The Betty Fjord Clinic

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Feature: All Tomorrow's Parties (by:Larm News)

FAN FAIR

Warp Films’s documentary about legendary British music festival All Tomorrow’s Parties will be screened for free on Saturday in the by:Larm Teltet at 1915.

Ten years ago an ambitious Englishman called Barry Hogan, who at the time was working in a London club called Dingwalls, was asked by friends in Belle & Sebastian if he could help them put together a special one off festival, curiously named the Bowlie Festival after bowl haircuts. They wanted it to take place in a British holiday camp, a form of seaside resort that offered accommodation, entertainment, food and drink and which had become popular as an out of season location for Northern Soul Weekenders, parties that celebrated the mod revival of 1960s soul music. The Bowlie Weekender event was a rousing success, and Hogan realised he had a formula on his hands. He kept it alive and called it All Tomorrow’s Parties.

Since then, Hogan has gone on to promote countless of these weekend bacchanalian events, their line-ups chosen by curators such as Sonic Youth, Vincent Gallo, Slint or Simpson’s creator Matt Groening. They offer a sense of camaraderie absent from most festivals, and despite having grown in size Hogan’s initial intent remains intact: musicians and audience live side by side, corporate sponsorship is rejected, and the indie purist dream remains alive.

All Tomorrow’s Parties: The Film documents the festival in typically democratic, almost DIY form. The fans are credited as directors – they provided most of the footage from mobile phones and cameras – with contributions from Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) and Vincent Moon. The result is a unique and surprisingly high quality (given the source material) insight into what has made this event such a success. There’s also the chance to see rare footage of Grizzly Bear, Patti Smith, Portishead, Battles, Iggy Pop, Shellac, Grinderman and more. It’s the only thing that comes close to actually being there, and as the many fans who keep on returning will tell you, it’s a place you want to be…

Live Review: Oh No, Ono (by:Larm News)

TESTING POSITIVE

Wyndham Wallace’s jaw drops as he witnesses Danes Oh No Ono unveil their new masterpiece, Eggs…

Where do you start? Really: when it comes to Oh No Ono where do you even begin? Do you start with the helium-inflated vocals, or their mastery of their craft, or the fact that they not only have their own thing going on, but each one of them has their own thing going on within that own thing? Seriously, Oh No Ono: where do we start?

GREAT DANES
Well, where they start is with tribal drums and swirling strings like George Harrison just lent them his soul, and they continue with squalls of guitar, Beach Boys harmonies and melodies that aim for the stars and then keep on going. These five Danes make a panoramic and cinemascopic sound that may borrow from countless sources – including ELO, Harry Nilsson and Supertramp, hardly the most fashionable of reference points – but they understand that influences are merely flavours rather than a meal. And this – take a deep breath – is a five course gourmet meal with added amuses bouches.

To add to the fun, they look fantastic. It’s almost impossible to take your eyes off their two singers: one, dressed in a poncho, looks like a young David Bowie auditioning for a spaghetti western, albeit one filmed in the rain judging from the fact he’s wearing Wellington Boots. He’s also sporting make up that makes him look like half clown, half pixie, something that deserves a medal. His companion is equally preposterously dressed, lost in a fashion world somewhere between Spandau Ballet and Tintin starring in a Charles Dickens BBC TV drama. This, it has to be said, is also a good thing. And while the rest of the band are somewhat overwhelmed as a result, with their drummer lost in the shadows and shrouded in smoke, their presence is never forgotten as they drive their songs onwards and upwards.

WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP
Furthermore, they have that rare ability to make complex pop sound like pop confectionary. If one of them were to shout “Take me to the bridge!” you can be certain the reply would be “Which one?”, but, lost in their trippy, psychedelic world, their songs follow their own logic, played with such commitment that there’s no time to even question the wisdom of their muse. So if Animal Collective can enjoy the curious kind of crossover success that ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ has offered them, then there’s little reason why a band as colourful and ambitious as Oh No, Ono can’t do too.

What makes such potential success even more desirable is the simple but often overlooked fact that they seem to be enjoying themselves so much, exchanging glances and smiles at one another as though they’re bemused by their own brilliance. And, to top it all, they not only manage to match the brilliance of ‘Eggs’, their latest record, but they arguably improve upon it. Given the fact that this is a band whose working methods involve automatic writing techniques – giving rise to such masterful lyrics as “I have seen the queen and danced with her puppy / She’s already made a movie about me” – alongside the endless sampling of unusual sounds like frogs and (one for the fact fans) “the sound of “the cloth washing rituals of the West African Baka pygmies”, this is no ordinary achievement. But their sense of drama and dynamics means that, despite being only a five piece, they come across like a Philharmonic Orchestra.

