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Sharron Kraus

The Woody Nightshade

Folk/Country

Grayson Currin

When the buzz cycle moves so quickly that it seems to take multiple Twitter streams and searches to keep track of the day's best new bands, describing a piece of music as "mature" feels more like scorn than praise. Who's got time to appreciate hard-earned, time-shaped wisdom, after all, when there are so many mp3s through which to wade? And what is craftsmanship when some dude in Topeka's just landed half a keyboard hook and a little bit of wit in his bedroom, and it's already streaming on Bandcamp? That's not to criticize the music that's being made so much as the way we've come to treat it-- anonymous bits of data that can be downloaded, scanned, and discarded before the song's actually over. It's all first impressions and quick fixes. Give Sharron Kraus' excellent fourth album, The Woody Nightshade, a cursory listen, and you likely won't hear much but a pretty voice pleading about old lovers over drums and dulcimers, guitars and autoharps. But The Woody Nightshade, Kraus' first for the Portland, Ore., label Strange Attractors, is a mature statement by an artist who has developed steadily since her debut nine years ago. As such, it should be handled with the same patience and attention with which it seems to have been made. Here, Kraus' tales of love and loss come graced by the wisdom of experience, with youthful impulses tempered by acknowledgement and empathy. The eight-piece band that delivers these tunes alongside Kraus handles them with restraint and imagination, turning her folk-based tunes into carefully crafted meditations. Listen closely, and Kraus' prepossessing songs deliver real-life takeaways. Kraus has been busy during the last decade, not only recording her solo albums, including 2008's The Fox's Wedding, but also collaborating-- with fellow female folk-benders Helena Espvall and Meg Baird, with folk reconstructionist Christian Kiefer, and finally as the superb Tau Emerald with Tara Burke. And, at its best, The Woody Nightshade sounds highly collaborative, like the work of its nine musicians laboring over Kraus' tunes and taking unexpected chances. The glowing drone that opens the record, for instance, perfectly fills the space between Kraus' droll lament and her steady guitar pluck. "Heaviness of Heart" is appropriately spooky, too, with madrigal harmonies hanging between Kraus' quaver and the bass-drum percussion of a funeral march. Kraus' arrangements used to be a tad predictable, putting the tools of Appalachian and British folk toward familiar ends; here, in serpentine guitar figures and rich textures, she finds her own forms. There's nothing complicated or fancy about Kraus' writing, but each of Nightshade's 10 tunes presents another angled look at love. "Once", as its title might suggest, renders a familiar portrait of love faded, coupled with the hope to revive it, while "Two Brothers" makes Kraus' heart and head decide between two "remarkable brothers," one fair and one solemn. The title track portrays the struggle to forgive betrayal and move forward, though opener "Nothing" attempts to move forward after a lover leaves, like a prisoner finally freed of his shackle. Kraus details love for a young, wide-eyed adventurer in "Story", concern for selfish and misguided kin in "Evergreen Sisters". These detailed, poignant tales combine to paint a portrait of Kraus as a sort of mentor, a survivor delivering her perils and lessons with a precise pen. No anecdote or bit of advice here works better than "Rejoice in Love", though, a magnetic little pop mantra about taking what you can get and not fretting too much. "Some people are dependable/ Some people are so likable," Kraus sings, her sudden perkiness countered by hints of surprise and cynicism. "But when we love them/ That's not the reason why." It's the sort of advice a grandmother might deliver, having lived long enough to know that, though love can be twisted and tragic, it's worth every risk and reward. It's a mature idea, then, the sort that still works every time this worthwhile record spins.

