Floatinghead's ramblings about music and music-related themes interspersed with various interludes and home of Cabeza de Vaca radio show on Scanner FM, Barcelona.
I need to make something of a disclaimer
regarding this mix. The original idea came from something that Mute boss Daniel
Miller wrote in the liner notes to a Mojo compilation called “Electricity: A
brief history of future sound” that came out in September 2012 and which for
some reason stuck in my head. Miller wrote that “As far as the sequencing goes,
I started with Fad Gadget’s “Back to nature” – a very important track for me
personally because it was the track that really got Mute going as a label. I
ended the compilation with Non’s “Total war” because it’s a track that can’t be
followed”. Given the sheer aggression of sound and theme, I tended to agree
with Miller’s opinion.
Nonetheless, the idea that “Total war”
could not be followed seemed to me to be an interesting conceptual challenge
for a mix. Could I create a narrative arc where this idea was the central
theme? Could I sonically and thematically create this idea of war and
destruction after which nothing would remain? Therefore, this mix should in no
way be perceived as any kind of personal opinion or call to arms and should not
necessarily be taken to be my personal opinion about the world. It is an
intellectual exercise, a puzzle to assemble perhaps, and if anything, I would
like to present a criticism of violence and fear and just ask why? Is violence
essential to nature? Similarly, situating certain artist’s tracks around this
intentional idea of violence and war may be to give them context and
association that they do not have or do not want, so I apologise to them if
there is any misunderstanding caused. Noise does not necessarily have to be
violent and, indeed, I quite often find it soothing.
Continuing this idea I make particular
reference to the brief appearance of the Kraftwerk track “Vom Himmel hoch”
(From Heaven above) which features synthesised sounds of bombers coming in and
dropping their payloads. Axis or Allied bombers or both? It was David Stubbs who
pointed me to this track in his book “Future Days: Krautrock and the building
of modern Germany” where he says: “In later musical life, Kraftwerk would
become renowned for their synthetic transcriptions of modern mechanised life.
The opening passage [of “Vom Himmel hoch”] is, however, a rare direct reference
in the Krautrock canon to wartime, whose traumas and experiences generally play
a much more suppressed and subliminal role in the music.” Stubbs also makes
reference to Kraftwerk reclaiming potentially controversial national symbols for
Germany, such as the autobahns, which were originally built by Hitler, and also
romanticising trains which clearly had their own sinister purposes in the
Second World War. This is obviously not to say that Kraftwerk are secret Nazi
sympathisers, probably the opposite, but it warns that context and
misinterpretation are always possible. This is also the point of this
disclaimer, to try and avoid anyone taking this mix in the wrong way, but at
the same time I do not want to imply that there is any fixed way that it should
be taken. The title of this track also refers to a hymn text relating to the
Nativity of Jesus written by Martin Luther in 1534 which reads "Vom Himmel
hoch, da komm ich her" ("From heaven above to earth I come") and
which has appeared in many other works, most notably Bach.
The mix was done at home during the first
few days of the year on Christmas vacation and was finished last week before
the events in Paris on Wednesday. I was playing it at home on Friday night to
check the final adjustments I had made and I felt a little bit uncomfortable
listening to the closing sequence, especially to “Total war”, but also the
British Murder Boys track. Moreover, my French girlfriend was in the room and
was reasonably upset by it, but ironically found the shift to Pharmakon’s “Bang
bang” to be somehow even more disturbing, despite it being essentially quieter
and a well-known pop “song”. This of course was the point of selecting it and
it marks a clear epilogue, if there is indeed something after “total war”, or
alternatively it is the last inhalation of breath before the beginning of a
second climax. I should also add that some of my girlfriend’s family is from
Algeria, like the French killers, and therefore the events this week were particularly
important for her and others like her as they are clearly a betrayal and a
profanity of the most profound kind.
If anyone was wondering, the mix was made
entirely in Adobe Audition and in some cases there are three or even four
tracks playing at once. I have used cut and paste editing of tracks in several
occasions to create small loops or continuations of sounds and so on, that make
it easier to graft the subsequent track or to create continuity of ideas such
as the nature sounds.
