Mage To Make Your Mouth Water

It's still all a bit frantic over here, but I've found time to sling up this review for Music In Oxford (hereinafter to be known as MIO). It's an interesting example of how to pitch reviews for a site like this. I could have reviewed this in the style of The Wire, but it seemed to me that whilst some of the readers would know a lot more than me about drone based improv, lots of others would have no experience whatsoever, so something more open-ended seemed to be required. It's sort of interesting to have a readership and peer group that's defined, not by social or musical similarities, but by simple geography. So, was I too chummy, or too obtuse here, for the random reader? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And why not talk to each other in the comments, as it seems as though my not posting anything does very little to affect the number of views the site has - in fact, if anything the last fortnight has seen more visitors than usual. As curious as Alice Lidell with a curious orange that kills cats.


VILESWARM – THE SHAMAN’S LAST WALTZ (Eyeless)

They call it “doom drone”.

Leftfield musicians – or at the very least their admirers – are madmen for creating genres. We’re all familiar with electronica’s offshoots spliced into ever narrower branches, with sub-genres breeding deformed offspring like so many rampant Chernobyl rabbits, but keeping tabs on the myriad diffractions of noise, improve, alt rock and out metal can induce dizziness, nausea, and a strong yearning for some nice simple pop music. Despite all this, Vileswarm’s coinage is a useful addition to the lexicon. This CD might be a collection of gestural, amelodic drone music, but it has a density and sense of sludgy ritual that it shares with the more evocative, leaden shades of metal. This music may well be improvised (although there could easily be an over-arching structure, we’re not entirely sure) but it’s a long way from Derek Bailey’s “non-idiomatic improv”. The Shaman’s Last Waltz is, in many ways, unmusical. It generally avoids motifs or rhythms, and “incidental” noises are foregrounded as much as recognised musical sounds – we can hear guitar strings being brushed as much as we hear them being plucked, and the sound of sitting at a drum kit is given the same space as hitting it. We hear Vileswarm “playing” in the way that children, not musicians, play; we hear performers exploring their instruments as much as we hear them mastering them.

“The Shaman’s Last Waltz Pt I” is a long track, but it feels more like a series of sonic tableaux than a single piece. There are sublimely eerie moments, the sound of a creaking dead cart in a toxic fog bank vying with a recording of someone raping a harmonium in a medieval microwave for our affections. Drums are brushed in scuttling clusters and guitar tones waver. At the end a knob-twiddling electronic sound lets the side down, as it isn’t inherently mysterious, coming straight from a Tom Baker Dr Who soundtrack. “Pt II” is less eventful, and has an oppressive, pressurised atmosphere. An oscillating synth near the conclusion has the overbearing power of very early Tangerine Dream, and envelops us with a slow amniotic presence. This isn’t so much music you listen to, it’s more music you live in.

Ironically, despite the fact that it’s separate from the “Shaman” sequence, closing track “Lotus Prayer” is the most ritualistic track, sounding like a recording of Gyoto monks at their devotions (or, at times, like some old janitors clearing up trestle tables after a village craft exhibition). The track even obliquely approaches musical structure, being a set of variations on a non-theme (two notes and a rhythmic rustle). It’s certainly the most cohesive piece here, but in a way the least intriguing.

This record may not be as good as some work by the two collaborators: it doesn’t have the stark organic beauty of Euhedral’s best music, nor the wired Manga velocity of a great David K. Frampton gig, but it’s an enjoyable listen. Most of all we like the way the LP feels exploratory. So much music that calls itself “experimental” or “leftfield” is drawing on a whole raft of ossified, time-honoured tricks and traits, with a standard sonic template as predictable as any 12 bar blues. Vileswarm conversely sound as though they’re truly trying to find new ways of working together, and attempting to conjure up - the record’s title and cover art imply this is the right term – new experiences. In an odd way, it sounds like the work of alien musicians, who are fully trained in traditional musical forms, but who have never seen human instruments before, and aren’t sure whether the rub them, blow them, or stick a spare tentacle into one of the holes. And if that doesn’t give you a clear idea of whether to investigate this act or run a mile, nothing will.