Groupshow - The Martyrdom of Groupshow

5/10

Groupshow. If for some reason you 'felt lucky' while googling this term, chances are great that you will be rather disappointed not to find some ideally shaped blond inviting you to come over and see her latest exploits with her friends. The Groupshow on your screen today is the joined effort of three German artists (Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann, and Andrew Pekler) who collaborated in crafting a release where their signature sounds meet. One must keep the stereotype of the efficient German in mind and assume that more effort went into selecting samples out of 200Gb of jam session data than choosing a name for this collaboration.

The sample palette of the album is one of the most exuberant I have heard in quite some time in the experimental and minimal electronic aesthetic. The digital cuts sound like they has been drenched in the same acid bath where DJ Food lay when crafting Kaleidoscope; the album's comparable off the wall quality and the difficult digestibility of this colorful sonic candy is striking at times. Rhythm is provided by the samples and their repetitiveness, as there is no snare or kick to be found in their respective recognizable form.

Most of the release's drive stems from the sometimes oscillating or stuttered, sometimes dreamy loops cascading over the always blunted variations of the twelve tracks that emerged from the artists improvised liaison. And although the exposition of the tight and copious audible scheme offers some tight constructions, the cohesion as an album suffers from the profound expertise of each individual artist. Each has his own background that influences the music, some have a more instrumental or electronic approach, but a failure to compromise sounds into a focused effort does the work in.

Making up the audible melting pot are the ambient jazz grooves of Leichtmann and Pekler submerged in a flattened out minimal chillout vibe sans kick courtesy of Jelinek. As such, it's a decent chillout album one might think, but it's there where the lack of cohesion and the LSD-colored plethora of influences make this a hard trip to ride out.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Groupshow website
Groupshow myspace
Scape Records

May dawn Wijnegem

Domino 2009 @ ABtv

Domino is an annual, offbeat and against-the-grain high-mass, festival! It immerses one in the musical future for one week by approximately 30 idiosyncratic musical acts, pre-listening sessions, DJs, a graphic design exhibition and a customised book/CD/DVD stall.

Live reports with interviews of this year's edition can be found below...


Jóhann Jóhannsson + Fennesz + Jon Hopkins (8 April 2009)

Squarepusher + Venetian Snares + Tim Exile + Voodoo Trance Sound System (9 April 2009)

A Certain Ratio + Blk Jks + Hudson Mohawke + Rustie (10 April 2009)

Nico Muhly + Xela + Svarte Greiner (11 April 2009)

Mono + Health + Handsome Furs + Tiny Masters of Today (12 April 2009)

The Notwist (13 April 2009)

The Whitest Boy Alive + Micachu and The Shapes + The Invisible + The New Wine (14 April 2009)


Domino 2009 project @ abconcerts.be

Ender - ender

5.5/10

Within the post-rock-encompassing skies of this four track EP, the listener finds herself confronted with the instrumental quintet Ender, who slaves over the most popular of instruments (guitar, bass and drum) to produce a self-titled audible calling-card. The album is made up of moody, yet powerful post-rock shrouded in a haze of gritty ambient. Imagine an cardboard egg-box branded "post-rock," filled with eleven battery-laid eggs and one odd-looking kiwi. Ender stands out just like that kiwi, with the familiar post-rock form, but without the clinical approach taken by so many others.

Like most of their Pacific colleagues, Ender knows how to manipulate the space and ambiance needed for their compositions to flourish and gradually evolve. The combined destructive weight of rhythm guitars and drums in the form of dragging riffs arch the elaborated structure that spans over the whole release. The introspective waves of evolving ambient and stacks of heavy hypnotic hooks are good for forty-two minutes of dark, enticing variations and a few spine-shivering moments, but never seem to deploy their full potential. Near the end of Ender, the band trades in their most heavy weight guitar sound for a piano, and tips the scale in favor of the conformist form.

Once the piano finds it's place in the closing composition, Ender brings it home with a less powerful but more subtle and emotional undertone. Without the drive - one that reminds the listener of European post-metal bands - of Ender's opening, the whole gives the impression that this is still not the best possible result. Their strength lies as much in esoteric explorations as in latent aggression, but I, for one, believe that the latter one - given some more attention - has a few interesting options to strengthen the whole.

Adding a few (distant) vocal accents would expose a more captivating, emotional side of their sound and thus engage the listener even more. At a certain point in "Track 2", the deep combined sound of the bass and guitar triggered a memory of a dirty-sounding Celtic Frost vocal line, fueling the dark tones of that dangerously fierce cloud-formation and accentuating the beauty of the redeeming matte light found in the ambiance. For obvious reasons, Tom Gabriel Fischer's vocals - or vocals in general - will not be the perfect solution to allow Ender to rise above the level of this EP, but if the outfit's drummer could batter their grayish blob of expressions with more depth and edge, they could have a decent shot at knocking me out of my socks. Perhaps then a reference to the hypnotic stoner doom slabs of Windmills By The Ocean is in order.



written and published for The Silent Ballet.
Ender myspace
stream Ender @ Last.fm

Album art TSB Volume XII: Het Machinaal Geweld Dreunde Onversaagbaar Verder...

Compilation 12 of The Silent Ballet featured my album art design and a bulk-load of interesting ambient and drone goodies. Check this link for a free download of the album and drop by The Silent Ballet of the Lost Children netlabel for more goodies.