Artist: Sharron Kraus, Album: The Woody Nightshade, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "When the buzz cycle moves so quickly that it seems to take multiple Twitter streams and searches to keep track of the day's best new bands, describing a piece of music as "mature" feels more like scorn than praise. Who's got time to appreciate hard-earned, time-shaped wisdom, after all, when there are so many mp3s through which to wade? And what is craftsmanship when some dude in Topeka's just landed half a keyboard hook and a little bit of wit in his bedroom, and it's already streaming on Bandcamp? That's not to criticize the music that's being made so much as the way we've come to treat it-- anonymous bits of data that can be downloaded, scanned, and discarded before the song's actually over. It's all first impressions and quick fixes. Give Sharron Kraus' excellent fourth album, The Woody Nightshade, a cursory listen, and you likely won't hear much but a pretty voice pleading about old lovers over drums and dulcimers, guitars and autoharps. But The Woody Nightshade, Kraus' first for the Portland, Ore., label Strange Attractors, is a mature statement by an artist who has developed steadily since her debut nine years ago. As such, it should be handled with the same patience and attention with which it seems to have been made. Here, Kraus' tales of love and loss come graced by the wisdom of experience, with youthful impulses tempered by acknowledgement and empathy. The eight-piece band that delivers these tunes alongside Kraus handles them with restraint and imagination, turning her folk-based tunes into carefully crafted meditations. Listen closely, and Kraus' prepossessing songs deliver real-life takeaways. Kraus has been busy during the last decade, not only recording her solo albums, including 2008's The Fox's Wedding, but also collaborating-- with fellow female folk-benders Helena Espvall and Meg Baird, with folk reconstructionist Christian Kiefer, and finally as the superb Tau Emerald with Tara Burke. And, at its best, The Woody Nightshade sounds highly collaborative, like the work of its nine musicians laboring over Kraus' tunes and taking unexpected chances. The glowing drone that opens the record, for instance, perfectly fills the space between Kraus' droll lament and her steady guitar pluck. "Heaviness of Heart" is appropriately spooky, too, with madrigal harmonies hanging between Kraus' quaver and the bass-drum percussion of a funeral march. Kraus' arrangements used to be a tad predictable, putting the tools of Appalachian and British folk toward familiar ends; here, in serpentine guitar figures and rich textures, she finds her own forms. There's nothing complicated or fancy about Kraus' writing, but each of Nightshade's 10 tunes presents another angled look at love. "Once", as its title might suggest, renders a familiar portrait of love faded, coupled with the hope to revive it, while "Two Brothers" makes Kraus' heart and head decide between two "remarkable brothers," one fair and one solemn. The title track portrays the struggle to forgive betrayal and move forward, though opener "Nothing" attempts to move forward after a lover leaves, like a prisoner finally freed of his shackle. Kraus details love for a young, wide-eyed adventurer in "Story", concern for selfish and misguided kin in "Evergreen Sisters". These detailed, poignant tales combine to paint a portrait of Kraus as a sort of mentor, a survivor delivering her perils and lessons with a precise pen. No anecdote or bit of advice here works better than "Rejoice in Love", though, a magnetic little pop mantra about taking what you can get and not fretting too much. "Some people are dependable/ Some people are so likable," Kraus sings, her sudden perkiness countered by hints of surprise and cynicism. "But when we love them/ That's not the reason why." It's the sort of advice a grandmother might deliver, having lived long enough to know that, though love can be twisted and tragic, it's worth every risk and reward. It's a mature idea, then, the sort that still works every time this worthwhile record spins."

Alicia Keys

Girl on Fire

Pop/R&B

Stephen M. Deusner

Alicia Keys' fifth studio album opens the same way each one of her previous albums does: with a short, pensive piano piece. The quiet "De Novo Adagio" is meant to set the stage for the drama to come, but it handily accomplishes two other things as well. First, it reminds listeners that Keys is a classically trained musician, that she graduated from Professional Performing Arts School and studied at Columbia University. Her studies no longer determine her sound the way they once did, but a moment like this reminds you she's a serious artist. Second: "De Novo Adagio", which translates loosely to "Adagio Again", signals that Girl on Fire is an album about rebirth and renewal. That girl on fire is a phoenix, and to demonstrate that point, "Adagio" segues seamlessly into "Brand New Me", a slow-burning declaration of independence co-written with Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé. Keys excels at this kind of self-esteem anthem, but this one feels a little too familiar-- an old way of introducing her new self. That song is followed by the Jamie xx-produced "When It's All Over", and it's perhaps a sign that I'm listening to too much Taylor Swift that I naturally wondered what had happened in Keys' personal life to warrant a record so heavy on break-up songs. Then I remembered that it doesn't matter: Keys has retooled and reinvented herself, however subtly and slightly, on every album, so it makes sense that she would use romantic tragedy as the engine for transformation. Four albums about rebirth, however, can become a bit predictable, if not an outright drag. Neither "Brand New Me" nor "When It's Over" does much that Keys hasn't done in the past, but then she drops "New Day", a heavy banger that actually feels brand new. With her sharp eh-eh-eh-ehs and slightly accented delivery, she sounds like she's channeling Rihanna without the regrettable drama that has sadly infected the "Umbrella" singer's most recent efforts. In a way this is exactly the kind of song we wish Rihanna were singing: something strong and forceful and self-assertive, something that writes the happy ending we want for our pop stars. Keys throws herself into the song; her voice quavering during the rawer moments, as though the notes are well within her range but the emotions are not. A collaboration with Swizz Beatz (Keys' husband) and Dr. Dre, "New Day" has a transformative effect within the album, whose middle is as strong as any sequence of songs Keys has recorded. After a rough start lyrically ("She's just a girl and she's on fire"), the title track features Keys' most powerful vocals and a too-brief cameo from Nicki Minaj, who sounds like she's just getting started before her verse comes to an end. "Fire We Make", her duet with Maxwell, is an old-fashioned slow jam that doesn't have a whole lot of actual song to it and honestly doesn't need it. Instead, it's an excuse for vocal and sexual fireworks from two of r&b's strongest singers, with Keys' bold voice evocatively contrasting Maxwell's softer, slightly hoarse delivery. Keys has always chosen her collaborators well, and even when she's working with the ultimate alpha males (Kanye West on The Diary of Alicia Keys, John Mayer on As I Am), she never lets anyone elbow her out of the spotlight. Still, the announcement that she was doing a song with Bruno Mars and the Smeezingtons, the team responsible for Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" and Mars' own "Grenade", was enough to arch some eyebrows. They're pop throwbacks, but they throw back to a completely different pop era than Keys evokes, and does anyone want to see this woman, who seems to draw inspiration from Aretha and Pam Grier equally, show up at the sockhop? Surprisingly, "Tears Always Win" manages to split the difference between Keys and Mars, and the retro flourishes-- the shuffling drumbeat, the doo wop backing vocals-- reinforce rather than distract from the pain in Keys' vocals and lyrics. With its bedroom setting and emotional insomnia, the song comes across like a sequel to "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart", holding its own against one of Key's finest moments. After that comes "Not Even the King", which features just Keys and her piano. It's a respectable ballad, albeit a bit too devoted to its own metaphor, and it's refreshing to hear her in such a spare setting. But it also brings the album back down to earth, stalling the momentum she'd established. Following the rhythmically and grammatically awkwardly "Limitedless", a pair of fine ballads, "One Thing" and "101", sound good on their own but dour as back-to-back closers. The latter culminates in a loud coda that's among the heaviest passages Keys has recorded, full of shouted hallelujahs and some startlingly violent beats. It's a risky move, about as far from the pensive notes of "De Novo Adagio" as Keys could get, but she doesn’t pull it off. Far too bombastic to be especially cathartic, "101" makes for a gently unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise assured album. It never quite lives up to its theme of rebirth, but especially given the range and power she's showed in the past, it doesn't really need to.

