Tuesday, June 25, 2013

P039: Cabeza de Vaca – Sonar 2013 round-up.

As well as the aural/oral summary of Sonar 2013 that you can listen to here on Cabeza de Vaca and Scanner FM  my official written report should be out sometime soon at the site of Australian magazine Cyclic Defrost. The magazine has just announced their last ever print issue, but the website will continue for the time being. Good luck to all involved and thanks very much for the chance to contribute, however slight it might have been.


I will include a few extra things here that will supplement not only the show, but the review when it comes out. First up are some artists who didn’t make the review just for space reasons mostly. That said, many of them I also felt I didn’t spend enough time with to really give a knowledgeable opinion. Most of them were those who played at the Sonarcar stage, particularly the Rush Hour guys on Friday and the 50 Weapons people on Saturday. There was a couple of reasons for not spending time there, despite most of these artists being the ones I most wanted to see. One reason was to avoid moving around so much. If there was something good on, it seemed a shame to waste time filtering through crowds and losing parts of two sets. Better one than none. Also the Sonarcar stage was hard to be drawn into, partly for its small size and partly for its poorer sound system. Unless you were really close it was hard to feel the intensity. Couple that to the dodgem cars right behind and you have a poorly respected stage and I have heard that some artists have even declined invitations to play there as they know it isn’t good enough. This is clearly one of the most important questions to answer for future episodes: how to get more out of this stage. It cannot be easily overlooked either as it is essential, even if for nothing more than adding some avant garde names to the line-up. On paper at least the artists on show there certainly make a big difference to how you perceive the billing.


Of the artists I did see there I thought the young Italian DJ Vaal was quite interesting. Her selections were minimal leaning, but with a skeletal sparseness that was kind of fascinating compared to some of the bigger sounds on offer. Maybe they lacked a punch at times and the BPM felt slightly lower, which was both good and bad, but it may also have been normal and just seemed slower as an illusion of the lack of guts in the speakers. One of the other surprises of this is that DJ Vaal was a woman. Why a surprise? Sonar’s artist guide  clearly says:

“Vaal is the mysterious alias of this unusual dj, one who rarely reveals neither face nor identity, and whose background lies within rock'n'roll and jazz rather than in electronica and black, dance-oriented music. According to his biography, Vaal is unaware of the rules that guide the work of a modern dj, and as he isn't aware of them, he isn't scared of breaking them.”





There’s obviously two things there: “rarely reveals face nor identity” and also “According to his biography”. Would the real Vaal please stand up?


I also saw the beginning of Anstam which kind of confused me as well. His albums are great, but like many artists he is now leaning towards a 4-4 sound and maybe he hasn’t quite shed his past enough yet to dominate a new style. He started with some vocoder-led ambience before jacking in the beats. Due to the lack of power in the system and it was quite hard to get what he was trying to do. The set he did a few years ago at LEV in Gijón was exceptional, so I know he can do it if he tries, but this year, from what I saw, it wasn’t paying off.




The same can be said for San Proper. He has some great tracks, but he made a bizarre decision to put vocals on nearly every track on his debut album “Animal” which is probably why it disappeared pretty quickly. Live as well he came across a bit seedy and almost more aligned with Not Not Fun than Rush Hour with his long hair, unkept appearance, vocals and guitar playing. It wouldn’t be a bad collaboration for him in that sense as he is far from a dud, but imbalance is again a key factor.




I only saw a bit of 50 Weapons artists Phon.o who looked brilliant, Benjamin Damage who was winding down and Bambounou who was a lot more direct and 4-4 than his album would suggest. His album was decent enough, but the abstraction was sometimes alienating. Damage looks like a bigger crowd and a darker venue would have helped. Same with Phon.o although his sound was helped by the necessity to come forward and listen closer.





I play a Darkstar track (which should never otherwise be mixed with Karenn) in the show this week, but I cannot emphasise enough how different their live sound is to their discs, and better for it. The muffled and droney “shoegaze” psychedelia is much more gripping than a well-polished pop sheen. Besides, the tracks were also longer which opens them to exploration. The last track, which I think was “Hold me down” which I play on the show, was exceptional.







Just after them was Dominick Fernow aka Vatican Shadow. His performance was ridiculous and poignant at the same time. He spent half the time behind his machines and the other half at the front of the stage punching the air, jumping and egging the crowd on. The mix was so loud, probably intentionally, that it clipped the sound system. The beats were forceful and relentless, but beautifully dubbed to bring out nuance and evolution. But it was his over the top stage presence that really twisted the knife.

An easily pleased techno audience is one who expects and needs a bass drop (i.e. Richie Hawtin et al). You break a track down and then slam on the bass and somehow that is the “joy” of techno. It gets the crowd going again after a psychedelic pit stop in a more abstract sequence. There are always cheers and more movement when the bass comes back in. Fernow made a total mockery of this. Not only did he emphasise that it is just a moment of primitive power at its peak, by playing and making a buffoon of himself he simultaneously worshiped and ridiculed the excess. But he in a passive way also made fun of the crowd who are always moving anyway. And this also is the joy of techno. Its brilliant watching everyone, high on drugs, dancing incessantly even during the breakdown when there is no beat. The body does not acknowledge this fact. This is why the bass drum kick always works a treat, to remind you that you have been fooling yourself. The beat and the metabolism of the floor never stop. Fernow just reminds you who is really in control.





If anyone is also interested in other nitty gritty details, there was some interesting track choices at times. Justice opened their DJ set with “Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Thus Spake Zarathustra) the “tone poem” by Richard Strauss, better known as the overture to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

.



Skream also played Donna Summer’s “I feel love” without it sounding silly or out of place which was also an achievement. There was another, bizarre classical music or 80s pop hit moment in the evening too, but I totally forget what it was! Skrillex had a countdown from around 6 minutes to zero that almost seemed like it would be interesting, but by the time one minute remained he had ruined it by showing he had a very limited range and poor sound design. His choice of using the Barcelona Olympics track by Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballé as one of his first was deeply misguided, especially accompanied by dodgy tourist images as if we were watching his Facebook account and Twitter feed. His sound as I mentioned lacks design and nuance, plays off hysteria and sounds like eating McDonald’s while playing video games with commercial dance pop like Rihanna playing on the radio. No need for doubts: don’t believe the hype.




Number
Artist
Track
Label
Year
1
Laurent Garnier
The man with the red face (long version)
F Communications
2000
2
Matthew Herbert
Louie Austen – Hoping (Herbert's High Dub)
Peacefrog Recordings
2002
3
George FitzGerald
Thinking of you
Hotflush Recordings
2013
4
Skream
Sticky
Tempa
2013
5
Maya Jane Coles
No sympathy (original mix)
Elite Records
2010
6
Karenn
Clean it up
Works he Long Nights
2012
7
Darkstar
Hold me down
Warp
2013
8
Kraftwerk
Franz Schubert/Endless Endless
Kling Klang
1977


Cabeza de Vaca Facebook

Scanner FM

Monday, June 24, 2013

P038: Cabeza de Vaca – Adam X special

New York and techno legend Adam “X” Mitchell is the star of this week’s Cabeza de Vaca show on Scanner FM.



Adam X has a long, long history in the business that you can find out in more detail on the internet. The old Resident Advisor exchange has been archived and was an invaluable source of information, but there is some other video material still available that tells his story.






In this video he claims to have had a musical epiphany listening to Clock DVA’s “The Act” single originally from 1988 on the Interfisch label, in particular the vocal-less version on the B-side which is clearly part of the DNA of his sound. He also mentions fetishism and rhythmic noise which is also an important historical junction between taboo, power structures, industrial with noise that is somewhat clichéd if used now as a visual representation, but its hstorical importance in defining this type of is unquestionable, from the cover of Nurse With Wound's debut album to a host of other noise-related artwork.







The early days of Adam X certainly occur at a pivotal cultural juncture, from the tales of graffiti to the nascent undefined scene of the time. I am not a graffiti expert by any stretch of the imagination, and I imagine there is some better videos out there than this one that appears to capture something of the scene if authentic.







Adam X’s early music was also a classic blend of hard acid sounds and often made in collaboration with his musical collaborator Jimmy Crash. Here is an early high BPM  track from 1992.







Of the Traversable Wormhole stuff, there is a couple of mixes featuring the entire set of originals and/or remixes in different combinations too, including this old one. There is details of a new mix featuring the second set of five singles at Chris Liebing’s website  as well.







We cannot forget to mention his brother Frankie Bones as well, one of the other legends of the scene at the time and a great pioneer of the early electronic music culture like his brother. The first track is one of his earliest from 1989 and prophetically named "Call it techno" which would go on to be the name of a documentary charting the rise of the scene.






Of course it would be unthinkable if the brothers had never collaborated at least once:




Number
Artist
Track
Label
Year
1
Clemens Neufeld
Wicked
Neufeld
2013
2
Mark Broom
Two
Coda Records / Token
2002 / 2013
3
Adam X
Deprogramming sequence
SCR Dark Series
2013
4
Traversable Wormhole
Universal Time (Dasha Rush Remix)
CLR
2013
5
Admx-71
The Winfield Spur
Sonic Groove Experiments
2012
6
Adam X
Navigational shortcut
Sonic Groove
2012
7
Josh Wink
Balls
Ovum
2013




Cabeza de Vaca Facebook

Scanner FM

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

P037: Cabeza de Vaca – 100% Silk special

As for this weeks Cabeza de Vaca and Scanner FM show, all house and a lot more tracks from 100% Silk than we normally get in a special, partly owing to their shorter length and more direct pop approach.



One of the issues we raise in the show is of hype. The sad truth of journalism is that hype and particularly “newness” is somehow more interesting than consistency as a story. Look at 100% Silk. Lauded from the beginning for their fresh and outsider approach to house, but also criticised for dragging the “wrong” people into electronic music, mainly the hipsters. In a weird way, Skrillex may have also done the same with the rock kids. But it is a shame on two fronts: one is that the “hipster house” tag may have put some people off and secondly it is ironic that the media finds it hard to find something to say when a label is not so new, even if the music is just as good (or better). In the case of 100% Silk, it is also better, but there is more of it too. There are certainly plenty of exceptional tracks on the show this week. Special praise must go to Octo Octa who’s album “Between two selves” has some amazing tracks that somehow make the Tri-angle or Burial-esque time stretched vocal bearable again, partly because it is also used sparingly. But the opening track “Who I will become” is beautiful (and one we played on the messy live set at Sonar).





Researching the show, it was curious as well to see that Leech (aka  Brian Foote) was a member of Fontanelle, the ambient/rock group on Kranky.




Rex Ritter and Andy Brown were also members of the legendary space rock group Jessamine who have almost passed into the annals of the lost I would imagine. Here is a track from 1996 from their long, improvised album “The Long Arm of Coincidence” that they used to play at Kosmische the Krautrock club in London.






One artist who does get mixed reviews despite being one of the most recognisable names is Maria Minerva. I am not her biggest fan either I must admit. I liked her show at Sonar last year for about 20 minutes, but then I found my patience wearing a bit thin. Same with her recent EP which, as the review says, just needs a little bit more quality control somewhere in the production line.





Also receiving some bad reviews  was Swedish duo Mr Tophat and Art Alfie for the KVK200 ep which opens the show. A great, but flawed track, like several of their other works. The first EP KVK100 seems to repeat the same rhythm section on each side, for example, only varying the top end of the track. However, a badly placed and aforementioned Burial-esque/Tri-angle vocal really brings down the average a bit. We have seen this with many artists in the past, notably Scuba, that a bad vocal no matter however short can really undermine a good track.





But speaking of good things, I cannot mention enough how much I like the Life Recorder 12” on Aesthetic Audio. All four of the tracks have something special, but “Keep Maintain” is my favourite from the EP. The older material is also good.




Number
Artist
Track
Label
Year
1
Mr. Tophat, Art Alfie
Crab at the Green Hunter (Original Mix)
Karlovak
2013
2
Xosar
Rays of Babylon
Rush Hour Recordings
2013
3
Magic Touch & Sapphire Slows
Just wana feel
100% Silk
2012
4
Coyote Clean Up
Zebra go seek
100% Silk
2013
5
Shams
Wasted
100% Silk
2013
6
Leech
Ninao
100% Silk
2013
7
Pharoahs
Beyon within
100% Silk
2013
8
Octavo Octava
Bad blood
100% Silk
2013
9
Life Recorder
Keep mainatin
Aesthetic Audio
2012
10
Barker & Baumecker
No Body (Machinedrum Remix)
Ostgut ton
2013




Cabeza de Vaca Facebook

Scanner FM

Thursday, June 6, 2013

P036: Cabeza de Vaca – Cosmin TRG special


It has been a question speculated on this blog a long time ago in the past  why some producers have made such definitive shifts from dubstep to techno and/or house. The first on our list that day was Cosmin Nicolae aka Cosmin TRG. It wasn’t necessarily a complaint of mine back then, but it was and still is a curious phenomenon. Not many producers went from techno to dubstep for example. Shed did, but really only made one EP as The Panamax Project even if some of his other tracks push the genre from the outside. Scuba was another one mentioned, Photek. There are plenty. Some of the reasons behind have been variously attributed to the rise of Skrillex and EDM that turned dubstep into a bass war to be king of the mosh pit.




Another factor was the crowd, in a different sense. In Spain, for example, the early dubstep crowd was more punky and rough around the edges, neither the post-grunge look or the glamour image that clubs and promoters sometimes look for and feel safe with. Maybe because of a mixture of different crowd and new music, the number of gigs was also less for dubstep and of course the cash that it entails. I don’t begrudge any artist the pursuit of money and better gigs with nicer girls as long as the music remains decent. Everyone has to make a living and trying to work to make your life better doesn’t make you a whore.


Thankfully for Cosmin Nicolae his music has certainly not suffered from change and this week on Cabeza de Vaca and Scanner FM we provide the evidence. Now deep into his second album and with plenty of excellent 12”s he has left a mark no matter what he does next, whether it be a Scuba like “Personality” or something more experimental. But his words in a recent RA interview  about his new album are illuminating about our opening question.


“To be honest I just felt a bit old for the bass music. Everything at some point started to feel ironic.”


It is true that dubstep seemed to get a bit self deprecating, just as drum n bass did in a way, and then got absorbed and lost. Traditional dubstep kind of lives in the dungeon sound, but the rest feels closer to house and techno or lives far from the centre of the dance floor where invariably our attention must be drawn, being the brightest point in the picture.


Cosmin also claims to have some influence of film on his most recent album “Gordian”. It started life as soundtrack to a film that is not identified, but clearly the idea is simmering somewhere. “And even though the album is finished, I think it is a work in progress. Thing is, I am still trying to do it. It is going to be a short film/music video, if it ever happens” he continues. He also claims to draw some inspiration from Swedish film director Roy Andersson who’s film “Songs from the second floor” is an off-beat classic, like a calm and glacial Emir Kusturica.





One gripe though with the release schedule of 50 Weapons though is these 12”s with two tracks, one from the album and one not. In this day and age of crisis and consciousness of sustainability etc, it seems a little indulgent and opportunistic. At least commission two remixes to make a proper EP!


For example “Sommer” below appeared as the B-side to the single “Vertigo”, but not on the album.




Also a curiosity this week is the collaboration between Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan and Laurie Spiegel who is riding a big wave on the back of the rediscovery of her “Expanding universe” album from 1980. As a note to 50 Weapons above, the vinyl of the album came with a download for more tracks than could fit on the wax; incentive if there ever was one.  




The title track is a long, droning ambient work, but the other pieces on the album are more obviously early computer and electronic music and  clearly pioneering for their time. It is not as surprising to find her working with an electronic artists as it is, for example, to contribute to the “Hunger Games” sound track.





The original of "Drums" can be found here and dates from 1975.







In an interview with Spin Greenspan says of his creative method: “This track is credited to both myself and Laurie Spiegel, not only because I received her generous blessing and input, but also because I felt as though I was attempting not simply to re-edit or even remix the piece, but rather to play off of it: to use it as a guide to exploring some different musical possibilities, and to collaborate with the original. In many ways I didn't write anything, but simply played back 'Drums' on my computer, using its tempo and rhythms to trigger an almost arbitrary chain of synthesizers, both new and old. I then fed Spiegel's original piece into my indispensable Eventide H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer (a piece of equipment that I use constantly and was, unbeknownst to me, beta tested by Spiegel in the 1980s). My job was simply to select the moments I thought worked and disregard the excess.” 


Also, it was announced after the show was recorded so I couldn’t mention it, but Delsin have just released details a box set to celebrate their 100th release.





Don’t forget to come and visit Scanner FM and Cabeza de Vaca at Sonar 2013. We will be at Sonar Day, hopefully not only in the Sonar Pro area, but we will see.




Number
Artist
Track
Label
Year
1
Jeremy Greenspan & Laurie Spiegel
Drums&Drums&Drums
Jiaolong
2013
2
Paul Mac
Rolled out and back
Osiris Music
2012
3
Bleak
Sixteen crude
Delsin
2013
4
Cosmin TRG
Auster
Bleep
2013
5
Cosmin TRG
Liebe suende
Rush Hour Direct Current
2010
6
Cosmin TRG
Divided by design
50 Weapons
2013
7
Cosmin TRG
Twilight riddim
Tempa
2010
8
Cosmin TRG
Ritmat
50 Weapons
2011
9
Jonas Kopp
Desire
Curle Recordings
2013



Cabeza de Vaca Facebook

Scanner FM