So where do you start? It doesn’t really matter. Because wherever you start, you may not want it to end. Oh No, Ono? Yes, Yes Yes!

Live Review: Lucy Swann (by:Larm News)

SWANN SONGS

You’ve missed Lucy Swann this year but, writes Wyndham Wallace, you don’t want to make that mistake again…

By the time Oslo’s Lucy Swann takes the stage for her Pre-Larm performance, Mono is so packed that the only people they’re letting in are the police. Quite how so many people know about her is hard to say: her debut album is still at the pressing plant, and she’s not actually a part of the main by:Larm programme. But Swann is obviously not going to be a secret for long.

Half English, half Norwegian, Swann actually has most in common with French artist Camille: she too plays with sampled vocal loops, triggered by a pedal rack beneath her keyboard that she stabs with bare feet to build up angelic choirs around her melodies. Like absurdly underrated Trust Me Records label mate Rockettothesky, Swann manages to combine the sugary appeal of pop and a giddy love of experimentalism that makes her both challenging and highly seductive. Dressed in a pinstripe suit jacket and a scarlet dress, she comes across as confident and charismatic, and though her lyrics, when audible, tend towards the naïve – “When I was a little girl I had a rag doll / The only doll I’ve ever known” – this is mature, thoughtful music full of brooding synthetic tones and skeletal, simple melodies.

It’s also soul of the finest variety. At one stage she samples herself singing “River Deep, Mountain High”, and her voice recalls many a great singer of the late 1960s, though inevitably comparisons will instead be drawn with Amy Winehouse. But Swann is considerably more imaginative and far from concerned with being hip, instead dancing round the stage for an a cappella finale with such glee that she nearly trips over her discarded Doc Martens. The audience don’t care: as she closes her show by testifying “I feel like shouting”, they too give witness. Say it loud and say it proud: Lucy Swann will give you goosebumps…

Live Review: Susanne Sundfør (by:Larm News)

THE DARK STUFF

Susanne Sundfør may be the toast of Norway, but Wyndham Wallace remains uconvinced…

The first thing one notices about Susanne Sundfør is that this is a woman unafraid of an overdraft at the bank. Lined up on stage like beauty queens at a beauty pageant are a phalanx of guitars that would most likely be the envy of almost every single other band hauling second hand amplifiers through the snow in Oslo this week. Feted by the Norwegian press since her appearance at by:Larm in 2007, Sundfør has clearly become a significant priority for EMI Norway, and there’s no way they’re going to let this opportunity to impress an international audience pass them by. And so she appears surrounded by instruments beneath an impressively muted light show, her band rehearsed like their lives depend upon it. Then one remembers that EMI’s life may depend on her too. It may not oly be her bank balance that’s at stake.

BUDGET MENTAL
Her production values match her music, an expensive, somewhat luxurious melange of Tori Amos singer songwriter stylings, gothic rumblings and occasionally dangerous forays into ambitious territory that most major label artists might fear. With two backing vocalists holding up the rear, Sundfør proves herself more than capable of switching between ethereal whisperings and banshee wails, but at times she exhibits a mildly dissatisfying sense of detachment. Her band, meanwhile, hover in the shadows like session musicians perfectly content to wring gently dissonant tones from their instruments. Jesus Christ Superstar this is not.

BANK NOTES
She’s clearly loved by her hometown audience, however, and it’s exciting at first to witness something so obviously grand. But, as her show progresses, something starts to niggle. Like Celine Dion and the divas that have followed in her wake, Sundfør seems to think that the addition of vocal flourishes – sometimes known by cynics as a case of “using fourteen notes when one would do” – can make amends for the fact that her songs themselves lack any definitive sense of purpose. They cling to you much as chewing gum sticks to shoes, but as each one draws to a close it’s not the melody that lingers so much as the proficiency of her performance. Because Sundfør can sing, and at times she can belt it out, but the sense that the most controversial thing about her is the title of her album – ‘The Brothel’ – is hard to shake, especially when she engages in such histrionic flutters.

