To the moon with Pierrot Lunaire

Lincoln drone-zoners Bus Gas released their sophomore cassette last fall on German label SicSic Tapes (last copies at the Bus Gas BandCamp), and one day last winter I found myself browsing the label’s discography. I recognized a few artists in their catalog whose work I’ve heard on other labels and enjoyed like Guenter Schlienz and Hobo Cubes, and I was mesmerized by the bizarre artwork for a double-cassette release by Pierrot Lunaire, “This Love of Mine.”

As it turns out, this is one record you can totally judge by its cover, with deep appreciation to Frédéric Cordier for his fine work on both sides of the mega-j-card gracing this wild double-height Norelco case. In fact, let’s pause for a moment and admire this art:

Amazing artwork and unusual packaging aside, a quick scan of the music itself made it clear that I needed “This Love of Mine” in my brain. As luck would have it, this solo project of John Denizio has produced a large number of recordings in the last few years, most of which have now found their way to my cassette decks/turntables. Having spent a few months with this music, all of the recordings feel marvelously interrelated. Together they function as repeated iterations of a grand modern-urban-entheogenic ritual, resonating emotionally with Giraud’s original “Pierrot Lunaire” poems more closely than Schoenberg’s Op. 21 of the same name.

The latest from Giant Claw: Mutant Glamour and Music for Film

It’s only been a year and a half since I reviewed Giant Claw’s “Midnight Murder” cassette, but I’m not even sure exactly how many tapes and LPs this Keith Rankin solo project has officially issued since then: if you go by the chronology on the Giant Claw BandCamp page, there are six releases between Midnight Murder and “Mutant Glamour.” Amazing!

But what’s even more remarkable than Rankin’s prolific nature is the persistent level of musical quality across the Giant Claw canon. All of these recordings work beautifully as self-contained suites, complete unto themselves, yet they all play nicely together as well, reaching for increasingly ambitious genre-smashing fun. And among a bunch of really great recordings, the “Mutant Glamour” LP is the best yet.

Like Pajjama, the music of Giant Claw stands out in the synths-on-cassette scene of the last few years: this music is fast, assertive, fun, and hyper-literate both musically and culturally. I love a good drone meltdown as much as the next fellow, but I can really vibe on the psychotic stylistic combinations in this music, all presented with equal parts precision and playfulness. Imagine if Yip-Yip and Wendy Carlos exchanged lycra unitards and music theory lessons: this music is purposeful even at its campiest moments.

Take opening track “Brain on Cream” for example: in under four minutes, this piece recalls workout videos, sci-fi soundtracks and haunted graveyard video games, even indulging in a showtune-esque bridge before the main theme returns at the halfway point, and it all dissolves into flurries of notes and saxophones in a long, frisky outro. Sometimes the music points toward more academic or “legit” cinematic music, evoking Peter Thomas through much of “Glitter Logic,” or early computer music in the blippiest sections of “Body Science,” while the addition of saxophones to almost half of the album has added a new element of Beefheart-ian whimsy in the perfect contrasting places. My favorite sax interjections on the album turn out to be tiny samples of sax players on YouTube (including Bill Clinton!) combined into the perfect reed-biting, trilling passages of obnoxiousness. Samples of mostly chromatic trumpet lines make an appearance later in “Man or Cream” as the perfect foil for some especially flatulent synth stabs.

This whole record flows together so well that “favorite track” designations don’t matter much, but I really dig the album’s closer, “Trapped in the Mirror.” The longest track of the album, Rankin takes an epic “early electronic” approach, a touch slower than most of the album, gradually building the piece with wide electronic vibratos, layers of arrpeggios, and a driving motorik pulse. It’s a rich, rewarding end to a great album.

Like previous Giant Claw releases, “Mutant Glamour” features beautiful artwork and album design by Rankin himself. I love the restraint of the black and white cover, which makes the pastel streaks of color on the back cover really stand out (not to mention the sweet center label)—but you should pick up the record and see for yourself.

As I was prepping my review of “Mutant Glamour,” I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of “Music for Film” in the February/March cassette batch from Constellation Tatsu. A collection of music made for four film projects spanning 2009-2012, these short cues reveal new aspects of the Giant Claw concept.

Using a palette of sounds one would expect to hear from Giant Claw, Rankin’s film work is less dense vertically, simpler and more direct. There’s a bit of everything here compositionally: “Royal Decree” sounds like mid-period Residents, “Bouncing” is almost vaudeville, and the two “Piano Synthesizer Etudes” have a contemplative melodicism that pushes into Secret Chiefs 3 territory. Other pieces sound more like they’re made to supplement sound effects, like the “50s outer space” vibes of the “Century of Shame” tracks, or the clanging metal and choral synth washes of “Fear of the Dark.”

