Interrobang

Apologies for the rather lengthy pause here on 5:4; for the last couple of weeks i've been snowed under with numerous things • The most important of them is the début concert by my new contemporary music ensemble, Interrobang, taking place in the Recital Hall of Birmingham Conservatoire next Monday (1 February), at 7.30pm • The programme is as follows:

• Kenneth Hesketh - Fra Duri Scogli for six players
• Paul Dolden - The Vertigo of Ritualized Frenzy. Resonance #4 for bassoon & tape [World Première]
• Joanna Bailie - Charh for six players
• Galina Ustvolskaya - Symphony No. 5 "Amen" for reciter & five players
• Joanna Bailie - Five Famous Adagios for clarinet & string trio
• Paul Dolden - The Heart Tears itself Apart with the Power of its own Muscle. Resonance #3 for 10 strings & tape [UK Première]

So... a pretty demanding collection of pieces, but all of them highly engaging, & often pretty mind-blowing • i know 5:4 has a pretty international readership, but anyone not too far from Birmingham, do come along if you can—it's going to be a spectacular occasion, & lots of fun! • Tickets are £5.50 (concessions £3) •

An article about Paul Dolden, planned a long time back, will be coming soon, as will—i hope—the first 5:4 podcast • Until then...

new CD: The Stuff of Memories

My new CD, The Stuff of Memories, will be released at the end of this week; it comprises two electronic works made during the summer of 2009 • Both address a related aspect to that explored on my previous CD, Triptych, May/July 2009; while that piece focussed on the (perforce flawed) act of remembrance, the present works are directly concerned with the fabric of the memories themselves •

Ostensibly simple pieces, they each take their starting point from existing musical material (other works of mine), which has then been worked on extensively, worn & worried into its final forms • The emphasis, though, is very much on what remains, a celebration of the joy & fragility of the surviving original material, its voice continuing to sing through layers of damage & erosion •

The first piece, Memories are made of this, is dedicated to the Somerset artist Pat Clayton • The piece was in part inspired by her beautifully elaborate artworks, purposely aged & dirtied objects (often books & boxes); simultaneously naturalistic & artificial, they resemble items of flotsam washed up on a beach, waterlogged & etched with sand •

The second piece, becauseshewas (veteris vestigia flammæ) is dedicated to Will Long, of the duo Celer, whose experimental ambient creations readers of 5:4 will know i greatly admire • The title is a reference both to the circumstances pertaining to the original underlying material, as well as to Will’s wife Dani, who passed away in July 2009 • The Latin quotation is from the account of Dido & Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid; it translates as “the traces of an old fire”, but i prefer John Dryden’s more poetic rendering: “the sparkles of my former flame” •

This release is a limited edition of 50 numbered copies • The price, including shipping, is:

UK - £10.50 | Europe - £11 | Worldwide - £12

For more information, to hear excerpts & to order a copy, go here •

Mix Tape #14 (Best of 2009)

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! •

Today marks the 2nd birthday of 5:4, so a big thank you to all of you who are regular readers for your time & interest in this blog • Following yesterday's run-down of my favourite 40 albums from 2009, here's the accompanying mix tape, featuring a track from each album • It's probably the most diverse mix tape yet on 5:4, & lasts a little under four hours • 2010's going to have to try pretty hard to surpass this remarkable music—enjoy! •

Here's the tracklisting in full (click on the image for high-resolution artwork):

• IAMX - Kingdom of Welcome Addiction (from Kingdom of Welcome Addiction)
• Röyksopp - The Girl and the Robot (from Junior)
• Daisy Chapman - Just Give Up, Jessica (from The Green Eyed)
• Leyland Kirby - The Beauty of the Impending Tragedy of My Existence (from Sadly, the Future Is No Longer What It Was)
• Chihei Hatakeyama - Twilight Gloom (from The River)
• The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Samhain Labs (from Here Be Dragons)
• Oneohtrix Point Never - Emil Cioran (from Rifts)
• Imogen Heap - 2-1 (from Ellipse)
• Carl Sagan's Ghost - Behind Clouds - Part 1 (from Behind Clouds)
• Chubby Wolf - Oh, And How It Was Stunning; Writhing (from L'Histoire)
• Asher - Untitled [disc 2, track 5] (from Miniatures)
• Florence and the Machine - Cosmic Love (from Lungs)
• Supersilent - 9.3 (from 9)
• Bat For Lashes - The Big Sleep (from Two Suns)
• Tor Lundvall - Midnight Ride (from Sleeping and Hiding)
• Celer - Indentions on Summits of Hands (from Close Proximity and the Unhindered Care-all)
• Operations - Dominic II [excerpt] (from You & Atomic Warfare)
• Lustmord - Er Eb Os [excerpt] (from [ B E Y O N D ])
• Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Silence (from utp_)
• Venetian Snares - Pussy Skull (from Filth)
• Polly Scattergood - Bunny Club (from Polly Scattergood)
• Ambrose Field - Je me complains (from Being Dufay)
• Tim Exile - Carouselle (from Listening Tree)
• Celer - Untitled [side A, excerpt] (from Compositions for Cassette)
• Anduin + Jasper TX - ...Producing Great Jets Of Radiation. (from The Bending of Light)
• Nynke Laverman - De ûntdekker (from Nomade)
• NQ - You Will Never Be Home Again (from Like Styrofoam, Bleeding)
• Alva Noto - Xerrox Monophaser 2 (from Xerrox Vol. 2)
• David Sylvian - Emily Dickinson (from Manafon)
• Hecq - Steeltongued (from Steeltongued)
• Dragonette - We Rule The World (from Fixin To Thrill)
• Richard Skelton - Threads Across The River (from Landings)
• Clouwbeck - Gossan [excerpt] (from Wolfrahm)
• SoiSong - Dtorumi (from xAj3z)
• Steven Wilson - Get All You Deserve (from Insurgentes)
• Robert Henke - Indigo_Transform [excerpt]
• irr. app. (ext.) - Kreiselwelle [excerpt]
• Bass Communion - Fusilier (from Chiaroscuro)
• Peter Wright - Follow The Leader (from Snow Blind)
• Celer - In Escaping Lakes [excerpt]
• Celer - Crouched in Elysian/Quaggy Staircases in Rock Walls/The Archeological Aspects of Grief/Organs of Perception/The Ordinary Intellect/The Scent of Confusional Arousal [excerpt] (from Breeze of Roses)
• Celer - Engaged Touches - Part 2 [excerpt] (from Engaged Touches)
• Celer - Eustress [excerpt] (from Brittle)
• Celer - Fountain Glider [excerpt]
• Celer - Poulaine [excerpt]

[3:49:07 | mp3 | v0 | 307Mb]
part 1 | part 2

Best Albums of 2009

Embarking on another list such as this, i'm reminded again of what i think of as "Paul Morley's Dictum"; in his superb book Words and Music he writes of the provisional nature of all "best" lists, describing how they could (& perhaps should) change, perhaps quite radically, from day to day • i think he's absolutely right, & there are many albums released in 2009 that i haven't heard, so feel free to treat the following as the gospel truth with a pinch of salt • Put it this way, it's true now, at the end of the year, & that's perhaps as good as anything else • There really has been a dazzling display of imagination & innovation this year, of which these forty are, in my view, the best •

40 | IAMX - Kingdom Of Welcome Addiction
While this album doesn't live up to the unbridled brilliance of Chris Corner's first two albums, it continues his wildly enthusiastic explorations of the darker side of humanity's psyche • The triple-metres are present & correct once again, adding to the unsettling quality of these melancholic laments • Corner's voice is as rapturously lovely as ever, able to make even the less effective songs engaging, & giving the album as a whole an aching beauty •

39 | Röyksopp - Junior
Röyksopp's newest creation is a jaunty reworking of synthpop styles & motifs from the 1980s, finished off by a collection of first-rate female vocalists • What's particularly impressive is their ability to fashion complex & interesting songs out of highly simple ideas, such as "Tricky Tricky", which works like a passacaglia, gradually accumulating layers & variations • But the most successful track is "The Girl & the Robot", a wailing complaint that pays overt homage to The Human League's "Don't You Want Me, Baby?" • Röyksopp have proved that to make good 'retro' music is to do something very much more than rely on mere pastiche •

38 | Daisy Chapman - The Green Eyed
It's been good to see Bristol-based Daisy Chapman's profile grow considerably through 2009, aided in no small part by this, her second album • i was fortunate enough to work with Daisy on The Green Eyed, transcribing the string quartet music, although i kept a certain distance so as to appreciate the songs on their own terms • Overall, the album is both an extension of her earlier work as well as something of a departure, one that was perhaps inevitable as she took over lyricist duties from her former partner • The impassioned melancholy that she embodies so readily now has a sizeable glint in its eye & a distinct decadent twist, her songs now infused with elements from cabaret • The success varies (the cover versions of "Umbrella" & "Ring of Fire" don't work particularly well) but at their best are superb, with "Just Give Up, Jessica" the standout track •

37 | Leyland Kirby - Sadly, the Future Is No Longer What It Was
Best known for his work under the pseudonyms The Caretaker & V/Vm, James Leyland Kirby has reverted to his own name for this, his most ambitious release to date • Spanning three CDs & nearly 4 hours, this is perhaps the ultimate expression of Kirby's preoccupation with wistful melancholia, the music sliding around over foundations that do not feel in the least bit secure • The highly evocative track titles ("The Beauty of the Impending Tragedy of My Existence", "A Longing to Be Absorbed for a While Into a Different and Beautiful World") flesh out the emotional detail in each of Kirby's heavily-laden soundscapes; the pain is all too apparent, but there's much beauty too •

36 | Chihei Hatakeyama - The River
2009 has been a productive year for Hatakeyama, with four releases under his belt; The River is especially notable, a triumph of modern ambient featuring some of his most mesmeric music to date • Each track is allowed space to grow & develop, adding to the hypnotic potency of this album • It's music laden with poignancy—such as the dark "A House In The Fog"— but one that frequently ascends into the light; the airy textures of "Light Drizzle" & "Twilight Gloom" (something of a misnomer) are simply gorgeous •

35 | The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Here Be Dragons
Following their remarkable eponymous first album & two teasers earlier this year (the Mutations EP & Tribute to Moondog single), this was, for me, one of the most highly anticipated of this year's releases • It didn't quite live up to my (probably, too high) expectations, but it finds the ensemble casting their work into forms as moody as ever • Lengthy melodies slowly unravel from dense textures, passed from instrument to instrument in a deep velvet klangfarbenmelodie, occupying structures that shift & reform around them • This is fin de siècle jazz from a club situated on the edge of the world •

34 | Oneohtrix Point Never - Rifts
On the one hand, Rifts is a demanding listen, & not simply because its 27 tracks explore a series of cool, electronic façades for over 2½ hours • Often, a track will set about establishing its identity, only then to disintegrate into something entirely different ("Learning To Control Myself" is a good example of this, as is "Emil Cioran" which effectively works in the opposite direction) • But for all its demands—&, to some extent, its inconsistency—this is a rewarding listen, each & every track a sonic sculpture fashioned with intent, plastic but solid nonetheless •

33 | Imogen Heap - Ellipse
Singers don't come much more distinctive than Imogen Heap, whose curious, quirky alto voice seems audibly to jolt whenever she leaps from low to high • Moreover, the production values of her music are very high indeed, packed with subtleties of detail that take numerous listens to take in; her last album, Speak For Yourself, exemplified this, & Ellipse takes this further • In fact, Heap's imaginative scope seems to have expanded massively, in part drawing on the soundworld from her collaboration with Guy Sigworth, Frou Frou, as well as (especially on the album's best song, "2-1") the gritty kind of beat complexes Mark Bell devised for so many of Björk's songs, & even the hectic cut-up pace of Emilie Simon; it's a wonderfully rich & eclectic selection •

32 | Carl Sagan's Ghost - Behind Clouds
Carl Sagan's Ghost is the project of one Daniel Davis, who has brought out a number of releases this year • He's capable of tapping into some really lovely textures, which he allows to develop over lengthy time-spans • Behind Clouds is, i feel, his most successful, conjuring up a vast soundworld with layers of perspective; one really can focus on different elements in the material & feel them to be at different depths or distances, which heightens the experience considerably • Clearly a talent to watch, with the surprising added bonus that all his output is available free of charge (here); his latest album, At the End of it All, is also well worth a listen •

31 | Chubby Wolf - L'Histoire
Thus far, this is the only full-length album from the late Danielle Baquet-Long's solo venture, but husband Will informs me there are numerous completed pieces approaching readiness for release, so hopefully 2010 will bring more from this much-lamented talent • The album contains a similar austerity to Meandering Pupa (one of my Best EPs of 2009), despite the generally longer track durations; if anything, there are not more ideas at play, they're simply given more time to present themselves & penetrate deeply into our consciousness • The gloriously-named "Oh, And How It Was Stunning; Writhing" is perhaps the finest example, an impeccably timed & executed exercise in transcendent stasis • A profoundly intense, meditative album, it yields much, much more on repeated listenings •

30 | Asher - Miniatures
Much of Asher's prior output has left me unengaged & disinterested, but this two-disc release is something else entirely • At a first listening, it might almost appear as though Asher's involvement is minimal, even superfluous, as one aged piano loop after another comes & goes, each ravaged by the detritus of time • But the choice of loops &, indeed, their juxtaposition reveal a deft hand, one that has positioned these pocket-sized vignettes with utmost care • This is music yellow with age, a wistful, nostalgic evocation of a time long past, present only in the briefest of fragments; in all sorts of ways, it's a beautiful album •

29 | Florence and the Machine - Lungs
For once, my taste seems to overlap with other critics; Lungs is a startlingly impressive début from Florence Welch • The first thing that strikes one about her voice is its versatility & raw power; while capable of great delicacy (she can 'float' her voice beautifully, perhaps a throwback to her choirgirl days), it's in her whoops, snarls & howls that her musical personality finds clearest definition • The songs are a diverse mixture, hard-edged but not oppressive, compulsive with a slightly languid energy—indeed, "Blinding" paints her as a latter-day counterpart to Morrissey, drawling with attitude • A superb release, of which the soaring, spine-tingling anthem "Cosmic Love" is surely its finest moment •

28 | Supersilent - 9
While it's a difficult if not impossible task to know what to expect from Supersilent releases, this ninth album is seriously surprising • A change, though, & a radical one at that, was always going to be necessary without Jarle Vespestad's wildly complex rhythmic contributions, & the remaining trio have bravely consigned themselves to Hammond organs for the duration, improvising shapes & textures that are distinctly suggestive of things otherwordly • By turns soft & shrill, deep & booming, it's a brilliantly successful experiment, with "9.3" particularly evocative •

