Mountain*7 - for the person with nothing better to do

A Long Time Between Suns

“A Long Time Between Suns”, The Otolith Group’s latest exhibition at Gasworks in Vauxhall, offers a unique opportunity to showpiece the concerns of a collective whose lineage can be traced back into the Black Audio Film Collective and the Cybernetic Culture unit at Warwick University. Last week they presented Mark Fisher’s audio-essay “LondonunderLondon”, which was originally broadcast on Resonance FM in 2005. Fisher may be better known to some in his Kpunk guise (a site which lingers somewhere between a blog and a thinking machine), and his piece centred on a series of themes which reappear in that space.

“LondonunderLondon” sounds as if it were made by the cyborg children of Iain Sinclair. There appears to be a conjunction between his psychogeography project and Kodwo Eshun’s notion of sonic fiction in an attempt to produce an alternative map of the city. It is fiction that really comes to the fore here, and one could certainly identify the presence of Ballard. The opening passage, focusing on a walk through Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road, was a kind of channelling of the detached, analytical voice that occupies High Rise. But what Fisher and the other voices of the Otolith Group have produced with “LondonunderLondon” is not only an audio walk through the spaces of the city, but also an engagement with its temporalities. The essay encounters what Eshun called the capability of buildings to act as recording devices, architectural machines soaking up the sounds of all who passed through them. In fact it was suggested that ghosts could be thought of as playbacks, the sonic memories stored in these buildings seeping out into the streets (interestingly The Overlook Hotel was mentioned as a way to think about this). As much as “LondonunderLondon” was an encounter with the city’s ability to memorialise its inhabitants, it was also an imagining of what is to-come. The dystopian feel of the London Fisher can see forming on the horizon is both terrifying and compelling, but as he maintained, that future is always in part here amongst us.



Despite the unavoidable intensity and richness of the essay, I have some nagging criticisms which gather precisely around the strengths of the work. “LondonunderLondon” is at points too well read, and too aware of itself to realise all its own possibilities. It appears to have emerged too easily out of an engagement with both fiction and philosophy, particularly through the Derridian preoccupation with haunting. There was a moment, around the imagining of a lagoon in Wandsworth, where the essay threatens to break out of these references. The thing starts to take shape around a deep thrum, almost as if the work was taking on a pulse, taking on a life and moving ahead of those of who conceived it, but unfortunately this moment was too fleeting.

Perhaps “LondonunderLondon” should be considered in relation to other recent soundworks which have also sought to operate at the juncture between the sonic and the geographical. The mappings and playbacks which Dusk and Blackdown’s “Margins Music" and Burial’s two albums (they apparently were made with night bus journeys in mind) produce, offer something which I think “LondonunderLondon” misses out on. But I suppose there may be a distinction to make between music and the Otolith Group’s attempts to realise and release sonic fictions. Putting any reservations about Fisher’s audio essay aside, sonic fictions is certainly a project I believe needs to be given room to develop and work itself out. One possibility that springs to mind is an uncanny resonance with the improvisatory poetics of Nathaniel Mackey, a writer who operates in the breaks between modernism, sound and mythology.

Edit: just a quick note to say that the Londonunderlondon project was incorrectly solely attributed to Mark Fisher when it was in fact a collaborative work between Fisher and Justin Barton.

Posted by whispering dave in place, nature, landscape at 10:40 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Of course, if you had asked me at the end of say, 2004 what are my favourite LPs of the year, my answer back then, would I imagine, be very different to what I would say now. The end of the year is of course far too soon to make such a list. Not only have I had little time to source many of the LPs I would liked but I have had far too little time to digest many of those I have.

But I’m a boy and this list means something.

2008 has been a disappointment for me. It’s not so much there aren’t LPs out there I like. On the contrary there are many and I have excluded many worthy records from my list, but I never found that genuine classic. This feeling of dissatisfaction is accentuated by the sheer blandness of bands forming the centre-left of pop. When bands such as TV On The Radio, although competent enough, are being hailed as cutting edge and groundbreaking then I believe this reflects a year where pop has lacked innovation and excitement. Alternative music has to be more than just pop/rock bands using production values associated with dance music. My tastes have traditionally been mainstream as well as leftfield but the lack of creativity from more middle of the road artists has, to paraphrase Neil Young, forced me towards the ditch. I know there is something else out there for me I’ve yet to find and I could really use a life-affirming album to get me through this cold and dark, credit crunched, British winter. Records which were close to making this include those made by Distance, Portishead, Al Green, DJ Rupture & Skream. This is my top ten right now for whatever it is worth...



