Album Review

The Dance of Reality is More Like a Shuffle

The first time I ever saw Amarcord, I had had my wisdom teeth removed and was on some pain killer that contained codeine. My mind slipped in and out of attentiveness as for one moment there are young boys frolicking with naked large women, another moment Nazis and dancing through the streets, and at any moment silly or sober everyone’s uniform was more or less some form of clown caricature.

Jodorowsky’s Dance of Reality roughly matches this experience, though it’s only slightly less somniferous than actually being on codeine. Like Amarcord, Dance of Reality is an autobiography in the small vignettes projected through the kaleidoscope of the Carnivalesque. Jodorowsky returns to filmmaking after 23 years of expanding into other media such as Tarot decks and comic books, to explore his own childhood with his usual in absurdist spiritualism, slaughtered animals, and background characters of various deformities.

Still from Dance of Reality — And creepy masks.

The story follows young Alejandrito, child of a family of Russian Jews in Ibanez’ Chile. His father Jaime Jodorowsky is a strictly atheistic, high strung admirer of Stalin, and his mother Sara Jodorowsky a heavily bosomed and spiritual mediator who delivers her lines entirely in libretto (sometimes to the tune of the score, sometimes not). The underlying structure of the movie is difficult to sum up without going into detail about all the various trials and tribulations of the family, but overall Jodorowsky the younger has to deal with his father’s constant and sometimes contrary attentions toward masculinity, pride, and appearance even as such attitudes eat away at Jaime, leading him ultimately on a spiritual adventure after a few near-fatal run-ins with Ibanez himself. Jodorowsky himself shows up as a guardian angel to comment on the proceedings and to give his younger self much needed sympathy.

Sara acts as the spiritual conduit between them, often providing just the right ritual, observation, or attention to save the two men from themselves. Though her esteem grows in both men’s views, it raises from zero in the case of Jaime whilst grows larger for the adoring Alejandro.

Perhaps because of the autobiographical nature of the stories, or perhaps because of his age, Jodorowsky has contained himself somewhat on the freakshow aspects. He also seems to be taking the opportunity of digital production to make add even more saturated colors and even a bit of computer generated effects. The uncanny valley of CGI works in Jodorowsky’s favor here since the movie already looks and feels so strange anyway.

Certainly the movie manages to slip in and out of a solid dreamy feel, though like Jodorowsky’s other movies, its loose structure and whimsical tangents eventually promote exhaustion rather than awe. Jodorowsky has this terrible habit of running a movie a good half an hour or more longer than its purpose, and at least in this movie the fat is between the scenes instead of loaded at the end. Like a codeine trip, it is at points aware and attentive, and at other points only seems like you’ve nodded off a bit, but with a stronger awareness of passing time. And hey, this time it doesn’t seem like he actually put his actors on LSD. Hopefully. At least I don’t think he did.

One of the better aspects of the movie is the costuming. Jodorowsky starts right off with clowns, but from there forward most people have costumes just like their usual uniform in society – except the exaggerated colors and design go to show that even in the way we dress, we caricature ourselves. The same sort of Carnivalesque joke underlines all of the production design, even in the case of the landscapes he chooses to shoot (broad oceans and absurdly large mountains). So the movie is a consistently a pleasure to watch on that visual level.

Album Reflection: Fennesz — Bécs

by Rio Toro

Fennesz: Bécs
Similar Artists: Eluvium, William Basinski, Steve Roach, Brian Eno
Genre: Isolation, Solitude, Anesthetics
Label: Editions Mego

90% of the time that I’m listening to ambient music, or new age, or any kind of soothing instrumental music for that matter, I’m unconscious — lost in some empty space where only faint remnants of the music can actually reach me. It’s those faint glimmers of warmth that provide a cushion for my dream world though, and they form a rather heavenly landscape for my mind to sanctify in. It’s a means of therapy above all else, as it keeps me in a state of floatation during the nights, and away from any unrelenting demon lurking in my mind who’s seeking for a way in during my weakened state. But as much as this music does provide a sort of safe haven for my mind and is greatly therapeutic, it simultaneously keeps me away from the reality of things, each lulling wave and static frequency pushes me down beneath the surface and into a realm of nothingness. It’s a predicament that I’ve become torn by: do I let myself become haunted by painful memories, or do I live in a fantasy world that eventually leads nowhere? If only I could relieve myself of this ancient fear I possess — one of the afterlife, of death, of suffering — then maybe my mind wouldn’t be such an awful place to succumb to.

Fennesz is an artist who I’ve been living with — both consciously and unconsciously — for quite some time. Endless Summer, his 2001 breakthrough and certifiable electronic classic, ushered me into a new phase of music appreciation. Where it was not uncommon for abstract electronic artists from the time to conjoin disparate genres (in this case, sunshiny, heavily processed guitar and sharp, layered noise), Fennesz was able to make each genre melt into the other, and not in a shoegaze type of way (although that is a noticeable influence as well), but in a way where sounds which would be described as harsh and ugly in isolation actually emanated a resounding calm, and made you re-think the meaning of the word “beautiful”.

