Doug Wieselman - Dimly Lit - Tzadik

The sales figures on Hollywood soundtracks hold a strange parallel to their pop music counterparts. Blockbuster multiplex flicks like Spiderman 2 and I, Robot have built-in marketing clout from the start. Studio composer geeks like Danny Elfman carry both behemoth budgets and the promise of millions of units sold. The often more experimental fare accompanying indie and documentary cinema receives only the smallest fraction of these sorts of resources. Itıs an inequity that leaves much of the music only accessible in conjunction with the limited regional screenings of the films themselves. Thatıs where Tzadikıs Film Music series has proven itself so important ­ by tilting a much-needed spotlight in the direction of composers who would otherwise languish in the dimly lit recesses of the idiom.

As with previous Tzadik entries in the series, Dimly Lit is a compendium of Doug Wieselmanıs works. The majority of pieces are drawn from the Oscar-winning documentary The Long Way Home, a film detailing the travails of Holocaust survivors post-1945. Other pieces derive from various theatrical and film productions including Linda Rabietıs Strays, Yaël Bittonıs Not For Sale and the Flying Karamozov Brothersı The Comedy of Errors. Rather than sequence the selections in strict order based on their sources, Wieselman chooses to shuffle them into a collage-like slideshow. Instrumentation and musician participation vary wildly between tracks and the guest roster includes such downtown NYC notables as keyboardist Anthony Coleman, bassist Trevor Dunn, percussionist Jim Pugliese, violinist Charles Burnham and cellist Jane Scarpantoni. Wieselmanıs own cache of sound devices runs a wide gamut too, encompassing guitars, keyboards, drum machine, ocarina, percussion, harmonica and various woodwinds.

³Bicycle² braids delicate acoustic guitars with whirring harmonium and fragile percussion. Its follow-up ³B.P. 2² traces a vivacious folk-tinged current of spiraling tension building strings, hand percussion, tuba and what sounds like hammered dulcimer. Wieselman paints with a diversity of aural brushes from the thick, bristle-pocked strokes of to the filigree watercolors of ³Opening.² Some of the arrangements wouldnıt be out of place on an AM Œacoustic sunriseı program or Old World chamber music showcase, but even the most mellifluous cuts contain subtle elements of surprise. Weiselman may not wear his Œavant gardeı lapels as prominently as colleagues like John Zorn, but the credentials are there on cuts like ³Block Dance² where his layered guitars skate through a sampler-derived expanse of aqueous percussive echo. ³The Girl in the Booth² even integrates a synthetic hip-hop beat into a minimalist meditation for spidery guitar and shakers.

All but two of the twenty-six tracks are under three minutes in duration and many occupy far less. Their collective brevity results in a disc that adheres well within the running time of a traditional LP. It also points to a direct necessity of the soundtrack score, to shift quickly from scene to scene and similarly from mood to mood. Wieselman definitely has talent as both composer and performing musician. His name may not be appearing on any Hollywood composer A-lists anytime soon, but based on the persuasive proof here, work of a far more fulfilling sort will probably continue to funnel his way.

-Derek Taylor, Dusted - read review online

Illoin - Pinafore- Notenuf

Pinafore, the new full length release from Philly's Illoin, cooly walks the precarious line between forgettable ambient Electronica and saccharine E lectro-indie with a balance that very few records of its type can muster. A track like the stellar opener "Toybox" will immediately garner comparisons to Germany's much ballyhooed Notwist, while there is little denying the stylistic similarity of "Ask The Dust" to early productions by Her Space Holiday's Mark Bianchi. And while both bands may possibly be cited by Illoin's Andrew Ryan as influences, the nine remaining instrumental tracks - utilizing accordians, acoustic drums, theatrics and favor the more rural Ambient aesthetic of the farm studio in which the record was recorded. Melodies, as provided by organ and vibraphone, are the most immediately charming element of Pinafore, yet it's the click and chirp drum programming, together with the recorded drum parts, that make each track uniquely Illoin.

-Steve Marchese, Yellow Rat Bastard

Illoin play somber mood music for licking an icicle or sleeping in the sun. After being involved in legal action over the he gave this album in 2002, "Vertebrae," Illoin brainchild Andrew Ryan seemed to have missed leaving a blip on the music radar. This re-release on Collision/Collider and Notenuf is usre to remedy that oversight. A careful synthesis of IDM beats and watery guitars, Pinafore suggest dreamlike states of alternating warm and chilling currents of sound, like the tidiest instrumentals of Unwed Sailor, the sleep pop of Clue to Kalo, and the cozy atmospheres of Mum all charged up a notch with the incessant pitter-patter of beats. Kitschy instruments such as xylophone and music boxes steer the sound into almost twee territory, but the presentation is so aggressive as to convince us to never take the sound as a joke. Ryan's shy voice crops up on two occasions, the opening cut "Toybox" and what may be the album's strongest track, "Ask the Dust," and his presence is sharply wistful and confident. What strikes me most about this record is its willingness to get the listener to play along in musical games that it hasn't the pretension of winning; Ryan seems to revel in unpredictability as much as he does in deft control. Sleep or dance to this one: you decide.