27 | Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
While her previous album, Fur and Gold, was good, Natasha Khan's latest release outclasses it in almost every way (& without a doubt, should have won this year's Mercury Prize, particularly as the shortlist—as it usually is these days—was so mediocre) • Her singing sounds both more emphatic & more versatile, able effortlessly to coax with a whisper or howl with abandon • & the songs themselves are striking, both in the way their respective narratives unravel, as well as the timbrally imaginative wrappings within which they're contained • Khan's voice brings to mind many other singers, but somehow defies them all; she is utterly distinctive, & the pairing of the final track, "The Big Sleep", with Scott Walker is one of the most rapturous duets in recent times •

26 | Tor Lundvall - Sleeping and Hiding
"Sleeping and Hiding" is an apt description for the general tone of Lundvall's work, seeming ever to lurk within shadows, introverted & solemn • He's a master of the nocturnal, & this album inhabits a decidedly vivid late-night world, with a suburban melancholy (think Burial without the shuffling beats); opening track title "City Rain" sums it up perfectly • Each successive track doesn't so much unfold as dive straight into a deep, dark pool of sound, as potent as opium smoke, underpinned—or, rather, transfixed—by slow, steady pulses & omnipresent drones • "Midnight Ride" is Lundvall at his utter best, softly evocative of Portishead, the gentle dissonances causing an exquisite shimmer at the heart of the music •

25 | Celer - Close Proximity and the Unhindered Care-all
Released in the last couple of months, Celer's latest album is rather too fresh in the mind for a fully-rounded assessment; first impressions count, though, & immediately it's a work demonstrating impressive rigorous control over its undulations • This is no surprise; Celer demonstrate time & time again their ability to allow—to some extent at least—the sounds with which they're working to guide the creative process • The three track divisions are mere markers amidst more numerous passing elements • Some contain recognisable sources in the field recordings (walking feet; a rather vocal argument; birdsong); this anecdotal aspect lends the work an interesting perspective, although what serves as foreground or background is left nicely ambiguous •

24 | Operations - You & Atomic Warfare
Chris Anderson's latest release is also his most sonically varied • Each track is named after an atomic bomb test, but the tone of the material seems more concerned with after-effects than the raging power of the detonations themselves • Draped in a sparse, even desolate landscape, melodic fragments loop & drift incongruously among the dark haze (most poignantly in "Teapot"), like a broken radio in an equally broken world • Glowering above (or is it below?) is an ominous, omnipresent ambience that proves increasingly unsettling as the album progresses, culminating in the contaminated texture of "Dominic II" • Anderson has certainly succeeded in making one of the year's most eloquent & thought-provoking releases, the glimpses of beauty powerfully transcending their harrowed context •

23 | Lustmord - [ B E Y O N D ]
The dark lord of ambient has spent much of this year revisiting his 2008 album [ O T H E R ]; two albums & two EPs have remixed & reworked that source material, with [ B E Y O N D ] containing the most consistently successful material—better, it could be argued, than the original album • Brian Lustmord's music is usually so serious, so intense, that it can be difficult to take (or, as in Lustmord Rising, become unintentionally funny), but he gets it spot on in this series of remixes; it's all as pitch black as ever, but with a gentleness that makes it less intoxicating, even rather relaxing • "Trinity", at the dark heart of the album, is one of the best tracks; the mixture of sporadic deep beats & bells (all heavily muted) above the soft, distant ambient drapery is entrancing •

22 | Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto - utp_
With Insen & Vrioon, the Noto-Sakamoto collaboration has created a sublime synthesis of piano & electronics, & it was inspired to expand the idea to larger forces, courtesy of the ever-adventurous Ensemble Modern • The result, utp_, is actually a cooler affair than either of those earlier releases; at first it seems rather stiff, but quickly loosens up into a complex intermingling of sounds that achieves that most difficult thing: blurring the distinction between electronics & live instruments • The two "Particle" tracks are a case in point, the plethora of microscopic sounds blending into a diverse but consistent granular soup • Elsewhere the division is more apparent, but things never seem forced; "Transition" is one of numerous high points, a gorgeous chorale of shifting chords •

21 | Venetian Snares - Filth
Reviewed back in March, this album has done much to restore my faith in Aaron Funk's ability to maintain a coherent & consistent approach in his work • It's not just the track titles (e.g. "Labia" & "Chainsaw Fellatio") that betray Funk's ongoing creative case of Tourette Syndrome; the music has a blissfully playful quality that knows no limits • The beloved 7/4 time signature is omnipresent, but with new blood in its veins, & whether he's tickling our ears or bludgeoning our brains, Funk is demonstrably back at the top of his game •

20 | Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood
In a year that saw "artists" such as Lady Gaga & La Roux pick up plaudits for noisy, noisome posturing, far more impressive for its fragile understatement was this first release from Polly Scattergood • For all her lace-like charm, Scattergood's lyrics suit her voice down to the ground, quietly bewailing & lamenting their lot, the songs of a bruised soul • As i mentioned back in April, the opening song "I Hate the Way" is the most imaginative, but the album as a whole is strikingly diverse, at times simplistic (the childlike piano stylings of "Poem Song"), at others more grittily adult (both tone & lyrics of "Bunny Club"), but always courageously & movingly honest •

19 | Ambrose Field - Being Dufay
My first encounter with Ambrose Field's music was back in the mid-1990s, at a conference in Birmingham where he gave an illustrated lecture about his impressive electroacoustic piece, Undercurrents • His latest work is a setting of vocal fragments by Guillaume Dufay (performed by former Hilliard Ensemble tenor, John Potter), about & under which Field weaves a gentle supportive ambient cloud • The electronics seem to both reinforce & diffuse the tonality in Dufay's beautiful melismas, embellishing them with the lightest of touches • Field's ear for striking & delightful sounds is as sure as ever, & it's heartening to hear cutting-edge electronics used in a classical context without the brash pretentiousness that seems so prevalent at the moment • A seamless synthesis of old & new, it's nothing short of a masterpiece •

18 | Tim Exile - Listening Tree
In a world that now seemingly boasts as many genres as there are composers, it's encouraging that Tim Exile staunchly avoids such bland categorisation • The man leaps between stylistic gestures with the agility of a gazelle, never resting long enough for the music to compartmentalise itself • His is a kaleidoscopic kind of electronica, nourished & perfected through improvisation, & many of the tracks on this album possess a meandering quality that pulls the listener along wherever the material wishes to go • This kind of eclecticism can prove irritating, but Exile's brilliant control of structural unfolding—even if it's being created on the fly—is unwavering, & there's logic aplenty amidst the mayhem •

17 | Celer - Compositions For Cassette
Caught as we are in the grip of such ubiquitous digitalia in the world of music (& exemplified by Tim Exile), it seems almost radical for Celer to turn their backs on it completely for this release • This music was made using analogue cassette as its means of recording at every stage; the duo proudly declares their "hope to demonstrate an admiration of experimentation through a single recording medium..." • The ghostly, quavering music is a poignant, nostalgic evocation of a time now distant, afflicted (blessed?) with hiss & other random irregularities that are an inevitable concomitant of the tape recording process • It's yet another example of the sheer imaginative breadth this pair have brought to ambient music •

16 | Anduin + Jasper TX - The Bending Of Light
The pairing of two such artists was always going to result in a highly concentrated music, & The Bending Of Light demonstrates that from the outset • The drones are delicious, drawing the listener in like a sonic black hole, while impossibly low frequencies envelop & couch the ears • Despite its relatively brief duration (a little over 34 minutes), the music is wide & expansive, ultimately sounding very much longer • It's such a fruitful partnership, one can only hope they'll collaborate again on further releases •

15 | Nynke Laverman - Nomade
Some albums you just don't see coming, & Nynke Laverman's latest release is just such an album • While her previous work explored a variety of folk & world music idioms in a fairly humdrum manner, from the outset Nomade grabs one by the scruff of the neck & enters entirely different territory • Her Fresian lyrics & accent infuse each song with a distinct, 'other' quality, enhanced by their strange, even surreal accompaniments, combining a fascinating array of instrumental & electronic textures • Standout track is the opener, "De ûntdekker", the pulse stomping & marching as Laverman soars, twitters & trills overhead •

14 | NQ - Like Styrofoam, Bleeding
It's not been the most interesting of years for netlabel Distance Recordings, but they've redeemed themselves with this, their latest release • Nils Quak's album is a riveting work of electronics, combining ambient, noise, drone & electroacoustic elements • The way one sound succeeds another, emerging into the foreground until the next replaces it, is thoroughly engaging, aided in no small part by Quak's wide sound palette • Every track is like a miniature epic, ending seemingly light years from whence it began • It's surprising that such an accomplished album should be available free, but it is, here •

13 | Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol. 2
This is one of those albums you want never to end • Few artists handle electronics as well as Alva Noto; & when he turns his gaze away from beats & pyrotechnics, he creates some of the most luscious sonic landscapes ever made • His second Xerrox outing incorporates an amazing display of styles & ideas; warm ambient drones dissolve into noise only to be reborn as slow crescendoing chords & throbbing bass pulses that glitch, quiver & bristle • Carsten Nicolai is a composer of breathtaking brilliance, & this is without doubt one his finest albums •

12 | David Sylvian - Manafon
Song has been undergoing something of an overhaul in the last few years • Joanna Newsom expanded its durational & poetic scope in 2007 (Ys), while Scott Walker did necessary but unspeakable things to it in 2008 (The Drift); this year, the most radical re-thinking of what song can be has come from David Sylvian • On the one hand, this album doesn't entirely succeed simply because of the creative division at the heart of the work; Sylvian brought in some of the most innovative improvisers in the world to create textural backdrops, but created both the lyrics & his vocal tracks totally separately, after the event • But the results overcome this issue, often brilliantly; Sylvian's postmodern crooning in front of such a complex reredos is simply stunning •

11 | Hecq - Steeltongued
Ben Lukas Boysen's work as Hecq ranks among the most innovative & ingenious electronica by anyone • His innate understanding of pace & mood, combined with his astonishing ability to bring together the pointillism of beats & omnipresence of ambient in a seamless synthesis, make every release a joy to behold, & never better than on this album • Of Steeltongued, Hecq has said that it “feels like the whole beat-science cant go any further for me – i wanted to take a (probably final) shot at it and get as much as i can from it”; if so, it's hard to conceive of a more accomplished swansong to the world of beats than this, perhaps the most joyously brilliant work of IDM ever created •

10 | Dragonette - Fixin To Thrill
i wrote at length about this album back in October, & it just gets more & more impressive on repeat listenings • Very few bands can achieve, let alone sustain, this level of exhilaration in their work • The album captures a wide variety of moods, from the brilliant & breathless to episodes of quieter intensity • Dragonette are fortunate to have such a superb singer in Martina Sorbara, who's able to take her voice, effortlessly, in such a multitude of directions without ever sounding forced or uncomfortable • This absolutely ecstatic release is, in my view, the indisputable pop album of the year, if not the decade • It's still not yet easily available in the UK (why?!), so Amazon.ca continues to be the place to go •

9 | Richard Skelton - Landings
This is the year when Richard Skelton's music has finally registered in my consciousness, & as i've been slowly catching up with his output, i've found myself drawn ever deeper into his strange yet familiar music • Emanating from grief (the loss of his wife a few years back) & intimately interconnected with the Lancashire landscape, Skelton's work seems to sidestep the intellect & burrow deeply into one's emotions, pulling them, massaging them, aching them • Landings (recently reissued, accompanied by a book of prose & poetry) typifies his style, the incessant string gestures—despite their subsequent (but imperceptible) digital manipulations—projecting an ancient & noble demeanour •

8 | Clouwbeck - Wolfrahm
Richard Skelton almost has as many artistic guises as releases, & this is only the second time he's donned the Clouwbeck moniker • Once again, strings predominate the textures, but Skelton is prepared to take his source material into new & arresting territories • Somewhat shorter than Landings, this album comes across with more intensity & urgency, despite the prevalence of more gentle ambient episodes • There's a sense of the instruments playing as though their lives depended on it, a soft but ferocious outpouring that, undoubtedly, says more about loss than words ever could •

7 | SoiSong - xAj3z
Following last year's outstanding EP qXn948s, Peter Christopherson & Ivan Pavlov have taken their SoiSong project into more upbeat & immediate territory here • While in some ways one misses the amorphous beauty of that EP, the ingenuity of ideas is highly impressive, as is the completely unexpected unfolding of each track • The artificial voices from Christopherson's Threshold HouseBoys Choir return, but in a more engaging sonic environment, & bestowing a weirdly dated quality on this otherwise utmost modern music • Such paradoxes abound with SoiSong, strangeness & beauty evident in equal measure, the one unifying element seeming to be the audible influence of Peter Christopherson's adopted home of Thailand •

6 | Steven Wilson - Insurgentes
Technically, this album saw light of day in 2008, but it wasn't available to the world at large until this spring, & Wilson himself clearly regards it as a 2009 release; hence its inclusion here • This is, very simply, one of the finest experimental rock albums ever made, with a breadth of creative imagination & technical expertise that are simply amazing to behold, listen after listen after listen • More importantly, it goes way beyond Wilson's other work, bearing only passing resemblances to either Porcupine Tree or Bass Communion, the avant-garde textures at times redolent of Scott Walker, they're that good • A glut of redundant rock bands should take note: this is what music can be; this is how far behind you really are •

5 | Robert Henke - Indigo_Transform
While, to my mind at least, Henke's Monolake project seems to have reached a creative impasse (Silence may have amazing production values, but what exactly was the material trying to do or be?), his solo work continues to beguile & entrance like never before • Both the texture & delivery bring to mind—forgive me—Jean Michel Jarre's "Waiting for Cousteau", but Henke's treatment of stasis, punctuated with water droplets & a profoundly deep, tolling bass, is way more engaging, utterly hypnotic •

4 | irr. app. (ext.) - Kreiselwelle
For the last eight years, Matt Waldron has been engaged in, beside other things, a large-scale triptych of works associated with Wilhelm Reich • Following Ozeanische Gefühle & Cosmic Superimposition, this is the final instalment, & while a number of sound elements betray their connection to those earlier releases, for the most part it comes across as a very different entity • Waldron's use of anecdotal sounds always lends a vividness to his sonic creations akin to Dali's realism, & the result is often no less surrealist • Kreiselwelle ('spiral wave'), though, finds Waldron in a decidedly un-absurd mood, the layers of material evolving gradually with few abrupt shifts, & the result is weighty & mesmerising •

3 | Bass Communion - Chiaroscuro
Steven Wilson's Bass Communion project has gone a long way to revivify & re-imagine the hackneyed ambient model • This is one of his most intense releases (even more so than 2008's Molotov & Haze), featuring two canvasses, one large, one small • Both are absolutely riveting, the former laden with nervous vibrato that causes the undulating texture to ripple & shimmer, the latter's delicate tracery giving way to a seething morass of spellbinding complexity • Music like this has few parallels, & it's arguably Wilson's finest creation to date • His control & technical aplomb are nothing short of astounding, highlighting his status as one of the most brilliant, genuinely talented musicians working today •

