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In which Uncle Nemesis goes rattling down the review stack at a healthy canter. Vinyl, CDs, and a download-only album...
It's oddly reassuring to find that even in these space age days of downloads, the seven inch single is alive and well. As a delivery system for short, sharp, bursts of noise at a cheap as chips cost, and with better sound quality than a clunky old MP3, it still can't be beaten. And call me an old fuddy-duddy if you will, but I still think it's nice to own a three-dimensional musical artifact, rather than simply stash some zeroes and ones on a computer.
Now
here come The Violets (Website,
Myspace) to demonstrate
all this, with their third single, 'Hush Away' (Angular). The band deploy
their spiky, assertive sound to great effect on a pin-neat punky pop
song that crackles with energy and feels as alive as an electric wire.
The B-side tune, 'In This Way' juxtaposes a dubby bassline and death
disco drums with clangorous guitars (the intro in particular reminds
me of Killing Joke's early stuff) and then goes spurting all over the
place in the chorus as if the song's just been forced down a high pressure
hose. A briliantly sparky racket, but then this is The Violets we're
talking about here. We expect nothing less...and they deliver every
time. The band make many of their tunes available to download from their
Myspace page, by the way, so if vinyl isn't your thing, by all means
go and see what they've got available in digital form.
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Here's
another seven-incher, only recently released, but already a classic
tune on certain left-field dancefloors. I have no idea if DJ
Foundation is a him, a her, or a they, nor can I give you
any links or contacts beyond noting that the double A-side single '(Have
They Not Heard) God Is Dead / I Shot You Babe' is available from Rough
Trade. This dearth of information is probably deliberate: these
tracks, assembed as they are from mashed-up excerpts of hit songs, probably
break six copyright laws 
before
breakfast. 'God Is Dead' slams an old Glitter Band beat behind a chopped-up
narrative built around sampled voices - the theme here is underage sex,
and you'll find yourself shifting uncomfortably in your seat even as
your feet start tapping. 'I Shot You Babe' is credited to Sunni and
Shia (never mind the copyright infringements, that'll probably get DJ
Foundation on the wrong end of a fatwa) and deconstructs Sonny &
Cher's old hit 'I Got You Babe' by the simple expedient of removing
large chunks of the tune and replacing them with guns and bombs. It's
a brilliantly witty idea, precisely executed - no matter how far we
stray from the original tune, the rhythm never falters - but it also
probably counts as the year's most political record. As Iraq slides
into civil war, this tune makes its point far more effectively than
any ranty punk polemicists with guitars.
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Split
singles used to be a big thing years ago - one release, two bands, two
sides. The idea is still kicking around, as Entertainment
(Website, Myspace)
and A Spectre Is Haunting Europe
(Website, Myspace)
demonstrate with their split 12", which seems to be on aDistant
records (that's not a typo, that's how it's rendered on the label) or
Simulacre Media, depending on which label you look at. Entertainment
go avant-punk on 'China Walls', employing a drum pattern somewhat akin
to The Fall's 'Rowche Rumble' and a glammed-up guitar to create a sound
not a million miles away from Bauhaus at their most outré. 'Wraps
Of Wasteland Arms' (Entertainment seem to arrive at their song titles
by a process of random word association) is a Sonic Youth-esque dirge,
long and moody. Flip the disc, and A Spectre Is Haunting Europe give
us the almost-reggae of 'Servers', which builds up into some nice guitar
flourishes, but not before it's rather unfortunately reminded me of
amiable 80s MOR-poppers like Huey Lewis And The News. Second track 'Stop'
has an abrupt name, but rather disconcertingly turns out to be a slow-burn
introspective crooner of a song. I confess I don't get on so well with
A Spectre Is Haunting Europe: I think it's Entertainment's side that'll
be spinning on my deck.
From
the short sharp shock of singles, to the heavy firepower of a double-CD
album. Decade Of Machines by Inertia
(Website, Myspace)
is a 29-track monster of a compilation on the band's own Cryonica label,
documenting their first ten years. As a package, it's impressive, and
if you dig that assault-and-battery industrio-electro sound, you're
going to be keen to pour this bumper pack of Inertianoize into your
head. If you're not keen on this particular musical area, mind, I think
this album will seem distinctly like an endurance test. Inertia are
nothing if not masters of their genre, and that's both their trump card
and their straitjacket. For industrio-heads who want that rampaging
beats 'n' chants 'n' programming sound, Inertia hit the spot. But for
those less committed to the cause, this music will seem like heavy going.
The only points of departure from the formula come when drummer Alexys
takes a vocal, as on 'Shakalaka Baby', a Bollywood show tune, no less,
performed with a confident lightness of touch. Here, Inertia stand transformed.
It's an intriguing hint of what the band could do if they varied their
output beyond their chosen generic limits.
Another compilation comes from Italy's Other Voices (Website), who sound like a kind of gothic AOR band. Anatomy Of A Pain (In The Night Time) showcases their mellow, plangent guitar, and low-key, relaxing songs. Even when they attempt a bit of a rocker, as on 'Garlic', the effect is strangely muted and polite. The band seem to favour smooth and innofensive music, and ultimately it's rather characterless. The lyrics, meanwhile, are occasionally downright embarrassing: 'If I could sleep alone in a coffin/I would discover loneliness' - hmmm. I think we'll move on, don't you?
