Absence...

I apologize for the lack of posts lately.
I promise to get something up real soon...

The Orb - Metallic Spheres

I Say: I am both a long-time Orb fan and Pink Floyd fan, so this is like a dream come true; except I never would have dreamed that The Orb and David Gilmour would collaborate together! Both artists are known for their spacey, tripped-out music; one featuring echoing, reverbed beats, the other echoing, reverbed riffs. It's like that old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial: You got peanut butter on my chocolate! No, you got chocolate in my peanut butter! Two great tastes that go great together!

Here's what pitchfork says:

Mostly wordless, full of spaced-out sound effects, and making no concessions to good ol' verse-chorus-verse structures, Spheres is a trip, to use a term once unabashedly uttered by Floyd devotees and revived by Orb aficionados with more of a knowing wink. A headphones record, in other words. Light show and chemical refreshment totally optional. Over two long tracks subdivided into shorter movements, Paterson and fellow Orb-er Youth thread together a post-rave library's worth of slow-rolli ng chillout-room rhythms, referencing everything from dub to krautrock along the way, as Gilmour sweeps in and out on guitar, dropping little shiver-inducing melodic runs like it's no big deal. Though his playing here meanders by design, Gilmour sounds neither lazy nor indulgent, more like a virtuoso who doesn't want to actually seem like he's sleepwalking through his performance. The Orb, on the other hand, are showing off in the best way possible, again crafting the lush, cosmic rhythms they were once so good at, hoping to impress a long-time hero. In the process, they also manage to impress listeners who've stuck with the band through some pretty ropey recent material.

Records like Spheres usually get filed as "ambient" these days, but that's not quite right here. Sure, it's gorgeous and hypnotic and more about beats than songs and all the things you'd probably expect from this pairing. It's also immersive in an old-school way, a long-player of a very pre-digital vintage, a record for people with enough free time (or a long enough commute) to lose themselves in a 50ish-minute composition. With its dramatically orchestrated peaks and valleys, it's an album designed to be listened to, to Take You Somewhere as you lay on your bedroom floor, to conjure futuristic images in the mind's eye of folks who were once teenage fans. In that sense, it's still not quite as successful as the Orb's classic material, and a little too subdued, lacking both the goofy sampleadelic grandeur and the ear-grabbing pop pulse of the Ultraworld era. But it's still the most focused and listenable Orb album in years. And hey, if you want to treat it as background music, that'll work just fine, too.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?5th67ab06k4a43h

Lustmørd - Heresy

Review:
If there is one thing which is conveyed through Brian Williams’ sonic landscapes, if there is one word to describe what it is like to listen to, it would be 'terror'. Williams’ project Lustmørd is often cited as creating the dark ambient genre, and is still one of the finer examples of minimalistic noise which submerges the listener in droning, almost suffocating bass reverb and eerily unnatural noises. Lustmørd’s 1990 album Heresy is widely renowned as a masterpiece of the dark ambient genre; fusing together instruments and sound to create uncomfortable human emotions. There are places where the music is seemingly the background noise one would hear in a horror film; however, the difference between the laughable horror flick soundtrack and the unsettling ambience of Lustmord is the fact that it really and truly makes you feel uneasy by virtue of sound alone.

Ambient music is quite often difficult to describe, much less critique, because it can be interpreted in any number of ways. Take, for example, the second piece on Heresy, a ten minute saunter through a simple piece of soundscapes which comes across with much the same feeling I would imagine as sleeping alone for a night in a subterranean catacomb. Indeed, Williams has gone to great lengths to illustrate the seriousness and atmospheric qualities of his music. Through such methods as sampling recordings in catacombs, abattoirs, mines, crypts, and places where many people were killed, the music transcends the line between reality and nightmare. The only prominent instrument on the album is a Tibetan horn, awash in a thick cloud of rumbling bass. There is something unnatural and paranormal about Heresy which I simply have not seen replicated.

The album is a compilation of actual recordings from 1985-1989 carried out on site, and then fed through a computer to have sound levels manipulated and recordings mastered to the fullest effect, making the listener feel as if they are sitting next to Williams in whatever desolate and morbid place he chooses as inspiration for his music. The incessant droning of sounds whose origin remain a mystery, plays mind games with the listener, and to spin this album before falling asleep is surely asking to do exactly the opposite, because without a doubt you will be left wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling as this one hour trek through the darkness plays out before your mind’s eye.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dopjujd2paaxd3i

The Upsetters - 14 Blackboard Jungle

This is it: one of the earliest and best Dub albums ever recorded!

Originally released in 1973 with only 300 copies pressed; this album went on to become the Dub album by which all others are measured against.