-Joel Calahan, Independent Mind - read review online

Even before the scarier parts of Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" video were edited out for MTV, laying ominously pastoral music atop seizure-inducing beats had gone from cutting-edge to car-commercial... with all the loss of creativity that comes with proliferation. Suddenly, any idiot with a laptop fancied himself to be a frigging artist. There's no laptop evident in any of Illoin's admittedly streaky and shadowy performance photos, though. Sure, point man Andrew Ryan uses plenty of sequenced beats and keyboard sounds in creating his blue-tinted sonic landscapes, but there are also live drums, guitar, piano, vibraphone and accordion. Yes, accordion, and Ryan plays it on stage (or at least has in the past). How's that for something to look at besides a solemn face bleached pale by the light of a laptop display? Pinafore was first released in 2002 under the name Vertebrae, which changed to Illoin after a trademark dispute with a Seattle band. The album begins with the aptly named "Toybox", a depressive mixture of music-box vibraphone, emotionally wrecked vocals, buzzsaw synths and subtly skittering rhythms. The song sets a melancholy tone that endures through the rest of the record; even major-key tunes like "Ask the Dust", with its female backing vocals and sprightly bell-like vibes, are still rather downhearted. Of course, the lyrics help to foster that impression: "We are trapped in ourselves / We will live for a thousand years / And we will never learn how to live with ourselves." Daaaaamn. While Pinafore might not be the best album to listen to as you get ready to go out for the evening, its vulnerable beauty will make things look a little brighter when you're feeling down. This is the peculiar gift of sad music, and especially of beautiful records like this one.

-Sarah Zachrich, Splendid, February 12, 2004 - read review online

All the light-weight electronics and smeared melody runs make me think of the ocean pushing up against the beach this past year. All the sounds suggest a simple tinkering, something happening just under a sheet of roaring noise that somehow stops roaring and goes into a cocoon to emerge as a whisper. Children are running all over the place, too, and it's not that they're making a mess, but I'll be damned if they don't seem way more busy than they should be capable of. Everything's a little simplified on Pinafore and that being so, I have a difficult time feeling anything but nostalgic when this is spinning. The sounds are piled one on another and it's very easy to capture every little second of music in my head and let it push its full effect on me. The record, I'm afraid to say, almost made me just a little sad. I couldn't help but think of the California beach and the way the water sounds when its crashing into rocks and the way, despite that incredible wall of sound, that the birds, the wind, and the people's voices around me were crystal clear. I make it sound as if Illoin writes noise-inspired music, but everything is very subtle: all the drums click and clack and sort of stutter underneath pillows while bass melodies swindle their way out of a little kid's toys. It makes me want to dance a little bit, but that melancholy is a strong presence. The lonly piano of "Pinafore" and the ringing and delicate raindrops on "Darkwater" drag me under and into memory and its a strong presence to be in the company of when music makes it so visceral. I was watching it snow outside while I listened to this record, too, and it was a soft snow-fall. The music almost seemed to mimic the way the snow fell and was whipped about by the wind. This is a stark and simultaneously lush collection of songs that has stayed in my player since I received it.

-Lucas Schleicher , Brainwashed, December 2003 - read review online

Buddy System - Transitions - Notenuf

Blip, blip, bling, wop wop-wop-wop-wop. Blip, blip, SPRIZZ, bling-wop wop-wop-wop-wop.

³Should² gets my vote for the most weightless, meaningless, useless word in the English language. You did or you didnıt. You do or you donıt. Iıve said it before, and if you keep saying it Iıma have to say it again: Come the fuck off it with the ³should²s.

Electronic music should accomplish all sorts of things that werenıt possible two years ago. I mean, technologyıs moving so fast, and you can still call it ³techno² music, right? I mean, you shouldnıt know WHATıs gonna happen. Something interesting should happen. Particularly from a record that has the grapes to disorient you. Disorientation is good, right. I mean, thatıs been conventional wisdom since before my mother was born. Something always cums from disorientation. Something always happens after youıre too drunk to take notes.

No, it doesnıt. Necessarily. If at all. Sometimes it's worth itself on its own terms (the most you can expect from people, much less record albums), but it ain't held down to shoulds.

Alas for all of us whoıve attended raves expecting the miraculous: Kurt Korthals, a.k.a. the Buddy System, doesnıt fuck around with ³should²s his own self. He only does what he came to do, and doesnıt, at any point, promise what he doesnıt intend to provide. Your expectations arenıt his business.

