April 2003
DEERHOOF
Apple ‘O (5 Rue Christine, www.5rc.com)
Bomb bomb bomb! Apple bomb! Clone core tree! Parachute shoot parapluie! Panda
panda panda! Atom eve connection! RUN RUN RUN! — Craig Fraid Dunsmuir
File next to: Seeds as bullets as raindrops! Blonde Redhead as Christiana as
power toddler rampage! Love is war is soft is hard is apple is bomb! Deerhoof
at 360 is April 24!
THE ELECTRIC SHOES
The Prom Night Suicide Pact (independent; www.theelectricshoes.cjb.net)
The first song says it all: “Turn it up, ‘cause you like the sound,
break my heart, ‘round and ‘round…” This is an album
that makes more sense blasting at a full volume than it does playing quietly
in the background. However, it should be noted that the disc is actually well-produced
despite its deceptive lo-fi-ness. It is gloriously fed-back, melodic, tuneful,
layered and certain songs hit with a wall of sound that can’t be ignored.
The content of the songs is another matter. The song titles can be a bit too
wry for their own good, as evidenced by the afore-quoted “All My Punk Rock
Friends Like Techno Now,” or “My Gothic Girlfriend,” “Prom-School
Queen” and “The Kids Of Columbine”. As you can imagine, the
lyrics follow suit, a litany of high school heartbreaks, crying lovers, relationships
gone bad and being too punk-rock to care about dancing — but the album
title provides the clue that it would all happen this way. Fortunately, it seems
such time is spent well, as the lyricist notes, again in the song we started
this review by quoting, that he could have still been “out there having
fun, not sitting here alone writing stupid songs like this one…” Well,
at least they’re good stupid songs. — Paddy O’Donnell
File next to: Psychocandy, elements of early MBV, Ramones, Suck My Disc.
FEMBOTS
Small Town Murder Scene (independent; www.fembots.net)
The Fembots have done the impossible with this release. They have taken all the
weirdness and angularity of their last release and squashed it into the corners
and sidelines, while concentrating on songwriting and structure to come up with
some absolutely stunning and instantly memorable songs. Instead of immersing
themselves in the “singer-songwriter” ghetto of shamefaced lameness,
they have found the perfect blend of perfect pop and bizarre colourings. Every
song is like an old friend to me, even after only a few listens. Each song is
my favourite until the next one comes on, and then that one is my favourite.
I have literally fallen in love with this disc; therefore, my review should end
here, a word or two before the point of no return. — Paddy O’Donnell
File next to: The darker side of folk. Saws. Tape loops. Banjos. Guitars. Strings.
Oscillators. Drums.
THE INSTANT COMPOSERS POOL ORCHESTRA
The Music Gallery, March 28 (www.musicgallery.org)
I had never heard of the Instant Composers Pool before this show, and was only
familiar with their saxophonist/clarinetist, Ab Baars, through his soundtracks
for the documentaries of Dutch filmmaker Johan van der Keuken. I spoke to another
audience member at the Music Gallery that night who came because of their pianist,
Misha Mengelberg, and his involvement with world-famous jazz musicians and the
Fluxus Art group. It seemed rather appropriate that we each discovered the ICP
in such an indirect way. The ever-changing membership did seem to come together
from different musical places and for different reasons. The joviality of their
performance reflected this. Watching them interact reminded me of the moment
when you half-drunkenly meet someone at a party and you discover mutual likes
and slide into friendship. It seemed like in each tune the Dutchmen and woman
in the ICP were musically beginning their friendships over and over again. And
it was all so amazing that I hadn’t noticed that close to two hours had
passed by the time they played their second encore. — SherpaDee
File next to: You say Danish, I say Dutch.
