The Chemical Brothers exploded with Star Guitar in 2002, resulting in one of my favorite music videos of all time. Ever. Of all time. It’s easily one of the most hypnotic, addictive, and straight up cool videos anyone will ever see.
And it’s got a delicious aura of “how the fuck did they do that?” – since the clip’s nearly a decade old. The simplest explanation is to note the genius who conceived it: Michel Gondry.
I know the clip isn’t viewable here, but that’s a good thing. Click, go to the youtube page, and watch it in HQ to get the full experience. You’ll emerge a changed person. Or at least smiling.
[this song is available on the album Come With Us, as well as the excellent 2cd Brotherhood compilation]
White Rainbow (née Adam Forkner) recently tore through the autumn skies to drop this bomb, blowing away expectations, surpassing anything I could have anticipated after the already-excellent 2007 LP Prism of Eternal Now. Expanding on the warm, nebulous nature of his live jam constructions, New Clouds is an impossibly appropriate title for one of this year’s best records.
Transcendent, overwhelming, hypnotic bliss. Building layer upon layer of drones, stretched and echoed vocals, muted tribal percussion, and gorgeous synth swells, each track is a towering confection allowed room to naturally develop and breathe. The four tracks comprise an hourlong running time, every moment feeling palpably open and inviting. This album inspires and propels further listening, rather than demanding it. Songs begin focused on a singular element, be it delayed acoustic guitar strums or rubbery hand drumming, and evolve with such grace and intuitive logic that final assembly is nearly imperceptible. This music simply happens, while the conscious mind is busy absorbing the amorphous beauty like a pillow swallowing a blissful dreamer. Informed by a wide range of greats, from Terry Riley to Can at their most euphoric, Forkner has finally broken through to a plane where his art exists on its own terms, immaterial of time or place. This album raises hypnagogic exploration to new heights.
[pick this brand new album up at boomkat or amazon, or directly from kranky, a label fully deserving of your support]
Transcendence is my favorite Alice Coltrane album. In my humble opinion, it’s one of the greatest jazz albums of all time, by anyone. I’ll try to concisely extol the many virtues of this wonderfully titular-promise-fulfilling album.
“Transcendence is the key that unlocks the indelible mystery of Alice Coltrane’s music. It is the unerring creative mission statement, the irresistible driving force that pushes her soul towards your own.
Reaching the listener emotionally, psychologically and spiritually is an essential part of the endeavor but the act of going beyond conventional forms of communication, of acceding to a higher state of consciousness, is the ultimate raison d’être.”
Since the liner notes in my handy CD reissue lay it out so succinctly, I feel the need only to briefly describe the music itself. Divided into two distinct phases, the album starts off with meandering cloud shimmers of Alice’s effortlessly magical harp. At first nearly traditional sounding, emulating the first rumblings of a symphony, the amorphous harp-centric sound winds through the second, more abstract tune, before gathering into a purposeful rhythm by the ending of the third track. The final echoes softly give way to the low end hum of Coltrane’s sublime organ workout, which drives the rest of the album along a hand-clapping gospel singalong evocation of the various names of the gods.
This western gospel/eastern philosophy mashup feels so comfortably entwined that it comes across like the most natural progression of this idea possible. The sharp tonal divide would stand out more if it weren’t the perfect combination of contrast and duration: the buildup feels like meditation, being lost in thought and nothingness, before a moment of clarity snaps the world into focus. The local cohabitants emerge and reach towards the outer edges of the world as the gods’ names are chanted in the communal practice of Sankirtan, Alice’s favorite sacrifice. It’s an elated ride from introspection to vocal providence; such an enjoyable trip that we’re nigh unaware of the spirituality fueling the journey. Turn this on and let it get you high – or get high before turning it on. Transcendence is all that matters.
Fuck Buttons released one of the most interesting and polarizing albums of 2008, one of several named on my end of the year list (which would undoubtedly have been published here if Optimistic Underground was running at the time) and a perennial physical overload to unwitting passengers in my car. This October the English duo are set to blow faces off and disintegrate non-believers with the sonic asteroid they’ve named Tarot Sport.
Using the word epic to describe this music is beyond moot; it’s simply a given at this point. Yet this fact does little to temper the unshakeable urge to invoke it – and feel it – on every listen. This is the sort of thing epic was coined for. Kicking off with the dancefloor earthquake of Surf Solar, expanded to 10 minutes from its early incarnation as a 7″ single, the album shouts its thesis from a mountaintop and gets moving at a breakneck clip. With an insistent four on the floor beat and stocatto-spliced vocal clips there’s no wonder which of debut Street Horrrsing‘s tracks was the launch point for this sophomore triumph: shining, atmospheric, ass-shaking standout Bright Tomorrow. Every track, though submerged in the same industrial crunch mana Fuck Buttons are known for, feels more breathable, open, dynamic and most of all catchy, than anything they’ve yet created. Third track The Lisbon Maru gently (and subtly) conjures the pulsing power-surge key stabs from the debut’s stellar opening (and most popular) track Sweet Love For Planet Earth, swaddling the backbone in vacuumed reverb and what sounds like hundreds of damaged violins compressed into a small wind tunnel and dialing up the velocity throughout its run.