New Cabeza de Vaca show at Scanner FM!!!! … who was incidentally rated
in the top 18 internet radio stations in the world as judged by the latest
issue of Rolling Stone magazine (Spanish edition).
The end of 2012
was a pretty rough ride in many ways. It also became a rich period for ambient
music partly by design, to soothe this turmoil and also to prepare for the
latest show, and partly by coincidence, listening to whatever came my way. Here
I collect a few mini-reviews and comments about some of the albums that
characterized the end of the year and that complement the show. Many people
sent me some great stuff, not all of which I could play on the air, but many
thanks as always and please don’t stop! A special shout out to Mike as well at
the Touch shop as I made a mess of an order there as I was too busy and too
stressed to read the email he sent me properly, but he so patiently dealt with
my incompetence. Gracias!
VA – Touch: 30
years and counting [Touch]
Easily the most
surprising thing about this collection on Touch is the sheer number of field
recording-based tracks there are. A scan through the list of “materials and
methods” reveals a host of locations and techniques. Label boss Jon Wozencroft
opens under the Touch 33 name with a brief excerpt of “a fast ford [not the car
(sic)] on a village road near the rocky outcrop of Ros-y-Felin”, whereas on
Jana Winderen’s track “In a silent place” she mixes the sounds of bats recorded
in Regents Park, London with ultrasound mixed with underwater recordings. Chris
Watson’s recording of Brussels Nord train station is particularly beguiling for
its sounds of men, machines and birds, so much so that it sounds like a collage
rather than a “documentary” recording. Best of all is Francisco López whose
“Untitled#286” apparently combines field recordings of Bogota and Lima,
although the sound feels more like one segment of one afternoon than any kind
of studio manipulation. As well as these more direct pieces, there are also a
lot of recordings that seem to have taken place in at least two locations,
being finished on the road or re-recorded elsewhere, such as Oren Ambarchi’s
“Merely A Portmanteau” recorded in Melbourne and Tel Aviv, or Carl Michael Von
Hausswolff’s recording made in Khufu’s pyramid in Giza and the Castle in
Stockholm. Combine all this with the label’s usual international roster and you
have a set that feels strangely ubiquitous in a purely global and spiritual
sense. Much has been made of the atemporality of the modern internet world, but
this compilation seems to suggest an aphysicality as well, a simultaneous
existence of multiple teeming places in one instant, or a literal binding of
one place within another irrespective of distance. That is to say, everything
is within Touch(ing) distance. Perhaps it is for this reason that the label
also decided to join the tracks into four long pieces to fit on the four sides
of vinyl so that one track Touch(es) another?
Oren Ambarchi –
Audience of one [Touch]
Oren Ambarchi –
Sagittarian domain [eMego]
Australian
multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi was undoubtedly one of the artists of 2012.
His name turned up in far ranging media from the Wire to Resident Advisor with
regular frequency and his recording legacy from last year was simply superb.
Discogs lists at least nine albums he participated in, including two stunning
solo works, one for Touch and the other for Editions Mego. Although we will
play the plaintive short track “Salt” from “Audience of one” on this week’s
show, the highlights of the two albums is easily the long tracks “Knots” and
the title track of “Sagittarian domain” which is actually the only track, each
clocking in at over 30 minutes. Both are sumptuous and progressive jams,
building in tension, texture and wonder as they climax. There is a lot in
common with the other Australian group The Necks in “Sagittarian domain” with
its combination of bass-drum repetitions driving the track forward, but in
place of Chris Abrahams ethereal piano licks, Ambarchi unleashes his electric
guitar and various electronics until the end breaks down into wistful modern
classical finale. “Sagittarian domain” feels almost like a classic psych or
space rock group doing a freak out whereas “Knots” is more complicated and more
electric, bustling and fizzing across more uneven territory, but one that still
climaxes in a wave of raw power.