With
a name like Crud (Myspace)
this one could go either way. Crud, apparently, play 'sex rock', which
sounds like the kind of wannabe-shocking concept which, on closer inspection,
turns out to be about as outrageous as tea with the vicar. Nevertheless,
let's give it a whirl. I'm not sure if Crud's album, Devil At The
Wheel, is actually on general release (no label info appears on
this promo CD, which strikes me as a bit silly) but I can certainly
say that they smash guitars and samples and effects together with great
aplomb. Imagine Andrew WK, Ministry and The Prodigy getting messed at
a party on plenty of JD and substances, and you'll be in the band's
gonzoid area. It's all brash and trashy noise, beats and riffs colliding
like a dayglo Nine Inch Nails, and if the spooky-growly male vocals
and here's-a-good-sample-let's-flog-it-to-death arrangements occasionally
seem a bit too obvious for comfort, when all's said and done it's good
dirty fun. Probably not quite as edgy as they'd like us to believe,
mind...but fun.
Is
that distant thunder I hear? Nope, it's the sound of Knifeladder
(Website, Myspace)
drumming up the apocalypse on their album The Spectacle (Cryonica).
A tightly-controlled, physical sound, rhythms blatted out with an implacable
will, Knifeladder's music is a kind of tribal-industrial hybrid: the
noise of machines in factories, the rumble of avalanches in the mountains.
Or perhaps it's more like machines in the mountains, avalanches in factories.
Either way, Knifeladder create a sound as exhilarating as it is precise,
a fine antidote to the programmed-to-death approach of may other artists
in today's industrial zone. By turns atmospheric and suffused by the
red mist, blending shrieking woodwind and gutteral shouts like yak herders
calling across the plains, punctuated by bursts of stroppy bass and
sonorous vocal, this music will rattle your nerves and your window panes
in equal proportions. Great production, too - you'll be convinced that
the drums on 'Born Under Fire' and 'Suffer In Silence' (something which
Knifeladder, wedded to the art of noise as they are, are hardly likely
to do) are right there in your head, while 'Head Of The Serpent' sounds
like Shriekback after a night on the tiles with Aleister Crowley. In
short, wonderful and frightening stuff.
Having
mentioned atmosphere, here comes another album which, perhaps unexpectedly,
dovetails neatly with Knifeladder's approach. When gathered with family
members in your home projection room for an evening of art movies from
the early 20th century, have you ever hankered after some appropriate
music to complete the atmosphere? It's a conundrum, for sure. The solution
might come in the form of the eponymous debut album on their own Disconnected
label by SonVer (Website,
Myspace). Drifting like
mist on the river, booming like ships that collide in the night, as
plangent as rain on glass, and sometimes as harshly implacable as waves
against the sea wall, SonVer's music melds cello, guitar, effects and
samples (plus, on 'The Bell Tower', shifting tides of treated trumpet)
with nimble grace and otherworldly effect. More than just another ethereal
project, this is, dare I say it, real music. I've heard so much stuff
in this general area which sounds rather uncomfortably like someone
holding down a synth preset while boosting the reverb, and loftily calling
the resulting noise 'ambient', that it's a pleasure to hear a collection
of pieces - like 'Transparent Arms', with its hints at rhythm, and 'Khat
Show Host', a hot night in Morocco created right there in your living
room - that have real ideas behind them. Cinematic and sweeping, yet
detailed to the nth degree, SonVer will hit the spot even if you normally
run a mile at the first hint of ambience. And I'll tell you this: Un
Chein Andalou will never seem the same again.
Currently
available as a download only, but apparently due to get a hard-copy
release at some point, The Death And Resurrection Show by Xykogen
(Website, Myspace)
is essentially the latest in what you might call the electro-industrial-dance
genre. Xykogen themselves call it futurepunk - referencing VNV Nation's
term 'futurepop', but dropping a hint that there's more of an attitude
going on here. But don't be fooled by the P-word. Xykogen deliver smoothly
accessible dancefloor grooves, without troubling the listener with too
much abrasion or strop. In fact, in many ways their music sounds very
mid-nineties electrogoth. Think of Faithful Dawn's slick sequences mixed
with the distorted-chant vocals of Inertia (and that distortion effect
counts as a very old idea in this context, of course), and you've got
Xykogen's principal musical ideas nailed. The unique selling point is
the inclusion of rap interludes, courtesy of the Reverend Eris. Although
the rhythm and tempo of his raps never greatly varies (creating the
intriguing, but possibly unintentional effect that they're all cut-ups
of a larger narrative), it's nevertheless an interesting tangent on
a musical style which isn't otherwise bursting with innovation. Indeed,
lyrics such as 'I am synthetic, plastic ironic, I am artificial' sound
endearingly like something the Buggles would've come up with ye olden
eighties. Xykogen are clearly at home in their musical territory - everything
here is delivered with a confident swagger and boasts impressively polished
production - but I'm a little bemused to find that their take on the
future sounds so much like a remix of the past. The Death And Resurrection
Show isn't bad, you understand, but it's not the revolution, either.
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Page credits: Reviews
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