A Token of My Extreme: Einsturzende Neubaten- Halber Mensch (1985)

1985; Some Bizarre Records/Potomak
http://www.neubauten.org/

Einsturzende Neubaten's name means "Exploding New Buildings" in English. As early pioneers in the art of brainpan-eviscerating industrial noise, this West Berlin act has lived up to their name while steadily refining their sound over the past thirty years. Their performances have always been a combination of highbrow Euro performance art, improvisational insanity and the joy and freedom of making a huge goddamn racket, and even though they've actually discovered an excellent sense of melody and subtlety over the years (probably adopted from frontman Blixa Bargeld's other band, Nick Cave's Bad Seeds), they are still determinedly unconventional as evidenced by their predilection for makeshift instruments such as pneumatic air tubes, sheets of metal and barrels used for percussion, power saws and drills, etc. If you ask dyed-in-the-wool EN fans where the evolution from brutal clanging sonic terrorism into nuanced songcraft started, they may point to 1989's Haus der Luge (whose "Feurio!" became an underground club hit and the topic of several remixes) or they may cite later opuses such as 1993's Tabula Rasa or even 2000's Silence Is Sexy (which remains my favorite album of theirs).

However in this reviewer's opinion it starts right here with Halber Mench. Early EN recordings before this were basically straight jackhammering with no melody whatsoever, with found objects, construction implements, rudimentary synths, even Blixa's voice, all reduced to a single role: percussion. It's fun stuff, albeit in small to moderate doses. While there's still plenty of crazy scraping, clanking and crackling noises in Halber Mench, the core membership of Blixa, Alexander Hacke, Mark Chung and crazed percussionist FM Einheit had discovered how to incorporate a sense of structure into their junkyard madness, and there was even some prominent guitar in a recognizable state of tune (!), a semi-melodic pop song with noise solo (!!) and a borderline dance tune (!!!). Blixa's voice was no longer all harsh Teutonic screaming, either--on songs like "Seele Brennt," "Letztes Biest (Am Himmel)" and "Sehnsucht" he revealed a menacing whisper and some poetic, baritone singing--elements that he would expand on over the course of his career. These art school kids were growing up, as were their musical ambitions.

The album begins very strangely even for these guys. The title track is a haunting, shamanic chant, completely a capella. Its alien quality carries across the rest of the record, even as the vocals yield completely to sheer mechanical clatter as they do on "Das Schaben"--a nine and a half minute noise bath that is the clear centerpiece of the album and hour-long movie (also named Halber Mensch) depicting their 1985 tour of Japan--like Germany, a place once similarly ravaged by war and post-industrial decay. Coincidence? Don't think so. All over this album you can find themes of death, deconstruction ("Desire comes out of chaos"), Cold War sociopolitics and existentialism/nihilism in the Nietzschean tradition proving that under the din, EN always had something intelligent to say. If you can speak German. Don't worry, a translation is provided.

Halber Mench is essential to an understanding of the development of this extraordinary outfit from a bunch of angry Teutonic punks with power tools into the amazing, cinematic sonic juggernaut they are now. Along with Throbbing Gristle's D.O.A., Foetus' Nail and SPK's Leichenschrei no discerning rivethead should be without this early industrial document in their collection.

Translation:

If you thought that Rammstein or even KMFDM was the epitome of scathing Germanic noise, well.... you may want to put this album on hold for a little while. Try Silence Is Sexy, Perpetuum Mobile or Tabula Rasa first before coming here. You don't have to hear SPK or Throbbing Gristle beforehand, but that can't hurt either. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yes I know that is a Nietzsche quote, I'll cut this review off before it gets any more pretentious.

-SJ

The Next Guitar Hero's Track List is Perplexing

This is essentially what it sounds like. I'm mainly posting this because nobody has said anything in like a week on this blog, but this is music related after a fashion, and it caught my attention in a pretty significant way.