Bee Mask –
Vaporware / Scanops [Room 40]
Bee Mask – When
we were eating unripe pears [Spectrum Spools]
Chris Madak’s
Bee Mask project has been in existence for several years, since 2005 at least, with
plenty of releases now on his own Deception Island cassette label amongst
others. Even though I don’t own a cassette player anymore, there is no reason
why I shouldn’t have come across his work until last year. But I still have the
first moments of listening to “Vaporware” etched deeply in my mind. There was
no sense of needing to grow into it, of music and listener testing each other,
it was within a minute or two an unresounding “yes”. The Room 40 release was
the first I heard with the opening spill of sound reminiscent of PopolVuh’s
“Aguirre” soundtrack, but never quite feeling like a mindless homage either as
it slowly thickens into a more corporal piece. The B side “Sacops” also wears a
few influences on its sleeve for the opening minutes, harking back to some
classic ambient and minimal classical composition before blasting itself into
outer space via a frenzy of analogue synth chatter underpinned by meditative
choral drones. But this is the key to Bee Mask’s sound: exploration,
re-synthesis and technology with an inherently spiritual core. That said, this
is not anywhere near New Age music although the longer form tracks do have a
healing energy. In a 2011 interview with Foxy Digitalis
Madak claimed to have taken some influence from American abstract artists like
Ad Reinhardt, Brice Marden and Robert Rauschenberg, stating that:
“I got
interested in the idea that once you’re looking at your project as one
progressing toward the identity of work and surface, the concept of fidelity
loses its object and becomes meaningless.”
The key concept
appears to be this idea of surface, as there is a curiously superficial feel to
the music, not in terms of meaning or vision, but of gliding between
transparent surfaces or states, where all musical colour and meaning comes from
the collections of light and reflections shifting across the dual interfaces.
Moreover, Madak makes sure to break the surface at certain moments, with gnarly
synth workouts or volume effects, to facilitate a penetration of the material
and precipitate vulnerability in the listener. “When we were eating…” is
altogether different compositionally, working off much shorter pop song
lengths, albeit wonderfully sequenced, but combining much of the same sound
synthesis: 70s sci-fi effects, serene hypercoloured backdrops of mystic
temples, melancholy angels and nature hallucinating an idea of itself. Essential.
Robert Hampson –
Répurcussions [eMego]
Robert Hampson –
Signaux [eMego]
Robert Hampson –
Suspended cadences [eMego]
It seems a long
time since I heard anything from former Loop and Main man Robert Hampson
although he hasn’t been entirely inactive of late. However, three albums at
once is almost a frightening load for anyone. In many ways, there is not a
great deal of difference between any of these, with “Signaux” and “Suspended
cadences” even going together to form a pair. The sound is post-Main in that it
extends the micro guitar textures of the Main material into even more minimal
and insectoid forms. “Suspended cadences” represents two studio improvisations
whereas “Signaux” is essentially the same material recorded live in Paris on
two separate occasions. It appears that no laptops were used in the music
making process, only to record the material, but there appears to be plenty of
source machines and instrumentation used to create these side-long pieces, particularly
guitars and various analogue electronics, some of which sound like circuit bent
gadgets. The three tracks on “Répurcussions” had their origins in different
live performances, being commissioned for different spaces and festivals. The
source sounds for the track “Répercusions” are distinctly percussion based
instruments, though as with all Hampson’s material since Main, they are highly
processed. “De la Terre à la Lune” on the other hand from takes its inspiration
from NASA missions and sci-fi classics like 2001 and Solaris. Understandably
there is little rhythm across all three releases, though pulses do surface in
“Signaux” and drum sounds do create a cinematic sense of drama in
“Répurcusions”. Such Spartan and spidery music can feel academic and dry at
times, but there is always a wealth of micro texture and detail to focus in on,
whereas the improvised construction loosens the tracks from any overbearing
rigidity.