2 | Peter Wright - Snow Blind
Following his really rather average An Angel Fell Where The Kestrels Hover earlier in the year, this album is a bolt from the blue • Caught betwixt two worlds, one all curves & contours, smooth & inviting, the other coarse & abrasive, clipped & distorted, Wright's vision is shocking in its clarity & devastating in its realisation • This is an album that seems to exist in the wake of some vast deluge, crying out into the darkness, disoriented & desperate • It's deeply moving to hear music emerge—as it only can—from such a wasted context, whether it's the heroic attempt to rebuild a melody from sonic rubble ("Follow The Leader") or the stuck-in-a-rut despair that is nothing less than abject ("The Distopian National Anthem") • Ambient noise has rarely received such mature & cogent expression •



1 | Celer - A Breeze of Roses / Brittle / Engaged Touches / Fountain Glider / In Escaping Lakes / Poulaine

To say that 2009 has been Celer's year is to invite mixed feelings; after all, Will Long's wife & musical collaborator, Danielle Baquet-Long, passed away in July, bringing Celer's future activities to a close • Yet already, Will & Dani's legacy is already beginning to assume monumental proportions; a startling 16 new releases were issued this year (11 albums & five EPs), proof positive of the quantity of work the duo has created • But it's the quality of so many of these releases that is most meaningful; time after time, Celer find new ways to occupy us, never repeating themselves, inventing & re-inventing their ideas & methods in a panoply of creativity that is nothing short of breathtaking • Hence why the no. 1 spot in this year's list must go jointly to no fewer than six of their albums, each of which has played a unique part in expanding Celer's orbit & deepening the impression they make; these albums are not merely excellent, they're essential •

All six testify to the fact that Celer play at their best in long, extended durations where ideas can evolve & flourish at leisure (another 2009 release, Capri, suffers from its division into "bite-size" portions, although last year's Nacreous Clouds proves this needn't be the case) • As usual, though, these large-scale canvasses are (with the exception of Brittle) divided into distinct areas of activity, each bleeding & morphing into the next with infinite grace, even stealth • The multiplicity of sound sources, cited on each release, are fodder for Will & Dani's frenetic creativity, only on occasions—most noticeably on Fountain Glider & Engaging Touches—being heard for what they are • Both noise & rich tonalities coexist in Celer's music like nowhere else, the one complementing the other, with nothing ever sounding out of place • This is no mean feat, a marvel for the ears that, despite the slow steady motion, is no less able to surprise: the moment, around two-thirds through Breeze of Roses where the faint ringings are unveiled to be deep cathedral bells; the second part of Engaging Touches, where the initial cycling waves yield into a timbrally-lush chord that looms out of darkness; the opening of Fountain Glider, that quickly disintegrates into heavily distorted cabin noise • These are just a few meagre examples of the kind of delights that are contained in these large works, which together comprise over 300 minutes of the most intense, challenging & uplifting material released this year; Celer truly are the masters of modern ambient music •

In the wake of such glowing admiration, it may seem surprising, even churlish, to attach a caveat, & quite a severe one • i've mentioned it before & i'll do it again, more forcefully this time: i believe it militates against the quality of Celer's music to have so much of it released in such a short timespan • Few artists can ever have amassed as many as 16 releases in a single year, & with very good reason; it detracts from the significance & appreciation of individual achievements when they're being whisked off the production line as quickly as that • Theirs is music rich & complex in character, like the proverbial good wine, & such things should be savoured, not quaffed • That Celer's fans (obviously, i include myself in that group) are enthusiastic for more—particularly, no doubt, following Dani's death—is understandable, but if we have any respect for Dani & Will's work, we'll allow it to come in its own good time, giving us & the music itself some time to reflect &, indeed, some breathing space • i love Celer's music, & to say i'm looking forward to hearing more is a huge understatement—but i can & i will wait; in all truth, i want to wait • In the nicest possible sense, i hope that 2010 brings significantly less from Celer, so that we can enjoy it all the more, for many years to come • Music this good deserves nothing less than our complete attention & our utmost respect •

Best EPs of 2009

As December draws to a close, it's time once again to cast our collective eye back over the last 12 months • Before we get to the highlights, it's only fair to say that 2009 has been filled with more than its fare share of disappointments • Kraftwerk finally succeeded in releasing The Catalogue, the "re-mastered" versions of their output, although success is hardly the word for a project that managed to inflict so much bombast on the music, bludgeoning it into the 21st century; only a few of the albums came through unscathed • Dangermouse & Sparklehorse managed to distract attention away from how genuinely awful was their album Dark Night of the Soul by whipping up a frenzy about that great über-menace the Corporate Record Label; for once, a label did listeners a favour, consigning this vacuous lame duck to peer-to-peer oblivion • A-ha attempted a revivification of their image, returning to '80s synths, but in a context so compressed as to be almost impossible to listen to; Foot Of The Mountain must take the award for the most horrifically over-compressed album in recent times, although the fact it only has a single good song ("The Bandstand") lessens the blow somewhat • Muse got delusions of orchestration, turning their quirky & usually impressive ideas into something damp & actually rather camp; The Resistance was hardly the best name for such a lacklustre album • Even the powerhouse that is Lydia Lunch seems to have lost her way, Big Sexy Noise only living up to the last of those epithets, & not in a good way • & one of the best songwriters of them all, Neil Hannon, rested firmly on his laurels with The Duckworth Lewis Method, his tongue so far into his cheek that it must be causing facial damage • It's a shame that Hannon so often resorts to comedy & pastiche (forever lurking audibly in the wings of his Divine Comedy output); album highlight "The Age of Revolution" proves what the project might have been capable of, while "Jiggery Pokery" is absolutely horrific • But for me, the worst album of 2009 was a tie; Joe Goddard proved he's simply rubbish both in & out of Hot Chip, his first effort, Harvest Festival, among the most dreadful experiences i've had this year • & what exactly led Tori Amos, one of the most interesting singer-songwriters of the last decade, to release the monstrosity that is Midwinter Graces? it is, literally, shockingly bad •

But let's turn away from such infernal offerings, & move in a more paradisical direction • Thankfully, 2009 has also been filled with an abundance of excellent releases, & that's where our attention should be fixed, beginning with the best EPs of the year •

10 | Operations - Sundevil
Chris Anderson's most unexpected release to date finds him moving away from ambient textures into a cold, pointillistic electronic soundspace • Glitch is the grain of this music, sounding simultaneously artificial & organic, its component parts fretfully twitching around like a choir of Geiger counters • Anderson keeps a firm hand on proceedings, though, martialling the evolution process; each 1'50" track propels the material into new forms, culminating in a rich, surreal climax that is nothing short of triumphant •

9 | Autumn Grieve - Stray Birds
This is folk at its most delicate—which, fittingly, comes enwrapped in equally delicate, handmade packaging: behold • Autumn Richardson's beautifully soft, wispy voice is at times almost painfully insubstantial, barely resting upon the surface of the surprisingly complex textures beneath her voice • In her hands, each song becomes a beguiling gossamer miniature, tapping into both parts of her nom de plume, laden with wistful melancholy & a distinct sense of loss •

8 | Steve Peters - Musica Mundana
Steve Peters' use of field recordings is always highly imaginative & effective (his Here·ings project, reviewed here, is a landmark of the genre), & this is especially so in this release, available free from Peters' Bandcamp page • While the first track places environmental noises & fascinating animal sounds above a low drone, the latter occupies a similar place to his Filtered Light (#4 in last year's best albums list), a short but hypnotic lowercase work •

7 | Tim Exile - The Finger EP
Tim Exile's adeptness at improvised electronica is unrivalled, & this 15-minute EP captures a brief glimpse of the imagination he brings to dance music • In a manner at times akin to Aaron Funk, Exile takes apart all kind of styles—drum 'n' bass, techno, as well as contemporary electronics—& fuses them together into this little series of mutated wonders • "Promo" & "Youtube Killed The Now Wave Star" are the standout tracks, but—without wishing to take anything away from this polished release—both these tracks sound even better in the slightly rough & ready live versions posted online: "Promo" can be watched here, "Youtube Killed The Now Wave Star" here; the man is clearly a genius •

6 | Christopher McFall & Ben Fleury-Steiner - The Dirty and the Clean
Another exponent of field recordings, Christopher McFall tends to enfold his sources into dark, dense slabs of sound that blur the distinction between nature & artifice • Created with Gears of Sand's Ben Fleury-Steiner, this EP (available free here) is as intense as ever, the sounds of wind bringing an unsettling portentousness to the proceedings • Fleury-Steiner speaks of a desire "to bring out the beauty in all landscapes and natural phenomenon [sic] ... however, disguised and dirtied they may be", & to that end there's no audible distinction between the "dirty" & "clean" of the title; they're mingled together (aren't they always in life?), & the result is mesmeric & often rather poignant •

5 | Chubby Wolf - Meandering Pupa
Chubby Wolf was the solo side-project of Celer's Danielle Baquet-Long, a project sadly curtailed by her untimely passing earlier this year • In some ways, her own work is more ascetic than that made with her husband Will (although Celer's Sieline is not dissimilar), & this is, if anything, enhanced by the brief durations on this EP • Although there's often quite a bit going on in them, the textures are generally simple, more concerned with a single, meditative state than flux or evolution; ebb & flow are the watchwords here, undulations upon which the listener can sit & be gently guided • As a posthumous gift from Will Long, Meandering Pupa can be downloaded free from the Chubby Wolf Bandcamp page •

4 | Celer - Mane Blooms
While Celer are at their best in longer durations, this 12-minute EP shows what they're capable of in a more concise context • "Gaited Florets" is not merely the better of the two tracks, it is nothing less than one of the duo's very finest creations, its warm, gently metallic texture being punctuated by pitch fragments that seem to be the offspring of a bell & a sine wave • More happens in its 6-minute span than seems possible, & every second of it is absolutely ravishing • While "Cantering In A Copper Dress" can't really live up to such stark glory (indeed, it seems audibly to bask in the light of its neighbour), its drone is a gorgeously warm, rich concoction •

3 | Christopher McFall - All For The Terror That Sings Sweetly To You In The Night
Even more successful than McFall's collaborative release above is this solo EP • Lasting a little over 20 minutes, its three tracks are themselves subdivided into smaller vignettes, all of which carry a singular weight that is impressive & even, at times, overwhelming • In every sense of the word, this is 'heavy' music, its low frequencies worrying the anecdotal field recordings that sit on the music's surface • Its fabric of noises lies at the threshold of recognition; sounds are suggestive, allusive, redolent, but never reveal exactly what they are, & this makes for an enthralling listen •

2 | Bass Communion - Litany
Steven Wilson's latest small-scale offering is one of his most evocatively beautiful to date • Both tracks seem alternate takes of a common idea, one that is rooted in voices; in some of Wilson's most clearly stratified music, a soprano voice waxes & wanes above a shifting choir, the combination tainted at the edges by fringes of distortion & clipping, rendering it like an old photograph • The iambic structure serves to make the latter track especially intense, the voices emerging as if from profound depths, like a 21st century cathédrale engloutie; it's Wilson at his best: sublime, captivating & very moving •



1 | Lars von Trier & Kristian Eidnes - Antichrist Soundtrack
Lars von Trier's latest film Antichrist was one of—if not the—artistic highlight of the year for me; cinema is rarely so gripping, or indeed so gruelling as von Trier's brilliant study of a couple's descent, via grief, into madness • A film such as this was always going to need an equally extreme soundtrack, & there hasn't been a more perfect marriage of avant-garde sight & sound since Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre • Von Trier worked with sound editor Kristian Eidnes to create the score, which was made solely from recordings of natural sounds (stones, leaves, wood) including internal microphones recording the more intimate workings of the human body • The result is jaw-dropping, an amazing sonic adventure into a terrifyingly claustrophobic landscape; the inclusion of a Handel aria (used at the start & end of the film) only serves to underpin how far from home the rest of the music has travelled • It's an astonishing achievement, & the decision to release this soundtrack in such a short form (the entire release lasts a little under 17 minutes) is perfect, presenting the elements in the most highly concentrated way possible • Only available as a digital download (here or here), this is essential listening •

Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols (King's College, Cambridge)

A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL! • In celebration of today, & continuing the tradition started here on 5:4 last year, here is the complete Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols that took place yesterday at King's College, Cambridge; the recording is of today's repeat broadcast, which includes both of the final organ voluntaries • This year particular homage is paid to Sir David Willcocks, who turns 90 this month, with numerous settings & arrangements of his included in the service •

It opens from the west end with Once in Royal David's City, begun in traditional fashion by a treble who doesn't betray a hint of nervousness in this most perilous of solos; all credit to the anonymous soloist • The organ accompaniment sounds as rich as a Christmas pudding (but not as fruity), & the carol concludes with—to me, at least—a new & reasonably successful descant from conductor Stephen Cleobury, sending the trebles in all directions, some positively stratospheric • A beautifully light & playful rendition of Ding! Dong! Merrily on high follows, splendidly arranged by the American Mack Wilberg; the ending has a distinct glint in its eye •

The first lesson is read by a chorister, & they invariably seem to enjoy such a dramatic passage of scripture, with its potent blend of temptation & cursing; this year's reader gives God's enigmatic question "Where art thou?" surprising authority • Elizabeth Poston's delicate setting Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree follows, its simple tracery given a sensitive & unhurried reading by the choir; the unison final verse is especially telling • This service seems to be incomplete without the theologically-questionable Adam lay ybounden, although thankfully not performed this time in Boris Ord's hackneyed setting, but the more imaginative one by Philip Ledger • The final refrain's sudden shift to the major key always seems to challenge singers, & even here it sounds just a bit uncertain in an otherwise strong performance • After the second lesson is Pearsall's famous arrangement of In Dulci Jubilo, which is pure melodic happiness, the triple metre swinging around at a perfectly-judged tempo; the splintering of lines in the more complex final verse comes across beautifully • Peter Maxwell Davies' One star, at last was commissioned for the service 25 years ago, & returns sounding as fresh as ever • Max's rendering of George Mackay Brown's words is deeply thoughtful, tapping into both the awe & mystery as well as the more ominous elements at its heart; the question "What hand / Will take the branch from the dove’s beak?" is arguably more pertinent today than at the time of this carol's prèmiere •

More familiar (bordering on populist) sonorities return after the third lesson with David Willcocks' rendition of the Sussex Carol; Stephen Cleobury takes it at a fair old lick, the final verse sounding just a touch hurried, the trebles struggling slightly to keep up at times • The great hymn God rest you merry, gentlemen is given an interesting treatment, alternating between congregation & unaccompanied choir, creating a highly effective contrast that perfectly illustrates the "comfort & joy" of which the words speak • Then comes the most exquisite music so far, in the spare mediæval melismas of There is no rose of such virtue; combined with its deliciously poetic text & the truly brilliant delivery of the soli passages, this is a real Christmas treat • The Swede Jan Sandström (who famously studied with, among others, Brian Ferneyhough) is represented here in a hypnotic setting of the traditional German carol Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, sung here in Sandström's native tongue; Prætorius' original music is turned into clouds of notes shifting in space, finally coalescing into words—it's a mesmerising performance • After the fifth lesson, recounting the Annunciation, comes Andrew Carter's setting of his own words, Softly a light is stealing; perhaps the bar has been set rather too high by the previous two works, but Carter's music sounds somewhat pedestrian, although its second stanza is stronger; the carol suffers from something of a lack of surety of whether it's a lullaby or not • By contrast, Cleobury's boisterous arrangement of The Seven Joys of Mary has a real sense of purpose, both composed & performed here with superb clarity •