KING CRIMSON
The Power to Believe (EMI/Sanctuary, import)
The new album from prog legends King Crimson is all you would expect from this
35-year-old juggernaut. After a brief a cappella intro, Crimson dive right in
to the bombastic waters of “Level Five,” a complex instrumental featuring
the odd rhythms and tastefully reined-in guitar firepower of Messrs. Fripp and
Belew that Crimson fans have long loved. “Facts of Life” is a somewhat
blues-based rant featuring Belew’s pompous voice (in all fairness, he’s
not as bad as former Crimson vocalists Greg Lake and John Wetton, who after leaving
Crimson went on to greater pomposities). “Elektrik” starts with a
gorgeous woodwind beginning and then becomes a powerfully distorted bass-propelled
groove. This album is far more consistent and less wanky then Crimson have sounded
in ages. It stands as a reminder to the prog-metal and post-rock purveyors of
our time that Fripp and company were among the first and still are among the
best. — Smokey Campbell
File next to: Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Red, any group of 40- and 50-somethings
that show the young people how it is done.
LINKIN PARK
Meteora (Warner)
You know what? “Craawling iiiin my skiiin/Feeeeeaaarrr is alll I fee-yulll” isn’t
gonna be replaced as the ultimate Linkin Park moment by any hooks on this record.
Where’s my angst at? Not in “Liiiiiife/ Is much too short to be intoxicated/
Liiiyiiiiife/ Is much to short to be a drayayaayayig,” that’s for
sure. Linkin Park used to be like masturbating while your parents are home — shameful
and paranoid, what with the chance of getting caught, but still kind of good
and boredom-reducing. Now Linkin Park are rap metal’s Winger. This album
sucks and you’re thinking, “No duh,” but you don’t get
it because you didn’t like the first album. Even worse, the kids are gonna
like this almost as much as System Of A Down. New Deftones, please. — Buddy
of the Pines
File next to: “Forfeit the game/Before somebody else/ Takes you out of
the frame/Puts your name to shame...” So true. So...true.
DORINE MURAILLE
Mani (FatCat, www.fat-cat.co.uk)
Alright, so maybe I hadn’t been worshipping the glitch as fiendishly
as I once had, but I had my reasons. I mean, don’t get your messenger
bag in a knot or anything, but as far I can tell, the quality of hyped electronic
acts has plummeted over the past year. Don’t get me wrong, there’ve
been plenty of recent success stories that continue to reinstill faith in the
genre/s and its/their tastemakers for me, but so many of the buzz acts whose
pale mugs grace the magazine features and whose CDs get tidily top-racked just
seem way too L.C.D. for my liking, and I ain’t talkin’ liquid crystal
display (and never mind that fucking Berliniamsburg garbage, either, while
I’m at it, self-pisstaking or not). But before we go do something rash
like hope that Autechre hold the boring in their brilliance this time around,
let’s hear what Julien Loquet, a.k.a. Dorine Muraille, had to say on
the matter:
“ [Quick-motion static... Stand-up bass plunk-pluck... Exoticized-since-French-but-not-lame-more-like-shrugged-off-since-inevitable
garbled chanteuse plaint with gravelly phone-tapped male voice-mail hum]...”
Mmmkay... Maybe so, but still, doesn’t it piss you off that these turtleneck
jokers get all the ink? What right do they have? And to make matters worse
for you, they’re not even from France!
“ [Dissassembled live-drum smash]!”
Yeah, tell me about it. Anything else?
“ [Pause...Stutter...Hazy mulch: piano/guitar/accordion stumble...Horn-punctuation
shudder].”
Beautiful. Thank you. — Craig Fraid Dunsmuir
File next to: Markus Popp’s Camoufleur cameos, Wechsel Garland, rehumanizing
a sterile feel, reliberating a servile beat; impetus is inference.