Of course, there’s no denying the manner in which she has managed to bewitch a packed Sentrum Scene, and when she slides into the kind of brooding, rhythmic complexity of ‘Protection’ era Massive Attack it’s not so hard to understand what they see in her. There’s just an ongoing fear that she may, if she’s not careful, stagger in the wrong direction and end up sounding like Enya. Not that EMI would have any complaints about that…

Feature: by:Larm 2010 - Walk This Way (by:Larm News)

BYLARM 2010: WALK THIS WAY!

Wyndham Wallace, a veteran of ByLarm returning for his fifth year of Scandinavian musical discovery, is suited, booted and ready to rock…

SHOE ARE YOU?
By the time ByLarm started in Oslo last year, the snow was melting with a vengeance that would make George Bush look like a pacifist. It felt like every step I took landed in a puddle that reached my ankles. My beloved Ben Sherman trainers never stood a chance. They were subjected to brutal torture for three days, from one dawn to the next. They trod every damned street in the centre of Oslo until their seams were splitting, and they leapt countless mounds of disintegrating ice as they rushed from café to seminar to concert to bar and back to my hotel. They were dragged through mud on the floors of dingy venues, they were coated in ketchup at 7 Eleven counters, they were left to steam on the heated floor of my hotel bathroom, and they were roasted by the fires that crackled in the main tent’s outdoor smoking area.

But oh, oh! What stories they would tell! If they weren’t just a pair of shoes they’d thank me for all that trouble. But my shoes weren’t made for talking. Like certain A&R folk, my shoes don’t have ears and eyes. Unlike A&Rs, though, they also lack a mouth. In fact, thanks to ByLarm 2009, my shoes now barely have soles. (I’ll skip further comparisons with A&Rs. I know they’re sensitive folk: I was an A&R once.) There are no regrets, though, no tears goodbye. I don’t want them back. I’ve got new shoes now. I’m ready for ByLarm 2010.

VIRGIN ON THE RIDICULOUS
You never forget your first time, and my introduction to ByLarm was as memorable as any industry convention I’ve visited. It took place in the Northern city of Tromsø, surrounded by mountains that looked down over a twinkling harbour close to which delegates slid and tumbled in their rush to check out the best talent. But ByLarm has never let me down since. It may have grown up and settled down in Oslo, but it’s still the same unpredictable spirit it always was and it’s not even a teenager yet.

Gathered together around you now, in just one single city, is the cream of Scandinavian up-and-coming talent. It won’t all be to your taste, but somehow the various countries that make up this picturesque region of Northern Europe are capable of producing some of the most innovative, entertaining, witty, unhinged and downright splendid acts on this planet. Whether it be indie rock or hip hop, death metal or neo-classical, singer songwriters or indigenous folk revivalists, all musical worlds collide here. So put down your drink, browse through the programme, then get online and check out the ByLarm jukebox. You’re going to find something there like nothing you’ve ever heard.

NAME THAT TUNE
Given that I’m called Wyndham Wallace I’m obviously in no position to judge, but some of the daftest names you’ll ever hear can always be found at ByLarm. Last year’s line up included Under Water Sleeping Society, I Was A Teenage Satan Worshipper and Tommy Tokyo & Starving For My Gravy. This year’s selection maintains that glorious tradition, what with Bjørn Hellfuck, the fabulously named Vinter In Hollywood, the welcome return of Children & Corpse Playing In The Street and of course the unforgettable KAKKMADDAFAKKA. And that’s not to mention The Cumshots, led by the notorious TV host, comedian and author Kristopher Schau. (The man has pedigree, it’s worth mentioning, since he’s also one of the men behind the equally improbably named Hurra Torpedo.)

Don’t be fooled by the names, though. Do you really think Bat For Lashes is any better? How about Lady Gaga? There was a time when people used to laugh at Duran Duran and Pearl Jam, but neither of them did so badly. So get out there no matter what they’re called: go check ‘em out. I’ll see you down the front for Death by Unga Bunga.