I think we can all agree, if we care about rhythm music games at all, that Guitar Hero 5's track list was kind of stupid and weird. It was largely composed of a few songs that were awesome and totally fun to play on a fake guitar("2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden, "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits), songs that were terrible("In My Place" by Coldplay, "Plug In Baby" by Muse), songs from guitar oriented bands that weren't actually all that guitar oriented at all("Make It Wit Chu" by Queens of the Stone Age, "Sweating Bullets" by Megadeth), and songs that were awesome but had no business at all being in a guitar game("Superstition" by Stevie Wonder, "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen).

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is taking a weird approach to solving that problem. The good part is that a lot more of the songs look to be guitar oriented. The bad part is that a lot of those songs suck. And still, there are a couple of outliers that don't really have any business being in the game at all.

On the one hand:

• Been Caught Stealing-Jane's Addiction
• Bloodlines-Dethklok
• Children of the Grave-Black Sabbath
• Money For Nothing-Dire Straits
• Stray Cat Blues-The Rolling Stones

Whoa! Those are five awesome songs that will be awesome to play on the plastitar! I mean, "Stray Cat Blues"? Shit yes, son!

But then you look a little closer, and there's:

• Bat Country-Avenged Sevenfold
• Bleed it Out-Linkin Park
• Bodies-Drowning Pool
• Dance, Dance-Fall Out Boy
• Feels Like the First Time-Foreigner
• I'm Not Okay(I Promise)-My Chemical Romance
• Love Gun-Kiss
• Uprising-Muse
• Wish-Nine Inch Nails
• Psychosocial-Slipknot

Good Christ, that's a lot of completely terrible shit! With those two setlists combined, it's like if you won the lottery, only to find out that the money is only valid in Botswana.

And then you have a couple where you don't even really understand what they're doing there. Like:

• Bohemian Rhapsody-Queen
• Sudden Death-Megadeth
• Indians-Anthrax
• Sharp Dressed Man(Live)-ZZ Top
• Aqualung-Jethro Tull

Okay. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is mostly piano. "Sudden Death" isn't even out yet. "Indians" is by far one of the easiest, least remarkable songs from the otherwise pretty guitar-driven Among the Living. "Sharp Dressed Man" already appeared in their first game, and they ripped "Aqualung" from Rock Band 2's track list.

Should it really be this difficult to make an excellent game based on songs that have guitar playing at the core? I know there are a lot of things to take into consideration-licensing and lawsuits and so forth-but there's been such a humongous library of guitar music made over the last 50 years, it should be impossible not to please everybody.

I dunno. Do you want to make a better one? You should try, I bet you could. The full track list for the game hasn't been announced, but let's see how many people we can get to make a better set of songs then the folks who decided the tunes for Warriors of Rock.

This is assuming anyone who reads this blog has any interest in this kind of thing at all. If not then I might just make a list myself at a later date, since I love doing shit like this.

Anyhow...if you have ideas for some tracks you'd like to see, sound off in the comments section!

-CJ

A Token of My Extreme: Ulver- Nattens Madrigal: Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden (1997)

March 3, 1997; Century Media
http://www.jester-records.com/ulver/ulver.html

Although Norwegian band Ulver still exists today and is still led by Patton-esque mad scientist and vocalist Kristoffer Rygg (A.K.A. Garm, Trickster G, God Head), the Ulver of the mid-nineties bears zero resemblance to the band that released coldly atmospheric electronic/industrial albums like 2005's Blood Inside and 2007's Shadows of The Sun. Instead they shared a place in the mid-period Scandinavian black metal scene, a musical movement best known for collectives of church-burning paganist misanthropes such as Emperor, Mayhem and Darkthrone. However Ulver's aims were always considerably less about the corpse paint/inverted cross/battleaxe image and more about artistry (which is not to say Emperor weren't seriously badass in their own way, but I digress), releasing a "trilogie" of albums with a high degree of craft and conceptual trappings. Their first LP, 1994's Bergtatt, was a landmark in the genre for incorporating olden Scandinavian folk forms, right down to the use of archaic Danish lyrics. They followed that with an album of classical folk titled Kveldssanger. However Ulver's third album Nattens Madrigal: Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden (Madrigal of The Night: Eight Hymns to the Wolf in Man) totally rejects any clean vocals and almost all of the acoustic guitar in lieu of an utterly savage, necro as fuck 44-minute blast of black metal.

