Sarin Snow - Deus Vult (2019):
Ugh. I admit nowadays that I generally find power electronics to be boring or cringe-worthy, but if I could walk a mile in the shoes of someone who’s really into the genre, I still couldn’t imagine placing this album in my top 100, let alone top 10. This is quite possibly the most generic, shallow PE album I’ve ever heard. The style is fairly derivative of mid-tier Prurient tapes, with spoken vocals buried under (I guess) synth rhythms (and pretty basic ones at that). The thing that really puts me off, though, is just how arbitrary and soulless the use of scrap metal was. At no point do any of the included metallic textures sync with or complement the overall sound in any meaningful or interesting way: they instead come off as distracting, as if the artist is going through the motions of filling out some printed checklist of PE tropes (“gotta have some chains in there if I wanna be legit!”). I suppose tracks like “Nicene Creed” and “Saint Longinus” get slightly closer than others to being memorable in this respect, but frankly it was too much of a chore to get though this album for me to recommend it solely on the strength of those two tracks alone. It’s amusing to me how this album somehow got a vinyl reissue; I guess I’m not the target audience for this kind of stuff.
Henry Wolff / Nancy Hennings - Tibetan Bells II (1979) [Celestial Harmonies - 13005-2]:
Honestly… I kind of like this one. And I sort of hate myself for liking it. On one hand this album is literally just simple resonant bell textures, and reading the names of some of these track titles (see below) and just the overall impression I get from this album, I can imagine these people thought they were being oh-so original and so spiritually deep with this album. However, there’s a certain appeal to this album’s atonality: you have to turn up the volume a lot, but the drones these bells make get surprisingly abrasive. They’re nearly comparable to some Onkyokei-style noise music, albeit less intense in the hi-range and more intense in the mid-range. And to be fair, the compositions do get more complex and interesting later on in the album, especially with the track “Through The Void,” which takes up roughly the last quarter or so of the album. Aside from that, I can’t point to any one track as sounding intrinsically ‘better’ than the rest, though I am amused by the pretentiousness of such titles as “Leaving The Body,” “Astral Plane” and “The Seven Sounds Of Dissolution.” Overall, though, I ultimately can’t hate on it because I didn’t leave the experience any worse for wear. I’d say give it a shot. Hell, I think now I’ll be on the lookout for the original Tibetan Bells for comparison’s sake. Note: there's a pretty abrupt transition from the first track to the second that really put me off guard, so if you plan on listening to it on high volume (which I honestly recommend since this album is mixed fairly quiet) just keep that in mind. There’s also some awkward fade-outs here and there that hinder the album’s immersion.
Ugh. I’m not the target audience for this kind of stuff.
Ahaha great harsh reveiw!
I call things like this Pop Electronics
Not to be confused with noise mocking or using pop music...like plunderphonics or stuff I (80s pop) or BRR would do (early 2000 era pop).
FAP wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 pm
Henry Wolff / Nancy Hennings - Tibetan Bells II (1979) [Celestial Harmonies - 13005-2]:
Hell, I think now I’ll be on the lookout for the original Tibetan Bells for comparison’s sake.
Yes do look for some authentic Tibetan music!
It's much better than this.
For the time period this is good if it were made recently I would be way way less appreciative and would probably extremely dislike it.
The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time (COMPLETE, 2019):
So I finally decided to jump right in to this massive internet meme of a project and… it’s not entirely pretentious…It has its moments.
To give some brief context (in part borrowed from wikipedia): this is a series of six albums depicting “the progression of dementia through degrading loops of ballroom recordings.” Each part or ‘stage’ is made to sound more incoherent and disjointed than the previous one, a reflection of the gradual decline in memory and mental health experienced by people suffering from the disease.
Although The Caretaker (real name Leyland Kirby) has been active since at least 1999, I can’t help but draw comparisons to any number of artists who heavily utilized tape loops before or since and feel a tinge of vicarious jealousy. With so many others making arguably more captivating music with tape loops, why did this guy in particular become so popular? All his music amounts to, in essence, are loops of beat-up old 78rpm records with some reverb thrown on: in practice, they don’t sound too different from, say, a Crown of Cerberus tape. I guess he just struck at the right time, because EATEOT has since become something of a cultural phenomenon, being parodied and referenced even outside of music circles.
Here’s the main issue I take with EATEOT in particular: the subtle descent into disjointedness is so well executed in the first three stages, only for that atmosphere to be shattered by the start of the forth stage.
To elaborate: stages 1-3 are made up of anywhere from 10-16 tracks and are each under 46 minutes long. As mentioned earlier, the gradual muddling of these tracks is done phenomenally well; recurring motifs established in the first stage become confused or mis-remembered in later stages, a clever artistic analogy to the main subject matter. Each stage is a contained piece in itself: you can listen to each individually and enjoy the experience, but you gain an even more enriching, nuanced experience by listening to them in the order they were meant to be played.
In contrast, stages 4-6 are nearly twice the length of the first three combined, with each stage consisting of four 20+ minute ambient/“””noise””” tracks. I would’ve preferred to hear the more gradual degradation established by stages 1-3 continue on through these later stages. I get Kirby is trying to represent a disconnection from reality here, but it’s just so abrupt: why bother trying to capture the slowly progressing nature of the disease when you’re just going to flip the switch—from mildly forgetful to full-blown Alzheimers—halfway through your project anyways? And actually, to make things worse, It’s only nominally halfway through the project: parts 1-3 only make up the first two or so hours of this 6.5+ hour-long series.
Furthermore, the content of the stage 4-6 tracks are, I think, far less interesting. Again, I get that Kirby is trying to represent the repetitive, forgetful nature of dementia here (especially with stage 4), but in practice this just means a lot of these tracks sound the same. Look, I’ve heard plenty of ludicrously long noise/ambient/whatever tracks over the years, even made a few myself: 9 out of 10 times, you really need to bring something new or intriguing to the table to justify the length, and frankly, stages 4-6 simply don’t. The fact that each track is roughly the exact length of what can fit on one side of a vinyl record is particularly telling: it makes me think Kirby first and foremost wanted to sell records, so instead of making engaging content for those records, all he did was attempt to fill empty space with something.
Despite what I’ve said of stages 4-6, I’ll give credit where credit is due: the final track legitimately conjured uncomfortable emotions in me. While the symbolic use of choir music in this part is a bit on the nose, it was nevertheless effective in forcing me to reflect on my own mortality, and what might happen after I die. I also think the abrupt “end” near the 15-minute mark actually worked really well in trying to convey the figurative “end” of this person’s life, and the final minute or so of silence was totally warranted.
Overall, it’s an ambitious piece of art that falls short of being a masterpiece in my eyes. I’d say at least try the first three stages (or if you’re really strapped for time, just stage 3).
hey fap, thanks for the review/s. would've liked you to have delved more explicitly into the 'concept album', ask how and why this record is or could stand on its own as a document of dementia.
I'm listening now, just starting, and it makes me oddly happy, the record [and PERHAPS not because the recording is clearly an idiosyncratic approach which is suggestive of, in effect, old age]
I am amused by the pretentiousness of such titles as “Leaving The Body,”
you have a point, but making Tibetan bell music and not at least thinking about "leaving the body" would be even more absurd. maybe they should've titled it "the lama looks cute"?
FAP wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:13 pm
Although The Caretaker (real name Leyland Kirby) has been active since at least 1999, I can’t help but draw comparisons to any number of artists who heavily utilized tape loops before or since and feel a tinge of vicarious jealousy. With so many others making arguably more captivating music with tape loops, why did this guy in particular become so popular? All his music amounts to, in essence, are loops of beat-up old 78rpm records with some reverb thrown on: in practice, they don’t sound too different from, say, a Crown of Cerberus tape. I guess he just struck at the right time, because EATEOT has since become something of a cultural phenomenon, being parodied and referenced even outside of music circles.
