ACE TRACKS: February 2016

Oh my God, did February ever suck. Okay, there was that kick-ass Deadpool movie in there, plus d’em Golden State Warriors continue to astound in ways I never thought possible with NBA caliber basketball before, but in terms of getting significant work done with this blog, ugh what a slog. Never before have I been afflicted with flu aches/dizzying fever/curse of Cthulu symptoms like that, and I pray I never do again. That said, I did accomplish a couple things, one of which being an obvious fresh coat of template-paint here, hopefully making things a little easier on the eyes now. Also, I’ve added a couple Pages to the side-bar, one to keep all past and future ACE TRACKS playlists in an easy-access point, plus a FAQ for anyone still not up to speed on what this blog’s all about.

My main goal though (and thus far failure), is organize that gargantuan cloud of labels into something resembling a glossary or table of contents. Give folks easier navigation through the insurmountable back-catalog of reviews that’s accumulated, y’know? I’ve yet to find an easy fix for this though, and I’ve been told nothing short of a complete, ground-up redesign would accomplish what I want. *sigh* Am I gonna’ have to learn to actual code now, and not rely on templates? How was I to know things would get so big?


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Various - Summer
Various - Simulus
Ciaran Byrne - Nine Lives Causeway
Various - Montreal Mix Sessions Vol. 5 - Tiga: Mixed Emotions

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: Nothing at all.

Hope y’all dig the Psychonavigation Records love-in here, as that’s practically the entirety of this playlist. Even the few albums outside the Dublin print mostly fall within a similar style of music. Thank God for Tiga bringing a tiny bit of variety here, but I thank God for Tiga about many things regardless. I'm kinda’ surprised this playlist’s as long as it is too – felt like I got through barely anything this past month, but at least this bulk of alphabetical backlog is finally caught up with. Finally get to move onto a brand new letter, with fresh genres and fresh labels! …including two more Psychonavigation CDs, and a Carpe Sonum CD within the first week.

*sigh* Y’know, I think I'm actually starting to look forward to that eventual review of Live's Throwing Copper.

Various - Summer

Altar Records: 2015

Feel that in the air? The warmth, the brisk breezes? Why, you could almost claim it summer now! What's that, everywhere east of Vancouver? You're still all cold and bitter and wretched and miserable? Sucks to be you then. Why, y'all could never listen to this CD from Altar Records so ludicrously out of season and appreciate it with appropriate weather beaming through the windows. True, we had to put up with some three-hundred million gallons of rain before getting to this balmy June-ish clime’ we're enjoying deep into February, but now that we do have it, our smugness knows no bounds or remorse. Still, DJ Zen better hurry up with the Winter edition of this compilation series, lest the window of season appropriate street dates pass by. Quebec may deal with snow all the way into July [citation needed], but officially winter’s done on March 21, less than a month away from the time I’m typing this. No pressure, yo’.

Summer is probably the most predictable of these Season CDs thus far, in that DJ Zen couldn’t help but gear his selection of tunes for the outdoor party vibe. The entire psy scene is practically predicated on flailing under warm, starry skies, on tropical beach fronts or in cool forests at night. You sure wouldn’t throw a psy party on an alpine glacier, is what I’m saying (though that’d be a pretty dope setting for a Biosphere concert). And while I’d applaud the Altar Records head if he took a musical gamble for this volume, there’s no thematic point in eschewing a sure thing like this. Summer is the psy-tranciest season of the year, so DJ Zen may as well give us the psy-tranciest CD out on Altar Records he can muster.

And the first few tracks promise as such. Groovy psy-chill is always a fine way to open a compilation of this sort, and Sudaya provides a scorcher of a track in Over The Edge, synths and pads soaring in from deep cosmic realms. It’s a bit on the hammy side, but so earnest in delivery it wins you over regardless. By cut three, we’re already in prog-psy’s uptempo realm, Elea’s Yãtrã getting its world beat vibes on with plenty o’ sitar action. A couple solid psy tunes after that from E-Mantra and Merlin, and then Summer plummets right off a cliff.

No, but really, I thought plodding numbers like Alwoods’ Blue Horizon had long been left to the monotonous era of minimalist dark psy fifteen years ago. And why is it over eleven minutes long? Hardly anything happens during that length, it doesn’t build to anything substantial, and we could have had two cool tracks instead for that amount of runtime. Even Iboga Records never got this monotonous. Much.

