Mar 2nd, 2006, 02:39 PM
re:
i had some requests. here they be...
Joe Meek & The Blue Men - I Hear A New World
h!!p://s42.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=26FKUOTWKF91F15YBV45DF3RMY
"Recorded in 1960 and then lost until 1991, Joe Meek and The Blue Men's, I Hear a New World was arguably the first concept album of its kind, delivering musical answers to questions about the final frontier.
Essentially this album was written about a sonic journey into space 10 years before humans landed on the moon. Lets put this in the context of the era: 1960 and space? People still had concepts of planets made of cheese and little green men with glass helmets wandering about (feasting on human Flesh and wailing on short-necked guitars).
"I wanted to create a picture in music of what could be up there in outer space," Meek said in an interview.
A nontraditional artist in every sense, Joe Meek was a producer who didn't play or sing on this or any other album. He was also a deeply troubled man. Meek suffered from depression and paranoia and was known for explosive tantrums. A closeted homosexual, Meek was once arrested for soliciting for "immoral" purposes after he apparently made a pass at an undercover policeman in an era when public scorn, fear and anger buried homosexuals under social taboos and criminal law.
But Meek's swirling, unpredictable emotions seemed to contribute to his creativity. Thought of as somewhat of a studio mad scientist, he became a legend for experimenting with stereo technology and with any effects he could conjure up. Meek was making British rock history before the "invasion," years before The Beatles would even release an album.
Mostly instrumental, a New World contains songs about waterfalls on the moon and gatherings of dancing aliens. The sped-up Martian lyrics can only be compared today with songs by Alvin and The Chipmunks or perhaps the Lollipop Guild from The Wizard of Oz; cheesy by today's standards, but pretty cutting edge for the time.
"Yes! This is a strange record,'' Meeksaid. "I meant it to be."
The album landed in the wasteland outside pop culture, failing Meek's attempts to market it as a demo album for stereo equipment salespeople. In the next few years Meek's life began to unravel. Then, in Feburary, 1967, he fatally shot himself in the head after shooting his landlady in the back. I Hear A New World vanished after Meek's suicide. Thirty years later, RPM records picked it up and released it in its entirety .
Is I Hear a New World a piece of musical history? The brain child of a genius, a madman? If Meek's work can be resurrected, understood, even inherited, modern DJs, swimming through stacks of obscure records, will be the artists who do it." -Shane Stornanti
"It has been said that when Joe released what was designed simply to be a sampler EP of four of this albums tracks, that only 99 copies were ever produced. It seems more likely however, that only 99 copies were ever actually sold. Various problems Joe had with his distributors and finances ensured that the full length 'I Hear A New World' LP was permanently shelved. Well, until years after Joe's death, of course. The years passed, and 'I Hear A New World' acquired something of a lengendary status, particularly amongst techno/electronica artists. Indeed, 'I Hear A New World' comes across as a particularly exotic and out of this world electronica LP. Albeit one produced and recorded in 1960. And that's where Joe Meek comes into the equation, of course. This was a project very dear to his heart, recordings designed to show the world the full range of his production, composing and recording techniques. Joe's obsession with all things outer-space lended the album its concept, even if his backing band at the time weren't particularly fond of being christened 'the blue men' and being asked to go on stage wearing costumes and asked to have their faces, etc - painted entirely blue! Needless to say, Rod Freeman and The Blue Men, as Joe had indeed christened them for this release, weren't too happy! Anyway, to get the outer space sounds of the moon and beyond that Joe desired, he used a mixture of Hawaiian guitar, bass, drums, a deliberately out of tune piano. He used combs, running water, treated electronics and a wide variety of other percussive and pioneering mixing effects.
That little potted history out of the way, what do we make of this album, exactly? How does it come across listened to in the early part of the 21st century? Well, dated in places, of course. That's only to be expected. There is a timeless appeal to the record overall, though. Some of the actual melodies that Joe composed are absolutely beautiful in their haunting simplicity. Joe Meek was tone deaf, by the way. His hummed demos are reputedly absolutely astonishing!! Still, Joe had these sounds in his head, and utilized his studio and musicians brilliantly to bring his imagined sounds into reality. Listening to 'I Hear A New World', i'd say he did a pretty good job! The title track, for example. Treated backing vocals, both the lead vocal and the backing track deliberately out of tune in places. The guitar sound ringing after each "haunting me....." vocal refrain. The sounds produced are unlike sounds you will hear anywhere else. Utterly distinctive and original sounds are all over this LP. There is a reason it is revered. 'Orbit Around The Moon' is actually more typical Meek instrumental fare, a little shuffling thing that sounds less 'outer space' than much of the LP. Well, it sounds like a delicious mix of Country And Western, provided said Country And Western musical combo were actually from Mars and Pluto. Enough said!!
