Nuggies – Heavy Hit

Nuggies Heavy Hit:

What an awful band name. This what a band who tours with the Kotton Mouth Kings should call themselves. Instead this Vermont based group is an Avant-garde IMD band. Awesome. The only real joy to be found on this two track EP is when the band is heard laughing and giggling during the 7 minutes jam “Heavy Hit.” The band just jams badly for seven minutes and calls it a song. Then they follow it up with song on bleeps and bloops, which is just annoying. The whole thing is just a waste of ten minutes.

Olaf Rupp-Whiteout

Olaf Rupp Whiteout:

An album of freely improvised guitar solos. Rupp uses lots of distortion and delay combined with some unusual picking techniques to pull all kinds of strange sounds out of his guitar. Technically Rupp can’t be faulted, he is as fast and precise as they come, and is willing to explore new techniques. Rupp stumbles upon some cool sounds during these excursions, but it often feels like hes meandering. Though I recognize that these are supposed to be freely improvised non-thematic pieces , but the lack of structure,takes away from what could have been a significantly better album. Rupp’s experimental excursions would work best in the context of a structured piece, or his excursions should be juxtaposed with more conventional guitar playing.

Jandek-Manhattan Tuesday

Jandek Manhattan Tuesday:

Acoustic bass and drums mix with electric guitar, synthesizer, and Jandek’s unique droning voice to shape an intriguing listen. The music flows along with a jazzy- ambiance, remaining laid back and hypnotic while incorporating a healthy amount of dissonance. Jandek’s voice becomes the focus for extended intervals, the band quiets down, providing a low ambient hum to compliment his poetry. The tracks flow together, making one large piece that shouldn’t be broken up. This is an album you need to listen to beginning to end in order to fully appreciate. Amazing stuff.

Carl Michael von Hausswolff-Strom

Carl Michael von Hausswolff Strom:

An interesting interplay of sine waves with the occasional bump and fuzz to keep things interesting. The sine waves resonate beautifully and can produce several interesting sensation in your skull. Hausswolff  does amazing things with very few elements, which speaks volumes of his deep understanding of composition.

Rating: 14/15 hums

Greg Malcolm-Leather and Lacy

Greg Malcom Leather and Lacy:

Jazz hating multiple guitar playing New Zealand free improv musician does an album worth of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy’s compositions. Malcolm plays the melodies quite beautifully on a conventionally played guitar on his lap. For the backing parts Lacey sets up guitars hanging by him and at his feet. He slaps or kicks the guitars, which are often fuzzed out, to create drones and percussive noises. Malcolm’s extra guitars lend each track a certain ambiance, making it sound almost as if they were recorded in various locations each with a different background noise. Malcolm is a tasteful player and each track has an arid sparseness to it that suits the compositions well. An interesting and fairly mellow disk.

Rating: 13/15 kicked guitars

AMM-Ambient 4: Isolationism

AMM Ambient 4:Isolationism:

A unique mix of free jazz, modern classical, and electronic music. This disk is completely improvised, and is extremely pleasant to listen to considering its atonal nature. Piano drums and cello, are augmented by Keith Rowe’s prepared guitar. Rowe plays the guitar by lay it out in front of him and manipulating it with a series of found objects and effects pedals. Though the other musicians play well, and manipulate their instruments in an interesting fashion, Rowe’s sonic palette is immense and overall simply more interesting than his compatriots. A fascinating listen.

Rating: 14/15 electric guitars are still cooler than acoustic instruments points

Fantomas-Delirium Cordia

Fantomas Delirium Cordia:

Dark ambient music, filled with drills moans and other assorted vaguely medical sounds. Really good reading music which would also function as an excellent soundtrack. An interesting disk to listen to intently once in awhile.

Rating: 12/15 creepy sounds

Keith Rowe / Keith Rowe & Taku Unami-Keith Rowe and Taku Unami / Keith Rowe

Keith Rowe / Keith Rowe & Taku Unami Keith Rowe and Taku Unami / Keith Rowe:

Beeps blurps and scrapes. A very interesting very minimalist release. A cool listen, but only when you’re in the mood for it.

13/15: weird things to play a guitar with

Angus MacLise-Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda

Angus MacLise Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda:

Equal parts avant-garde drone, indian classical, and psychedelic. MacLise and his collaborators create trance inducing music with eerie chanted vocals and random explosions of sound and intense percussion. The poor recording quality, negatively effects the music in a big way. On many tracks several instruments will barely be audible. An interesting listen, when you can actually hear whats going on.

Rating: 10/15 electric shamans

Ikue Mori-Myrninerest

Ikue Mori Myrninerest:

Short phrases produced by acoustic instruments, and be Mori’s laptop computer flit in and out of silence. An interesting collection of her works that held my interest for the most part, but theres no real distinguishing features between most of the tracks. For better or worse its an albums worth of cool sounds which bubble up from nowhere and disappear almost as suddenly.

Rating: 11/15 songs about paintings