One bad track isn’t a deal-breaker for Summer, with AstroPilot, Abiogenesis, and Asura rounding out a decent enough finish. Given the strong start of this CD though, such a dud does leave an unfortunate aftertaste.

Various - Strange-Eyed Constellations

Disco Gecko: 2015

A little late to the compilation game, aren’t we, Mr. Marks? True, it’s only in recent years ol’ Toby’s started using his Disco Gecko print as something more than an outlet for all his Banco de Gaia back-catalog, but this market has grown incredibly niche since he got his break on similar CDs way back when. You could find fashionable ‘ambient collections’ with distinct themes on nearly every store shelf in ’92, but while there’s no drought for new material these days, you don’t see much consolidation of the music beyond label manifestos. Tobes mentions in this CD’s liner notes a long-gestating intent at doing something similar to the old Ambient Dub series though, so better late than never?

Still, Strange-Eyed Constellations doesn’t have much concept behind it other than being a gathering of musicians and music that Mr. Marks fancies. This ranges from long-time compatriots like Andy Guthrie and James Eller, more recent associates like AstroPilot, Dr. Trippy, Temple Hedz, and Andrew Heath, plus inclusions from completely new-to-Discogs names like Project Transmissions and Oombata Key. Now that’s how you diversify a compilation: lure ‘em in with the familiar, exposing the overlooked in the process. Toby’s done his research here.

As we’re dealing with the man behind Banco de Gaia, Strange-Eyed Constellations obviously features a lot of ethnic-fusion sort of music. Hah, no, Marks has evolved some since those Last Train To Lhasa days, going far more ambient and musically abstract than cribbing a few worldly chants and slapping a dance beat underneath. AstroPilot’s opener Dum Spíro, Spéro does the space ambient thing, with the next clutch of tracks going rather ethereal. A song titled Sirens Of Lorelei, yeah, I’d be rather disappointed if I wasn’t getting the Wiccan vibe on, and that carries through Radium88’s The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Incandescent.

The middle of the compilation (stop thinking Starry-Eyed Sunrise, dammit), gets more to the ethnical influences, though are mostly subdued offerings of world music, much less ‘beat’ despite the nods to dubbier production about. Makes sense, given Marks’ longtime aversion to the term ‘world beat’ in the first place, and he doesn’t hesitate in throwing in a couple curveballs along the way (James Eller’s It’s Beautiful Mike, It Really Is is a dead-ringer for classic Pink Floyd). Dimensions from Temple Hedz is closer to the contemporary Banco mold, though given the two tracks Marks offers himself, what even is the Banco sound anymore? To The Nth Degree sounds like an amalgamation of Andrew Heath, AstroPilot, and Floyd, while Falling Tides under his own name sees ol’ Toby going full Heath for himself. Not to be outdone, Andrew closes the compilation out with a bit of planetarium piano doodling in Epiphany. Much lovely, ‘tis.

Strange-Eyed Constellations has a few fluffy, forgettable moments, with some tracks blending indistinguishably between others, but it’s definitely all in the Disco Gecko mold. If you figured Marks’ label was nothing but Banco de Gaia retreads, this compilation provides a proper ear opener.

Seán Quinn - Skylines

Psychonavigation Records: 2002

You know you always get the clean, uncut sparkling varnished honesty from me, right? Sure you do, that’s why you’re always coming back here. I think. That whole ‘consistent new reviews’ also may have something to do with it. I’d imagine my thoughts on music have garnered some small repute at this stage too. Maybe it’s just to indulge in this ‘gimmick’ o’ mine, to see what item alphabetically pops up next in my mad quest to listen to everything I have. Gotta’ admit that’s why I keep hoping Sarah O’Holla returns to her similar endeavor at My Husband’s Stupid Record Collection, genuine curiosity over whether some obscure 1982 post no-wave punk 7” might crop up next, or one of the big guns I love reading other people’s opinions on (so long to go before Neil Young …so very long). Wait, I’ve gone way off topic here. Darn feverish state of mind - will this flu ever let up?