TALKING HEADS
But you didn’t come here to snigger at funny names. You came here to do some business. You came here to network and learn a little more about how to survive in this sandblasted industry. So it’s lucky that this year’s seminars and debates offer a line up that’ll make ByLarm the envy of every music conference that exists: Alan McGee, the man who released seminal records by My Bloody Valentine, Jesus & Mary Chain and Primal Scream, and who discovered Oasis – well, you can’t be right all the time – is popping by for a chat. Karl Bartos, whose work with Kraftwerk makes him arguably one of the most influential musicians alive, is here to talk about the development of sound recording. Peter Hook, whose mighty basslines were the DNA that flowed through both Joy Division and New Order, is ready to chat about The Hacienda and of course Manchester, while Kevin Cummins – whose definitive photos of both of those bands, as well as other legendary Manchester acts like The Smiths, Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses – is flying in to talk about his book ‘Looking For The Light Through The Pouring Rain’.

Then there’s Geoff Travis, the man behind Rough Trade Records and therefore an infinite number of life-changing bands, who’s here to talk about his career, while Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper is in town to discuss the digital revolution. Graphic designer of quite some repute Hjalti Karlsson is also here to discuss his work, and there’s a free screening of cult Depeche Mode fan documentary ‘The Posters Came From The Walls’ directed by Jeremy Deller (a Turner Prize winner) and Nick Abrahams (video promo director par excellence), at least one of whom will be on hand for a Q&A. And those are just the ones that I want to attend. You don’t get this at the Camden Crawl.

SOLE MUSIC
So at times like this you’ve got to count your blessings. You earn a living in one of the most exciting businesses in the world. It might be struggling at the moment but you’d never go back to working in a bar. You work with music, an intangible tangle of notes that still touches your heart every day. And you get to come to ByLarm, held in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. If it’s snowing again you might well ruin your shoes. If you don’t pace yourself you might even ruin your reputation. (You wouldn’t be the first.) But decent shoes are never hard to find. A decent band, on the other hand, is worth going the extra mile for…

*******
WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Double The Pleasure:
Duran Duran seem to have set the template when it comes to the names of new bands at this year’s ByLarm. Watch out for:

Twins Twins
Pica Pica
Kira Kira
Denga Denga
LidoLido
Pow Pow
Oh no Ono
Noora Noor

Twice As Nice
Do you know your Supertramp from your Supergrass? Do you know your Killers from The Kills? Take care when perusing this year’s programme. There’s plenty of room for confusion, as this handy aide-memoire highlights:

Razika vs Rakija
Jonathan Johanson vs Johann Johannson
Dunderbeist vs Dunderhonning
Asha Ali vs Negash Ali
Jesse vs Jesse Jones
Manna vs Manheads vs Jabaman
Blood Command vs Purified in Blood
Urban Tunels Kletzmerband vs The Urban Blues Band

(With thanks to Øystein Ronander)

Feature: Kevin Cummins & Peter Hook (by:Larm News)

OH, MANCHESTER:
SO MUCH TO THANK YOU FOR!

This year ByLarm is graced with the presence of two of Manchester’s finest, musician Peter Hook and photographer Kevin Cummins. There is still a light that will never go out…

According to academic and writer Professor Richard Florida, flourishing creative communities often give birth to thriving and prosperous urban environments, bringing business and money into a region. There are few places where this is truer than Manchester: once a grim industrial hub, this Northern English city has increasingly flourished since the late 1980s, with its endless stream of great music helping to capture people’s imagination. Whatever your tastes, the chances are you have at least a handful of records by acts that grew up there: The Stone Roses, Oasis, Happy Mondays, Take That, The Smiths, Doves or even The Bee Gees, who spent their childhood in its Chorlton suburbs.

Nowadays Manchester is vibrant, with much of the dilapidated environment that initially inspired artists now ‘regenerated’ to become bars, apartments, shopping centres and the like. Music may no longer represent one of the few escape routes from the city – indeed such is its dramatic growth that perhaps there no longer needs to be an escape route – but its spirit lives on, giving birth to a new generation of bands such as The Ting Tings, hotly tipped Delphic or BBC Sound of 2010 nominees Everything Everything.

Peter Hook and Kevin Cummins were both caught up in the Mancunian musical revolution. As bassist for Joy Division and then New Order, Hook was central to two of the most influential English bands to cross over to international success, and they - and indeed Hook himself – remain synonymous with the city. Cummins, meanwhile, is the photographer whose iconic shots of Hook’s two bands, as well as countless other local acts, helped define the way that they were viewed by the world at large. In so doing he has documented the growth of a city and its culture, shaping people’s perspective on a place so damaged by the downturn in heavy industry that between 1961 and 1983 it lost 150,000 jobs, but which now hosts more visitors than any other English city apart from London. If proof were needed for Professor Florida’s theories – that the existence of a ‘creative class’ helps provoke urban recovery – then Manchester could provide a model example.