There are some really beautiful melodies here, like the theremin-esque melodies of “Tears,” lightly supported with block piano chords. And I love the simple melody nested in the middle voices of “Piano Etude.” Above all, “Music for Film” shows how the basic building blocks of Giant Claw—cool sounds, smart writing, and a sense of humor and cultural context—still function distinctively outside of the conceptual confines of albums, or any sort of chronology when you consider that the track sequence of this tape shifts freely through different times/film projects.

As Giant Claw albums seem to appear quickly, keep your ears open—word has it that the next one will be coming from my favorite cassette label of late, Field Hymns, very soon.

—Scott Scholz

Put on your Pajjamas

I was in love with Pajjama’s “Starch” cassette within its first 10 seconds, a rare and beautiful thing. Skillfully combining chiptune sequencing and live rock/prog playing on guitar/bass/drums/synths, this EP swings harder than any synth-dominant project I’ve heard in a long time. Lots of folks are doing fine work with chiptune music, but Pajjama’s work displays many bonus levels of compositional depth, making nods to influences like Chromelodeon and early YMO while drawing from a wide variety of 70s prog and 80s pop traditions. Magma-esque passages and “Uncle Meat”-era Zappa moments collide with video games and workout VHS tapes. Crazy good.

The live performance aspect of Pajjama really brings this music to life, particularly the jazz and funk-infused playing of drummer Kristian Valbo. I get the impression that all 3 Pajjama members have some background with jazz, as their unique blending of genres includes a lot of syncopation and a very confident sense of humor one often develops with a lot of practice and a lot of gigging. Primary composer Eirik Suhrke alternates between riffs and evocative chord progressions with ease, and he and Bernt Karsten Sannerud layer synth parts with great ears for mixing and balance—there’s a lot happening at times, but you can hear every detail no matter how dense the music gets.

For a release that doesn’t even make it to 13 minutes in length, I still find myself appreciating different aspects of the writing and arranging with every listen. The “Jean Baptiste” section and the 30-second introduction are my favorites, but the whole piece runs as a seamless suite—ah, and how can I forget those propulsive, insistent drums in “Vedaste!”—best to just listen to the whole thing. Repeatedly.

“Starch” was released in the middle of last year on Orange Milk Records, and the cassette features amazing artwork on a double-sided J-card designed by Keith Rankin (Giant Claw). The “regular” Orange Milk Page seems to indicate this album is sold out, but their StoreEnvy site shows availability? If all else fails, definitely get some Starch in your Pajjjamas via BandCamp.

February brought us the followup Pajjama EP on BandCamp, entitled “Jane Papaya,” which is just as thoughtfully written and arranged, but it focuses more on 80s pop/synth idioms and somewhat less on the more aggressive prog moments of the debut. Imagine the transition between Phil Collins’ mullet period to his later skullet period, and you’ll get the general idea. There’s sometimes a bit of a moody 80s fusion vibe, too, ala Tribal Tech and the like, especially in the outro of “Salty Price.” Jane Papaya will be released on cassette later this year by Orange Milk Records, and work on a third recording has already begun. Here’s the artwork for the upcoming Orange Milk release:

Related recordings: If you’re digging Pajjama, you simply must dig into more of Eirik Suhrke’s work as a video game composer. Working both under his own name and occasionally as Phlogiston, Suhrke has a real knack for writing simple-but-memorable melodies, perfect for game play. And he’s a real connoisseur of video game music history—this is the kind of guy who can pick out the programmatic nuances between music for the SNES and the Sega Genesis in only a few notes. And he applies that knowledge toward new projects with the skill of a sommelier, balancing nostalgic and forward-thinking tones to perfectly compliment games.

You can also find the history of Pajjama in Suhrke’s video game music: compare the recordings in Super Crate Box with the updated, Pajjama-licious Super Crate Box Special to hear how live instrumentation spices up already-solid chiptune writing. And the Spelunky score is rich with Pajjama and friends, rocking out game cues mostly under a minute in length.

