Sunn O))) - The Grimmrobe Demo's (Southern Lord)

Need a work out? A Sunn live performance combined with a klysma will do juuuuust fucking fine. After one and a half hours and the rush of the klysma working like it should and you're as healthy as a shiny, green apple. Saw them live last week and goddamn, it was the best thing ever. I'm not that much of a concert kinda guy nor do I wear a klysma but I'm ready to hunt these guys down to see them again and, as ODB would say, feel the earth tremble under my balls once or twice more. Even the great, great Arcade Fire gig in Amsterdam two weeks ago doesn't top this. Even seeing Smegma for their first ever European show was no contest. Driving back for one and a half hours, my mouth was still open and my balls were slowly crawling back to were they belong.

Sunn plays bodymusic, you can feel it, you have to feel it. You have to crank the volume open to the maximum. It almost becomes a religious experience cos you can't do this everyday, at every time of day. Unless you live on a farm with your neighbours at least two miles away, you have to carefully select your Sunn sessions. Lay down, close your eyes and get carried away by the huge waves of feedback. It was surprising how good Enter the 36 Chambers held up during my trip home. That's pretty heavy on bass too. Fascinated I always was by the Sunn. Now, I'm possessed and these early sessions satisfy my needs at this moment like no crack could ever satisfy them. No, hypothetically speaking, of course.

There's so little difference in all three tracks that once you go down you stay down. The trance kicks in and, if concentrated, only wears off as the last seconds of the album tick away. That's the power and also the weakness of course. Patience. Got that and your in for a hell of a ride. The tracks presented on these early demo's are the foundation of Earth inspired Sunn, the concrete on which they would build impressive offerings like White1 and White2. There's nothing shifty or hidden on this disc, it's all in your face and ready to slowly tear your intestants apart. How's that for a metal cliché? This time it's truth.

Dirt sez

ODB's last interview in The Village Voice.

"This is Dirt McGirt and you all know me and I don't like answering no fucking questions. You know what I'm saying. You know how we get down and we've been doing this for years so let's continue doing this."

Sunburned Hand of the Man - No Magic Man (Bastet)

Whatever I said in the post below; forget it. This record seems to take place on a different planet anyway, or at least on a place on this earth where hardly any sunlight comes through. The flora and fauna there hasn't even been discovered. It's dark and foggy, swamps infested with algae bubble under the hazy shine of the moon. This, is where No Magic Man celebrates it's land, reigns and eventually unleashes it's tentacles around a number of crazed enthusiastics who are willing to be carried away by it's moans and groans (me, some other guy and a few others perhaps).

The no magic man opens up the gates to his realm with lost ghosts chanting over his shoulder. The intro, 'Every Direction' is the unfolding of his kingdom. "[...]I open the eyes of all / that they might see / my right eye is the day / my left eye is the night".
Than no magic man's tribe start it's hedonistic rituals with 'The 1st Degree'. While peaceful at first, the flutes and organdrones soon enough initiate an atmosphere that most people would run away from instantly. Menacing percussion shakes the earth and human screams dissapear into the depths of, dunno, something very deep. No, even deeper than that, deeper, still deeper. Okay, you're getting there now.

Everything is somewhat held together by the rough lines of buzzing krautrockstructures. Around this fluid core effects twirl around, men speak of vague matters and cymbals crash in the distance. The monotone voice that makes up almost everything of 'The Air Itself' creates a trancelike state, expecting a never ocurring breakdown in chaos everytime a sentence ends. Instead the voice of the speaking man seems to hold down anything chaotic about to happen. It's only an interlude, a plus six minute interlude to the centerpiece, the core of this hidden world. The titletrack. 'No Magic Man' never speeds up or breaks down, a constant pace is kept, the only sound interfearing is that of clatter of various origin and the occasional appearing of underworldly sounding and deformed vocal samples. All these elements combined make for a very exciting listen, you get thrown in the middle of shamanistic rituals in a circle of painted faces jumping up and down.

It's the recognizable flute drone that is present throughout No Magic Man that makes this release far more appealing than previous efforts. There actually is a structure (mostly in the spiralling flutesound) of some sort, a guidinglight for the listener to unconsciously focus on. A looping guitarmelody messes with everything that seems chaotic in being the opposite, refined and ever present. On top, the clatter of hitting on pots and pans give the whole a chaotic semi-improvised vibe. And then it ends, it ends for a a stretched minute with a serene but disturbing female voice eventually transforming into a voice of the counter sex. It messes with your head without you even realizing it. Again, it's an intro, this time to the most dark and organic piece of the album, 'Yer Own Eyes and the Number One'. A rough guitarmelody again takes care of the structural pace, voices scream bewildered on top while a gong, cymbals and other folk-inspired instruments colour the track with heavy psychedelic paint. It's No Magic Man at it's most intense, unpredictable, getting deeper and deeper in a trancelike state while horrific trumpetsounds frolic in the background. As if possessed, until 'Nile High' quietly comes in with its peaceful ending, the gates are closing. The no magic man gave you a peek and left you craving for more.

