO CD
Yippie Bean PO Box 194, Rosanna 3084 Victoria Australia yippebean@warehouse.net
http://www.warehouse.net/yippiebean
14-track retrospective of experimental John Cagery spanning 1991-99. Goff is known for his work as a member of Turkey Makes Me Sleepy, Herd of the Ether Space and as a solo artist. So what are the tracks like? Most feature askew samples looped to infinity and backdropped by odd vocal samples of, uh, whatever. Sometimes tending toward the musical though seemingly unintentionally. "Magic Potty Baby" is a scatological sound collage based around a commercial for a girls' toy. A one-man orchestra of found sound. "Fly Away" offers some unaccompanied guitar strummage and totally over the top singing. I've said before though probably not to you personally that Goff's got a uniquely rad voice that he should put to use more often. "Pus Wheezer" is a sped-up goof like Ween maybe. I'm a sucker for this kind of silliness (I know, I'm just a sucker period), but the chipmunk-speed line "Give me your cash, I'm so poor I need some more" makes me laugh. "Knocking at my consciousness Door" brings it full-circle for me since that was my first exposure to Goff's wackjob stylings.
Ian C Stewart

SCOTT GORSUCH
POPULAR CD
#A Records, PO Box 2118, Columbus, OH 43202 USA
http://www.scottgorsuch.com
God damn! That voice! He layers the vocal tracks like a beautifully produced mixed-choir session of Queen and Jellyfish but with a Jeff Buckley lilt. "Popular" rocks out all poprockypoppy and will probably be the one you play to your pop-loving friends to convince them "hey, this is the guy." "Tangerine" sounds like a Neil Finn outtake. Acoustic and echoey vocals. Probably enhanced by holding a lighter over your head and putting your arm around your woman. "The Girl Downstairs" has a spine-twisting rhythm on the verse that leads to smoothing sail on the chorus. Aahhh. "Space Heater" rocks out like an arena in 1987. Sweet, memorable 3 minute pop songs. That's what life is all about. Today.
Ian C Stewart

GRENADE
IS AN OUT OF THE BODY EXPERIENCE CD
Duckweed Records / 2442 NW Market St. Box 354 / Seattle, WA 98107 usa duckweedseattle@yahoo.com
http://members.tripod.co.uk/duckweed
Way intelligent songs performed sometimes with acoustic guitar and vox, and with a full band other times. The singer's Donovan-esque voice combined with a weird Euro-accent and the odd lyrics "I told you about the demons in my house the way the grow around my sad backyard, and all the smashed peaches on the ground are looking for some new life in my mouth" with a nice mellow, melodious groove all add up to the best exotic pop this side of Trespassers W. Or almost like the Apples in Stereo with an accent. Go.
c. reider

GRIZZLYBEARUNDERWEAR CD
Postfach 50 04 17, 04304 Leipzig Germany aerialbeaver@aol.com
http://www.grizzlybearunderwear.de
Between the band name and the song titles "Beaver Female Seminary" and "Hell Are Other Real People," I think I have my new favorite group. Atmospheric guitronica.
Ian C Stewart

THE GYNGER EFFECT | NAKED INSECTS split
Naked Insects PO Box 221 Pittsfield, NH 03263 USA
Well executed and creative soundscapes/tracks using a synth, drum machine and other percussion. "Terror in Space" and "The Unicorn" are noteworthy due to their very dark and brooding aspects. Somewhat ambient in their own right but invoking feelings of a deeper level just the same. Naked Insects come from the great mind that brings us Herk and Glog. This time a more wacked out free session of shit noise. An orchestration of enjoyable (on some level) improvisational noise that utilizes keyboards, whistles, a trumpet and other crap. Granted this would be fun to fuck around with doing, but I just can't enjoy playing it back unless of course it was something that I did with some drunk homeless folks or friends.
E Crowe

GYPP
REUNION CONCERT CD
Jarmusic Reitze 2, 29482 Kuesten, Germany
http://www.jarmusic.com
Fuck yes! Once described by frontman Martin Newell as "sounding exactly like you'd expect" is Gypp, his band from the 1970s, who were apparently a bigger deal in Germany than back home in the UK because that's exactly where this reunion concert was held in 1996. And it's true, it is exactly what you'd expect - supremely unfashionable prog-pub-rock! "Cream Diesel" starts with a keyboard intro, as does the following track "Voodoo". It's sort of blues-based and pretensious at the same time. I recommend this as an alternate soundtrack to the film "Still Crazy". Some of the songs are over 7 minutes long. I can just imagine Gypp playing arenas in 1976 or so, with a big spaceship hovering above the stage, engulfing them in smoke. Plus, I'm sure they could've won a fistfight with Kansas! Newell's replacement in Gypp, Jock Davies, also appeared at this show, though obviously I prefer Newell's singing to Mr. Jock's over the top histrionics! A great document - let's hope Jarmusic gets the rights to Gypp's 1978 maxi-single "Yaah!" Buy this disc and get the one in the metal box with all the autographed photos inside. Good shit!
Ian C Stewart

HEBEPHRENIC
ATARAXIA
Tapehiss 260 N Keswick Apt C, Glenside, PA 19038 USA
They don't make goth like they used to. Pixie girls in Marilyn Manson glam-goth on the train break my heart. It's nice that someone like Hebephrenic remembers the good old days, when a young, thin(ner) Robert
Smith moaned into a microphone while keyboards wavered in alternating chord in the background. At twenty-one tracks, one may find "Ataraxia" a little long, or even monotonous, at times. However, if taken in smaller doses, the album is definitely worth a listen. If you're nostalgic for the days of 4AD and a pre-cheerful, pre-solo Smith, "Ataraxia" will show you that some people can still make good, old-fashioned goth music.
Megan Heller

HELILIFTED CD
Helicopter Records / Box 1146 / DK-1010 Copenhagen / Denmark http://delux.dk
Lago: A simple electronica beat with understated, almost whispered tenor male voice singing "nothing like nightclubbing"... Pandemonica: highly frayed distorto guitar does nothing in particular, until two minutes in when a guitar riff (also frayed and distorto) comes in and a straining voice sings something. Robot: Modern pop, nicely recorded, mixed so that it almost sounds like it's just big loud drums and a lightly chorused female voice, and lots of cymbals splashing and crashing and stuff. Not rememberable. Grill: Ok, now i've reached for my EQ for EVERY SONG. Who mastered this fucker? Lo fi; put distortion on everything, drums, voice, fuggit. "i love my leatherpants" is the name of the song. Monotonous. Hjalmer Geiger: Ouch, not even my EQ can null that frequency. Mac and the Mates: Mellow mid tempo hip-hop-ish groove, which would remind me of Deleted if it weren't for the dual guitar bits which are like some kind of Eagles leftover, and the cheezy guitar solo suddenly makes this sound like one of those deals where someone cuts a song just so someone can do a guitar solo on it. Like Tony MacAlpine (it's ok, there's a reason no one remembers him). Bjorn Svin: Unfortunate name. Wacky techno that bops my head despite my better judgement. For the first two minutes anyway. Twang: A rather tight band with mild progressive tendencies and sounding vaguely funky and westerny all at the same time. And the vocals sound like Consolidated. AEter: Applause and feedback, like maybe a live performance. Weird skipping synth loop and an ambling female voice, towards the end, restrained drums and vocal samples. All restraint, no punchline. Yafobara: Piano & bass lay down the foundation while a horn section vamps and wah wah guitar too. Either Steely Dan or Chicago, no vocals. Not entirely unenjoyable, although it comes close at times. On Trial: That'd be some backwards guitar, more like a less showy Henry Kaiser than Adrian Belew. Male voice which sounds equally influenced by Husker Du, Kate Bush and Jethro Tull. The band is kind of cool, with a nice percussion section, and fuzzy bass and metallic chimes. I have slight reservations, but so far this is the winner of the CD. I wish they would use more melody, because if they stick with this sound and wrote a good tune, then maybe. Peter Laugesen: A lightly funky backing track with a guy speaking Danish. Like Falco or Right Said Fred or some shit. And it's still mildly OK actually. Squirm: Fast punk, and the band can't stay on time with itself. Yawn, take yer weird accent and go back to nowhere. At least Falco-boy before you had the balls to use his own damn language. I'd rather listen to Warrant, so THERE. Jurgen Flemming: Analogue bloopy, blippy with a fat old, slow beat. YESSSSSSS. Right on, Jurgen, you not the man standing next to the man, you the MAN. Single Sex Society: Another garage band floundering to decide who to copy, aside from Red Hot Chili Peppers and the occasional James Hetfield flourish, they seem to want to be, strangely enough: Pandora's Lunchbox. Should've given this track to Jurgen, should've given 'em all to him matter of fact. Spotty compilation, like all the rest.
c.reider