Peter Hook has just published his recollections of his time helping to run The Haçienda club, a potent symbol of Manchester musical culture. The Haçienda: How Not To Run A Club is an unflinching and often hilarious memoir that details the chaotic organisation and financial mismanagement of this legendary venue. Kevin Cummins, meanwhile, has just released a collection, Looking for the Light Through the Pouring Rain, which contains a selection of over 300 of his photographs documenting Manchester music over the last 30 years. Both men will be presenting talks based around their books as well as answering questions about their work and Manchester itself. These two talks will provide an unmissable opportunity to find out if it’s really true that, as The Stone Roses’ Ian Brown put it, "Manchester's got everything except a beach".

(Photo of "the author" interviewing Kevin Cummins for his by:Larm seminar taken by Maria Jefferis)

Live Review: by:Larm Opening Night 2010 (by:Larm News)

RIGHT ON TIME?

He’s a 21st Century Boy, but at by:Larm’s opening night Wyndham Wallace tumbles back in time…

So it’s true that outside the main by:Larm tent there was a giant screen ticking off the seconds until the start of 2010’s official music programme like some Cape Canaveral countdown, but I swear I walked in on foot. And yet, within minutes of The Megaphonic Thrift taking the stage, I’m looking for my silver De Lorean time machine. I feel like Marty McFly, blasted back in time to emerge in a familiar landscape that is still somehow alien. There are no fiery tyre trails behind me, and no madcap scientists played by Christopher Lloyd anywhere in sight, but this has to be the late 1980s, surely? Isn’t it?

ARSEQUAKE EXPLOSION
The Megaphonic Thrift trade in the kind of alternative indie rock that, back in the day, was comically known as “arsequake”. They arrive on stage carrying a metaphorical crate of records under their arm: Sonic Youth’s ‘Daydream Nation’, Dinosaur Jr.’s ‘Freakscene’ on coloured vinyl, My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’ turned up to 11. Like fellow by:Larm hopefuls Serena Maneesh, they’ve immersed themselves in what some would call the last gasp of genuine independent music, a time when experimentation didn’t stand in the way of marketing, a time when noise was medication for the mind. They’ve got a singer who’s perfected that trademark Thurston Moore “I’m-so-excited-that-I-just-can’t-hide-it-and-yet-I’ll-try” yelp, occasional female vocals from a Kim Gordon mimic, blurrily distorted guitars gliding over thunderous drums, and a finale which involves swinging their guitars round their heads before leaving the stage bathed in two minutes of howling feedback. It’s tremendous stuff, a suitably impressive beginning to three days of music, but it’s the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. Isn’t it?

Apparently not. Bergen’s The New Wine may not have been souping up their guitar pedals like Kevin Shields’ life depended upon it, but they too seem trapped in the 80’s, their tunes bringing to mind the likes of both China Crisis and Hall & Oates. There’s nothing wrong with that, some might argue, but the Erlend Øye endorsed four piece lack a little of the prerequisite soul necessary to carry it off. Their beats are funky and yet they drag their heels, as though they’ve worked out the formula but not how to put it into practise. The crowd are dancing, but somehow The New Wine make The Whitest Boy Alive seem rather tanned in comparison.

THE DATA TODAY
Datarock, on the other hand, seem to know exactly what they’re doing. Mere minutes into their set – minutes almost drowned out by the frantic screams of the fans packing out the front rows – they’ve hauled out a saxophone, and yet this terrifying indication that the 80s revival is picking up speed is in fact inspired. They draw on the same influences that James Murphy’s DFA Records have so radically overhauled, and like LCD Soundsystem’s simian cousins they know exactly how to throw down a party: rolling basslines, four to the floor beats, and a bare-chested tambourine player concluding their set by crowd surfing through the tent. (You didn’t get that with Spandau Ballet!) Like council estate superheroes, they’re still wearing the same tracksuits that they paraded at by:Larm in Trondheim three years ago – it’s a wonder we can’t smell them from the back, to be honest – but their schtick seems in little danger of getting tired, and it’s a mystery why they’ve not achieved greater international success. Someone, somewhere, has a duty to put that right.