No Magic Man is one of the defining albums of the spiritual psychedelia known to Wire readers as the new weird america. If ever, music was made to satisfy the Gods, this is not it. This isn't music for the devil either, these are the sounds Darwin must have heard while writing The Origin of Species. Earth coming to life, feeling it's breath whilst being mystified forevermore. When I'm intrigued, I'm living.

prelude to the sunburned hand of the man review that's coming up

fuck, i had this planned for today but I got mixed up in my own thoughts....so I'll just leave this sitting here and write the actual review in another entry. forgive me for my thoughts...

so..uh..here goes what's been in my head for the past 15 minutes:
What is experimental music? This is a righteous question, far too many bands are lazily lumped in in the broad context of the word experimental. This sounds different! Let's tag it experimental! Oh yeah, that's deep man. Really, and I've been doing it myself maybe (don't really know) but in general the biggest part of music labelled as experimental has it's legs kneedeep in the conservative roots of traditional sounds. Okay, there is something to say for the argument that if you take a traditional sound and twist it a little you are experimenting. To me, at this point that's not my take on what experimental music should be. It should be truly innovative and as much otherworldy sounding as possible. And, to get into my cd collection, it has to be awesome, of course ;-). So if we narrow down the experimental music scene to my standards who can we lump in? I can't leave Varese out, although he'd hate it if he read this, the man was fantasizing about electronic sounds that weren't even born yet so bad that he solely energized a whole movement of pioneers who eventually gave birth to the whole electronic scene. That's like the core of all that's experimental. That's the definition right there. I might as well stop here. Although Sun City Girls, Miles Davis, Smegma (saw them last weekend, those old bastards still reign supremely!) can be counted as well. I can't even consider lumping in Wolf Eyes for what they create is just the evolution of what the Sun City Girls and Smegma laid the foundations for. So with this as the general thought of this piece, not much can be lumped in my take on experimental music and as the sane person I am, this is way too strict a definition. Doesn't mean you don't have to contemplate over this, after all, lazy journalism is the worst kind. So, blablabla.. ;-)

please stay tuned; i got stuff coming up. reading the wu tang manual now, truly fascinating...

actually, i gotta review the Sunburned Hand of the Man album here, it's definately their best yet and I doubt they will ever surpass this. So coming up: review of No Magic Man. Somewhere....like...soon or something

Venetian Snares - Rossz Csillag Allat (Planet Mu)

Although I wish I was, I'm not an expert on classical music. I know it's out there waiting for me and once I get in I probably won't be back for a very, very long time. But there's so much good music already out there. I can't afford to drown in the classical swamps just yet. I'll regret it but whatever, first things first. What I do appreciate is that some musicians pick out the very best parts that make classical music so appealing to me and involve them in their own music. Godspeed etc. does that in creating enormous layers of orchestral sounds that wash down on the people that long for sounds to wash down (like me). Rachel's subtlety comes close to the most achingly beautiful and minimal Satie pieces (yes, I do know some folks y'know). Max Richter's Blue Notebooks, no explanation needed here.

Add to that list the most unexpected of artists to be involved in classical serenity: Aaron Funk aka Venetian Snares. No need to rub your eyes, it is indeed that insane fucker of a breakbeatguy. Who would've thought he had a masterpiece up his sleeve so strangely beautiful it hurts your ears as much as it caresses them. Funk mixes a huge amount of samples of classical pieces, which I don't recognize indeed, with his typical sped up breakbeat style. It's fascinating how well the two styles as similar as a prada dress and a garbage bag actually blend together in a somewhat disrupted but majestic suite.

'Sczerencsétlen' (damn his obsession with Hungary), starts things off exciting with a the kind of music Woody Woodpecker gets chased by. When the breakbeat kicks in it's hardly confronting as earlier Venetian Snares work often was and is. It's well balanced, almost easy and compromising. The real challenge lays in the balancing of the beats with the doom impending classical sounds. Funk not only uses your typical Mozart-esque classical but also went through those old and rusty recordcollections at fleamarkets. For 'Öngyilkos Vasárnap' he dives into ghostly territory. The lovely Billie Holliday sings:

"Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach
Of sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thoughts
Of ever returning you
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you?"

These are the lyrics for the infamous 'Gloomy Sunday'. A track composed by Rezsô Seress, an Hungarian musician who, in 1968, committed suicide by jumping off a flat. It's said that the lyrics and the haunting melody caused a sudden increase in suicides after people heard the song. Creepy but it doesn't do the trick with me though, still alive and kicking here. Radiostations all over the world banned the song eventually.

Rossz.. is extremely haunting but in a good, hide behind your pillow kind of way. The threatening violin that introduces 'Fellbomlasztott Mentökosci' with it's droning atmosphere slowly unfolds it's tentacles and suffocates it's own self. The violin is a common theme that fits perfectly well alongside the rather fluent and jazzy hi-hat breakbeats of 'Hajnal'. Somewhat more confronting but never too much is the chaotic 'Második Galamb', the most typical Snares track present on this album. As picked up by that track the theme gets darker and more tangled up in spacious breakbeats. It gets even more impressive when an opera voice gets sampled by da Funk on 'Szamár Madár'. And even more impressive when it sounds like it does, perfectly in place and at ease with it's cathartic, breakbeat surroundings.

Funk's a warrior, he chooses the challenge, he picks fights and rarely backs down. This time though, he chooses a charming approach in letting two styles come together and melt into eachother with succes. It'll take a lot for people to come up with something as impressive as this this year. Really, snatch your mom's purse and go buy this now.

planet mu website

You could make a very good porn version of 'A Means To An End'. Or is that inapropriate?