Snakes of Pennsylvania’s eponymous release was among Field Hymns’ final releases of 2016. It should be noted that last year was a fantastic year for the label, and it remains one of my favorites. Field Hymns is usually my go-to spot for analog synth jams, but I always like a good deviation from expectations. The album remains in fairly subdued territory throughout, so maybe we aren’t too far afield after all.
Starting from the middle, with “Instrumental One,” we find a simply stated, spacious, analog synth-based track. There are a limited number of layers, which keeps the texture uncomplicated and focused. “Instrumental One” is based around a simple, descending minor third motive entering after a brief ambient introduction. A dissonant second line then begins to counter the motive, before fading into a lulling and bright coda.
The track that follows, “The Human,” may contrast arrangement-wise, but is agonizingly beautiful nonetheless. The hushed guitar melody comes from the same world as the quiet moments of any Explosions in the Sky song. However, here a single guitar fills the role of Explosions’ three while still managing to capture the ambiance in between the notes as they gather.
“Attack of Lyme” adds to the album’s already varied palette with a plucked steel string acoustic adding more presence to the sound. Synth sounds skitter across the landscape as fingers skid down guitar strings in the foreground. A similar acoustic guitar sound appears throughout “Kolbojnik,” which features an even more patient construction by taking long breaths between fragmented melodies within a minute long framework.
“Snakes of Pennsylvania” successfully melds ambient analog synth sounds with guitars that both compliment and contrast. The synth sounds end up adding, surprisingly, to the Americana sounds generated by steel string guitars.
Find “Snakes of Pennsylvania”:
A limited number of cassettes are still available on the Field Hymns bandcamp page. As with any album on bandcamp, of course it is available as a download in any format you can imagine.
Released last month, Bam Spacey’s “1998” is an album of layered synths and minimal textures. One moment we’re left floating in a hazy realm emerging from warm extended tones, for example in the opening introduction. Other moments are much more clearly built around pop structures with clear harmonies sung over top of those layers of ambience. A track like “Markbildning (II)” floats lazily between these two worlds; it’s ambient and minimal, while the vocal melody holds to its own regular phrasing, tracing strophes, spaced out with ambient interludes.
Echoes of Tim Hecker, from a timbral standpoint, pop up through the texture from time to time, such as on “Markbildning (II).” That dark ambience is, however, mostly left behind on “Upplyst,” a track featuring prominent drums and a pulsation that approaches traditional electronic dance music. This is also the case with “Ropar Från En Avgrund;” it actually breaches the line straight into more dance oriented territory.
Most of the album drifts across slowly, enveloping the listener in pure sound that languishes for extensive periods nearly undisturbed. The layers of synths are ripples on the water and Bam Spacey uses a delicate hand to slowly add more to those ripples while making sure that they don’t turn into overbearing waves. The ethereal quality of the atmospherics is maintained throughout the album, forming a cohesive whole that manages to straddle the boundaries of synth-driven ambience and dance music.
“1998” is available now as a download from the Ceremony Recordings bandcamp page, and is also available as a limited vinyl release. There will only be 300 copies in the first pressing, so head over to the Ceremony Recordings website to pick up a copy.
I’ve been a fan of Baths since the debut “Cerulean” was released in the summer of 2010. It didn’t really grab me at first, but I think that it really served as my gateway into electronic music in a lot of ways. I would always try to listen to Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin and other stuff and not really understand it, but when “Cerulean” came around it was really the first full album of electronic music that I could really connect with.
So, I think that, of course, there is some sort of sentimental value hearing this new track, but it’s pretty much undeniably good. “Ocean Death” is the name of the new EP that just came out last week, and is the name of the opening track, heard above. It’s darker in tone than anything on “Cerulean,” and pretty straight forward in comparison.
The opening track is pretty much a 3 part form with the outer parts taking the bulk of the track, and a brief contrasting middle section that drops everything only to build the structure back up again. The latter presentation of the original material features a bit of a development, which is probably a good thing because the first minute or so of the track has a tendency to feel like it is just sort of sitting there, and it just needs to move.
Nice thick bass timbres and a straightforward, moderate tempo dance beat accompany the opening of the song with a fairly static vocal that approaches from behind a perspective shifting harmonic progression. It’s pretty simple as far as songs go, but still effective in creating a darker mood, and captures the breathy, subtle scratchiness of some of the tracks on “Cerulean.”
Baths is currently on tour across the US. Check the tour dates below. “Ocean Death” is currently available as a download from iTunes.
North American Tour Dates w/ Young Fathers & P. Morris:
04/24/2014
The Space – Hamden, CT
04/25/2014
The Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
04/27/2014
Port City Music Hall – Portland, ME
04/30/2014
Bones Gate Fraternity – Hanover, NH
05/01/2014 S.A.T – Montreal, CA
05/02/2014
Ritual – Ottawa, CA
05/03/2014
Horseshoe Tavern – Toronto, CA
05/04/2014
Magic Stick – Detroit, MI
05/05/2014
Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI
05/08/2014
The Vogue – Indianapolis, IN
05/09/2014
Concord Music Hall – Chicago, IL
05/10/2014
Triple Rock Social Club – Minneapolis, MN
When a song starts a particular way I start expecting certain things to happen. I can imagine exactly how the track is going to go, and unfair or not this is how I listen. But, I think that we all do that. We’re expecting, and as we listen we are providing ourselves with a set of parameters based upon what it is that we normally listen to. Within the first couple seconds of a track we have all sorts of information regarding timbre and tempo and genre, and we start to pare down the realm of possibilities for what we are hearing, basing our judgment of whether it is “good” or “bad” upon these expectations.
Now, with this track, “Luau,” I was definitely starting to expect a bit of an aleatoric, sound exploration. The way it begins just basically sets up this whole premise. The slow groan of the low frequency that is barely audible at the outset underneath squeaking, glitching, scattered electronic sounds. Those scattered squeaks sounds like something out of one of John Cage’s Imaginary Landscapes, but before very long everything begins to congeal, and what grows from these disparate sounds is more akin to IDM, perhaps calling to mind a proto-Autechre. An echoed voice comes into the mix which adds a nice extra layer and a depth to the structure.
The concluding gesture, a fade-out of sorts, occurs rather quickly, but hints at the congealed sounds’ dispersal, returning from where they came.
This track comes from Naucke’s 2nd LP, “Seed,” released by Spectrum Spools and is currently available for order from Forced Exposure. You can also check out Spectrum Spool’s Facebook page, and the Forced Exposure site (highly recommended) for more. You may also purchase the album as a download here.
Fennesz’s latest offering, “Bécs,” manages to find a way to balance electronic and acoustic compositional techniques where neither approach seems to take precedence over the other. From start to finish each track explores atmospheres that range from pure, amorphous clouds of sound that ebb and swell turning over and fold into themselves to allow various shadings of their harmonic palette become exposed and explored; to more traditionally beat oriented tracks that bring bright acoustic guitar sounds into the mix.
While “Pallas Athene” explores the former–the more amorphous sound-world–a track like “Bécs” places a more standard harmonic rhythm and progression into a structural role. The opening of that track investigates the overtones of a single attacked string, but before long the sound is granulated, it begins to feed back on itself, and a hazy cloud forms all around it until the very sound that opened the work sinks to the background. Though that string attack remains audible, one must work a little harder at times to really hear it and it becomes more a backbone than anything, the exact source of every sound that surrounds it. So, is it really that much in the background after all?
And these timbral, structural considerations aren’t the only way to look at this album. The emotive quality of something like the titular track should not be overlooked. The suspended melody and delicate harmonic underpinning, though shrouded in swirling granulation, is no less effective. When that cloud of overdriven haziness dissipates suddenly, though gently, at the end of the piece, one begins to truly feel the full weight of the track. That ending, the stripping away of everything, brings about a pretty satisfying resolution.
I would have to say that the standout track to me is “Liminality.” The 10 minute track moves from ambience to solo guitar, and back to electronics that sound similar to one of Tim Hecker’s works on “Ravedeath 1979.” The guitar line’s suspended dissonances ring out, and their resolutions are held back as far in the beat as possible, wringing as much tension out of each pitch as they can bear.
Overall, the album is successful at taking a fairly unique approach to electronic music, eschewing pure laptop sounds for a mix of synthesis and acoustics. Fennesz’s style of electro-acoustic music is at once engaging and exciting, intriguing and emotive, and simply put needs to be heard.
“Bécs” is out now through Editions Mego and can be picked up here on vinyl, CD, or as your choice of download. Samples of the album can be heard by following this link.
First of all Bleep’s website makes it ridiculously difficult to listen to anything at all. You can listen to each track in pieces because after the 30 second sample is up you have to slide the player over to the next 30 seconds etc. etc. I mean, I can understand why they do it, but I would be happier being able to hear one entire song than having to mess with the player to hear detached pieces of a track.
Thankfully Ninja Tune, the label that released “Ghosts of Then and Now,” was kind enough to upload some of the tracks to Youtube.
Anyway, the reason that I head over to Bleep regularly is, well they send me their newsletter, and I’ve been listening to a lot of Autechre lately and it has given way to a new fascination with electronic music and it’s where you can get Autechre’s albums. So, I’ve been looking for similar artists to broaden my horizons.
Listening to Illum Sphere (as much as I can anyway), with the ultra thick bass and synth that buzzes through most of the tracks, it reminded me in some ways to Baths’ “Cerulean” album from a few years back. But there’s also hints at proto-IDM like Kraftwere, which I hear heaps of in “Sleeprunner.” The kraut-rock, motorik sound has an undeniable influence throughout the track with its heavily cyclical and repetitive synth line, though it takes a gradual turn toward the end.
The album has been out for a few weeks now, and it’s a really interesting listen, worth checking out. From the motorik synths of “Sleeprunner” to the Wurlitzer sound of the titular track, there is a lot to grab onto. I wouldn’t quite say that it’s similar to Boards of Canada, but it’s definitely closer to their output than it is to anything Autechre has done. Check out “Sleeprunner” (above) and “Ghosts of Then and Now.” (below) The album can be ordered from Bleep on CD, 2xLP, or various downloads, as well as on iTunes. And if you head to Bleep, you too can have fun trying to use the audio player. Hours of enjoyment. Test your skill.
Some brand-new, not yet released, stuff coming your way today from Field Hymns records. I’ve written about some of their releasesbefore and I’m always impressed with what I hear. In case you aren’t aware, Field Hymns is a small label based out of Portland, Oregon, and they release a fairly steady stream of electronic and experimental tapes. Today I’ve got two new ones to share with you.
Black Unicorn – “Traced Landscapes”
First up is Akron, Ohio’s Black Unicorn with their album “Traced Landscapes.” Trance inducing, retro synthed out 8-bit landscapes come in and out of focus. One minute pulsing delicately, while buzzing melodies cut through the atmospherics the next. Tracks are focused squarely upon one idea, and that singularity holds time in place for just a little while before it’s gone, only to be replaced by the next hypnotic transcendence.
Listening to a track like “Seafowl in Silhouette” one can’t help but focus their thoughts inward. Think of Boards of Canada slowed down 100x. The waves of sound don’t so much crash over you as they do envelop you. Black Unicorn is able to create the kind of sonic space that, in some pretty amazing ways, completely shifts our temporal perceptions.
There are also songs like “Trans-Dimensional Railway” that pay due to Kraftwerk. The kraut-rock, electro pulse is definitely there, even floating there in the background after everything around it completely falls apart, leaving us with the sensation of temporarily floating through space. It’s as though the ground has been pulled completely out from under us and instead of falling we float off into the night sky. Pretty interesting way to have temporal considerations create the divisions between sections of a song.
The next release that I have is “Temple Swords” by Cane Swords (also from Akron), a self described “synth exploration.” Comparing and contrasting with Black Unicorn, Cane Swords also create music that breaks free from music’s traditional treating of temporality, but they are doing so in completely the opposite way. Where once there was a homogenous landscape that created hypnotic trances, there is now an ever changing and intricately woven fabric of sounds that whirl in and out of range. Much more spacey, ethereal and in a lot of ways, kind of intense. Recommended if you like Morton Subotnick, as it says on their release, is pretty accurate. Tape composition practices are given an updated process, creating similar highly descriptive sound collages.
They do also have their darker, more ambient moments. Slower development across a long form composition, such as the “Telegraph One” and “Telegraph Two” suites, take a bit of a different approach to sound collage, stripping away some material to create a more homogenous sound. Overall the entire tape is full of some pretty enchanting stuff.
Both these tapes will be released on February 14th and will make the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for that special person in your life. Check out all the stuff that Field Hymns has to offer over on their site, including info on future releases, and listen to the tracks above. There are plenty more on the Field Hymns Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages.
To me, anticipating the release of the new Boards of Canada album was significantly more exciting than anticipating the release of the new Daft Punk album. I’m not sure why, over time, I have learned to associate the two acts, but I do for some reason. And regardless of their similarities and differences, the Boards of Canada album, in the end, was worth the wait.
My gateway drug that got me into BOC was this fan made video for their song ROYGBIV, off of their “Music Has the Right to Children” album from 1998. The video captures perfectly the nostalgic elements that all BOC songs and albums exude. Even after hearing ROYGBIV, I did still find it difficult to get into their music. It became one of those things where I kept trying to listen to albums and I just didn’t get it, I just couldn’t make it through, there was not connection with me.
“Tomorrow’s Harvest” was my breakthrough with BOC. You can never explain why something finally takes hold, or when and why you just start to “get” it. Most of the time, for me, it is that I need to come to an album right as it is released. That’s how it worked with Arcade Fire for me, I couldn’t get into them until I heard “The Suburbs,” and that album made me change my feelings about the band completely (their music anyway).
I know that there are whole message boards and sites where fans go to dissect Boards of Canada songs and find hidden meaning and secret codes and really try to get into what makes the songs work. I (naturally) love that. I love that a band can inspire so many people into music analysis. That’s a good thing. When people are not only enjoying the music, but feeling compelled to find deeper meaning beyond just their enjoyment, that is unique. Not many bands inspire that kind of dedication.
Based on the marketing campaign that preceded this album’s release shows how well Boards of Canada knows their fans, and how they are acutely aware of their dedication to decoding multiple layers of meaning in the music. Maybe it’s that dedication that gives the music of Boards of Canada some agency. Finding things that are worth discovering in the music; things that spark conversation can only help it to become elevated.
From the sly “and now for your feature presentation” type intro that comprises the first few seconds of the opening track, that seems to nod to its fans that “yes, it has been 8 years since our last album, but we are back.” Of course, an absence such as the one that came between 2005’s “The Campfire Headphase” and “Tomorrow’s Harvest” will inspire excitement among any fanbase, but in this instance in particular it seems warranted.
BOC’s use of vintage synths, the most obvious and immediately recognizable component of their sound, now seems to comment on the grittiness of chillwave bands that try to capture the same sense of nostalgia, reminding us that they came first.
There’s something not so vaguely cinematic about the songs across “Tomorrow’s Harvest.” A song like “Telepath,” though brief, contains so much content. From the floating, fog-like, minor key suspended in air through extended synth drones, to the echoed, robotic, Kraftwerk-like voice reading numbers over the top, coming off as some sort of numbers station that both adds to the strange aura that surrounds the song while also most like providing some sort of code that I’m sure has been decoded by their fans on a message board already.
As abstract as what I’m about to say is, I don’t think that anyone that has heard the album will disagree that the album cover matches the sound of the album particularly well. The last time I felt so strongly about such a thing was when I felt the connection between the gritty, scratched out and fuzzy cover photograph on Women’s “Public Strain.” The hazy sunrise on this album cover personifies the waves of ambience present, not below the surface of the tracks, but right out front.
I think that that is what Boards of Canada is best at – curating a sound and finding ways to focus on that ambience and timbre, using timbre as the structural touchstone for each of the compositions on an album. That’s the element that they focus on, or so it seems, and that is what allows them to build their songs. Timbre, though, is more than just sound quality here. The pacing, the way that the melodies are stitched together and their choice of harmonic structure (that is itself propped up by the timbre), they all fit together to create the sound of the album.
This is the 2nd Warp records release this year that I have been really floored by, the other one being Autechre’s “Exai.” Definitely an album worth returning to, or if you have not had the chance to experience “Tomorrow’s Harvest” yet this year, make it a point to do so soon. “Tomorrow’s Harvest” may be Boards of Canada’s best album to date.
I’ve been listening to this album a lot lately, and though I don’t typically like to do reviews this long after an album has come out (“Exai” was released back in February), some things came to mind when I was listening to it last week (not necessarily related only to this album, but to their other work as well) and I thought that they were worth sharing. I also feel that a duo such as Autechre that creates music that is unique, thoughtful, challenging and intricate is always worth talking about.
On “Exai,” more so than on past releases, Autechre finds a balance between repetition and eccentricity. Unlike the tracks on “Confield” (my personal favorite of theirs, though this album is working its way up the ranks, for sure) where the object of each song, or most of them anyway, seems to be to explore temporality and shifting time-streams. Though these explorations are not done in the same way as phase music, rather they do so in way that is akin to the work of Elliott Carter or Conlon Nancarrow where melodic lines of different lengths are performed at different tempi only to line up at a specific, calculated point.
These intricate, premeditated rhythms became the basis of “Confield.” Songs like “VI scose poise” bring out these temporal shifts to a degree, opening with a delicate timbre that resembles a spinning top, or a ceaselessly spinning quarter on a table. This track in particular, its opening, makes use of metric borrowings, switching to tuplets, and sometimes tuplets inside other tuplets, which gives the the listener the impression of varying tempi despite the constant pulse (remember what I said about Pink Mountain?). In this way our sense of time, our temporal footing, is disturbed. Not too many artists take full advantage of realizing the potential of this kind of effect, or manipulating this dimension in music.
Moving to “Exai” the foundation of the tracks relies mostly upon shifts in complexity, from the fairly straightforward “bladelores” to the densely layered and highly complex “jatevee C.” The trick with listening to Autechre, and this album in particular, is to listen for things one may not usually listen for in music. For example, changes in density, subtle color shifts over melodic lines akin to klangfarbenmelodie. Speaking of those color shifts, the overall timbres used throughout “Exai” are, for the most part, decidedly darker. I mean darker in the most specific way possible, referring to the characteristics of the soundwaves and where the harmonics are amassed.
Although there are brittle, piercing resonances. For example throughout “YJY UX” there are sounds in the extremes of the high register that are balanced by other melodic lines in the mid-range. This, to me, is an interesting component of Autechre’s music and the way that they construct songs. When there are extremely high sounds, the complex percussion often creates the low foundation which leaves a nice bit of space in the mid-range for any motion, or melodic activity.
Listening to “YJY UX” one can hear certain bands of frequencies dropping out to make room for other melodic lines that are of more interest to fill in those spaces. The highest pitched material does serve as simply a ceiling of repeated high gestures that soar over top of everything, yet they are not rawn to the ear as a melody. The line is the highest, and in some ways periodically the loudest as a result) and yet it manages to steer clear of becoming the primary focus. By and large this is not the case in most other songs – not just most other songs on the album, I mean in general.
The music of Autechre is a music that resists all passivity. One can not listen to anything by Autechre passively. The activity and complexity of the music demands our attention. Listening passively is nearly impossible, and certainly pointless. The duo has even made it difficult to recognize songs by track name, often times appearing to be random letters, numbers and other ASCII characters. A lot of the track names apparently come from file names of samples that are used in a song, while others may be from inside jokes between Brown and Booth.