'Magnetic Field' is eerie sound effects, then eerie actual melodies and undescribable sounds. 'Love Dance Of The Saroos' is a particular favourite of mine, the melody utterly delectable. The way the sound is painted around the melody, the way the echo and percussion has been used. It's hard to believe, but it's true that 'Love Dance Of The Saroos' sounds like the kind of material Brian Wilson was producing in 1967 and 1968. Instrumentals that forgoe any kind of basic rock form in favour of reaching truly for the heavens and reaching truly for sounds and places that can only be imagined. So, ambitious? Well, yes. Ambitious, at other times astonishing, at other times scary and other times beautiful and beautifully funny. That's Joe Meeks 'I Hear A New World'. I like it a lot. I'd heard about this record. Until I actually heard it though... well. All I can say is, it's truly unlike anything else i've heard in my entire life. That's a good thing, obviously." -Adrian Denning.
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Kinski - Alpine Static
h!!p://s63.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3D3ZGYQ0O16AO27TKXYNVEZVSQ
"Every fan and detractor knows the formula: Kinski alternately cajoles and pummels with warm droney passages and all-out riff-based assaults, sometimes building to climaxes, sometimes launching headlong into them. Last year’s Don’t Climb On and Take the Holy Water, presented under the Herzog moniker, offered a glimpse into some latent orchestrated possibilities, apparent in retrospect on Airs Above your Station but not really that album’s MO.
Alpine Static presents a fairly radical shift in group dynamics and deployment, successfully incorporating the sonic wash of Holy Water into the Kinski model while often stretching the boundaries of said model almost to its breaking point. Longtime fans of the trademark sludgy psych needn’t worry, as tracks like “The Party which you Know Will be Heavy” and “Passed Out On your Lawn” thrive on it, and the disc has several of those slow-burn Kinski epics. However, each track presents twists and turns that keep things fresh and exciting through Kinski’s boldest statement to date.
After coddling to expectations and preconceptions for several minutes, “Hot Stenographer” suddenly comes to a dissonant halt on a single held note; beyond the guarded fluidity of much ambient drone, this is a frozen moment of clarity before the riffage kicks back in. It is only the first of many such instances on a disc that, more than any Kinski effort so far, thrives on abrupt changes in the sonic landscape. Some of them chart new territory for the band: witness the momentary descent into a rather unsubtle but undeniable Derek Bailey-esque maelstrom on “The Party Which You Know Will Be Heavy,” or the relentlessly heavy mindnumbing conclusion to “Stenographer.” Equally poignant but similarly unexpected is a beautifully Frippertronic excursion that closes “Passed Out on your Lawn,” almost inverting the “lull, build, crush” Kinski aesthetic. The inner details exposed in each sound on Holy Water seem to have pervaded Kinski’s compositions, giving them a new freedom and imbuing Alpine Static with an experimental edge that complements the group’s already visceral approach." -Marc Medwin
"You probably know this feeling: you're watching one of your favorite bands perform, and they're on fire, nailing every song so perfectly that you wish you'd bootlegged the show. And then, during an extended version of one of their best songs, they hit that "transformational" moment; the hair stands up on the back of your neck, you feel a palpable change in the air around you, and the music becomes a whole order of magnitude more powerful. It's an amazing, blissful, body-tingling moment -- hell, it's one of the reasons we go to shows in the first place. It's also an experience that any Kinski fan should recognize -- the group's live gigs are full of little sonic revelations, though they're hard to capture on record.
Here's the good news: Alpine Static features many of those musical epiphanies, and the bits between them are totally respectable as well.
Consider opener "Hot Stenographer"; after its minute-long slabs-o'-distortion intro, you'd be forgiven for expecting an airless psych-rock jam rather than the lean, muscular, AC/DC-esque rockout that follows. It's definitely time to haul out the air instruments -- at least until the two guitars lapse into a gently bent B chord that sounds as if it may never end. You've seen this happen at a show: the players hold a single feedback-frosted note as the audience stands, wondering what's coming next. A few people start cautious conversations, and a youngish, cranky-looking female audience member puts her fingers in her ears, and you begin to wonder if the song is over. Then, shortly after you've decided that the song is over, the jam resumes full force, the sheer tightness of its stabbing riffs sending shivers down your spine. That's what "Hot Stenographer" delivers -- pulse-quickening excitement.
Losing the classic rock vibe is "The Wives of Artie Shaw"'s first order of business; the bleak, bristling lead-in and elastic chorus jam might well have been borrowed from Sonic Youth's 1990 playbook. The playing is fevered, the pace unrelenting. "Hiding Drugs in the Temple (Part 2)" sprinkles a little noodling action over the Big, Bleak Riffs™; Chris Martin and Matthew Reid-Schwartz work their way from basic call-and-response to a knock-down, drag-out guitar battle as drummer Barrett Wilke reels off thunderous fills in the background.