Now, traditionally black metal has prided itself on a very lo-fi, primitivist aesthetic, rejecting clinical studio sheen for sound quality that often sounds like a demo. Most "kVLT" bands in the genre say this raw approach adds to the authenticity and "evil" atmosphere of the recording but frankly it usually just sounds like what it is, which is poorly recorded shit. Take for example Darkthrone's overly lauded "classic" Transylvanian Hunger. The instruments have zero power--the amateurishly played guitar sounds like a tinny buzzsaw, the drums have all the weight of pencils tapping a desk, the bass is totally inaudible, and the vocalist shrieks about Satan and evil and things that bump in the night while sounding like a cartoon goblin. Purists might cream themselves over this, but the neophyte will probably find this approach more laughable than sinister.

Nattens Madrigal is no exception to the lo-fi sound quality. Legend has it, the band took the label's money, put an 8-track in the middle of the Scandinavian forest, recorded the album, and then spent the rest of the cash on Armani suits, whores, booze and nice cars. Even if this wasn't the case, the album totally sounds like it. The production quality is so trebly, so harsh that it fundamentally changes how you listen to the music, and will actually take you aback the moment "Hymn I" tears through your speakers. It's the sonic equivalent of bleeding rare meat. The tremelo riffing of the guitars and Garm's horrific foreign-language shrieks dominate all generally leaving the drums a distant din of crashing cymbals and snare, and the bass, when heard, has virtually no punch to it.

However.... Nattens Madrigal is the total antithesis of goofy. It actually totally accomplishes the brutally cold and grim feel that most black metal bands strive for and generally fall short of, and not only that, it's packed with riffs and melodies that those bands would kill for (probably literally). Just to put an exclamation point on Ulver's astounding talent, the initial minute-long assault of blacker-than-black riffing in "Hymn I" quickly gives way to a beautiful and peaceful interlude of acoustic picking--the only one on the whole album--and then shifts into an electric variation on the same melody that will knock you out of your fucking chair.

The whole album is a formidable blurred maelstrom, with only the aforementioned acoustic break and the occasional nocturnal segue between tracks functioning as breathers. Tracks burst in with a few squeaks of feedback and end arbitrarily, often still blasting along after five minutes. There are no solos and few leads, and the ones present are usually squelched by the stormy production. However, despite the generally monolithic structure, there are plenty of noteworthy moments. The fade-in intro to "Hymn IV," accompanied by Garm's feral vocals is truly epic. "Hymn VI" begins with a triumphant major-key riff that sounds like something that would be played in Valhalla, while the main riff of "Hymn VIII" will incite rabid headbanging in even the most staid listeners. The album closes out on a magnificent crescendo of distortion and crashing drums that fills you with a feeling that you've listened to something truly immense, and all accomplished without a single cheesy keyboard or silly orchestral flourish (Cradle of Filth, I'm looking at you).

Nattens Madrigal (along with the previous two releases in the trilogie) is the embodiment of black metal excellence, its naturalistic atmosphere the result of careful craft and played with a precision that defies the genre. Ulver's early work remains incredibly influential and has been drawn on by a number of more ambitious genre-busting bands such as Agalloch and Wolves In The Throne Room, both of whom have gone on to release their own masterpieces. This is a necessary album for fans of boundary-pushing metal, totally worth the insane import price.

Translation:

Anyone new to black metal should probably try out Emperor, Immortal, Enslaved and Bathory first. Despite the relatively recent Pitchfork fascination with the genre, it still remains a tough listen for most and the over-the-top trappings of the scene don't exactly help, so bear that in mind. Ulver's Bergtatt is also a perfect warmup for this album, and an excellent release in its own right.

-SJ

Radio Free, a thought on music pricing.