HORCHATA
INTEGRAL CD
M.Palace/Horchata, 224 Austin St. Apt.2, Portsmouth, NH 03801 USA
Okay, maybe I sound sycophantic, but I so seriously can't stop listening to this CD! It's a collection of 10 songs, all with titles/themes based on nature or the surroundings. But this is no new age dud! Each song is a perfect mix of dub and electronica; repetitive at times but never droning. I will even be as bold as saying that "Integral" is the definitive soundtrack to our world. If nature as we know it were to stop sounding like anything, Horchata could easily replace it. Whether you need some good white noise around the house or something to chill to, this album will be a perfect addition.
Hyacinthe

HUNNYPAL
THE UNDERGROUND CD
Frank Shankley Recordings Angquist/Walgeborg, Torggatan 24, S-745 31 Enkoping Sweden
http://www.encopia.com/hunnypal
hunnypal@encopia.com
Jangly indie guitar pop. The best kind! Great production and playing never hurt either. "The Underground" opens like an orchestra tuning up: synth filters sway, guitars are plugged into amps, then it's off to the races! Hard on the jangle and with female backing vocals! "Ragged" breaks things down and slinks across like a lost Smiths b-side. Or Gene. And then there's the synth bit in the middle! "Like I Would Help You Now" flat out rocks, basically. "Mail" is the ballad. Whooshy and slow at first, then explosive in the middle. Kinda like me. "The Longing" rocks too. Dynamics are good. So is Hunnypal.
Ian C Stewart

HYMNS OF THE WORLOCK - A TRIBUTE TO SKINNY PUPPY CD compilation
Cleopatra / 13428 Maxella Ave. #251 / Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 USA
Hot off of the assembly line at Cleopatra Inc. comes this piece of crap, not fit for frying. If one were to judge a band by its imitators, one would come to the conclusion that Skinny Puppy never recorded an interesting note in their career. Sadly the "tribute" in the title should've read "mockery". Barely a one of the bands included on this pile of doo have a slight clue about what made Skinny Puppy good band. It wasn't that they 'rocked out on their synths, maaan', they were about atmosphere, were more intent on portraying chaos through heavy layering of strange sounds than 'rocking the house'. Sure, it's rough ground doing a cover of such a sacred cow as this band... but it could've been done a bit better than this. To record a good cover version, one should connect with the feeling and intent of the band, while putting their own personality into the mix. While it is notable that there are no note-for-note renditioons here, there is very little originality. Razed in Black for example sound just like KMFDM. Dead Voices on Air do the best job here, with a creepy, ambient version of "Love in Vein"... that sounds exactly like DVOA. Data Bomb also are worth noting for their not horrible version of "Ice Breaker". Apparently, The Element always wished that SP were more like New Order, as attests their house version of "The Choke". One might hope that Front Line Assembly would come riding to the rescue, after all, Bill fucking Leeb was IN Skinny Puppy at one time, you'd think he'd know what time it is... but no, he does a little bippy boppy, high school dance version of "Dead of Winter". Billy, buddy, stop listening to fucking Enigma, you pussy. The only reason a hardcore fan should even remotely consider getting this is the live track by Download covering their eponymous song from the "Last Rights" CD... but it's really not worth getting, even for that, because it turns out that Cevin and the boys are just diddling around on their keyboards while they play the audience a CD copy of the actual same recording that appeared on the CD. There is a bit of new material at the end when they go into the ambient portion of the song, but only a completist should bother. This CD is horrible, right down to the silly album art, (on the inside art some guy went into PhotoShop and pasted a set of eyeballs onto the areolaes of some woman's tits. Shocking!!). The embarrassing and inaccurate liner notes should have been trashed too, "it was their fourth album ViviSect VI...would become the first of their masterpieces." Hello? It's not even worth going in and pointing out every mistake of the numerous mistakes in the liner notes and on the sleeve. Skinny Puppy fans DO NOT GET RIPPED OFF BY BUYING THIS CD!!!!!!!!! It is a crass money making scheme, with not a bit
of care given to its production. Avoid it at all costs!!
c. reider

IL MESTRUO DELLE PUTTANE
LIVEKLA VILLA
Marco Farina cp 137, 17047 Vado Ligure, SV Italia
I'm not sure what the band name means but it looks kinda obscene and yucko. Which makes sense considering what's on the tape.
Ian C Stewart

INSECT DARTS CD
Semper Lo-Fi 11 Orchard Street Cold Spring, NY 10516 USA
http://www.semperlofi.com
So MJB lets rip with some beats, some guitar chords and the sax flailing and verbal posturing of Mark Garro. Then he cuts it up and redoubles it on his computer. The ensuing brouhaha is improvisational and loose despite the post-coital computer enhancement. The resultant scree is alternately fascinating and off-putting and probably best when viewed as accompaniment to the TV Boy cable TV series MJB also contributes to.
Ian C Stewart

INSOMNIA | HERK
STATIC WAR
Insomnia, c/o Jason Vizmanos, 2555 W. Catalpa Ave. 212, Chicago, IL 60625-2247 USA
Herk, PO Box 221 Pittsfield, NH 03263 USA
Insomnia's opening material is reminiscent of a washing machine in the spin-cycle with a loose belt. Low throbbing pulses set the mood for a rather long track. Combined with varied higher pitched squeals, chirps and barking. It is rhythmic with enough changes to keep it interesting, I would like to hear more of his work. Herk wraps up the other side with lo-fi signal manipulation that leans toward a more minimalistic approach with very little layering. It runs a bit too long for my taste and tends to come out being a little thin and very repetitive. I understand the concept and all, but just don't care much for minimal noise.
E Crowe

INTERVIEW WITH A FRANKENSTIEN CD audio zine
Jacob Berendes 6 Hurtle Avenue Worchester, MA 01064 USA
http://www.nindy.com
Mostly it's just a fucking onslaught of Berendes' usual hacked-to-bits cut up funk stylizing. There's an interview with Blue Bunny wherein all of the answers are "I don't know." Every band Jacob is in is represented here too, including Cat & Bird Hospital. Plus the usual wicked, twisted bollix. And Jacob sounds like Moby when he talks.
Ian C Stewart

JO & JOE & FRIENDS
OUTJAMS VOL 5 CD
J&J Music / 736 Mountain View Ave. #3 / Mountain View, CA 94041 USA
Many of these jazzy jams juke and jive along in a jovially inoffensive manner, until the vocals jarringly come in, blorting out their slimy and ingratiating well-to-do-white-person wisdoms all over the counter where my speakers rest. Ugh, get me a towel! Apparently they didn't read in JazzSnobs Worldwide Bi-Annual Gazette that the jazz vocal died over 30 years ago. Maybe they'll read it here and adjust their modus operandi accordingly. In summary: occasionally enjoyable, nicely recorded jazz improvs (with sequenced drums and other sounds), now and again straying into a tame, domesticated sort of castrated free-form (with above mentioned sequencing), here and there dominated by smug, altogether misplaced, unwelcome, irrelevant vocal stylings. See, now you would've gotten a good review, if you'd just kept your damn mouth shut. Let that be a lesson to you.
c. reider

JUNKY BUNNY
BUMP CD
http://www.semperlofi.com
http://www.mp3.com/junkbunny
Lo-fi guitar pop with MJB, Alec Cumming and Joel Bachrach. It's an acoustic-driven throw-down with ample bass playing and dynamic drumming. Plus the singing is pretty fucking good. Several of the songs barely cross the one-minute mark, lending the disc an immediacy. "Why Don't You Go Amongst the Pretty Ones" and "Downtown" in particular. "Showtime" is an indie-rock response to Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive": a ballad about the gritty and hysterical realities of being in a band. Like playing gigs with 9 other bands and the audience consists entirely of the other bands. "I Forgot My Setlist…" Fuck yes. Not sure if this is a one-off or if the JBs will be back again but I hope they do more. Check this shit out at mp3.com. Biaaatch.
Ian C Stewart

JW (OB THEE EAST-SOUTH FOLQUE)
EVERYWOMAN FOR HIRMSELF AND OD AGAINST EVEN THEN APPLES LIE, THEY'RE TIRED AND WANT TO SLEEP
J. Whatling / 38 Glencoe Rd. / Ipswitch / Suffolk, IP4 3PP / England mludh@hotmail.com
Hissy lo-fi ambient noise collage which I happen to enjoy very, very much, thank you. It sounds as though many of these vaguely identifiable recordings were recorded with a hand held tape recorder at varying sites and then patched together at the end. There are also some bits of tastefully minimal lo-fi ambient music reminiscent of ambient Coil or Randy Grief or someone. The guy's sense of editing is keen and keeps the greater work advancing throughout. It makes me happy that there are people out there making recordings so simply, that are based on the idea everyday noise IS music... and that it turns out so wonderfully. Yeah, any Johnny Paycheck could've done this, but only someone who cared a lot could've made it turn out so well. And the idea that anyone could've done it is part of the intrinsic charm of the cassette culture on the whole, but it's also misleading, because these recordings brim with personality, and remind me that no sound event is repeatable, even if captured and reproduced on some storage media. The very air pressure and humidity could render the way you hear it different, not to mention the amplifier and speakers! Anyone with an open mind to natural sound environments as music is urged to seek out these fine releases.
c. reider