Retina.it –
Descending into Crevasse [Glacial Movements]
There is a
marked difference between the Italian duos previous album “Randomicon” and
“Descending into crevasse”. The former is more complicated and mechanistic, more
aligned with IDM via its beats, whereas the new album is noticeably more fluid
and rich in feeling, perhaps to fit better in the Glacial Movements label
aesthetic and sound. Indeed, some passages of “Descending…” are so mesmerizingly
rich with beauty and soft-lit emotions that they are almost painful. The key is
the simple melodies that repeat in different spaces and with varying
trajectories, often derived from what sound like samples of jazz and classical
music. This is not to say another Gas-like album as here the constructions are
melodic, simply repeating phrases that wash and tremble. The second track
“Freezing the fourth string” is perhaps the most obvious, at least by the name,
combining string washes as if hearing chamber music play in the room next door
from the throes of sleep. “Moonshine” is perhaps the standout track and
features on this week’s show. The mood is harder to divine, a little dramatic
like the “Moonlight sonata” perhaps, and yet uncertain and merged with
endlessly changing thought. The mood darkens as the album plays out, with the
micro rhythms of “-32°F Porcelain, Metal & Ice” adding an extra sense of
urgency, whereas the closing title track is stark and threatening at times with
monumental grandeur. But “Descending…” is not overly a dark album. Rather its
coolness is a slowing of process that gives a luxurious sense of immensity.
Christoph Berg –
Paraphrases [Facture]
“Paraphrases” is
the debut album from Kiel-born and Berlin-based composer Christoph Berg under
his own name after two more electro-acoustic albums under his Field Rotation
alias released in 2011. The album is a collection of chamber music compositions
recorded over a period of two years and apparently all played by Berg, with
some remix help on various tracks by Aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono) and Peter
Jørgensen. The pieces are mainly written for violin, piano and double bass
although extra non-musical sounds also work their way inside, such as drones,
found sounds and the electronic tones and typewriter effects used on the
intriguing track “Poems written by an old (prepared) piano” which features on
this week’s show. The mood is sombre or pensive throughout, evoking wooden
houses and the skeletal thread of winter trees etched into the mist. The cover
depicts a similar image, of a lonely woman’s silhouette lost in the fog. It is
the violins that dominate the opening sequences, one mixed into a tapestry
beneath the fluttering, sing-song expression of the first violin that cries the
melodies. The bass is plucked almost percussively and drops out altogether in
many moments to enhance the sense of loneliness and fragility. Piano comes into
play during “Poems…”, but the following “Buildings at night” returns to the
violin-bass combination and almost offers a brighter ray of hope for a moment.
However, “Interlude”, like “Poems…” is a stand-alone piece, merging reverbed
ambient recordings of what sounds like a train station, with droning violins
and isolated notes of a glacial piano. There is a wooden timbre to the violins as the
end draws in, such as on “A small path crossing”, bringing a richer mid-range is
sturdier and offering strength. The finale “Quiet times at the library” brings
back the violin call of the opening track, but sets it free over a sparser and
more evanescent backing this time completed with piano. “Paraphrases” as a
whole feels like some kind of travelogue, a memory of a journey in a quiet
vehicle, the landscape trapped behind the glass and disappearing in time and fog.
An absolutely beautiful and heart rending work.
Superstorms –
Superstorms [Experimedia]
Superstorms is
the project of Michael Tolan formerly of Ohio noise group Tusco Terror and sometimes
working with the trio Trouble Brooks who have also collaborated with EmeraldsMark McGuire. Across the five nameless tracks here of varying length, Tolan
explores the interaction between timbral pressure, feedback and drones which, once
collided, seem to hang precariously over a chasm of infinite space. One analogy
would be to take meaning from the project name and picture dark and potent storm
clouds suspended overhead. The sound seems to surge forth from an invisible
sonic crevasse, jagged and buried at the centre of the mix like a crack of
lightning. From a distance the scene is smooth and roiling, but on closer
inspection the sound is distinctly fractured and particulate, almost granular,
like lightning atomized into micro sparks that remain embroiled in the clouds
without pouring forth in rain or forking into the earth. This is not immersive
ambient, but expulsive listening, like a rejecting from gravity instead of
falling into the abyss. Volume here does actually help too as there is a lot of
movement in the small sounds at different velocities and hearing with
headphones helps the microscopic analysis, but doesn’t give any sense of the
whole.