Bécs is the apparent sequel to Endless Summer, and since it’s the artist’s first solo long player since 2008’s shade or two darker Black Sea, it’s quite the reason for excitement from an ambient aficionado like myself… Or maybe it’s not, because there has been no real shortage of Fennesz-like music in the past 6 years anyway. Matthew Cooper, whose Eluvium alias gained comparison to Fennesz, and was even hailed as “the American Fennesz” at the start of his career, has released a plentiful amount of serene and intricate soundscapes in that timeframe (including last year’s excellent double album Nightmare Ending); not to mention Christian Fennesz himself has released multiple collaborative albums (often more than one per year), so its hard to say he has truly been missed. Also, it’s not as if the appeal/novelty of his earlier works has worn dry, as I still revisit the likes of Endless Summer frequently, so calling this a sequel which draws from the same sound palette doesn’t do much to further any excitement. Or maybe my slight hesitation in approaching this record stems from being afraid of what extensive listening to this music will continue to do to me, or rather, what it will prevent me from doing in the long term. Do I really need to hide away from the surface anymore? Haven’t I hidden from my anxieties for long enough?

The first thing one notices when listening to Fennesz is how beautiful and intricate and detailed the sounds are, and how they form a mystical, yet never contrived or predictable world. After that feeling has worn off, however, they notice that the feeling it prescribes is truly one of emptiness. This is a strange word for me to use, as Fennesz is an artist I am continually intrigued and fascinated by, but it is not emptiness by way of loneliness that I intend to speak of, but instead emptiness by way of numbingness, and a lack of awareness for the outside world. It is music to initiate the drifting mind; a solitary stoner’s paradise that thrives on antisocial behavior and eventually, a loss of love.

It’s worth mentioning that Bécs does all of this gorgeously, even if it is exactly what one would have expected it to be. Through the 40 or so minute runtime our ears are treated to heavenly guitar strums shrouded in elegant cinematic hues, bright tones and crumbling static that slowly massages the listener into a state of empty bliss. And the thing is, each track does do this in a wholly different way, quite expertly in fact. There is no simple trick at play here, and it’s one of the reasons repeated listens don’t do much to reveal the fogginess of these compositions. Fennesz can use sounds that in isolation are eerie, mournful, perplexing, or even terrifying, but when lumped together they transform into a collage of carefully treated beauty that is as grand to listen to as it is hopeless to live by.

I don’t know exactly what I’m getting at with this review, and it’s because I’m at the crossroads in terms of my musical identity. This is my first review in over 4 months, and while part of my absence has been because I’ve been terribly busy with both work and school, and another has been because of a little something called Dark Souls 2, mostly, it’s because looking at art objectively is not something I feel is possible for me anymore, as my opinion and its meaning changes from day-to-day, listen-to-listen. This means that I didn’t have the chance to write reviews on some of this year’s most notable releases, of which there have been many — including The Body, tUnE-yArDs, Wild Beasts, and The War On Drugs to name a few — but that’s ok, because I’m not sure how I feel about any of them anyway. I’ve expressed this concern before, but I’m now more than ever in speculation about the point of a critic in today’s flooded musical landscape where countless music is released daily that will seldom he heard by but a few ears. What I do know, is that music is not something that can be experienced in isolation from the rest of the world. Contrary to my previous beliefs, music — no matter how original or well-written or well-produced — cannot last without contexts (friends, families, locations, real-world scenarios) and for that reason, it unfortunately cannot be solely listened to on headphones to and from your way to work. It is an element that must be consumed fully and discussed in detail with a range of real life people at concerts, festivals, and bars — not just through nameless online entities. Like myself, music is also in a bit of an existential crisis, trying desperately to adapt to its new set of criteria without outwardly admitting to it. It will survive, undoubtedly, but for now we’re both lost in a sea of information, trying to claw ourselves out and numb the pain with anesthetics all at the same time.

Track Listing:
1.) Static Kings*
2.) The Liar
3.) Liminality*
4.) Pallas Athene
5.) Becs*
6.) Sav
7.) Paroles*

Album Highlight: *

Album Reflection: Marissa Nadler – July

by Rio Toro

Marissa Nadler: July

Similar Artists: Neko Case, Sharon Van Etten, Leonard Cohen

Genre: Folk, Dream-Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Label: Sacred Bones

I’ve been on a mission for what feels like a very long time to find a piece of music that will make me cry. A piece with such resounding emotional intensity that it would cause me to break out into tears. I’m not even being greedy about it; even just one tiny droplet would be enough for me, just so I would have some kind of evidence that would prove an attachment to a piece of music was real, and not just implanted by my previous conceptions. While music does have its other ways of harvesting within me (the internal reaction that tells me when I’m really into a track is usually either goose bumps or uncontrollable laughter) crying I consider to be something different. And as much as “tear-jerker” has become a negative term in some respects, I can’t help but feel that if something can make you cry, it owns a part of you.

I’m not sure what my problem is with accomplishing this mission, because I tend to cry all the time during movies, TV shows and books — so what is it exactly that separates music from those other types of media? Some would say it’s because music is too abstract and open to interpretation; its messages are too muddled to cause most people to cry. Others would say the average length of a song is far too short for that kind of engagement, and although it may be steeped in sadness and mourning, the feeling doesn’t stay with us for a long enough period to build any significant attachment. Another theory is that music is just an extension of the mood we are already feeling, meaning if you are already sad, listening to music can make you sadder, but if you are in your normal state of mind it can only do so much in terms of changing your overall perspective. I’ve come to these as well as various other conclusions through the years to account for my lack of emotional activity, but I still feel that my lack of emotional engagement is somehow my fault: maybe I just haven’t been listening to the lyrics enough, and I just have to concentrate more on what is being said.

