vSilence #24: FSOL, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Aube, Endless 1
glenn mcdonald
The War Against Silence #24, 13 July 95
The Future Sound of London: ISDN
Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Concert Program
Aube: Wired Trap
various: Endless 1
The Future Sound of London: ISDN
A few months ago I decided that this whole "ambient" deal was getting by
me, and that I ought to investigate. I've always had a visceral
technology fascination, so "synthetic textures" and "sampler-fed studio
creations" basically sounded pretty cool to me. On the other hand,
"ambient" was too often mentioned in proximity to "Techno", which leads
my mind directly to "House", which makes me think of the semester of
college I spent living through a fire door from an avid House devotee,
during which I swear I heard the same fucking single measure of music
non-stop for three months, until the person in question was silenced
through means I've been advised not to discuss until 2038, when the
statute of limitations runs out.
So I've approached the subject cautiously. Somewhere about the time I
began, though, I read an interesting interview with the Future Sound of
London, and decided that buying everything of theirs I could find would
be a useful exercise in depth to compliment the piles of compilations I
was accumulating for breadth purposes. What I found was interesting,
but not nearly as strange as I'd hoped. Accelerator had the dance
leanings I'd expected. Tales of Ephidrina (recorded as Amorphous
Androgynous) was beepy and a little innocuous. Lifeforms (and the
subsequent album-length "single" of remixes) was more interesting, but I
still kept wanting revolution, and instead getting something that
reminded me an awful lot of what Jean Michel Jarre was up to about
twenty years ago.
With ISDN, though, FSOL are finally starting to catch up with my
preconceptions. This album is a collection of pieces performed live to
various spots in the world via radio and ISDN phone links from the
band's studio in London. The band go on at some length in the liner
notes about their ambitions for this project, and their ambivalence at
the results (and listening to the results on disc, rather than live in
any sense, is another level of warped context to drill through), but
judging just from the music, I think they are entering some
tantalizingly unexplored territory.
The level of structure evident in these pieces is very interesting.
None of the fifteen tracks are "songs" in the conventional sense, but
neither are they random, directionless noodling. In most cases, the
premeditation comes somewhere in the middle. These are improvisations,
but rather than improvise at the note and sound level, like a
conventional band would, FSOL build their performances out of larger
building blocks, like drum loops, dialog samples, short musical
passages, sound effects and bits of abstract singing. These get
conjured from their tombs, run through whatever processing gear happens
to be handy, and spit out mutilated into the wires to spar with whatever
else is lingering there at the time. This approach lets the performers'
interaction with the music be to change it, not to produce each note,
and not incidentally makes it possible for a two-person "band" to pull
off an incredibly complicated composition in real-time (they were joined
live by Robert Fripp on some of this, probably including the track "A
Study of Six Guitars", though the symbols used in the credits make it
impossible to actually be sure which tracks he's supposed to be on).
This whole thing is particularly interesting to me, as for years I've
had this idea of creating a musical device that would let somebody
perform, not as a musician, but as a conductor, only literally be in
control of the music, rather than just leading it by hopeful gestures.
The idea is to put the human at the point of meaning ("here the 2-4 drum
beat changes to a waltz"), rather than the point of symbol creation
(drumstick hits snare), thus raising the level of abstraction, and
increasing the artist's power. Evidently either FSOL have already built
such a device, or else with enough practice you can get the same results
using current technology. These are striking experiments in the
definition, use and manipulation of higher-order musical primitives.
And, in case the appeal of that is a little too theoretical (or inane)
for you, they also sound very cool. The way elements enter and exit is
endlessly captivating (or, 75-minutes captivating, anyway), different
bits appearing and then disappearing for a while, only to later
re-emerge in some mutated guise. It's like hearing a puzzle being
solved by trial, with the additional detail that most of the puzzle
pieces are compelling in their own rights. Though I wouldn't call
anything here dance music, there are some beats that last long enough to
get into, and though not all pieces have overtly musical underpinnings
at all, several do have melodies you can hang onto during the ride
through the aural chaos. Plus, who could dislike a track titled "Eyes
Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead"?
The manifestations of this album take a little explaining. It was
released in the UK in 1994, a 15-track CD in a strange black
Velcro-closed cardboard folder, with no information other than the title
and copyright on the outside. A couple months ago, a CD-single was
released in the UK, featuring the album tracks "Far-Out Son of Lung and
the Ramblings of a Madman" and "Smokin' Japanese Babe", and adding the
otherwise unavailable pieces "Snake Hips" and "Ameoba". At some point
the limited-edition packaging ran out (or enough people complained about
what a nuisance it was), and they started making copies in normal jewel
cases. The US version, which came out just a few weeks ago, is jewel
cased, with a white cover instead of a black one. The outside is no
more informative than the UK edition, but the booklet inside has quite a
bit of art and text that at least the first package didn't have (I
haven't seen the inside of the UK jewel case edition). The US CD also
changes the musical contents, removing the original tracks "Are They
Fightin' Us", "Hot Knives" and "An End of Sorts", and substituting the
single tracks "Snake Hips" and "Ameoba", as well as the track "Kai",
which doesn't appear anywhere else.