And while I haven’t written much about avant-black metal in a long time, I have to add that Pajjama member Bernt Karsten Sannerud’s new album with Formloff, “Spyhorelandet,” is probably my favorite weirdo progressive black metal album since early Ved Buens Ende. Great writing, mixing, occasional vocal harmonies, killer guitar playing and arranging, actual audible bass guitar: a real triumph all around. I haven’t had much time to listen to this one yet, but I’m sure I’ll be spending more time with Formloff, as well as checking out what looks to be an avant-bm supergroup including Sannerud, Self Spiller.

—Scott Scholz

AMFJ - BÆN

Here’s a pretty idiosyncratic release from Iceland. FALK released this album in December of ‘11, but the man behind AMFJ, Adalsteinn Jorundsson, has recently been sending some copies stateside, and you can order/listen on BandCamp as well (so much stuff going through BandCamp these days!). Strange Maine should have a few stateside physical copies on CD, and this packaging is really cool, with rich color and multiple panels of composite/superimposed photographs of the artist-in-motion that are very illustrative of the music.

My first impression of BÆN was how complimentary this album is to Arvo Zylo’s “333” record that I reviewed last year—both records feature their respective composers working alone in noise/industrial surroundings, and both composed their records within the confines of a single musical interface. In the case of AMFJ, Jorundsson works in a software package called Jeskola Buzz, which looks sort of like a freeware version of Reason. For those unfamiliar with the basic concept behind either of those bits of software, one makes sounds in virtual synth modules, which can then be combined in various configurations, run through one another or through effects, etc.

Though it’s a considerably more spacious environment than the RM1X sequencer that Zylo employed for his “333,” it’s still quite a self-imposed limitation compared to the resources most electronic musicians avail themselves of for any recording session. But under many conditions, I think these kinds of limitations can save folks a lot wasted energy spent in “paradox of choice” deliberations and keep the focus on creating the music itself. I remember reading a John McLaughlin quote about perfect freedom coming from perfect discipline, or something to that effect—though he was talking about keeping your chops in shape for improvisation, the concept translates into the world of composition/recording beautifully: pick a small palette of materials, learn to use them efficiently, almost unconsciously, and you’re ready for inspiration to strike.

AMFJ is often tagged as a power electronics/harsh industrial act. I definitely hear elements of those genres in this music, but BÆN definitely falls toward the more melodic/atmospheric end of the “harsh” continuum. Vocally, a couple of the tracks in the middle of the album (“Mammon” and “Retoria”) get into some really aggro vocal work, and Jorundsson sounds briefly like a 1000 year old tree struggling to stay upright in a punishing storm of percussion and metallic drones. But I think the best moments of the record show a lot of restraint—Lofun,” for example, dedicated to his fiance, features a ground-loop sounding hum interrupted by a curious percussion break which repeats multiple times. It’s a delicate piece that never rises above a mezzo piano, but it shows a lot of distinction in its poise. The opening track, “Utburdur Umskiptingur,” becomes loud and impenetrable, but it shows a lot of patience getting there, its sample of a child’s whine gradually layered with itself and effected in ways that emphasize the fundamental resonant points of the sample, like a shorter industrial-tinged take on Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room.”

My favorite piece, though, is the album’s closer, “Husid Andar.” The longest track at almost 9 minutes, Jorundsson sings in a clear, clean voice, grasping at transcendence amid a dense clatter of fluctuating synths, metallic clanging, menacing machines and idling motors. I hear some awesome late-oughts Ulver vibes at moments: subtle vocal harmonies push through the din, trainlike rhythms rise and drown in acid reverb, and a long minute of silence hangs in the air at the end of the disc. There are some great ideas happening in this piece, and I hope that future AMFJ efforts continue to work with the epic potential in both harsh noise and near-silence.

—Scott Scholz

The Dept. of Harmonic Integrity - In Deck and Depth, A Whim, A Weft

A Beest has just been born in Iowa City, and among the first releases of this new label is the debut of The Dept. of Harmonic Integrity. Before I even begin to address this music, though, I have to say that I find this album art almost impossibly beautiful. Like fetish object beautiful. Head over to the BandCamp page for this recording to look at the other Beest releases in the right column. Go ahead and click on “more releases,” while you’re at it. I love the colors, the font choices, the layout template, and that Beest logo itself, a clever stylization of a chord fingering diagram. While I’m much more interested in music than visual design, these are seriously awesome, and a damned striking way to launch a label.

As it turns out, the fellow behind these eye-popping album covers is also half of The Dept. of Harmonic Integrity. You may already know “Wayne Longer” as “Adderall Canyonly” from Field Hymns, and along with “Min Roach,” the pair have delivered a marvelous debut.