As someone who listened to and enjoyed An Empty Bliss Beyond This World but hasn't heard much else of The Caretaker, I think Kirby hit it big because he hits those emotional beats record critics go gaga for. When you look at all the "best albums of all time" that (especially newer and indie-focused) music nerds love, a lot of them have this melancholy edge while still being pretty melodic and understated. Radiohead, Nick Drake, Neutral Milk Hotel, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division and basically every other Gothy Post-Punk band to walk the Earth since - it's all about the stuff lonely teenagers in their bedroom can cry to while still feeling sophisticated. Kirby just took that melancholy mood and avant-enough-to-be-cool-but-not-avant-enough-to-be-off-putting approach (that was probably too many hyphens but fuck it, why not) and grafted it onto Plunderphonics. All those Jazz samples gave his tracks melodic hooks that Ambient records typically lack and his work has memorable themes beyond "these are some cool sounds I made." I won't say "it's all marketing" because I do like his work and I think crafting an aesthetic is a skill in itself, but I don't think Kirby succeeded by being the best tape loop manipulation artist - he succeeded by making tape loop manipulation albums that people who weren't into tape looping could immediately grasp. I went and threw on a Crown of Cerberus record to see how comparable it was ("Her Strength" was the first result I saw on YouTube) and immediately thought "yep, that's another pile of synth drones, hushed vocal loops, and shimmer reverb" - it's the kind of lo-fi tape Ambient that only appeals to fans of lo-fi tape Ambient. The fact that Kirby's tracks are so minimally treated (just reverb and speed adjustments on the loop) are part of what makes them stand out from the ambient crowd - and it helps that it's basically Vaporwave, which has a fairly dedicated internet following already. The Caretaker is what I would call a "Victor of Circumstance."
Then my theories start to fall apart when you get to EATEOT being popular on TikTok, but I'd say the similar revival of "Possibly in Michigan" on the platform is just proof that people trying to be "quirky" on social media are shockingly effective at slipping the public avant-garde weirdness.
Even if you took a few years and learned all the chords you'd still have a limited number of options. If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day. - David Fair
Now this is something special; an early contender for my AOTY. The Oubliette, a concept album from prog. metal virtuoso Chris Hathcock, tells the story of Henry, a man suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the horrors he suffers on his long and ultimately fatal decline.
The opening track “His Name Is Henry” sets the stage perfectly: it is at times heavy, technical, melodic, fast, slow, angry and above all else fresh, a trend the rest of the album delivers on… for the most part. More on that later.
Hathcock’s balance of death growls and clean vocals is simply perfect, a rare feat for other bands who try to do the same. Some of the choices of instrumentation here are as bold as they are inspired: the drumline-like percussion at the start of “The Captive” works surprisingly well, as does the tenor sax used later in the same track.
But what most impressed me about the album simply comes down to this: The Oubliette accomplished, in a little over an hour, what The Caretaker’s Everywhere at the End of Time failed to do in six hours. Hell, the opening track alone accomplished more than EATEOT’s entire runtime.
Hathcock's lyrics and musicianship unambiguously paint a clear and terrifying picture of the realities of dementia, something a few loops of scratched-up old 78rpm records could never do. I realize I’m comparing apples to oranges here, but if either one of these fruits happened to be rotten, guess which one I’d eat?
Furthermore, the composition of The Oubliette is simply far more compelling than anything on EATEOT and, again, it says so much more about its chosen subject matter in a far more succinct way.
Now if I’m going to be critical here (I certainly try), there are a few minor things that bother me.
Firstly, the more exotic instrumentation I mentioned earlier unfortunately fades away [for the most part] after the second track: this leaves the rest of the album a little same-y sounding from track to track.
Secondly, the album does lack a certain level of subtlety which it could’ve otherwise taken advantage of; the use of spoken word samples—where from, who knows—at the beginning of nearly every track comes off as a bit too obvious.
Finally, I feel like the theme of the album gets somewhat confused before the end. By no means am I an expert on the subject, but last I checked, dementia isn’t a disease that robs a person of their hands, legs, lungs and eyes as the lyrics of “The Nightmare” might otherwise suggest. Maybe I’m taking the lyrics too literally but my point is this isn’t Johnny Got His Gun.
Despite my misgivings, I nevertheless maintain The Oubliette delivers its message in one of the most effective pieces of music I’ve heard to date. I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a sleeper hit and got several vinyl reissues within a year or two: in a fair world, it would sure as hell get more rotation than any $50+ Caretaker LP ever would.
