2008年 05月 12日 月曜日 06:40

The first three albums are pretty much all number one. Also, I love my music and often find it incredibly difficult to express the feelings it evokes; my reviews can never satisfyingly describe the music or what it makes me feel. Just a small disclaimer. Ah, yes, the reviews are copied from my rym-account, with some minor adjustments here and there.
Why 11?, you might ask. Well, simply because that's the number of albums I can reasonably rank. Ranking sucks, you might say, and you would be right. But then, I still love to rank stuff. Woe is me!

Of course, comments are more than welcome, whether you read everything or not

Well then, here goes:

1. 橋本一子 - Rahxephon Soundtrack
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Hashimoto-san probably doesn't do anything really new or even extraordinary on the RahXephon soundtracks. At least I don't think so. Often it's jazzy ambient, some pop-songs, some acid jazz, some classical. Strange that I, always eager for interesting, strange and unusual stuff to explore, nevertheless find just those soundtracks to be the best thing I have ever heard. Even stranger that those feelings are not a projection from the corresponding series (which is awesome though), no, the music works just because…well, because it's really damn incredibly awesome music. Not only that - I can listen to all four discs straight (and repeat that immediately afterwards) without ever getting tired of it. I think that, in fact, I have not listened to anything quite as often as to the RahXephon OSTs. Somehow, no other album I have listened to seemed so fresh every time, so brilliant, so alive. I can't attribute this to any particular aspect of the music, none that I'm aware of, it's just there. I think it always was - it did take some time to actually grow on me the way it did though.
I was afraid it'd wear out once, I was putting it on almost every day at a time. It didn't. I only ever liked it better after each listen. It's perfect, nothing less and probably more. I hope I'll be able to discover such incredible music again one day - but if not it's fine as well. After all, I got RahXephon.

2. Boredoms - Vision Creation Newsun
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Psychedelic, repetetive vibrations straight from shangri-la. One of the few albums which make me feel joyous, euphoric even. I can't imagine anyone not loving this album. In fact, after long and serious contemplation about how there can be people who don't absolutely love this work of pure genius I have come up with two equally valid theories:

a) They are dead.
b) They are deaf.

3. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
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There's not a lot to say about this record. It's the single album I spent the most time with and I know that not a single second of that was wasted. It's an anthem to pleasure, pain, salvation, damnation, creation, destruction, life, death, everything and nothing. And it's perfect in what it is; every single second is.

4. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
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Why do I love this album so much? Well, first of all, it evokes emotions no other album manages to evoke. I find it quite interesting that a lot of people seem to talk about feelings of nostalgia in the context of Music Has the Right to Children; it seems it has a quite similar effect on those it does have an effect on. While I'm not sure I'd describe it as "nostalgia", it certainly are feelings closely related to it. How it does that, I don't know. Well, I know every beat, every note, every sample by heart now, they're part of me, so to speak. It also would appear that noone is able to combine beautiful pop-akin melodies with the perfect beats quite as well as BoC.

Oh, I also had one of my best listening experiences of all my life with this album. I was running at night, like I always do (I've always been fond of the night), and had my mp3-player with me. I like to listen to music as if it were the soundtrack to my current surroundings, that's why I listen to music on my player when I'm outside quite often. The scenery was lit by a almost-full moon - it was one or two days after they day it had been full. Summer was about to come to an end, so it wasn't really warm but not cold either; the perfect temperature for running, basically. I was running along a small river, which was to my right. And once I was past the forest to my left, there unfolded this vast field, full of mist from the nearby lake. And the soundtrack to this scenery just happened to be Music Has the Right to Children; needless to say, it was just perfect. By the time the album reached Aquarius it almost felt transcendent, running under the (almost) full moon, the river to my right, the misty field to my left, small villages far off at the horizon. It may very well sound trivial the way I describe it, but at that time it surely was anything but. Thanks to BoC, who delivered the best soundtrack imaginable for this magical night, I was no more, just watched everything float along as the mist enveloped me and gave me free again, though I never even took one step into the clouds below me.

On a side note, after I had passed the fields, I entered my village (the river runs right through the middle of it) and once I had passed it and had entered the forest on its other side, Music Has the Right to Children was over and GYBE's Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada began; which led to a similarly transcendent experience with that EP. Maybe I just was out of my mind in a way that night.

…I guess I didn't really write a lot about the album after all. But it's really hard to put into words, really hard; so this has to suffice. Most probably you know it already anyway and either love it as much as I do, or - more likely - don't. Either way is fine. I myself know that I won't hear any electronic music as good as Music Has the Right to Children anytime soon.

5. William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops I / The Disintegration Loops II / The Disintegration Loops III / The Disintegration Loops IV
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I'm considering those 4 albums as a single work, only in its entirety does the series unfold its full impact.

Life, death, decay. Yeah, that sounds clichéd, alright. It's a theme which appeared in art since its very beginning. Well, actually that's an assumption of mine, I'm not really that well read - point is, Basinski does not really do anything new here. And yet, the outcome doesn't fall short of - yeah, of what?
I think what exactly he did is known: he looped tapes until they quite literally disintegrate. Skips and crackles appear, the melody remains yet never will be the same again. The presence of death as well as life in everything we see, hear and feel. And I'd boldly claim that this subject has never been realised in such utter beauty before. This is partly to blame on the sheer gorgeousness of the melodies.
'tis a painful truth, that everything we hold dear, every place, every thought and every person will one day fade away. And leave nothing. But we shouldn't be sad over it, instead treasure those moments we were granted all the more as none of them will ever come back. Even love will not last, a thought which would maybe make the unrequited kind easier to deal with - if it weren't a mere thought, if one were able to actually feel it outside of the cold world of concepts and ideas. Ah, I tried not to get too sappy…
Slight percussion, tones fading into drones fading into nothingness. A lot of things come to my mind, a lot of feelings I doubt I'll ever be able to really express. A deep longing, never to be fulfilled. A gentle sadness at the passing of all things which in their cruel causality leave their mark on other things about to pass. Wait, I don't actually write about the music here, now do I? I suppose there's not a lot to say about the actual sound - the things it evokes are what counts here. Or so I think. If you aren't able to slow down for an hour, to spend time doing nothing, to think and to feel, then I doubt you'll enjoy these albums a lot. Maybe "enjoy" isn't the best word here with its shallow connotations; "understand"? "feel"? I don't know. I wouldn't know whether to feel sorry for or to envy you either, I really wouldn't. I actually assume it'd be the latter. But whatever…

Basinskis Quadrilogy is special, to be treasured, truly great art, maybe the best since the new millenium. Sometimes, the Disintegration Loops are able to make me feel what I long before realised in thought. And sometimes, they are able to lift my silly, desperate, miserable, contradictory self up a bit, to make me feel in order with my thoughts, feelings and surroundings. I couldn't possibly ask more of art.

6. Ground-Zero - Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver.1.28
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s190161.jpg

Unbelievably good. And when I say unbelievable then I quite literally mean that it's hard to grasp just how good this is when I'm listening to it. Everything's being thrown together here, noise, screams, samples of all kinds, free jazz; and yet, instead of chaos ensuing, the only thing that emerges from the mayhem is transcendence.

7. Huntsville - For the Middle Class
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What is this? There are drones, some free improvisation, my beloved repetetive drumming, soeme folk parts. Kraut-jazz-folk-drone? Maybe, I don't really care. All that matters is that it fuckin' owns just about everything else. Even when the guys from norway just drone about they manage to create tension like nobody else, sending shivers down my spine. And then, on the two long tracks, they go crazy in the most brilliantly dancable way imaginable. For the Middle Class probably is my favorite discovery since Vision Creation Newsun - an album which I thought nothing could ever come close to. Huntsville do, in a kinda similiar yet totally different way. I'm inclined to praise the album with some more hyperboles but I can't come up with any cool images right now. Not that they'd come close to describing it anyway. (Ha! There's my hyperbole. Or is it?) …Ahem. Listen to this.

8. Arvo Pärt - Alina
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Sometimes, something which is supposed to be trivial is not. It a portal, a portal to everything that is beautiful in the world. Mono no aware, that is the feeling, not as straightforwardly incorporated as by Basinski but at moments even more intense. With a sound often bordering nothingness, Arvo Pärt manages to capture beauty to an extent never heard before. Two compositions, performed three times and twice, respectively. Both difficult to describe with only words, and otherworldy in their minimalist gorgeousness. Each time I listen to Alina (which, admittedly, isn't that often anymore; it's just to overpowering) I can't help being overwhelmed and shed a tear or two. It's that beautiful.

9. Les Rallizes Dénudés - '77 Live
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'tis raw, very raw. Which partly is fault of the quality of the recording, which is also very raw. Although, when I say 'fault' I'm not implying any negativity here, it's perfect for the music, at least I couldn't imagine it being any better if it sounded different. And the music itself also is about the best thing in noise-rock. And that 'about' is merely to be viewed as a disclaimer since '77 live definitely is my undoubted favorite. I just want to hint towards there maybe being better music somewhere.
Two discs of pure brilliance. Over one and a half hours long. It starts out the best way it possibly could, with Enter the Mirror. 'tis a bit quiet, only getting louder around half way through. Contains the first of those awesome basslines already, a signature feature of the band. And it's just so…psychedelic. Argh, I don't know, I don't want to throw around too much superlatives too early on, but damn this is good! Ah, but just as you think, 'well, this can't get any better anymore, now can it?' you realise you're wrong as Yoru, ansatsusha no yoru kicks in and finally kicks you completely into the psychedelic abyss. Loud, hypnotic, gripping and just unbelievably good (I feel like I'm repeating myself…must be my imagination). And you feel great as you fall, every angle and every edge makes sense. Uhm, I'm not gonna try to describe the whole album as I would end up just repeating myself over and over again. Which Les Rallizes Dénudés kinda do as well, if you're looking at it superficially. Loud, insanely distorted guitars, unintelligible vocals, minimalist drumming and simple, catchy basslines (oh, those basslines…!). And yet they manage to sound fresh and original every single second, you won't find a single dull moment within the entire running time. And every single song ends up being so good that I'd instantly consider all of them to have a place in a list of the best songs of all time, if I ever were to make such a thing (which I won't). A perfect album, which sometimes vaults me into other worlds and sometimes just is an incredible shitload amount of fun.

Les Rallizes Dénudés present: music, the way it should be.

10. Madvillain - Madvillainy
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I'm afraid I can't review hip hop albums. Every time I try I just feel like I'm making a fool out of myself. So I'm just gonna write a sentence or two. Cool samples, awesome lyrics (incredible flow!), the dopest beats ever. That's all. Madvillainy remains my favorite album of the genre.

11. Kevin Drumm - Sheer Hellish Miasma
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Yup, the name of this album gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect. It is one of the most brutal noise-albums I know, one on the composed rather than the improvised side though. It also is the best. The two core tracks, each about twenty minutes long, are being enveloped by two short ones, Turning Point and Cloudy, which provide a pretty perfect introduction and fade-out for the album, respectively. On the 2007 reissue there's also a drony bonus track as #1 - since I don't like that one as much, also because it defeats the purpose of Turning point as an intro, I'll just pretend that it isn't there. What will strike ya first about Sheer Hellish Miasma is probably the very, very clean production, totally unusual in the genre of noise-music. No matter how many layers are overlapping each other, they're all distinguishable on close listening. And it works perfectly, the metallic sound gives the whole thing an extra edge. Which leads me to my favorite track, not only of the album but maybe of the whole genre - Hitting the Pavement. It's just fantastic, starting out from nothing there's ever stronger waves of droning darkness pressed through the speakers, ever building up even more. The most fitting adjective I can think of is apocalyptic. The seemingly infinite layers build and build, waves of sound constantly crush the listener. Beyond fuckin' intense. Just as everything seems about to burst ya are released, or so one might think at first. Of course, a track entitled "The Inferno" hardly strengthens such suspicions, and rightly so. It's more fidgety, more violent even, not quite as good but still damn awesome. The whole album is very…tangible yet abstract. It's almost like a landscape, always brings similar - or at least related - pictures to my mind, almost none of them being imminently pleasant ones.
The ambience of Cloudy almost is a shock and, within the context of what happened before, has an almost fearsome intensity to it as well. Also because it isn't so far away from the noise-attacks in terms of atmosphere or mood. It's cold, distant and rather without hope. And then, at the very last second, as if to wake the listener from the relief he might have drifted off into, there's a last tiny screeching.
"Or was I…?"

A brutal, cold, brilliant masterpiece.

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