This kind of recording is totally refreshing to me from a review perspective, because I like the music immediately while still having to do a lot of work to describe what I think is happening here. In the last few years, particularly coming from cassette labels like Field Hymns and Orange Milk, there is a new genre coalescing, a subset of electronic music that is heavy on synths and sprinkled with samples and field recordings. In terms of influence, these recordings seem to draw from musique concrete/early electronic music without taking themselves too seriously and disappearing into academia, while absorbing technical and emotionally evocative contents from a potpourri of under-respected musical forms: B-movie horror and sci-fi soundtracks, cartoons, early video game sound design, library music, cheesy Moog albums, 80s neon shapes and stripes and cracklepaint, Wal-Mart synths, early/naive iterations of consumer culture, etc. In other words, whatever one would call this genre (is there a name that I don’t know yet?), it unites highbrow and lowbrow forms of music with an ease that reminds me of what Juxtapoz magazine did in the ’90s for under-appreciated forms of visual art like hot rods and graffiti.

My first thought about this album’s cover is that it looks like the world’s most awesome “library album” jacket. And the music really manages to sustain that kind of vibe, sounding both exotic and vaguely familiar at once. It’s all synths, unfolding with a deliberate patience I associate with highbrow minimalism and timbres from early Tangerine Dream/Klaus Schulze and the like. Tempo choices are laid-back, and layers of synths rise and fall to build space. Smoother waveforms generally form slowly-evolving pads, and slightly more aggressive timbres are introduced when melodies need some differentiation. Some pieces like “Limbs +” focus on rhythmic and textural ideas, while others like “Upon the Starry Skies” have much more emphasis on harmonic content.

In addition to the more “classical” and early komische influences on this music, moments of sci-fi or horror soundtrack drama creep into the album at times: the last few minutes of “Upon the Starry Skies,” for example, has a tense organ bass melody and ethereal synth chords seems to indicate trouble in a spaceship in a dark forest, and “The Ouudan” could serve as an alternate soundtrack to “Chariots of the Gods” in my book. That’s my favorite track here, which is broken into two sections. The first third phases a metallic-sounding riff against itself within a rich bath of delay and reverb, and gradually fades out into a long metamorphosis of aviation-sounding drones finding their way back to ancient synths and sirens and feedback-like drones. It’s a real treat of spatial and dynamic effects.

But in general, this music is made from a very minimal collection of elements—the quality of the synth sounds themselves is such an important factor in digging this music, I suggest swinging over to that BandCamp page again. If you dig these synths, you’ll have a good time getting lost in this album. Here’s to hoping Beest gets a chance to release this stuff on vinyl, too, as this music and its artwork already seem like a treasured relic from the retrofuture.

—Scott Scholz

Boron - The Beige Album

Back when I first started writing for Killed in Cars, I heard a bit of the first Boron release on Field Hymns, “Decrresscenndo.” That album was a focused affair, loaded with squealing, throbbing, rumbling oscillations from a Moog iiip (press for the album calls that synth “the size of a room,” but isn’t that just a suitcase model?). With the addition of a few well-placed classical samples, the music concentrated on the extremes of Moogscapes, falling somewhere along the vibes of old tape-music from “serious” music circles but with a bit of 8-bit retrocool vibe mixed in.

On The Beige Album, Boron expands in many directions at once: vintage synth abuse remains at the nucleus of the project, but there are lots of synth tones from other eras at work in these pieces—I think I’m hearing a lot of Casio/Yamaha tones and percussion pads from the early 80s, if my memories of stretching my little arms to bang on the tiny blue drum pads of those old Yamaha department store machines serve me correctly. As before, samples get employed occasionally on this record, and field recordings seem to pop up, too: nocturnal outdoor/jungle sounds on “Moons Over My Panamax” and wind/fire sounds that occasionally dominate “Sunset Tunnel,” etc. Vocals and guitars have prominent roles in several pieces, as well. And guest musicians are featured on roughly half of the album, taking Boron’s sole member Dan Nelson in new directions.

There’s a bit of every extreme in electronica represented on Beige: if you want subdued textures and environmental sounds, a little ominous but left at a low, exploratory volume, you’ll dig the “Moons Over…” track mentioned above. For something louder and more aggressive, try “Borong” a few tracks later, which itself segues into a more docile exposition of similar textures in “The Boroner’s Report.” The first few tracks on the album feel like close cousins of the “Decrresscenndo” music, while there are some more melodic ideas heading in the direction of projects like Giant Claw in tunes like “Tomato Upload” and “G-Rated Grope” (though this stuff is weirder and less heavily-arranged than the ‘Claw).