Artist: Alicia Keys, Album: Girl on Fire, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Alicia Keys' fifth studio album opens the same way each one of her previous albums does: with a short, pensive piano piece. The quiet "De Novo Adagio" is meant to set the stage for the drama to come, but it handily accomplishes two other things as well. First, it reminds listeners that Keys is a classically trained musician, that she graduated from Professional Performing Arts School and studied at Columbia University. Her studies no longer determine her sound the way they once did, but a moment like this reminds you she's a serious artist. Second: "De Novo Adagio", which translates loosely to "Adagio Again", signals that Girl on Fire is an album about rebirth and renewal. That girl on fire is a phoenix, and to demonstrate that point, "Adagio" segues seamlessly into "Brand New Me", a slow-burning declaration of independence co-written with Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé. Keys excels at this kind of self-esteem anthem, but this one feels a little too familiar-- an old way of introducing her new self. That song is followed by the Jamie xx-produced "When It's All Over", and it's perhaps a sign that I'm listening to too much Taylor Swift that I naturally wondered what had happened in Keys' personal life to warrant a record so heavy on break-up songs. Then I remembered that it doesn't matter: Keys has retooled and reinvented herself, however subtly and slightly, on every album, so it makes sense that she would use romantic tragedy as the engine for transformation. Four albums about rebirth, however, can become a bit predictable, if not an outright drag. Neither "Brand New Me" nor "When It's Over" does much that Keys hasn't done in the past, but then she drops "New Day", a heavy banger that actually feels brand new. With her sharp eh-eh-eh-ehs and slightly accented delivery, she sounds like she's channeling Rihanna without the regrettable drama that has sadly infected the "Umbrella" singer's most recent efforts. In a way this is exactly the kind of song we wish Rihanna were singing: something strong and forceful and self-assertive, something that writes the happy ending we want for our pop stars. Keys throws herself into the song; her voice quavering during the rawer moments, as though the notes are well within her range but the emotions are not. A collaboration with Swizz Beatz (Keys' husband) and Dr. Dre, "New Day" has a transformative effect within the album, whose middle is as strong as any sequence of songs Keys has recorded. After a rough start lyrically ("She's just a girl and she's on fire"), the title track features Keys' most powerful vocals and a too-brief cameo from Nicki Minaj, who sounds like she's just getting started before her verse comes to an end. "Fire We Make", her duet with Maxwell, is an old-fashioned slow jam that doesn't have a whole lot of actual song to it and honestly doesn't need it. Instead, it's an excuse for vocal and sexual fireworks from two of r&b's strongest singers, with Keys' bold voice evocatively contrasting Maxwell's softer, slightly hoarse delivery. Keys has always chosen her collaborators well, and even when she's working with the ultimate alpha males (Kanye West on The Diary of Alicia Keys, John Mayer on As I Am), she never lets anyone elbow her out of the spotlight. Still, the announcement that she was doing a song with Bruno Mars and the Smeezingtons, the team responsible for Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" and Mars' own "Grenade", was enough to arch some eyebrows. They're pop throwbacks, but they throw back to a completely different pop era than Keys evokes, and does anyone want to see this woman, who seems to draw inspiration from Aretha and Pam Grier equally, show up at the sockhop? Surprisingly, "Tears Always Win" manages to split the difference between Keys and Mars, and the retro flourishes-- the shuffling drumbeat, the doo wop backing vocals-- reinforce rather than distract from the pain in Keys' vocals and lyrics. With its bedroom setting and emotional insomnia, the song comes across like a sequel to "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart", holding its own against one of Key's finest moments. After that comes "Not Even the King", which features just Keys and her piano. It's a respectable ballad, albeit a bit too devoted to its own metaphor, and it's refreshing to hear her in such a spare setting. But it also brings the album back down to earth, stalling the momentum she'd established. Following the rhythmically and grammatically awkwardly "Limitedless", a pair of fine ballads, "One Thing" and "101", sound good on their own but dour as back-to-back closers. The latter culminates in a loud coda that's among the heaviest passages Keys has recorded, full of shouted hallelujahs and some startlingly violent beats. It's a risky move, about as far from the pensive notes of "De Novo Adagio" as Keys could get, but she doesn’t pull it off. Far too bombastic to be especially cathartic, "101" makes for a gently unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise assured album. It never quite lives up to its theme of rebirth, but especially given the range and power she's showed in the past, it doesn't really need to."