Stream the compilation

Sjugge's Super Chuncky Chocolate cake

Cake... yum. Chocolate... yum. But since plain cakes are a bit 'white bread' I thought I'd share my recipe for some chunky chocolate cake. Now with Liquor!

Ingredients.

200gr self-rising flower
150gr plain sugar
10gr vanilla sugar
100gr buter
200gr chocolate
3/4 eggs
1.5 tablespoon coffee
1.5 tablespoon whiskey


If you're a bit like me you don't want to burden yourself with a lot of washing-up afterwards, so basically all you need is a knife, a spoon, a bowl and a baking tin obviously, a mixer or a blender even could be practical though. As for the chocolate, I prefer to use Côte d'Or's chocolate with (bits of) hazelnut since it has excellent flavor and you get some hazelnut sprinkles in there without a lot of fuzz. Just cut it up in little pieces like you would do with an onion or carrot for instance or use a cheese grater if you want some exercise in the meanwhile. Dice the 100 grams of buter and throw it all together in a bowl, mash it up until most of the dough is homogenous and bake for one hour in a pre-heated oven of 180°C (356°F).

To form the chunks while the cake is baking you need to stur around in the cake a few times one it's in the oven. Preferably do this 2 or three times in the first 40 minutes of the baking process without damaging the bottom and sides of the cake, only mix up the top crust and the remaining dough. This prevents the chocolate and hazelnut to sink to the bottom and the coffee and whiskey to rise and gives the cake it's artisan bread pudding touch. Enjoy...

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Blurping on Isis' latest in the Release of the Month article at TSB.

After their 10 year jubilee and related vinyl box re-releases, a Seldon Hunt documentary and a whole lot of patience and speculation, Isis astonished fan and foe alike with an album that recapitulated and expanded upon their decade of unique post-metal. Unlike its predecessors, Wavering Radiant revisits the strong points of a strong career, from Celestial to In the Absence of Truth, rather than building on the work of a single album. A more notable place is reserved for haunting vocals, while sturdy bass and subtle, supportive soundscapes (containing Rhodes-like accents) carry the weight of the sometimes uplifting, sometimes destructive guitars. Isis’ eye for detail and the progressive nature of this album makes it their most complete and refined work to date: a standout album in their already impressive catalogue as well as in the progressive post-metal genre itself. full article

written for and published by The Silent Ballet

Unidentified Sound Object - Inharmonicity

5.5/10

Silence and electro-acoustic noise are the main components in the three suites of experimental music by the Italian Unidentified Sound Object (aka U.S.O. Project). Packed in artwork depicting the charcoal remains of a post-apocalyptic city lies a one hour and one minute audio tour by Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi. Their shared passion in the collaborative strength of audio and video inspired them to paint a soundtrack on Selfish's cinematic compositions. The lateral working method reminds of the premise applied in the Qatsi Trilogy, only with the difference that the U.S.O. Project's effort lean more toward John Cage's infamous 4:33 approach.

Silence is the dominating presence in the opening suite of the release, and although there is a distinct absence of sound at times, inspiration was drawn from the avant-garde technique of worldizing - recording and re-recording samples in various surroundings while tweaking the setting of speakers and microphones - which results in a complex, three-dimensional canvas. The latent presence of silence stretches out as a vast plain, evolving to the blunted ambient that haunts the transition of the opening compositions. Draped over the audible nothingness are layers of sound-constructions sketching the warped outlines of the gradually developing narrative and its accompanying sonic scenery.

Once the audio tour enters the suburbs of Inharmonicity via the tones of "Invisible Words", the noise component's parameter starts to display spastic shifts in its pattern. Screeching feedback and strokes of distorted noise break through cracks of the eroding city walls, battering the listener's ears. The rampaging assault of crushed magnetic pulses will try to force you to shorten your visit in this crumbling city. Near the closing of the main suite, an escape route from the sonic violence is found. In a maze of reverb-filled chambers, the omnipresent battering noise is muffled and offers a well-deserved breather while the audio tour steadily eases into its closing movement.

As the trip through Inharmonicity comes to an end, the distinct presence of glitching noise suddenly forces itself to the forefront, like a noise-accumulating whirlwind on a clear sky, until nothing remains besides a massive, pulsating wall of sound. The bone-crushing, distorted layers filled with shapeshifting samples disappear as suddenly as they arose. All that remains are the aftershocks in the form of distant, resonating soundscapes.

The release offers a high contrast between types of minimal explorations - featuring both the smallest of glitches and ear-battering droning noise, challenging the listener. The narrative properties of Inharmonicity each have their appropriate position in an enjoyable, complex electro-acoustic massage. The only problem is that due to the accent on the contrast, most of the release is difficult to listen to at a consistent volume level. So before buying the album have a sneak peak at what the full DVD has to offer, and see if you find it worth a few bucks more.

Girl Running, teaser from the dvd 'InharmoniCity'.






written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Unidentified Sound Object website
stream Inharmonicity on Last.fm

Married with Children - Hot of the Grill

A classic episode where Al 'celebrates' Labor Day.

On Labor Day, the gender roles are reversed when Al becomes the loafing one while he forces Peggy to prepare the backyard barbecue for his creation of the famous "Bundy Burgers." But one of the secret ingredients to them are the ashes of Marcy's dead aunt which was stolen by Kelly from the Rhodes house. -imdb