Two more of David Willcocks' arrangements follow the sixth lesson, beginning with the Polish carol Infant holy, Infant lowly, which he wraps up in some lovely mellifluous lines, only marred by his use of the familiar (in the UK) but incorrect version of the tune (the final line was originally a simple descending scale, like earlier lines) • His arrangement of Il est né le divin enfant is much less successful, sounding embarrassingly twee; the choir does what they can with it, but—despite it being Christmas—they can't work miracles • The tradition of commissioning a new carol each year continues in 2009, with the renowned choral composer Gabriel Jackson chosen this year • His carol, The Christ Child lay on Mary's lap uses an interesting text by G. K. Chesterton, alternating external observations with parenthetical reflections • Jackson picks up the contrast (each parenthesis ending in soft humming), but placing it within a gradually intensifying context, with the key words "light", "star", "fire" & "crown" given especial emphasis; it's a very successful setting, although the ending feels a little laboured, perhaps even forced (from the composer, not the choir) • While i guess the service wouldn't be complete without While shepherds watched their flocks by night, it would be nice to hear some imagination brought to this hymn; Cleobury's descant doesn't cut it, sounding obese (even a little tasteless) above the simple, plain melody—if ever a Christmas hymn didn't need a descant (in the traditional sense, at any rate), it's this one •

Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak Midwinter, in Harold Darke's beautiful, 100-year old setting, continues the eighth lesson's emphasis on the Magi • The tenor makes a bit of a meal of his solo (& with far too much vibrato for my liking), but all is forgiven & forgotten in the sublime final verse; Darke's double iteration of the last line, first loud then soft, is just right, as is the choir's delivery of it • Personent Hodie follows, set by Holst, which at moments is so muscular that it starts to sound a little raucous, but the carol actually benefits from it, becoming a kind of musical 'shout' • As always, it falls to the Provost to make something of the ninth lesson, the complex opening words from John's gospel; clearly he enjoys the drama, but John still sounds as inscrutable as ever • The usual pair of hymns bring the service to a close, O come, all ye faithful & Hark! the herald angels sing, both in David Willcocks' well-known arrangements • His versions of these hymns are brilliant, & their descants are among the best ever written, sympathetic & imaginative in equal measure • The pair of voluntaries combine ancient & modern, J. S. Bach's pleasing if over-played In dulci jubilo & American George Baker's happy, wildly twittering Toccata-Gigue on The Sussex Carol •

There's more emphasis on familiarity this year, for the most part due to the celebration of Sir David Willcocks; but that sense of familiarity simply proves just how significant Willcocks' contribution to choral (particularly Christmas) music has been, in no small part thanks to his seminal Carols for Choirs volumes dating from the early 1960s • The inclusion of Maxwell Davies, Sandström & Baker underline King's College's continuing interest in less conventional choral repertoire; on balance, while this year's service takes few risks, it's lively & highly engaging •

Like last year, along with the audio is a PDF of the complete order of service, including all texts & translations; below is a summary of the music • MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

• Once in Royal David's City (arr. Cleobury)
• Ding! Dong! Merrily on High (arr. Wilberg)
• Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree (Poston)
• Adam lay ybounden (Ledger)
• In dulci jubilo (arr. Pearsall)
• One Star, at Last (Maxwell Davies)
• Sussex Carol (arr. Willcocks)
• God Rest you Merry, Gentlemen (arr. Willcocks)
• There Is No Rose (Mediæval)
• Det är en ros utsprungen (arr. Sandström)
• Mary's Magnificat (Carter)
• Joys Seven (arr. Cleobury)
• Infant holy, Infant lowly (arr. Willcocks)
• Il est né le divin enfant (arr. Willcock)
• The Christ Child (Gabriel Jackson - first performance, commissioned by King's College)
• While Shepherds Watched (arr. Cleobury)
• In the Bleak Midwinter (Darke)
• Personent Hodie (arr. Holst)
• O come, all ye faithful (arr. Willcocks)
• Hark! the Herald Angels Sing (arr. Willcocks)
• In dulci jubilo BWV729 (J. S. Bach)
• Toccata-Gigue on The Sussex Carol (George Baker)

[1:36:46 | FLAC | 375Mb]
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

The Revelation

Quite a few years ago, the BBC broadcast what i can only assume was one of the last productions to have involved the BBC Radiophonic Workshop • It was a one-off dramatisation of the book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, starring Derek Jacobi in the rôle of John the evangelist, accompanied by music composed by Radiophonic Workshop veteran Peter Howell • Howell's music (akin more to a film score than the bleeps & noises of conventional Radiophonic fare) is a mixture of synthesisers & voices (performed by the BBC Singers) &, along with the striking sound effects, helps to bring this most abstruse portion of scripture alive in a powerful, vivid way • The dramatisation uses about a third of the text of Revelation from the King James Version, & is grand in scope beyond its 30-minute brevity, particularly in the opening of the Seven Seals, & the encounter with the Whore of Babylon • It's preceded by a specially-written introduction to Revelation, read by Judy Dench • As the season of Advent is now upon us, shifting attention forward, to the future, there's no better time to delve deeply into the Bible's most challenging book •

The Revelation [33:44 | FLAC | 178Mb]

Tweetage

5:4 is now on Twitter, so for a blow by blow report of what's being played on the 5:4 jukebox—or indeed to pass judgement on it—avail yourselves over to http://twitter.com/5against4 •

As you were •

Advent Carol Service (St John's College, Cambridge)

The liturgical year began in earnest on Sunday, the Advent clock once again beginning the countdown to Christ's (first &/or second, depending on your eschatological mindset) coming • Here, then, a couple of days late (due to personal circumstances, including, in reverse order, a world première in Birmingham & a car crash in Bicester) is the Advent Carol Service, broadcast, as last year, from St John's College, Cambridge • It would be nice to think they choose St John's as John the apostle's writings are so significant &, indeed, drawn upon during the seasons of Advent & Christmas, but it may simply be accidental; either way, St John's continues to be one of the finest choirs in the land •

The service opens with Lassus' boisterous setting of Lætentur Cæli, bringing to life in vigorous fashion the striking excerpt from Psalm 96 (alluding at the end to "the trees of the wood" rejoicing, a lovely analogy) • The processional is the great Advent hymn O come, O come, Emmanuel! & unfortunately its imperative text is initially muddied due to the organ & voices being remarkably out of sync; whether this is a technical issue (distance; microphones) i don't know, but for a broadcast like this, there's no excuse for it • Despite that issue resolving itself, this rendition never sounds terribly joyful, coming across as a rather turgid noise, one not helped by David Hill's largely inaudible descant • Order is restored in the bidding prayer, after which comes Otto Goldschmidt's beautiful miniature A Tender Shoot, performed with the delicacy of crêpe paper, made all the more light by its emphasis on upper registers •

Following this introduction, the first part – The Message of Advent – brings the first couplet of Advent Antiphons, among the most beautiful of all plainchants; they're presented with great simplicity (although perhaps a little slow), allowing the fine melismas to meander & caress the notes, in undulating contours that are almost playful • Adam Lay Ibounden makes more sense in Advent than Christmas (although, would make most sense on Easter eve), & is, for once, not Boris Ord's brisk & grossly over-performed setting, but a newly-commissioned one from Giles Swayne • Also for once, it's not the questionable theology of the words to which one's attention is drawn, but Swayne's peculiarly inexpressive music; to my mind, the choir comes across like a bunch of animatronic voices, not an uninteresting idea in itself, but in this context & with these words, it seems entirely arbitrary—as, indeed, does the inclusion of the cello • In short, a disappointment, especially as Swayne has such an excellent legacy of choral music • The first part closes (once the insanely-coughing person has kindly stopped/left/died) with Byrd's Vigilate, an imploring call to "Stay awake!" that slightly shows up just how ineffective Swayne's setting really was; this is Byrd at his expressive best, the melodic strands soaring & diving like a (ahem) bird in flight—this is music impossible to ignore, precisely what the words demand •

Part two, The Word of God, features the next pair of Advent Antiphons, of which O Radix Jesse is especially striking with its epic, perfectly appropriate melisma on the word "seek" • The carol that follows suggests one has failed to heed Byrd's advice a few minutes earlier: "Out of your sleep arise & wake" • The setting, by the late Anthony Milner, is a curious mix of light plodding, & in that sense thoroughly English, veering not so much towards joy as jollity, perhaps not living up to the intensity of the words, but cheerful nonetheless • It's followed by a gorgeous recent carol by Michael Finnissy, Telling, the anonymous words of which carry resonances beyond Advent & Christmas, pointing towards distant Passiontide • It is to my mind something of a unique text, one that bespeaks a profound understanding about the nature of humanity, seeking God (consciously or otherwise) but not necessarily in the most healthy or rewarding places; with its emphasis on love rather than damnation, its easy to see why Michael was drawn to this text, & his setting is fittingly mellifluous, the unresolved cadence at the close of the refrain a particularly powerful ellipsis (its resolution lies with the listener, & what they do next) • The rousing hymn Come, Thou long-expected Jesus brings this section to an end, embellished with Christopher Robinson's effective descant •

The next two Advent antiphons begin The Prophetic Call, with more glorious melismas on the final syllables of 'righteousness' (in O Oriens) & 'reconciliation' (in O Rex Gentium) • Holst's broad setting of the equally broad text Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day is given a thoughtful, dramatic reading by the choir, allowing its vivid narrative (with echoes of Dante) time to unfold, each episode coloured differently; it's one of the best performances i've heard of this splendid piece • More conventional in style but with some fine moments is John Joubert's well-known miniature There Is No Rose, which affords the choir another opportunity to demonstrate how delicately they can deliver, its angular but legato melody judged perfectly, nicely softened at the edges • On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's cry concludes the section, its bold stridency making one aware that Advent hymns are rarely shy & retiring; yet another descant, again by Christopher Robinson, but this time simply going through the motions •

The service reaches its culmination in The Christ-Bearer, & the final antiphon, O Emmanuel • Arvo Pärt's Богородице Дево (Bogoróditse Djévo) is all froth & twittering, its initially playful imperative to the Virgin finally melting into soft, quiet warmth, as enthusiasm gives way to reverence • After hearing the words of the Magnificat in its Gospel context, it's performed in one of its best settings, that of Herbert Sumsion in G, a rare example of an English composer doing justice to this remarkable text • In cathedrals, this fine setting too often falls into a ponderous mush, lost in a sea of largo & reverb; but Andrew Nethsingha takes it at a refreshingly quick tempo, no doubt aided by the short echo of the St John's College Chapel, revealing anew the spirit propelling forward Sumsion's music • The final carol comes in the form of Peter Warlock's stirring Benedicamus Domino; occasional traces of the harmonic language from Bethleham Down are evident, but this is a loud & muscular piece, a veritable shout of joy (one that somewhat over-anticipates Christmas, but then, enthusiasm does that kind of thing) • Perhaps the most noble of Advent hymns to finish, Lo! he comes with clouds descending, the hymn that finds the Wesley boys at their best; Charles' profound text captures like no other hymn the eschatological essence of Advent • Like last year, Bach's "Wachet auf" is the first voluntary, & yet again, sounds twee & pathetic at the close of such a rousing service •

Contained with the audio is the PDF of the complete service, with full texts & translations; here's a summary of the music:

• Plainsong: The Great Advent Antiphons
• Anthems: Lætentur Cæli (Byrd); Vigilate (Byrd); Magnificat (Sumsion in G)
• Hymns: O come, O come, Emmanuel! (Veni Emmanuel); Come, thou long-expected Jesus (Cross of Jesus); On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry (Winchester New); Lo! he comes with clouds descending (Helmsley)
• Carols: A Tender Shoot (Goldschmidt); Adam Lay Ibounden (Swayne); Out of Your Sleep (Milner); Telling (Finnissy); This Have I Done for my True Love (Holst); There is no Rose (Joubert); Богородице Дево (Pärt); Benedicamus Domino (Warlock)

[88:46 | FLAC | 348Mb]
part 1 | part 2

The quiddity of existence: Ryoji Ikeda - datamatics [ver.2.0]

This is why God gave us eyes & ears •

Last night, i was fortunate to be seated in the front row of the CBSO Centre in Birmingham, for Ryoji Ikeda's first UK concert since 2006 • datamatics [ver.2.0] has been around internationally for a little over two years, & yesterday finally found its way to Britain • The plain interior of the CBSO Centre was embellished with the addition of a huge screen, that filled the air with the pungent aroma of plastic newness • In its own way, this actually contributed to the occasion, making for an astonishing son et lumière display that literally saturated the senses with cutting-edge modernity •

Ikeda's preoccupation with data, in all its manifestations, is legendary, & has been taken to truly epic proportions in the visual aspect of datamatics [ver.2.0] • Throughout its 45 minutes' duration (which passed remarkably quickly), we were subjected to a plethora of data sources, from micro to macro • The introduction began with the root of all data: numbers [IMAGE 1 - click the thumbnails for high-res images] - thousands of them, everywhere, flooding the screen with the semblance of white noise or interference, before giving way to their counterpart: rules & measures [IMAGE 2], scrolling vertically up & down at different cycle rates, completely matching those in the audio • & then, abruptly, the screen erupted in a maelstrom of data flows [IMAGE 3]; the information streamed past at such speed that it was only possible to catch glimpses of the detail, but byte sizes, wave forms & spectrum analysers were all part of the mix • As were, most noticeably, allusions to DNA, both in the visual appearance of DNA profiles & also in the presence of the letters A, C, G & T, an obvious reference to the four bases in DNA • In the midst of this, loud both visually & aurally, yet more data, illustrating i know not what (possibly allusions to genes?)—but it was already clear that the supersaturation of detail was precisely the point, & that catching the broader sense of the kinds of data hurtling past was all one could hope to achieve •

A brief episode followed, shifting the emphasis in a more abstract direction, with pulses flying from left to right at a myriad of speeds [IMAGE 4]; the similarity to travelling through space at warp speed was reinforced by what followed • In a lengthy period of repose, a vast grid of points materialised; as we slowly circled around it, x- & y-axes shifted in space (literally), plotting the positions of a large number of celestial bodies & constellations, each one emphatically fixed in place with one of Ikeda's familiar high-frequency 'pings'; as each one appeared, a red cross left hanging at its location, the star's name briefly appeared [IMAGE 5] • For all its frenetic energy, Ikeda clearly likes his work to take its time, & this astronomical assembly was beautifully unhurried, taking many minutes to coalesce, ever undershadowed by a deep, warm ambient cloud; as it went on, further information about each star also appeared, including coordinates & more esoteric data • Assorted ornaments came & went in their own tempi, lines of data sliding across the grid (at times a little redolent of Autechre's seminal Gantz Graf), before everything was turned inside out & upside down, the whole transformed into a vast abstraction of twirling lines & points [IMAGE 6] •