Various Artists

Amplify 2002

Dominique Leone

This balloon is filled with water. I took it to the sink, attached it to the faucet, and let the water in until the slack in the balloon's thin, rubber walls was gone and the water occupied as much space inside as possible, while still allowing me to remove it from the small hydrant and tie up the end. A full balloon is kind of perverse; it begs to be exploded, and if I lived two floors up, I probably would have dropped it to the sidewalk without a second thought. The water has nowhere to go from within, and the tight, bulging skin of the ball is so reminiscent of a young woman's breast that most people are embarrassed to hold one. However, the most interesting part of a full balloon is not on the outside, but its saturated inner vacuum of water and captive air. If I could swim on the inside of this balloon, I would hardly last more than a few seconds before my head burst. The pressure, already near a critical point, would be magnified every time someone handled the outside, shifting currents of force inside, similar to the earth's tremors in the deep sea. The only way to escape the chamber is to release pressure and hope that in the minute, violent transition from the point of explosion to its surging release I'm not blown to bits as well. This is the crux of high pressure: can't live with it, and sometimes its release causes even more damage. Onkyo appeared in Japan in the late 90s, as sort of an inverse of noise music and typically Japanese extreme renderings of free jazz and improvisation. Music writer Patrick Boeuf states as much during a short, interesting essay inside the Amplify 2002 booklet. He notices the tendency for intense upper register tones juxtaposed with silence, and I would apply their relationship to the tension and release of pressure inside the balloon. Judging by the nature of its participants' performances, Onkyo (fitting under a wider umbrella of "electro-acoustic improvisation") is a study in the transition between almost unbearable pressure and tiny resolve. Where silence builds considerable, tangible tension, more so when a large ensemble is able to sustain it for long periods, the minimal sound put forth by guitar, sampler, mixing-board-- or whatever Otomo Yoshihide was pounding on during his duo show with Günter Müller-- represents the tease of resolution. It's a tease because with Onkyo, there's never really a full release. This is part of what makes it different from noise, and in fact, most other music on the planet. The Amplify box set (seven music CDs, one DVD) documents a festival of the same name organized by the Erstwhile label's Jon Abbey, with assistance from Headz label owner Atsushi Sasaki, and musicians Toshimaru Nakamura and Taku Sugimoto. Held over three days in Tokyo, October 2002, Amplify-- subtitled "balance"-- featured the best-known Japanese Onkyo performers, as well as European improvisers Müller, Keith Rowe, Bukhard Stangl, Thomas Lehn, Marcus Schmickler and Christof Kurzmann, who, while not following the same paths as the Japanese musicians, are certainly among the most respected electro acoustic improvisers today. In fact, it's the differing approaches of the Europeans and Japanese on Amplify that contributes some of the tension; here, that is inherently a good thing. I was most fascinated by Jonas Leddington's DVD documentary feature "balance beams," comprised of several performances, interviews, 5.1 surround sound mixes and subtle, hypnotic scenes of Tokyo street life. As much as modern electronic improvisation might seem visually irrelevant, Abbey correctly points out in the booklet that there's no substitute for witnessing this music. Performance highlights on the DVD include an incredible show by Cosmos (Sachiko M and vocalist Ami Yoshida), Otomo and Müller's show featuring the aforementioned pounding session and a frenetic set by Lehn and Schmickler, wherein sounds (and body movements) fly by faster than my eyes can process. The final audio CD of Amplify contains a performance of seven guitar players, and Rowe's "treatise" with the musicians on the DVD is a humbling, funny peek at how up in the air this music must be, even for its major proponents. Earlier, Rowe admits to having few ideas about how he will proceed even as his fingers approach his guitar at the start of a performance, though somehow the uncertainty surrounding this music seems perfectly appropriate. The audio CDs are divided into festival shows (discs three through six), shows organized around the festival by Nakamura and Sugimoto (one and seven) and one new studio release by Nakamura and Müller entitled Tint. Tint will doubtlessly be of interest to fans of both performers, and doubles as fine case on the differing approaches between Onkyo and European electronic improvisation. Nakamura's perfect sine, emitted from his signature no-input mixing board, hovers above Müller's more traditionally expressionist, laptop-assisted sounds. In some instances, Müller actually provides a rhythmic pulse, and though his preference for sudden changes in tone and mood should conflict with Nakamura's relatively serene, minimal style, I find the result more along the lines of a summit between two colleagues; one gushing with enthusiasm and exotic detail, the other nodding and smiling politely. Of the festival discs, my favorite performances begin with Cosmos' set at the start of disc three. For my money, Sachiko M and Yoshida, along with Nakamura and Sugimoto, are the most purely representative of the Onkyo sound and concept. Sachiko's sine acts as both a piercing, desperate stream of air escaping from the balloon, and as a thin blanket of light enveloping the entire ceiling of Cosmos' performance. In turn, Yoshida is the embodiment of pressure and release, as she contracts her chest and throat muscles to form seemingly inhuman (and sometimes almost imperceptible) sounds. Their track is an inspiring model of tension and the companionship required for an artistic duo. Likewise, Müller and Otomo's performance on disc four is the work of two seasoned improvisers exploring their equipment, and one another. I think Otomo (using guitar, turntable and electronics) is a better natural fit for Müller than Nakamura, if only because the pair seems to have similar ideas about how to fill detail into space. Fans of atmospheric IDM along the lines of Fennesz or Philip Jeck would do well to listen to this duo's set. AMM alum Rowe performs with frequent partner Nakamura on disc five in what is probably the greatest surprise for me on Amplify. It's a surprise because of the consistently underst