Here’s the truthiful proclamation I was trying to get at: initial impressions of a lot o’ these Psychonavigation Records records kinda’ bled altogether into one fuzzy-photo of cover art. I get that it’s a visual aesthetic the label cultivated for itself (because Boards), but when one binge-buys a back-catalog as I did, it makes distinguishing between CDs difficult, especially when dealing with almost entirely new names. There’s little chance at taking each in on their own merits, digesting their nuances before moving onto the next in the pile in some slim hopes a crash session can give you some lasting impressions. I couldn’t tell the Seán Quinns from the Ciaran Byrnes, the Skylines from the Picnics With Pylons, the Boards Of Canada sounding tunes from the other Boards Of Canada sounding tunes. Getting down to write a review of each these CDs definitely helped me in distinguishing between them, if nothing else for discovering more info behind the artists involved.

For instance, Seán Quinn was yet another big ol’ blank when I first got this CD, and remained as such despite listening to it a couple times, the music getting lost among all the other Psychonavigation material I drowned myself in. Turns out though, he’s done little solo LPing anyway, this and a recent Audiobiography his only albums. On the other hand, Lord Discogs tells me he’s part of the electro-pop duo Tiny Magnetic Pets (who’d also released on Psychonavigation), which I feel I should know from somewhere, but could be getting mixed up with a similar sounding band (ergh, it’s buggin’ me!).

Another reason Skylines had trouble sinking in is it’s all over the place. There are skitzy beats, abstract ambient, twee pop, mellow Boards nods (of course), and not much linking it together. Imbrium is the sort of grand space ambient I’d expect out of Ultimae, while Yellow Magnetic wants to have its orchestral breakcore and eat DJ Food too. Wait, what? Okay, the fever’s setting in again. Better wrap this up now.

Various - Simulus

Psychonavigation Records: 2002

We’re going way back in Psychonavigation’s history with this one, folks. Back to the time before they earned much rep’ outside their native Dublin. Before the change when they focused primarily on artist albums. The years when their chief output was the compilation. An era where vinyl was still on their market! The age after the oceans drank Atlantis and before the rise of the sons of Aryas; the days of high adventure! No, wait, that's too far. Pretty sure this label's of a more recent era than when Conan The Barbarian was lopping heads aplenty. The beginning of Americanaland’s end, yeah, that'll do.

Having taken in all these Psychonavigation albums now, I feel I’ve gotten a decent bead on who’s their main acts, who’s their outside contributors, and so on. I look at the track list for Simulus though, and I’m drawing a blank on nearly everyone here. Move D shows up, taking some time away from his hundred-zillionth session with Pete Namlook to provide a jazzy, smoky, blues-hop number in Downtime. A few other names on Simulus have a decent amount of Discogian presence. The Rip-Off Artist released some eight LPs in a very short amount of time in the early ‘00s, with the man behind the name, Matt Haines, working with about a half-dozen other aliases before and since too. A couple others, like The Last Sound and EU, have continued releasing material to this day, though on various different labels than Psychonavigation. Names like Matthew Devereux and Manta even got albums out on this print shortly after. Mostly though, we’re dealing with artists that had a few items out around the time this compilation was released, and promptly disappeared shortly after from all Lord Discogs’ records. Except for Undermine, I have no idea what their story is, the Discogian link directing me to an American hardcore punk band from the early ‘90s. Psychonavigation’s done a few dalliances in its genre explorations, but I’m pretty darn sure Keith Downey’s never been tempted to go that route.

Instead, Simulus is another CD that supports my association of Psychonavigation with Shadow Records, in that this is one seriously trip-hoppin’ collection of tunes. For sure we get a few glitch IDM cuts too, such as Mantra’s click-n-bass Endent, The Rip-Off Artist’s bleep-hop Thief Of Hearts, and The Last Sound’s neurofunky Life Flashes, though that’s served as a specific segment showcasing such sounds. In fact, Simulus is separated into four such distinct parts, each with a brief intermission called Got That? marking the transition. Makes more sense for the vinyl version I guess, but it’s cool to hear some concept being applied to a compilation regardless.

Mostly though, the tunes on Simulus do that turn of the century trip-hop thing a lot of labels were doing in Ninja Tune’s wake, with spicy splashes of other genres for good measure - breaks in The Turner Experience from Dan Warren, ambient techno in Winter from EU. An interesting CD, all said.

