Gig #85: Of late 25: Helena Hauff, Midday Veil, Fuck the Facts, MXLX, Mercury Rev, Kuedo, Helen, Erraunt, Tallesen, Low, WOLD, Chelsea Wolfe, Slayer, Okkyung Lee

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Helena Hauff Sworn To Secrecy Part II
‘Helena Hauff executes a strong 2nd album of one-take machine workouts ranging from icy, beat-less moments to hi-NRG and darkwave pop with Discreet Desires for Werk Discs/Ninja Tune. Arriving 6 months after her very limited debut, A Tape, by contrast this effort is a far more polished and organised affair, but still with the requisite amounta muck under her talons’ chipped lacquer. It offers ten tracks, each improvised and recorded at her bedroom studio in Hamburg and tested on the road between her countless international DJ gigs and closer to home at Golden Püdel. In a marked difference to all her previous releases, it sounds like she’s just got a posher bit of hardware, buoying the whole album with super wide basslines whilst her Roland rhythms bite and jab with patented venom. If we’re picking highlights, the salty NRG lash of ‘Piece of Pleasure’ is a must, as are the darkwave jag of ‘Sworn To Secrecy Part II’ and the Dopplereffekt-like cadence of ‘Silver Sand & Boxes of Mould’.’ — Bookman

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Midday Veil Empire is No More
‘The band’s preceding full-length album – 2013’s The Current, named one of the year’s best avant-rock releases by The Wire – could be viewed as the band emerging from their kosmische chrysalis, unfurling previously unheard banners of both color and control. This Wilderness is the sound of the band under the self-imposed hypnosis of that emergence, extending the voyage with even more discipline than ever before. The beating musical heart of This Wilderness remains the out-sized synth wizardry of co-founder David Golightly, who seems to have ingested every possible mind-altering sound from Stockhausen to Cybotron to the “Love to Love You” of Donna Summer. They’re all on display here, made especially ornate by the driving percussion of Garrett Moore, the deep, submerging bass of Jayson Kochan, and the often-explosive, reptilian guitar lines of multi-instrumentalist Timm Mason.’ — Beyond Beyond is Beyond

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Fuck the Facts Solitude
‘Despite steadily unleashing new material over the past few years, including two EPs and a split, Desire Will Rot is Fuck the Facts’ first full-length since 2011’s Die Miserable. The new LP from the progressive grindcore warriors is exactly what fans have been waiting for, featuring 11 tracks of the band’s unique brand of visceral grind. It’s an onslaught of harsh, blazing force, starting with the whiplash-fast opener “Everywhere Yet Nowhere,” which contains a surge of aggression that carries on throughout “Shadows Collide.” Tracks like “La Mort II” and “Solitude” are blistering and overwhelmingly powerful, but Fuck the Facts’ sound is anything but limited. Desire Will Rot is incredibly diverse, containing varied structures and incorporating many different styles and elements: “The Path of Most Resistance” has a groove-based approach and “La Mort I” is melody-centric, while “Storm of Silence” features a punk vibe and “Circle” is characterized by experimental noise.’ — Exclaim

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MXLX O Faithful Erection
‘In two years Matt Loveridge has released over twenty albums/EP’s, spilt over different aliases Klad Hest, Fairhorns, Gnar Hest, Knife Liibrary, Speed the Plough, Matt Williams and now MXLX, as well as being a member of BEAK. Not bad going, his latest album, Go Away, released through the excellent French label Valeur d’usage Records, is a lo-fi ambient acoustic affair (Loveridge calls the music Autistic Blues). This is a fair description as his music is abstract and sketch like in places, some tracks consisting of nothing more than beautiful chord progressions, laced with a misty drone. In Loveridge’s own words this was born of “Combination of misery and poverty and having nothing else to do brought this record on”, an apt description, but there is beauty here too.’ — god is in the tv

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Mercury Rev Queen of Swans
‘Mercury Rev’s The Light In You is filled with wondrous and voluminous kaleidoscopic detail, but also intimate moments of calm, and altogether stands up to the very best that this notable band of maverick explorers has ever created. Its ecstatic highs and shivery comedowns also reflect a particularly turbulent era in the lives of Grasshopper and fellow co-founder Jonathan Donahue, of calamities both personal and physical, but also rebirths and real births (Grasshopper became a father for the first time in 2014). There’s a reason for the seven-year gap since the band’s last album, Snowflake Midnight. “It was one of those otherworldly life sequences, when everythi
ng you think is solid turns molten,” explains Jonathan. “But also, when something is worth saying, it can take a long time to say it, rather than just blurt it out.”’ — Bella Union