"The Party Which You Know Will Be Heavy"'s dual picked melody is almost unnaturally gentle and mannered, implying a massive flare-up in the offing. This time, you get a few minutes' warning -- four measures of strummed chords before the storm, which sounds like huge chunks of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless falling out of the sky into the song. Then, suddenly, the whole thing stops dead -- total silence at first, followed by the sort of near subliminal noises you hear when musicians holding very noisy instruments attempt to be completely quiet. Then, after a few cautious, throat-clearing guitar vocalizations, the song starts up with a new, more urgent melody -- a confident, anthemic bit of three-chord (and later four-chord) business, underscored by howls of feedback, decorated with tightly-fingered patterns. It's a gorgeous denouement, but it isn't enough for Kinski: with two minutes to go it fades to a sunny hum, then mounts a pretty, entirely feedback-free dual-guitar melody for a quintessential indie rock close, pure enough to give you shivers.
"Passed Out On Your Lawn" gives bassist Lucy Atkinson a chance to shine: her rhythm layer is a sinister, subharmonic presence beneath the simple, faintly Eastern guitar figure that repeats in the song's opening minutes. When the inevitable loud bit arrives, Atkinson echoes that initial guitar figure while Martin and Reid-Schwartz squall around her, shading in the shadows like a carefully inked sketch. The twist here is that there's a gaping sonic chasm stuck in the middle of this "Lawn", a black hole from which no melody escapes, and only the vaguest swirling sketches of sound reach the other side, full of funereal ambiance. "All Your Kids Have Turned to Static" sustains the newly mellow vibe, pitting Reid-Schwartz's expressive flute against Martin's plaintive finger-picked tune, plus a syrupy layer of... well, it's either keyboard or organ or pedaled-to-hell guitar, but whatever it is, it makes the song feel like a fever dream.
In the interest of leaving Alpine Static a few of its surprises, we'll simply note that "The Snowy Parts of Scandinavia" has been a staple of the band's live set for a few years, and offers a few heart-in-mouth shocks amid its feedback-drenched catharsis and Stereolab-friendly jam. "Edge Set" offers more indie rock tingles, and closer "Waka Nusa" pledges itself unquestioningly to a very intimate finale.
One of Kinski's great strengths is their willingness to commit to their basic format; although Reid-Schwartz in particular could probably rock any instrument he sets hands on, the band never add extra, eclectic instrumentation simply for the sake of doing so. Indeed, they squeeze so much depth out of their standard, straightforward formula that even the flute can sound oddly stuntish 'til it finds its place in a song. Alpine Static's only disappointment is the fact that drummer Barrett Wilke's powerful rhythms are often stranded in the background; Wilke gives his kit a near-fatal beating over the album's course, and it's a pity that his ferocious fills, so often caught in passing, don't get more chances to dominate. Listen closely to "Passed Out On Your Lawn" to hear him get his workout.
Alpine Static celebrates Kinski's near-Tantric knack for finding yet another climax in the midst of their drawn-out, cathartic instrumental shudders. It highlights their talent for finding the core of invention within repetition, and suggests far greater peaks (and much greener valleys) in their future. And as far as recapturing those fleeting concert-going thrills is concerned, it's top-notch." -George Zahora
"Maybe Kinski does rely on the loud/soft dynamic quite a lot in their compositions and, frankly, their last album seemed too bent on switching between churning, piston-driven rock and more electronic affairs that simply hummed and drifted away within the record. It was a distracting feature on an otherwise fine album; all that's changed with Alpine Static. The blasted, wailing guitars and metronomic drum performances are still present, but the compositions have more depth to them. Tracks like "The Party Which You Know Will Be Heavy" and "Passed Out On Your Lawn" pass between thumping, heavy sections and subdued portions that are equally exotic and familiar. The use of atmospheric movements within some of the pieces works much better than previously due to the inclusion of far more organic sounds. When the strings freak out and begin to convulse like a dying animal there's no sense of forced drama or pause, the album flows together as one continuous piece of music. It's pretty amazing feat considering the range of sounds to be found and the fact that a couple of these tracks have been floating around for a little while now in one form or another. Both "Hiding Drugs in the Temple (Part 2)" and "Passed Out On Your Lawn" have appeared before in some form or another and with different names. Also refreshing is the dynamic of darker and lighter songs on Alpine Static. My experience with Kinski is that they tend to pick a mood and stick to it, but between different songs and, sometimes, within a given song Kinski switch up the atmosphere and spirit easily and seamlessly. There's no shortage of very serious rocking, but the best parts of the album are when they manage to build a real tension and then release it perfectly with a wave of drumming fury and infinitely stretched guitar tones that each something like pure noise feedback. They control it just enough to give it a melodic edge that makes it captivating. Alpine Static is a huge improvement on their past albums, mainly because I want to listen to the entire record instead of skipping around and looking for the aggressive, propulsive songs on the album and leaving the rest to sit as filler. Every portion of the album is used more economically and satisfyingly, making it a more enjoyable listen and a more well- rounded piece of music all the way around." -Lucas Schleicher
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