Tracklist:
1. Through Mind and Back
2. Mute
3. Attic Doctor
4. The Bath
5. Pelican Man
6. Dropla
7. Sleep Paralysis
8. Third Dystopia
9. Raspberry Cane
10. Daisyphobia
Rate: 9/10
Tracklist:
1. Through Mind and Back
2. Mute
3. Attic Doctor
4. The Bath
5. Pelican Man
6. Dropla
7. Sleep Paralysis
8. Third Dystopia
9. Raspberry Cane
10. Daisyphobia
Rate: 9/10
Tracklist:
1. Before Your Very Eyes…
2. Default
3. Ingenue
4. Dropped
5. Unless
6. Stuck Together Pieces
7. Judge, Jury And Executioner
8. Reverse Running
9. Amok
Rate: 7/10
Tracklist:
1. I’m Selfish
2. Big Love
3. What A Shame
4. Do Yourself A Faver
5. You Naked
6. Why_Ya_Why
7. Blaming Something
8. You Know My Name
9. So Cold
10. Don’t You Love Me
11. In Your Mind
Rate: 6,5/10
Tracklist:
1. 44
2. 44 (Noise Version)
3. Lighton
4. Tod
5. Blank Page
6. PV
7. K&F Thema (Pizzicato)
8. K&F Thema
9. Austerlitz
10. A Violent Sky
Rate: 6,5/10
Tracklist:
1. Awol Marine
2. Normal Song
3. No Tear
4. 17
5. Take Me Home
6. Dirge
7. Dark Parts
8. All Waters
9. Hood
10. Put Your Back N 2 It
11. Floating Spit
12. Sister Song
Rate: 9/10
Tracklist:
1. Yay
2. Groan Man, Don’t Cry
3. Idiom Wind
4. Crabbing
5. F U C-3PO
6. Too Late To Topologize
7. Zebra Butt
8. Weird Ceiling
9. Harlequin
10. The Shape of Things to Come
11. Full Fading
Rate: 8.7/10
I’m sure the idea of the MIT tradition had something to do originally with the project; and Hecker made the record in two stages, the first one being a church in Reykjavik, Iceland; where he recorded the echo and distant sound of a groaning pipe organ to make the base of the entire LP. The second part was released in studio under the production of Ben Frost (who’s well known for very heavy toned ambient experimentations as well that goes from the minimal quietness of ambient to the powerful noise of black metal). The studio part of “Ravedeath, 1972” incorporated the drones and sounds that Frost is accustomed and shows the capacity of Hecker to play with heavy synth and noise until the experimentation becomes a powerful shoegaze sound very claustrophobic at times.
The first track “The Piano Drop” starts with a lot of violence, with a heavy electronic scratch over the pipe organ, the synths tremble back and forward and sometimes allows the listener to come inside the melody and suddenly backs him out again with another scratch, a very interesting layered opener that plays with static and ends with abrupt silence and the sound of the piano drop on the beginning of the second track. This act of violence against the piano sets the mood and starts giving all sorts of tones to the constant presence of the church’s organ pipe and goes trashing that sound with incredible violence through out every song, a feeling that gets unbearable in the “Hatred Of Music II”.
It always seems that the message Hecker is trying to get behind the noise is that the way we consume music with technology sometimes doesn’t add to it beauty but destroys the concept and opens it until the message gets lost behind everything. Kind of remind me the reading I did of the concept behind the Alexander McQueen’s fashion show named “Weird Science”, if in that moment McQueen was talking about the aggressive nature that technology can have against fashion and humanity when not used properly, Hecker is communicating exactly the same but with music, maybe is a little harsh for a fashion designer destroy the closing dress with mechanical arms throwing paint at it, and is the same idea of Hecker throwing trash sounds over a pure sound. But in the end Hecker’s message goes further, everything doesn’t get lost, because “In The Air III” two songs after the “Studio Suicide”, the studio sounds finally die, and all that’s left is the sound of the pipe organ and a piano recorder live from the church.
I see this record (no matter the unbearable that it can seem to get and the claustrophobic nature it has standing in the listener point of view), a quality of spectacle that not much artist attribute to modernity and Hecker seems to know very well, these age could be about destroying and pure creations are about surviving, this is a performance piece of theatrical quality that portrays the survival of music, no matter how much trash you throw over it, in the end music will always survive on a pure state.
