As is traditional at this time of year, I selected my favourite local releases from 2010, for the MIO roundup. It's all pretty exciting this year, with a special podcast, a roundup of selections from a handful of contributors, and a public vote, which makes interesting reading. Essentially, it all goes to show how much MIO has changed this year - and I don't just mean the URL. It's now a truly fantastic resource if you like Oxon music...and if you don't, then what are you doing reading this? No kittens or nudity on this corner of the 'net, you must have got lost.
Anyway, it transpires that I was rather more obtuse/poetic/inane/lateral/smug in my descriptions of the best releases, but there you go. I still think the Morse-Hebrides joint allusion is pretty sweet in the Stornoway summary, and I think I'm the first person to go public with a Cursing Force gag. Happy new year, and so on.
By the way, I have a few plans for 2011, which will intrigue me, but will probably eat up time and put to bed once and for all the concept of running this as an actual blog where things are, like, blogged? Oh my God, my internal monologue has gone, like, totally Californian? So, you can expect just a few updates here every month? Rest assured they shall be awesome, and in no way groody?
I have an odd desire to listen to "Valley Girl" about now?
Alphabet Backwards - Primark
Sherbet-fuelled melodic nugget about the death of the High Street. As unashamed pure pop lovers, the Alphabets wear their hearts on their sleeves (shirts: £1.35)
Borderville - Joy Through Work
Only Richard Ramage can come close to Borderville in terms of literate lyrics that sneak up on strong emotions whilst you're not looking. If The Relationships are a mythical village school fete, Borderville are a baroque Hallowe'en masque at the end of time.
D Gwalia - In Puget Sound
Like a creaky harmonium making a drunken hour long phone call to the Port Talbot Samaritans.
Samuel Zasada - Nielsen
Rich, full-bodied and peppery with unexpected subtleties. Or am I thinking of shiraz?
Space Heroes Of The People - Dancing About Architecture
More totalitarian techpop from the now drummerless duo. One day there'll be none of them left in the band, just an autonomous laptop. And it'll be great.
Spring Offensive - Pull Us Apart
The cowbell rehabilitation starts here!
Stornoway - Beachcomber's Windowsill
There's been a murder, Lewis: Stornoway have destroyed the opposition for best Oxford LP.
V/A - Round The Bends
Surprisingly coherent grab bag of 'head covers raises dosh for needy nippers. Therefore if you don't like it you're evil as well as stupid.
Vileswarm - The Shaman's Last Waltz
Frampton comes undead! Euhedral reads the rites.
Xmas Lights - Treading The Fine Line
Posthumous release by much missed emperors of isolationist metal, a great ear-scouring sign off for Oxford's original Cursing Force.
Showing posts with label Vileswarm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vileswarm. Show all posts
Monday, 3 January 2011
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Hit (South) Parade
Something different today, my favourite Oxford records of 2009, as published with other selections on Oxfordbands. The text style of the first line refers ot the fact that Alphabet Backwards' bassist, Josh, was smothered all over billboards, buses and TVs in 2009 as part of one of those infuriating mobile phone ads, in which he talked guff about starting a "super-band", or something equally facile. He is actually a very good musician, but from the ads you'd assume he was just a twat who clumps along to "Smoke On The Water" in his Mum's attic. Hopefully the phone company paid him handsomely for his time, but sadly I imagine he did it for free, the starry-eyed pop flump.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
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