After a lengthy silence/blackness, Ikeda began again, moving abruptly from the vast scale of galactic distances to the infinitesimal dimensions of biological elements • At first, this resembled some kind of obscure map, linking unnamed geographical points [IMAGE 7], but as we circled around, its true nature became more apparent • Then, suddenly, all was clear, as once again the temporary stasis exploded back into rhythmic life, the screen now dedicated to genes & chromosomes [IMAGE 8], thousands of recondite names & descriptions appearing faster than the eye could register • & now came the first flashes of what would become the coda: brief glimpses of data readouts, various breakdowns of assorted code [IMAGE 9], suggesting themselves as being from the innards of datamatics [ver.2.0]'s core • These were dismissed with some harsh, kaleidoscopic glitches before another lengthy episode began, in both content & delivery a sibling of the star-chart from before • A 2-dimensional grid appeared, & x- & y-axis markers slowly took their positions over a deep bass throb; whereupon, the stars appeared once again, one by one, the fixed centre of the grid shifting to the correct relevant point for each one [IMAGE 10] • Again, Ikeda's patience in allowing a process time to register yielded yet more subtleties; that the next star's position was already highlighted in red before we arrived at its position; that the star's name & other data was pre-empted in the top-left corner—things that only became noticeable over time •

Having incorporated, scrutinised & abstracted data from so many aspects of existence, Ikeda ultimately took this notion to its logical conclusion • In an act of existential bravado, the final minutes of datamatics [ver.2.0] were spent deconstructing itself, assorted random frames from earlier scrolling around the screen, with portions its own data now exposed [IMAGE 11] • This assumed manic proportions, the audio convulsing & pounding, the visuals running amok, flashing frames hurtling around, both glitching & contorting in crazed fashion, bombarding the senses at breakneck speed, like some kind of digital danse macabre [IMAGE 12 - which doesn't do it justice], culminating, as it only can, in exhausted silence •

Ikeda's work speaks big things about humanity's engagement with both itself & the universe within which we find ourselves • Our need, first to name things, then to codify them, analyse, define & catalogue them (in order to begin to make sense of them & have meaningful dialogue about them), is at the heart of every moment of datamatics [ver.2.0] • Akin to Neo's epiphany at the conclusion of the first Matrix film, Ryoji Ikeda has given us a distinct, pervading sense of the inner workings of things, the quiddity of existence, if you like • As never before, Ikeda has gone beyond music (& film, for that matter), & shown us—in spectacular fashion—something raw & vital, something quintessential • datamatics [ver.2.0] takes sensory stimuli to entirely new—& extreme—levels (we were even issued with earplugs, thankfully not needed); the accuracy of synchronicity between sound & sight was nothing short of amazing, even their respective palettes—deep & high, percussive; black & white, flecks of primary colour—perfectly aligned • Such fundamental things as these can be offputting, appear unrefined, seem harsh & abrasive; but, of the experience, i believe Ikeda himself said it best, in the opening words of "Trans-missions" (from 1000 Fragments), words that i adopted as the motto for 5:4: "It's the most beautiful ugly sound in the world" •

Kraftwerk - a remastered retrospective

Back in September, i posted an article examining Kraftwerk's output as heard in the remasters from 2004 • This is an updated version of that article (which has now been deleted), extensively re-written in light of the 2009 remasters, the 'definitive' versions released last month •

Of all words associated with the digital era, the one that is ubiquitous like no other is 'remastered' • It has become tantamount to a religious dogma, that the works we have known & loved from our analogue heritage are holy treasures, deserving nothing less than to be preserved in æternum, & to that end dusted & polished into a shiny, technicolour, everlasting digital form • Like all religions, though, it is capable of havoc carried out in its name; most conspicuous in recent times is the egregious & shamefully unmusical use of—among other things—compression in the vain attempt at making the sound 'stand out' (the so-called 'loudness war') • This kind of treatment, under the banner of 'remastering', is to music what George Lucas has become to his own Star Wars trilogy; something that obfuscates, even dirties, the original, under the illusion that in so doing, one is capturing with greater fidelity the 'original vision' • Back in 2004, Kraftwerk began their own equivalent mission, returning to the ageing tapes of their earlier albums, cleaning them up & remastering them for posterity • Titled The Catalogue, an 8-disc box set comprising each of their albums in its new digitally remastered form, the release ultimately proved to be stillborn, & the few promotional copies that existed quickly found their way, depending on your preference, either to eBay for a ridiculous sum of money, or to torrent sites for a ridiculous number of leechers • It has taken a further five years for the definitive, further remastered versions of these albums to be released, finally seeing light of day last month •

In both its manifestations, i have approached The Catalogue with the utmost trepidation, as, i imagine, have many fans whose appreciation (&, let's face it, love) of Kraftwerk's output goes both very deep & back many years • But before one even gets to the music, certain things immediately start to become clear • Highly conspicuous by their absence are Kraftwerk's first three albums, Kraftwerk 1, Kraftwerk 2 & Ralf & Florian; there's a clear view being expressed here that only these eight albums, from Autobahn to Tour de France Soundtracks, form the official Kraftwerk oeuvre • It's a significant disappoint for those, including myself, who descry in those first three albums (particularly Ralf & Florian) much that prefigures what would follow in the years ahead; the bootleg CDs of those albums will have to continue to suffice for the time being • As far as Ralf Hütter is concerned, the mature life of Kraftwerk begins in 1974, with the noise of a car door slamming •

Thus begins Autobahn, & immediately there are tell-tale signs of the remastering at work, tiny glittering digital artefacts that are sure evidence of an adaptive noise reduction filter (Adobe Audition has a number of these CPU-hungry filters) • Not that this album needs much of that treatment, inhabiting as it does a relatively rich & busy soundfield, with few pauses en route • The polishing—& the 2009 remaster is negligibly different from that of 2004—has, however, allowed the colours & timbres to shine out with astonishing vividness, & this is most evident in the four shorter works • "Kometenmelodie 2" is truly outstanding, sounding wide & powerful, continuing the Beach Boy connection of the title track, as well as hinting at the electronic 'chugging' perfected four years later on Trans-Europe Express • "Mitternacht", too, is revealed for what it is, one of Kraftwerk's most telling pieces, ominous & unsettling, an eloquent slice of highly effective programme music • The cleanup of this track occasionally mars the surface in the more exposed passages later on, & to my ear it seems that the 2004 version is ever so slightly better than that of 2009 • Alongside the remastering, there's also been a small tweak made to where the transition occurs from the first to the second "Kometenmelodie" • On every CD release of Autobahn, "Kometenmelodie 2" has begun from the sudden loud jet whistle sound, out of which slowly emerges the bassline figure, with a duration of around 5'48"; in both its 2004 & 2009 remastered forms, this exciting introduction has been removed & put at the end of "Kometenmelodie 1" (compare 2009 to 1974 with the links below) • This is a strange, highly questionable edit, blunting the second track's impressive opening & giving the former track a rather bizarre kind of non-ending; after 35 years, Kraftwerk really should have known better, & left such things alone; it's a significant blight in this otherwise excellent new version of one of the best albums of all time •

Kometenmelodie 2 (1974 original) [Apple Lossless | 35.8Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 13.4Mb]
Kometenmelodie 2 (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 34.83Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 12.74Mb]
Mitternacht (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 16.45Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 8.41Mb]

A much more challenging prospect for Kraftwerk's remastering are the raw electronic sounds found on 1975's Radio-Activity • The original release contained quite a bit of tape noise, along with assorted pops, blips & other ephemera, which the 2004 remaster pretty much removed completely, but to a great extent it could be argued that they contribute to this album's clinical, scientific sound world, as well as (retrospectively) lending it a pleasantly crude, dated flavour • "Radioland", for example, originally had some very noticeable hum throughout, & i'm not sure the song is greatly improved by smoothing this away • Little has been improved with the 2009 edition, & once again, around the accelerating poundings of "Geiger Counter", artefacts can be heard distinctly, particularly in the latter half • After this comes the first error in the 2009 remasters: the beginning of track 2, the title track, starts with a hiccup, partway through a beat, clipping the tail end of it (a screenshot comparing 2004 to 2009 can be seen here, with the hiccup circled in red) • In light of Kraftwerk's apparent determination to produce 'definitive' versions of their work, this kind of shoddiness is shocking • Also, nothing has been done to improve the slip at the start of "Antenna"; the original release is notable for its almost total absence of background noise here, the track starting cleanly & crisply • In the 2004 version, though, there's a sudden—very audible—fade-in just before the song starts, ruining its abrupt beginning, & this persists into 2009 • The need for this hasty fade-in is due to the brief & utterly pointless fade to nothing inserted between "Antenna" & the preceding "The Voice of Energy"; it's a shame the apparent attention to detail didn't hear this glaring event • Overall, though, the remastering gives these pure sounds even greater clarity & definition, in the process enhancing (even exacerbating) their more astringent qualities, especially through headphones • "Radio Stars", for instance, a somewhat demanding track to listen to anyway, is now positively eye-watering, & the harsh, noisy voice of "Uranium" is now very cutting indeed, the vocal equivalent of a cheese grater • Instances such as these go a long way to reveal anew Kraftwerk's courage & ingenuity at taking nascent electronics & bestowing on them a voice & a soul •

Radio Stars (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 19.27Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 8.13Mb]
Uranium (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 19.27Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 8.13Mb]

Trans-Europe Express is, in my opinion, Kraftwerk's masterpiece, & the remastering is immediately useful; opening track "Europe Endless" was plagued by small noises throughout its introduction, & it's lovely to hear it sounding clean & new (although the initial 'thump' as the track starts hasn't been removed) • For the 2004 remasters, this turned out to be a mixed blessing; the processing stripped away some of the warmth in the lower register, leaving the jaunty bassline sounding a little thin & lacklustre • Thankfully, the 2009 edition has corrected this, & the result is a perfect blend, the rich bass pumping away as it used to • "The Hall of Mirrors" is one of Kraftwerk's most sublime & thought-provoking creations; the clarity here is superb, & Hütter's vocals are more telling than ever, particularly in the emphatic, virtually monotone refrain, "Even the greatest stars | Find their face in the looking glass" • Unfortunately, "Showroom Dummies" (which has some odd artefacts in the right channel during the introduction, which were not in the original) is a little too cleaned up for its own good, its constricted percussion now sounding like spasms from within a corset • The 2009 edition is marginally better in this regard than that of 2004, only because it's been mastered a touch louder; indeed, it's a mixed blessing, restores some detail & character, but highlighting the sense of constriction mentioned before • In general, it appears that the way in which the remastering has been applied is inconsistent & not always sympathetic to the kind of material (this is more true for Trans-Europe Express than any of the other albums, as it has the greatest range of timbral 'temperature', from icy electronic drums to warm synthetic strings) •
The editing of "Trans-Europe Express" & "Metal on Metal" is clearly an issue Kraftwerk have been uncertain about • Hitherto, there has always been a difference between the UK & German editions of these tracks; the German version makes the transition from "Trans-Europe Express" sooner (after 6'36" rather than 6'52"), & splits off nearly the last five minutes of "Metal on Metal" into another track, "Abzug" (which was also used on The Mix) • For listeners familiar with the UK edition, the 2004 remaster yielded a surprise or two, combining the two approaches; it retained the earlier transition but did away with "Abzug", resulting in "Metal on Metal" having its longest duration ever, a little over seven minutes (of course, once again this only applied to the track divisions; the actual material was unchanged) • The 2009 edition has returned to the format of the original German release (& The Mix), with "Abzug" restored to its familiar place within the outer segments • Throughout this portion of the disc, a significant but subtle improvement brought about by the remastering is to remove the sibilance & tinnyness of the original, that made listening to the original rather tiring • The extended coda, "Franz Schubert" & "Endless Endless" benefits from the cleanup in much the same way as "Hall of Mirrors", its ever-moving textures kept sharp & clear throughout •

The Hall of Mirrors (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 44.95Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 18.34Mb]

But nowhere is the benefit of the remastered edition more noticeable & its results more pristine than on the 1978 album The Man-Machine • More than any other, it has been plagued with large amounts of tape hiss in its previous CD releases (why there's so much is anyone's guess; it has far more than TEE or even Radio-Activity, made three years earlier), & it's the startup bleeps & pulses of opening track "The Robots"—the archetypal Kraftwerk song—where this hiss has always been most apparent • The 2004 remaster was nothing short of amazing, & the 2009 edition packs a slightly bigger punch, particularly in the bass registers, resulting in perhaps the most exquisite piece of remastering i've ever heard; it's truly like hearing "The Robots" for the first time all over again, the digital bleeps fresh & ultra-clean, the bassline warm & direct (compare before & after with the links below) • The opening strike of "Spacelab"—or, rather, the silence following it—presents an even more exposed challenge, & there are some traces of digitalia left by the algorithms, but once the pace picks up the track is again brilliantly defined for the first time in its history, & "Metropolis" after it, with its pointed initial pulses, are now so diamond-sharp that i actually winced in response to them • Though subtle, the additional remastering in the 2009 edition has brought all these tracks to an entirely new place; not one of these tracks has been heard with anything like this kind of clarity before, so it's an absolute joy that the remastering has been executed with such a deft hand • Their camp classic "The Model" needs less treatment—it was never badly affected by noise in the first place—& its new incarnation is little different from its old one; i've always felt "The Model" to be rather dynamically flat, & this has changed very little, although the 2009 remaster has boosted the dynamics somewhat, giving it some extra bite that it rather needed • "Neon Lights", in the 2004 remaster, was also little different, save for its treble sounding more distinct, in relief from the accompanying chords; but for the 2009 remaster, this track has been transformed by a significantly wider stereo image (the original & 2004 versions employ a surprisingly narrow stereo field), resulting in a vividness that grabs the attention • The final, title track, is also much improved on its 2004 version, which, like "The Robots" has had its bass restored, although perhaps too much on this occasion •

The Robots (1978 original) [Apple Lossless | 31.62Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 14.43Mb]
The Robots (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 31.19Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 14.3Mb]
Neon Lights (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 58.23Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 20.18Mb]

