Matmos – “Regicide”
The Civil War
Sonically disorientating and endlessly varied, The opening track of The Civil War is the whole album in miniature. Baffling instrumentation, punchy beats, and unforgiving noise crossed with delicate harmony, and that playful weirdness that seems to permeate every track Matmos has ever made. Must-listen.
enthymeme: an argument in which obvious or known premises are excluded for brevity
cenacle: an upper-floor dining room (esp. where the Last Supper took place)
finial: an ornamental flourish at the top of a spiral, gable, or italic letter
ogival: a diagonal rib of a pointed, Gothic arch (or the arch itself)
viscid: sticky, glutinous, or covered in substance of that kind
cognomen: the third, nick, or family name, originally Roman
crocket: a leaflike ornament found in Gothic architecture
posset: milk curdled with ale or wine, heated and spiced
hypotyposis: a lifelike description or depiction
cinereous: resembling or reduced to ashes
friable: easily crumbled or broken up
glabrous: unnaturally hairless
thurible: a variety of censer
The receding depths of time and space, though they can indeed be haltingly conceived even by primitive minds, cannot be imagined save by beings of a more ample nature. A panorama of mountains appears to naive vision almost as a flat picture, and the starry void is a roof pricked with light. Yet in reality, while the immediate terrain could be spanned in an hour’s walking, the sky-line of peaks holds within it plain beyond plain. Similarly with time. While the near past and the near future display within them depth beyond depth, time’s remote immensities are foreshortened into flatness. It is almost inconceivable to simple minds that man’s whole history should be but a moment in the life of the stars, and that remote events should embrace within themselves aeon upon aeon.
Tarentel – “Bump Past, Cut Through Windows”
We Move Through Weather
When this album came out, I couldn’t bear to listen to it because it was so different from their previous work. Noise collage, tape loops, all kinds of weird stuff — a stark contrast to the lean, extended post-rock fantasies of From Bone To Satellite. But years later, after giving it a few more listens, it started to come together, particularly the last four tracks. They never arrive at the tension levels of even the opening notes of, say, “Ursa Major, Ursa Minor,” but they have a mysterious power entirely new and entirely different from Tarentel original flavor. (insound)
I don’t know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song the most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. There was something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had never been written, or set to music, but sprung out the passion within her; which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was still.
The Tower Menagerie
Denali – “Nullaby”
The Instinct
This whole album plays like a tribute to the lead singer’s incredible pipes. She has a voice like a clarion, clear without being shrill, and with a really lovely control over vibrato that gives every high note an excellent wavering coda. The songwriting isn’t stellar, but the arrangements are quite good, the playing is solid, and of course this chick’s voice is something else. (insound)