Tiga - Sexor

[PIAS] Recordings: 2006

Confessional 10, sub-admittance 32: I had serious doubts over this album. Me, the guy who’d been flying the Tiga flag since I first took the Turbo plunge, who preached the Sontag gospel when every opportunity presented itself. For you see, I was won over by his charms and talents as a tastemaker, plus his impeccable cover artistry. Nearly everything he’d put out in his singing career was his take on other people’s songs, and he was darn good at it too. Still, would folks really be enthralled by a full LP of covers? Not terribly likely, but nor had Tiga at any point prior established himself as someone capable of writing original tunes either. With these factors bearing on my mind, I skipped out on Sexor, letting Tiga’s chips fall where they may as he set out on conquering Canadian content airwaves. Of course things turned out perfectly hunky-dory for the man from Montreal, so why did it take me nearly a got’dang decade to finally get this album into my collection? I… really have no answers for that. File this one with Dig Your Own Hole and “Anything Orbital” under the ‘Sykonee’s Unforgivable Omissions’ header.

Okay, one reason I wasn’t so quick to jump into the big bed of Sexor was due to how omnipresent it was within my social circle. I didn’t need to get it for myself when everyone else was jamming to Pleasure From The Bass. It seemed like the (Far From) Home video was on constant rotation at every house gathering I went to (that walk!). And damn straight folks couldn’t get enough of Burning Down The House, since everything Talking Heads was super cool again. Getting his David Byrne on aside, Tiga choice of covers sure came from unexpected places. There’s an acid house rub of Public Enemy’s Louder Than A Bomb, and a slinky electro-ballad of Nine Inch Nails’ way-early single Down In It. Not the first time Tiga’d done covers of hip-hop or industrial, but considering he made his name in the synth-pop market, it’s a bold move nonetheless. So’s all the acid house and techno on this album, come to think of it.

For sure he gets some synth-pop in with another Jori Hulkkonen team-up winner (High School), but much of the co-production on Sexor is divided between Jesper Dahlbäck (aka: the Good Dahlbäck) and Soulwax, whom were at the height of their star power. The first half is mostly dominated by Jesper’s groovin’ acid funk and downtempo cuts (plus an industrial freak-out in Who’s That?), while Soulwax bring the noisy electro anthems to the their works. All through it all, Tiga carries the tunes with all the swagger and suave finesse of a singer who’s fully confident in his stride. The lyrics are generally simplistic, but they carry such sincerity and charisma you can’t help but bobble your head along (or… that walk!). Throw in a few introspective moments, and you’ve a pop record that holds strong ten years on.

Lorenzo Montanà - Serpe

Fax +49-69/450464/Psychonavigation Records: 2011/2015

Somewhere during all those Labyrinth session with Pete Namlook, Lorenzo Montanà found the time to release a second solo effort on Fax +49-69/450464 called Serpe. With but a two year turnaround from his previous debut of Black Ivy, not to mention the six full-lengths released in the past three years, I'm getting the feeling ol' Lorenzo's one of those 'studio sluts'. You know the sort, spending endless days and nights huddled behind consoles and computers, synths and hardware, plus a few assorted 'real' instruments like guitars or glockenspiels. But hey, sometimes you just feel that creative pulse, propelling you from project to project in perpetuity. Though let’s not get ahead of ourselves; Mr. Montanà’s not any sort of Merzbow type. He, y’know, actually makes albums with a consistent theme to them, and all.

Yeah, I mentioned a problem with his first one was that it was missing that key ‘album’ flow, that it came off as little more than a collection of nicely produced, unconnected tracks. That point still stands (it’s only been a month since I made it), but that time spent jamming away in labyrinths with The Namlookian One must have helped refine Lorenzo’s craft, as Serpe is a marked improvement over Black Ivy. For one thing, there’s an actual theme to this album, each track title the name of a different sort of snake from the world abroad. I suppose Black Ivy had a loose plant theme going for it too, but much like the music on that LP, it wasn’t consistent.

Consistency, yes, that’s what Serpe’s got going for it. Every track maintains a running tone throughout, of moody, mysterious ambient techno with splashes of clicky glitch. While by no means an unique assortment of sounds at his disposal, Mr. Montanà comes off most comfortable working within this template, giving him the more freedom to write music fitting this concept than concern himself with technical aspects. I mean, the titualar opener sounds like an actual opener, an atmospheric little number with a stirring synth refrain and soft percussion nestled under washed-out white noise field effects, treated guitar plucking riffing off it for a brief portion before giving way to distant explosions. I’m not sure what this has to do with snakes, exactly, but tickle me intrigued for what comes next.

From there Serpe does the easy-cool build as most solid albums do. The next few tracks stick to the downtempo side of things, a groovy little number in Elaps Harlequin followed by a spritely chill piece in Dugite, while Mamushi features another lovely subdued melody within its stark dub ambient realm. As per course, the second half of Serpe ups the tempo some, Agkistrodon getting almost downright trance at points, though ol’ Lorenzo sure doesn’t hold back his fondness for the skittery side of IDM rhythms in Elaphe and Habu. Final two tracks Acrochordidae and Demansia go wide-screen in their production, and I’m left wondering how Mr. Montanà hasn’t ended up on Ultimae yet.

ACE TRACKS: October 2012

Hey hey! Another milestone reached! Or achievement accomplished. Or task completed. Or obsession sated. Whatever the case, this marks the end of all these backtrack ACE TRACKS playlists. I mean, wow, October 2012. Such a long time ago now, isn’t it. I still feel like I only recently started doing this, yet here we are, nearing the end of Obama’s second term as President of Everything Forever – when I was writing these reviews, there was still some actual debate over Romney’s chances!

I had no idea whether this endeavor would sustain itself either, a lot of those October writings rather shaky to my eyes. Nor did I have any clue if I’d get any sort of significant audience for my musings, especially when I was so freely drifting away from what most would consider an electronic music blog right out the gate. I was mostly making up my format as I went along, and didn’t really find my groove until late in the month. I honestly feel the Asian Dub Foundation review marked my proper starting point, if nothing else because it’s always easier to rip into music than just discuss it. Or more fun to write and read, anyway.


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat The Devil’s Tattoo
Octagen - Collected Works Vol. 2
Globular - Colours of The Brainform
Frankie Bones - Computer Controlled 2: Live In California

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 11%
Percentage Of Rock: 6%
Most “WTF?” Track: Nine Inch Nails - Closer To God (not that it’s shocking by any stretch, but it’s definitely abrasive compared to the rest)

Remember when it seemed like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony was a rap obsession of mine? Eh, probably not, since I’ve no idea how many readers here were even around for those early days of this blog. How about when I’d go from reputable electro to cheesy euro dance to prog rock and with a dash of house thrown in? Geez, was that first month ever all over the place. Still, with how settled a lot of my music purchases have turned these last few months, I kinda’ miss that spontaneity, that unpredictability of just what I might review next (trance? Ambient? Pants?). Maybe it’s time for another used shop haul…

Sense - Selected Moments, Vol. 1

Psychonavigation Records: 2013

Have I reached ‘peak ambient’ yet? Like, taken in so much of the stuff now that I’m micromanaging every tiny variation of it into compartmentalized sub-sub genres? Where Layered Drone is a totally different thing from Singular Drone, and the length between held piano notes drastically separates pieces into wholly uncompromiseable BPM brackets. For sure I can tell what constitutes Space Ambient, but should it be further splintered into Cosmic Ambient, Interstellar Ambient, Black Cold Ambient, Gravitational Waves Ambient, and even Quantum Ambient (that’s some proper ‘lowercase’ shit right there, mang!). For sure I can differentiate between inner headspace forms like Meditation Ambient (mostly synths and bell tones) and New Age Ambient (stupid, silly flutes or angel choirs), and now I feel there’s more unique branches I’m dubbing Melancholic Ambient, and Morning-After Ambient, not to mention Dawn Ambient (don’t confuse it with Solar Ambient, which is a Space Ambient thing). But wait, there’s also the Dark Ambient scene too, with so many variations and permutations, you could write a Tale Of The Old Ones anthology detailing it all (Gothic! Winter! Feral! Space! …yes, that again).