KARDA ESTRA
THIRTEEN FROM THE TWENTY FIRST CD
No Image PO Box 1428 Swindon, SN2 1ZY, UK http://members.xoom.com/ammag
Since Richard Wileman of Karda Estra was just interviewed in AUTO11, I was happy to be given this CD to review. And it is exactly what I thought it would be. Beautiful, lush melodies full of notes that just go on forever. Pure, clear vocals that will haunt you when you dream. Music that makes you imagine yourself in a medieval forest in autumn, bathed in glittery sunlight or maybe sparkling rain. Broken into three categories (surrealisms, miniatures, and soundtracks), this album is uplifting and moving. Thank you, Karda Estra.
michelle nollan

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE
THE COSMIC UNION
Sharnay PO Box 5473, Frankton, Hamilton New Zealand
Or that could be "Lamp Of The Universe" by The Cosmic Union, which also makes sense. See kids, this is why informative packaging is essential. Fortunately for this lot, no matter what they're called, this tape is dope. It starts off with some almost Dead Can Dance trancey percussion and drone sounds. Very professional sounding too. Then they kind of do a droning guitar rock thing that's also kind of trance-inducing. It's good shit and highly original and I like it no matter what they call it.
Ian C Stewart

LEAD(II) NITRATE | NEKROS splut
Shaiful, BLK 554, Bedok North St 3, #08-241, Singapore 460554 Singapore China trashkore@yahoo.com
Holy shit! Utterly insane noize band like the Boredoms. Metal guitars sometimes, also drums. At least 3 vocalists, all of who seem to be going at it full-throat. Screeching and screaming like animals! Why yes, it does rule. Nekros shares members with Lead (II) Nitrate and they prefer to irritate by tickle-torture with violin, piano etc. The first bit was better.
Ian C Stewart

LORD LITTER
LITTER'S REEAL ALL ITTY CD
Harsh Reality Music PO Box 241661, Memphis TN 38124-1661 USA chris.phinney@gte.net
Uh-oh, here we go with the reissues, this one dating from 1990-91. Fortunately, Lord Litter's classic rock sensibilities have aged very well, leaving this CD sounding surprisingly fresh. "Factor X" and "Excerpt From a Harsh Reality" are guitar/bass/drum machine instrumentals that sound industrial, rockabilly, surf and goth at times. "Pleasin' Lies" is a campy glam rock stomp that adds Litter's unique (to put it mildly!) vocals! It's very funny actually. "Love Song" is an acoustic campfire ballad for two acoustic guitars and multiple singers. Several instrumentals follow, revealing a penchant for long, art-rock riffs. Sweet. Then there's the 17-minute epic "Time Shift", in 5 parts. "The Happy Snail" sounds like The Cleaners From Venus with a mandolin. Good stuff from the vaults.
Ian C Stewart

JOHN LUDI
HELL'S LAUGHTER AND HEAVEN'S ACHE CD
5050 N Sheridan #415, Chicago IL 60640 USA
http://www.johnludi.com
Drum machine rock with songwriting straight from 1968. Or is it 69? Acoustic guitars, wordy dudevox that lean toward Protest Rock. Hey, that's it---freedom rock! Is that freedom rock, man? It's not bad at all. It's kind of unique in fact.
Ian C Stewart

HARLAN LYMAN
"IMMERSION" MP3
p.o. box 24, wakefield va 23888
http://www.reelscreen.com/harlan.html
Not the best mixdown I've ever heard but Harlan goes instrumental with keys and maybe a drum machine. Some bits are sequenced but much of the drum sounds appear to be rocked in real time. The sound is boomy and the song wanders but yeah.
Ian C Stewart

MARIA MAROCKA
SOLO-FI CD
Evol Egg Nart PO Box 570763 Miami, FL 33257 USA maria@nartworld.com
http://www.nartworld.com
"Stuck With You" is a sweet li'l acoustic ballad that showcases Maria's able singing voice. Despite the implications of the CD's title, the production is clear and professional. "The Height" is a more tolerable Sheryl Crow or uh, Throwing Muses. I don't know. "Room 104" goes all acoustic again. "Ring On My Finger" adds some sweet organic keys and relatively lo-fi drums. "Twice Fried" sounds like it should've been a big hit on alternative rock radio in 1994 or so. It's good. Good songwriting and performing throughout. Indeed.
Ian C Stewart

MERZBOW | AURAL TORTURE MECHANISM split CD
Fist Fight Records c/o Adam Wright PO Box 364 Hagerstown, MD 21741-0364 USA
To say that this is amazing is an understatement. These excellent projects have come together for an outstanding display of harsh experimental enjoyment. Japanese veteran Merzbow lays down a 30-plus minute track (from the Vereneology era) of harsh, scraping feedback, rhythmic pumping and skilled chaotic manipulation. ATM is a 2 man project-one working the guitars and the other doing electronics. Heavy brooding, emotionally provocative noises with lots of variation, which defiantly keeps my interest. Thick, low end distorted tones layered with a bit of high-end static and feedback.
E Crowe

MIKADAMS
"STEVE" MP3
1201 New Jersey St. Lawrence, KS. 66044 USA mikadams@sunflower.com
http://www.mp3.com/mikadams
Ya know those Robert Smigel bits on Saturday Night Live when he does the "Fun With Real Audio" deal and hacks up Bill Clinton speeches and turns the words around so he's saying something dumb and/or funny? Same deal here. Totally hilarious evangelistic dude talking about how god made Adam and Steve and, ah hell you just have to hear it. It makes me laugh.
Ian C Stewart

MIMETIC MUTE
NEGATIVE CD
Jerome Soudan, Boulevard St. Georges, CH-1205 Geneve, Switzerland
Mimetic1@aol.com
Okay, there's a cover of John Cage's "4'33" so obviously this CD rules beyond compare ("composed by John Cage and interpreted by you"). The tracks are evenly united noize (rhythmic found sound looped to infinity) and kick drum-friendly techno blips & hums. "Dubious" takes shards of a drum loop and adds chugging metal guitars. A gurgling synth line and samples of an operatic female voice & a choir. 'Snice. "Negative" starts with a finely chopped drum loop that is joined by Gregorian chant type vocals and, uh, synth bass & violins. Sigh. Basically, slap a Cathy Dennis photo on the cover and I'd sell my kidneys for this CD. "Chilling" is 12 minutes of Cohort Records-style iso-ambience. "Ozonschicht" is the scene where distorted & filtered drum-machines take over the world finally. Their rallying cry. It's love, yeah. But will Mimetic Mute call me again?
Ian C Stewart

MJB
PLASTIC MEMORIES
Cut And Paste Records PO Box 152 Green OH 44232 USA
http://members.aol.com/cutandpasterecs/cp.html
Okay, first song-"Dalai Lama Loves You Yeah" isn't very good. Uh oh, another half-assed CD. But wait. Song 2 isn't terrible. Song 3 is great! Hey, this ain't so bad. It's actually pretty good. Pretty darn good. By the time I get to song 12, I find myself saying "I really like this." Catchy and quirky. You know who this reminds me of? Of course you don't. Not until I tell you...It reminds me of Devo. With guitars. Early Devo. Pre flowerpot hat Devo. And I absofuckinglutely love Devo. There are lots of great retro sounds on this thing. It really grows on you. Michael J Bowman should be quite proud of himself. Job well done. This one I'll play for ALL my friends. Both of them.
Kev

MORNING 40 FEDERATION
YOU MY BROTHER CD
Tekito Communications PO Box 432 88 Royal Street New Orleans, LA 70116 USA Tekito@excite.com
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/wuthering/982
In a word, painful. A poorly mixed drunken jug-band with Adam Sandler-style lyrics and singing except not funny. I found myself saying "thank you" when each song was over, if that tells you anything. I think my ears are bleeding. If you still need convincing, here are some lyrics: "I wanna get mischievous like a bird lays a turd on the windshield of your car tonight...like the cheese in your teeth from the po' boy you ate last night...like the kid down the block who's putting salt on de slug...like I wanna get on 5 or 6 or 7 pharmaceutical drugs."
michelle nollan