The musicians featured on this recording are a litany of some of the best reggae musicians at the time... Augustus Pablo on his Melodica, Bobby Ellis on trumpet, Glen Adams on the organ, Aston "Family Man" Barret on bass and his brother Carlton "Carly" Barret on drums (both of whom would become members of the Wailers), Tommy McCook (founder of the Skatalites) on the piano, Valentine "Tony" Chin guitar, the list goes on; all great muscicians who came together under the divine sympatico of Lee "SCRATCH" Perry's inspired production and Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock's masterful engineering.

Highly Recommended!

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yztywm2qr0u

Sleepwalk - A Selection By Optimo (Espacio)

Sorry for my lazy reviews lately but I am doing this from work and besides, sometimes I really don't know what to say; especially in this case!

So yeah, drink a bottle Robetussin and enjoy this one...

Pitchfork says:

Until now, Optimo's mixes have retained at least tenuous footing on the dance floor over which the two DJs have presided, every Sunday night, since 1997, Sleepwalk-- the followup to 2007's Walkabout-- is a fever dream of ambient muckracking and fucked-up balladeering. "Beats," in the debased vernacular of dance music, are few and far between; that the most uptempo cut here comes courtesy Mulatu Astatke, best known from the Ethiopiques series (and prime placement in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers) should say something about the mix's profoundly narcotic vibe. This is head music, "listening" music, something like an alternate history of easy listening played out in uneasy selections from the likes of Nurse With Wound, Cluster, Coil, and, of course, those avant-garde stalwarts, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. There are moments that sound like background oceanscapes for run-down spas (SPOILER ALERT: they're Chris Watson, the Touch/BBC field recording artist, and former member of Cabaret Voltaire) and there are moments that sound like Rod McKuen over Wendy Carlos. Throughout, across tempos that range from the soporific to an easygoing Codeine andante, the melodic line sticks to a wormy sort of furrow, with dated synthesizers morphing into flutes, into voice, into trombones, into guitars flying 80s telltale delay, into fiddle, into still more dated synthesizers. In love with the midrange, the mix follows a line as unstably sure as the median strip on a particularly lysergic midnight drive. And having said all this, I'm actually loathe to explain any more about Sleepwalk. In fact, I'd like to propose an experiment. Buy the CD, if possible, and do what you can to avert your gaze from the tracklisting. If your habit is to immediately rip CDs into your computer, don't copy the artists or track titles. And then just live with the thing for a while. I had the good fortune to receive my review copy as a single, 73-minute MP3 with no identifying information attached, and the sheer experience of the thing, as hypnagogic as its title promised, was visceral and overwhelming, even in partial doses. Later come the reflective, intellectual surprises: this 80s throwback revealing themselves as secretive experimentalists, that Krautrock staple surely referencing magic mushrooms in their track title, and a particular (there could only be one) avant-disco figurehead dropping down in a shining beam of cello and trombone (ok, so I've given that one away-- it's Arthur Russell) at his most otherworldly and eternal and perfect. There will be plenty of time to go back and pore over the tracklisting, Google the things you don't know, find connections cleverer than any I've made here. But all of that pales in comparison with listening to the thing and losing yourself in its invented universe. This is the Make Believe Ballroom at its most credible and all-encompassing. It's an illusion you don't ever want to end.
— Philip Sherburne, January 29, 2009

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ymqtmzz2dr4

How To Destroy Angels - How To Destroy Angels EP

New Trent Reznor band named after a Coil song. You know its got to be good!

Pitchfork says:

When Trent Reznor made the decision last year to put Nine Inch Nails on hold indefinitely in order to pursue new projects, the assumption was that whatever he had planned next would be a significant departure from the music he had been making under the NIN name. Reznor had already shown signs of restlessness and an eagerness to move beyond his band's core aesthetic, most obviously on the all-instrumental Ghosts I-IV box set. It stood to reason that he was about to reinvent himself, and given his good taste and formidable talent as a musician, the prospect was very exciting.
As it turns out, he wasn't too interested in a full creative transformation. How to Destroy Angels, the self-titled debut of his new trio featuring his wife and ex-West Indian Girl singer Mariqueen Maandig and his regular collaborator Atticus Ross, essentially sounds just like a Nine Inch Nails record, with the only major difference being that Reznor has turned over lead vocal duty to Maandig. Even that is a relatively superficial change. Somewhat disappointingly, Reznor's first major project with an outside vocalist-- aside from his gigs as a producer for Marilyn Manson and Saul Williams-- doesn't involve him exploring new approaches to integrating vocals into his music or working with a singer capable of performances far beyond his own range, but instead has him writing parts for Maandig that stick to his usual melodic style and phrasing. Reznor had integrated a female voice into his music once before, on "La Mer" from 1999's The Fragile, and the result wasn't entirely different from what we have here: a softer, more feminine gloss on Reznor's established style.
This isn't a bad thing. Over the course of two decades, Reznor has expanded his repertoire to the point that his music is instantly recognizable even if he avoids the sort of all-caps declarative screaming that characterized Nine Inch Nails' biggest hits. How to Destroy Angels skips over that aspect of Reznor's work entirely, instead placing its emphasis on plaintive downtempo ballads and tracks dense with rhythm and harsh electronic noise. The songs in the latter category take sounds explored on more recent NIN records to interesting extremes-- "Fur Lined" is like a dizzier version of "Only" from With Teeth; "The Believers" further explores the glitchy, discordant textures of Year Zero; "Parasite" includes some of the filthiest guitar noise in Reznor's discography.
When the songs move further away from rhythm and atmosphere, Maandig's flaws as a vocalist become more apparent. Her voice is pleasant and well suited to the material, but she is somewhat lacking in character. When she sings the opening track "The Space in Between", her cadence is similar enough to that of Reznor that it's easy to just imagine his more distinct voice singing it instead. In some ways, the EP is like an inadvertent argument in favor of Reznor as a vocalist, proving its value to his music by omitting it almost entirely. When his voice turns up, as when he shadows Maandig's parts with a faint whisper on "BBB", it adds a weight and sexual tension to the music that is preferable to her all on her own.
Reznor is his comfort zone here, but that could be part of the point of the project in the first place. Without having to promote this as a Nine Inch Nails record, he's allowed to make greater risks, but he can also enjoy lower stakes. Future How to Destroy Angels releases may find him and his collaborators going further out into unfamiliar territory, but the contents of this EP mostly sound like Reznor working through musical ideas in the studio with his wife and his right-hand man-- being himself and doing his thing with some people he trusts. The changes that are apparent are subtle and incremental, and have more to do with feeling out the mechanics of collaboration and shaking off unnecessary outside pressures than aiming for something fresh and radical. It's not Reznor's best or boldest work, but it's a promising first step down a new path.
— Matthew Perpetua, June 14, 2010

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?lwydyvyzijt

Trentemøller - Into The Great Wide Yonder

More oragnic than his previous releases, yet still maintains the sparse, electronic minimalism...

Pitchfork says:
Whether you like your beats to purr or roar, chances are there's something for you in Dane Anders Trentemøller's debut album The Last Resort in 2006. Trentemøller's always possessed the wide-ranging vision to balance minimal and maximal tech-house, as first evinced by his singles and hired-gun remix work with regional peers the Knife and Röyksopp. Now on Resort, his compositional range and palette of wintry textures are on full display. It's becoming increasingly obvious that Trentemøller accomplishes this by infinitely re-inventing combinations of a relatively scaled-down toolkit: The frequent intermingling of shadows of minimal techno beats, the cutting austerity of surf rock whammy dives, 8-bit orchestras swelling into static. It's maybe most charming that Resort throws everything but the kitchen sink at you, but "everything" could pass muster at your local supermarket's express aisle.
Such moody, humanistic motifs dominate Into the Great Wide Yonder. Surf-inspired reverb guitar dots the record's highlight tracks, especially on "Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!!", on which cymbals and synthetic handclaps ride a wave of guitar fuzz and synths into surprisingly psychedelic territory. Unfortunately, Yonder's further analog forays are met with sometimes mixed results. Featuring the vocal talents (!) of fellow Dane Marie Fisker, Yonder's first single "Sycamore Feeling" opens with sleigh bells and the strums of an acoustic guitar: not exactly your everyday Nordic producer-type cut. The happy accidents only occasionally hit paydirt, however, as Fisker's smoky vocals somehow manage to vamp awkwardly over the chorus. There's almost too much to process considering Trentemøller's studiously prepared low-key arrangement.
Throughout, Yonder's melo
dic sensibility is only occasionally led by vocalists, featuring the guest talents of Solveig Sandnes and Josephine Philip (also Danish) and Guillemots vocalist Fyfe Dangerfield, but at all points the collaborations want for Trentemøller's melodic instrumental sensibilities. Take "Neverglade", which under-utilizes Dangerfield's suitably dangerous yowl. The head Guillemot recalls echoes of Elliott Smith and incessantly repeats Pavement homages to the "weatherman's sign of crooked rain, crooked rain." His contribution's confused homage seems counterintuitive considering the co-collaborators' varied talents.
However, not all the tracks lack the verve of Trentemøller's best instrumental work. The closing "Tide"'s lilt, its piano, live percussion, and church-bell effects soar. Some of the record's instrumental tracks, conversely, distort Trentemøller's agnostic stance towards dancefloor beats and electronic textures. You certainly don't blame him for seeking his own analog path, but some of Yonder's instrumentals lean on variety at the expense of a compositional base. Take The Last Resort, released in October 2006: That singles comp was an autumn record that nevertheless pounded down (in its special-edition, two-disc glory) like a premature hundred and 50-minute winter. By comparison, Into the Great Wide Yonder toes the line: Either it's a cold and intricate mélange of kaleidoscopic, cybernetic styles, or it's a simple hot mess.
— Mike Orme, June 8, 2010

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?eiyzwdiy2do