Of course, having explained all that, I should point out that this music
is not really track-precious, so for anybody other than an FSOL fanatic,
whichever version of the album is cheapest at your local point of
purchase will provide the experience just fine. Said fanatics, however,
should be aware that the version of "Snake Hips" on the single is over
three minutes longer than the one on the US CD, so you will need all
three discs after all.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Concert Program
Penguin Cafe Orchestra is one of my favorite band names in the universe.
As a kid I used to pause at their divider in Sound Warehouse every time
I went past, wondering what they sounded like. Eventually I broke down
and bought one of their albums (Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 1981), just to
finally find out. They turned out to be a troupe of weird-instrument
fanatics, led by writer and producer Simon Jeffes, who generated odd
compositions that sometimes sounded like PBS interlude soundtracks (and
sometimes were, I think), and sometimes sounded like conceptual art
pieces ("Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter", "The Ecstasy of
Dancing Fleas" and "Telephone and Rubber Band", which sounds very much
like what it says). I kind of liked the record, but it didn't really
fit into my usual musical idioms, so I didn't follow the group's work
any farther than that.
I'd been thinking of them fondly of late, though, reminded especially by
Jeffes participation in the recent Real World communal album Arcane, so
when this two-disc concert recording came out recently, I sprung for the
reunion. If I read a cryptic note in the liner correctly, this is the
eighth PCO release, so there are evidently several I don't have. The
twenty songs here include four from Penguin Cafe Orchestra, including
"Telephone and Rubber Band" and the great "Salty Bean Fumble", but not,
sadly, "The Ecstasy of Dancing Fleas" or "Pythagoras's Trousers".
I'm not sure whether this more reflects the direction the group took on
the albums I haven't heard, or the fact that this is a concert
recording, but the bulk of this material is a good deal less silly than
the PCO I knew. I knew them to sound something like Michael Nyman
composing soundtracks for old silent cartoons to be performed on some
huge steam-powered Phantasmagorical Cosmorglatron. The rest of this
concert set, though, is closer to straightforward chamber music than the
bizarre "let's see how many instruments nobody's ever heard of we can
use on the same song" whimsicality I was so fond of. There's a lot more
piano and cello than harmonium and dulcitone, and no sign of the
hallowed ring modulator at all.
Once I get over my disappointment at how somber these proceedings are,
though, they are quite beautiful. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra evidently
function quite nicely as an orchestra, not just as a novelty act, which
in the long run is probably rewarding. But, for me, not quite as much
fun.
Aube: Wired Trap
Of course, if "fun" was all I ever wanted from music, I'd have shut this
CD off within the first ten seconds. You will either love this, or it
will give you the worst splitting headache in your entire life.
Possibly both.
Aube is Kyoto composer Akifumi Nakajima, who made this album, and I
quote from the liner, "Using Only The Sounds Of The Steel Wire Which
Made By Yuri Shibata as Material". Nakajima seems fond of the "Using
Only...As Material" approach, as I found another Aube album done "Using
1 VCO Only As Material". This one is on the Concord, NH label Self
Abuse Records, which is a singularly appropriate name given the
contents.
This album is sheer, unrelenting, unremitting, pummeling, raging,
maelstromic, cacophonous, distorted, apocalyptic, ear-rending,
mind-shredding, heart-imploding, paint-stripping,
household-pest-exterminating, neighbor-alienating, friend-losing,
MTV-unfriendly, equipment-dysfunction,
you-are-now-dead-and-there's-a-Hell-after-all, Noise. Saying that this
is "uncommercial" is like saying that swallowing a lit blowtorch would
"sting". There is nothing remotely melodic or harmonic anywhere on this
album. There is some occasional periodicity to the noise, but that's as
close as Aube gets to rhythm. It's like you're inside a machine as big
as the universe, composed entirely of aluminum sheets, and every single
part is being simultaneously torn into ribbons by invisible steel-clawed
monsters. If your stereo system ever made these noises on its own, you
would have it exorcised. The fact that this album was made in Kyoto,
and yet there are still monks there afterwards, totally baffles me.
Now you might think, from that description, that I don't like this
album. You would be wrong. I like this album a lot. I find it totally
fascinating. I turn it up extremely loud, and let myself be assaulted
by it (listening to it any other way would be pointless, I think).
After this, hearing the world actually end would probably be an
anticlimax. In a musical world where extremism has become routine, it's
good to know that there's still somebody making sounds completely
unrelated to the rest of the spectrum.
The album is also a little more varied than I may have made it seem.