The third annual Record Store Day took place on August 17th this year. In observance of it hundreds of new records and rather exciting reissues were being released exclusively to independent record stores, as well as tons of free performances, give aways, etc. - and hey, with the closing of the Virgin's last year almost every record store in New York City was an independent. There was a big hunting ground. Most of the releases were centered on vinyl, and with a little time spent saving up I had a few in mind for myself. A long-coveted pressing of the Moon and Antarctica on vinyl, REM's debut Chronic Town EP, a split single with Mogwai and Fuck Buttons covering each other, SoundGarden's amazing first single repressed, new 7" singles by Japandroids, Blur, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fucked Up. Sixty Nine Love Songs got its first ever vinyl pressing. I knew I only had only saved the money for, maybe, three of these discs, but I was excited none the less.

I showed up to my favorite store fifteen minutes before its special early opening, there was a line around the block. I thought, ok, there are maybe fifty people in front of me, big deal.... By the time I walked in the door The Moon and Antarctica was sold out. Chronic Town, a twenty five year old EP reissue, was sitting on the wall for more than 15 dollars. The Mogwai/Fuck Buttons split, just two songs mind you, cost more than 10. Sixty Nine Love Songs cost almost 100. There was nothing I could afford. I looked around. In the arms of most people in the crowded store I could see my coveted M&A disc. And further more, in there arms were five or six or eight or ten other over priced records as well. I realized I was beat. I lost because I came to celebrate with thirty dollars while they came with two hundred.

Sitting on the subway heading to another shop to try again, I realized that I had gotten hugely excited for all three Record Store Days so far, I had even told most of my music loving friends about them, effectively advertising for the cause, and yet I had never walked away with any Record Store Day specific release at all. And I thought about when I had gotten into vinyl, how it was the most amazing format in the world because I could find Led Zeppelin IV for six dollars. I could pick up a beat up copy of Cream's Disrali Gears for two. The White Stripes' White Blood Cells cost me eight bucks, a new copy of Minor Threats 12" on bright green wax cost me nine. I could forsake convenience for quality - and for quantity.

That was only four years ago and yet.... vinyl isn't made for me anymore. I tear my hair anytime a deluxe x2LP 180gram record comes out, because I know they'll try to make me pay 25 dollars for one album, and I know I won't be able to. I hide my head when they speak of good packaging and pristine sound, because I know I won't be able to see and hear it. Vinyl is now for the rich who can afford to love all the high quality pressings, or for the stupid, too rapped up in the hipness of the format to realize they're being ripped off. This is a hard thing for me to realize. And I feel like because of the rampant theft of music online is putting so many bands and record labels in a tough place, they're taking it out on us - those who have been committed to paying for their music. And I don't know what to do about this.

A Token of My Extreme: Wolf Eyes- Human Animal (2006)

2006; Sub Pop
http://www.wolfeyes.net/

It took me a very long time to really appreciate what Wolf Eyes do, possibly because they are often placed under the broad umbrella of noise and power electronics, a genre I typically have little interest in despite my general enjoyment of outre music designed to clear rooms, break windows and alienate people. The works of noise artists like Akita Merzbow, Masonna and the like are frankly just dull and formless to me most of the time. Unending and undynamic sheets of everything-louder-than-everything-else electronic drone, screeches, screams, what have you is just so extreme and unyielding that it ends up having the opposite effect--boredom. Without any concessions to mood, atmosphere, rhythm, improvisation or composition you end up sitting there, staring at your watch and waiting for it to end. The few artists, mostly from industrial's formative years, that have succeeded at making listenable "noise" (hint: it's not) such as Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, SPK and early Einsturzende Neubaten have all recognized the value of these elements in their approach.

You can add Ann Arbor freaks Wolf Eyes to that list. All of their albums have combined hardcore screams, industrial clanking, creeping synth noises, blasts of cathartic feedback and even some wild saxophone skronk with careful pacing and skeletal rhythms to produce fascinatingly twisted mindfucking soundscapes fit to adorn avant-garde horror films. Human Animal, one of the few widely distributed CD releases out of a dauntingly huge and obscure discography, captures the team of Nate Young, John Olsen, Mike Connelly and former member turned producer Aaron Dilloway at the height of their necromancing powers.