MYAKAI SHIT ITSELF
TWO CONCERTOS PERFORMED BY J. GRAY
EQ / 3500 Lakeside Dr. / Minnetrista, MN 55364 usa
http://listen.to/myakai/
Myakai Shit Itself sounds almost exactly like a box of big rocks versus a Casio. Or maybe it's an Akai considering the band name. Put a buncha rocks in a box with an Akai and shake it up mic'ed w/ a 1970's Radio Shack mic, then broadcast that over AM, but I live in the mountains, so I can't get reception, so i'll just dial over to the talk radio station, 'cause they have a stronger signal. No wait, it says here that it was performed on "Yamaha PSR-510 state of the art midi keyboard". So there you go.
c. reider

NEGATIVE THOUGHT | THE DRUIDS
THE FEAR | PEACE AND LOVE split
Beergut Recordings, c/o Steve Munslow, 32 Lessness Rd. Morden, Surrey, SM4 6HP, UK
Negative Thought produces dark and ambient soundscapes. Low and droning tones mixed with faint chirps and a whirling crispness that gives a very hypnotic yet cold distant feel. I like that it does not have to be in-your-face to get the point across. Well textured and controlled power-electronics exploring the recesses of
destitution and deep dwelling pain. The Druids are a lot of different things. They tend to mix a lot of different aspects from the realm of noise into their work, but always coming across with dark elements. Starting with a so-called Wu Tang re-mix, varying the noise and Wu Tang samples. With the wide array of elements involved in their material, the interest level stays way up there. From a lot of mid-range tweaked signals and watery grave loops, to small bursts of being on the verge of harsh, topped with a clarity makes this awesome as fuck. This is yet another great release from Beergut.
E Crowe

MARTIN NEWELL
BLACK SHUCK
Jarmusic OT Reitze 2, D-29482 Küsten GERMANY
http://www.jarmusic.com
So Martin sort of narrates and also does the incidental music on this tape. Talking book thing. He has the perfect voice for it.
Ian C Stewart

NOISE CONGLOMERATE VOL ONE compilation
Anti Everything 22 Mallory #1, Hampton VA 23663 USA extnoise@aol.com
90 minutues of Barry Manilow hits. What else did you expect? I like the track titles though: "Dog Hair And Methadone" primarily. Feedback. Overdriven everything with occasional glimpses of other stuff. You know. Noise.
Ian C Stewart

OFF THE HOOK CD Compilation
25 Records PO Box 3006 Poole, BH12 2HU UK
info@25records.com
http://www.25records.com
The formula is simple: energetic guitar pop choons from around the world. Many are latent gems (i.e. - Osmosis, the Chimes). Many are overtly thrilling - Cor-crane "Liam is Cool", Dallas Prison, but most are nearly great, suffering from oddly off balance demo-quality studio recording jobs (Blaze, X-Hail, Oli-pop, Ascension, Tantrum, Calmer). The Gladys "89/99" has such great lyrics - "I saw a whole decade go by, ten years like that, sitting there watching telly, feeling like a useless twat" - twat rhymes with "that," of course - and one of those 80s bass lines you could just die for! And that snarling third verse! Oooh! Maldune (probably unknowingly) rides the riff to that punishingly twisted anthem of shit "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer and therefore must be destroyed. Sorry, chaps. Not really. But Dr. Jan "Guru" - it says here my man had Bill Nelson playing on his CD. That's good enough for me. This track has a nice beat loop, ambient washes of chords and a lyric y'all could probably sing along to if you knew it. Remember, uh…that Supreme Radio Gods "accidental" hit single about the phone booth a few years ago? That but better. I could see Bill Nelson squatting out a diamond of a guitar track on this guy's stuff. It's the usual mixed bag of gemology from 25 records.
Ian C Stewart

OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN
HAPPY FRIEND IN THE FROSTED CITY
Best Kept Secret via Brion di Sotto, 101 - 36100 Vicenza Italy acrestani@telemar.it
http://www.pleasurecraft.va.com.au/opc
Atmosphonica. Like Xymox.
Ian C Stewart

PAIN IN THE ASS
BROWN SIDE OF THE MOON
Pure Hatred Records PO Box 23215 Helleville IL 62223 USA
The cover is a toilet-cam shot of someone taking a dump. The songs have names like "Von Young KKK Leader," "F.A.G. Fathers Against Gays," "Glen Benton Is A Jesus Freak," and "I Killed Marilyn Manson." Not to mention the ones that make fun of Celtic Frost and Venom! Bad form! The band consists of Fag Killer on guitar and vocals and The No-Man on drums and vocals. And I'm not going to listen to it now or ever.
Ian C Stewart

THE PERFECT TRAGEDY
"THE DAY I TRIED TO FLY" MP3
John Telaak 76 Seneca Creek Rd, West Seneca,NY 14224 USA
http://community.webtv.net/blu88/JohnTelaak
http://www.mp3.com/ThePerfectTragedy
Quietish ballady moody rock band number that's like the band Gene in that it's semi-expansive. The singer sounds like Jacob Dylan. I like the atmosphere of the recording and the synth strings are nice too.
Ian C Stewart

PFRENZ-C
BURIED IN BONE CD
pFrenz-C / POBox 23042 / Seattle, WA 98102 USA
There's a reason that this guy works with Jarboe and you don't. He makes dark, inviting atmospheres with minimal fuss. Don't know how the man does it, but his recordings are equal parts warm / fuzzy and creepy / crawly. I prefer it when he sticks to the instrumentals, 'cause the man can set up a seriously nice, original background... but doesn't do as well fronting it with his vocals. Even so, the music on this CD rocks. You could learn a more than a few things from my man pFrenz-C, but you probably still won't have Jarboe knocking on your door. Creepy listening for quiet evenings.
c. reider

PFRENZ-C
DOPAMINE QUEST CD
Tragick Records, PMB 1184, 1122 East Pike Street Seattle, WA 98122 USA
http://www.tragickrecords.com
"Immersion" starts off with an acoustic dirge that gives way to sonorous fucking-about with what we in the biz lovingly refer to as "noise." "Contaminated" features more acoustica layered with electric guitar and several tracks of vocals. Remember that Crispin Glover album? Sounds like what I remember of that. "Nourishment" features a plaintive spoken narrative by Jarboe over a Mark Spybey soundtrack. She sings too. "Circles" recalls World Of Skin with acoustic guitar and keyboards under the low-key vocal stylings of Brian Pfrenz-C. "Mutiny in Heaven" is a Birthday Party song I've never heard before but yeah, it sounds like them all right. On drum machine and keyboards "Focalectomy" sounds like one of Roger Waters' unhinged psychodramas from the early 70s. "Bells of Bedlam" adds a nicely recorded drum kit to the rather unsettling mix. Jarboe returns for two more tracks. It's a well-produced psycho blend of noize, folk, ambience, magick tragick, rock and freaky lyrics.
Ian C Stewart

DANIEL PRENDIVILLE
GOOD RIDDANCE CD
http://listen.to/reincheque
"This is what it's all about: homemade synthpop with all the trimmings. Mostly keyboards and drum box sounds with an overall feel that is gloriously 1985. In all the right ways. "Heaven Scent" wanders into New Order terrain while "I Made You A Promise" sounds like Depeche Mode. And while I'm not crazy about "Basketball," the good far outweighs the naff here, and I wholly recommend this stuff to all fans of a good chune!" So said me in AUTO3, back in 1995, when I got an advance advance copy of this album on cassette from Dan. He's since redone all the tracks on Cubase and added guitar and taken what was an already cracking album and made it even better! Though New Order and Depeche Mode really don't even enter it. Dan's pop is difficult for me to pin down and put into words. It puts a smile on my face and that's as far as I ever get.
Ian C Stewart