A few of my favorites here take the basic Boron sound into new dimensions: the almost operatic female vocals of “Glamour Science,” coupled with its waspy bass drones, remind me of early Residents mixed with early Zappa vocal writing in the best of ways, but with a more modern, self-aware feeling. “Mountain Dewd” starts with a retro-cheeziod synth drum/bass groove, which gets molested by some seriously reverbed-out psych guitar overdubs: think Acid Mothers Temple robbing a GameStop. And “Boron Squad” is a seriously bizarre surprise in the middle of the album, a full “song” evoking the spirit of Snakefinger crashing at an Occupy camp with beats, guitars, and hilarious f-bombing vocals. Mic Check!

As the album stretches in so many directions, one subtle-but-cool technique for establishing continuity across the seas of Beige is simply to re-use bits of sound in contrasting pairs of songs. For example, “Nonsensebeard” and “Clamburgler” both use a “Yeah Boron” sample; “Moons Over…” and “Sunset Tunnel” use similar nocturnal/outdoor sounds, and “Viking Ballet” re-uses a strange popping passage from “PongSong,” which I think is made by smacking a microphone running into an envelope filter. It’s a great way to introduce a little cohesion to such a multifarious batch of music. Altogether, this is a strong record that succeeds at almost every deviant style it tries, and I’m going to go back and explore the sophomore Boron release “Aria Statica” to get some more Boron in my speakers.

—Scott Scholz

Moulttrigger - Birds

There are so many fun ways to approach this cassette release from Centipede Farm. On the surface, this is a bizarre foray into heavily processed “avian arrangements,” wild electronic escapades made from a multitude of bird calls sourced from the old National Geographic Guide to Bird Sounds. The track titles are, ahem, nested in puns, with gems like “Undoing the Pigeon” and “Die Fledergrouse,”and perhaps the most entertaining part of all is that the man behind Moulttrigger is named Dave Wren. For reals.

Despite the lighthearted track titles, the music of “Birds” isn’t afraid of the dark. Certainly by the middle of the album, the novelty element of this production is gone, and one is left to the industrial rhythmic structures of “Whole Lotta Dove,” or mechanical, train-like dirges with counterpoint that sounds like motors and squeaking doors in “I’m Just Lookin’ for Some Thrush.” The harsh granular quality to much of the album’s textures feels deadly serious and many dustbaths away from its feathered origins.

Not every track is what I’d call “grainy” in texture, though. One of my favorites, “Sitta,” converts birds into very clean, crisp electronic beats and then attacks them with various filters. By the end, the sounds become almost human, sounding like a voice yelling “nook” or “no,” with really unsettling stereo imagery supplementing the weirdness. That, and the perpetual chiptune-march of the album’s closer, “Tern, Tern, Tern” are my favorites.

When I consider the intended utility behind birdsong collections, I think of the many folks who go “birding” and attempt to imitate bird calls precisely, listening to the calls carefully to memorize every detail. In the case of “Birds,” one works instead with music, heavy on rhythmic delineation, where gentle imitation evokes musical genres instead. One might peer into the edge of a Jamaican jungle, for example, blasting “Poorwill Revolt,” whose triple meter feel sometimes subtly nudges at dub, geese honking on the “ands.” Tight samples serve to bring out vaguely conventional percussion sounds in “Undoing the Pigeon,” too, creating a sort of lounge/exotica-ish backbeat with an insistent envelope-filtered kick drum of sorts.

If I didn’t know ahead of time that this whole record was made from manipulations of bird sounds, I don’t think I would’ve guessed. Interestingly, though, there seems to be something inherent to these sounds that animals still detect, even when the samples are tiny and the effects applied to them are dramatic. In my own unscientific study, I discovered that one out of two pug dogs in my care remain at attention whenever I listen to “Birds,” looking toward my listening room as though a bird might come flying out at any time:

While not my “usual thing,” I really dig the album, and I think you might, too. As many cassette releases go, the first run of “Birds” has already flown the coop come and gone, but you’re in luck: it’s back in print as a 2nd edition. Go to Centipede Farm, and you’ll be rocking your Walkman for a measly four bucks. And a bit of trivia: subsequent to the release of this recording, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library (which has long housed the recordings used to make the National Geographic records used as samples in “Birds”) put its whole collection of animal sounds online. There are over 150,000 of them. See you in a few years, Mr. Wren!

—Scott Scholz