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Amplify 2002, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 8.7 Album review: "This balloon is filled with water. I took it to the sink, attached it to the faucet, and let the water in until the slack in the balloon's thin, rubber walls was gone and the water occupied as much space inside as possible, while still allowing me to remove it from the small hydrant and tie up the end. A full balloon is kind of perverse; it begs to be exploded, and if I lived two floors up, I probably would have dropped it to the sidewalk without a second thought. The water has nowhere to go from within, and the tight, bulging skin of the ball is so reminiscent of a young woman's breast that most people are embarrassed to hold one. However, the most interesting part of a full balloon is not on the outside, but its saturated inner vacuum of water and captive air. If I could swim on the inside of this balloon, I would hardly last more than a few seconds before my head burst. The pressure, already near a critical point, would be magnified every time someone handled the outside, shifting currents of force inside, similar to the earth's tremors in the deep sea. The only way to escape the chamber is to release pressure and hope that in the minute, violent transition from the point of explosion to its surging release I'm not blown to bits as well. This is the crux of high pressure: can't live with it, and sometimes its release causes even more damage. Onkyo appeared in Japan in the late 90s, as sort of an inverse of noise music and typically Japanese extreme renderings of free jazz and improvisation. Music writer Patrick Boeuf states as much during a short, interesting essay inside the Amplify 2002 booklet. He notices the tendency for intense upper register tones juxtaposed with silence, and I would apply their relationship to the tension and release of pressure inside the balloon. Judging by the nature of its participants' performances, Onkyo (fitting under a wider umbrella of "electro-acoustic improvisation") is a study in the transition between almost unbearable pressure and tiny resolve. Where silence builds considerable, tangible tension, more so when a large ensemble is able to sustain it for long periods, the minimal sound put forth by guitar, sampler, mixing-board-- or whatever Otomo Yoshihide was pounding on during his duo show with Günter Müller-- represents the tease of resolution. It's a tease because with Onkyo, there's never really a full release. This is part of what makes it different from noise, and in fact, most other music on the planet. The Amplify box set (seven music CDs, one DVD) documents a festival of the same name organized by the Erstwhile label's Jon Abbey, with assistance from Headz label owner Atsushi Sasaki, and musicians Toshimaru Nakamura and Taku Sugimoto. Held over three days in Tokyo, October 2002, Amplify-- subtitled "balance"-- featured the best-known Japanese Onkyo performers, as well as European improvisers Müller, Keith Rowe, Bukhard Stangl, Thomas Lehn, Marcus Schmickler and Christof Kurzmann, who, while not following the same paths as the Japanese musicians, are certainly among the most respected electro acoustic improvisers today. In fact, it's the differing approaches of the Europeans and Japanese on Amplify that contributes some of the tension; here, that is inherently a good thing. I was most fascinated by Jonas Leddington's DVD documentary feature "balance beams," comprised of several performances, interviews, 5.1 surround sound mixes and subtle, hypnotic scenes of Tokyo street life. As much as modern electronic improvisation might seem visually irrelevant, Abbey correctly points out in the booklet that there's no substitute for witnessing this music. Performance highlights on the DVD include an incredible show by Cosmos (Sachiko M and vocalist Ami Yoshida), Otomo and Müller's show featuring the aforementioned pounding session and a frenetic set by Lehn and Schmickler, wherein sounds (and body movements) fly by faster than my eyes can process. The final audio CD of Amplify contains a performance of seven guitar players, and Rowe's "treatise" with the musicians on the DVD is a humbling, funny peek at how up in the air this music must be, even for its major proponents. Earlier, Rowe admits to having few ideas about how he will proceed even as his fingers approach his guitar at the start of a performance, though somehow the uncertainty surrounding this music seems perfectly appropriate. The audio CDs are divided into festival shows (discs three through six), shows organized around the festival by Nakamura and Sugimoto (one and seven) and one new studio release by Nakamura and Müller entitled Tint. Tint will doubtlessly be of interest to fans of both performers, and doubles as fine case on the differing approaches between Onkyo and European electronic improvisation. Nakamura's perfect sine, emitted from his signature no-input mixing board, hovers above Müller's more traditionally expressionist, laptop-assisted sounds. In some instances, Müller actually provides a rhythmic pulse, and though his preference for sudden changes in tone and mood should conflict with Nakamura's relatively serene, minimal style, I find the result more along the lines of a summit between two colleagues; one gushing with enthusiasm and exotic detail, the other nodding and smiling politely. Of the festival discs, my favorite performances begin with Cosmos' set at the start of disc three. For my money, Sachiko M and Yoshida, along with Nakamura and Sugimoto, are the most purely representative of the Onkyo sound and concept. Sachiko's sine acts as both a piercing, desperate stream of air escaping from the balloon, and as a thin blanket of light enveloping the entire ceiling of Cosmos' performance. In turn, Yoshida is the embodiment of pressure and release, as she contracts her chest and throat muscles to form seemingly inhuman (and sometimes almost imperceptible) sounds. Their track is an inspiring model of tension and the companionship required for an artistic duo. Likewise, Müller and Otomo's performance on disc four is the work of two seasoned improvisers exploring their equipment, and one another. I think Otomo (using guitar, turntable and electronics) is a better natural fit for Müller than Nakamura, if only because the pair seems to have similar ideas about how to fill detail into space. Fans of atmospheric IDM along the lines of Fennesz or Philip Jeck would do well to listen to this duo's set. AMM alum Rowe performs with frequent partner Nakamura on disc five in what is probably the greatest surprise for me on Amplify. It's a surprise because of the consistently underst"