Tracklist:
1. The Piano Drop
2. In The Fog I
3. In The Fog II
4. In The Fog III
5. No Drums
6. Hatred Of Music I
7. Hatred Of Music II
8. Analog Paralysis, 1978
9. Studio Suicide
10. In The Air I
11. In The Air II
12. In The Air III
Rate: 8.6/10
But lets talk about 2002, he did something very bold and fantastic, he had material to make a new record, but he saw that he had two different visions, a romantic and fatal melancholy side on one hand, and an ironic, strong minded and political side on the other, and before putting out a set of songs that had nothing to do with one another he decided to take one at a time, so he published two albums, “Alice” and “Blood Money”, both with songs that have find a cult following and was the introduction of Tom Waits talent to a younger generation. Don’t forget even Scarlett Johansson’s first LP that was a cover ode to Tom Waits, some covers of this LP’s.
The fist one in alphabetical order, “Alice” is a heartbreaker that has a lot of sentiment, talks about love, suicide, death, and the adventures of “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Caroll, music like has just little polka characteristic sounds of Waits, you find the his vulnerable side, the soft side, the side that you can fall in love with, the waits of the whisky bar, the late night Waits with the original mystery edge in songs like Lost In Harbor or Watch her as she Disappears, and the killer (and I mean Killer) theme song Alice, a song so good that I don’t see anyone on earth not liking it somewhere along the way, one of those songs that in life you’ll get to like at some point.
Blood Money on the other hand has a different nature, more animalistic, more messy, dark in a more playful kind or way, also more political messages since the open track “Misery Is the River Of The World”, a stronger voice, from the whisper of Alice that speaks to your ears to the Waits that screams to your chest that gives vertigo and frightens you, don’t forget fantastic songs also in this LP like “God’s Away On Business”, “Everything Goes To Hell” and the softer side that remember the early years with a higher tone like “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, every song hidden behind drunk trumpets and smell of cigars and alcohol.
These are two really great albums of the past decade that introduces one of the great ones of history of music (for me and for a lot of people), I’m sure there will be some other tom waits flashback in the future.
Alice Tracklist:
1. Alice
2. Everything You Can Think
3. Flowers Grave
4. No One Knows I’m Gone
5. Poor Edward
6. Table Top Joe
8. Lost In The Harbor
9. We’re All Mad Here
10. Watch Her Disappear
11. Reeperbahn
12. I’m Still Here
13. Fish & Bird
14. Barcarolle
15. Fawn
Rate: 10/10
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Blood Money Tracklist:
1. Misery Is the River of the World
2. Everything Goes to Hell
3. Coney Island Baby
4. All the World Is Green
5. God’s Away on Business
6. Another Man’s Vine
7. Knife Chase [Instrumental]
8. Lullaby
9. Starving In The Belly Of A Whale
10. The Part You Throw Away
11. Woe
12. Calliope
13. A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Rate 10/10
That said, for a while now I’ve been following singer songwriter Annie Clark’s project under the name of St. Vincent, since a little bit before she hit the road with Sufjan Stevens (who I love even more); Annie does interesting incorporation of voices to decorate her songs, but Annie is not Lo-Fi and she mixes that little playful voices with heavy guitars and strong drums, then the name of Julianna Barwick came across in some work she did with St. Vincent and I knew I could expect great things from her, in 2009 there was one LP called “Florine”, and now Julianna is back with a wonderful second LP called “The Magic Place”. Immediately I wanted to know this place and wanted her to guide me there.
Julianna carefully puts layers of sound and echo siren like voices with deep mystery sounds, each song with a sentiment that grows layer by layer into almost unintelligible sounds that get closer until they finally break in this fantastic place. The LP is a concept that has life on its own, and the magic place is a dark sound running away until the break of dawn, when the sun shows what’s next to come, that moment on earth is captured with tribal African inspired singing and church like humming, an occasional piano give a severe look on details but in the end the light always come.
This LP is as beautiful and hypnotic as it can get, surely that’s why the music not only brings you to a place, but also lets you know in tiny details of sound that that place is magical, you can find peace, and rest. This time around there are no imperative intelligible words, still the music go from a simple proposition to a main argument, this is what Lo-Fi experimental folk is all about, some people say that dream-pop is somewhere hidden in this Magic Place, but I’ll let you be the judge of that while you enjoy this record.
Tracklist:
1. Envelop
2. Keep Up the Good Work
3. The Magic Place
4. Cloak
5. White Flag
6. Vow
7. Bob in Your Gait
8. Prizewinning
9. Flown
Rate: 8/10
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