STARS FROM WORTHY SKIES
double CD comp (Worthy, www.worthyrecords.com)
This intriguingly packaged double disc compilation is brought to you by Anne
Sulikowski’s Worthy Records — “a non-profit artist-run label
showcasing electronic experimental and other interesting types of music.” The
music here falls pretty heavily towards the ambient and experimental realm, but
does not stay exclusively in that space. There are long drone pieces, tape cut-ups,
space-rock bands, techno projects, mixes, remixes, and even an over-effected,
throttling and cathartically angry vocal/bass/drum/maraca workout by a band named
after an Italian philosopher (Marsilio Ficino). The discs include previously
released and unreleased work by the likes of Aidan Baker, TRS-80, Hypnotech 3,
Nagasaki Fondue, Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks, Audiosleep, The Phases,
DJ Krotchbat and many, many, more. Visit the website and both discs can be yours
for a very reasonable $10. It stands up to repeated listening and is deserving
of it. — Paddy O’Donnell
File next to: That $40 double disc electronic compilation you got that is only
half as interesting. Actually, don’t, just sell that one and get this one.
PROCOL HARUM
A Whiter Shade Of Pale (Virgin)
How fucking cool is this? You know when you’re smoking up, and any sentence
that makes absolutely no sense is totally profound? Here, try this. Smoke up
then read the following: “One of 16 vestial virgins, who were headed for
the coast/ And although my eyyyyyes will go bliiiind/ They might just as well
be closed.” See? You’re like, “The fucking truth, man. The
fucking truth. They might as well be closed.” You’re gonna write
down a bunch of shit like, “I wandered through my playing cards, would
not let her beeee,” or “With not letter B,” and tomorrow you’ll
read it and go “What the F.” That’s when you understand the ‘60s
and feel jaded about Bob Dylan and The Doors, and you can never really go back.
Goddamn you, Mary Jane. You’re good for Tone Loc, but you ain’t no
good for me. Anyway, you try and convince me anything else by Harem Scarem is
this good. — Buddy of the Pines
File next to: The bitch goddess recreational drug use.
TETRIS 4000
(downloaded from Kazaa)
Fileshare programs are still good, even when there’s no good songs to download
because they’re all on the radio and TV like 100 times a day (I don’t
even like the Ludacris flow in “Gossip Kids” anymore). Not really
an improvement on the original (which was flawless perfection), this version
of the falling blocks and evaporating rows game includes nine channels of insane
MIDI music (An all-John Lennon one! An all-Police one! AN-ALL-MID-’90s-ALTERNA-ROCK
ONE WITH LIKE FOUR NINE INCH NAILS SONGS AND THAT CARDIGANS SINGLE WHEN THEY
TRIED TO BE MORE HARD ROCK!), the option of watching the game backwards, upside
down, from the side and from below, and Michael “Worf” Dorn narrating
your progress with great techno-sample-begging quotes like, (in booming God voice) “Impressive” and “Masterful.” That
shit’s like gold when there isn’t a Procol Harum record around. You
got that meat in front of you, then the designers are like, “Gravy?” and
pour sunset on the beach, misty waterfalls and foggy woods backgrounds all over
your plate. BAKED! — Buddy of the Pines
File next to: The game your Mom kicks your ass at, and you don’t know why.
But everybody’s Mom is good at it.
MICHAEL JACKSON
(pop star, b. 1958)
One of the things I like about Michael is his delivery of “ABC,” captured
in such a fervent tremor of joyfulness as oral and acoustic, simultaneous culture
returns to prominence, superceding and incorporating the legacy of almost 2000
years of visual space in the West from the ancient Greeks to the present. Even
sequential patterns like “1,2,3” became incorporated into this particular
Jackson 5 song that Naughty by Nature sampled on their hit single “OPP.” Michael
Jackson has provided witness to the services and disservices of the electric
environment. — Marshall McLuhan
Reviewed
by: Nora Charles (NC),
Jonny Dovercourt (JD),
Craig Fraid Dunsmuir
(CFD), Paddy O'Donnell (PO'D),
Doc Pickles (DP), Buddy
of the Pines (BP), Steven Venn (SV).
Send
material for review to: Wavelength, 868 Dovercourt Rd. Toronto ON M6H
2X5, attn: Nora Charles.
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Interested in writing reviews for Wavelength? Contact review editrix Nora Charles.