Artist: Dusk and Blackdown
Album: Margins Music
Label: Keysound Recordings

This is a vivid collection of snapshots of multi-cultural London in 2008. Target’s hypnotic meandering vocal in the opener is sublime.



Artist: Tricky
Album: Knowle West Boy
Label: Domino

It is difficult to provide a balanced assessment of this LP, as I so want to like Tricky’s albums. He is an artist capable of the producing work of the highest order with unique insights into the human psyche. And this is a more than a fine piece of work with exceptional tracks like Past Mistake & the incredible single Council Estate. The drumming on this gets me every time. Tricky was never just trip-hop. How was his cover of Public Enemy’s Black Steel ever trip-hop? And this record uses rock, ragga & blues, all stamped with the authority of the utterly incomparable & unmistakable sound of the Tricky Kid.

Accompanying Track: Tricky - Council Estate



Artist: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Album: Dig! Lazarus Dig!
Label: Mute

Cave is on a roll. By a distance the best rock album I heard released in 2008. Although not as filthy as the garage rock as found on 2007’s Grinderman’s record, The Bad Seeds have clearly been given a kick up the arse. An LP that is great to drink bourbon with, which further cements Cave & The Bad Seeds as one of the all time greats. And few can curse quite like Cave.

Accompanying Track: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - We Call Upon The Author



Artist: Various Artists
Album: An England Story (From Dancehall to Grime: 25 Years of the MC in the UK)
Label: Soul Jazz

So I’m cheating already as this compilation features few releases from 2008. Based on no. 10 of the stellar Blogariddims series by The Heatwave, Soul Jazz has put together the four records that have been stuck on my turntable most this year. It’s really hard to pick my favourite. There is General Levy’s Champagne Body. Or Stush with Dollar Sign. Estelle sounds incredible on Uptown Top Rankin. But it’s probably Papa Levi’s My God My King. If you haven’t much of this kind of thing in your collection it is essential.

Accompanying Track: Papa Levi - My God My King



Artist: Various - Mixed by Appleblim
Album: Dubstep Allstars Vol.6
Label: Tempa

Same thoughts as the Poacher on this I suppose. Appleblim’s smooth groove was the natural riposte to N-Type’s more fractured style evident on Vol.5. This release reflected the trend within dubstep this year as discussed with regards to 2562.



Artist: Fuck Buttons
Album: Street Horrrsing
Label: ATP

I can’t stop playing this record. Sweet Love For Planet Earth, the opener is so completely engaging I have found myself going back to the beginning on numerous occasions. But I love it that this has been recorded with the tracks mixed into each other.



Artist: Shackleton/Appleblim/Peverelist
Album: Soundboy’s Gravestone Gets Desecrated By Vandals
Label: Skull Disco

Another collection of 12” singles from the Skull Disco label. There is the also the bonus of a whole disc of remixes from the likes of Bass Clef & Rupture. I have been trying to get hold of as many the 12” records from Skull Disco as I can. With their lovingly designed covers & incredible production values, they push all the right buttons aesthetically. Just as with 2007’s collection, Soundboy Punishments, Shackleton dominates procedures with his ultra dark and percussive take on the dubstep genre. Another great album title …and I wonder what this would sound like at a rave.

Accompanying Track: Appleblim and Peverlist - Circling Bass (Bass Clef Mix)



Artist: Vampire Weekend
Album: Vampire Weekend
Label: XL

This is a little gem of a record, lovingly recorded with instruments & vocals given ample space to breathe with a gorgeous clean guitar sound. We all know about the African influences & their New York savvy, but at the end of the day it is about the tunes. In an era where too many bands concentrate on the sound they create and neglect the craft of actually writing songs, Vampire Weekend was most welcome.



Artist: 2562
Album: Aerial
Label: Tectonic

The trends within dubstep this year have witnessed a reduction in the use of the signature ‘wobble’ bass. As the sound has become global there has also been a shift from the original dub/2-step style, which served as its blueprint. Dubstep in 2008 has increasingly merged with techno and minimalist electronica & the boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. As discussed previously in this blog, 2562 is Dave Huissmans (2562 being his postal code I have read), a Dutchman. He has produced a beautifully formed electronic record, with lush, sensual sounds that suggests, at least internationally, dubstep need not always be dark in tone, texture and mood. This was quite a revelation for me. Indeed, Aerial could be considered a minor classic.

Accompanying Track: 2562 - Redux



Artist: The Bug
Album: London Zoo
Label: Ninja Tune

Essentially a contemporary dancehall record made & informed by the London bass scene. Kevin Martin is the man behind the beats & bass but the album intriguingly features a stellar cast of toasters including Spaceape (you will never hear him sound as good and pissed off as this), Flowdan, Tippa Irie and the wonderful Warrior Queen. The bass is incredibly full & loud, noticeably so compared with other bass-heavy albums this year. Although a record filled with drama, passion & urgency, Skeng, Insane & Warning to name a few, there is also the instrumental Freak Freak & Too Much Pain providing more subtle moments of contemplation. Although the lead singles were from 2007, this is the record that sounded most like 2008 to me.

Accompanying Track: The Bug (feat Spaceape) - Fuckaz

Listen to all accompanying tracks:

Posted by dragon chaser in music reviews at 13:23 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Ok, let's get this thing done. Personally, I think 2008 has been an excellent year for new music - especially when I look back at the fairly pedestrian list I made last year... Something feels slightly awry though, as if things are approaching some kind of critical mass. Perhaps it's just that end-of-year fatigue thing but I felt something similar when I saw Fuck Buttons earlier in the year: something in their shattered pastoral gave me a horror vision of music piping out of the very ground, a shimmering wall of indistinguishable inescapable noise from which we recoiled and in attempt to block out wore ear-dampeners attached to ugly metallic head braces. Perhaps I should get some fresh air...



Artist: Distance
Album: Repercussions
Label: Planet Mu

Repercussions is a brutal, ceaseless record. Its stock beat is a buzzing halfstep, but Distance has always been interested in the seething dynamics of metal (think Sunn O))) or Isis; and check out this mix he did with Vex'd for Mary Anne Hobbs - tracklist here) and on this album whilst the metal influence isn't obvious, you can almost sense it as an undertow, sucked into the density of the sound. Yet the record does have also have a brittle metallic edge to it and at times you can almost see your reflection in its surfaces (check 'Skeleton Grin'). 'Loosen My Grip' below, is noirstep - Bark Psychosis on downers; the track looks over its shoulder for faces in the pooling shadows... It also gives the lie to any notion of a misty-eyed view of London: it might just be the sewer of filth running beneath Burial's Romantic dreams of the city.

Accompanying Track: Distance - Loosen My Grip



Artist: Dark Captain Light Captain
Album: Miracle Kicker
Label: Loaf

I made a few half-formed comments about the gone-missing nature of that brand of spooked folk that seemed dominant for a time a couple of years back - that experimental, creaky, emotionally fraught wave of music that seemed to grow up around the Homefires festivals set up by Adem. On reflection though, it's tempting to say that along with Gravenhurst, Tunng and The Memory Band, Dark Captain Light Captain are still worrying at the edges of this particular seam of sound and that it hasn't gone anywhere. There is a simple element to the Dark Captain Light Captain sound but something inexplicable dwells below the surface, a kind of clammy throb, part Beta Band, part Can - and I wonder how much of that has to do with the presence of Robin Proper-Sheppard, the mute genius at the centre of The God Machine, one of the most quietly influential bands of the '90s. Whatever the reason, Miracle Kicker is an intriguing album and promises much for the future. 'Questions', below, is a beautfiul record.

Accompanying Track: Dark Captain Light Captain - Questions



Artist: Aidan Moffat
Album: I Can Hear Your Heart
Label: Chemikal Underground

In Arab Strap, Moffat sang of fractured relationships and damaged sex over walls of guitars and electronics. On I Can Hear Your Heart Moffat strung together a drunkslut narrative of similar themes over chamber pieces, made up of mariarchi fugues and noirish asides. It dragged up memories of your own past, and of futures you can never hope to have, and managed to be appallingly filthy and emotionally engaging all at once. Superb stuff.

Accompanying Track: Aidan Moffat - Good Morning



Artist: Various - Mixed by Appleblim
Album: Dubstep Allstars Vol.6
Label: Tempa

This is a a great way to get a sense of the dubstep scene and Appleblim as magus at the heart of Skull Disco records is something of a 'second-wave' overlord. I swear for the first 20 or so minutes of this I thought I'd heard my record of the year - it does tail off but the dynamic of the mix is such that it drives you onwards. If Margins Music is a great walking album, this is one to drive to.

Accompanying Track: Martyn - Suburbia



Artist: Dusk and Blackdown
Album: Margins Music
Label: Keysound Recordings

Dubstep may have a downtempo narcotic heart but to me it has always been a music of movement, and it makes the most sense when walking. And Margins Music is, essentially, a lamp-lit tour of London; a collection of field recordings of hidden spaces: debris-strewn high streets, council estates, the impossible labyrinths of rat runs and alleyways that lace the inner and outer suburbs like neural pathways. I listened to it as I walked across the suburb I had grown up in on the outskirts of the outskirts of west London. Under the clag of grey skies the album seemed incredibly oppressive, claustrophobic even, as if the life of the music were being crushed by the very forces that created it. It was the perfect soundtrack to the place.

Yet there is a real sense of optimism at the centre of the record that takes longer to appear; but it is there, and once you notice it the joy of it is obvious. Not much lures me back in to London these days but there is something exhilirating about the fact that this music is pouring in torrents from the place. Bring it on.



Artist: Fennesz
Album: Black Sea
Label: Touch

Continuing on a watery theme from the mighty Venice and the single On A Desolate Shore..., Black Sea is evidence that Christian Fennesz is at the very top of his game. Indeed this album might be his most honest and least adorned to date with his guitar largely untreated at times and the soft billowing drones and keyboard washes at times seeming to flow almost organically across the surface of the sound. Yet out of something so simple comes a complex and indefinable beauty. 'Glide', the album's centrepiece, is like a summing up of everything that has come before - a live rendering of the process that Fennesz has been perfecting across varying different projects. It's as if he is polishing away the edges of a great sculpture, gradually working towards uncovering a precious something at the centre, something that has been pulsing away unbidden for years. Long may it stay hidden.

Accompanying Track: Fennesz - Glide



Artist: Ufomammut
Album: Idolum
Label: Supernatural Cat

Ach, for once a record entitled to the worn out epithet 'crushing and intense'. This was my first brush with Ufomammut, a three piece that make a sludge of glorious psychedelic noise. And Idolum is a monstrous thing, lumbering and obese, bulldozing everything in its path.

Accompanying Track: Ufomammut - Stigma



Artist: The Grand Archives
Album: The Grand Archives
Label: Sub Pop

For anyone else who was desperately disappointed with the second Band of Horses record, this is the place to turn. Mat Brooke was in Carissa's Wierd and Band of Horses with Ben Bridewell but left just after Everything All The Time was relased and Bridewell returned back to Carolina. It appears he took much of Band of Horses' sun with him. To put it simply The Grand Archives is a record with a handful of aching, beautiful songs on it with Brooke invoking the wide open spaces of the north west in his gentle, soaring voice. Another valuable addition to Sub Pop's growing roster of great pop bands.

Accompanying Track: The Grand Archives - Sleepdriving




Artist: The Ruby Suns
Album: Sea Lion
Label: Sub Pop

More great pop music from Sub Pop, this time in the shape of Ryan McPhun's The Ruby Suns. The talk when it came out was that this was all Animal Collective like ringworm but I think that was over-stated. It does share some of their rhythmic sense but is more rooted in pure world-pop than the AC not to mention way more accessible. Here's what I thought back in May...

I put this up merely to share a record that I keep coming back to. They sound young, young and joyous - must be something they put in the water in NZ. Also, the singer is called Ryan McPhun and it doesn't appear to be a pseudonym. The foundations are there to hear: some Graceland skitters, some Animal Collective vaulting, Brian Wilson trapped in bed...Whatever, it's just a great record. These two tracks capture the camber and tilt of it - the first a Polynesian swing number, the second a languid pop symphony that might, just might be the comedown B-Side from Elephant Stone. Enjoy.

Accompanying Track: The Ruby Suns - Tane Mahuta
Accompanying Track: The Ruby Suns - Morning Sun




Artist: The Week That Was
Album: The Week That Was
Label: Memphis Industries

Yet more great pop music, but this was odder, more cerebral. Essentially a solo project of Field Music's Pete Brewis, this record was born out of a week free from TV, Brewis suddenly inundated with a whole host of other information - that great tide of creative flow we keep artificially penned in, bunged up with bullshit discourse thrown out of the ache-brain glowbox in the corner of the room. Supposedly structured like a Paul Asuter novel the record was part of a rich seam of British pop music stretching back through Trevor Horn produced Kate Bush, XTC (fairlight synths? check; thwapping snares? check), ELO and even the McCartney of 'For No One'. It feels out of time and probably is but the album is half an hour of time-capsuled music that stands alone and is all the better for it.

Accompanying Track: The Week That Was - Scratch The Surface

Posted by poacher in music at 20:16 | Comment (1)