Gosh. I've only been gone for a few days and so much has happened!
Anyone in the Bay Area go to Planet New Year at the Cow Palace? I spent my
evening in the ambient arena with ATOI Mystery School and the Freezer/BPM0
boys, and an intense ritual from IAO Core. Pretty out-there!
Finally got a chance to listen to my copy of ISDN. Man, is it cool.
Definitely lacks the self-indulgence of Lifeforms, though I do keep coming
back to "Vertical Pig". I keep thinking back to a year or two ago when I
read interviews with FSOL saying "Gosh, Papua New Guinea sure is cool. What
are you guys doing next?" and they went on about video stuff and radio
uplinks and I laughed at their pretention. Who's laughing now? They are on
the ball.
Just to echo the reviews of Silent stuff:
23 Degrees is terrific. I've heard nothing but rave reviews. Light ambient
dub, tastefully sample-laden, not too dancey. Look for a 12" soon, too.
The new HMC is rather IDM influenced, while the first album is more
straight-up ambient, all very clean and nicely done. I would recommend the
first, and mention that the upcoming _Lunar_Phase_ is a return to the
ambient of _Eden_.
The ATOI Mystery School is denser and heavier than much recent Silent
stuff, with some cool psychedelic guitar, educational spoken-word snippets,
rich synths with heavy processing. Interesting stuff.
And I'd recommend the new Closedown album to anyone who likes Slowdive or
any of that swoony guitar stuff.
And with all the talk about Robert Rich and Steve Roach, if any Roach fans
don't have _Solitaire_ they should run-don't-walk. Great
dark-ambient-tribal....
And...Autechre. I still have yet to like Autechre, as much as I'd like to
like them. "Bike" is fun, "444" is terrific, but _Incunabula_ just didn't
grab me. So would anyone care to advise me on _Amber_?
OnNow: Alcove _Universal_Implication_ (new one on Barramundi...very
Biosphere-ish)
--Jeff Kihn
Visible Records
LastRelease: >>Aonox<< by Joey Beltram
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Odyssey Nine "Forklift/Drama 20" (ltd 10" pic disc)