Gig #53: Of late 5: Kim Myhr, Ulver, The Notwist, Holly Herndon, Ahnnu, Pain Jerk, Guided by Voices, Stefan Jaworzyn, Burial, Blevin Blectum, Compound Eye, Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura, Foetus, Form A Log, Raum

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Kim Myhr sleep nothing, eat nothing
‘Kim Myhr is an extremely innovative guitarist with an emphasis on using a wide range of extended percussive, harmonic and timbral techniques. He has embarked on an international career with performances throughout Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, China and Japan. His projects include a duo with Sebastien Roux (electronics/FR); a duo with dancer Orfee Schuijt; the trio MURAL with Denley and Ingar Zach; the group “Silencers” with Benoit Delbecq (piano/FR) as well as a piece (CD release) for Trondheim Jazz-orkester featuring Sidsel Endresen, Christian Wallumrod and many others. He has also performed with Martin Tetreault, Anthony Pateras, Toshi Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Robbie Avenaim to name a few.’ — collaged

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ULVER with MG_INC Orchestra Messe I.X-VI.X, Part 2 (live)
‘An overarching feeling of decadence permeates every single note on Messe I.X–VI.X, and the listener is left with the same unavoidable yet near imperceptible sensation once the album’s last note has ceased reverberating. This project was originally put together by Norway’s Tromsø Kulturhus, who commissioned Ulver to create new music in collaboration with the Arctic Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra. The band was aided by composer Martin Romberg, whose penchant for folk and fantasy is hinted at by the orchestration during various sections of the album, like the beautiful crescendo in ‘Glamour Box (Ostinati)’ or the faintly audible interaction with the band’s electronics in ‘Noche Oscura del Alma’. The pieces were originally performed live in September 2012, but this finished recording is not a live album in the literal sense, as the music has been reworked and altered by Ulver in the time period since.’ — The Quietus

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The Notwist Kong
‘The word “Kong” tends to conjure images of angry, confused giant gorillas rampaging through Depression-era New York, or of dogs frantically attempting to extract peanut butter from rubber toys. “Kong,” the new song from the proggy German electro-pop group the Notwist, sounds like neither. Instead, it’s a very pretty, very hooky piece of Krautrock tunecraft, shot through with a deep sense of longing. Driven by its beat and anthemic guitar chords, the song is The Notwist’s homage to ’90s indie-pop. The lyrics are a true story about a young Markus and his family trapped in their home by a flood, dreaming as hard as he could about being saved by superheroes as the water rose around them.’ — collaged

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Holly Herndon Chorus
‘Now that you probably live much of your life in the virtual sphere — tweeting, texting, chatting, Skyping, emailing and working — it might just be a matter of time before everything about your life becomes digital. And you actual desktop becomes a virtual one… The song “Chorus” consists almost entirely from real-time samples taken from composer Holly Herndon’s online life, collected via YouTube, Skype and other online tools. The video takes a similar artistic slant with director Akihiko Taniguchi building upon his earlier “Study of Real Time 3-D Internet” where you slide into an enveloping online life.’ — Videostatic

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Ahnnu Your Light
‘Presentations of diversity seem to be becoming increasingly apt: whatever Frederic Jameson says about postmodernism, the fact is that our cultural world is phenomenally fragmented into thousands of diverging, idiosyncratic pieces. I imagine it like looking at a membrane through a microscope: the endless discovery of parts moving inside parts — individuation ad infinitum. You get a feeling for this constant kind of modification and fertile variety in the tapes of Ahnnu who strings together myriad shards of social and cultural noises, culminating in a spectacular, compelling barrage of the diverse. As curator and persuader of sound, as opposed to (mythical) Creator of music, Ahnnu makes sound tapestries of a socially objective character: here, subjectivity is transfigured from the momentary divine to the capacity to situate oneself acutely in the manifold of personal and social time.’ — tiny mix tapes

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Pain Jerk live at LUFF
‘Pain Jerk (Japanese; ペイン・ジャーク) is a NOISE music project run by Japanese musician Kohei Gomi. Pain Jerk was one of the more prolific and influential noise artists of the 1990s, and is one of the leading figures in the “dynamic” style of Japanese noise, alongside acts such as Merzbow and Kazumoto Endo. Gomi is also the owner of the noise label AMP, and a member, along with T. Mikawa and F. Kosakai of Incapacitants, of the noise supergroup Gomikawa Fumio. He has also edited split albums with others NOISE artists such as: John Wiese, Armenia, Bastard Noise, Endon, etc…’ — last.fm

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Guided by Voices Littlest League Possible
‘Is it time for a new Guided By Voices album? Well, is it time for a new tank of gas, a fresh coat of nail polish, or breakfast? Then sure, it’s time for a new Guided By Voices album. So we’re getting Motivational Jumpsuit, one of many recent Robert Pollard endeavors, in February. Lead single “Littlest League Possible” is short, catchy, and impossible to parse — in other words, it maintains the platonic ideal of Guided By Voices.’ — Stereogum

