Apologies to those of you cool enough to be recieving this on two or even
three lists. It is longer than I had expected it to be and was written
with 4ad-l in mind, so please excuse any remarks that are stupid or
insulting to the intelligence (or just downright insulting, tho I've
tried to edit all that stuff out for these substantially nicer lists). I
am in love with these Annie Williams records and have not seen her
discussed on these lists, nor seen Locust discussed enough for my tastes,
plus I am seeking any interesting information on both, so I thought the
crosspost was sensible. I'm sorry if it annoys anyone.
Locust - Truth Is Born of Arguments
-----------------------------------
I have been meaning to mention this for some time. Perhaps I did, but I
have not seen the record as so brilliant until recently. I was quite
fucked up on cold medicine when I first got it.
It is, without any question in my mind, easily the sexiest album since
Euphoria. At the same time, it is sickly, and scary as hell. Locust, aka
Mark van Hoen, sometimes engineer for Seefeel, is a mad and brilliant
man. The album begins with quirky rhythms and ghosts like *only* Locust
and this album (and perhaps others?) can seem to supply. It is just
barely music, full of noise, machines, wheezing choruses. A thick, harsh
rhythm enters carefully then dominates, punctuated by interludes of
complete nonsense which are somehow perfect for the song. In the end, the
song goes nowhere, but we are just entering this massive album. This is
but an introduction. It breaks down and makes room for Penetration, a
massive, ass kicking track with as ruthless a beat as I could think to
name. It doesn't feel right at all, but it's marvelous. Enter noise and a
creeping, barely audible bassline, and Sarah Peacock, apparently in the
throes of some anguished mating call. This album is quite repetitive, but
the rhythms and what you might call melodies are so intricate and
charming that I have not noticed this until now. The style of the album
is consistent for the next several tracks, all different and intriguing
variations on the same unnameable theme--until we reach The Optimist,
which gets my vote for best instrumental track of 1995. This is a
gorgeous, sweeping epic of a song on the order of The Protagonist, Die
Geschichte einer Mutter, the very best Aphex Twin or Love Spirals
Downwards, built around a soft, simple, ominous bass melody. A pretty
bass thing winds around it as shakers and deep timpani sounds rise, then
the track kicks into the coolest percussion I have EVER heard and a
creepy sort of whistle melody, peculiar and beautiful. Fast string
sweeps, military drumming and spooky chorus round it out to a stop, and
then a gentle start again, the elements rise once more but in different
formation and a wonderful variation on the background chords as in the
best moments of the Cranes or Autechre. Somehow it all fits into the
context of the album. It has created chaos, however, and the rest of the
album winds down through unsettling mixtures of earthly percussion,
trumpet, piano, crazy loops, screwy beats, well placed dominant sevenths
...it makes a hell of an experience, none of it too offbeat or
irritating. Not irritating at all to my ear, actually. To my ear, this is
one of the year's greatest, richest, most perfect albums. It all ends in
a slow solo piano piece which is just stunningly beautiful--mysterious
and sad, perfect for such an ending; as much so as you might expect of
Harold Budd or Edward Kaspel.
The reason I am reviewing this relatively old album (I think it came out
in May) is that Locust cowrites and produces the newer, and perhaps
better, Annie Williams eps, which I am pretty sure not many here have
heard because they are unhyped, underrated, nearly impossible to find,
and well nigh irresistible so that I'm certain you would have raved here
had you heard them, eh?
I first saw an Annie Williams in a store. The cover art by The Designers
Republic caught my attention and I asked to hear the record.
Unfortunately it didn't belong to the store but was a loaner from a
friend of the proprietor. I made all attempts to buy her records from
everyone imaginable, to no avail, until, as you can always bet soundly
on, CDE came through. Compact Discs Europe rules and I give them my
highest recommendation to anyone searching for records and about to give
up.
Annie Williams - Ruby
---------------------
This four track ep starts with a fast, groovy dance song. Annie Williams
is not a great singer, but has style and class and an ability to
convince, to suspend disbelief without drowning the mood in its own
importance. Quite often she sounds drugged and bitter, but leaps here and
there to passionate, emphatic moments. This first song, the title track,
benefits from this most because she drones. The fast, subdued dance
beat is anchored by slow, eerie guitar picking and a mean ol' woodblock.
It seems to go on forever; you sail on this stylish, quick little
bassline and kind of lose track. Near the end an odd ambience rises into
the mix and the rest of the song fades around it, pulled down by an
emotional, unsettling set of chords that seem to have been introduced for
this purpose.
The second song is full of noise, and for some time irritated me. The
vocal melody is somewhat singsongy and at the same time directionless.
Were it not for Locust's mad noodlings, it might bring the ep down as a
singular work, but after some time the song has a certain detached
character to it that really works, at least if you give it enough
chances.
Track three is perhaps the best on the disc, starting with a nice
bleepy ambience and good vocal melodies. A weird bassline and quick lil
strings jump in and throw this on its back, then merge for what appears
to be the chorus of the song. They merge into something very pretty. She
is a little droney for a while, then becomes tranquil. Now everything
stops and deep, wavering keyboards wash in--a perfect interlude with AW
finally singing high and full of emotion; sort of a catharsis here. Then
back to the body of the song, Locust's beats dominating and bringing the
song to a close.
The fourth track is a little singsongy again, but with an attitude that
is perfect for the ambience of the song. She is cold here, and surrounded
in cold loops, cold beats. As soon as it's begun, the song is over, a
somewhat disconcerting end to the ep. For that matter this is a somewhat
disconcerting ep, which is not perfect and has its definite high and low
points. The second ep is not like this; the second ep is perfect.
Annie Williams - Folie
----------------------
This is the best ep of 1995. Here we have a more elegant use of Annie
Williams' voice and a more artful merging of her and Locust's style and
talents. As is not necessarily the case with Ruby, here her performances
are evocative, erotic, even pained.
The title song, first again, starts right up with slow, thick drumming
and reverberating, distorted chords. The vocal melodies here are much
prettier and more original than on the other ep, and they are long, hard
to follow, so that the song at times seems endless. The backing music
also goes through long cycles before repeating, like you might expect
from The Legendary Pink Dots or Ultra Vivid Scene. The song drops into a
creepy interlude that does in fact recall LPD--low ambience, far-off
trumpet. When the song reemerges, the chords have changed, now dark and
god awful beautiful, unpredictable. She is full of love, here, and there
is the sweetest guitar picking in the background. Heavy chords and voices
sweep through, straight out of Medusa, and we do in fact end on an
uncertain note in the way that much of that album does.
The second song is based, I'm almost certain, on an And Also the Trees
sample. I could be wrong, but if I am, it might as well have been. More
very nice singing from AW, more lengthy melodies, and a powerful chorus.
Later, the percussion from The Optimist (see Locust review) comes in,
slow and accenting the low, funky bassline. The song makes its mark and
does not overstay its welcome. This ep is wonderful.
Jukebox Heart is very slow, starting with just some sad, end-of-the
-world vibraphone and AW. A light beat fades in and the vocals and vibra
fill up the song. A trumpet makes occasional announcements. The song
seems somehow to speed up as the instrumental melodies increase in
complexity and a windy melody is added, perfect to make the mood even
worse--then we fall off into an ending straight out of a Stina Nordenstam
album, brief chords and lovely guitar picking bringing the song to an
apparent close. But it is not over. We embark on a long epilogue, a
remembrance, slow and empty until finally the whole song has dwindled
away. It is a perfect close to a perfectly constructed little ep I have
grown to cherish over a very short amount of time. There are few records
that offer such an intense and satisfying atmosphere of this variety;
like the recent Modula Green album Shellground and the best Seefeel and
FSOL, it is a world all its own, full of alien emotions, unfamiliar
settings. I give this my highest recommendation for the year after
Pygmalion and Shellground.
I guess I'm going and spoiling my obligatory end-of-the-year best-of
list, but I never end up posting that stuff anyhow...
Merry Christmas!
einexile