Economy of Effort

Alva Noto – Xerrox Vol. 1

2007, raster-noton
Style: minimal, glitch, ambient

For some people, the making of this album will be more interesting than the final result. On this recording, Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) used sound sources from real life (advertisements, entertainment, elevator music, etc), and then used software that made many (degrading) copies of the sounds, like a VHS tape copied many times over, until the Nth generation copy-from-a-copy-from-etc sounds were completely unrecognizable from their source material.

The idea is neat, but from reading that description, you might expect to hear a varied (or, at least, unique) sound palette in this recording. Instead, what this cut-and-paste amounts to is mostly buzzing white noise, awash in ambient drones. In that respect, it is somewhat disappointing. While some reviewers have been unable to get past that stumbling block, listeners that can will find that the album is a pretty effective minimal ambient recording. It’s coldly beautiful, light without being schmaltz. It’s a different sound than fans of previous Alva Noto recordings are familiar with, but it should appeal to that crowd still.

There is, unfortunately, not a lot of depth here. It’s unessential, but very enjoyable.

3 stars out of 5

Caspian – The Four Trees

2007, Dopamine Records
Style: post-rock, post-rock, very post-rock

Post-rock may be the pizza of the music world – even when it’s bad (or, at the very least, generic), it’s still pretty good.

The Four Trees is the debut album from the Massachusetts based band Caspian. The group first gained attention with their first EP, which was well-received if criticized for being too similar to the music of Explosions in the Sky. The first few tracks on The Four Trees does little to give the listener the impression that things are any different this time around. However, later tracks show the band incorporating some more elements into their sound, even if those elements too are post-rock staples.

When it comes down to it, if you’ve heard of post-rock, you’ve heard this all before. What’s surprising is how well Caspian pulls it off anyway. Despite the unshakable familiarity of the whole album, it doesn’t sound like a second-rate copy. The instruments are sharp. The compositions are quite good, with lack of originality being the only immediate complaint to offer. The recording quality is solid and well-mixed, avoiding the messy sound other second-tier post-rock recordings tend to have during the loud crescendos. All in all, it’s a pretty nice package.

Given that this is the group’s first full-length release, there is hope for the future. These guys play too well to stay in the copycat artist camp. Hopefully they come to evolve into a more distinct sound of their own. Heavy fans of the post-rock genre will find plenty to like here, while everyone else should just stay tuned and keep an eye out for album #2.

Caspian – Moksha

Grails – Burning Off Impurities

2007, Temporary Residence
Style: post-rock, psych rock

When Western bands play music with strong non-Western influences (I’m avoiding terms like "ethnic" and "world music" here), the results often fall into a few familiar tracks. There’s the "Van Halen effect" (named after the many ’80s hair metal bands that attempted to copy Van Halen but only cloned the surface elements, without truly understanding the substance of what they were imitating), where the artist only produces a shallow facsimile of the influences pulled from. Then there’s the "oil and water effect", where the artist attempts to take two very different elements and fails to find a way to mix them into a natural and fluid combination. And then there are those attempts that are just so ham-fisted as to be painfully bad in every way.

When an artist manages to avoid these traps, however, they have an opportunity to create something beautiful. Grails‘ Burning Off Impurities is a good example of this, an album that incorporates various non-Western influences into a musical style informed by modern psychedelic and post-rock, and soaked in reverb.

Structure is very loose here, and the sustained, reverberated guitars create an ethereal sound. Indeed, the whole album feels like something you don’t directly experience, but only witness through a haze, like barely seeing a boat on the water through thick coastal fog. The experience feels very indirect, and the elements of the music are just out of reach. Tracks are not songs so much as melodies that emerge from the haze like a plane breaking through the clouds, and seep right back into the haze when done. The music, thankfully, is not as awkward and bumbling as my metaphors.

It’s very easy to get lost in this album, and although I wouldn’t categorize the tracks as being overly "samey", the aloof nature of the music can make it easy for the listener to lose focus. Multiple listens are necessary before one can get a good handle on what’s going on, and even still I find me forcing myself to focus on the music and not get lost in the fog. When I am focused, however, the rewards are great. Another great Temporary Residence release. That label is having one hell of a 2007 so far.

Grails – Burning Off Impurities
(live at the Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on May 5, 2007)

65daysofstatic – The Destruction Of Small Ideas

2007, Monotreme Records
Style: post-rock, math rock

65daysofstatic has until now been known for a blend of post-rock and dnb-style electronics. With The Destruction Of Small Ideas (dammit Last.fm, lowercase the "of"!), the electronics have largely faded into the background, and the intensity has been kicked up in its place. Many people use the word "bludgeon" to describe this album. Indeed, when 65daysofstatic launches into loud wall-of-sound sections, they are driven by rapid-fire drums that certainly suggest blunt force violence. Soft, whisper-like piano lines, sparse but beautiful strings, and strategically placed noise and electronics color the sound into something much more distinct from many generic post-rock acts.

This album takes some time to digest. There is very little repetition, so it can be difficult to make an immediate connection with some of the material. Persistence is rewarded, however, as after a half-dozen listens, everything begins to fall into place. For me, it was like a light switch – I went from nearly taking this off the iPod to loving it to death.

At 61 minutes, this album could certainly have used some trimming. None of the material really screams to be cut (though the guest vocals on the last track do nothing but hinder an otherwise good piece), but everything would have gained from keeping the album at a more manageable size (and creating a bit more balance between the sonic assaults and the softer sections).

Fantastic album. The critical reception has, unfortunately, been spotty at best. Of course, if I wrote about this after only 3 or so spins, I wouldn’t have had much great to say about it either. There’s plenty of substance here, and the patient listener will find plenty to delight in – after a few listens.

65daysofstatic – Don’t Go Down to Sorrow

Maserati – Inventions for the New Season

2007, Temporary Residence
Style: post-rock, neo-krautrock, space rock

Holy smokes!

I’m still reeling from listening to this album all day. Temporary Residence‘s site described the album as “a bloodshot, 3AM soundtrack to a Michael Mann movie that hasn’t happened yet; a sweaty, delirious mix of mid-to-late 70s Pink Floyd, German psych-rock, krautrock, and mid-80s action film scores.”

It is all of those things, and yet none of them. All of these elements are in the mix, but nothing sounds distinctly derivative from any of it. It’s a great fusion of classic prog/space/krautrock with math/post-rock. Dual guitar interplay at times reminds of modern King Crimson. Spacey atmospherics (usually with a locked-in groove moving things alone) remind of the best of instrumental Pink Floyd. Pulsing sounds and steady, repetitious percussion reminds of Neu, or Circle. One of the guitarists is from Turing Machine, a math-rock band that I like a lot but doesn’t get name-dropped very much. Elements of that band are here too, but while Turing Machine has a bit of a one-dimensional (but still great) sound, Maserati has some range.

Complaints? Well, you could complain that the compositions, while intricate, aren’t necessarily mind-bendingly complex. This would, of course, be missing the point.

I’m confused as to whether this album really is this great, or if it just hits a sweet spot for me. I get concerned when I find myself struggling to offer a critique of something. There has been high praise on the Temporary Residence forum from some people, so I know at least I’m not the only one high on it.

Expect to see this on my end-of-year top 10 list. There’s a great chance that it will be right at the top.

Amon Tobin – Foley Room

2007, Ninja Tune
Style: idm, dnb, downtempo

Fantastic, unusual, experimental release, and Amon Tobin‘s first true studio album in 5 years. This is very much a departure from his classic studio albums. More often, the album’s tone is evocative of the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory soundtrack, except without the restrictions that soundtrack pieces have to abide by. It’s cut from a lot of field recordings and real instrumentation, including a track that incorporates the Kronos Quartet. It strays even further away from any dance roots present in previous Amon Tobin studio albums, and has received flak from fans of dance music for it. It’s NOT just an exercise in sound manipulation, though, as Tobin does a great job of incorporating melody, sometimes with very subtle means. This strikes me as a transition record, not yet a final destination. I’m not sure what kind of legs it will have, but so far I think it’s pretty fantastic and I’m glad to see Tobin pushing forward and not settling into familiar patterns.