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Stefan Jaworzyn Two Note Bass
‘Ask noise-heads which musicians mattered in the 80s and 90s, and Stefan Jaworzyn will likely come up. Three of his groups were among the most unique and notorious in the UK underground: power electronics pioneers Whitehouse, who he spent two short stints with; mammoth noise-rock outfit Skullflower, which he co-founded with Matthew Bower; and free-improv duo Ascension (disclosure: they contributed to a 7-inch I released), which expanded into the quartet Descension. Jaworzyn also helmed the consistently excellent Shock label, issuing stellar experimental titles by Current 93, Coil, and the Dead C. All of this activity came to a mysterious halt in the late 90s, when Jaworzyn ceased making music or doing anything else in the public eye (a recent press release claims he stopped to “focus on drinking and cursing.”) His silence persisted until last year, when Shock re-emerged with a flurry remniscent of Jaworzyn’s hyperactive past.’ — Pitchfork

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Burial Come Down to Us
‘Simultaneously dark, light, stereotypical and out of character, ‘Rival Dealer’ is an EP on which London producer Burial outclasses and outmanoeuvres his peers. ‘Come Down To Us’, the 13-minute EP closer, is moving. Its funereal pace recalls the blunted fever of Burial’s Massive Attack remixes, but the layered vocals, Disney-esque strings and synth washes serge with murky and melodic euphoria. Burial’s success has brought with it imitators, but with this EP he’s outwitted them all by introducing a gloriously widened palate to his music that is both instantly familiar and shockingly unlikely. His sound is transformed, yet makes sense within his musical references. Remarkable.’ — NME

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Blevin Blectum Foyer Fire
‘Blevin Blectum is an electronic musician and multimedia composer. Blectum studied the violin during her youth. At Oberlin College she began making electronic music at the WOBC-FM studios. At Mills College, she partnered with Kevin Blechdom to form Blectum from Blechdom, a performance art / vocals, laptops and samplers / electronica duo. In 2001, Blectum from Blechdom won an Award of Distinction for digital music at the Prix Ars Electronica. Blectum has released many solo albums, and released a CD/DVD Unseen Forces on Matmos’s Vague Terrain label as part of Sagan with ex-husband J Lesser, video prouducer Ryan Junell, and Wobbly. Her most recent full length, Emblem Album, was released on Aagoo records in December 2013.’ — collaged

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Compound Eye Foehn
‘Compound Eye, the somewhat unpredictable collaboration between Tres Warren (of Psychic Ills) and Drew McDowall (formerly of Coil), have a new album out, and it’s called Journey from Anywhere, released on Editions Mego. Electronic improvisation is the unstated goal here, and Warren refers to it as an ongoing “recording project,” buoyed by a lack of formula and an impulse to add things as the creative mind warrants. “Journey” is aptly used, in other words. It’s the follow-up to their ‘Origin of Silence’ art edition for The Spring Press and follows its themes of patiently explorative, unfolding composition in eight parts working at a “trasportive blur of dark psychedelic minimalism.” The dissonant tang of Coil’s furthest occult chicanery is clear and present and a beacon for all keener psychonauts throughout the album.’ — collaged

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Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura Christmas In Honduras
‘Desmadrados use three guitars, two basses, drums and vocals to navigate a morass of wah-heavy swamp blues and almost Spectator-label scale thug punk excess. Think Vermonster’s Holy Sound Of American Pipe or the live Baby Grandmother jams given a free-form Fillmore East shakedown or the George Brigman orchestra play Pandit Pran Nath’s sundown raga. There’s definitely a return to heady wasted guitar/psych in the North of England right now – thanks to heads like Nick Mitchell et al – and this is a missive from the goddamn heart of the new free electric sound.’ — David Keenan

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Foetus Kamikaze
‘Because this is a Foetus album, aggression is given a greater amount of space to play around in. If you think muscular drums and bombastic percussion were reserved only for what he’s done in the past, you’re going to be blown out of your chair. Is he still using the tape and razor approach at this stage? I’m sure it still is getting dragged out kicking and screaming to add some of the accents on here, Thirlwell’s work is just too hands-on for it not to be. The idea that this kind of mania came to life purely on a computer screen I wouldn’t buy for all the whiskey in Ireland. For a guy who always looks so calm and sedate when performing live these days, his subconscious is still bordering on explosive. So much raw, brutish power is contained on ‘Soak’! He’s in his 50s by the way, and he’s still composing this kind of madness, showing no signs of slowing down.’ — Santa Sangre

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Form A Log Penguin Time Line
‘With 12 channels available to mix and match between them, Form A Log performances find Ren Schofield (Container, I Just Live Here), Noah Anthony (Profligate), and Rick Weaver (Dinner Music, Human Conduct) overlaying their streams of technoid chaos into a generative mire that pulses enough to occupy your body as it reconfigures your synapses. Spend time with Form A Log, and designations like “primal” or “underground” or “lo-fi” crumble under your complete certainty that these men are doing everything perfectly right and perfectly wrong, feeling their way through new permutations of improvisation and composition, and conjuring a din unlike any you’ve heard before.’ — collaged

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Raum In Held Company
‘Raum is the name of the new project from Liz Harris – aka experimental singer-songwriter Grouper – and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, whose debut EP is due on San Francisco label Glass, house later this month. Their music is simultaneously quite unassuming and overwhelming, putting the onus on the listener to wade through its gauzy textures to hear Harris’s disembodied vocal and the strains of a spectral melody; it might seemed dark at first glance, but you don’t have to walk too far in to find the light. The duo is making ghostly, voice-heavy experimental music that sounds like the filling of a room. While the track itself is ethereal like Harris’s former projects, it feels less impatient, and not as twitchy, like working with another musician has given her a chance to slow herself down.’ — collaged

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p.s. Hey. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Me too. The only later Resnais films I’ve seen are ‘Smoking/No Smoking’ and ‘Wild Grass’, both of which were very interesting. I need to see more. For some reason, the ‘filmed play’ thing kind of puts me off initially a bit, which is just a knee-jerk prejudice holding his work hostage. It’s truly fantastic that he’s still making films, and apparently very strong films, in his 90s. There’s a new one finished and coming out this year! ** David Ehrenstein, Wonderful, enlightening thoughts and knowledge about Resnais, thank you so much! Of course I’m happy that you like ‘Providence’ so much too. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Oh, I’m not sure if I can really speak to why I love ‘Providence’ so much off the top of my not fully caffeinated head. The way it blends internal and external structures, superficial premises with chaotic emotional substance, fiction and ‘non-fiction’, etc. so wittily and yet with such deep melancholy was revelatory for me when I saw it. My novel ‘The Marbled Swarm’ is massively influenced by it. Our weather here is a modulating drear. Very non-dramatic and kind of pleasantly wintery rather than startlingly so. If there was a still in there that wasn’t from a Resnais film, it was a mistake. I’ll remove that one. I’m not sure how it got in there. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hey. Got it. I’ll send you my stuff, and we’ll talk, figure it out today. Thanks for the Radigue link. If I can possibly get away to see that, I definitely will. ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, it’s totally okay to talk about the Farrow/Allen thing here. It’s horrible and fascinating. Good luck getting those maybes turned into nods. It is strange that Resnais’s short films aren’t collected in DVD. Or … are they not collected on a French DVD? The ones I’ve seen are just fantastic. The two I included in the post are really good ones. They, and a few others, are available in full on youtube. Really lively, nice interview with the Canadian guy, Kudos and thanks! ** Kyler, Hi. Cool about your high ranking of ‘Providence’. I did find some stuff about James McDonald, yes. Very interesting. I’m going to investigate further. ** Rewritedept, Hey. You could be right about Antarctica. I don’t know. I just know that they’re quite different, despite their superficial resemblance. Facebook is generating as much grotesquerie at the moment as I have seen it do. My Wednesday was quite okay. Wrote novel, co-wrote a film scene with Zac for Gisele’s movie project, had a great, advancing meeting re: his and my film project, etc. We’ll see about Thursday. I hope yours rocked. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. He’s amazing. I don’t think you’ll be sorry. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Super weird. Oh, my great pleasure and honor on the blurb. Sweet that Michael is representing you at that incredible sounding reading. And at AWP. I’ve never gone to that. I would love to as well. ** Creative Massacre, I’m good. Right, the last time I saw you, you were about to get those stubborn teeth yanked out of your mouth/head/life. Continuing envy about your snowfall. We haven’t had a single flake here, but I have a strong feeling that, after Antarctica, I will have had more than my fill of the freezing cold white stuff. Really nice to see you, Misty! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Thanks about the Resnais post. Like I said, I’m a bit woefully behind the curve on most of his later films. I did quite like ‘Smoking/No Smoking’. You’ve got me about ‘Four Nights of a Dreamer’. I have no idea why it’s taking so long to be a DVD. I know that the big rights problem regarding it was supposedly resolved years ago, and that its release was supposed to be imminent, but I haven’t heard a peep about that since. I’ll see if I can find anyone here who knows anything about that. Oh, cool, I’m sure I can find the stream if it’s via WFMU. Thanks! ** Misanthrope, Ditto, i.e. me too about the Bieber stuff. ‘All the hypocritical outrage over some minor thing that’s the barest fraction as bad as what I and those complaining about him did at his age’: bingo. ** Armando, Hi, buddy! Oh, man, sorry about my teching up the blog to the point of difficulty. I’ve missed you too! Thanks about my birthday. Lateness ain’t no big. Nope, I haven’t seen ‘Wolf of Wall Steet’. I know, I know. I really want to. I almost saw it a couple of times, but life has been way busy and crazy lately. I will see it though. I haven’t been this intrigued to see a Scorcese film in a long time. Let off Farrow/Allen steam here all you like. Totally understandable. I’m doing good. I hope you’re doing good too, my friend! ** Jonathan, Yeah, the Warpaint didn’t win me over. The Herndon is lovely. In fact, she’s right up there in the gig. The Parisian hood is a little overly wet and damp, but it’s, you know, Paris, so, you know, it’s awesome. Talk soon, I hope! ** Okay. You get a gig curated by me today featuring some of the music I’ve listening to lately and getting a lot out of. Hope you find something or even multiple things that serve you well in there. I will, yeah, see you tomorrow!