Dragged Into Sunlight

Widowmaker

Grayson Currin

Considered on image alone, Dragged into Sunlight might be the most fascinating new recruit within extreme metal for the better part of the last decade. Like bank robbers on a job or mercenaries on a mission, the British quartet appears uniformly in balaclavas; the holes in the fabric are invitations of intrigue about the minds, lives and pasts of the four anonymous members. And when they play live, the musicians turn their backs on the audience, closing themselves to the house to again invoke wonder about just what they’re doing. Those conditions certainly aren't new for heavy metal, a genre replete with one-man bands, figure-obscuring robes, and pioneers who've still never performed in public. Coupled, however, with Dragged into Sunlight's forthright willingness to not only tour but also discuss its intentions and influences and irritations with the world, they do create a strangely magnetic allure, conjuring the idea of a band allegiant to its name-- a dark figure, reluctantly forced into public view to share its grim view of the world. "Our inspiration is very much a natural creation, spurred from months, if not years, of frustrated murderous intent," the band told Metallomusikum last year. "Imagine each micro-social interaction stuffed into one massive wrecking ball. Every time someone pissed you off and you wanted to tear their jaw off, concealed, building and ready to burst at any moment." Who else would you rather rage with? This public chiaroscuro seems to be one reason that Dragged into Sunlight's second LP, Widowmaker, has been so righteously anticipated: Here is a band, after all, of purported but unnamed extreme metal veterans, willing to take potshots at most anyone in interviews and back it with their own agitated magpie music. Indeed, 2009's Hatred for Mankind offered a potent recombination of death metal, black metal, shocking samples, and relentless production. On the memorably named "Lashed to the Grinder and Stoned to Death", for example, Dragged into Sunlight plunged through hideous doom depths only to reemerge with both speed and vigor, a four-piece thrashing as one against the world. In interviews, Dragged into Sunlight griped about the metal community's ever-growing mold of stylistic conformity; on tape, they seemed capable of more than complaints, a band capable of actually sounding, well, new. Widowmaker suffers from that sensation. Due to factors like other jobs, other bands, and the 300-mile geographical spread between the members, Dragged into Sunlight has been working on Widowmaker-- a three-part, 40-minute suite intended as one piece of music-- for three years. Both the process and ambition show as seams here, meaning that these 40 minutes sound like a cycle through influences and an unrealized aspiration to unite them under one release. Late last year, talking to Decibel about the just-finished record, the band rolled through a list of Widowmaker touchstones-- "It's doom-- there are influences from Eyehategod, Grief-- but then there's some thrashier elements, and there's a bit of High on Fire, Trap Them, even Om in there, too." Those components are all clearly identifiable here, from Part Three's down-tuned downturn to Part Two's sudden circle pit initiation. For the first 15 minutes, Dragged into Sunlight even does its best Godspeed, weaving a somber guitar around whispers of stately violin, down-the-abyss traces of noise, and recordings of serial killers talking about the rewards of their work. It's an interesting piece, but when it ends, Dragged into Sunlight flips a switch of convenience by plowing instantly into the howls and wallops of death metal. That's the net effect of Widowmaker, an album that finds Dragged into Sunlight working through strong parts of doom or thrash, noise or drone but never actually welding them into one. Widowmaker is named for, as the band told The Quietus, a heartache that "builds and builds and your heart is basically exploding." But the album itself is more akin to vertigo, with the stylistic disconnects and sudden switches making the record as a whole forgettable at best and vexing at worst. Widowmaker isn't without its rewards: Toward the end of the three-part suite, the band repeatedly cycles through near-silence (a lugubrious field recording from the Czech Republic's Bone Church circles like a sinister breeze) and the record's most furious bursts. Despite Dragged into Sunlight's insistence on being identified as one unit, these moments offer some of the album’s most motivated and moving performances. A skittering drum solo, for instance, lifts the whole band through a drone and into a phosphorescent surge; during another relatively calm pass, the guitar’s tone and patience are enviable, the slowly rising riff setting a paradoxically grim but inviting scene. And in Part Two, they dart around a serial killer's ramblings, spotlighting the unease as he talks about himself as a mass murderer. These bursts renew Hatred for Mankind's promise of fresh invective. But by and large, Widowmaker hoists Dragged into Sunlight with their own petard, turning that once-welcome eclecticism and adventurousness into the weapon that disrupts the payoff. It's not that these 40 minutes are too extreme or overly dependent on too many ideas; it's that Dragged into Sunlight haven't found out how to synthesize their best impulses and broad ambitions into a whole. The parts generally work, but they rarely work together. And from a band that insists upon the collective identity mattering much more than the constituent parts, that's an outcome equivalent to, as they might put it, "frustrated murderous intent."