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Kuedo Boundary Regulation
‘We can see the same efficient production in the general drama-dynamics of Kuedo’s Assertion of a Surrounding Presence. Its swelling pads, gamelan, and titular images form a swill of affect primed for sound systems that are themselves capitalized by the counter-market of counterculture. The record pairs relatively accessible music with a disruptive language and agenda. Tracks like “Vertical Stack” weep with a hyper-pathos that pull spindly synth riffs over Reichian bass runs and soaring flute, literally mobilizing an ambient storm of “unbending futurist focus” key to Kuedo’s agenda. That agenda is described as a hyperreal spatialization of genre, specifically footwork, drill, and techno; these are surrounding presences becoming “asserted” as focused affect — something charged, powerful, even emotional regarding its approach to “the zeitgeist.” The ambience is honed in sharp tracks like “Boundary Regulation,” a brill cut that features Night Slugs affiliate Egyptrixx, or “Border State Collapse,” where spatial resonance is tempered by Kuedo’s signature skittering hi-hats. The tracks are quick, incisive, and full of mass appeal.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Helen Motorcycle
‘In case you missed their excellent 7″ single from a couple years back, Liz Harris of Grouper also plays in a “pop group” called Helen with some Portland friends (Jed Bindeman of Eternal Tapestry + Scott Simmons of Eat Skull). The band has just announced their debut LP, and today they unveil the awesome lead single: “Motorcycle” starts off with all the beautiful, delicate haze of a Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill-era Grouper song, before erupting into a glorious, blown-out fuzz-pop jam. Helen’s the original faces — which also features previous tracks “Felt This Way” + “Dying All the Time“ — is out September 4 on Kranky.’ — collaged

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Erraunt The Portent
‘The Portent is the debut release by Chicago one-man atmospheric black metal outfit Erraunt. In technical terms, there are lots of odd but seemingly deliberate choices of melody and note placement — like major 7th intervals that imply a certain key or chord followed by notes that establish a completely different key center — that constantly throw the listener off and reveal composer Oneiric’s penchant for unorthodox arrangements and song structures. The only thing I can possibly compare it to is a mixture of the softer portions of Emperor’s Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk and the unrelenting difficulty of Paysage d’Hiver’s noisy layering. The Portent constantly and intentionally finds itself at the junction of “atmospheric” and “unhinged,” with Oneiric meticulously driving the listener further and further away from recognizable repetition in melody and rhythm. I have no idea what his artistic background is, but one gets the sense that this is far from his first rodeo.’ — Reign in Blog

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Tallesen Emmel
‘Tallesen wants to make his audience move. Especially with inca. Because a lot of his music is audibly contorted and melted, stretched and stifled, etc. and etc., bodies tap or move (uncontrollably, even) to a potentially non-existent, perhaps constantly decaying rhythm. Yet, as Tallesen tries to shift both with and without this confinement of beat, there’s an insatiable twitch inside us that wants to move with one or all melodies, a fleshy desire for audible nihilism. inca is progressive club, dabbed and tabbed into a lush neon light, flickering to a broken metronome in a trash-bagged window, emitting dense smoke from every seam: it steams for your arrival, and it’s looking to create some dance-floor transcendence.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Low What Part of Me
‘Despite the purity of their configuration — Sparhawk on guitar and vocals, Parker on drums and vocals, and a bass player (currently Steve Garrington) — Low’s catalog is surprisingly diverse. While pristine minimalism and Sparhawk and Parker’s dolorous vocal harmonies have always been at the core of the band’s aesthetic, working with a variety of producers over the years (Kramer, Steve Fisk, Steve Albini, Dave Fridmann) has managed to push and pull the band’s sound in interesting directions. 2013’s The Invisible Way — produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy — was widely considered the most classically Low-sounding album the band had released in years: a missive that pretty evenly split the difference between the plaintive nature of the band’s early work and the ragged noisiness and sonic experimentation of later releases. Ones And Sixes largely continues that theme. Produced by BJ Burton, the record nicely balances the band’s trademark immediacy (“Into You” and “Kid In The Corner”) with more sprawling, experimental fare (the blistering, nearly 10-minute “Landslide” or “DJ,” a track that could be a spiritual cousin to Trust’s “Shots & Ladders”). Throughout the record, electronic flourishes bubble under the surface while the cavernous-sounding guitars rip and echo around the corners.’ — Stereogum

