| #536 |
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2001 |
Back again for another year. And here’s something to consider. Are the spread of MP3s actually representing the rise of even more disposable attitudes to music? MP3s are an excellent way of checking out tracks, much like radio was before it got stuck in the 70s and early 80s, but spend several days trawling through people’s hard drive collections via Napster and it becomes clear that a lot of people collect MP3s for no reason other than to have as many as possible on their hard drives. Is the aura of a unique recording being lost through the age of digital reproduction? Is music just becoming (more) of a background soundtrack to a bland life? Rather than music being incorporated deep into our cultural life, is more music simply meaning that we pay less attention to it? Do you remember what track 5 was on Café Del Mar 4? On the local dub tip, Jeff Dread has his Merchant of Dub II out very soon on Creative Vibes. The sequel to a brilliant debut that I still play often even now, Dub II adds extra layers of instrumentation and depth with guest appearances by Bongo Caveman, a trumpet and sax player and vocals on several tracks, and more cavernous chambers of space echo. Top quality local digidub. On a similar digidub tip, ex-Meat Beat Manifesto main man Jack Dangers has another in his Tino Breaks series out this time exploring dub with a tongue-in-cheek approach to sample selections. Tino Dub keep things simple and works around straightforward basslines and breaks pillaging and rearranging The Orb and Lee Perry amongst others. For someone who has had his trademark sounds pillaged for well over a decade (anyone else remember the pre-jungle of Radio Babylon?) I’m sure the Tino project is sweet revenge. Also, Germany’s Klein Records has reissued last year’s excellent collection of Sofa Surfers remixes in a package called Constructions. Vienna’s Hi Tek Steppas run remixes alongside Ian Simmonds, Mad Professor, and Leaf’s Sons Of Silence and Eardrum, and Tom Tyler, Howie B and New York Wordsound terrorist Spectre. Very diverse in approach, sound and style put aside fears of Sofa Surfers’ ‘dub-lite’ and explore. One release that will appeal to Boards Of Canada fans will be the new album from B.Fleischmann called A Choir Of Empty Beds. Following his earlier release Pop Loops For Breakfast, COE is full of beautiful naïve-sounding melodies emerging from seas of noise and sharp static rhythms. Fleischmann’s sound has the same remisinscent feel of that BOC create so effectively but the beats and structures are far more complex. The related City Centre Offices compilation Cashier Escape Route covers most electro-oriented terrain with tracks from Skanfrom, Solvent, Isan, Dynamo, Phonem and Arovane, (the new breed of post-Autechre electronics) but delivers some sensational moments and is certainly worth a listen. Keep an ear open, to, for the new Pilote EP 3 To The Floor on Certificate 18 that comes with a grand Sirconcial remix and more odd melodic electronics. Frigid’s Opera House adventures continue with Ukiyo-E and Prop on this week and Tooth and New Zelanad’s Pitch Black on the 24th. On the Sundays David Thrussell drops in for the 21st and then Low Key Operations + Nude from Brisbane on the 28th alongside Timbremill’s DJ Neural. And make sure you check out the collaborative reviews section on www.snarl.org. Yellow Peril  Goto
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