THE RABBIT'S HAT
FLESH & NAIL: A TRIBUTE TO NICK DRAKE CD
Stone Premonitions 271 Park Road South Moor, Stanley Co Durham DH9 7AP UK
terrib@stoneprem.freeserve.co.uk
As both a hardcore Nick Drake fan (made the pilgrimage to his grave in '97, bub) and a person who has put together a tribute album or five, I feel extremely conflicted about this CD. On the one hand, anything that so carefully and lovingly furthers the music of Nick Drake is a good thing. A great amount of care and consideration has obviously gone into this tribute - even just learning the songs is a major undertaking since Nick Drake's guitar tunings were often totally unique and very difficult to decipher. In the past, I've done my own interpretations of songs for various tributes or my own releases and I usually take the approach of trying to create a version that has little stylistically in common with the original. Otherwise for me as a musician, there's no point. Why even bother trying to recreate someone else's work verbatim? I prefer to tinker. A lot. Which could conceivably cause a great deal of annoyance for fans of the originals. Isn't it awful to hear a bad cover version of a song you love? I remember when Guns 'N Roses covered the Damned, I thought I was going to die. Don't ask me why. I just did. I liked the Damned a lot. But I love Nick Drake. Like many of the new fans every year who discover his frustratingly small catalog of albums, who came to view the man's work as unique and caring. Who see his songs as perfection. Who can find no quarrel with his output. I'm one of those people. So it is with great inner turmoil that I approach this CD. Nick Drake's music is basically sacred, as anyone who reinterprets it can attest. The Rabbit's Hat fortunately don't take as many liberties with the songs as I have with my own versions of XTC, Motorhead, Ozzy and Cathy Dennis songs. They stick to the playbook. The fingerstyle into of "Joey" even sounds exactly like the original. It's only when the vocals arrive that you know you're not listening to an outtake of the original. A gang of vocalists that has the cumulative effect of Fleetwood Mac. The piano bits are good. The production is very good as well. "From The Morning" features Steve Ellis' confident lead vocals and note-perfect guitar playing. The backing vocals are intrusive though, almost to the point of casuing me to skip to the next song! "Thoughts of Mary Jane" is reinvented on keyboards on the intro before the guitar joins in. Again, Ellis' vocals are strong and spot-on. I think I'd probably prefer if it was just him throughout, the backing vocals only serve to distract and irritate. Not nearly as gut-wrenching as it could've been and certainly not worth my getting my thong in a bunch.
Ian C Stewart

RAS AL GHUL
SUBHARMONIC DENSITY STRUCTURES CD
Aquatica PO Box 347 P. 2826-801 Caparica Portugal
http://www.sumbiose-pt.com
Extremely epic trancelike ambience. Durdling synths make babies with deprogrammed rhythms. "Time of Flight" has a brilliant echoey filtered arpeggio that is eventually consumed by a tacklebox drum loop, lending the track an early Orbital feel. "Flux Pinning Force" employs tabla samples and goes all world-music as a result. The production is beautiful and professional sounding. Hell, I'd buy this.
Ian C Stewart

RED FIRECRACKER
NOW LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU!
Michael 38 Ardtoe Cres. Stepps G33 6AU UK
If Red Firecracker's nine-song cassette is lacking in any way, it is the fact that it has merely nine songs. It is a delightful collection of lo-fi pop-rock, from the homage "Laura Takes No Crap" to the quiet pain of "Bottom
of the Class". "Howl at the Moon" sounds like Belle and Sebastian the way one sometimes wishes they would sound, with that rough edge they lost on their last album. Definitely enjoyable, and certainly not run-of-the-mill.
Megan Heller

REDFIVE
ELECTRONIC BMX
Star Destroyer PO Box R363 Royal Exchange, Sydney NSW 1225 Australia
Analog synth and drumset jams that invoke rap imagery whenever possible. Digitally edited after the fact. Kinda, uh, Napalm Death on a keyboard kick. "Played Ass Ho" and "Right Hand Full of Glue" are great titles though. Sometimes funny though not as funny as Inca Eyeball. More like an Insane Records release with better fidelity!
Ian C Stewart

RICK OF THE SKINS
HERE COMES THE WEEKEND CD
5684 Roberts Street, Halifax Nova Scotia B3K 136 Canada
rickoftheskins@hotmail.com
Fucked up rock band action. Dude singer. Chick singer. Chimpy keyboards. Plus the usual stuff. "Play With Me" is mock-somber, art pop, subdued swing, while "You Said It" sounds like The Fall jamming with Sonic Youth. Under all the odd effects and digital posturing, "Petite Fille" is just a nice ballad really. Singing in French is always cool too. "Flying Saucer" takes the Low approach. Slow, minimalistic and melancholy. With the singer standing a few hundred feet away from the mic, sounds like. The backing vocals are exceptional throughout, like there's a totally separate song going on. "Devil's Eyes" is ELO jamming with Butthole Surfers. "Keep It Live" goes in 20 directions at once - distorted drum loop, 70s guitar riffs swept off an arena floor and co-ed exhortations to "get your ass on the dancefloor."
Ian C Stewart

RIVER
ONCE UPON A TIME
Best Kept Secret via Brion di Sotto, 101 - 36100 Vicenza Italy acrestani@telemar.it
http://www.citeweb.net/river
Neato moody French tech-pop with lots of reverb. The dude has a high voice. And then there's a chick singer.
Ian C Stewart

PHIL ROEBUCK
UNDER THE MATCHLIGHT CD
PO Box 54 Brooklyn NY 11222 USA
Extremely well-played and produced batch of highly personal songs. Great stuff. The chirping night sounds on the first song make a great addition. It's very, uh, indigenous Americana music type stuff. Real dustbowl NPR type stuff. Very nice.
Ian C Stewart

RO-ROBOT
LAND CD
Lansinkstraat 10, 7481 JP Haaksbergen, The Netherlands
Europrom@wxs.nl
Do these guys look good? There are no pics in the CD. Why do I ask? Because they play such a derivative, all-heard-before music, and they play it so uncertainly, that it could really make a difference if they look nice and glammy (and thus may realize their lifelong ambition, opening for Placebo) or if they look dull (and they'll never get anywhere). These five songs are neither good nor bad, the guys play just well enough not to go out of tune but you can hear they need much more rehearsal, and the vocalist honestly crosses that line between "expressive" and "out of tune" many times, especially in that bit where he goes "I wish I never let you go". Then there are a couple of better-performed Joy Division songs. Not in the sense that they're covers, just that Ro-Robot obviously did their homework on the Joy Division formula: an insisting bass line, one obsessive guitar loop, and alienated staccato vocals. Anyone can be a Joy Division! (But of course nobody quite gets there, which is why Joy Division were so brilliant in their simplicity, etc etc). My vote? If they really try hard and improve their technique, you never know what happens. Oh, and why the lumberjack picture in the booklet? I'm a lumberjack and I'm ooookaaaaaaay….
Paola

JEFFREY SIMMONS
THE FAILURE OF THE HORSE AND BUGGY CD
Black Apple 52 Pearl St #3, Cambridge MA 02139 USA appleblack20@hotmail.com
Jeffrey is the fucking man. This CD rules. It's pro-packaged and the recording may have been done in a real studio. It sounds fucking dope regardless. Acoustic guitar, piano, live drums, loads of vocal lines. The guy has a great voice and the overall feel is just Beatley. Hell yeah.
Ian C Stewart

SIMPATICO
OF GOODBYE KISSES
Best Kept Secret via Brion di Sotto, 101 - 36100 Vicenza Italy acrestani@telemar.it
http://www.pleasurecraft.va.com.au/simpatico
Says here they did a cover of "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I didn't hear that. What I heard was minimalistic slo-core bass, guitar and keys. And it was good. They're from Australia.
Ian C Stewart

SMARTYPANTS
E=MC HAMMER CD
Opulence! Records PO Box 2071 Wilmington NC 28402-2071 USA http://www.opulence.net
Eleven rock tunes with the energy and slappy bass of the Red Hot Chili Peppers + the attitude of Jane's Addiction. Fuck yeah! The intensity continues all the way to the end. Sweet keyboards, solid drumming and vocals, hilarious lyrics, this band has it's shit straight. And check out the title! The only problem I have is that Smarty Pants thinks Paul McCartney wrote all the good songs ("Beat the Meatles") when we ALL know it was John. But I got a cute sticker with the CD that makes up for their mistake.
michelle nollan

MARK SONNENFELD + KEN MILLER
A RED SHIRTED NO FRIENDS CD
ASKalice Audio PO Box 101 Newtown, PA 18940-0101 USA
http://members.aol.com/satpostman
"A Red Shirted No Friends" is a twelve and a half minute poetry reading, composed of Mark Sonnenfeld reading the same poem in stereo (although the two readings fall far out of sync) and music by Ken Miller. Originally a chapbook poem, Sonnenfeld explains on his website (http://www.experimentalpoet.com), "Sparked by interest in the music group R.E.M., I made a trip to Athens, Georgia. The chapbook is not about the band." Miller has obviously taken the inspiration to heart, and the music responds accordingly. Up until four minutes into the recording, Miller's musical track sounds distinctly like R.E.M., perhaps circa-1990. After that point, he tumbles into experimental samba sounds and stereophonic experiments. As the track nears the eight-minute mark, it breaks down into something that might be described as "minimalist R.E.M.". Finally, for the last two minutes, he reprises the stylings from the initial phase. In a way, this was more interesting than Sonnenfeld's reading. The random observations become impossible to distinguish as the readings fall out of sync, and eventually dissolve into almost a percussive part of the music, not something one attempts to analyze or understand. Interesting, if you like that kind of thing.
Megan Heller