Opener "A Million Years" is the huge ghostly monster on the cover slowly rising out of the swamp, a distant din of metallic crashes slowly getting louder as it approaches, accompanied by wounded animal squawks on sax and a piercing, inhuman screech that reaches directly down into your soul and tears it out. This track lets you know in no uncertain terms what you're about to get into.

Ready? Good. The end cleanly segues into the short high-frequency loop/drone bath "Lake of Roaches," followed by the eight-minute "Rationed Riot." Eerie high-pitched synths float in and out of a soupy lo-fi mix, barrel-like drums and the sounds of bubbling muck and blowing winds. The first recognizably human voice comes in, reciting some creepy passages of gore and decay obscured by the surrounding soundscape. The hideous wailing sax returns to usher this track to a close.

Then the title track hits, and all hell breaks loose. Heavily processed screams, crashing gongs (played both normally and backwards masked), feedback, and a thundering beat accompanied by baritone wordless chants that sound like they were sampled from an occult ritual give way to the utterly demented skullfuck that is "Rusted Mange," where human voice, synths and saxophone all compete to drown each other out, recorded in the ugliest, most distorted way possible.

The monster's attack ends, and now drifts in the pervasive fear of "Leper War." Basically a continuation of "A Million Years," but even more claustrophobic and dense. "The Driller" is the creme de la creme of brutal industrial noise, the soundtrack accompanying the marching deformed mutant armies of Hell as they emerge from the earth to consume and destroy everything in their path. Four minutes of pure ear rape. The album ends with a snarky, noise-punk cover of No Fucker's "Noise Not Music," which compared to the concentrated doom that came before is almost accessible in its instantly gratifying slap upside the head.

If anyone is to be named a worthy successor to the likes of late '70s and early '80s industrial, Wolf Eyes are in the front running. Not only have they added a degree of structure and accessibility to the avant-garde realms of power electronics, their attempts have also paradoxically managed to increase the intensity and atmosphere tenfold, pushing the bounds of the art. Human Animal (along with their previous album Burned Mind) from the music right down to the brilliant cover art is an organic, cohesive exercise in aural terror rivaled only by the likes of future column fodder Khanate and Today Is The Day.

Translation:

Um... well... try some Throbbing Gristle. If you somehow manage to survive the experience without running out of the room screaming or shitting your pants than this is probably the next logical step.

-SJ

High on Fire - Snakes For The Divine

2010; E1 Music

http://highonfire.net/

Is High on Fire's latest opus Snakes For the Divine the right album for you? Take this handy quiz to find out!

1. I am a:

A)Human

B)Beast

C)Demon

D)Creature of Myth

2. For transportation, I use a:

A)Car

B)Steed

C)Caravan

D)Carriage, pulled by the wives and children of men I have slain

3. Tonight I will:

A)Feast

B)Ride

C)Battle

D)Rise

4. This is a completely awesome name for a song:

A)Bastard Samurai

B)Fire, Flood and Plague

C)How Dark We Pray

D)Holy Flames of the Fire Spitter

5. Bring me:

A)My sword

B)Whores

C)His head

D)A jewel-encrusted chalice, plundered from the treasury of Hyperboria, so that I may drink my wine as an emperor does

6. This is important to me:

A)Riffs

B)Knives

C)Drink

D)Seeing my enemies destroyed under my axe

7. HUARGH

A) GOOAAARRRR

B)OOUUURRAAAGGGHHH

C)RRAAAHOOUUUOAAAA

D)BLAAAOOUUAAAAGGGGHH

8. I would like to meet:

A)The Devil

B)Matt Pike

C)A cyclops(so that we may speak of sport and combat)

D)A lord(so that I may slay him)

9. Wenches or glory?

A)Wenches

B)Glory

C)Wenches and Glory

D)Incredible acts of murder

10. H.P. Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard?

A)H.P. Lovecraft

B)Robert E. Howard

C)Books are for those who are learned, those who are foreigners to war, that I may call them coward, that I may take their wives and plunder their homes as they concern themselves with a knowledge of things unconcerning the battlefield, which will give them no aid as my sword sends their jaw clattering onto the floor

D)Whichever has inspired the metalest lyrics

Now for the results!