The reason for spending nearly two-hundred got’dang words describing all the ambient you can handle is because I know – just know! – you’re feeling a curious emptiness with the title of this album I’m supposed to be reviewing. You want to say it, your brain is tricking you into reading it, but reality does not deceive: this CD is called Selected Moments, Vol. 1, not Selected [Ambient] Works/Moments, Vol. 2 as your eyes so desperately wants to make it. Oh, it’s most definitely an ambient album, nary a beat found within the eight tracks comprising this LP. There’s nothing really connecting these compositions beyond their general stylistic songcraft either, so for all intents this is just a volume of selected ambient works. I suspect, however, that Adam Raisbeck had the good sense to not go with such an obvious cribbing of that other very famous selection of ambient works, practical though such a title would be.

Mr. Raisbeck is something of a folk hero to the new school of dedicated ambient followers, his debut album A View From A Vulnerable Place regarded as one of the scene’s definitive classics of the modern era. Floating from label to label as many producers in this realm do, he’s found a recent home with Psychonavigation Records, making his first impression on the Dublin print with this album. It’s a lovely little collection of ambient tunes, a bit rather in the classic Eno mold, though with more musicality going on than those early works. Some calmly float along lengthy soft synths (Heading Take 1, View From The Peephole, Less Than Perfect), others make use of simple charming melodies (36 4s (Mix 14), 3songs), and Praise (Full) melts my heart to utter pud’gin. Selected Moments, Vol. 1 presents itself as typical as most ambient collections go, but dang in this Sense chap doesn’t make you yearn for more.

Krill.Minima - Sekundenschlaf

Psychonavigation Records: 2013

See, folks, Psychonavigation Records isn’t just a big ol’ ‘90s love-in. This here Krill.Minima, he’s doing the abstract dub techno thing for this here album Sekundenschlaf, a genre that’s gained more prominence in this here millennium compared to that older time of two decades past. True, all these echoing chords, clicky percussion, and static textures is the sound that Mille Pleateux built its foundations on as the Clinton (One) Years ended, but it was the following Bush (Two) Years that it became all trendy, cool, and oft emulated. So, y’know, an ‘00s sound, not a ‘90s sound. What do you mean this is a stretch? I’m trying not to play into the cliché, I really am!

The music on here may be the sort more commonly found on Echospace, but the man behind the alias, Martin Juhls, typically makes tunes that fit the Psychonavigation mold. Releasing EPs and LPs since 2003, there’s more ambient pad work complementing all the clicky dub production, nods to older IDM and ambient techno that Keith Downey can’t seem to get enough of. More so is the Marsen Jules ‘alias’, where a lot of modern classical compositions meet layered drone work, and is apparently the more popular of the two. Well, about as popular as this sort of music goes, but Mr. Juhls seems to have spent far more time with this latter alias than with Krill.Minima. In fact, it’d been in relative hiatus for half a decade before being resurrected for Psychonavigation. Though according to Lord Discogs, a similar gap exists for Marsen Jules output too. Huh, whatever happened during that time at the turn of our current decade? I wonder… wonder… wonder…

*cue scene of black and white cartoon farm animals dancing in 1931 short*

Erm, sorry, my head’s been all sorts of distracted lately.

So Sekundenschlaf is a dub techno album, though really more of a ‘dub techno’ downtempo album. Only a couple tracks have a real techno pulse to them (Monddiode, Kronen Dab), while others favor the path of broken-beat groove (Von Angesicht zu Angesicht, Montreal > Dortmund, Serpentine). That is when the Krill’d One bothers with recognizable rhythms at all, some tracks muting beats down to clicks’n’cuts abstraction (Bienenkorb, Unter Druck), or foregoing them completely. Mamor (Dedub) goes as far deep into dub production as one can get while retaining some semblance of song structure, Kalypso makes use of melancholic tones echoing into the infinite, Nachtigal has that vintage Berlin-School modulation going for it, and ten-minute long closer Timbre is all wall-of-sound layered drone as you might find in Wolfang Voigt’s Gas works. Through all of this, plenty of white noise and static fills the sonic seams. So much white noise and static. Makes for a rather sterile listen at times, but Mr. Juhls knows his way around dub enough that there’s never a lack of warmth either.

If you’re curious to what a different label might offer in the realm of dub techno, give Sekundenschalf a try.