SOUND LIBERATION
SOUND LIBERATION CD
122 La Salle Street #9 New York, NY 10027 USA
noizepunk@aol.com
Wow, indie rap. Two verbose MCs cram in as many syllables as they can between every measure of music. The music on "Loan Shark" includes acoustic guitar and synth strings repeating a minor key figure. "Which of the Days" is a nice pimp-jam with sweet beats and, uh, flute and bass. Not sure how convincing the "I-had-it-hard" lyrics are but the rhymes are good and the music is well produced. "No Truth" adds classical piano and strings to the funky mix. The lyrical flows are modern and intriguing. "Money" is this crew's response to Wu-Tang's "C.R.E.A.M." "What Shall I Do" flows over a, um, disco music bed. Disco ballad. Cool. "Rap Sense" has the fattest beat and wonders, "Can a MC get a lap dance?" Very cool.
Ian C Stewart

SPOD
LIVE AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH
Star Destroyer Recordings PO Box r363 Royal Exchange, 1225 Australia stardestroyerrecordings@hotmail.com
Spod rules and everyone knows it. This is a live tape from 1996. Most of it anyway. And all the hits are here, "Ultrawoman," "Tight Panties," "Afrosweat," "Nude School," and of course "Ass Pinchin'."
Ian C Stewart

DAVE STAFFORD
CHARM ZONE CD
Studio Seventeen Productions P.O. Box 461363 Escondido, CA 92046 ambient@home.com
http://www.pureambient.com
"Charm Zone" is an enjoyable dose of ambient tunes, something which can only be said so often. The Asian-tinged tracks are, as the liner notes claim, "insistent," although I might argue against whether they were actually "introspective" (as the liner notes also claim). This recording does not, fortunately, sound like someone sitting in front of their Casio keyboard for too long, as a lot of independent ambient recordings are like to do. On the other hand, it does fall into the category of Brian Eno knock-off ambient. However, as I always say, if you're going to be a knock-off, be a knock-off of the best. In general, a pleasant recording.
Megan Heller

DAVE STAFFORD
CIRCULATIONCD
Studio Seventeen Productions P.O. Box 461363 Escondido, CA 92046 ambient@home.com
http://www.pureambient.com
Dave Stafford passes notes to self! Film at 11! Uh, the deal here is that Robert Fripp's Crafty Guitarists use "circulation" as a form unto itself, wherein they "pass" musical notes around the room, presumably in a circle. The resultant cacophony can be thrilling and dazzling, creating a sense of wonder in the players as well as the onlookers. Surrounding the room, one note and one location at a time. It's an interesting concept. So, Stafford's CD here aims to figger out if the shit can work when it's just one dude. Presumably using the various open tracks of his portastudio in place of other Crafties. I don't know if it worked for him as a player or not (musical shim-the-sausage produces varied results) but it's quite nice to listen to. The selection of notes and the length of the pauses between them combine to create a unique sound. It's as if there really are other players adding to the quiet melee. Hell, even if you don't give a mouse's tushie about the process, the music itself is sexy enough on its own. Ambient acoustic gweetar for the whole family.
Ian C Stewart

STATIC FILMS
EVERYONE IN MY TOWN MAKES ME SAD CD
Bluesanct Musak / POBox 14149 / Chicago, IL 60614 USA drekka7@hotmail.com
http://www.bluesanct.com
Holy hot GoD-DAmn!!!! If I could type the "GoD-DAmn" LOUDER, I would. Super mopey songs drenched in experimentalism and noise. The first track "85 Lbs. and Dropping" is worth the price of admission alone, starting with pure white noise which is elbowed out of the way by one of the most distraught expressions of cold, human melancholy in song I've heard in a year. DamnnNNn. The top song I've heard in the new millenium that makes me ACHE to cover it. The 2nd song recalls the very early goth / avant / industrial crossover before it was constrained to the chains of "Darkwave", in particular recalls the moody, post-industrial experimentalism of Slap (y'all kids ALL remember Slap don't you?). The lo-fi distortion applied to
the vocals render them suitably desolate. It's also a lot like a hometaper version of Pieter Nooten / Michael Brook's famous 4AD collaboration run through a distortion pedal. I LOOOOOOOOOVE this CD, its every bleak nook and grieving cranny. Everything on this CD makes me sad. Mopey Power!!!
c. reider

RUSS STEDMAN
PANIC CD
Hell-bent For Lather Records PO Box 89224, Sioux Falls, SD 57409 USA
http://www.hb4l.com
Extremely dark music, filtered through punk and classic rock sensibilities. "Ashamed" is an unhappy little dark number about, uh, shame. "So Fucking Happy" uses its sarcastic hooks and la la la's as a cover for some very moody lyrics. Indeed. "One of My Turns" is another Pink Floyd song I'm not familiar with. "Happy Pills" takes a riff-metal approach to the catharsis. Chugging through chord changes and sneery lyrics. Sweet. "Future Past" goes acoustic and recalls solo Bob Mould. "O Elvis" rounds out the set with piano and, uh, finger snapping. Stedman's voice sounds kind of Elvis Costello, maybe that's what it's about. Whatever it is, he's pissed.
Ian C Stewart

THE STINKING BADGER OF JAVA
IF IT'S FETISHES YOU'RE AFTER… CD
Yippie Bean PO Box 194 Rosanna 2084, Victoria Australia yippiebean@warehouse.net
http://www.warehouse.net/yippiebean/
Pro-produced, mature, acoustic guitar/co-ed vocals frenzy that combines aspects of the Church, Frente!, Fleetwood Mac, Body Full of Stars and Barenaked Ladies. But more. They add French horns, Tibetan bells, cello etc. to the rock band arsenal and fear not a hearty chuckle. "Monocotodyledan" even invokes the spirit of Frank Zappa with lyrics like "Aloe vera, why you've given birth". The micro-acoustic ballad "Bluelight Disco Supervisor" careens into "Frank", another acoustic ballady deal with female lead vocals. And French horn. Unique and engaging and with a big-picture concept to boot. Plus there's the long essay "The brass is drowning out the orchestra" set to solo piano. Stoned hippy bollocks? Perhaps. But there's no denying that this band sounds like no other.
Ian C Stewart

THE STINKING BADGER OF JAVA
IN A HIGHLAND EDEN CD
Yippie Bean PO Box 194 Rosanna 2084, Victoria Australia yippiebean@warehouse.net
http://www.warehouse.net/yippiebean/
More fiendishly eclectic acoustic space jazz folk rock tweaking the Zappa and pushing out the extremes even further on "Acorn" which has a nice pseudo-chorus of "bacteriaaaaaaaaaa." These are riffs that inspire teenage boys to rush to their guitars to try to figure them out firsthand. "Enhancer" kinda' rocks a bit-- that drum pattern doth rock. "The Sadder The Better" is all bass line, brushed drums, trumpet and co-ed vocals. The clear production makes this CD very easy on the ears…"Foldback Wedge" is almost a space folk jazz ballad with several hundred time changes. But the smoothed out bits with the "oooh" vocals and fingerpicked gweetar are fucking awesome. "Pissing Diamonds" rounds it out with another twitchy rhythm and nudge-wink vocals. Niiice. Their use of humor and odd time signatures is almost Canadian. Like the Microdots and…
Ian C Stewart

STRADION
DEAD FUCKING LAST
PO Box 771142 St. Louis, MO 63177 USA stradion@hotmail.com
Professionally recorded metal that's light years beyond what Jeremy was doing as Stradion back in the day. "Impulsive Reincarnation" leans towards 80s thrash, which is always welcome here. Always. And the harmonized guitar solo! Shit. That one part sounds like fucking Yngwie. "Resistance" veers almost toward Megadeth epic-ness. And the vocals are vaguely Mustainianishesque a little. Fucking hell, I didn't think anybody played guitar like that anymore. Did I say Megadeth? I mean Celtic Frost. All hail Celtic Frost or go home. So yeah, mean metal that doesn't fuck around with blast beats or rap. Just chugging riffs and Yngwie solos!
Ian C Stewart

SUPERSOFT [14-18]
L'ILE CONTINENT CD
Partycul System, 5 rue Abbe de l'epee, 51100 Reims France partycul@hotmail.com
Sounds like Nick Cave songs in French. Or Serge Gainsbourg. Ha! Had to say Gainsbourg because he was French too, wasn't he. Acoustic guitar, piano, vocals. Great production. Pro all the way.
Ian C Stewart

TAPEGERM
"MAKING THE RUN TO TRANSPONDER 5" MP3
455 east 400 south, suite 405, salt lake city, utah 84111 USA feedback@tapegerm.com
http://www.tapegerm.com
Looping collective Tapegerm this time includes samples and loops from hometaping all-stars Bev Stanton, Bryan Baker, Al Margolis, J. Mundok, Chris Phinney & Scott Carr all mixed by MJB. It kinda stutters along with various ambient elements filtering across. It's highly industrial in every sense. Sounding like a big time-stretching machine.
Ian C Stewart