After this point the album transforms into pure, blissed out, pounding noisy nirvana. Fourth track Olympians blasted its way to the top of my list, where it reigns with impunity, after only my first two listens. Not content with merely teasing their dancefloor intentions or continuing to shy away from unabashed melody, this striking 10 minute centerpiece showcases everything Fuck Buttons do well and then some. Finally delivering on the ambitious promise suggested all along, the moment is a revelation: a band fully coming into their own as artists and hitting an undeniably assured stride. Nothing feels remotely tentative about the syncopated big beat drums beamed through the tonal cloud this song is born in, nor the manner in which every element seems to gather up, tightening into a coiled rhythmic outburst in anticipation of the mythical organ swells beginning three minutes in. It’s a gorgeous night sky colored with soaring waves of heartrending resonance and shimmering supernovas, exploding out of the mix like galactic pop rocks – a transcendent meteor shower as close and tangible as the ‘play’ button.
Topping that monster would be difficult, if not impossible; the guys instead turn and unleash a funky blast of head clearing noise bop in a (relatively) concise 5 minutes, before diving into sonic rollercoaster Space Mountain (appropriately titled) with driving tribal percussion and twinkling keyboards ablaze. A nearly-clean guitar tone drives the action, disintegrating in the atmosphere, enveloped in feedback, before giving way to the final push: closer Flight of the Serpent and its destructive martial stomp. Swooning UK post rock guitar moves over a clattering speed-march rhythm section, bursting with feedback at just the right moments and sharing the spotlight with a romantic organ pulse grown from Olympians‘ seed. Feeling almost like a burly reprisal of that apex, the swarm of drone flies suddenly drop away at the halfway point, exposing the skeletal drum pattern and letting it hang, galloping along unadorned for several moments. Thankfully, majestic crests of oceanic keyboard melody and shattering light beams of narcotic bliss return to guide the album to a satisfactorily dizzying end.
Watch this clip with the volume cranked to whet your appetite if my words haven’t already.
[and make sure to preorder the album at boomkat, norman records (vinyl!), or rough trade – or make your purchase at a local record shop when it drops on October 12]
I just discovered this. The first track on Flying Lotus‘ breakthrough Reset EP, the video is suitably hypnotic and matches the song’s mood perfectly. So watch it. And listen to more of his brilliant work. I’ll be helping out on that front in an upcoming post…
Black Dice are one of the most interesting noise fetishists of this decade, crafting everything from burned out near-ambient soundscapes to rumbling sample-melting inverted party anthems – all with a jagged outré sensibility about how songs are crafted.
Imagine aliens descending on the earth eons after humans abandoned it. The cities are crumbled and in an attempt to understand us, they rebuild everything – not as originally intended, but the way they imagine it to be. The bits and pieces are placed together via extraterrestrial logic, ignorant of the traditions and established methodology of physical construction on this planet. The result is something utterly fascinating and strange, with underlying familiarity in its makeup but complete disregard for the way this long-gone race decided things should be.
Then imagine the aliens are the members of Black Dice, and the cities are a thousand shattered records lying on their studio floor.
Broken Ear Record starts off with a deep brass thump, nearly the last recognizable instrument, and proceeds along through a wiggly, pulsating river; occasionally jarring, the overall effect is trance-inducing. Smiling Off continues this with a more rhythmic pounding and crescendoing structure thoughout its 9 minutes. The rest of the album springs from the opening duo’s template, adding percussion, subtracting the drift, and working itself into an occasional frenzied burst of cathartic melody. Oh, and it’s dancey too, in a sorta flailing-seizure-in-a-metal-body-cast way. There is something truly hypnotizing about this particular beast; it’s like a full giant computer full of instruments rolling downhill until all the crunching and bending and chaotic crashing coalesces into a consistent beat that becomes a straightforwardly pleasant listen. One only has to surrender to its will and give it some time. By the end of the second track, its claws will dig in. By the end of the finale, Motorcycle, they’ll be down to the bone. Understanding and bewilderment attained in the same wild instant.
Believe me, I was a doubter at first. Now I can’t stop the momentum.
A.R. Rahman is, simply put, one of the most thrillingly inventive, widely adored, and extremely prolific composers of this generation. His fortuitous partnering with director Mani Ratnam birthed numerous undeniably addicting musical gems, my favorite of which is shared here: the throbbing, kinetic masterpiece Dil Se.
Optimistic Underground 