The real horrors are the tracks "Wired Trap Part 1" and "Wired Trap Part
II", which bracket the album. "Siege", the second piece, sounds like
the aforementioned monsters methodically sharpening their claws
beforehand, and breathing. It's not as monolithically overpowering, but
achieves similar effects through sheer repetitive persistence, sort of
like you're floating peacefully in a warm ocean, dozing, watching the
stars, and only realize that the water is really acid when it's already
consumed the back half of your head. "Bound Sensitivity" is even slower
and sparer at the outset, perhaps the sound of a few overlooked
components in the universe machine forlornly attempting to perform their
functions after the carnage has subsided. It gets ugly by the end,
though, as the machine survivors tear themselves to bits in their lonely
despair. The fourth track, "Rub-Icon", actually sounds like the noises
that part of the universe-machine might have made back when it was still
functioning. Low, ominous turbine noises and polyrhythmic percussive
cycles simmer and pulse purposefully. This one, too, builds up to an
intimidating tempest, but it's still twelve minutes of comparative calm
in the overall scheme of the album, which you probably need pretty badly
by that point.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the album, after over seventy-seven
minutes of this torrent have battered you, is what happens when it ends.
When the nerve-peeling firestorm of "Wired Trap Part II" suddenly
extinguishes itself, without warning (unless you're cheating and have
switched your CD player to tell you the time remaining), and you open
your eyes and realize that you're still alive, you really listened to
the whole thing, and the world hasn't been destroyed after all, it's
quite a cool feeling. You have been cleansed of artistic preconceptions
and unquestioned cultural assumptions. You have seen a new plane of
artistic endeavor, where only the work itself can impose limits or
boundaries. You have transcended, for a sublime hour or so, the mental
prison of convention, and moved freely in the infinite space of
possibility.
Also, any metal parts on the clothing you were wearing have been reduced
to slag.
various: Endless 1
For a slightly less corrosive immersion in experimental ambience, you
might want to check out some compilations. I avoid anything with the
words "dance" or "dub" in the title, as these tend to be goofy,
annoying, and insufficiently non-linear for my tastes. Conversely,
names like Null, Lull and Pointless Orchestra sounded like exactly what
I was looking for, and "Endless" also captures the aesthetic pretty
well. So far, this and Isolationism: A Brief History of Ambient, Vol. 4
are the best collections of methodically unnerving dark ambient music
I've come across. Paul Schutze's "The Memory of Water, part one" is
primarily tonal, using simple, glassy, bell-like sine-wave tones played
against each other to center the piece, and drifting in other
transients. Null's "Rain Trees" uses chirpy metallic rattles against a
backdrop of steady robotic bass drone not entirely unlike parts of
Aube's "Rub-Icon". James Plotkin's "Slow Revolutions" is almost
entirely atmospheric, with virtually no sounds involving sharp attack
curves. Lull's long "Way Through Staring" is liquid and
nearly-subsonic, perhaps like what swimming in the Marianas Trench might
sound like if it weren't for the fact that the water pressure would kill
you long before you had a chance to appreciate it.
Pointless Orchestra's "Red Meat Holiday" is busier, combining muffled
explosion sounds with percussion, flute-like warbling, and the assorted
scrabblings of prepared crabs. P. Children's "Reverse Pool" is sort of
like that sounds, kind of watery and reversed. Mesh's "I Address the
Roaring Sea with a Mouth Full of Stones" isn't nearly as
self-explanatory as I initially expected, unless the point is that the
narrator and the sea don't actually have very much to talk about.
Trance's noisy "Aurora Borealis (light)" would be much better with a
different, less New-Agey name (though here maybe the goal is to
infiltrate the in-store playlists of mellow crystal-and-incense shops
via title subterfuge, which would certainly be amusing). Sheephead's
"Bay of Hopelessness" is pretty hopeless, but not quite long enough, in
this edited two-minute version, to qualify as a whole bay. "Puddle of
Hopelessness" might be better. A little too much identifiable drumming
on this track for my liking.
The last track is another Plotkin bit called "Live 1/3/93". The timings
on the back of the booklet list this track as infinite (using the
symbol, which I cannot reproduce portably in this medium) but my CD
player definitely gives up on it after about four minutes, so I'm not
sure what to make of the claim. It would have been interesting if
they'd managed to manufacture the disc with a built-in skip, so that it
really did play infinitely. Actually no, that would have been
irritating.
Enough of this for now. Where's that Matthew Sweet album?
Copyright 1995, glenn mcdonald
The War Against Silence is published weekly on The Vibe, at
http://metaverse.com/vibe/twas/, and posted to the newsgroups
rec.music.reviews and rec.music.misc. It may not be distributed
elsewhere without my explicit permission.
[ The rec.music.reviews FAQ is posted regularly and can also be obtained at: ]
[ Anonymous FTP - at ftp.digex.net in /pub/access/awrc/rmr/FAQ.txt ]
[ World Wide Web - http://www.access.digex.net/~awrc/rmr/ ]