THELECTRICK IDIOTS
Complicaton Number 27, PO Box 30 11 30, 04251 Leipzig Germany schlafpunx@gmx.net
Casio-driven hissy fake pop gunk. There are vocals. In German.
Ian C Stewart

THEME
ON PARALLEL SHORES REMOVED CD
Tremor Recordings 21 Fairndale Road, Knavesborough, N Yorks HG5 0NY UK greg.tremor@cwcom.net
Hypno-ambient with beats. Experimental, often noisy loops texture the background and create the mood - introspective at times, ready to party at other times. "Parallel Meaning Now (Parts 1 & 2)" opens the disc with a couple minutes of dirgey loop before the drum machine is turned loose. "Peninsula Rising" is sweet comedown music. Upper-register synth burbles with a straightforward drum machine pattern. Mmm yeah. I'll burp to that. This album recycles the best bits of Frippertronics, Future Sound of London, Main, Seefeel, Loop and Godflesh so obviously it rules. "Bi-coastal Separation" adds a drum and bass loop with the bass swoogling in backwards and a rad fucking flute loop, of which there's always room for more. "Torch Lights" adds female vocals to the stew. And it rules also.
Ian C Stewart

THINKING PLAGUE
IN EXTREMIS CD
Cuneiform Records / POBox 8427 / Silver Spring, MD 20907-8427 usa
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/thinking.html
http://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

TIMO
2000
KAW Tapes 94 Main Street, Forth, Lanarkshire ML11 8AB UK kawtapes@hotmail.com
Guitar, bass, drum machine and vocals. That voice, it's like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits and any other gravelly wordsmith you care to name.
Ian C Stewart

TINTY MUSIC
THE LEARNING CURVE VOL 3 CD
Kevin J. O'Conner / 6813 Weedin Pl. NE #101 / Seattle, WA 98115 usa
Another beautifully packaged release from Tinty Music. This guy must buy two color ink cartridges a week for his printer!! What is it this time? Upbeat synth instrumental tunes with mid-80's sounding synth patches and a total LACK of groove. The tracks are arranged chronologically, so that one can observe a progression or lack thereof in writing / programming style. In January, 1990 he likes clunky drum patterns which do not rock whatsoever. In February, he's not interested in drums, it's fast repeating patterns with slight melodic lines over the top. In March, things have calmed down a bit, but they don't progress much. Clunky drums are back, and everything still sounds like the soundtrack to Willy Wonka's Clinically Sterilized Midi-Automated Plastic Factory. In September & October, things get mildly weirder, and mildly less chromatic, but only mildly so. Finally by the last two tracks, inelegant drums and stiff, redundant melodies are disposed with entirely for a couple of nice ambient tracks, which are quite welcome by this time. In fact, it almost seems like the rest of the album is an argument for his ambient music. Well, you could have ambient music, OR you could have this other stuff...You know where I'm tossing MY hat.
c. reider

TIZZY
SCARY IN ADULTHOOD
Papercut Records PO Box 12011 Gainesville FL 32604 USA Papercut76@juno.com
New Wave/80s Punk three-girl Girly band with lots of energy, emotion & issues. Not a band for the average boy, I think, with song titles like "I hate football" and "A hand grenade in a hair salon" - which both rock - Tizzy could have played at Lilith Fair. And I mean that as a compliment. Imagine what the next Go-Go's album would have sounded like if they hadn't broken up when they did.
michelle nollan

TRANSCENDENCE - A DARK CULTURE SAMPLER CD compilation
Doppler Effect PO Box 6417 Beaverton, OR 97007 USA dfx@sonic-boom.com
http://www.sonic-boom.com/dfx
A neck-slapping compendium of noisy big beat and industrial dance tracks. Perfect soundtrack for a night out clad in black. Many of the tracks start with a screechy, noisy loop that paves the way for a fat-ass Chemical Brothers beat. The vocals tend toward the ghouly. I actually prefer instrumentals myself. But the production is pro throughout. I particularly enjoy SMP, the industrial synthpop of Triple Point, the ghouly new-romantic goth of Tri-state Killing Spree, the Skinny Puppy slap of Fiercer, the Aphex cut up of Thine Eyes and the trip-goth Attenuated Euphoria. It's dark, it's nice.
Ian C Stewart

TRESPASSERS W
LEAPING THE CHASM CD
Organic, 10 rue Bleriot - F-38100 Grenoble France org_land@club-internet.fr
http://www.conapt-sounds.com
Seasoned, description-defying genre-jumping abounds. Start with a smart rock band. Smart like Velvet Underground or Brian Eno or Laurie Anderson. Or Zappa. Add the drama of Nick Cave or Neubauten. Then sew all 20 songs up into a theme. And, uh, I'm still at a loss for words. The songs are epic and otherworldly, employing all manner of violins, flugelhorns, euphonia, sousaphones and samplers. They sneak in a cover version of the dormant Syd Barrett classic "Effervescing Elephant," done on brass instruments. Many of the songs have spoken lyrics over soundtrack music. "Gazza" is the most "normal" song here! And even it's from outer space. This must be a great album; it all goes totally over my head.
Ian C Stewart

TRIANGLE PARADISE
GLIMPSE CD
Vintage 2 Campus View Dr, Loudonville NY 12211 USA
http://www.triangleparadise.com
Sounds like a live recording. Rock band with vocals so far out front it could be mistaken for karaoke. Loose (or, if you prefer, "sloppy") playing with songwriting that tends toward the comfortable + familiar. That bit at the beginning of the second song, where it sort of gets quieter and a cowbell appears and the singer goes "I've got a bad feeling, something doesn't seem right." Yeah. You said it.
Ian C Stewart

TULVA-KOKOELMA CD compilation
Jere Laiho, Varuinkatu 12 AS2, 28100 Pori, Finland tulvaposti@hotmail.com
Lickably divergent styles abound. Unidentified sound objects. "NYC Robots" serves as fanfare (clipped and filtered as it may be), when the real party begins on Fellaz "Clear of Sin," a bitch-slapping hip-hop track. Then Velvolino's "Chevy Chase" comes flying in like Air reborn as a rockabilly band. Elsewhere, Office Building, Sleeping Bags, Hard-boiled Truck Drivers, Hektix, Echo Is Your Love and Babysweetcorn all turn in engaging appearances. Silwer "random" is a reverby Casio chase scene in the dark, through the rain. Tyttojen Ystava unloads a squelchy bit of Knight Rider funk from their trunk. Disco gets all screechy and Limp Bizkit on their turn. Explosive!
Ian C Stewart

UNHORSE
THE 1999 SESSIONS
Knot Music PO Box 501 South Haven, MI 49090-0501 USA
So, it's two guys who both contribute to the noisy (though occasionally musical) squeesh. One of them recites poetry somewhat rhythmically though in no way similar to rap. This is more, uh, for effect. And it's fucking annoying.
Ian C Stewart

VODKA CAMELS
MOLOTOV COCKTAIL CD
Ian Maxwell 60 Laburnum Gardens, Jarrow Tyne and Wear NE22 5NF UK ianmaxwell55@hotmail.com
http://www.vodkacamels.iuma.com
http://www.mp3.com/thevodkacamels
Intelligent pub rock? Mature guitar pop? "Breathe Underwater" is a modern mid-tempo rock track that sounds like a band from one of the free CDs that always come with UK music mags. Two guitars, bass and drums. And the singer's voice is distinct and reminds me of no one really. The guy from Spandau Ballet? Shit, I'd go to hell for saying such a thing. The production is nice and leaves nothing to the imagination. "Go Go Angel" is a swaggery moody little number that recalls Camper Van Beethoven's more Nick Cave moments. If they had any. "Molotov Cocktail" benefits from a sweetly distorted bass gweetar groove and an explosive middle eight. It rocks.
Ian C Stewart

WAGSTAFF
TAPE
216 Dividy Road, Stoke On Trent, 5T2 9JT UK
Joincey wrote "THIS TAPE IS A JOKE" on the cassette. I'm glad he's in on the joke! Uh, my man strums a guitar and vocalizes. The fidelity is what you'd expect from a "one pound cassette bought @ Didsbury Park Market May 2000" and "mixed on ten pound stereo tape" with digital mastering after the fact! As if!
Ian C Stewart

WHERE'S YOUR BEARD compilation
Mortville 713 Grace Street, Ottumwa, IA 52501 USA
650,000,000 bands on this 48-minute assemblage of grindcore and noise bands. Wadge hits the ground running on "Conceived In Shit Like a Pedigree Nothing" which sounds like a better-produced early Napalm Death. Captain Three Leg has the home field advantage and they sound sludgier and more spastic than ever. Also rocking the box are Violent Headache, Krabathor, Pissed Cunt, Drunken Orgy of Destruction and more! Buy an extra copy for your mom!
Ian C Stewart

