Muso Club January Recommendations

Peaking Lights – 936
No surprises here – this was released on the ever engaging Not Not Fun label and does not disappoint. Retro sounding and Hypnagogic just when we thought the hypnagogue craze had to die. This is exactly what I want from a comforting, psych pop trip – so much so it was one of my albums of 2011!

Muso Club January Recommendations

Disco Inferno – The 5 EPs
Disco Inferno are a band who, indebted to Post-Punk, take a rather British spin on Post-Rock. They are certainly experimental with enough pop sensibilities to maintain the interest of a curious mainstream listener. All this is rather nice, but this recommendation is more of a project for all of us. This release comes highly recommended and draped with superlatives – perfect, way too smart, forward-looking, mind-boggling – and even took a coveted ‘record of the week’ at Aquarius records on its release with them saying:
“Amazing collection of long out of print eps from this seminal London post punk trio, whose sound was a brilliant mish-mash of sample-based technology, post-punk intensity, and a profoundly British mope, that influenced so many bands we love, from My Bloody Valentine to Stereolab, from Notwist to Animal Collective and beyond...”
Although I have enjoyed it, I don’t quite get it. So, let’s try and crack it together.

Review: Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers – Canaxis

Approaching any album that is accompanied by a recommendation extolling and eulogising its merits, poses a number of specific difficulties. This can’t be some half listened to response, an under masticated pronouncement of the qualities contained within. Add to the mix the complication of a direct connection with Kraut rocking uber lords Can, a favourite of any discerning music listener regardless of genre persuasion, and we end up with a piece of music which requires repeated, careful attention employing all music appreciation faculties.

Fine – I considered the challenge accepted, especially as I am counted as one of those discerning music listeners with a penchant for Can. But then the project became more muddled on first listen. For Canaxis, it became immediately obvious, is a journey of ritualistic proportions that needs to be taken in one full dose and has a rather limited recommended prescribed amount; i.e. you can’t listen to this on repeat! This didn’t bode well as, to truly do justice to a potential 10/10 listen, listening to this on repeat was pretty much a necessity. So, over a month later, and having clocked up 7 listens, a pronouncement has been attained.

The two parts of the album neatly sit together to form a cohesive whole, but are suitably different to warrant individual attention. Boat-Woman-Song feels like a sacrificial lament. It is composed of ambient sound experimentation inflected through choral loops. Add to the mix an unintelligible female wail, which I like to assume is the boat woman, the overall impact of the track is one laced with a creepy, ominous air which adds a slightly unsettling under taste to the hypnotic sacrosanct vibe. The guitar driven mid section to the track offers little rest-bite from the monastic atmosphere, which returns minutes later with a fervent sacred force. This is a hypnotically beautiful track; It’s interesting to note that, although presenting the singing of Vietnamese peasant women, there is something of a monastic Christian flavour throughout.

Title track Canaxis maintains the first track’s ambient experimentation, this time providing a haze of otherworldly sonic noodling. The punctuation at the beginning and later again by a hazy gong adds a stark attention grabber through the repetition. The chanting here is less monastic than before, feeling like a soundtrack to some forgotten Japanese surrealist masterpiece. The layering of strings in the middle of the track once again ensures this is ambient music that is hard to ignore. The tension from the Boat-Woman-Song gradually returns throughout; there’s a feeling of anticipation and impending realisation throbbing behind the entire record that makes Canaxis riveting in its plodding repetition.

How to rate it? I leave that to your discretion. You couldn’t argue with a 10/10 rating for Canaxis, but equally you couldn’t criticise someone for filing it under ‘save for later’ after a first listen. The only definite here is that this is an album I urge you to own, experiencing it will make your life just that little bit better. All that is left to do is drift off into the soothing, hazy jazz ending... nice.