Liminal Minimals – August 2012

0 Comments 31 August 2012

Short reviews of albums that have lit up the Liminal space over the past month. Reviews by Rich Hughes (RH) and Joseph Burnett (JB).

Atlantis – The Institute of Technology (Chemical Tapes)

The latest cassette from Chemical Tapes sees Tim Diagram, return under his Atlantis moniker. As the name might suggest, there are sub-aquatic currents at work here, with analogue synths coming on like a submerged-kosmische soundtrack to a 21st century Cousteau adventure. Avoiding the more glitch-laden electronic path, Diagram takes a more widescreen approach – the music flowing, grooving and dissipating like the rolling seas themselves. The track titles perfectly reflect the music’s journey of discovery: ‘Columbus in the New World’, ‘Wanderings in the Western Land’ and ‘A Strange Voyage’ and bring to mind old pulp fiction book covers depicting alien worlds within our own, and all the childhood wonder they invoke. (RH)

L A N D – Night Within (Important)

Guided by the hand of Ben Frost from his studio in Reykjavik, L A N D’s debut is a more varied take on post-rock/instrumental guitar-based music. The inclusion of a barrage of brass and woodwind takes Night Within into almost free jazz territory, punctured, as on ‘Into The Blue’, by scorching and discordant buzz-saw guitar and rasping percussion. Bass drives the album though, the other instruments bowing and obeying its every throbbing whim. ‘Stillman’ rocks back and forth between crying saxophones, sketchy metallic shards of percussion and reverb-heavy guitars, but the best comes with the album’s solitary vocal appearance on ‘Nothing Is Happening Everywhere’ where David Sylvian’s mysterious tones provide the perfect foil to L A N D’s noir stylings. (RH)

Celer & Machinefabriek – Hei / Sou (Bandcamp)

The final release in a trilogy of collaborative 7″ releases is perhaps the best of the bunch. Working within such a short time frame – both tracks clock in just under the five-minute park – these pieces are all about distillation. ‘Hei’ is a distant cousin of Eno’s ambient works; a gentle flow of notes perforate a slowing unfolding drone that sounds like the earth sliding apart to reveal the noise within. The flipside, ‘Sou’, takes a more spectral route with rhythmic synth repetitions and creeping waves. Are there two more interesting, prolific and exceptional talents working in music than these? At the moment, I think not. (RH)

Minotaur Shock – Orchard (Melodic)

After a brief flirtation with 4AD, David Edwards returned to his roots at Melodic for his latest album, and with that move, he’s made some of the most polished and accomplished music to date. Opening track ‘Janet’ sets the tone – pretty entwining stringed instruments float over a grooving rhythm section that keeps the tempo high and focussed. Little snatches of samples are tucked away in the track, not distracting from the groove, but augmenting the overall sound. Edwards has used more live instruments this time around, and the relative lack of electronic embellishment gives the album a more natural feel. When the glitches and modifications do occur, as on ‘Ocean Swell’ and ‘Too Big To Quit’, their inventiveness stands out, bringing a welcome shift in direction. It’s an eclectic mix of influences and sources bringing to mind Stereolab, Mike Oldfield at his pompous multitrack best and even Autechre’s warmer albums, making for a surprising and varied listen. (RH)

Seremonia – Seremonia (Svart Records)

Also hailing from Finland are Seremonia, although their music could not be more radically different to Mika Vainio’s (see below) , despite a certain similar chilliness. Seremonia do use some electronics, but these serve as additional psychedelic flourishes to go with their take on good old gnarly hard rock. Much like Wisconsin-based outfit Jex Thoth, Seremonia’s music is based on crunching riffs and overloaded drums, but stand apart from the mass of bands using similar tropes by being fronted by a female singer, Noora Federley who, like Thoth, has a fierce, arresting voice, pitched somewhere between Siouxsie Sioux and a more restrained Runhild Gammelsæter. Most interestingly, she has taken the bold decision to sing in her native Finnish which, while it does make comprehension tricky for those of us not born there, adds a certain exoticism to proceedings, especially when her voice is put through a synth, coming out as a creepy, alien wail. Musically, Seremonia draw heavily from the Black Sabbath well of doom, with hefty riffs and a general aura of bleak paganism, although when the band speeds things up, an obvious love for hardcore punk also pierces the thunderous murk, whilst the creepy psychedelic synth flourishes evoke both vintage horror movie scores and obscure sixties freak act Morgen. For lovers of all things heavy, dark and weird, Seremonia could be one of the albums of the year. (JB)

Mika Vainio: Fe3O4 – Magnetite (Touch)

Like the snow that coats his native Finland for large portions of the year, the music of Mika Vainio is cold and severe, a sub-zero take on the archetypes of electronic music. Here releasing himself from the rhythmic anchor of Pansonic, Vainio deploys sheets of caustic digital noise interspersed with lengthy passages of uneasy near-silence. ‘Magnetotactic’, one of the album’s highlights, is a case in point, as metallic drones make way for the occasional piercing bleep of what sounds like a digital watch. On the more restrained ‘Magnetosense’, he swerves into classic ambient with ghostly synth melodies and deep basslines providing a brief respite from the unpredictable onslaughts that pop up on the rest of the album. Vainio seems to expand on this delicacy on “Magnetism” but quickly deconstructs his sounds via brutally abrasive feedback, as if he has just plugged his laptop into a collapsing generator during a jam with Kleistwahr and Pete Swanson. As ever with Vainio, Fe304 is not for the fainthearted, because even at its most becalmed it constantly threatens to explode with nice cold aggression. (JB)