MÅNS WIESLANDER
TWIN PILODA CD
Payola Records Box 5319 S-200 72 Malmö, Sweden
http://www.members.tripod.com/piloda
All the musicians in a small country know each other, so here's a CD by the bass player of those perennial favourites, the Moonbabies. Ola Frick also collaborated on this. Now: I know my eternal mentioning of David Sylvian is as irritating to readers as Ian's obsession for XTC, but I can't help it: this CD sounds like the best acoustic CD Sylvian never wrote. It's ten sweet ballads with just a little guitar flourishing and very little else to accompany a dark, throaty voice that's exactly Sylvian. I don't know whether Mans was aware he was being Sylvian or if he's a natural, but it's eerie. You know when Sylvian went a bit silly and started writing guitar ballads about love and Ingrid? Well, it's so like those songs it's scary. And now I feel guilty because on Måns' site there are several serious, professional reviews by other magazines, and poor little me only saying that he's good because he did a Sylvian CD.
Paola

THE WINTER BLANKET
HOPELESS LULLABY CD
Plow City PO Box 1604 Moline IL 61266 USA thewinterblanket@yahoo.com
http://www.plowcity.com
Alan Sparhawk from LOW produced this CD and sang on one track. Mimi Parker also from LOW also makes a guest appearance. And ya know how the Jetsons were basically just the Flintstones in different clothes?
Ian C Stewart not that it's a bad thing at all.

WROUGHT: IRONSMILE
THE WORLD IS SO COMPLEX
Complicaton Number 27, PO Box 30 11 30, 04251 Leipzig Germany schlafpunx@gmx.net
Another overly-packaged cassette from Florian, this time featuring venerable Canadian emo band Wrought:Ironsmile. Says here most of this stuff was recorded in 1997. That sounds about right. If you like songs that go from quiet to loud 30-40 times each, you'll shit yerself over this. The playing is good and the recording is pro. The songs are there. So yeah.
Ian C Stewart

JAY T YAMAMOTO + BRIAN NORING
TAPE SPLINTER
JTY Tapes 98-085 Puakukui Pl, Aiea HI 96701 USA
Dude, I'm moving to Aiea as soon as I finish this. "aaaaiiiiiieeeeaaaaaaaaaaaa!" It's the sound of me falling off a mountain of noise and sonic turbulence!
Ian C Stewart

ZACK
LET THE RECORD SPIN CD
Sunshine Sheen 3501 N Hoyne, Chicago IL 60618 USA zacks@mc.net
Dude, I just can't get past that fucking cover! That picture is some funny shit. The music? Oh. Uh. Let's see. Guy my age from my homestate does his best impression of the British Invasion. Good playing, grown up production, good songwriting. But that cover! Ha!
Ian C Stewart

ZANN CD compilation
Silber Records / POBox 18062 / Raleigh, NC 27619 usa remora1@juno.com
http://www.silbermedia.com
Yay, Brian John Mitchell! I dunno, I always want this guy to succeed, 'cause he seems like a nice guy. So he's put out two quite good CDs that I've heard for this issue. You go boy. So, this is a compilation of music
to scare away monsters, based on the H.P. Lovecraft story "the Music of Erich Zann". Starting with a suitably scary drone by Small Life Form manipulating the voice of Jarboe, we then head into a tune by frequent Jarboe accomplise pFrenz-C, who sings a little plainsong with guitar accompaniment, which becomes ghostly and smeared with more and more delay as it goes along. Then we get some pure goth with Trance to the Sun, drum machines, diffuse, effects laden guitar and girly singer. Not too bad, for a goth band really. I like the nice synth coda. Then a building drone built on static, which eventually takes on some of the characteristics of bagpipes, by Clang Quartet. Then, yet another Jarboe pal, weird guy Jerry Blue, who does a layered guitar drone with some drum machine clunking around in the background. SubArachnoid Space deals out the first, closest thing to a clunker the CD has delivered so far. An improvisation with a mellow freak-out flavour... not exactly horrible, but certainly not my cup of tea, and surely not warranted to take up almost 8 minutes of the CD. Origami Arktika up next gives up a breathy drone with one instrument that alternates between sounding like a saxophone and a guitar, I'm relatively sure it's one or the other. Nice. The Unquiet Void offers a claustrophobic, swirling, flangey mix of distant slamming doors, thunder and howling cats. Putting Plumerai after the last track shows Brian was paying a little bit of attention, the frequencies of the two tracks were similar enough to facilitate a nice seque, and I'm a fan of nice segues, so cheers! What it is, is a mellow rhythmic noise loop with a tinkling, Tubular Bells type synth part over it. Kinda cool. Aarktica render another nice whooshy guitar atmosphere, very similar to the no solace in sleep CD, also from Silber Records, reviewed elsewhere. The Pulling Kiss have a forward percussion part, drum machine + delay, making it stand out from the drones, but not necessarily in a good way. Their song also has an irritating piano part, and a sample of a grieving female voice. Shoulda pulled that fader way down on the piano track guys. Or something. Alchemia, I'm going to do a little PBK dance now... Yay, something new from PBK, YAY!!! OK, now that you know that I'm less than objective whenever it comes to anything with PBK in it, this is a creepy litany with the guy from Spahn Ranch chanting, and otherworldly processing from PBK. Did I mention that PBK is on this track yet? Well, he is. Oh, yeah, and PBK brings our total of Jarboe pals to 4, if I'm counting right. Next up Pineal Ventana, with a name sounding like some kinda STD, and they gots a violin loop with monkey screams and then some cutesy female torch singing over the top of it. Kind of a weird combination. Rollerball, come on, you coulda been Rollergirl, and if you'd've looked half like Heather Graham I'd've married your ass. They got a brief track where there's jazzy cymbal ride, and a female voice singing one looong note and some other strange noises sulking underneath. DA Sebasstian has a nice minimal background, with an obtuse rhythm and stringy guitar feedback, but an annoying voiceover kinda ruins it. Tore H. Boe whispers into a loop machine. For five fucking minutes. Remora plays with some kind of reed instrument, not an accordian, not a concertina, not a harmonica... I dunno what. It's all looped too. Then to end things out, noise pop superstar Drekka has a cute little tone joke that makes you laugh even as it's piercing your eardrums. A mostly good ambient compilation.
c. reider

ZANN CD Compilation
Silber Records PO Box 18062 Raleigh NC 27619 USA
http://www.silbermedia.com
Music to scare away monsters. That's the premise anyway. Sounds more like monster-music to scare away people though. Which is to say: ghouly, antisocial ambience. Isolationist at times. Pfrenz-C lets another of his patented ghoul-folk songs smother under a noize loop on "Blue Places," which is nice. Trance to the Sun takes a light-industrial goth approach with clipped drum machine, airy keys and moody female vocals run through a cathedral of reverb. It rocks. Many tracks serve only to unsettle and to give rise to the hallucination of spiders crawling on ones neck. Or, um, cobwebs. The Pulling Kiss kinda reenacts a torture sequence or something with the weeping sample loop and the foreboding piano bit. Sounds like torture to me, I'm skipping to the next track. Alchemia, which is PBK & a dude from Spahn Ranch. Suitably ghoul-ambient but with gothic drones & vocals. Ritual music for being burned to death in a cave of fire. Far underground. In a lair. I should be writing this by candlelight and with leather pants on. Silber house band Remora sneaks in a short little piece before Drekka comes on all distorted and spooky. Like you'd expect.
Ian C Stewart

ZAPRUDER RED
GLASSBLOWER CD
http://www.zapruderred.net
OK, so it's unfair, but the title Glassblower puts me in the mind of Download, which these guys are resolutely NOT. The thing is, if you're going to list Richard James, AND an avant-garde guy in your sleeve notes, and then have a CD title that brings to mind Download, then I'm going to expect some SERIOUSLY fucked up techno. On the other hand, this is ultimately enjoyable electronica, if a little sterile. It sounds like the guys in this band scored one of those all-in-one techno/synth/drum machine and had some fun playing with the preset sounds, which is ok really, those machines have some great sounds. The flavor is maybe somewhere in the region occupied by the Chemical Brothers. The best track to me was "Puerco" which has a nice groove, and some nice changes, a decent sound, and I think that may be a sample of someone like Philip Glass in there too. Or maybe it's a sample of Harry Partch since they thank him in the sleeve notes. I just assumed they'd've sampled him on the track called "Partched", which they probably do. The guys have got some great samples throughout, really. My wish is that they'd get a little more involved with melody, or really fuck up the sounds a bit more, but that's just my trip, I guess. It rocks, just not the way I wanted it to.
c. reider

THE END: THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT