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Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:36 pm
by cybot
Here it is:



Indignant Senility is one of the many projects of Portland, Oregon artist Pat Maherr, who initially gained some recognition with his Chopped & Screwed hip-hop experiments Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting and DJ Yo-Yo Dieting. But where those projects displayed a -perhaps involuntarily- amusing, yet definitely progressive deconstruction of the archetypes of modern hip-hop, Indignant Senility is an altogether more unfathomable beast.

Maherr’s first album under the IS moniker was Plays Wagner, on which he took used and over-used LPs of the great German composer’s work and pushed them through a waterfall of effects, resulting in an unsettling drone soup out of which sudden bursts of classical melody were rare rays of light in a torrid catalogue of shadows. Inevitably, such a focus on vinyl drew often unfavourable comparisons with Philip Jeck and The Caretaker, so it’s reassuring to find that on Consecration of the Whipstain (surely a strong contender for the title of most peculiar album title of the year), Maherr has put all that behind him and found his own voice.

If anything, Consecration of the Whipstain sees Indignant Senility tracking back slightly to take in a bit of the DJ Screw attitude (Screw-titude?) that made Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting’s Bubblethug (2010, Weird Forest) such a triumph. The clearest indication of this lies in the murky, incomprehensible vocal snippets that crop up here and there across the album, from the creepy muttered utterances on ‘Waking Extirpation’ to the ghostly choirs that hesitantly punctuate ‘No One (Elapsed)’. Rather ironically, Consecration of the Whipstain seems to hone in on the haunted vibe that characterises the best Caretaker records, whilst simultaneously and completely throwing off the sense of derivation that dogged Plays Wagner. As such, on ‘No One (Elapsed)’ – a truly evocative track title, it must be noted – Maherr’s dense clouds of digital murk recede to make way for elusive swirls of distant strings playing melancholy melodies before disappearing back into the ether. Rather than focus on them, Maherr lets them dissolve, making them truly ghostly. The track packs a potent emotional punch, yet also remains tantalisingly intangible, like memories that refuse to stay in focus.

Despite allowing such nostalgic fare to fade in and out of his album, Pat Maherr is no sentimentalist. Consecration of the Whipstain may have its moments of elegant mystery and impalpable emotion, but when it does surge into focus, it’s one scary beast. Type Records, surely on of the best labels around at the moment, has made a habit lately of releasing material that taps into the dark pits of the world in ways that Ian Curtis or Boyd Rice could only have dreamed of. From Xela’s In Bocca al Lupo to William Fowler Collins’ New Mexican nightmare Perdition Hill Radio, via the icy claustrophobia of Svarte Greiner’s Kappe, Type have given free rein to artists wanting to explore the nocturnal, the histrionic and the funereal with morbid abandon. In this context, Consecration of the Whipstain feels like another chapter in Type’s glorious book of horrors. ‘Color Absolution’, for example, is dominated by a dirge-like organ tone that drifts along underneath Maherr’s fog-like drones, as if the Phantom of the Opera had upped sticks to Oregon, organ and all, and was playing a dismal solo lament from on top of an abandoned building in downtown Portland during a rainstorm. Ok, so that’s a rather contrived image, but it does go some way to conveying the way the music of Indignant Senility can so expertly balance the forlorn and the nocturnal. Towards the end of the track, Maherr comprehensively dispenses with any banal comparisons with hauntology by dumping a hideous (in the best possible sense of the word) lump of crackling noise all over the track, submerging the hesitant melodies under a shovel load of gravelly mulch. When the elegiac strings and ambience return, it’s as if they’ve been definitively perverted, their grace coloured by unavoidable nightmarish hues. If hauntology has seemed a tad saccharine of late, Indignant Senility drags it back into the post-noise underground it emerged from.

So is Consecration of the Whipstain a wondrous slice of “memory music” or a terrifying avalanche of “horror music”, in the vein of the aforementioned Xela or Svarte Greiner? Thankfully, it’s both and neither. For sure, there are moments on Maherr’s latest that will leave you unsettled and even afraid, but at the same time there’s something elegiac in the way long lost tunes seem to fight their way to the surface of the mix, in the same way that the submerged notes of ‘Autumn’ on Gavin Bryars’ Sinking of the Titanic somehow manage to turn that album’s sense of sadness into hope. Consecration of the Whipstain is a strong, unflinching statement by an artist increasingly on top of his game. Whilst it may be a troubling listen, it’s also unerringly moving.

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 6:30 pm
by cybot
American vinyl....


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Cliff Heidorn - Atwater copy #57...





Limited edition of 125 hand-stained, hand-numbered and silkscreened copies, including hand-placed bones of local trees.
Includes a photograph insert with the album credits printed on 80# linen card stock and a coupon with download code.

Also available on bandcamp...

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:57 pm
by cybot
Early electronic bliss.....featuring an American pioneer and two BBC Radiophonic girls among others. But you knew that already.



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Tod Docstader


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Delia Derbyshire

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More Derbyshire


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Daphne Oram - Deluxe 4 Lp set at 45 rpm

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:16 pm
by jadarin
cybot wrote:Early electronic bliss.....featuring an American pioneer and two BBC Radiophonic girls among others. But you knew that already.



Image
Tod Docstader


Image
Delia Derbyshire

Image
More Derbyshire


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Daphne Oram - Deluxe 4 Lp set at 45 rpm
Dermot,I watched a programme a while back,can't remember the name but there was some great footage of Delia Derbyshire in the BBC workshop
studio,it was amazing to watch her at work,unbelievably time consuming just to get one simple sound,with all the sticking of the analogue
reels together.That was some place to work i'd say...

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:37 pm
by cybot
jadarin wrote:
cybot wrote:Early electronic bliss.....featuring an American pioneer and two BBC Radiophonic girls among others. But you knew that already.



Image
Tod Docstader


Image
Delia Derbyshire

Image
More Derbyshire


Image
Daphne Oram - Deluxe 4 Lp set at 45 rpm
Dermot,I watched a programme a while back,can't remember the name but there was some great footage of Delia Derbyshire in the BBC workshop
studio,it was amazing to watch her at work,unbelievably time consuming just to get one simple sound,with all the sticking of the analogue
reels together.That was some place to work i'd say...
Hi John! I'll have to find that footage but I'm pretty sure I've seen it :) Would you believe I tried to emulate her efforts with 'real' tape loops using the exact same method but on a much smaller scale! It worked too :)


BTW what did you make of the Indignant Senility album? And the Cliff Heidborn album? You can let me down gently ;)

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 8:53 pm
by jadarin
I really like that Cliff Heidborn album,i love that Dean mc Phee guitar sound he gets at times..
As for the Indignant Senility album,i had some trouble downloading it from Bleep yesterday,paid for it but couldn't
download the file,a problem from the Bleep side of things..So haven't had a listen yet,maybe a bit later...

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:04 pm
by jadarin
Dermot,
I'd say the 'real' tape loops experiment drove you mad!!Seriously time consuming but well worth it.I don't know if i'd have the patients.
Wouldn't you love to put the lads from Westlife into that environment..Now that would be a reality tv show that i'd watch with pleasure:)

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:10 pm
by cybot
jadarin wrote:I really like that Cliff Heidborn album,i love that Dean mc Phee guitar sound he gets at times..
As for the Indignant Senility album,i had some trouble downloading it from Bleep yesterday,paid for it but couldn't
download the file,a problem from the Bleep side of things..So haven't had a listen yet,maybe a bit later...
Delighted to hear that! You should definitely check out Steven R Smith's stuff too....

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:13 pm
by cybot
jadarin wrote:Dermot,
I'd say the 'real' tape loops experiment drove you mad!!Seriously time consuming but well worth it.I don't know if i'd have the patients.
Wouldn't you love to put the lads from Westlife into that environment..Now that would be a reality tv show that i'd watch with pleasure:)
Ha ha that would be priceless :) And you're, right the tape loops did drive me insane :) Now it's so easy! We used to have a sampler in the studio and I was terrified of it lol! Now I have one on the iPad and it's so easy to use! Definitely opens up loads of possibilities. I love it!

Re: Electronica - what are you listening to?

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:43 pm
by cybot
Steven R Smith - 'Old Skete' vinyl...


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http://worstward.bandcamp.com/album/old-skete


Dave Miller - Foxy Digitalis

Most of you probably know Steven R. Smith by now. Since his solo work hails back to 1995, you’ve had a whopping seventeen years to cross paths with him at some point.  And if you know anything about him at all you know that one word can sum up his career: guitar.  Throughout all his efforts, either under his own name or under his monikers Ulaan Kohl and Hala Strana, you know that you’re in for some serious guitar meditation.  The only thing that divides and defines each project is the expected form in which the guitar will take.  Sometimes medieval minstreling, reverb-ridden drone, or just electric guitar playgrounds.  Enter Old Skete.  We are reminded of the devotional theme of his work in 2008, The Anchorite. The title indicated a spiritual motif as an anchorite is a religious recluse, someone who holes themselves off from the world in search for continued spiritual dedication and growth.  Skete therefore is not to be confused with what you think you hear Lil John and the Ying Yang Twins rapping about in the song Get Low.  No, it is actually a word that refers to a monastic type community.  Here’s how Wikipedia currently describes it: “Skete communities usually consist of a number of small cells or caves that act as the living quarters with a centralized church or chapel. These communities are thought of as a bridge between strict hermetic lifestyle and communal lifestyles since it was a blend of the two. These communities were a direct response to the ascetic lifestyle that early Christians aspired to live. Skete communities were often a bridge to a stricter form of hermitage or to martyrdom. The term Skete is most likely a reference to the Scetis valley region of Egypt where Skete communities first appear”.  This hearkens back to a context similar to The Anchorite.  In my opinion, it differs a bit from that particular album in technique and execution—Old Skete is more like 2002’s Kohl—but the overall feel is quite similar to The Anchorite.
Old Skete is mystifyingly mystical, relentlessly religious, and mortifyingly meditative.  It’s as though Smith made himself a sort of anchorite himself, caught up in a skete between a musical monasticism and contact with his greater community through the distribution of this release.  The chord structures and soft nature of the recording is incredibly meditative.  Each note ascends to the heavens as a personal prayer.  It arises like a wisp of incense and becomes a pleasing aroma to the gods of amplifiers.  I have a hard time making up my mind though if what I hear in Smith’s communications throughout these eleven tracks is actually his means of conversing with the divine, using the expressive nature of his instrument rather than words to let his heart bleed true or if Smith’s art is a form of spirituality to him in itself.  That is, its relieving and healing is a remedy to his burdened and ailing soul.  Either way, upon hearing these reflections you can’t help but sense a most devout dedication.  There’s a training, a discipline, a spiritual warfare that pervades.  We catch a glimpse through the crack of Smith’s bedroom door and witness what kind of devotional life he has in secret.  It almost makes you desire to be a like disciple, one who finds greater meaning in life by submitting oneself to such a rigorous ritual.  Through the repeated routine of renewal you will find the release of your pain and angst and have it replaced by a kind of unexplainable peace.  At least, that’s what I get from this record.
In addition to the inspiring audio, you get a pretty cool package as well.  The record itself is a slick black vinyl with black labels.  One side has artist and title printed in a white lowercase Times New Roman style font.  The other side is a white woodcut print of a griffin that could remind you of an antiquated illuminated manuscript.  It also comes with a nice insert featuring a handmade block print on one side and on the other has Byzantine style Greek lettering and icon of a church father.  The cover is printed in two colors on recycled cardstock with minimalistic design.  It’s a really nice presentation that complements the tracks very well.  Limited to 500 copies.