Album opener “Fleur” begins with a wildly energetic rhythm that eventually fizzles to near silence. “T ess xi” features some nice chord voicings at the beginning that make use of different resolutions of a suspended pitch to create motion through a standard 8 bar phrase. The first 4 bars end with a dissonant resolution, and that is finally resolved the next time around in the final measure of the next phrase, connecting it to the beginning again. After each cycle of this chord progression another layer is added. From skittering drums to bright syncopated stabs in cyclical rhythmic patterns that are lined up such that they accentuate the aforementioned suspensions. The melodic material shifts and swirls around these elements, building to its highest density before taking a step back by stripping away material. The final section of the song distills the essence of the opening chords to only two alternating harmonies that work to accomplish the same forward motion as the beginning, this time re-appropriating it as closing material.
“nodezsh” resists all attempts at finding a steady pulse, but the more that the song comes into focus the less it can hide. The track features similar metric borrowing as “VI scose poise” but the hi-hat sound keeps the rhythm a bit more honest, giving the listener something to hold onto at points. There is also another element at work in this song and that is the manipulation of distance. Some of the timbres in this song are notably more echoed, providing the listener with a sense of distance, we feel that the sound is coming from further away than some of the other elements that may be up front. This is not just a result of levels in the mix, but about changing the profile of the sounds. Think about the doppler effect, or how distant sounds in the real world are effected by the space between you and the sound. Certain frequencies travel further than others, so the more distant a sound the fewer frequencies will make it to our ear, subtly altering the overall sonic profile of the sound. It’s about overall volume, but it is more about the ratio of certain frequencies to one another.
Though some may disagree, I think that “Exai” is one of the group’s most enjoyable albums. Clocking in at just over 2 hours it’s safe to say that the scope of the album is epic. Three tracks break the 10-minute mark, while there are several over 6 minutes. I don’t see this as putting the album at a disadvantage though. There is so much to listen to and so many interesting ideas flowing through each of the tracks, though not necessarily one overarching m.o. If you’ve been scared to get into Autechre, or haven’t really heard much by them that grabs you, start with “Exai.”
There is also a new EP coming out on October 28th, “L-event,” which can be ordered by clicking the link below. “Exai” is out now as 2xCD, 4xLP or iTunes download.
You may not imagine a tiny blog like mine that nobody reads would get a steady stream of free music sent to their inbox, but I do. It takes a lot of effort (that 9 chances out of 10 is not worth it) to comb through all of the music that I am thrown on a weekly basis. Hundreds of hours of music.
I get into these moods where I want to listen to something that I have never heard before, or even heard of before. That’s where Burn Down the Capital comes in and never lets me down. I met the dude that not only runs that site, but also puts together crazy shows of the most outside music you could ever imagine across Toronto, several years ago. So, that link might be of a bit more help to you if you live in and around the Toronto area if you’d like to actually check out any of the shows that are posted to the site.
Last week the email he sent out included info about a gig that Philadelphia’s David Harms, aka Mincemeat or Tenspeed, was putting on. I checked it out and got exactly what I wanted. Noisy, challenging music. If you are a fan of early Dan Deacon or Merzbow (or both) then you should check this out. He creates music with “No synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, musical instruments.” His only tools are effects pedals and a mixer. What he does with that limited inventory is pretty amazing.
Ranging from pure noise-ambience to electronic pulsations of distorted glitches, he’s got it covered from top to bottom. And the truly great news for you is that there is a great deal of his music that is available for download for free. If you are having a hard time trying to decide where to start, I think that “Live in Black Ops,” “The Tower,” and “Dungeon Master” are where to go. Interesting sidenote that the Soundcloud page claims Providence as his location (perhaps that is more current?) and that the “Dungeon Master” album includes the track “Mindflayer,” also the name of fellow Providence noise master Brian Chippendale’s bands. Check out some of these tracks and then head over here and download.