After such a brilliant demonstration of what remastering can do, it's disappointing to hear things going wrong on Computer World—2004's remaster was bad enough; 2009 has compounded the problems by once again falling into the compression trap • Both the eponymous opening track & "Pocket Calculator" continue to sound as though they're enclosed in a box; the bass has a horrible boomy quality to it that stomps all over the light percussion; it's a grave mistake • While it does seem to level off throughout "Numbers" & "Computer World 2"—the percussion of the former sprightly, the tonality of the latter warm & smooth—the start of "Numbers" is very unpleasant indeed, the hum brought about in 2004 now exacerbated into a distinctly audible low tone • By "Computer Love" things have clearly returned to normal; despite not needing much attention, it's good to hear things improved, although some curious panning in the vocal line hasn't been corrected (perhaps it was intentional); this lovely song—one of Kraftwerk's best, less demonstrative than "The Model" but so much nicer—has never sounded better than its 2009 version • However, problems return in "Home Computer"; despite similarities to the opening bleeps of "The Robots", it retains a curious amount of hiss in its opening moments (perhaps highlighted by the emphasis on just the right channel), as though the sensitivity of the remastering had been momentarily reduced; thereafter, however, it goes to the opposite extreme, the percussive surface sounding brutally treated (the effect being similar to listening to a cassette with an excessive Dolby setting) • Thankfully, it doesn't affect the entire track, & the beautifully psychedelic flights of electronic fancy that punctuate throughout are delicious, the final, longest episode (beginning at 4'20") powerfully living up to the translation of the band's name, pounding out like an industrial power plant, & continuing thus through the strangely circular final track, "It's More Fun To Compute" (Kraftwerk clearly have a penchant for ending their albums with directionless, somewhat passive tracks: "Morganspaziergang" (Autobahn), "Ohm Sweet Ohm" (Radio-Activity) & "Endless Endless" (TEE)) • This is the one album in The Catalogue where serious errors of judgement were apparent in the 2004 remastering, errors only made more apparent in this slightly louder 2009 edition, & for that reason i'm firmly sticking to the 1981 original, which is largely free of noise & other artefacts, & definitely a great deal clearer & more agile than this stodgy, lumbering travesty •

Computer World (1981 original) [Apple Lossless | 27.29Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 11.58Mb]
Computer World (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 28.91Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 11.88Mb]
Numbers (1981 original) [Apple Lossless | 17.61Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 7.85Mb]
Numbers (2009 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 18.2Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 7.81Mb]

What happened next in Kraftwerk's output is now so well-known as to have become legendary: they embarked on their next project, provisionally titled Techno Pop, the first fruit of which was "Tour de France", before the combination of Ralf Hütter's obsessive interest in cycling—& subsequent, rather serious accident—& the widespread availability of digital technology led to Kraftwerk abandoning work on the album, refitting the Kling Klang studio with new equipment, & beginning the album again from the bottom up • i remember looking in a very large album catalogue, sometime in the mid 1980s, & actually seeing an entry for Techno Pop, complete with a tentative catalogue number, but with the release date unknown at that time • Of course, what finally emerged was Electric Café, something of a disappointment to those who had waited five long years with increasingly bated breath—which i think is a shame as, while not a masterpiece, the album contains some of their most rhythmically interesting material • Quite why Kraftwerk decided to change the title, i don't know, although it might have been to distance the resulting album from its mythical earlier existence (& for years, in assorted fanzines, there were umpteen discussions on what might have happened to the original master tapes)—no matter, in its remastered form, Techno Pop is reborn, & i must admit just seeing those words on the familiar cover art sent a real thrill down my spine • Nonetheless, as Kraftwerk's first digital release, the issue of remastering starts now to become increasingly redundant, & from the outset of "Boing Boom Tschak", the only significant difference between ancient & modern is a somewhat increased clarity & demarcation of the types of material, making this track more than usually irresistible to sit still to while listening • Having said that, the 2009 remaster is very significantly louder than that of 2004—which was already louder than the original—which makes this opening track rather too brutal; here's an illustration of all three versions, showing the soundwave of the opening "Boing", clearly shows the dynamic increase • Having got it wrong for "Radioactivity", Kraftwerk have pretty much corrected the untidy start of the title track, which originally contained a momentary overhang of the reverb from the opener; the 2004 remaster perpetuated this error (which is surprisingly common on commercial albums, e.g. the start of the version of Nine Inch Nails' "Where Is Everybody?" on Things Falling Apart), so it's nice that someone actually saw fit to get this track division a little tighter • Now off to a better start, the track itself is once again improved, both in clarity & punchiness (although the increased dynamic exaggerates things), & this is even more the case in "Musique non stop" (a track with striking similarities to parts of Jean-Michel Jarre's best album, Zoolook), which contains some of Kraftwerk's most sharp percussion • i've always thought "Techno Pop" is rather courageous in its nearly 8-minute duration, consisting as it does of a rather minimalistic continual re-juxtaposition of structural components; it's tempting to think, this being the group's first digital album, that it's the influence of working with sequencing software • All the same, the variety of timbres used is considerable (including some really lovely synthetic xylophones & marimbas), & the combination of these with string gestures keeps it interesting throughout • Strings are an important element of this album; it's something of a return to the warmth & classical leanings of TEE, working as a valuable foil to the cool electronic beats •
& so to the second half, which has perhaps provoked more discussion in the run-up to its release than any other part of The Catalogue • The facts are these: "The Telephone Call" has been replaced with its much shorter single edit (just under four minutes, instead of the original eight), followed by a remix titled "House Phone" • On the one hand, being as generous as i can be, the edit of "The Telephone Call" actually has a lot more in common with the gestures of "Tour de France", which was, after all, composed around the same time, & was clearly intended for the original version of Techno Pop, back in the early 1980s • But that's about all there is to say for this change; the edit loses the breadth & sophistication of the original, which extended the minimalistic approach from the first half, its numerous extensive bridge passages & episodes turning a pretty conventional song structure into a sprawling but splendid 8-minute beatfest • The edit sounds weak & peripheral in contrast, & the less said about "House Phone" the better; it's an egregious monstrosity, with absolutely zero in common with the rest of the album • Overall, the second half suffers from Techno Pop's lack of a general theme (as all previous albums had), meaning that "The Telephone Call", "Sex Object" & "Electric Café" seem rather dislocated from the unified elements of the first half (the three tracks of which together form a single whole) • Having said that, "Telephone Call" & "Sex Object" share a lyrical bond in their expression of distance (physical & emotional) from a love interest, & the heavy percussion of both forms a slightly tenuous timbral link to the earlier tracks • "Sex Object" is one of their finest moments on record, a poignant but po-faced outburst at perceived shallowness; the strings are literally everywhere, occupying all registers, & for once the omnipresent beats take a back seat • The episodes are equally striking; some hark back to the psychedelic hints of "Home Computer" while others, filled with an aggressively pounding slapped bass, suggest the anger lurking beneath the surface; but, once again, it's just too loud—in this version "Sex Object" projects not so much repressed anger as drunken pugilism • Finally, not much to say about "Electric Café", except that it joins the list of flaccid final tracks mentioned before •

The 2009 rendering of Techno Pop is, i feel, nothing less than a disaster, its structure ruptured by the senseless alterations made to "The Telephone Call", & its surface distorted through the sheer loudness of this remastering • i'm firmly sticking with the 2004 remaster of this album, which retains the original structure & subtly improves the clarity • For those, like i, who prefer the original "The Telephone Call", here's the 2004 remaster of that track •

The Telephone Call (2004 remaster) [Apple Lossless | 46.69Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 18.88Mb]

While Electric Café Techno Pop marked Kraftwerk's transition from analogue to digital, 1990's The Mix was where they brought their music from the past into the present, reinventing their most popular tracks, revivifying them with a burst of energy • The brilliance of this album—&, at the time, fans' dismay at the lack of new material obscured to them its achievement—is in its ability to give these classic tracks such an impressive new lease of life, while remaining true to everything at the heart of the originals • However, its relevance within The Catalogue, as with Tour de France Soundtracks, can only be justified on the basis of completeness (notwithstanding what i said about their first three albums), as neither of these albums have any significant need for remastering, unless the group is seriously suggesting these recent releases were poorly mastered, which is hard to believe • No doubt conceived with dancefloors in mind, the new forms of these songs underlines the simple fact that Kraftwerk invented electronic dance music, & with that end in mind there's an air of glee & abandon pervading every track: basslines bounce around like so many Tiggers, beats fly off the walls & rebound against each other, shards of electronica explode & shatter in all directions while melodies (such as they are) make curious circles within the mayhem • & presiding over it all, as paradoxically emotionless & passionate as ever, is Ralf Hütter, the man whose singular vision has steered Kraftwerk through their nearly 40-year existence • Despite its determined compilation mindset, the album pays homage to Kraftwerk's finest album, with "Trans-Europe Express", "Abzug" & "Metal on Metal" presented back to back • For me, this is Kraftwerk's finest hour, the same perfect blend of beats, strings & vocals heard in "Sex Object", its exquisite harmonies matched by truly thrilling industrial percussion • The 2009 remaster adds little, if anything, that's noticeable, except for the conclusion of the final track, "Boing Boom Tschak", where the male computer voice seems to have been boosted slightly, as well as sounding more weighty; no-one though, it seems, saw fit to clean up the weird little crackle & noise that spring up as the track fades to nothing •

Which, to my mind, brings the Kraftwerk project to a close • Except, one is forced to make some kind of sense of Tour de France Soundtracks—now rebranded as just Tour de France—the group's recent exploration of the world of cycling, as incarnated in the race of the title • Unsurprisingly for an album a mere 6 years old, remastering has no place here, & the band have apparently done the sensible thing & left well alone; its inclusion in The Catalogue is clearly a matter of completeness rather than anything else • Having said that, while the audio is to all intents & purposes the same as both the 2003 original & 2004 "remaster", the track-to-track editing has altered, & not in a good way; both "Étapes" 1 & 2, as well as—worst of all—"Régéneration" now begin irritatingly late, no longer starting with a clean downbeat, but once again betraying the sloppiness shown elsewhere, with previous tracks overhanging • Considering the album hasn't been subjected to any tinkering, what on earth has caused these changes is anyone's guess • So much for the technicalities; what of the music? • After its brief opening chord gesture (which, for all its brevity—31 seconds—is a personal favourite), the troixième "Etapes" and "Chrono" form a similar grouping to those in the first half of Techno Pop, with likewise minimalistic moving around of song units • But it's more aloof, less engaging than that album, for the most part emphasising the last word of the album's former title, akin to so much background music • & yet, just as they've captured the sounds of speeding cars & trains, here they masterfully conjure up the impression of racing cycles with seemingly effortless aplomb • The pairing of "Aero Dynamik" & "Titanium" spread their material far too thinly, & "Elektro Kardiogramm" is also a rather numb track, lacking either the pace, basslines or melodies that make Kraftwerk's music as brilliant as it is—it's perhaps the dullest song in The Catalogue • Thankfully, it's followed by one of their best: "La Forme", which demonstrates the group at its most contemporary; despite throwbacks to their earlier work—the simplistic melodic lines & vocals resembling so many recited lists—it has much genuinely different about it, including its relaxed, leisurely pace & de-emphasis on beats (serving here to underpin the song rather than form lines of filigree all over it); surprisingly, its 10-minute duration (including the separate coda, "Regeneration") never sounds over-long • & finally, "Tour de France", the song that many bewailed being absent from The Mix returns in its own dancefloor version • It's genuinely exciting &, like its brethren on that album, stays true to both the style & idea of the original, sounding at once a child of both the ’80s & the ’00s •

In its 2004 version, The Catalogue was no child of the 'loudness war'; it was an earnest effort at putting forward Kraftwerk's oh-so innovative music in its best possible form, & as such—allowing for occasional slips & niggles in the otherwise mostly excellent remastering—it lived up to that aim • By contrast, the 2009 version has, to my mind, become a part of that war, the remastering process often going too far, with the worst case of all—Techno Pop—becoming jaw-droppingly vulgar • It's disappointing that such a laudable (&, indeed, lauded) project has turned out to be so hit-and-miss; 2004 promised much—2009 too often fails to deliver •

In summary, then, my view is that to buy The Catalogue would be a mistake (unless you're a sucker for superficial packaging); only Autobahn, Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express & The Man-Machine are worthwhile investments, their 2009 remasters significantly contributing to the original material, aiding its clarity & genuinely bestowing on it a new lease of life • All of these can be bought individually, & should be • Computer World is horrid to listen to, & should be avoided, while Techno Pop—as should be abundantly clear by now—deserves nothing more than derision, being the most shameful result in the entire enterprise • In both cases the originals far outstrip the 2009 remasters—although in the case of Techno Pop, the 2004 remaster is worth seeking out, & if any readers are interested in a download of that remaster, let me know in the comments • Neither The Mix nor Tour de France are better in 2009 than they were in 1991 & 2003 (indeed, Tour de France, as noted, is worse), so again, the originals are the version of choice •

(if you like the downloads, BUY THE MUSIC—links below)
_______________
links:
The Catalogue trailer video | Kraftwerk.com | Amazon UK | Amazon US

Paradise pop: Dragonette - Fixin To Thrill

Musicians who hail from remote parts of the world often seem to have something noticeably different, something unique to say • About 18 months ago, i spent a little time exploring Scandinavian sounds, but lately it's music from Canada that's been interesting me • & most recently, taking their place alongside such disparate luminaries as Aaron Funk, Aidan Baker, Elsiane & Paul Dolden (about whom, in due course, much, much more), have been Dragonette, whose second album Fixin To Thrill came out earlier this month • Dragonette have been steadily forging their reputation over the last four years, beginning with one of the best debuts ever, the elusive but immaculate Dragonette EP, after which a clutch of singles & first album Galore have emerged, each revealing a group remarkably assertive & undeniably talented • To describe their music as 'synthpop' is to do them a disservice; eighties allusions come thick & fast, but their songs are firmly rooted in the noughties, & to this end they stand out as a truly contemporary act, rather more successful & engaging than, say, New Young Pony Club • Furthermore, there's also a distinct rock sheen to their music, which in the best way prevents it from being too 'clean' a synth sound, akin more to the gutsy rocktronica of The Faint • Out in the limelight is Martina Sorbara, a singer whose voice is capable of a surprising range of characterisations & tone colours •

Fixin To Thrill is their most energetic release to date, a dozen songs each packing a unique punch & marking out Dragonette as having reached a new kind of maturity • It opens with the title track, a gritty cymbal-crasher with razor-sharp bass sawtooths worthy of Trent Reznor • This is a distinct curtain-raiser, fulsome but introductory, substantial but serving as an overture to what lies beyond • It's followed by the delicately country-influenced "Gone Too Far", a heavy foot-stomper that could set any barn dance alight; something of a departure for the band, although hearing them in 'knees up' mode like this is pretty exciting • But now come the first really impressive songs on the album, as well as the first to place the synths in centre stage, beginning with "Liar" • At a driving tempo that seems somehow to be neither up- nor downtempo, it marries mellow verses (with a great little bassline gently pounding in the left ear) to a strong, monotone chorus, embellished with some lovely bridge passages • Their melodies are excellent, carried off with real aplomb by Sorbara's ever-so-slightly nasal soprano, which sounds especially emotive during the middle 8 • All that's gone before finds itself combined in "Stupid Grin", another stomper that brings fresh surprises; the middle 8 causes the song to deconstruct into a refrain chanted by a choir of what sound like schoolchildren; it's an almost incongruous moment, but works perfectly • "Easy" quietens down the mood again, with a vivid opening line, "You love me like a bull in a china shop..." • Harmonically simple, this is an exercise in fine melodic writing, the structure of the song pulled around to allow the song to, well, sing • In the central moment of repose, Sorbara reveals a delicious fragile & breathy side to her voice, emerging from her highest register •