Artist: Dragged Into Sunlight, Album: Widowmaker, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "Considered on image alone, Dragged into Sunlight might be the most fascinating new recruit within extreme metal for the better part of the last decade. Like bank robbers on a job or mercenaries on a mission, the British quartet appears uniformly in balaclavas; the holes in the fabric are invitations of intrigue about the minds, lives and pasts of the four anonymous members. And when they play live, the musicians turn their backs on the audience, closing themselves to the house to again invoke wonder about just what they’re doing. Those conditions certainly aren't new for heavy metal, a genre replete with one-man bands, figure-obscuring robes, and pioneers who've still never performed in public. Coupled, however, with Dragged into Sunlight's forthright willingness to not only tour but also discuss its intentions and influences and irritations with the world, they do create a strangely magnetic allure, conjuring the idea of a band allegiant to its name-- a dark figure, reluctantly forced into public view to share its grim view of the world. "Our inspiration is very much a natural creation, spurred from months, if not years, of frustrated murderous intent," the band told Metallomusikum last year. "Imagine each micro-social interaction stuffed into one massive wrecking ball. Every time someone pissed you off and you wanted to tear their jaw off, concealed, building and ready to burst at any moment." Who else would you rather rage with? This public chiaroscuro seems to be one reason that Dragged into Sunlight's second LP, Widowmaker, has been so righteously anticipated: Here is a band, after all, of purported but unnamed extreme metal veterans, willing to take potshots at most anyone in interviews and back it with their own agitated magpie music. Indeed, 2009's Hatred for Mankind offered a potent recombination of death metal, black metal, shocking samples, and relentless production. On the memorably named "Lashed to the Grinder and Stoned to Death", for example, Dragged into Sunlight plunged through hideous doom depths only to reemerge with both speed and vigor, a four-piece thrashing as one against the world. In interviews, Dragged into Sunlight griped about the metal community's ever-growing mold of stylistic conformity; on tape, they seemed capable of more than complaints, a band capable of actually sounding, well, new. Widowmaker suffers from that sensation. Due to factors like other jobs, other bands, and the 300-mile geographical spread between the members, Dragged into Sunlight has been working on Widowmaker-- a three-part, 40-minute suite intended as one piece of music-- for three years. Both the process and ambition show as seams here, meaning that these 40 minutes sound like a cycle through influences and an unrealized aspiration to unite them under one release. Late last year, talking to Decibel about the just-finished record, the band rolled through a list of Widowmaker touchstones-- "It's doom-- there are influences from Eyehategod, Grief-- but then there's some thrashier elements, and there's a bit of High on Fire, Trap Them, even Om in there, too." Those components are all clearly identifiable here, from Part Three's down-tuned downturn to Part Two's sudden circle pit initiation. For the first 15 minutes, Dragged into Sunlight even does its best Godspeed, weaving a somber guitar around whispers of stately violin, down-the-abyss traces of noise, and recordings of serial killers talking about the rewards of their work. It's an interesting piece, but when it ends, Dragged into Sunlight flips a switch of convenience by plowing instantly into the howls and wallops of death metal. That's the net effect of Widowmaker, an album that finds Dragged into Sunlight working through strong parts of doom or thrash, noise or drone but never actually welding them into one. Widowmaker is named for, as the band told The Quietus, a heartache that "builds and builds and your heart is basically exploding." But the album itself is more akin to vertigo, with the stylistic disconnects and sudden switches making the record as a whole forgettable at best and vexing at worst. Widowmaker isn't without its rewards: Toward the end of the three-part suite, the band repeatedly cycles through near-silence (a lugubrious field recording from the Czech Republic's Bone Church circles like a sinister breeze) and the record's most furious bursts. Despite Dragged into Sunlight's insistence on being identified as one unit, these moments offer some of the album’s most motivated and moving performances. A skittering drum solo, for instance, lifts the whole band through a drone and into a phosphorescent surge; during another relatively calm pass, the guitar’s tone and patience are enviable, the slowly rising riff setting a paradoxically grim but inviting scene. And in Part Two, they dart around a serial killer's ramblings, spotlighting the unease as he talks about himself as a mass murderer. These bursts renew Hatred for Mankind's promise of fresh invective. But by and large, Widowmaker hoists Dragged into Sunlight with their own petard, turning that once-welcome eclecticism and adventurousness into the weapon that disrupts the payoff. It's not that these 40 minutes are too extreme or overly dependent on too many ideas; it's that Dragged into Sunlight haven't found out how to synthesize their best impulses and broad ambitions into a whole. The parts generally work, but they rarely work together. And from a band that insists upon the collective identity mattering much more than the constituent parts, that's an outcome equivalent to, as they might put it, "frustrated murderous intent.""

The Cansecos

The Cansecos

Electronic

Joe Tangari

Could it be possible that popular music's capacity for innovation and expansion is actually infinite? Infinite is pretty big, I know, but every time I think things have turned into a cul de sac and it's all just regurgitation, someone springs something fresh on me and suddenly I can see the roads stretching in every direction again, just waiting to be traveled. Given the constant proliferation of new technologies and the shear breadth of possible sounds and combinations, both natural and electronic, it stands to reason that there will always be something that hasn't been tried. There may not be another sea change in music the way there was in the late 60s (although one could argue that hip-hop is as revolutionary), but from where I stand, several decades after rock's initial evolutionary explosion, I can't possibly see it stagnating completely. The more music I listen to, the more likely this possibility seems, and as long as there are albums like The Cansecos' self-titled debut out there waiting to be heard, I'm not changing my theory a bit. I don't know what's caused this sudden run of creativity in Toronto, but ingenuity seems to run in the blood of the musicians there, from collectives like Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think to loners like Manitoba and The Russian Futurists. The Cansecos fit somewhere in between all that stuff; the work of sometime filmmaker Bill Halliday (no relation to the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Roy) and Upper Class label head Gareth Jones (not the guy who produced Clinic's Internal Wrangler) is decidedly rooted in solid, straightforward melody, and branches from those roots into strange and distinctive sonic territory, a whirring mix of the obsolete and the absolutely modern. The album opens with the excellent mission statement "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" with off-handed, double-tracked vocals over acoustic guitar and spare drum programming. The beats ramp up to the chorus, building to a dancefloor frenzy and then back down for the next verse. Those relaxed, even vocals are the core of every song, and though Jones and Halliday aren't going to share poet laureate honors for Ontario any time soon, they spin some interesting verses, such as Jones' "Business hopes religion chokes the life out of religious folks/ So we all can safely consume/ And make those dollars and cents," from "In Bloom", a song awash in harp samples and swishing ambience. The watery echo and soft-hued keyboard of "This Girl and This Boy" create a Spector epic in miniature, a Wall of Sound that's more return-to-the-womb than wrecking crew, but nonetheless overwhelming. There are plenty of BBC Radiophonic Workshop synths winding and warbling their way through the textures The Cansecos create-- "This Small Disaster" even borders on microtonalism with its buzzing, wavering patches-- and much of what the duo does parallels the work of Dan Snaith's Manitoba in terms of dynamics and sonics, respectively. This album was recorded between 2000 and 2002, and as such it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what they were taking in; regardless, they've made such a complete and accessible whole out of it that they can call the sound their own. With luck, it'll take less than two whole years for The Cansecos to dream up a follow-up to this incredibly promising debut, but even if it does, this album pushes just a little further in pop's great infinite, and definitely deserves to be heard.

Artist: The Cansecos, Album: The Cansecos, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "Could it be possible that popular music's capacity for innovation and expansion is actually infinite? Infinite is pretty big, I know, but every time I think things have turned into a cul de sac and it's all just regurgitation, someone springs something fresh on me and suddenly I can see the roads stretching in every direction again, just waiting to be traveled. Given the constant proliferation of new technologies and the shear breadth of possible sounds and combinations, both natural and electronic, it stands to reason that there will always be something that hasn't been tried. There may not be another sea change in music the way there was in the late 60s (although one could argue that hip-hop is as revolutionary), but from where I stand, several decades after rock's initial evolutionary explosion, I can't possibly see it stagnating completely. The more music I listen to, the more likely this possibility seems, and as long as there are albums like The Cansecos' self-titled debut out there waiting to be heard, I'm not changing my theory a bit. I don't know what's caused this sudden run of creativity in Toronto, but ingenuity seems to run in the blood of the musicians there, from collectives like Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think to loners like Manitoba and The Russian Futurists. The Cansecos fit somewhere in between all that stuff; the work of sometime filmmaker Bill Halliday (no relation to the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Roy) and Upper Class label head Gareth Jones (not the guy who produced Clinic's Internal Wrangler) is decidedly rooted in solid, straightforward melody, and branches from those roots into strange and distinctive sonic territory, a whirring mix of the obsolete and the absolutely modern. The album opens with the excellent mission statement "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" with off-handed, double-tracked vocals over acoustic guitar and spare drum programming. The beats ramp up to the chorus, building to a dancefloor frenzy and then back down for the next verse. Those relaxed, even vocals are the core of every song, and though Jones and Halliday aren't going to share poet laureate honors for Ontario any time soon, they spin some interesting verses, such as Jones' "Business hopes religion chokes the life out of religious folks/ So we all can safely consume/ And make those dollars and cents," from "In Bloom", a song awash in harp samples and swishing ambience. The watery echo and soft-hued keyboard of "This Girl and This Boy" create a Spector epic in miniature, a Wall of Sound that's more return-to-the-womb than wrecking crew, but nonetheless overwhelming. There are plenty of BBC Radiophonic Workshop synths winding and warbling their way through the textures The Cansecos create-- "This Small Disaster" even borders on microtonalism with its buzzing, wavering patches-- and much of what the duo does parallels the work of Dan Snaith's Manitoba in terms of dynamics and sonics, respectively. This album was recorded between 2000 and 2002, and as such it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what they were taking in; regardless, they've made such a complete and accessible whole out of it that they can call the sound their own. With luck, it'll take less than two whole years for The Cansecos to dream up a follow-up to this incredibly promising debut, but even if it does, this album pushes just a little further in pop's great infinite, and definitely deserves to be heard."