What Korthals provides is a cryptic, extra-staccato variation on that brain-massage computer-funk has given you since the beginning, yay a decade or two ago. Hooks come and go, passing elegantly on through like an alien ringtone or two strangers discussing the news. You can stick Œem in your head if thatıs how you like it. Korthals isnıt going to do it for you, on your behalf.

So itıs disorienting ­ thatıs the idea, right? ­ particularly when the spaceouts get cooking. The spaceouts arrive in four two-part episodes. A lot of different scenes pass through each spaceout. You wait awhile for them to get cooking. They do get cooking, fizzlin' and sizzlin' for awhile and then piping back down. If you canıt hold your spaceouts ­ if you manage to quit paying attention (half the battle) but canıt stay on the scene ­ youıll forget theyıre on. If you wanted some sort of money-shot payoff, you wonıt get it anyroute. But if you forget the Buddy System is on, youıll miss what it can do.

Disorientation. If thatıs all you want on this particular weeknight, Korthals is there for you. And if you expect any more than that from a techno record and seek the company of one that should be crazier, sexier, more passionate ­ well, youıll prolly end up wishing youıd spent the evening gleaning some wisdom from this sort of honest disorientation.

-Emerson Dameron, Dusted Magazine January 16, 2004 read review online

Kurt Korthals, the twiddler behind The Buddy System's knobs, spent his youth in Alaskan logging camps, making music in a closet in his dad's trailer. Later, he moved to Austin to study computer science. Transitions seems to bring some of the far north down to the contiguous states, alternately suggesting crystalline winters and mosquito-infested summers. Sometimes Korthals twines warm-and-bubbly tones around scratchy glitchery to create the constantly-moving melodic equivalent of the world inside a water-filled tire. Then he encases the listener in an arctic cave with echoing, remotely beautiful pads. Following the album title's theme, every "song" has two loosely connected "movements". The end of one bleeds into the next, leaving fewer and fewer traces of itself as the second section begins to come into its own.

Or maybe it's the second part's beginning that encroaches on the first's ending. At the conclusion of "Guten Tag Berlin Pt. 1", accelerated vocal samples chatter over insectile screeching. This carries over into the first minute or so of "Guten Tag Berlin Pt. 2", which then flies into a succession of busy, delicately plucked melodies layered densely on top of each other. It's one of the album's loveliest but most overwhelming tracks. Other interesting moments include the windchime-like bells and heard-through-a-window typewriter clacking in the otherwise quite unbackyard-like "Backyards Pt. 1" and "Backyards Pt. 2".

Transitions isn't an album you put on at a gathering of people you don't know very well (unless they're artsy hipsters and you want to impress them with how eclectic your tastes are). It's an album that can be enjoyed one of two ways: by sitting down with some good headphones and your favorite controlled substance, or by allowing the music to fade into the background, lightly coloring the next hour and three minutes of your life.

-Sarah Zachrich, Splendid, December 15, 2003 - read review online

As The Buddy System, Kurt Korthais creates instrumental electronic music broken down to its elemental parts--beats and synth melodies--which has an unreal feeling to it. Its abstract music that feels almost completely removed from the concrete world of dance parties and urban settings that you often associate with electronic music. Transitions is less about getting you to dance than about taking you from your body and leading you through new galaxies; it's sonic science fiction. The tracks on Transitions&are all pleasurably melodic (at times similar in tone to the sort of electronic music that the German label Morr Music releases), and at times trip through ambient, "cloud of noise" territory (see the start of "Live 27Dec02 pt 3," for example), but also have a scientific sort of distance about them. Melodies interact in a mannered, patterned way, as if they were sketched out on a chart beforehand. This givesTransition the feeling of an exercise in technology even as its melodies have emotional resonance &it's an interesting blend, like a computerized rainstorm.

-Dave Heaton, Erasing Clouds, November 2003 - read review online

Barmitzvah Brothers- The Night of the Party- Robosapien
The Barmitzvah Brothers, in observance of time-honored rock 'n' roll tradition, are not really brothers (they all have different surnames, and one of them is a girl). They are not a crazy klezmer band, although they sometimes sing in Hebrew (because it's pretty), and there are traces of klezmer in their melting-pot sound. The album's title notwithstanding, they do not play rollicking party music -- not by the standards of any party I've ever been to, anyway. In short, no aspect of The Night of the Party's outward appearance prepares you for what you're going to hear.