We're plunged back into the world of electrorock with "Pick Up The Phone", which must be a sure contender for a single release (although, worryingly, that would no doubt bring a raft of insufferable remixes, something with which Dragonette have been afflicted before) • Sorbara now manages to make herself sound like Goldfrapp in the verses, soft & whimsical, but lets rip at the choruses, replete with off-stage "oh-oh"s — this chorus is the epitome of what i said before about the band's ability to meld retro trappings into a thoroughly new pop sound • But even this excellent track is surpassed by "We Rule The World", without doubt the best song on the album • This is Dragonette at their most polished; the verses inhabit a narrow space, surly & clipped, with nothing but beats & dancing electronics beneath, whereas the anthemic chorus opens out into impossibly wide vistas, its chords pulling the listener inexorably upward, borne aloft on a melody that leaps around with glee, keen to soar up to ever higher altitudes • This is real paradise pop, impossibly brilliant, imaginative in its conception & flawless in its execution; best song of the year • After such an astonishing track, the following songs inevitably sound a touch lacklustre in its wake • "Big Sunglasses" is gently amusing but lacks strong melodic ideas, while "Okay Dolore" sounds strikingly like Peaches, Sorbara's voice even resembling Peaches' staccato delivery (in the rare moments when Peaches actually sings) •

But then, the album takes another turn for the brilliant, ending with three more outstanding tracks • "Come On Be Good" evokes other retro stylings, with hints of Grease in its verses & even a trace or two of Abba in the bridge passages; it's another song at a moderate tempo (they seem at their best in this area), but once again they make it move along with impressive pace • & now, a real surprise: "You're A Disaster" pares away the electronica, the exquisite melody initially supported by nothing other than a rather perfunctory guitar • Sorbara's vocals here are simply gorgeous, sounding remarkably like compatriot Elsieanne Caplette (& also a little like Portishead's Beth Gibbons), & this isn't the end of the similarities; as it broadens out into the underlying waltz rhythm, this is a song that could well have been executed by Elsiane, all of which is a big compliment • Unique & wonderful, this still wouldn't be the best track to conclude the album, & sensibly Dragonette finish with "Don't Be Funny", another song with a big anthemic chorus that contrasts very excitingly with its softer meandering verses • But for all its weight, it is still emphatically a coda, never seeking to launch itself with the intensity of earlier songs, & it brings to an end one of the most best albums of 2009 •

Clearly, Dragonette have brought a multitude of other artists to mind throughout this album, but i don't want to give the impression there's anything remotely like pastiche going on here • Dragonette are utterly individual, & i can't recommend Fixin To Thrill highly enough - it's one of the outstanding albums i've ever heard, definitely among the best of this year • 5:4 rating: 4.66/5

Liar [Apple Lossless | 27.43Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 9.13Mb]
We Rule The World [Apple Lossless | 26.28Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 8.41Mb]
You're A Disaster [Apple Lossless | 20.03Mb] | [AAC | 320 | 7.96Mb]

(if you like the downloads, BUY THE MUSIC—links below)
_______________
links:
Dragonette.com | Amazon.ca | iTunes Store (featuring some bad tagging errors, as usual) | Discogs | Wiki |

Celer - Brittle, Fountain Glider & Poulaine

My admiration for the music of Celer has grown seemingly exponentially since my first encounter with their work last year, in the form of Mesoscaphe, their collaboration with Mathieu Ruhlmann (subsequently highly-placed in my Best Albums of 2008) • The retrospective/obituary that i wrote back in July was a first attempt to say something meaningful about their illustrious output, although i was & remain acutely aware that it barely scratched the surface • In the three months that have passed since that fateful time, as many full-length albums have been released, with yet more announced & coming soon •

All three assume Celer's most demanding shape, lengthy solitary tracks, the first of which, Brittle, is the longest of all, its single span lasting over 74 minutes • Its title is complemented by the track's title of 'Eustress', a word that embodies the opposite of 'distress', referring to forms of stress from which we obtain positive effects • A short essay accompanies the CD, explicating Celer's intentions in bringing these two evocative words, 'brittle' & 'eustress' together • & it's extremely tempting, reading the words that refer to their aim "to demonstrate a feeling of continuation through what sometimes seems like a fragile existence", immediately to draw connections to Dani Baquet-Long's sudden death; but this music was obviously made before her passing, & while at the moment it cannot fail to be heard in the wake of that tragedy, it would be a facile mistake to allow that to obfuscate the music contained in Brittle, still less to define it • Celer's music has sufficient depth & substance to stand on its own two feet, without the need for imposed emotional crutches, despite how keen one may be to impose them; i prefer to allow the music to communicate on its own terms •

Stress, though, is far from the album's opening sonic shapes, forming an undulating fabric composed of a dense cluster of tones, from which isolated pitches endlessly pulse & throb • It takes a little over a quarter of an hour before any kind of significant disquiet ruffles the music's feathers, & for some time thereafter there's a more noticeable (albeit gentle & understated) sense of dissonance in the texture, the beating of which dizzifies the initial clarity • All of which has proved to be merely the overture of an incredibly varied, yet ultimately familiar music, always changing yet never straying too far from its basic state • Celer speak of it acting as a "blanket", & their aspiration is to the kind of thing at the heart of what i've previously called the 'ambient tradition', to Erik Satie's 'musique d'ameublement', or as Celer prefer it, "room music" • It is simultaneously in the background, enveloping the listener in wave after wave of soft crescendi, & at the forefront of our attention, dazzling & teasing with its hypnotic shifts of colour • The difficulty that this kind of material presents—& it is a profound difficulty—is how to bring it to an end • It would be easy to imagine "Eustress" playing on into eternity, but this isn't realistic; at some point, it must come to an end, & we must take our leave of it • It's comforting therefore to read Celer's assertion that this music "shouldn't leave or transport you to another place"; Brittle very much has its feet on the ground, keeping reality, with all its fragility & transience, at its core • It's a reality given space in the album's final three minutes of silence, & aptly captured in the prosaic but rather beautiful cover photograph • 5:4 rating: *5/5*

The second & third albums emerged together, & have equivalent durations (between 40 & 50 minutes) but occupy utterly different sound worlds • Whereas Brittle hides its sources as well as its supposed original 19 tracks within a seamless, electronic façade, Fountain Glider's 22 parts, each of which has a title, are rather more distinct, & its sources more apparent • However, the choice of a single track signifies something different from, say, Capri or Nacreous Clouds; Fountain Glider is intended to be heard whole & complete • The stated inclusion of, among other things, recordings of a "glider cabin during flight" as well as "runway wind" immediately suggests a music more influenced by the noise end of the sonic spectrum • & from the outset, this is the case, the surface flecked & scuffed by the rougher edges of these noisome sources, which also play fast & loose with the stereo width, at times combining narrow & wide layers simultaneously (particularly effective through headphones) • These kinds of complex timbres, rich in overtones, sound even more sharp due to their contrast with softer episodes, some of which occupy similar territory to that on Brittle • However, even within these smooth, mellifluous textures, noise still seems to be present at its epicentre, unifying the parts into a cohesive whole • Some of the transitions are sublime, such as that from "Leftover Thunderhead" into "Drift-off" (at around the 7-minute mark), where assertive pitches yield to a rather ghostly, claustrophobic air ambience, that also introduces the first significant low frequencies on the album; & it then dissolves, three minutes later, into even greater stillness with the beautiful stasis of "Radio Haze" •

For all the diversity of Celer's previous output, they've not released anything quite like this, & indeed Fountain Glider comes across as something of an experiment • It's taken numerous listenings to conclude that it does work—but not, i think, as ambient music in the same sense as Brittle • This isn't an album that benefits much from being played as "room music"; maybe it's the presence of the noise elements, but overall Fountain Glider has a tendency to draw one's attention that means it really needs to be listened to actively • Then, the fascinating interplay between hard & soft timbres becomes highly engaging, & the control over the episodic nature of this music is revealed to be masterly • Alongside Sieline, it's one of their more courageous releases, which may well alienate those for whom ambient music is nothing but the aural equivalent of soft pillows & sleeping pills • But i think this could well rank among their finest work, & it'll be interesting to hear if future releases explore similar territory • 5:4 rating: *5/5*

Poulaine was composed to accompany an exhibition of 14th Century manuscripts at the University of California at Irvine • The number of manuscripts equates to the number of parts heard here—13—although once again placed within the context of a single track • Despite originally being separate, in their assimilated whole the beginning & end of each of the 13 parts is often hard to pinpoint with any accuracy • But this is no bad thing; Poulaine heralds a return to Celer's drone-like music, without a hard edge in sight, & the lack of distinct boundaries to the work's component parts aids the music to this end • No doubt the gentleness of the material can be in part attributed to its functional role within the original exhibition; in this new context, it is in some ways the opposite to Fountain Glider, deflecting one's attention off its impeccably smooth surface, almost resisting one's attempts to engage with it • To some extent, it doesn't help having the distinct & imaginative sound sources listed—cello, violin, theremin, contact mics on oil paintings, piano, field recordings, etc.—as every one of them has been processed beyond all recognition • What Poulaine seems to be crying out for is a simple, subjective engagement, where thought is put on hold & the mind can instead bathe in one beautiful wave after another •

Indeed, it could be argued that Poulaine more emphatically achieves that to which Brittle so keenly aspires, to the sensation of "acting as a warm comfort" • Except that, as the piece progresses, something different becomes apparent; far from there being nothing to engage with, the reality is quite the contrary • For all its apparent 'neutrality', there's a great deal going on within this texture, but of a more subtle magnitude than on either Fountain Glider or Brittle (one example: the soft, high note that emerges at around the 6-minute mark; a delicious moment) • If music as amorphous as this can be said to be 'doing' anything, later on in the piece the music seems almost to be trudging forward, bestowing on it a rather unsettling, troubled quality • i like it all the more for this; & it underlines why Poulaine (like the other two albums discussed here) is to be heard in its entirety; the opening portions of the work are very far from the whole story • & far from being a "warm comfort", the music here is demonstrably aloof; gorgeous & delicate it may be, but shining with the quality of a cold, distant star • 5:4 rating: *5/5*

It's astounding & a huge delight to be able to listen to music of such quality, to which so much care & attention has been given • While i hope that Will Long will allow himself plenty of time to release Celer's remaining output, each new release is genuinely exciting, & proves the extent to which he & Dani have honed their craft; without doubt, these are among their best releases to date •

Brittle is available from Low Point records, as is a companion piece titled Mane Blooms, soon to be released • Both Fountain Glider & Poulaine, released in editions of 100 copies each, sold out on the same day they became available; copies might still be obtainable from Infraction, who are usually the best place to try for Celer's music •

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Vigilia

On this day in 1928, the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara was born, & to commemorate the occasion, here is a broadcast of his 1971 work, Vigilia • A complete setting of the Orthodox liturgies of Vespers & Matins, it was broadcast in an edition of Choirworks on Radio 3 in 2001, & includes insightful discussion with the director of the performance, Stephen Layton, encompassing the background & context of the work, & some of the issues associated with its performance • Layton is a keen advocate of contemporary choral music, particularly in his capacity as director of the vocal group Polyphony •

According to Christian tradition, a vigil commences in the (usually late) evening, with the liturgy of Vespers (the monastic evening prayer service), concluding at daybreak with Matins (morning prayer); Rautavaara's work is therefore divided into two broad parts, pertaining to these two liturgies • A lengthy Orthodox liturgy sung in Finnish might seem a bit daunting, but Rautavaara's setting is, as presenter Paul Guinery notes, an accessible one, striking a curious but engaging balance between the stringent demands of Orthodox music & the ingenuity of modern composition • As such, it's a world away from the faux austere blandaries of John Tavener, perhaps akin more to the mediæval practice of 'troping', where composers individual 'voice' was heard among liturgical music • In truth, i've never heard anything quite like this piece, before or after; it's unmistakeably a liturgy—which, being an act of worship, always makes a distinct kind of impact on the listener—& yet equally a riveting & highly engaging concert work • The musical language is, of course, rooted in the kind of tonality with which Orthodox music is today so much associated, filled with extremely rich, triadic chords that seem to have the paradoxical consistency of melted granite, somehow liquid yet immoveable • But, i would say, only rooted in this tradition; Rautavaara is happy to incorporate less expected harmonic twists as well as clusters, glissandi, whispering & other vocal effects—sounds that, apparently, the composer heard while on retreat at a monastery on Mount Athos •

The two parts, while unsurprisingly similar in tone, also display discrete qualities • The Vespers has a dark, velvety mood that seems fitting considering its late evening context, while the Matins—here, in fact, celebrating the dawning of a feast day, that of the Beheading of John the Baptist—includes slightly more vivid harmonies, including some rather audacious major/minor clashes, & the exquisite final chord is scintillatingly scrunchy • This interesting article from The Guardian in 2002 gives some indication of the stunning impact the piece makes in live performance; & if the recording piques your interest or whets your appetite, a CD of the work is available here •

i must point out that this recording, almost eight years old, was transferred from a high-quality video cassette; despite the lack of background noise (no digital cleanup was necessary), on a few occasions there are some brief audio drop-outs, for which i apologise •

[86:50 | FLAC | 426Mb]
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

postscript Incidentally, i've had some problems getting files uploaded correctly to Mediafire lately, & am thinking of switching to Rapidshare for all large downloads, like this one • It would be good to know readers' views about this, so let me know •

artwork + new links for Mix Tapes #1-#3

With such things clearly still on my mind, the first three mix tapes were posted without any accompanying artwork • i produced some a little while back but never got round to posting it on here • If you want it, click on the images below for high-res artwork •



EDIT: i've also updated the links for these first three mix tapes, the first of which wasn't even properly available • All three can be downloaded below; they now all contain the full tracklistings in the 'lyrics' field •

Mix Tape #1 (Late Night) [1:08:21 | vbr mp3 (~188) | 93.09Mb]
Mix Tape #2 (Late Night) [1:00:37 | vbr mp3 (~177) | 77.61Mb]
Mix Tape #3 (Bells) [59:47 | vbr mp3 (~153) | 66.94Mb]

Mix Tape #13 (Vox Femina)

Today finds me feeling not at all well, so i've kept myself occupied making a new mix tape, with a theme i've wanted to explore for a while: female vocalists • At a guess, i'd say i listen to more female singers than male, & the content of this mix reflects a combination of artists with whom i've become familiar only recently, & others i've loved for many years •

