PRESS / REVIEWS
Talibam! Interview in Foxy Digitalis… / February 25, 2008
From Foxy Digitalis
Talibam! are a synth and drum duo, who create wild, abstractly-driven free-music informed by free-jazz, noise, and punk. They’ve released quite a few albums along the way, mostly in limited hand-made editions, but have recently released two CDs and an LP raising their visibility. I’ve known Talibam! personally over the last couple of years, not as close friends, but as warm acquaintances and they’re some of the nicest guys you could meet. They’ve always struck me as a band who are authentically weird and indescribable and as such, extremely interesting. They are incredibly accomplished musicians. Matt Mottel and Kevin Shea both have intense pedigrees playing with a bunch of great people in free-jazz and indie-rock. Kevin Shea is on tour with one band or another nearly 200 days a year or more. With this background in mind, I often wondered while watching them play, are these guys just goofin’ off or is there something more going on? Talibam! are a lot of things at once and difficult to pin down, which is a slippery but often enviable position to be in. Talibam! are provocative, but are not provocateurs working up a reaction – that would be missing the point entirely. They have an irreverent and comical complexity that seems to come from an almost alien place. Here, nothing is dark; there are no mysteries; not in their name, not in the song titles, not even in the music. Most bands, if they feel they are coming across as too serious, opt to use amusing song or album titles while continuing to create gloomy or punishing music. Talibam! in contrast, appear to be decidedly un-angry. They’re serious about being good musicians, everything else is entertainment. They are at odds with a lot of the serious-mindedness or even black-humor often encountered with out-musics, drone, and noise and have plenty to say about that. They just say it how they see it, but always with a sense of humor; nothing too literal. Straight talk, one moment, surrealist ramblings the next; Talibam! are ultimately about the moment. This interview was done as an email exchange on February 4th and 5th of 2008 and is a document of one of these moments…. -Todd Brooks. [read on...]
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Pendu Sound Label Spotlight from Foxy Digitalis…
From Foxy Digitalis
“Pendu Sound is the music arm of the impressive and broader Pendu Org. Based out of Brooklyn, New York and owned and curated by Todd Brooks, Pendu is “dedicated to spontaneous and intuitive art.” There’s an online gallery (that also houses an online magazine/journal featuring poetry and art) to browse. You can get lost for hours looking at the incredible artwork Brooks is exhibiting. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a book shop. But the first thing I was drawn to was the record label portion. Pendu has released a number of cassettes, CDRs, and LPs from the likes of Ghost Moth (a personal favorite), Talibam!, and others with much more to come. All in all, Pendu is a model for all art and music lovers. Check out their website and I guarantee that everyone will find something to love.” – Brad Rose [read on...]
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Various Artists
Rippers and Creepers Vol. 1
PSR-0030
Review from Tape Hiss #32 at Foxy Digitalis
“This one is a reviewer’s nightmare! Rippers and Creepers not only features over 30 artists spanning a host of styles and locales—which right off the bat eliminates a couple of handy classification systems—but every track is mixed directly into the next, as if the nuances of each noisemonger’s style weren’t difficult enough to detect already. And to crown his caper, Pendu curator Todd Brooks has deliberately chosen an almost-unknown set of artists—a decision I wholly admire, but one which complicates this task even further.
With that, where to begin? I don’t know if Brooks is cluing us in with the title, but for a first approximation of order, let’s call the A-side “Rippers” and the B-side “Creepers.” Rippers wisely begins with the eccentric quasi-jazz of HeteroSkeleton, a choice born as much of necessity as preference, since there’s no way Brooks could maintain a consistent flow with this head-scratcher gumming up the works. The following two tracks are compatible, beyond-gutter, half-aborted punk tracks by Blastocyst and the Pukers, which move at absolutely full throttle with an admirable hostility towards purpose and form. The Rippers title makes even more sense as we enter the alley of straight noise, with four pieces of angry rumbles blurring into one another. I recognized the odd, abused saxophone of Ghost Moth gasping for air and was pleasantly surprised by the brooding quality of newcomer Kristin Calvarese’s piece, but otherwise, no matter how hard I try to distinguish the different contributors, my mind melts into the onrush. The quirky no-budget dance of Buffle briefly dethrones the noise, only to be usurped by Usurper, whose brooding, understated piece of cut-up darkness further establishes him as one of the most distinctive voices in harsh noise world. After his piece, unfortunately, I lose track of the next several artists, surfacing again to note the psychedelic bombast of Howlin’ Magic, probably the most recognizable name on the comp. Rippers eases into Creepers with the pleasant, if not distinctive, ambience of Pet Coffins.
After the white-knuckle ride of Rippers, Creepers is a bit more soothing. Family Battlesnake drapes the tape in a troubled Twilight Zone swirl, which is ably followed by a masterful proggy suite of post-Tangerine synthetic pulse from Pax Titania. Skozey Fetisch then crash lands like a malfunctioning satellite, coming off like the sound of robotic consciousness going slowly offline. Arachnid Arcade inaugurates another stretch of noise, though with a sci-fi bent in keeping with the spirit of preceding tracks. Josh Lay follows with an utterly depressing piece of fetid drift, one of my favorites on the whole comp. Next, ex-pat Mike Shiflet goes digital (I think), drumming up his inner Kevin Drumm with a deep field of flickering figures, before Sons of Bronson upsets the pacing with a disruptive piece of mutilated wankery. Women in Tragedy show up soon enough with a hallucinatory killer, followed by a winning slab of mysterious black ritual from new kids Sorc’henn. A multi-artist string-fueled fugue follows, capped by the glorious non-logic of Nonhorse. Finally, Panicsville concludes with an appropriately bizarre, flatulent piece.
So, uh…there you have it. I think all the preceding can be summarized as follows: Rippers and Creepers is not an easy listen, but there’s a lot of meat on its bones.” – by Bryan Berge from Tape Hiss #32 at Foxy Digitalis
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Review from Smooth Assailing
“rippers and creepers does a good job of gathering artists from all over the place: france, the united kingdom, spain, italy, canada, finland, belgium, portugal as well as the united states. when it comes to the u.s., there’s more than a slight bias towards the eastern states, with california being the only one west of illinois that’s represented, though it does have the most contributors, with seven, and one of those, arachnid arcade, used to be in seattle.
the idea behind this was to have artists submit a two minute long piece of music (give or take) which would either “rip” or “creep”, based on how the artist chose to define those adjectives. obviously, your rippers are going to be the blown-out instrumental jams and harsh noise tracks, while the creepers favor mood and subtlety. with that interpretation in mind, the music adheres to these idioms well, for the most part. all of the tracks are intertwined with each other, rather than having one side be devoted to a singular theme, and todd mixed everything together really well, which made it kind of a bitch to separate, but i figured it out, eventually.
side a starts with the weirdo sounds of heteroskeleton (which features arttu from avarus); strange vocals, intermittent sax blurts and random noises coming together in a patchworked blanket of oddball experimentation. that’s followed by two blown-out instrumental tantrums, first of which is brooklynites blastocyst with their noisy jamming that i hesitate to even call lo-fi, but i’ve gotta give the nod to la’s pukers, though. it’s a little bit easier to hear and the constant whirl of feedback with the terrific drumming does it for me. the feedback love fest continues wonderfully with oubliette’s put ‘em off in the grave, which easily wins the title of most abrasive track. i love it. ghost moth carries oubliette’s noisy drone undercurrent, but heavily sedates it and adds daniel carter’s meandering sax blurts over the top of it. this one both rips and creeps. vestigial limb continues to impress with his untitled track. i dig ray’s dynamic here between the rumbling clatter, muffled moans and high-pitched whines. atlanta’s kristin calvarese serves up a terrific, loud, humming creeper with hidden electronic screams lurking about in the background. buffle’s viscal, hmm, neither creeps nor rips, but their catchy, upbeat folk guitar and rhythmic percussion is one of the compilation’s high points. climate, by oakland’s pink canoes,brings back the stark mood with sparse instrumentation, random electronic buzzes, chiming guitar, drone and chilling ambiance. it’s more atmospheric than anything else, but does set a distinct tone. scotland’s usurper turn in a fantastic bit of lurching noise with a poke in the eye with a shitty stick. minimal and scratchy, initially, it will eventually turn into a gallop of clattering chaos that increases to a startling amplitude, before dropping back off into choked distortion. italians harshcore provide a droner with understated distorted noise in their amy winehouse; less troubled than the singer herself. fully dilated’s the big other does not exist shares its time between digital spew, a high-pitched background whine, distortion and a slow rumble. i like that they really made the most out of their two minutes. the amplified sax and clarinet duo of cincinnati’s wasteland jazz unit provides a nice high and low juxtaposition over a complimentary bed of distortion. last live, by portugal’s fish & sheep, unfortunately, sounds like it was recorded by someone who couldn’t actually get inside of the venue. the jammy free-rock chaos of it was good, though. valerio cosi’s ripper is a great piece of overpowering drone which attempts to relegate the saxoloop to a minor supporting role, but the haunting faintness of it makes ripper memorable. santa cruz, ca’s howlin’ magic urge us to “take a hit of this” with their stoned out rocker, smilesun, and then indiana’s pet coffins provide the perfect comedown music with the blissful new york.
bill kouligas’s family battle snake kicks off a fantastic side b that comes across as being more focused than the first side was. fbs’s repetitious analog synth lines, while mellow, gives rippers and creepers the catchiness than it hadn’t really shown up until this point. tallahasse’s pax titania follows bill’s synth lead and gives us the great, haunted terminal implant. in addition to being more memorable, the track sequencing for this side was absolutely flawless. successive horizontal cognizance by skozey fetisch is an exercise in near locked-groove repetitious bay area oddness. that’s followed by another san franciscan group, arachnid arcade, and their soupy distortion and whistling synth tones. it sounds like a monster eating an ice cream truck. josh lay’s bad mirror is a pleasant transitory piece of sparse layered drones which lead to someone known for sparse layered drones, mike shiflet. not so much the case this time. shiflet has a good foundation of bubbling distortion, which slowly increases in virility, and random drawn out beeps. when it seems like it’s about to get calmer, he hits us with a sheet of shrill noise. ugly, yet, a lovely surprise. kintestu’s ending cacophony proves to be the perfect segue to boston’s craniopagus, and their track blisters. high-pitch electronic screams, and distorted human ones reek havoc over a throbbing hum. i like! 2 minutes to midnight, by spain’s sons of bronson starts out deceptively with distant droning behind light static before shifting into some great waves of mutilated noise before closing out with a series of good staccato tones. ohio’s demonologists’ (one dude) rad creeping sickness is like the noisy drone of too many people talking at once, combined with more drone and low, wavy undercurrents. i really like the slight rumbling base and haunting spatial synthesizer of toronto’s women in tragedy. la chambre verte by france’s sorc’henn is beautiful, too, with its lulling sample, minimal field recordings and persistent mechanical hum. nyc’s eastern seaboard bring about a return to non-electronic instrumentation with under the red white and blue. despite having a sax, drums, upright bass and cello, this is a bit of a departure from their jazziness. the fast, steady, but not screechy, cello bowing is what wins me over. la’s vxpxc make for some nice psychedelia with their warm ambient drone, violin and vocals. californian duo saints begin with minimal droning whines before briefly transforming into warm synth, then abruptly into blown out hum before settling on blown out percussion, which beautifully eases in lanterns’ sun-soaked drum n’ clang circle. ceasar shift, from nonhorse, is a heavenly track of softly moaning (vocal?) drones and delayed analog manipulations. baltimore’s gullwing brings some unique psychedelic experimentation featuring warbling, liquid-like affections and fluttering drone. the compilation ends with panicsville’s humorous take on what rippers really are with farting sounds, a giggling female and playful music, à la nihilist youth movement. silly, yes, but i dug the way ortmann decided to go off in his own different direction, while still staying very much on topic.
overall, this was a really good compilation. there wasn’t anything that i didn’t like and the tracks that didn’t make much of an impression on me were definitely in the minority. i had my reservations about the fact that all of the tracks were so short, but i rarely felt like i was getting an incomplete glimpse of something, and also, the shortness helped make it seem like the album was quickly progressing instead of dragging on endlessly, which was nice.” – by avant gardening from Smooth Assailing
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Gryn Brvs
Grail Fruit of Les Prix Chauns
PSR-0028
Review from Foxy Digitalis
“Gryn Brvs is a new name to me and this nicely packaged tape comes care of the always interesting Pendu label. This live recording from Sepetember 2006 is a disjointed, exquisite mess. Turns out that Gryn Brvs is the UK-based duo of Stuart Fernie and Ian Murphy. And if this tape of improvised fuckere is any indication, I’ll be on the lookout for future releases. There’s a lot going on here, some of it that is seemingly at odds with itself, but as a whole it works perfectly. Acoustic and almost-melodic zither action tweezes the space between piles of droning instruments. Of note is an instrument called a ‘wyrn.’ It’s handmade by Fernie and is something akin to an Irish didgeridoo. Add in a little violin, feedback, some tapes, and ramshackle percussion and you’ve got the ingredients to a pretty killer set. Limited to 50 handnumbered copies, you better act fast on this one. 8/10″ – Brad Rose from Foxy Digitalis
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Review from Cassette Gods
“Grail Fruit of Les Prix Chauns is a live recording from the UK duo of Stuart Fernie and Ian Murphy (I’ve heard the band’s name pronounced “Groin Bros.”) rummaging in the free improv bin of assorted oddities and obscure sound sources. On side one, a zither strumming harplike arpeggios emerges from vibrating background static. Also on hand is a droning acoustic instrument called a “wyrn,” a construction of Fernie’s which according to the label description is like an Irish digeridoo. Add to this a violin, thumb piano and other assorted small instruments and percussion as well as humming electronic tones and you’ve got a very textually diverse arrangement. Considering this, the sound is quite sparse with quieter acoustic sounds in the foreground shadowed by feedback-heavy bass oscillators for most of the duration. Comparisons to modern European clatter units like My Cat is an Alien wouldn’t be out of reach. Pendu Sound’s packaging is saturated in hand assembled colors and stencils with a full-color collage insert. According to the label’s web site this one is still available, so grip onwards.” – by max from Cassette Gods
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Ghost Moth / Fossils
Split
PSR-0027
Review from Smooth Assailing
“ghost moth is a brooklyn three-piece consisting of daniel carter (other dimensions in music, test!), robbie mcdonald (old ghost, skulking) as well as todd brooks (abuse report, feral comb, mialessot). this is the first release that i’ve heard from ghost moth and i’m really impressed. there’s a great, but surprisingly rare marriage between somewhat traditional sounding jazz instrumentation, minimal electronics and prepared guitar. for me, the key component to their success was carter’s playing. where skronking away on a saxophone with disregard for the beauty of the instrument has become trite in experimental / noise music, the fact that what he’s doing, while it certainly falls under the catch-all prefix of “free-”, still sounds lovely. i’m enamored by the nonchalant swagger of the trumpet in contrast with the minimalist electronic clatter and oscillations. nothing here is over the top at all; daniel’s playing is soothingly slow, brooks’ guitar playing is extremely light, aided by delay and purely complimentary, the electronics, while not pretty sounding, are more like a muddied clamor at their noisiest, and never cast a shadow over everything else. it’s definitely one of those cases that proves the less is more adage. they’re joined by another trio, fossils, from ontario, canada. that group’s made up of: david payne (offensive orange, sick feedbag (with sick llama)), scott johnson (bottom feeder, hunting rituals, the lonely flight, slo-fi spirit wave, thoughts on air) and jeremy buchan (nope, just fossils). payne also heads up the middle james co. label. ah, fossils side. bleak! maybe it’s because (the appropriately titled) symbols of decay was recorded on friday the 13th. maybe it’s because they recorded it live to a boombox, giving it a terrific scuzzy low fidelity that enhances their understated approach. maybe both? this side kills, that much i do know. during part one (of three), decay comes across as an inverse to industrial society and its future. to the best of my ears’ knowledge, it sounds like they’ll also (very sparingly) use a guitar and trumpet and both groups used a similarly subtle approach to electronics. execution-wise, these two sides are far apart. there ain’t nothin’ pretty about the filth that fossils are making. the emphasis isn’t on the musical instruments as much as it is on tense noise. when the trumpet is played it’s as an added layer of sound; slow, drawn out noise. there’s certainly nothing traditionally musical about it, but it works well. the beginning of part two manages to get a bit creepier as the noise becomes slightly more confrontational, sporadically coming and going in banshee-like howls. there’s also a few more things happening this time with some junk percussion, random guitar chords, occasional squeals of feedback, muddled tapes and manipulation and a welcomed spell of repetitious noise later on. the final piece will revert back to the first’s minimalism. the base is an alternately squeaky and rustling commotion, while the background consists of a deep, ascending burbling tone and buzzing vocal drones. so, yeah, i’m totally digging this cassette”. – by avant gardening from Smooth Assailing
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Review from Cassette Gods
Even in New York, a town with a history of musical cross-pollination, Ghost Moth is an anomaly. Posed with the unique freedoms and restrictions of machine-produced noise and acoustic improvisation, the group has stubbornly refused to do anything but teeter on the fence between the two. Daniel Carter’s reeds, flute and trumpet will likely never be run through effects processing, and Todd and Robbie’s guitar and electronics will just as likely never be anything but. Despite all contradictions and in spite of the members’ numerous other obligations, Ghost Moth has somehow kept running full-steam for almost two years. If you haven’t checked out this platypus of a group’s unique sound, this murky 40 minute split with Fossils (a.k.a the “Middle-James-of-the-Month Club,” almost as difficult to define) is an appropriate introduction. Includes full-color collaged insert. – by max from Cassette Gods
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Abuse Report
El Diablo Esta En Casa
PSR-0026
Review from Auxiliary Out
“So I’ve been sitting on a pretty killer cache of analog goods from Pendu Sound for a long while now, and it is way past high time I get to talking about them. For those unfamiliar, Pendu Sound is the music arm of the larger Pendu Org which triples as a gallery and bookshop in addition to being a label. So that’s intensely awesome. Abuse Report, the author of this tape, features Todd Brooks, who runs the label, writes for Foxy D and plays in Ghost Moth as well, Cassette Gods scribe Max Gudmunson who also plays a part in K.P. and Matt Folden who I know nothing about. I don’t really know too much about this c40 either. Though it sounds like the trio rolls in the electronics department, with probably some guitar in there somewhere too. They have a noise drone thing going that’s vaguely sinister but not really harsh or intentionally ominous sounding. It doesn’t feel like Abuse Report is trying to scare me, like some bands do, and I like that they don’t. There’s slurred vocals against a fuzzy bog of sustaining tones and synth sputters. It reminds me a little of the way Family Underground does things but with much less emphasis on guitar. Some of the best parts of the tape are when things break down a bit and there’s a simple echoing rhythm repeating against a few cascading swells of fuzz. To go back to the sinister-ism point, the first side on here is like “leisurely sinister”, the dudes manage to sound slightly off-kilter and menacing without even trying. Whenever I listen to this tape it makes me miss drone trios and quartets, well “miss” probably isn’t the right word because there’s still a fair amount around but, as much as I love duos and solo acts, it’s great to hear 3 or 4 people totally locking into the same imagination and weaving together a piece music like on this tape. There’s just something about having more people that adds another dimension, a kind of looseness that sounds tight anyway. Or maybe put more accurately it is even when a band sounds tight there’s still a looseness, where all the pieces float magically into place. Anyway, this tangent has lead me to the first sides second track “Outer”, though if you weren’t paying attention it may seem like a sidelong track. There is a clearer sounding drum thing going on, still echoey and distorted but you can tell they’re drums (or at least I think I can tell they’re drums). The track’s a pretty short one, it builds to a glistening, if slight, crescendo before dropping out. “Exo” takes up the entirety of the B-side and it has a more extended feel to it. The guys create a fuller, more “drone” sound I guess is how you would describe it. It has got an odd pseudo-propulsion to it which I think is the result of dirty loops buried way way down. The first good chunk of the track is lead by hi-pitched sounds, probably from a guitar or synthesizer, but by the end the tracks gets pretty heavy and monolithic. The track despite its twenty minute length actually feels like it’s over pretty quick. It’s one of those that you discover more when you listen with headphones, lots of buried layers to excavate. Pendu has a couple of killer LPs worthy of your attention as well (a newish Talibam! one and a comp called Getting out the Glue), but since this tape is only limited to 25 copies (eek!) I figured I better get the word out on this one first so you can snap it up before it’s too late. El Diablo Está en Casa is available from Pendu and has a color-printed 3-panel fold out and a black tape with a silver Abuse Report logo drawn on. Definitely worth checking out if you were into the 3 man drone/noise sound. czech out this interview with Mr. Brooks about Pendu” – Auxillary Out
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Talibam!
The Excusable Earthling
PSR-0022
Review from Auxiliary Out
“Talibam! hails from New York and is also a trio; drums, synth and sax & electronics (see these reviews are vaguely themed) though they since have downsized to drums and synth. “Explosive Soul” takes the length of the first side. These guys appear to do everything improv-style so you really get to witness something birthed from nothing. There’s weird squelches, loose drum rolls and whathaveyou before things begin slowly to take shape. There’s a lot of convergence and divergence where the group still start down one path only to abandon it for another. There’s this one part that’s so rad where everyone starts groovin’ to this chunky organ line. Props to the organ dude because he’s full these great out of this world, vaguely b-movie inspired keyboard parts. The drummer finds a nice balance between following “the beat” (if it can be called that) and telling the beat to fuck off. I’m not really hearing any sax on this track so I think that guy is pretty heavily involved in his electronics, which cast a smoggy, noisy cloud over the proceedings. The flipside is also 17 and a half minutes and features “One Way Foot”. It begins the same way “Explosive Soul” did, but from ragged beginnings a flowering of great material shall bloom. The sax seems to make more of an appearance here which, being an appreciator of saxophone, I like very much. The keyboard interjects this really bizarre riff which sounds a little like something you’d here coming from an ice cream truck but sped up a bit. This proves to be a catalyst as the other guys get in on the action. My favorite bit of drumming comes here because, while refraining to bust out a full free form solo, the drummer drives the track without really repeating anything. This jauntiness fades and gives way to a smokier, lo-key passage which is a style that really works for these guys. A lot of this “total psych freedom” stuff can be in danger being kinda boring and not that great, and though they can move somewhat slowly Talibam! is never boring and they dig up a bunch of neat little nuggets of sound along the way. Pendu put together this Talibam! record with the utmost professionalism, with pro-printed sleeves and so forth and it even comes wrapped in plastic. Check ‘em out. ” – Auxillary Out
Review from Smooth Assailing
“talibam!, at their core, consists of drummer kevin shea, most notable, outside of this group, for being in math-rockers storm & stress. he was (is?) in coptic light (with members of antioch arrow and don cab) and is also in people with brooklyn staple mary halvorson. the other member of talibam! is synthesizerer matt mottel. matt’s additionally in shadowmaps and syntony. they’ve also employed the guitar services of matthu stull and, for this record, they were joined by ed bear, who handled the tapes, baritone sax and, the somewhat cryptic, electronics. irrelevant side note: project ed bear is a volunteer organization dedicated to providing comforts and needs for pediatric oncology patients in northeast ohio.
free improvisation. its merits are debatable. at its least compelling, it just comes across as pointless meandering and rather self-indulgent. the thing about it though, is that it offers a voyeuristic glimpse into the creative process and those spontaneous moments of brilliance that can arise out of that meandering is what really makes it worthwhile. the two seventeen minute long tracks which comprise the excusable earthling provide such payoffs, you just need to be a little patient.
explosive soul starts us off in familiar free-whathaveyou territory; build-up. there’s occasional drum hits, random synth blurts and strange sounding electronics, but that’s really all. musically, it seems like they’re cautiously testing the waters while avoiding rhythm like it had aids. after a few minutes into it i started up an esoteric inner monologue about how something like this, which completely eschews traditional musical structure, is far less musical than harsh noise despite the fact that it contains some actual musical instruments, not just a bunch of ways to manipulate sound. at least with noise, more often than not, i find repetition, which is, truly, the foundation of music. pop songs are that because they’re catchy. they’re catchy because of repetition, in one form or another. here, there are three distinct entities which seemingly work against each other. if you’re familiar with the barbaric technique of quartering, it’s kind of like… but 33 and 1/3′ing, i’d imagine. one thing that this approach does provide is the ability to pick and choose which aspect you want to hone in on, which can drastically change the whole feel of the track; with each element being unique and not necessarily working in unison with the others. as soul progresses, it will touch on periods where at least someone will manage to form a pattern with their sound and it’s awesome. most of the time that comes by way of mottel’s lead, but when kevin joins him (say, at around the eight minute mark) it’s a wonderful thing. they’ll spend so much time creating this air of anticipation that when it comes, no matter how small it is, you want to wholly embrace it. the a side gives us quite a few of these smaller moments. sometimes the interplay is between synth and drums, other times it’s matt and ed, sometimes it’s just the synthesizer. the point is that, more often than not, they’ll throw us the proverbial bone and it’s well worth the wait.
in comparison to side b’s one way foot, it’s hard not to view explosive soul as a tease. this piece manages to be both more avant-garde and more accessible than its predecessor, which to me equals perfection. it begins sort of how i wished corsano, flaherty and yeh’s a rock in the snow was with minimal percussion, slow sax drones and then synth; obviously swapping out spencer’s noise for the synthesizer, though. i dig this a lot more. it soon becomes all about mottel’s great fucking synth leads. ed does a great job of backing him up with complimentary noises, and shea lays down some terrific percussion, but matt’s synth is the highlight for me. at times it sounds like the soundtrack to what i could only imagine would’ve been the craziest nintendo game ever. right before ten minutes, matt and kevin will get into one of those great psychic connections where they’re both in the zone with each other and it’s times like this that i’m really in awe of what talibam! is capable of. when it seems like they could just click and get into a jamming groove at the drop of a dime after spending maybe ten minutes doing their own things individually is impressive. after reaching a great height, they’ll spend the final third of the track on really subdued sax, percussion and synthesized piano, which is lovely, and occasionally memorable. dope record, for sure. i’m not going to post any audio clips this time because a) you can stream full-length versions of both sides on talibam!’s last.fm page and b) because you can download this at the stabbed in the face blog. todd, who put out the record, doesn’t seem too concerned with the fact that it’s freely available since he posted: “after you download a copy, you should buy one from pendu sound recordings at pendu sound… talibam! will appreciate it. cheers!”, in case you have weird internet guilt. not sure about the other links, since it was upped on sharebee, but the mega upload option is still active.” – by avant gardening from Smooth Assailing
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Scott Soriano of S-S Records from Terminal Boredom’s 2007 Greatest Hits
“Another one that came out of nowhere, at least for me. Upon first listen, I thought these guys were a dozen or so, but, nope, just three dudes making a hell of a lot of sound. A zillion slivers of noise assembled in free jazz context makes for great listening.” – Scott Soriano in Terminal Boredom
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Review from O Bom Garfo
“Fucked up trio from Brooklyn, NYC, consisting of Ed Bear (electronics, sax, vocals), Kevin Shea (drums) and Matt Mottel (synth), they make some of the wildest free music around. They are a mixture of all the free music of the last 40 years or so, going from a woozy free jazz via Sun Ra to cracked fuzzed noise-rock in two seconds. It´s simply great Improv music with a muscular (not macho!) sensibility, full of groove, fragmented melodies, cosmic textures, ascending to space and descending to hell in less than nothing. The Excusable Earthling, their first Lp, consisting of two long improvised song, could be a good introduction to their music. Take a close look.” – mississippi blind joe on O Bom Garfo
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Review from Arthur Magazine
“The first few things we heard by Talibam! didn’t raise many huge welts, but their debut LP, The Excusable Earthling (Pendu Sound) kinda raises the stakes. For whatever reason, it’s now possible to fully appreciate how totally screwball Matt Mottel’s synthesizer work is, amidst the improv blather of Ed Bear and Kevin Shea. Dunno if it’s the recording or what, but Earthling jumps out like one of the duppiest key-bloats since those early Six Finger Satellite disks. Imagine! Jazzic in a different way” – Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, Bull Tongue in Arthur Magazine
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Review from Downtown Music Gallery
“This is the second Talibam! disc in the past few months and it features the same trio of improv loonies: Ed Bear on bari sax, tapes & electronics, Matt Mottel on synth and Kevin Shea (from Peter Evans Qt & People) on drums. Unlike their previous CD on Azul Discografica, this one has no guests. Each side of this LP/EP has one 17 1/2 minute piece. Side 1 is called “Explosive Soul” and it contains some fine Sun Ra-like electric synth, twisted electronics and/or sax and tight, explosive drums. This music is too focused to be considered just free-form noise. There is a strong and spirited connection between Matt’s warped keyboards and Kevin’s solid inter-weaving drums. About midway through the first side, the trio starts to rock out for a bit into a joyous groove and then ascend into an impressive wall of noise that finally breaks into fragments. Near the end they sound as if they are about to break into some great sixties rockin’ riff tune, before the tempo explodes into a punk-rock rage. Side two is called “One Way Foot” and has that Sun Ra-like alien-worlds texture. Soon the cosmic sludge starts to thicken as Kevin’s spins his percussive web into a more focused morass. Talibam! have a way of embracing various elements at the same time, free/noise meets head on with some more crazed punk-rockin’ insanity. Most often they sound as if they are having fun, sometimes they almost go to far into the extreme. Inspired insanity from this ridiculous local trio.” – BLG, Downtown Music Gallery
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Review from Dusted Magazine
“Structured improvisation from a trio of Ed Bear (electronics, sax, vocals), Kevin Shea (drums) and Matt Mottel (synth). Darlings of a tiny sliver of the avant scene here in NYC, their heavy rep is fairly justified here across two sidelong pieces that hold the attention really well, as bits of melody grind it out amidst seamless transitions into freer modes of play. Quite a lot going on here given the rigidity of the lineup, a series of loose melodic attacks that gather steam then scatter in the wind. Sort of rock-based in spots, but I’m all for such cross-pollination. A good time herein.” by Doug Mosurak, Dusted Magazine
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Review from Tiny Mix Tapes
“Why is so much of the so-called experimental noise scene so apathetic? As much as people try to justify If one were to judge the musicians working in the polar musical extremes, the base similarities might very well be comparable to the disparities. Apathy is a turd, yet somehow it’s become a prevailing mindset for many musicians, sadly even for those who thrive on being fringe. Deliberate apathy versus genuine ignorance — it’s a fucking mess. Perhaps it’s a case of misanthropy, but it’s painful to watch fans rally around otherwise innocuous “noise” musicians whose only seeming function is to extend their braggadocio by being LOUD. Couple this with avant-garde music’s otherwise arcane academics (think modern composition) and it’s no wonder why so many people are left feeling alienated.
But then we have groups like Talibam! Finally a band that lives up to its exclamatory moniker, Talibam! are a refreshing reminder that experiments in sound aren’t inherently exclusionary, even ones so tonally harsh and rhythmically spastic. To the untrained listener and/or lazy journalist, the band could be construed as “wild,” “untalented,” or worst of all, “primitive,” but even cursory listens to The Excusable Earthling reveal not layers or narratives or semiotic devices, but a very in-the-moment sound that resists any foretelling construction or organizing principle. It’s the difference between genuinely responding to a joke with laughter and a sitcom character who doesn’t laugh because it’s not in the script. Still, it’s far from anarchy — The Excusable Earthling is an invitation to engage, inclusive and intelligent, so organic and free-range it could be stocked in a natural food store.
Although The Excusable Earthling is Talibam!’s first full-length vinyl release*, this fact belies the experience of the members. Consisting of one of the best drummers in the American underground Kevin Shea, the ever-so-explosive Matt Mottel on synthesizer, and occasionally Ed Bear on bari sax, tapes, and electronics, the members of Talibam! have worked with everyone from Cooper-Moore and Chris Corsano to Peter Evans and Akron/Family. But their vast list of related bands and collaborations say nothing about the music. Here’s a signature sound, not in the sense of being “new” or necessarily “different,” but because Shea, Mottel, and Bear leave individual sonic imprints that are attuned specifically to each Talibam! moment, while any instance of seeming individuality is insinuated in a wider collective discourse. Sound stuffy? Don’t worry, it’s not reflected in the music.
Talibam! are perfect examples of music not made, but done — communal in its approach, yet never regressing to trite psychedelia or transparent “primitivism.” With an attentive ear and your guard let down, you can literally hear the band searching for different textures and varying dynamics, striving for moments of pure connection but also boldly looking for exits when they do. Hell, you may even get to hear a little tonality and a 4/4 beat. I’ll be straight with you: this is “difficult” music, but only for as long as your cultured idioms allow it. The sounds are striking and the performance is penetrating — this is physical music, and if you can’t get down with that, then you’re in a world of theory and illusions. To be sure, any Talibam! recording is best approached as a document of a vibrant process, not a cold, aestheticized artifact. Besides, given our current political, social, and cultural circumstances, our interests would perhaps be more wisely vested in the very same movement and dynamicism that afford Talibam!’s musicking.
* Talibam! also issued their first two “official” CD releases this year, including the highly, highly recommended studio album, Ordination Of The Globetrotting Conscripts.” -
Mr P, Tiny Mix Tapes
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Review from FLAVORPILL
“celebrate anxiety-jazz Talibam!’s third (yes, third) release of the summer, The Excusable Earthling. Matt Mottel’s synthesizer antics rip like he learned to play from John McLaughlin… Behind it all, drummer/show stealer Kevin Shea (voted World’s Greatest Percussionist by the Japanese Journal of Bullying!) fondles a 3/4-size kit with maniac clatter. So see Talibam! before they release another Zappa-meets-Zorn concoction, or file a habeas petition at Guantanamo, whichever comes first.” -MG, Flavorpill NYC, Issue 378
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Various Artists
Getting Rid of the Glue
PSR-0016
Review from Smooth Assailing
“the title of this compilation was lifted from a quote by henry cowell, right before introducing the music of john cage, morton feldman, christian wolff and earl brown; it referred to how these composers were eschewing traditional structure for looser experimentation. this brooklyn-centric 12″ adheres to this, uh, unadhesiveness, and offers up ten artists and groups’ musical perspectives on the matter.
dirty churches’ eat birth is the most strikingly different track from the rest of the compilation as it’s pretty rocking. they establish a great drum rhythm with slow, steadily driving guitar. doesn’t sound much like free-improv, but listening to it, there’s not much “traditional” about it. formless female vocals at first, but even when stephonik briefly starts singing, it won’t sound all that normal. since there’s no chorus and hardly even a verse, i began to understand its inclusion. diggin’ that track. not sure if this band is still active, but two of the members’ (jesse gelaznik and alex beard) current exploits are being carried out in hula.
fin fang foom (fun fact: also the name of a math rock band… and an alliteration) by duo spin-17 is more like what i was expecting; multi-layered female vocals by motoko shimizu aided by light drum, wooden and metallic percussion. shimizu’s mostly in maja ratkje mode, but with a healthy pinch of maggie nicols thrown in for good measure. the multi-tracking was nice, but the best part is ed chang’s unexpected blast of noise and feedback that closes out the last fifty seconds. ed’s pretty active in the avant-garde community and collaborates with doug theriault as dual and ed howard in agents at midnight. there’s a collaborative effort between both members of spin-17 and adam kriney (beets (with dirty churches’ john dalessi), the colour sounds label, owl xounds, la otracina, blizzards, castanets) called lust ionics, as well. then there’s also rust ionics, which is ed chang, kriney and theriault.
k.p.’s birds fucking outside my window is a glorious orgy of electronic chaos and noisy electronic drone with organic percussive undertones. i really enjoy the random sounds of the muffled hand drumming buried underneath the obtrusive squeals and scuffed up noise. k.p. consisted of tyler orr, matt folden (hatefuck) and max gudmunson. both matt and max are in abuse report with pendu’s proprietor todd brooks, and max also gets his write on with cassette gods and the demon academy blog. it seems like k.p. is just matt and max now, not sure if orr was on this track or not.
percussion and electronics meet again on fessenden’s pt. iii/ii. the results are a lot calmer though. the drumming sounds like disconnected explosions off in the horizon, while drones softly undulate. there’s a wind-up sounding click that’s rather hypnotic, especially with the waviness of the metallic ambiance. the sporadic and spastic percussion is a unique companion for the overall lull of pt. iii/ii, but, to my delight, it doesn’t detract from the trance-like feel, and i actually found that it provided a fantastic compliment to it.
eager meek (andré joel paul, also of this sheep those sheep and you aren’t my mother) begins to accidental crashes and long naps with twenty seconds or so of sparse guitar before a brief passage of loud, hollow noise leads to a bleak, but still captivating rolling drone which will repeat for most of crashes’ duration. there’s also some random rhythmic clicking noises, which only stick around in the first half, but the center of this track’s universe is clearly the wintry drones. with a foundation as good as this is, the main concern should be not adding too much to it, and paul succeeds there, with a nice bit of restraint on his part.
hemorrhage, by mialessot, daniel carter and old ghost, who are now known as ghost moth, features waves of distorted noise and squaller. that noise is far more of a presence than i heard on their split cassette with fossils, and i’m liking it a whole lot. carter’s saxophone cries are no competition to the strength of todd and robbie’s tumult and are relegated to back seat status. not that that’s a bad thing, it’s nice to hear his frantic blurts and prolonged whines lurking just below the surface, puncturing the thick noise at the opportune times. awesome.
experimental turntablist (ex-texan and fashionista!) maria chavez hadn’t been on my radar, for some inexplicable reason, but her untitled piece from an april 2006 performance at spoken word has captured my attention. expertly used audio excerpts, crackling vinyl, needle skips, squeals and minimal noise is making me very happy. what’s weird is that i’ve heard of everyone she’s collaborated with or gets mentioned with, but not her. okay, considering that this was the last thing of hers that’s shown up on a tangible audio recording, it’s not so weird. maria’s no longer putting out releases, although she is still performing (in the nyc area). rather than record music, she’s decided to just videotape the performances and then have them freely streaming on her blog… but it seems like youtube has more videos of her than the blog.
talibam’s talibam eat a sound soup does a whole lot of wandering. i’m mainly drawn to kevin shea’s impressive rolling polyarrhythmic drumming. the pitch-shifting organ synth sounds good, as does the brief bit of saxophone towards the end, but that’s about it. there’s a fifteen second period where synth and drums have a connection, and that was promising, but the bottom falls out too quickly. it’s alright, just not as memorable as other tracks on getting rid of the glue, despite the fact that it does one of the better jobs here of actually getting rid of the glue.
excepter will overcompensate for talibam!’s noodling with an upbeat, whimsical and repetitious synth foundation on sonja. then, to balance out all of the structure, they’ll flesh it out with reverberated, almost shoegazey cooing that drifts about more as an atmospheric addition than a focal point, there’s also improvisational synthesizer playing on top of the main loop. whether intentional or not, i like how the album was bookended by the two tracks that were kinda-sorta improvisational, but i just like themes, doesn’t matter if they’re imagined or not.
the record’s final two tracks didn’t move me so much, but the rest of comp was great. i dug the broad range of sounds and styles and it was interesting to hear the different ways that everyone chose to sidestep tradition. some made wide fucking detours, others merely tip-toed around it, but, overall, it made for a rad album.” – avant gardening from Smooth Assailing
Review from Apples and Heroin,
September 20, 2007
“Skipping over this slab took little effort. Tossing it off as just another New Weird Noise relic, I never sought it out. Bands like Spin-17 and Dirty Churches somehow never gained my attention. While Daniel Carter and Excepter produce some great glints of inspiration, the said artists never provided enough consistency for me to start following them. Man, I kicked my own ass after hearing this compilation. Though it lags a bit on the second side, the first side marks one of the most seamless compilation track sequences ever committed to wax. The Prog-and-Krautrock-accented experiments swim through vast stylistic oceans but always seem to connect to the next track. Dirty Churches begin things with a mystic swirl of bedroom psych. From the Spin-17 track on, the LP takes a turn for the unexpected. Spin 17 flirt with the wordless vocal pyrotechnics of Yoko Ono with multi-tracked little voices forming into a scraping noise meltdown. KP soundtrack Hawkwind’s spaceship lift-off with electronic flittering and warped, condensed kaleidoscopic sound on “Birds Fucking Outside my Window,” ending with some amazingly claustrophobic bangs and blips. With a soft-spot for Klaus Schulze, Big A Little A (dig the Crass reference) float interstellar sound orbs into a naturally percussion universe, forcing them to coexist as the melody turns tribal. All these grooves lead into Fessenden’s “Pt. II/III,” a swirling, crescendoing ambient texture that eventually engulfs the room. The tune takes a slithering black electronic groove, adds light, tapping percussion and utilizes negative space in its unsettling minimal soundscape. Side two opens with a similar death star groove from Eager Meek but chops the flow with a jazzadelic sound bomb from Daniel Carter and co. Things get muddy from there as Maria Chavez goes intergalactic and minimal and Talibam! goes hog wild for meltdown sonics. Excepter lends a stellar tropical dance tune to end the disc, blending shattered new wave and the icy atmospheres of early British industrial bands aligned with post-punk. Awwweeessssooommeee” – S. Kobak (APPLES AND HEROIN)
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Review from Bull Tongue (Bull Tongue 27)
“The Pendu Gallery in Brooklyn has released a fantastic comp of New York area bands called Getting Rid of the Glue. The title is taken from a statement made by Henry Cowell when introducing performances by John Cage, Christian Wolf, Earl Brown and Morton Feldman at a New School concert in the 1950s. As Cage remembers it, Cowell was describing how these mavericks were dispensing of the “stuck” habits of music formality. That’s awesome, and someone had to make the fucking move and they did it and here we are all just free and open and killing any and all strictures of “rules.” This can be an anarchistic slop fest but thanks to the curatorial aesthetics of people like Pendu Gallery we can approach the madness knowing we are going to be hearing some worthwhile innovation. This comp is a good un natch, reminiscent of the Space is No Place comps from Psych-o-path Records in 2002 where we first heard Mouthus and the where-are-they-now Breast Fed Yak. Some known names here especially Excepter who are constantly in some kind of flexible flyer of rubbery bomp and slap groove and Talibam! and Maria Chavez and Big A Little A. The new kids, at least new to our old fogey country ears, are as sprightly and damaged as you ask for. Killer kutz from Dirty Churches and Fessenden and Eager Meek and a great track from free jazz pioneer Daniel Carter where he’s blowing classic outside toneskree with noise knobbers Old Ghost and something called Mialessot. Carter is amazing. He has been on the boards with his horn since the early loft days of late ‘60s into ‘70s NYC, a poet – recently published Work In Process (Pitchfork Press) – a high-minded thinker, theorist and he has a history of playing in and out of all kinds of contemporary marginalia from no wave dementia alongside The Contortions to jamming with first gen hardcore bands. His solo, duo, etc. work is consistently astounding particularly his membership in the long running 4tet Test with Sabir Mateen, Matt Heyner and Tom Bruno, considered by many the premier free jazz group of the last ten years. Daniel has been laying it down with Old Ghost and Mialessot for a little while now, they have a previous CDR What If? (Pendu Sound). And there’s what is seemingly a related cassette release by K.P./Daniel Carter/Demian Richardson on the St Cono Strada label outta Brooklyn. With the current interest in reeds in free noise, particularly the embouchure munch of Heath Moerland (Sick Llama) and John Olson (Wolf Eyes, Dead Machines) and certainly Paul Flaherty, Carter is in a welcome stream of NOW. As he has been always.” -
from Arthur Magazine’s Bull Tongue by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley. - Ecstatic Peace / Bull Tongue
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Review from Bull Tongue (Bull Tongue 26 / The Top 80 of 2006)
“Good, non-standard BKLN comp album w/ a few “known” names ( Excepter , Daniel Carter ) and a very nice handle on how to sniff between the cracks. This packs a variety of “free rock” approaches into 12 inches of space that are tasty and surprisingly coherent.” – Byron Coley, Thurston Moore – Ecstatic Peace / Bull Tongue
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Review from Aquarius Records
“First in a proposed series of lps, based on a phrase used by Henry Cowell and later included in a lecture by John Cage, which in a nutshell describes a musical movement of the time (Wolff, Brown, Feldman, Cage, etc.) involving getting rid of the glue and allowing sounds to be themselves, instead of sticking them together into some sort of continuous form. High concept certainly, and while it is easy to hear how the various artists on this comp did in fact get rid of the glue, loosed from the concept, it still plays like some killer outsider free rock compilation. Which it is. Some of the names you probably know, Excepter, Talibam!, BIG A little a, but most of them you probably don’t. A quick track by track: Dirty Churches do a sort of droning hypnorock, with guttural female vocals and drifting psych guitars, definitely the most ‘glued’ of the bunch. Spin-17 are kind of like a brain damaged Deerhoof, sing songy nonsense female vocals, weird gurgly male vocals, and other strange childlike vocalizations, toy percussion, all clattery and chaotic and very weird. K.P. are a sludge-skree collective from Brooklyn and manage to kick up a serious din, massive crumbling distortion, damaged electronics, dense and dark and seriously freaked out. BIG A little a (Aa) rock a sort of spaced out psychedelic rhythmscape, thick buzzing synths, tribal drumming, almost sounding like a super lo-fi version of newer Boredoms mixed with Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh. Fessenden features at least one member from Pan-American, but sounds nothing like that, instead it’s a buzzing minimal electro acoustic soundscape, lots of hiss and fuzz, drone and buzz, creaks and clatter and grinding crunch, a creepy industrial ambience, thick with mysterious muted percussion. Eager Meek is one man and a guitar, but you’d never know it. All sorts of swirly ambience, strange distant percussive rattles and scrapes, very haunting and spaced out. Up next is Mialessot, featuring NYC saxophonist Daniel Carter and analog noisemaker Old Ghost. Imagine a free jazz / Japanoise mashup and you’d have a pretty good idea of what these guys are all about. A bracing blast of damaged synths and blown out guitarnoise, a swirling roiling cloud of grind and rrrrooooaaar all piled atop a squirming and skronking tangle of free jazz sax, bleating and moaning and screeching. Pretty far out. Maria Chavez, does some super abstract turntable noise, utilizing old records and an arsenal of damaged record needles to create a spacious sound field peppered with lots of crackle and squeaks, pops and scrapes and alien squiggles, very minimal and abrasive but really awesome. would love to hear more from her. Finally a killer closing one two punch. First Talibam! who give us their fucked and furious drums vs. synth sound, this time the relentlessly spastic free jazz drum splatter is pitted against creepy atonal organ (sounding a bit like a ball park organ) and fuzzed out synth. The Excepter, fronted by an ex No Necker, doing some weird eighties faux new wave thing, with electronic percussion, cheesy synths and really loud vocals, wrapped in tons of effects, reverb especially, swooping and soaring and sounding seriously demented. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Includes a fold out poster with art by all the bands…”
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Review from Dusted Magazine
Loosely assembled collection of ten tracks by a grab bag of avant-garde musicians, tinkering in rock-leaning sounds (Dirty Churches), vocal experimentalism (Spin-17), electronic lost weekends (Excepter), free improvisation (Mialessot with Daniel Carter and Old Ghost, Talibam!) and percussion workouts (Aa), among others. There’s some interesting pieces here, including a short, tense electro-acoustic scrape by Maria Chavez, and Eager Meek’s minimal noise/drone frottage, but in total this is a concept that works better on paper. Essentially, we have ten artists here who sound nothing alike, and to Morton Feldman’s school of thought, that’s exactly what they should be doing, but a solid album this philosophy cannot make. Jarring transitions leave the listener unprepared for what’s to follow, providing no basis for comparison and often leaving the audience wrapped up in what was happening earlier. As a result, nothing here sticks out, in one of the most clinical short changing acts in closet-full-of-recorddom to surface in some time. Ideas are fine, but having to make sacrifices for them in the context of a traditional record listening experience is a bit much to ask of anyone who’d otherwise be into this (to say nothing of the tossed-off, outtake quality shared here, sadly the one unifying factor between these acts). Edition of 300 with a Xerox insert. By Doug Mosurak – Dusted Magazine
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Mialessot w/Daniel Carter and Old Ghost
What If?
PSR-0013
Review from Wire (The Wire 276 February 2007)
“Interesting live trio date with guitarist Mialessot, knob twister Old Ghost and the great alto of Daniel Carter. Danny is a bit buried under layers of noise, but you can hear his horn poking through in spots and his placement inside the context of this lo-fi huzz extravaganza is really quite bracing.”
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Various Artists
The 49th Parallel
(Disillusion Records/Lake Eerie Hi-Fi)
Review from HEARTATTACK #16 (November 1997)
“Twelve bands (six from the U .S., six ‘from Canaduh) contributing fifty some-odd minutes of music and noise . Among those taking part : Tho Ko Losi, MK-Ultra, Submission Hold ; Three Studies for a Crucifixion, Swallowing Shit, Resin, Still Life. .. STILL LIFE?! What the FUCK? Mostly full of fast, rahrahrahrahRAHHHHH hardcore political shit, and they throw an eleven-minute emo song in there! Weird . In any case, I found the Eliot Rosewater song and maybe the Submission Hold ditty to be the most intriguing, but to tell the truth, the music didn’t nearly turn me on as much as the paper bag wrapper (circa early 90′s Heroin 7″) or the messages included in the accompanying booklet . This has never been my thing and 1 still don’t dig it but 1 suppose you know what to expect from many of the bands on here, so go do what you feel is right .” DO ($6 from Disillusion/16520 S . Tamiami Tr. #18-283/Fort Myers, FL 33908) – Heartattack Magazine