Anyway, when I listen to Marissa Nadler I really wish that I could cry along with her deeply passionate tales of woe; for I know I’m not alone when saying that few artists working today have such a deep understanding of sadness. Her stories are ones of entrenching melancholia, starved lovers whose pains grow deeper with age and characters who carry a pervading sense of loneliness with them until death. While her music does indeed cause me to get emotional — from her tenderly sung lyrics, winding acoustic melodies and aching voice — I always become disconnected right before I start to feel something building inside of me, which is frustrating to say the least.

It’s an infuriating process to me — losing track of what’s happening in a song — and it’s the reason that, for the most part, I try to stay away from dissecting lyrics in the first place. Radiohead were the first ones that taught me this, as I used to scurry for hours trying to make sense of a lyric to Pyramid Song or No Surprises with little to no avail. I think the reason this happens is because music — particularly singer-songwriter music — is built out of events that are very personal to the artist’s own life, and as much as the artist may be “giving away” their story when their music is released, I feel a part of it does remain hidden within the artist, and us listeners are left to blindly fill in the blanks.

This is ok though, because we don’t need that extra bit of meaning — in the end it’s the artist that does. Like many of the world’s most prolific artists, Marissa Nadler doesn’t create her art to make a living, but rather, she makes art so she can live. The universe she has created through her 7 full-lengths is her way of sorting through her endless well of emotions, and a way to escape herself as well as any inner turmoils she may be facing. This I feel is what folk music has always been about, and why it has progressed so minimally within the last several decades when compared to other genres. No matter what tag you put in front of it — whether it be freak, or dream, or fuzz — folk has always been about honest, unclouded expression, and Marissa Nadler continues to define that with each passing album. Now it’s our turn to make our own universe.

Track Listing:

1.) Drive*

2.) 1923

3.) Firecrackers

4.) We Are Coming Back*

5.) Dead City Emily*

6.) Was It A Dream

7.) I’ve Got Your Name*

8.) Desire*

9.) Anyone Else

10.) Holiday In

11.) Nothing In My Heart

Album Highlight – *

Album Review : Shackleton – Freezing, Opening, Thawing

by Rio Toro

Shackleton: Freezing Opening Thawing
Similar Artists: Muslimgauze, Peverelist, Demdike Stare, Pinch
Genre: Abstract Electronic, Jungle
Label: Woe To The Septic Heart

I washed up on the shoreline of this unnamable island around noon — or at-least, what I should say, is that the height of the sun at that particular time seemed to reveal it was noon. Otherwise though, it seemed as though I was stranded without a technological reference to my name. Yet within the short amount of time since my unplanned arrival, I had a sort of sense that time as a whole moved differently here. Not necessarily faster or slower, just different — perhaps more angular, or even on a different wavelength entirely. And despite the fact that this place was clearly an island, there was an instantly mechanical presence to it, and I was convinced that if I decided to burrow deep enough in the sand I would reach a high tech laboratory of sorts. In fact, everything I could tell about this island was rooted in a kind of fabrication; from the way the palm trees swept in the breeze so neatly, to the way the birds chirped at the most opportune of times, to the slightly altered coloration of the sand itself. It all seemed synthetic, as if this place I was on was not a true island at all, but one meticulously crafted to look like one. However, this realization didn’t prevent me from continuing to be drawn to it one bit. It was only at this moment that I stood up from the sandy spot I had been lying in since my arrival to inspect the borders of the surrounding area. It was indeed a fertile land, brimming with all sorts of exotic life. There were various coconut trees scattered around the shoreline, and I was able to see a variety of multicolored birds flying amongst the foliage.

As I approached the thickening shrubbery, I heard, only very faintly at first, the sounds of tribal drums emitting from the center of the jungle. They were increasingly violent sounds — mallets pounding erratically on bongos, congas, tympani, and countless other percussive instruments. The sounds instantaneously instilled fear in me and drew me closer into the chaos; I would even say they provided a sense of nostalgia for some unknown part of me. Had I possibly been to this place before in a vision or a dream? Or perhaps heard about it in some ancient folklore? As I drew closer into the eye of the jungle the sounds thickened immensely, and the fluttering patterns adopted polyrhythmic qualities. The brash chaoticness of the endless banging and clashing soon ushered me into a psychedelic haze, and I found myself stumbling to keep afoot. My eyes too, soon became watery and unresponsive, and I noticed I hadn’t been watching where I was stepping. Regardless of my condition, I continued on, and even with my fading peripheries, I felt as though I was becoming more cognitively aware — more intensely attuned to the reality of things.

At about a mile in from the shoreline I realized it was not only percussion that I had been hearing, but an entire ensemble of eclectic instruments — most of which I could not claim to know the origin of. Just like the coaxing qualities of the environment, these sounds were of the utmost intrigue to my senses, yet somehow stripped of their most innate and natural abilities. It was all just a mere fabrication of what I had previously considered to be music, and I could feel my innards shifting to make sense of this enlightening new information. I knew it from the second I stepped into the jungle; I was evolving.

As I continued to draw closer to the source of the music, a warping snake-like melody crept up my backside along the inner notches of my spine. A stinging sensation began ringing through the entirety of my body, as if I had been stung or bitten by a venomous scorpion-like creature. I looked down to see if I could catch a glimpse of anything moving, but it was too late. Everything, from my memories of the old world to my innermost private thoughts and emotions were replaced by a new identity. Stronger and more willful I felt, but also colder, more devoid of a self. Stripped of my humanity, I gathered myself into a stable upright position and continued on, knowing fully well where the path would soon lead me.

Track Listing:
1.) Freezing Opening Thawing*
2.) White Flower with Silvery Eye
3.) Silver Keys*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Steve Moore – Pangaea Ultima

by Rio Toro Leave a Comment

Steve Moore: Pangaea Ultima
Similar Artists: Zombi, Bookworms, Lovelock
Genre: Synths n’ Stuff
Label: Spectrum Spools

I originally intended for this review to be for L.I.E.S.’ Music For Shut Ins, as the compilation has been my revolving soundtrack for the better part of the last month. If you’re not cool enough to already know, just as American Noise was last year, Music For Shut Ins is an impeccably solid grouping of new and previously released tracks from the New York umbrella label that represents some of the most exciting experimental electronic music around. So it’s too bad that I eventually found the release to be too overwhelming to write a proper review on. Luckily, Steve Moore (an artist who released multiple 12 inches for the label), has just released his newest and arguably highest profile release to date, and with it consisting of 9 similarly produced tracks, it happens to be a much easier statement to digest.

Pangaea Ultima is Steve Moore’s first release on Spectrum Spools: a label curated by ex-Emeralds member John Elliott that has harnessed an ever-increasing array of talent ever since its inception in 2011. In addition to Moore’s plentiful amount of solo material, he has recorded as a member of Zombi, the bass guitarist for prog-rock outfit Titan, and has offered his multi-instrumentalist talents to groups such as Panthers and SunnO))). He’s also written his own film scores (mostly for low-budget horror films), proving he’s not only a skilled multi-instrumentalist, but a skilled composer as well. Thankfully, this prolificness isn’t a detractor from the quality of his work, as Pangaea Ultima emerges as only the most recent of this artist’s dense and masterfully coordinated projects. However, there is something about Pangaea that feels more assured and fully realized in comparison to many of the artist’s earlier solo ventures, and hopefully this means it will be the release to garner him the larger audience that he deserves.

The album itself happens to be a soundtrack to the theorized super-continent destined to re-emerge on Earth within the next 200 million years or so, and with track titles like “Planetwalk” and “WorldBuilding”, it’s no secret that this is representative of Moore at his most colossal. The tone here is dark, and admittedly, this tone changes only very slightly throughout the hour long running time. Despite the limited emotional and instrumental range though, the album unfolds masterfully — as you might expect from someone with the resume of a film composer. Furthermore, despite Moore’s electronic and even post-punkian upbringing, he pretty much strays away from anything that could be deemed danceable, and several tracks are even entirely beat-less.

While Pangaea Ultima is not entirely without a chugging pulse (“Planetwalk” and the title track are borderline techno), Moore is much more concerned with concocting a stable mood and ominous intrigue. This direction is not to be confused with ambient music though, as Pangaea Ultima is a work that is as engrossing to listen to in the foreground as it is to lay dormant in the background (I’ve also found that it makes for some killer tetris battle music). Similarly, although many tracks appear to be in the vein of minimalism (“Deep Time”, “Logotones”), they all eventually emerge as dense and extraordinarily epic; at the most intense moments it’s as if we can feel the weight of the continents shifting beneath our feet.

There are a lot of keyboards present at any given moment — all of them arpegiatting and oscillating onward into some infinite void — yet the pieces themselves are uncluttered and organically rich; of which I give credit to the superb mastering of Rashad Becker. The recordings of Krautrock pioneers Tangerine Dream are an easy comparison to Pangaea Ultima, and truth be told, similarly designed compositions have been available as early as the 60’s. More recently, we’ve had Oneohtrix Point Never, who thoroughly documented how gripping solo synth pieces can be with his extensive and career making Rifts compilation. However, while what Steve Moore is doing here may not be unique or even immediately ear catching, it’s far from artless, and shouldn’t be taken as a mere throwback LP. Within a scene of synthesizer fetishists who — with the more readily available recording technology of today — are capable of making monstrous sounding synth music on the fly, what makes Pangaea stand out is that it clearly isn’t the sound of some virtuosic talent recording a day’s worth of work, but a unified and wholly satisfying piece that’s filled with as much blood, organs and bodily fluids as the organism that made it.

Track Listing:
1.) Endless Caverns
2.) Planetwalk*
3.) Deep Time
4.) Nemesis
5.) Pangaea Ultima*
6.) Logotone*
7.) Aphelion
8.) Endless Mountains
9.) Worldbuilding*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Secret Boyfriend – This Is Always Where You’ve Lived

by Rio Toro

Secret Boyfriend: This Is Always Where You’ve Lived
Similar Artists: Helm, The Hospitals, 18+
Genre: Not-noise, Experimental, Shitgaze, Sound Collage
Label: Blackest Ever Black

Usually when I write a review, I try to focus on the emotional impact of the music, as well as the response the music is intending to make on the listener. However, with This Is Always Where You’ve Lived — the first true full-length from North Carolina’s Ryan Martin (AKA Secret Boyfriend) — nothing comes easy in terms of categorization. In fact, these mysterious and elusive tracks often resist words at all, which in my interpretation is one of the reasons so little has been written about the artist throughout his nearly decade long career. Until now, he has made ends meet in the music world through a limited run of cassette only releases, split LPs, and his own Hot Releases imprint. This release sees Martin combining his wide array of musical ideas into a concise and fully realized statement that borrows little and asks for nothing. Still, as big a statement for Secret Boyfriend as this is, these 12 largely dissimilar tracks — while somehow coexisting harmoniously within the same album — all contradict one another as pieces, and one by one will blank out your previous theories about exactly who this Secret Boyfriend guy is.

It turns out I’m not the only one having trouble pinpointing this artist either, as Ryan Martin has become known in the N.C underground for his unpredictable live shows which range from aggressive, anarchistic noise fests to creepy vocal modified acoustic numbers. While starting off as a kind of tongue-in-cheek performance artist looking to breed awkwardness, he has clearly moved on to bigger and better things in recent years. The music on this release is a combination of dreamy, painfully lo-fi (folk?) songs, divisively simple keyboard melodies, abstract electronic noodling/sampling, fuzz-laden ambient soundscapes, and the occasional detour into Japanese caliber noise. It’s quite possibly the most varied of the DIY albums I listened to in 2013, and certainly one of the most unusual to come out on Blackest Ever Black. Despite these contrasting elements though, the music works because all of these fragmented pieces join arms and unite to create a musical experience that’s quite unlike any other I’ve had within recent memory. It’s a bizarre, otherworldly venture that’s also strangely nostalgic; like we are being taken down a chain of childhood memories that we never actually had.

Calling Secret Boyfriend a collage artist might put it best, because his productions consist of around half a dozen simple elements that are loosely conjoined to form a new, alien-like identity. It must be said, even for music this independently based, the core musicianship here can be pretty lousy. Fortunately, it appears that Martin knows what he’s doing around 3/4ths of the time and for the most part what he’s doing remains impressive despite some obvious shortcomings. All the leading melodies are well thought out, and his occasionally shoddy guitar playing/keyboard skills actually end up adding personality instead of distracting from the experience.

Unlike most non-musicians working in the field of experimentalia — excepting the opening 5 seconds of “Summer Wheels/Mysterious Fires” and the battalion ready final track — Martin mostly strays away from anything violently harsh. All the haphazardous knob twiddling and amateurish discrepancies are reserved for the background, which is why these tracks happen to be such a warm and inviting bunch for a scene that prides itself with freakouts. As daunting a title as This Is Always Where You’ve Lived may seem, it wouldn’t be a bad place to settle down in for a few months, which isn’t something I could say about most music this daring and abstract.

The world that Martin has created here is one that’s steeped in fantastical daydreams and a youthful longing. Above all else, the album is defined by its hazy atmosphere and ultra loose feel that refuses precision as a means towards greatness. Only occasionally — such as on the Haxon Cloak-like “Remarkable Fluids” or the titular closing track — does this lighthearted mood transform into something nightmarish, and even then it remains an exciting detour. On the other hand, many tracks, including the 8 minute standout “Deleted Hill”, are so devoid of structure that they end up falling apart entirely, so it’s a good thing that watching them do so happens to be absolutely mesmerizing.

Upon closer inspection, Secret Boyfriend is far from lazy, and he has indeed put a plentiful amount of work and detail into these productions: his talent just doesn’t happen to be in the places you would normally look for it. Even after listening to This Is Always Where You’ve Lived for several days, I continue to be surprised at how Martin can be wondrously adept in certain fields (layering tracks, atmosphere) while being mindlessly incompetent in others (properly tuning a guitar, remaining on beat). Despite these factors though, listening to Secret Boyfriend is far from frustrating , and I would recommend taking a peek to anyone who’s looking for a journey through the strange and bewildering without wanting to sacrifice the chance to be uplifted.

Track Listing:
1.) Summer Wheels/Mysterious Fires*
2.) Silvering The Wing
3.) Form Me*
4.) Flashback
5.) Remarkable Fluids
6.) Beyond the Darkness*
7.) Dream Scrape
8.) Glint and Follow You
9.) Have You Heard About This House
10.) Last Town
11.) Deleted Hill*
12.) This Is Always Where You’ve Lived*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Clams Casino — Instrumentals 3

by Rio Toro

Clams Casino: Instrumentals 3
Similar Artists: Araab Muzik, Prefuse 73, Holy Other
Genre: Left-Field Hip-Hop
Label: Self-Released

When people say “this guy is one of the best producers in the world” — and that’s something people say a lot when referring to New Jersey’s Mike Volpe (AKA Clams Casino) — what about him are they exactly referring to? Now, I’m not saying that Clammy Clams isn’t one of the best producers in the world, as few really do compare to this one in terms of style and a sense of forward thinkingness in regards to hip-hop beats, but we also get the feeling that he’s capable of doing much more in the way of artisticness. As it stands now, Clams has put out only a small handful of tracks that have remained memorable as purely instrumentals, and the micro-genre he briefly enacted known as “cloud-rap”, can pretty much be named DOA. Maybe I’m demanding too much from a producer who has yet to release a full-length worth of original material, but despite the quantitative amount of work he has done, there has only been a marginal amount to truly sink our teeth into, and that really bugs me.

Of course, tracks don’t have to be memorable to be great, and for the most part, Clams Casino is still making music that is enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately, this third (and apparently final) instrumental mixtape marks the blandest appropriation of his style thus far, and it would have been easy to dismiss entirely if not for some distraction worthy highlights. And the more I think about it, aren’t those occasionally stunning highlights — such as “Motivation” and “Realist Alive” on Instrumentals 1 and “I’m God” on Instrumentals 2 — what has really garnered Clams Casino so much attention in the first place? His incredible and even slightly under appreciated Rainforest EP on Tri-Angle is the closest he has yet come to putting out a coherently solid listening experience, and for now at least, that will have to continue being the only one.

Anyway, the highlights here lean towards the previously unreleased ones. There are three of these, three A$AP Rocky beats, three Mac Miller beats, one for DOOM, one for Mikky Ekko, one released for Flying Lotus’ radio station on GTA 5, and one remix. It’s an odd assortment of tracks to say the least, and since Clams has moved away from the outward and easily identifiable sampling (“Cold War”, “Illest Alive”), many of them leave little to hold on to other than a slyly choreographed production technique here and there. The best standalone track of the ones intended for vocals/rapping is the breath of fresh air that is “Pull Me Down” — a warmer and more smoothly paced track from the bunch that was also co-produced by Mikky Ekko. The definitive standout though — the one that can compare to his best productions to date — is “Cry For Me”, which places glitchy, warbling vocals over a solid kick drum based groove and some of the most pleasing textures yet heard from the producer. Aside from those two highlights though (plus the GTA V track, I suppose) there’s nothing here to sway your opinion on the producer one way or another. In fact, it’s way more likely to make you become bored with him.

What many people will, and should use this mix as — as it works much more smoothly than listening to the tracks in unison — is to combine it with all of Clams Casino’s other instrumental work and put it on shuffle. Here the wealth of his capability becomes more visibly apparent, and the compilation can work perfectly for night drives in urban environments (permitting that you have the car stereo to handle these often layered and uncompromising tunes). If this is the end of his instrumental mixtape phase though, we should be happy, because it’s a sign that Clams is moving on to bigger and better things. For now, listen to these instrumentals, be happy with them, but just don’t get your hopes up that they will offer you any more than a momentary glimpse into the power of a producer who will undoubtedly grant us more fulfilling statements further down the road.

Track Listing:
1.) Crystals*
2.) Hell
3.) Cry For Me*
4.) Pull Me Down*
5.) Lvl
6.) Bird Call
7.) Freeze
8.) Haunt*
9.) Melthru
10.) Bookfiend
11.) Cold Feet
12.) Wizard
13.) Youforia*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Beyoncé – BEYONCÉ- Queen is Back

by Rio Toro

Beyoncé: BEYONCÉ

Similar Artists: Janet Jackson, Ciara, Missy Elliott, Jenifer Hudson

Genre: Pop, Contemporary R&B

Label: Columbia

2013 is over, and overall, it’s been a pretty great year for me: I’ve started a new job, moved into a new apartment, and got accepted to graduate school. It’s been so good, in fact, that I think I owe it to myself to strip myself of my reservations and really fucking enjoy this new Beyoncé record. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to enjoy a Beyoncé tune or two in the past, but digesting her work through repeated and immersive listens to one of her full-lengths is something that until now I didn’t have the effort to do.

And as it turns out, what a record BEYONCÉ is to finally become accustomed to this era defining pop singer through. The secretly released record is already being hailed as a career highlight for the artist, as here she dabbles in themes that are darker, more sensual, and more complex than her previous work — one such representable track being the monstrous and intricately woven highlight “***Flawless”. She’s returning to some of her grimier, more southern influenced sounds with big breakneck beats and ominous, ghostly textures on tracks like “Haunted”, which couldn’t be further from the soul bearings of her last record, 4. Here Beyoncé is proving that even though she may be a mother quickly approaching her mid 30’s, she can still sound young, modern, and increasingly relevant regarding the current state of femininity. In other words, this queen isn’t ready to retire quite yet, and as she points out on “Blow”, she can still get her ‘cherry turned out’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean). What BEYONCÉ is really about though, is the artist’s life cycle, and all the endless phases that have come along with it: hence her reasoning behind making this a ‘visual’ album. There’s quite a lot of Beyoncé backstory tucked into the corners of this release as well — told through cleverly placed vocal snippets — and it’s enough to make you feel a connection with a woman who otherwise lives a life that is incomparable to anyone else’s.

What I found to be the most striking with BEYONCÉ though, is how overtly sexual it is. Particularly on “Rocket”, which is gorgeous and sensual in the way that only D’Angelo can do better. At 6:32 though, it’s also too long, as you could say about the album in its entirety. With the bulk of these tracks being over 5 minutes, BEYONCÉ does occasionally fall into some of the same pitfalls of Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 experience — another 2013 album that proved to be a strong reevaluation of one of pop music’s biggest icons. I mean, how long can we truly continuously listen to someone with a perfect voice, singing about their perfect life, living in a perfect home with a perfect family?

But for the most part, it does work — mostly for the fact that we know Beyoncé has had to work violently hard to get to the point she is at now. As clearly told through the opening beauty queen inspired number “Pretty Hurts”, the main theme of BEYONCÉ is a debunking of society’s unrealistic interpretation of perfection. Beyoncé wants to show us how she’s just a regular human being: she gets jealous, she gets drunk, and she wants to impress people — specifically her husband, Jay Z: who unlike his wife, hasn’t done an adequate job of impressing us through his increasing age with a string of noticeably sour verses (including one here on “Drunk In Love”).

With the exception of perhaps “XO”, these 14 tracks are far away from the cookie cutter pop songs that have been endlessly rehashed through the decades in mainstream pop. Both in terms of spot on vocal delivery and interesting, layered production, BEYONCÉ — while not 100% perfect – pretty much beats out every other major pop release of the year. It might just be filled with more rawness and honest emotion than you’ll get out of Katy Perry’s Prism, Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, and Miley’s Bangerz combined.

Track Listing:

1.) Pretty Hurts*

2.) Haunted*

3.) Drunk In Love

4.) Blow

5.) No Angel

6.) Partition*

7.) Jealous*

8.) Rocket

9.) Mine

10.) XO

11.) ***Flawless*

12.) Superpower

13.) Heaven

14.) Blue*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Logos – Cold Mission

by Rio Toro

Logos: Cold Mission

Similar Artists: Jam City, Rabit, Vangelis, Girl-Unit

Genre: Grime, Pirate-Radio, Post-Apocalyptica, Ambient, Extra-Terrestrial

Label: Keysound

February 28, 2028,

The last time they came it was when I was fast asleep, dreaming of the constellations perhaps, only to be awoken by three disquieting jolts at the front door; the reaction caused a loud, penetrating boom that ricocheted through the dismantled hallways of the apartment building. It was immediately apparent to all of us — these were no ordinary knocks. They came from no neighboring friend asking for food for their young, no friendly door salesman offering household supplies. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” There they were again, this time even more forceful and alarming than they had been before. From outside the boarded up windows I could hear the sounds of police issued nightsticks crashing down on the cold metal handrails leading up to our quarters. Each crack of the whip created a resonating ringing sound that rang into the ether, stinging my ears with their vibrancy. Within seconds the front door swung open, breaking the lock into metallic, crystalline shards. I attempted to get up out of my cot, but my legs wouldn’t budge, for I knew so much as a creak in the bed springs or a tilt in the floorboards would draw me unwanted attention. Instead of running like my mind insisted, I held my breath, listening for the oncoming action… (Why those men were there at that moment I still can’t say for certain — a random search and seize procedure I assume — but what I do know is that they’ll be back, and soon, next time without leaving any scraps.)

Shattering glass, the cocking of a shotgun, and the dreadful ambience of the coming police raids: these are the sounds that have continuously replayed in my head ever since the 2025 uprising. It was three years ago today in fact, where the crisis first began, and that’s why I’m writing this note now. Someone somewhere I’m sure must be celebrating the occasion as they toast their wine and feast on their bread, but for those of us living in one of London’s many abandoned districts — whose outlet for satisfaction lays buried within the rubble of our crumbling city — it’s another reminder of the brutal times we’ve been living in, as well as the ones that lie ahead.

I often find myself craving for the days when us citizens lived out our lives as mindless, meaningless drones — working deliriously for our corruptors without so much as a hint about the struggles we would later have to face. Instead, London has been fragmented into nearly uninhabitable sectors. The unluckiest of us live in a state of constant turmoil, everyone from the young to the old are forced to live in grime-ridden, disease spewing apartment buildings with minimum power/supplies, waiting on our heels for some kind of definable end to arrive. This past year alone, murder rates have risen to an uncountable level, and there are no signs pointing towards an end to any of the violence. Every week, it seems there’s another story about more clan leaders being executed, more of the so-called safe havens being overtaken by a government run district.

Recently, the authorities have started using a newly developed weapon in attempt to slow down some of the more forceful of the rebellion units — or at least this is what we originally thought was happening. You see, the most watchful of us believe there’s something inhuman lurking amongst us. I’ve seen it myself, no more than a few hundred yards away in fact — if only faintly through the dense entrapping fog. Out from this strangely geometric figure emitted a bright, luminescent beam of blue light, instantly enveloping its target in a sort of dome shaped cocoon. Then, the dome slowly hovered around the target until everything, including the geometric being itself, was turned to nothingness. The sound this occurrence makes though — a penetratingly deep, sub bass roar — is enough to cause you to fall to your knees at its utterance. The reverberating echo of the sound forever repeats in your skull, long after the rays of the light have faded into blackness. No carcass, no ashes, and no blood stains are left at the crime scene for the following day’s inspectors, as if all the townspeople had just dreamed the occurrence. This, as well as many of the other rumors all seem to point towards something unmistakably alien among us — some kind of shape-shifting being that only takes on its natural form during the wee hours of the night, a blood thirsting creature working for neither side of the Earth’s equation, and a larger part of the secret that’s still being hidden from us.

Something good is coming though — it seems everyone can sense it — something greater even than hope itself, more indisputable than fact. From the beginning of this month, a gap has begun to open in the sky for a few hours at a time, directly to the north of us. During these brief moments, when I’m able to stare up at the celestial heavens, it all seems so different than how I remember it. Some stars are bigger or wider, others are shifted around and out of place. It’s as if the higher powers of the universe have thrown this foggy blanket on top of us so we wouldn’t notice their godly hands switching the pieces around. Whenever this astronomical reference closes off however, all my thoughts seem to decease before they form into a coherent whole. All patterns become dispersed and drowned out in the cataclysmic atmosphere of the environment. It’s the main reason why I haven’t been able to write this sooner, and why most days I am but a slave to the harsh winter climate, at a loss to process any new information. Lastly, before I forget, I did happen to see something else traveling through the night sky on its last visit — a blazing blue comet, as bright as can be and hurdling towards the Earth.

Track Listing:

1.) Ex 101*

2.) Stasis Jam

3.) Surface Area

4.) Swarming (feat. Rabit)*

5.) Sea Wolf*

6.) Alien Shapes (Feat. Dusk & Blackdown)

7.) Menace

8.) Cold Mission

9.) Night Flight

10.) Wut It Do (Feat. Mumdance)*

11.) Atlanta 96 (Limitless Mix)*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: John Talabot – DJ Kicks

by Rio Toro

John Talabot: DJ-Kicks
Similar Artists: Andy Stott
Genre: Deep House, Atmospheric Techno
Label: !K7

Reasons why I should write a review for John Talabot’s DJ-Kicks entry:

I.) With it being the end of 2013, writing this review could act as a good opportunity to reflect on some of the year’s best dance music (Classixx, Disclosure, Gold Panda, Daft Punk).
II.) I could possibly, hopefully, desperately try to convince you that it’s better than Disclosure’s Settle, which it may or may not be.
III.) Writing is a good way to prevent myself from doing more important things, such as cleaning my apartment or buying holiday gifts for my friends/family.
IV.) If I write enough reviews this year, maybe I have a chance of getting hired at a more indie friendly/less queer friendly website that will compensate me with free music, concert tickets and wall posters.
V.) I actually bought this mix, which is more than I can say about most of the music I’ve reviewed this year.

Reasons why I shouldn’t write a review for John Talabot’s DJ-Kicks entry:

I.) I never know who to give credit to in DJ mixes, and this one in particular has an enormous roster of artists, most of whom I’m unfamiliar with.
II.) DJ mixes are almost never as notable as the artist’s full length releases, and as hip as John Talabot is right now, I’m quite certain he won’t release anything as commendable as fin for at least a few more years.
III.) I haven’t listened to this mix that much, and don’t really feel like listening to it anymore either, especially when I could be re-listening to other albums from this year in preparation for my epic year end list (due in the coming weeks).
IV.) I rarely listen to DJ mixes, and when I do, it’s usually only so I can show them to other people, or so I can use them to disassociate myself from the awkwardness of a car ride with a person whom I share no common interests with.
V.) Very few people will read my review anyway, and no matter how good it may turn out, it will never beat out the barebacking article, or any of the other top trending articles on this nonsensical website.

Track Listing:
01.) North Lake – Journey To The Center Of The Sun
02.) Pye Corner Audio – Underneath The Dancefloor
03.) Maps – I Heard Them Say (Andy Stott Remix)*
04.) Pye Corner Audio – Zero Centre
05.) Michael Ozone – Hetrotopia (Young Marco Remix)
06.) Madteo – We Doubt (You Can Make It)
07.) Harmonious Thelonious – The Grasshopper Was The Witness (Elmore Judd & Rowan Park Remix)
08.) Tempel Rytmik – Anagrama*
09.) John Talabot – Without You (DJ-Kicks)*
10.) Axel Boman – Klinsmann
11.) Joaquin Joe Claussell presents Residue Part One – Eno (Melodic Dub)
12.) Bostro Pesopeo & Pional – Bonus Beats
13.) Mara TK – Run (Moodymann Remix)
14.) Alex Burkat – Shower Scene
15.) Mistakes are Okay – Night Watcher*
16.) Unknown – #001
17.) Round – Glass*
18.) Max Mohr – Old Song*
19.) Samo DJ – Tai Po Kau
20.) Motor City Drum Ensemble – Escape To Nowhere*
21.) Paradise’s Deep Groove – Innermind
22.) Abby – Streets (Wraetlic Remix)
23.) DJ Jus-Ed – Turn Of The Century
24.) Genius of Time – Juno Jam
25.) Kron – Silikron (Jürgen Paape Remix)
26.) Talaboman – Sideral*
27.) Pional – It’s All Over (Locked Groove Rendition)

Album Highlight – *

Album Review

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