WATCH ME
Casiokids give away their 80s inclinations before they’ve even taken the stage. Their name speaks of digital watches and cheesy keyboards, and their music lifts from early house and techno with the minimum of fuss. But they make it their own, adding vocals whose ghostly falsetto recalls Sigur Ros’ Jonsi, a sprinkling of Afrobeat, and – obviously – four dancing bears whose hallucinogenic presence suggests that there’s acid in the beer as well as on the stage. One song, I’m reliably informed, is a love song sung in Bergen dialect to a pet dog. It makes perfect sense in any language.

CUM ON FEEL THE BOYZ
If you lived through the 1980s the first time it’s often hard to take this revivification of that era terribly seriously, but tonight’s final act are far from a joke. This is important because the messily named Cumshots are fronted by Kristopher Schau, comedian and TV host, and it’s initially hard to know whether this is one of his jokes. But five albums in it would be a joke that’s wearing thin, and no one finds this funny. That’s because The Cumshots take themselves very seriously indeed, and rightly so. Schau has perfected that death metal roar pioneered by the likes of Napalm Death, and his band tear the tent at least a dozen new arseholes. They’ve got manically nihilist lyrics – “Fuck you all” appears to be the chorus to an early tune, while they finish with the entire audience singing along to “Why Drink Alone?” – and they rock so heavily that the tent sinks at least three feet into Youngstorget. Schau launches himself around the stage between cowboy-hatted musicians, pouring bottles of water over his head, eating his microphone, stripping down to reveal the massive “Guilty” tattoo that straddles his back, roaring into the audience’s faces from the photographer’s pit. It’s hardly original, but it’s breathtaking in its intensity, and after a night of 80s inspired nostalgia it feels good to be brought kicking, screaming and bleeding back into the 21st Century. It’s hard to know whether the gradual thinning of the audience is due to the need to work in the morning or simple, instinctive fear, but no one’s going to forget the night The Cumshots got in their face. Back to the future at last…

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Album Review: The Durutti Column's 'A Paean To Tony Wilson' (The Quietus)

God: "Vini Reilly, by the way, is way overdue a revival. You might want to think about a Greatest Hits."

Anthony H. Wilson: "That's a good idea."

God: "It's good music to chill out to."

Anthony H. Wilson: "Yeah, you're right."

God: "I usually am."

(24 Hour Party People)

Find my paean to The Durutti Column's 'A Paean To Tony Wilson' at The Quietus: http://thequietus.com/articles/03724-the-durutti-column-a-paean-to-wilson-album-review

Friday, 5 February 2010

Album Review: Oh No Ono's 'Eggs' (The Quietus)

Despite studiously avoiding the words "Great Danes", I've still managed to give Denmark's Oh No Ono a well deserved rave. 'Eggs' is "a record that has gorged on the then-and-there as much as the here-and-now". Read more: http://thequietus.com/articles/03685-oh-no-ono-eggs-album-review

See the haunting video to 'Swim' here:

Photos: The Norwegian Wouldbe

I've been having an affair with Norway ever since I first visited in 2004. With my annual trip to by:Larm (www.bylarm.no) in Oslo on the horizon it felt like time for a retrospective. The pictures below are taken from a number of journeys to Oslo, Bergen, Bodø, the Lofoten Islands, Slottsfjell, Tromsø, Voss and - naturally - The Betty Fjord Clinic itself.

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Feature: Prince - Revolutionary Transmissions (The Quietus)

Scroll down here - http://thequietus.com/articles/03663-prince-revolutionary-transmissions-from-beyond-the-greatest-hits-comp - if you want to find out what I consider to be Prince's finest moment. Better still, though, start at the very beginning: it's a very good place to start...

Monday, 1 February 2010

Album Review: Robert A.A. Lowe & Rose Lazar - Eclipses (Uncut)

4/5
Collaborative art project births meditative electronica

Originally composed by Lowe (a collaborator with Om) to accompany the publication of a collection of his and his wife Lazar’s paintings, Eclipses is a bewitching mix of beat-free analogue ambience seemingly inspired by Eno’s experiments with contrapuntal melodies on Discreet Music. ‘Suno Vidis’ sounds like a lofi, sedated Kraftwerk, its echoing keyboard notes fading in and out, while ‘Ŭyndham-a Horloĝo’s gurgles are a little more dissonant. But it’s the compelling eleven minute opener, ‘Crayon Gym’, that stands out, its simple yet unsettling synths recalling both John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 and Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtracks.