Plaid - Not For Threes CD (Warp)
Duchamp once said: "I wanted to put painting once again at the service of
the mind."
A lazy person desires to purchase their dinner already made for them.
Similarly, many desire an art in which all creative activity has already
taken place and the profitable conclusions or "answers" of some
"investigation" are offered up for the taking without requiring any
investment on the part of the viewer.
Pretentious head on today, so ill start with a quote from an essay about
Marcel Duchamp, i think it more or less sums up which part of the creative
process i think is lacking severely from this album.
A lot of black plastic has flowed under techno bridge since Ed & Andy last
graced us with a vinyl platter of their own, & for a while they were
looking like becoming the Johnny Marrs of electronic music, back up
musicians par excellence per opportunistic lesser talents.
Now they are back and the question is can they cut it & who really cares?,
like Richard James, Plaid are in the unfortunate position of having to
juggle the hot potatoes of creative freedom and fiscal restraint, how to
keep making the music you want whilst placating those who's only concern is
if you are shifting enough units.
It's a tricky one.
As a whole 'Not For Threes' is a well constructed and intelligently
produced piece of work, we all know they are no dummies and can still can
pull off those heart stopping moments of sublimity , but now misses are
much more prevalent than hits, a lot of the cuts still remind me of an old
Black Dog outtakes tape i've got, and all of the tracks on that are 3-4
years old! i just wish they would push the boat out a bit more, you know
take some risks, get their hands dirty, that's not to say ideas don't
abound in the tracks, but most of the time never develop and settle into
pleasant but meandering sub-electrik grooves, too many times settling for
the obvious instead of coming up with surprises, exceptions are 'Kortison'
with it's lilting oriental keys, soothing spanish guitar riff, croaking
frogs [nod to Mr Mcartney], & stop start rhythm that threatens to keel over
at the slightest nudge, 'Abla Eedio', as previewed
on blech, now the original mix in it's full length glory, 'Rakimou' with
glorious weeping violins, soaring strings and muted guitar riff, slightly
soiled by a stiff sub drum n bass backing, 'Milh's eastern classicalisms &
the collaboration with Nicolette 'Extork', with dramatic watery strings and
almost gescom-esqe morphing dirty rhythms.
From *any one else* this would be a *fantastic* album, for them it's a case
of treading water, sure buy it, but the rest of the field is streaking
ahead
Various Artists - 0161 CD (Skam/VVM/Public)
Factory's Tony Wilson once remarked that because of it's size Manchester
akin very much to Glasgow seems to be enveloped in an enviroment of
creative intensity that could never be matched in the media-focal point of
London, and this album, a 3-way effort combining the talents of
Manchesters Skam/VVM & Public crews, [compiled by Skam's Andy Maddocks]
presents a cross section of inspirational and imaginative artists who are
operating within a small tight underground scene revered worldwide but
ironically ignored by the fickle free lunch music press in the uk who can't
see past the pile of promo's they get sent in the mail every week.
The stark monochrome artwork reminds everyone of the [real] purpose this
compilation serves, [a benefit for the victims of Manchester's IRA bomb
blast last year] it also helps sets the aesthetic tone as well.
Opens with a pre-curser of industrial ambience, car door slamming, the
rumble of traffic, a record skating across a turntable, then quick edit!,
into brutally distorted disorientation. Produced by VVM 'Town Owt', makes
their intentions clear, with this track and their further 2 contributions
Asymetric [intense noise abstraction] & Great Slab[musique concrete
sound construction] they display their willingness to step away from the
perceived electronic signature of Manchester that Skam and Autechre have
carved over the last 3 years,[more perceived solely by the record buyers
than the artists themselves]
Other highlights include, Jackfear's Grated Chicken , filtered granite -
like electro, complete with backspins and ominous tonal pulses, like
Drexciya fed through a dirt cheap mixer, juxtaposed with a 1920s trad jazz
pastiche complete with swirling wurlitzer riffs , Gescom's 'Two Of Us', is
the blueprint of Detroit techno violently turned on it's head with the
change shaken out of its pockets, soothing organs intone as the rhythmic
mechanics cough and splutter like a heavy smoker getting out of bed in the
morning, this leads neatly into the Fall's 'Powderkex', a friend who has
seen them recently remarked Mark E. Smith now looks around 65, physically
ageing, tho mentally sharp as ever, 'Powederkex' is powered by a tinny lo
fi drum machine, the sound is almost a return to Dragnets stark
dramatics with M.E.S.'s scrambled rasp jumping out from the shadows,
apparently Mark dig's the Autechre / Skam thang in a big way and can be
found at any Manchester event they put on.
Bola's '01706' is driven by heavily delayed hip hop breaks that ricochet
off each other like kids knocking a football about in an alley way, a
swirling dark mantra with jazzy chord syncopations and arcane soundbites.
Martian Tin Can invoke the loose limbed spirit of Tony Williams to
underscore a laconic old skool blue note break, sparse horns,and a twisted
guitar sample add further to the air of suspense, DJ Vadim on prozac,
perhaps.
On Jegas Whore Dylan takes us deeper into his drum n bass space, with
raw filtered tanganital breaks, bubbling 303 & mournful kaleidoscope string
section.
And that's only half the album!, Datathief, Freerange's' Audiomontage,
O'Natural, Yunx, and a hidden track by Autechre round off a compelling 68
minutes, as the cliche goes "if you only buy one compilation album this
year, make it this"
i've put some sound samples [wav only i'm afraid, r.a. dosent work on my
server]
from '0161' at
http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/mfr/0161.htm
To Rococo Rot- Paris 25 12" (City Slang)
Along with Kreidler, Mouse on Mars and to an extant the Chain Reaction
axis,[particularly Melwig & Koner], To Rococo Rot inhabit the regions where
electric and acoustic sound treatments overlap and flow fluidy and without
inhibition, 3 tracks on side a are scratchy / lo-fi musique concrete
testemants, like label mates Tortoise they invert tradional instrumentation
using delay
saturated guitars for pure textural overlay underpinned by distant washed
up bass pulses and subliminally imprinted grooves, the b side allows Move D
and Sehr to reconstruct 'Lift' and 'Mit Dir In Der Gegand' into deeply
hypnotic and pendoulusly reflective remixes respectivly, smarter than the
average bear.
sm@mfr
http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/mfr/
cutting edge mail order..elecktronic label
[esoteric, non-generic material wanted]