If you picked mostly A: Get Snakes for the Divine

If you picked mostly B: Get Snakes for the Divine

If you picked mostly C: Get Snakes for the Divine

If you picked mostly D: Get Snakes for the Divine

If you declined to answer: Reconsider the choices that you've made in your life that made it so you wouldn't find any of these answers appealing.

And then get Snakes for the Divine.

-CJ

The National - High Violet

2010; 4ad; Ohio, via Brooklyn

americanmary.com

I was sitting here on a corn flake waiting for the National to slip. Because it made sense. Because as rock history dictates, you work your way up, promising album, good album, masterpiece, and then you can't hit that mark a second time. Because every other amazing band in this year has far exceeded themselves, I thought there is no way there can be another surprise. One band has to slip. Because a year can't be consistently great straight across. Because no one can top Boxer. So, as much as I hated to predict doom, I thought this was fated to be the band's The Great Escape to follow Parklife, their Humbug from Favorite Worst Nightmare, their Get Behind Me Satan that would never live up to Elephant. It made sense.

It also made sense when I herd their first single from the album. 'Bloodbuzz Ohio' was a lot of things, but what I herd was something a bit more complex, a bit muddier than the simplicity of the loud-drums-and-vocals-over-undermixed-dissonant-guitar-soundscapes that populated the most accessible tunes on Boxer. And yes it was catchier than almost anything they'd ever done before but it was catchy in a less distinct way, in a less desperate important way. The lyrics preferred a more traditional straightforward meaning over their trademarked lost harshly unfocused abstractness. It favored a more colorful ambiance over their previous garage sensibilities. His voice was the same, but this was not the band I knew.

Everything I feared and disliked from Bloodbuzz Ohio carried over to the entirety of High Violet. And this was actually more than a good thing.

High Violet glows. And it does this with drawn out guitars and heavy piano lines and with horns and somehow uncorny strings and really when it comes down to it I don't know how this album glows like it does. but there it is. It glows with the uncertain luminance and the warmth of coals, fresh from the fire.

This is the most accessible album they have ever made, and are ever likely to make. And somehow that's a good thing too.

From the slow paced march of Terrible Love through to the strained crys of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, The National have created something with vitality and with power, and to achieve this it seems they needed to abandon their troubled detachment. This is no longer the sound of someone running away, or of someone biting their lip and screaming in their mind but keeping their head down, this is some trying honesty, someone caught up or frantically fighting back. The National have recaptured a passion and life that they morned during the course of Boxer. They even begin to border the Arcade Fire's my-god-the-world-is-ending aesthetic, without the self satisfied leanings that mar that band's output. This is the honest fight. No more trying to look cool, no more hiding behind poetry, this is the time for the National to say what they mean, and say it straight.

What makes this harder is how much this music means to me, and how much the National in general have meant to me in the past, but really there is more than that. A lot of music means a lot to me, a lot of people have various music that holds for whatever reason a lot of meaning for them. This has surpassed that, beyond my own subjectivity. High Violate means a lot, not just to me - it holds meaning, period. This is instant classic, this is immediate effect, we will look back in years to come and remember the third week in May when these notes pulsed through our veins.

Something is happening in 2010. I don't know why. For the last few years there has been consistently great music, but you knew and I knew something was off. Something we couldn't completely get behind. A lack of confidence or real seriousness, a lack of violence perhaps. Something was missing, enough for us to stand with the new music world, but not quite. And somehow in the four and a half short months since the decade turned bands have started again going for the throat, digging their heals in. We've gotten back the wild desperation, along with the anger and the passion and the wry confidence. We've gotten back bands that don't apologize. Something is happening.