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WOLD Sol
‘Freermasonry:— the obliterative sixth album from Wold, the Saskatchewan act led by the incredibly named Fortress Crookedjaw– is ultimately enigmatic and entirely unknowable, an intersection of noise, metal, and electronics that doesn’t yield to such plainclothes criticism. Mean, dense and multivalent, with a lyrical conceit based on Masonic symbolism and Biblical scripture, it’s the rare loud music that begs to be louder still if you’re to have any chance of understanding it. Freermasonry: is a case study in controlling the illusion of chaos, an elegantly constructed nightmare of sound where hearing one layer of serrated screams, static bursts, and feedback flares means you’ve missed some mass of activity somewhere else. Weirdly seductive rhythms tumble beneath a laundromat of blown-out tones and crackling vocals, generally pulling your attention a dozen different ways. I’ve been listening to the album consistently for three months now, and somehow, I’m still surprised by what its 58 minutes sound like and accomplish. Paradoxically disorienting and direct, Freermasonry: is a constant tumult of surprising activity, more unf
orgiving than most everything in the noise, metal, and drone scenes, places where Wold kind of fits.’ — Grayson Currin

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Chelsea Wolfe Carrion Flowers
‘Abyss is as black and as grim as its name would suggest. The bass line that introduces album-opener “Carrion Flowers” recalls Sunn O))) in its density and minimalism. It rumbles like the warning growl of some infernal beast about to slip its chain, untamed and untamable, even as the rest of the instrumentation — the scraped guitars, the plodding drums, the moaning synth — struggle to hem it in on all sides. At odds with the ugliness surrounding her stands Wolfe herself. Her voice reverberates like that of a nightingale swallowed whole, crying for rescue from within the song’s monstrous belly. Abyss may be Wolfe’s heaviest set to date, abetted perhaps by the presence of Russian Circles’ guitarist Mike Sullivan, who lends an axe to the album’s most crushing tracks. Wolfe has stated that many of the songs were inspired by her lifelong affliction with sleep paralysis, an experience of immobility while in a semiconscious state that is often accompanied by nightmarish hallucinations. I can’t comprehend the terror of such an affliction, to be so viciously betrayed by both mind and body, but the immensity of songs like “Dragged Out” and “Iron Moon” evoke a similar sense of helplessness in the listener, like we too are rendered prostrate before forces beyond our comprehension and control.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Slayer Repentless
‘We started this process, like, four years ago [before Jeff died]. It’s been a long time coming. We started with the idea that we needed to do an album — well, our management was, like, ‘You know, it’s about time you guys do another record.’ and we said, ‘Oh, okay.’ [Laughs] So we start working on ideas and put together some new songs, and then four years later, a lot has happened. Kerry [King, guitar] had a lot of stuff written, and Jeff was working ideas out, but he was very limited because he had a tough time playing his guitar. Jeff was always writing music, so he had demos and stuff that he liked, and he started cutting and pasting those together and trying to make them work. So, we had a lot of material already, but I was a little apprehensive, because Jeff and Kerry wrote the music for SLAYER. We all contributed to the lyrics, but music was written between the two of them. So you have half of SLAYER — musically you have half of SLAYER — and physically you have two-thirds of SLAYER, so it’s a big percentage of the band. Two-thirds is still a big percentage, and, like I said, I was a little apprehensive because they each wrote differently, so it would be a lopsided wheel, you know what I mean?’ — Tom Araya

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Okkyung Lee The Crow Flew After Yi Sang
‘A native of Korea, cellist/composer Okkyung Lee has been developing her unique voice in both improvised and composed music by blending her wide interests and influences. Since moving to New York in 2000, she has worked with numerous artists ranging from Laurie Anderson, David Behrman, Douglas Gordon, Vijay Iyer, Christian Marclay, Jim O’Rourke, Evan Parker and John Zorn just to name a few, while leading her own projects and releasing more than 20 albums and touring extensively in the US and Europe. Okkyung was a recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant in 2010. Ghil was recorded and produced by the Norwegian artist Lasse Marhaug. Instead of recording in what has become the standard in modern contempoary music, with high-end equipment and in controlled studio settings, Marhaug wanted to record Ghil in an expressionistic way – to purposely use crude equipment and unorthodox microphone placement in order to give a more raw and direct depiction of Okkyung playing her music. Marhaug says if it they were making a film, it would be like shooting on grainy 16mm black&white; with close-ups instead of 35mm colour cinemascope.’ — Ideologic Organ

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p.s. Hey. If anyone reading this is now or will be in Paris around September 11th, tickets have just gone on sale for the world premiere of LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW, and, if you’re 16 years of age or older, you can buy them here. ** Thomas Moore, Hi, T. Nothing better than a zing. Or nothing I can think of. Cool, or, you know, about the tunnel post coaxing a self-examination. New thing for your work’s arsenal maybe? That’s the way I seem to think about most everything. I’ll google Harry Proctor then. I couldn’t find anything yesterday. I have that Genesis/Laura Jane thing cued up. Definitely will listen to JS on Bret’s thing. I love JS. Cool. Thank you! Friday morning is good. Post-p.s., meaning between, like, 11 am and noon Paris time? Which would be, what, … 10 and 11 your time? I’ll email you my phone # and Skype if you don’t have them. ** David Ehrenstein, They’re adorable, that’s for sure. Shit, I can’t even fully open the Hulu page over here. It’s blocked in France. Lucky everybody else, though. Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein has thoughtfully pointed out that for the next four — or maybe three by now — days, you in the US of A can watch films by Robert Bresson for absolutely free on Hulu, and since, in my humble opinion, Bresson is greatest artist who ever lived, I obviously highly encourage you to take advantage. Go here. ** Bill, Hi. Sweet about that Mike Kuchar event, yeah, Envy. Yes, I was emailed the day of the post from someone who pointed out that it was just a Photoshop job. What a shame. It’s a good job, but if you really look close, there are total implausibilities here and there. Dang. ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. A McDowell Day from you would obviously rock everything. Yeah, of course, the raid on Rentboy was a total shock, really blind-siding. Which, yeah, lends it to theorizing galore. I wonder if the actual ‘why’ will come out. Really, really fucked and mind boggling. Luckily, I guess, I haven’t seen any of the gay-on-gay bashing of sex workers that you say is going on. Not a surprise, disgustingly, though. I would guess that, unless this renders them gun-shy, the resorts can migrate to men4rentnow, or whatever Rentboy’s main competitor is called exactly. No, I had not read that Jacques Audiard is adapting Patrick’s novel. Holy shit, that’s amazing! Wow! I’m really excited for Patrick’s soon to be released new novel. That Pattinson guy is really turning his career around, isn’t he? I have yet to understand exactly what excellent filmmakers like Denis see in him, but it’s a really nice thing to see him do for some reason. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, I too have not seen any of the escort-bashing by gay guys. So depressing when centric gay guys’ small-mindedness and geriatric morals are yanked into the fore, but good to know, I guess. ** Étienne, Hi! Glad you came back! If it makes a difference, my experiences in French bookstores when it is r
evealed to the employees that the guy (me) buying some complicated French tome doesn’t speak French, is that the discrepancy seems to charm their pants off. I’m sure there’s some condescension in that charm explosion, but, being the Francophile that I am, I don’t mind a little humbling. I’m so totally on board with your love affair with Paris. I’ve been here for-almost-ever-now, and I’m still like you. So I encourage you to embrace and wallow in that love, not that you need the slightest encouragement. Double cheek kiss. ** Torn porter, Mr. Porter! You’re here in Paris right this second? Whoa. Is it raining cats and dogs this morning or what? Oh, yeah, let’s hang. Best for me would be, like, Friday or over the weekend sometime because then I take off for Geneva for a bit. Write or text or call me, and let’s sort it. Do you still have my email and phone #? See you soon, man. Hey to Ratty! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I think you’ll like the Kuchars stuff, Just a guess, but that feels right. No, seeing their stuff on DVD is good. Or you can use the links in the post or search the Kuchars on youtube/Vimeo. There are a fair number of their films available to stream/watch online. ** H, Hi. Okay, sounds good. Thank you! ** Misanthrope, Right, I get it, about he word ‘fakery’. Maybe ‘scripted’, ‘choreographed’. Man, we tried hard to find the entrance to the tunnel. We looked at old maps, even conferred with the people who did the architectural changes on the building, and the the thing is there, but the entrance is not marked anywhere. But if anybody can find it, it’s you, eagle-eye. I sure made forts, or, rather, tunnels, as a kid, not just in the living room either. In the kitchen, the bathroom, you name it. ** Nemo, Hi, Joey. Cool that you guys’ll get to meet the one and only and singular Nick Hudson. Give him a bear hug on my behalf please. Well, bad pay aside, that’s cool that she was offered the NYU gig, no? Big hi and more back to Jarrod! ** Chris Dankland, Cool, cool, about the blog’s ensconced films getting you into them. Loved the videos. Your talent is a mega thing, if you don’t know. Hopefully you, at the very least, suspect that’s the case. ** Brendan, Oh, 1st and 2nd, but … wobblingly (that’s not a word?) so. I think, I hope, I think I’ll get to LA in October at some point for some Halloween spooky house exploration. I’m trying to sort out if and how and when now, but it looks pretty good. Assuming they’re still in season play then, hitting the Stadium would be positively and tearfully nice. Love to you, B-ster. ** Armando, Hi. No, shit, I haven’t read them yet, which is horrible of me, I’m so sorry, but I’ve been juggling four big projects at once for the past months, and it’s made me worse than usual about doing other things I want and need to do. I’ll be in the semi-clear soonish, and my brain will be reopened, if that’s okay. So sorry. ** Right. Today’s one of those gigs where I present stuff that I’m listening to right now and like enough to try sharing. If you like, find out if our tastes have things in common. See you tomorrow.