The wonderfully-named Scout Niblett (who sounds as though she ought to stand 4 foot tall) takes a refreshingly sparse approach to her brand of rock; she also plays both drums & guitar, & her songs have a basic, elemental quality to them; that's certainly the case in "Hot to Death", a song that moves abruptly from soft fragility to raging fury • Peaches needs no introduction; her hypersexual songs vary wildly in their ratio of credibility to crassness, but 2003's Fatherfucker is, i think, her best achievement, with the claustrophobic (&, for once, sex-absent) "Operate" its standout track • Better known under her initials AGF, Antye Greie-Fuchs brings a demonstrably poetic sensibility to her electronic experiments; her most recent release, Dance Floor Drachen, available free (link below), contains some of her most rhythmically engaging work to date; "TURN IMPOTENT" is enhanced further with stomach-wobbling bass pulses • "Hyperballad" remains one of Björk's best songs, as well as one of her most remixed; this version is courageously simple, eschewing almost any kind of rhythmic movement, allowing the powerful words to attain a hypnotic vividness • No less hypnotic is Fovea Hex's Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent trilogy, which must rank as one of the most imaginative song-sequences ever made • "We Sleep You Bloom" palpably betrays the handiwork of Hafler Trio's Andrew M. McKenzie underscoring Clodagh Simonds vocals; it's simply exquisite at every moment • Occupying slightly darker but equally dreamy territory is Julee Cruise, the singer particularly beloved of David Lynch; her distinctive voice (with barely a trace of vibrato) is as integral to Lynch's Twin Peaks saga as Badalamenti's dark string writing • Her first album, Floating into the Night, dates from the same time as Twin Peaks, & could well be thought of as an offshoot from the series; "The Swan" is the album's most poignant moment, the melancholic harmonies left without resolution • Deeper melancholy still from Daisy Chapman, whose new album, The Green-Eyed, is launched at the end of this week (more about this soon) • "Words in Dirt" is one of her most subtly layered songs, the simple piano writing enveloped in floating additional voices, with Daisy's own powerful vocals at the core •

After which, something of a nostalgic episode, beginning with She & Him, whose country-folk stylings suit Zooey Deschanel's slightly sharp voice perfectly; i'm no fan of country music at all, but She & Him do something rather different with it • Whereas The Pipettes do something rather different with 1950s close harmony pop—at least, they did, before one member after another left the group resulting in the disastrous parody currently masquerading under that name • This song is from their finest hour, the line-up of Rosay, Gwenno & RiotBecki; it's just unfortunate that such a beautifully soft-edged song should only appear on the US version of their album, which has been grotesquely compressed beyond all proportion; the quality of the song shines through though, i think • & yet more pasticherana in the form of Melissa McClelland, whose rich voice does nice things with blues; "Victoria Day (May Flowers)" is a delight, a kind of gentle knees-up • Set within orchestral trappings is the voice of Nynke Laverman, a native of the province of Fryslân in the northern Netherlands • Laverman sings in her native Frisian language, which combined with her unique style of vocal delivery, fills "De ûntdekker" ('The Discoverer') with a bewildering array of phonetic glitches & trills • Her latest album, Nomade, is one of the best i've heard this year • Back into the world of electronica with Ladytron's "Runaway", from their excellent album Velocifero; it's a track that lives up to its title, the rhythmic drive never letting up for a second; it's worth mentioning how well Helen Marnie & Mira Aroya's voices compliment each other • Scandinavian pop pixie As In Rebekkamaria should have been mentioned on here sooner; her 2008 album Queen of France didn't quite make it into my Top 40 of the year's albums • She's characteristically quirky, but this isn't the limit of her interest, & "Twin Baby" shows off her unusual voice in a trademark beat & bass-laced cocktail • i can't claim to be a fan of the Sugababes, but "About You Now" simply has to be one of the best pop songs of the last 10 or 20 years, which comes as little surprise seeing as it's from the pen of Cathy Dennis • All credit to the girls, though, who sound nothing short of superb, especially in the high parallel countermelody added to the chorus towards the end; it's the most amazingly infectious song i've ever heard • A leap back in time for the next two tracks, starting with Transvision Vamp; my love of this group has already been mentioned in my article about Velveteen; "Down On You" comes from this fine album & finds singer Wendy James at her most surly, her fantastically weathered voice snarling at every turn • Dubstar merited an entire retrospective here on 5:4, where i'm glad to see i said nice things about this song; "Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton" is far too good a song to have been relegated to the land of B-sides; it's a rare but genuine ray of optimism in Dubstar's otherwise scarred & pessimistic musings on life •

Next, three singers whom i've only begun to listen to in the last twelve months or so • Australian Sarah Blasko didn't impress me much with her new release As Day Follows Night, but i was sufficiently intrigued to investigate her back catalogue • Both of her earlier albums, The Overture & the Underscore & What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have are far superior, with "True Intentions" one of the best tracks from the former • There's a hint of Emiliana Torrini in her voice, which is usually surrounded by fascinating instrumental textures; this song has a distinctly languid, even tired sound, reminiscent of Radiohead • Quite how i feel about Catherine A.D.'s music i'm still not sure; she either engages me powerfully or bores me to tears; "Crave" is a gorgeous miniature yet, sadly, isn't available at the moment, but one can only hope she might re-release some of her earlier work • Sol Seppy never fails to fascinate, especially in this song, where she sounds even more fragile than, say, Polly Scattergood; this simple little song is a cogent testimony to the fact that a really good melody supports itself, needing little to accompany it • It's a shame that someone with as good a voice as Rachel Stevens should have been served up so much mediocre material in her career • i'm not thinking so much of her S Club days, but her first album Funky Dory contained only a single good song ("Blue Afternoon", which is a quiet masterpiece) • Thankfully, second album Come and Get It bears little resemblance, laden with top-rate tracks; "I Will Be There" shows off Stevens' voice beautifully, as well being a really lovely song • i hope she'll consider returning to music at some point, but if this turns out to be her final album, it's not a bad swansong by any means • Now, i almost feel like apologising in advance, including as i have a song by Lily Allen; her latest album It's Not You, It's Me was unsurprisingly filled with yet more "cheeky" banalities trotted out in her familiar but seemingly parodic Estuary English; two songs on that album, though, were a revelation, "The Fear" & "I Could Say" • Both are inflected with a new, electropop sound, & show Allen in an entirely new light; "I Could Say" is clearly modelled on New Order (tenuously connected, of course, with her father), but is no bad thing for that, & in any case takes a few harmonic twists en route that New Order would never have thought of • Electropop is nothing new to Freezepop; indeed, they epitomise synthpop, thoroughly plastic, but thoroughly polished too; "Thought Balloon" is a deliciously twee little track from their, to date, only release of consistent quality, Future Future Future Perfect •

Autumn Grieve is a singer whose work i've only just begun to explore; her work is released in beautifully crafted, highly limited editions (the latest can be bought here), & i like what she's doing • It seems a bit trite to summarise it as 'folk', as there's definitely more going on, but it's refreshing to hear music so steadfastly analogue in sound • Caught somewhere between analogue & digital is Imogen Heap, whose new album Ellipse happily lives up to the unrestrained brilliance & originality of 2005's Speak For Yourself • "Little Bird" places Heap's voice far into the foreground, flecking it with pointillistic electronic notes; no-one makes music like this, & it's utterly delightful • Choosing a song by Tori Amos is almost an impossible task, seeing as so much of her output is so good; this is an evocative, folk-like little improvisation from one of her "Legs & Boots" series of concerts • It may seem brutal to follow it with Amanda Palmer's "Guitar Hero", but Palmer's pugilistic punk cabaret doesn't sit comfortably among any other music, which is one of the reasons i like it • While her solo music retains much of the spirit & style of The Dresden Dolls, she has her own distinctive sound, & i love the barely suppressed hysteria of her vocals, always seeming to teeter on the edge of laughing & screaming • i intended to write an article on Bats for Lashes around the time of the posts about Daisy Chapman & Polly Scattergood, but unfortunately that never happened • While her first album Fur and Gold left me a bit lukewarm, 2009's Two Suns is one of the best releases of the year; "Sleep Alone" shows off her voice particularly well, both her lower & beautifully floating upper register • Elsiane are responsible for one of the most breathtaking albums i've ever heard, 2007's Hybrid (for my post about this album, go here); the title track brings the album to an end with a heavy, labouring flourish, its melody largely going round in circles, from which Elsianne Caplette occasionally soars out, like vocal solar flares • Caplette's voice is one of the great oddities of modern song, simultaneously obfuscating the lyric content while expressing its sentiments directly through her unique vocal manner; i can't think of another singer who comes across in that way • Ending with Joanna Newsom may seem an easy choice, but i make no apologies for it; Newsom is one of the few musicians for whom the word 'genius' doesn't seem like a cliché • Her music crosses every conceivable boundary, it is wild & untamed, yet pensive & often difficult; she marries folk-like simplicities to epic structures (all but one of the songs on Ys are around or in excess of 10 minutes' duration), complex rhythms & a superbly wide vocabulary • She is nothing less than a marvel, & by far the most exciting female singer-songwriter of the decade •

All told, these ladies sing for just a touch under two hours—here's the tracklisting in full:

• Scout Niblett - Hot to Death (from Kidnapped By Neptune)
• Peaches - Operate (from Fatherfucker)
• AGF - TURN IMPOTENT (from Dance Floor Drachen)
• Björk - Hyperballad (Girls Blouse Mix) (from It's Oh So Quiet, CD2)
• Fovea Hex - We Sleep You Bloom (from Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent, CD1: Bloom)
• Julee Cruise - The Swan (from Floating in the Night)
• Daisy Chapman - Words In Dirt (from And There Shall Be None)
• She & Him - Take It Back (from Volume One)
• The Pipettes - Baby, Just Be Yourself (from We Are The Pipettes, US version)
• Melissa McClelland - Victoria Day (May Flowers) (from Victoria Day)
• Nynke Laverman - De ûntdekker (from Nomade)
• Ladytron - Runaway (from Velocifero)
• As In Rebekkamaria - Twin Baby (from Queen Of France)
• Sugababes - About You Now (from Change)
• Transvision Vamp - Down On You (from Velveteen)
• Dubstar - Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (from I (Friday Night), CD1)
• Sarah Blasko - True Intentions (from The Overture and the Underscore)
• Catherine A.D. - Crave (from Songs For The Boy Who Wouldn't Read Rilke)
• Sol Seppy - Injoy (from The Bells of 1 2)
• Rachel Stevens - I Will Be There (from Come And Get It)
• Lily Allen - I Could Say (from It's Not Me, It's You)
• Freezepop - Thought Balloon (from Future Future Future Perfect)
• Autumn Grieve - Shades (from Stray Birds)
• Imogen Heap - Little Bird (from Ellipse)
• Tori Amos - Improv (Live In Syracuse 10/13/07) (from Legs and Boots: Syracuse, NY - October 13, 2007)
• Amanda Palmer - Guitar Hero (from Who Killed Amanda Palmer)
• Bat For Lashes - Sleep Alone (from Two Suns)
• Elsiane - Hybrid (from Hybrid)
• Joanna Newsom - Cosmia (from Ys)

Once again, the full tracklisting will appear in the 'lyrics' field on iTunes; high-res artwork can be found by clicking on the image above •

[1:58:43 | vbr mp3 (~215) | 183Mb]
part 1 | part 2

Kraftwerk - a remastered retrospective

NOTE: This article has been replaced with an updated version, which can be found here •

“Nor am i afraid that this,which we call autumn,cleverly dies and over the ripe world wanders with a near and careful smile in his mouth”

A new colour scheme for Autumn, the first of what will very probably be a range of occasional schemes here on 5:4 • Comments welcome •

Roads less travelled - Benn Jordan's Louisiana Mourning

Out this week is the latest release from Benn Jordan, better know as The Flashbulb • It's high time Jordan's music was featured on here, as he's nothing short of a marvel, his music touching on a wide variety of styles, every one of which seems to turn to gold in his hands • In many ways, he has to draw comparisons with Hecq (another Ben, about whom i wrote here), flitting as he also does between the crystalline intricacies of IDM & the warm shroud of ambient •

But there's a wealth of other inspirations at work in Jordan's music, & this is palpably obvious in his new 21-minute EP, Louisiana Mourning • Prior to the release Jordan had hinted on his website that Ambient & Bluegrass would be the defining characteristics of this release, & to some extent that's borne out in the music • "I" (the titles simply use Roman numerals) is an ambivalent opener, laden with rapid guitar picking early on, before giving way to dreamy tonal waves • "II" immediately returns to fast guitar figurations, whereupon violinist Greg Hirte joins in with a lovely folk-inspired melody, inflected with poignant minor chord shifts; midway, the piano takes over, leading to the music again dissipating into ambience • It's not the first time Jordan has subdivided a single track into markedly different sections (another similarity to Hecq), & here it's a highly effective device, creating soft, luscious codettas that contrast well with the sharp hectic twanging of the guitar • "III" shifts in almost quixotic fashion, beginning once again with guitar, another highly pretty miniature ditty, that then switches into a smaller idea, drifting but driven, before being enveloped by wind & curiously distant, reticent chords, moving near the horizon of clarity; whereupon guitars return in a guise gently redolent of Pat Metheny, until the ambient conclusion once more subsumes everything into wetness & warmth • "IV" takes a new, jazz-flecked direction for its first half, a slightly flamenco-esque one for its second, this shortest track being the only one where ambient music doesn't exert its influence •

If this is bluegrass, the connection is at best an obtuse one, refracted through Benn Jordan's complex creative prism • Those familiar with his back catalogue may well be surprised & disappointed at the complete absence of the insanely frenetic beat & glitch agglomerations that are a (if not the) trademark of The Flashbulb • But Jordan hasn't got his Flashbulb hat on here, & without it, he has on Louisiana Mourning revealed new kinds of subtlety & a distinct interest to move along some roads less travelled by • & that has, indeed, made all the difference; it's his most introspective release to date, & as his EPs usually foreshadow album releases, it suggests very interesting things lie ahead for Benn Jordan & his audience •

Jordan has an interesting take on the issue of illegal file-sharing • This EP, like its truly spectacular predecessor, Soundtrack to a Vacant Life, is available legally through the torrent website Waffles, the music coming packaged with an HTML file where Jordan makes his case, intelligently & cogently, about the whole thorny issue of downloading • By now, the album has ventured beyond the confines of Waffles, so here it is in FLAC format (Jordan's music deserves nothing but lossless); be sure to read the accompanying file & then, if you can, support this brilliantly imaginative musician •

[FLAC | 105.5Mb]
part 1 | part 2

(if you like the download, BUY THE MUSIC—links below)
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links:
bennjordan.com | Alphabasic | The Flashbulb | Wiki

Triptych, May/July 2009 now available

My first CD, Triptych, May/July 2009 (discussed here), was released yesterday, in a limited run of 100 numbered copies • Thanks ever so much to all those who have pre-ordered copies; they'll be sent out in the next couple of days, & should be with you soon • The full release can now be heard (not downloaded) from my Bandcamp page; copies can be ordered via my website •

The next CD, titled The Stuff of Memories, will be released later this year; more information as & when •