Damian Valles
–Nonparallel (in 4 movements)
[Experimedia]
All the music on
“Nonparallel” was composed and arranged entirely from samples from the
recordings of avant-garde Western classical composers and computer music
released by the Nonesuch label in the 60s and 70s, including artists like
Elliot Carter, William Bolcom, Charles Ives and Charles Wuorinen. The project
then recalls Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas, although sounds much noisier, and also
Indignant Senility’s “Plays Wagner”, itself inspired by Gas and yet sounding
much closer to Canadian multi-instrumentalist Valles. All samples for the album
were taken from vinyl originals with the intention of leaving in all the snaps,
crackles and pops which probably accounts for the buried glitch and percussion
elements the push at the surface from below, but never break through. Each of
the four tracks is almost identical in length and in a way structure, being
long dense fields of noise, but as would be hoped they all differ in their
timbral range and the timing of the slow-motion climaxes that rage within.
“Movement II” is particularly menacing at times, as is the closing track. “Movement
III” bends and twists like a dancer as it emerges and even hints at melodies at
times. He layering here is perhaps the most subtle of the album which compels,
but can also feel heavy and at times a little over controlled.
Charlatan –
Isolatarium [Type]
Digitalis label
boss Brad Rose has a huge collection of cassette albums, but surprisingly only
three or so on vinyl or CD. Aguirre re-released his debut album “Equinox” in
2011, whereas his “Triangles” album came out on his own label in the same year.
Birmingham label Type now give us the pleasure of a new release which has a
similar sepia/ochre tinted cover image to Bryter Later’s “Two lenses” released on
Students of Decay last year. And just like Bryter Later, there is a strong representation
of the music in the cover art. Here a woman stares forth from the yellowy gloom
bearing a bandits mask and this is perhaps the essence of the album: a cloudy
hijack. The dreamy, ambling tones of opening track “Codex” suddenly jolts awake
with the lumbering slow motion techno garble of “Kinetic disruption”, a more
than apt name for its arrival. “Anti-crash device” feels horrendously
cacophonous at times, yet its chiming synths and earnest, but untethered
searching are strangely protective. The rest of the album follows suit, if not becoming
noisier, providing juxtapositions, stable discomforts and mazey escapes. Not as
easily digestible as “Equinox”, but its all-terrain influences from buried techno,
to synth jams, noise and beyond keep it from becoming obnoxious.
Alex Cobb – Passage
to morning [Students of decay]
Intimacy is a
word that can be thrown around a lot in ambient circles, just like isolation.
Almost anything that is quieter than normal requires you to get closer or
exposes you to a rawness or a sense of precariousness or evanescence that
invariably draws the intimate tag. In addition, how much happy ambient music is
there, meaning there is more scope for intimacy since sad feelings are often
the more guarded? So much ambient music is tinged with this sadness, the waking
and falling feeling. Intimacy is thus a cliché, but often an apt one. You can
find the word in the press notes for Alex Cobb’s latest release, for example,
an album that arrived almost two years after his prolific run as Taiga Remains
came to an end. Perhaps then the tag fits in with something from his personal
life that is not mentioned, but as far as listening goes, it certainly feels appropriate
here, but not in the typical obvious way. This is not sad or even overtly
emotional music. At times there feels like there is only a stark neutrality to
the sound. But yet the music is somehow intimate, demanding that you come close
to it to hear its purpose. There are so many tiny ripples slipping to the
surface here, that it is easy became enchanted following them, wondering where they
had arisen from and where they go. There is an amazing amount of simple
movements occurring and an obscure number of sound sources. There is feedback,
perhaps, and samples, but the microprocessing of the sound is wonderful even if
the overall character may not be the most original.