These "Brothers" are a trio of young people from Guelph, Ontario (there's something satisfying in that, because Guelph, despite being a modern, well-appointed and even somewhat bookish city, has a name rich with potential for idiosyncrasy). They were in high school when they recorded The Night of the Party, and I think one of them still is, although that has less to do with their charm than you might think. No, the wonderful thing about The Night of the Party is that it seems to have come into existence in a complete vacuum, devoid of any but the vaguest of pop cultural influences. It is music made for music's sake -- joyful and upbeat, devoid of double-entendre, self-conscious cleverness or -- dare I suggest this? -- irony. The trio seems largely ignorant of the supposed rules of indie-rock songwriting: they write songs about everyday(ish) things like travel, chores and postal fraud (!), employ whatever instruments and song-structures they please, and demonstrate a compositional sensibility that's half band geek, half Wesley Willis. Throughout the disc, they come across as fresh-faced and thoroughly devoid of artifice -- they truly sing, as the platitude suggests, as if no-one is listening.

If this is starting to sound too good to be true...well, fair enough. It might be. The Barmitzvah Brothers either have no shtick, or, to paraphrase a line from the movie Singles, having no shtick is their shtick. If the Shaggs had demonstrated more (any?) musical aptitude, or if Of Montreal's members had grown up in an Amish community, they'd be making music just like this. If it's all an act, it's a damn good one, and it'll make you smile.

Opener "Today is Sunday" exemplifies the album's charm: vocalist Jenny Mitchell speak-sings about a camping trip. She's backed by perky Casiotone marching rhythm and a clattering cowbell. The lyrics, rife with contrived rhymes and tortured meter, paint a detail-rich and relentlessly good-natured picture of a woodsy weekend. The lower-key "Flags and Stocks" trundles gently toward an unexpectedly proggy, lyrically oblique climax that seems to have something to do with yuppie adulthood, while "Pump #4", one of the Hebrew songs, is a glittering sonic ornament of layered synth drone, buried melody, twinkling bell-tones and copious reverb; it sounds a little like a garage-band Stereolab tribute on codeine. Ditto the cheerier, bouncier, sound-effect-enhanced "Sfog" (listen for the telephone sound that first interrupts the proceedings, then is co-opted by the rhythm track).

If Kurt Weill had written a song about mowing the lawn, it might sound a bit like "Spring Spring"'s relentless, carefully measured waltz -- Mitchell's emotionless narrative would have perfectly suited his style. You can actually hear the adrenaline kick in on "Dedication to Fraudulation" as the kids get excited about doctoring stolen checks, spurring the tune's jazzy brood to a punked-up climax. Mitchell sings "We'll commit mail fraud / nobody will know / yes, we'll commit mail fraud / Don't worry about Gramma Jo / She got plenty after the war / what is gramma saving for?", and I'm not sure what tickles me more -- the way she wrenches the word "commit" across several syllables to make it fit her rhythm (she pronounces it "come it", with a healthy pause in the middle) or the fact that the trio plans to spend their ill-gotten gains on instruments, penny-candy and dollar-store puppets.

Similar gems abound, spanning the full spectrum of modern music. Some of the songs are resolutely goofy (the Casio and woodwind epic "Trip to Berlin"), while others are unusually mature and beautiful ("Specialty Cowboy"). The Night of the Party also scores serious points for having the Best "Hidden" Track Ever -- a tongue in cheek "epilogue" that hints at the subversive sense of humor behind the group's songs. "You have been listening to the album The Night of the Party by the Barmitzvah Brothers," Mitchell says. "Yes, the album at this point has ended, but don't stop listening -- the musical experience is far from over..." It gets funnier from that point, and there's cheesy seventies-style lite-jazz production music behind it all. The first time I heard it, I spat my drink clear across my office. What can I say -- I like absurdity. There are several other songs stashed in the disc's twenty-three-minute runoff track, some of them more abrasive than anything on the album proper, but the intro hooked me handily.

The Night of the Party was recorded two years ago. The original self-released edition earned the Brothers a cult following, eventually resulting in this "official" pressing, which found its way onto my desk right around the time that the trio's second album, Mr. Bones' Walk-In Closet, hit the street. You can bet I'll be looking for a copy of Mr. Bones, all the while hoping that the past two years, filled with notoriety, publicity and the inevitable intrusion of the adult world, haven't dulled the Barmitzvah Brothers' innocent joy. There's a powerful, potentially addictive sense of wonderment on display in The Night of the Party that may be hard to duplicate, but I hope the Brothers do their damndest to keep their music pure and simple for as long as they can. It's worth it. If you've ever gotten together with friends on a rainy afternoon and recorded your own magnum opus, then consigned it to a shoebox, and subsequently obscurity, you'll know what I mean; this modest little record will never change the world or turn the music business on its ear, but it embodies the promise and the attraction of bedroom recording, and lives the dream of every rainy-day teenage masterpiece.

-George Zahora, Splendid, November 25,, 2003 - read review online

Kitbuilders- Wake Up [Module Remix] - SHADO
Some say rock 'n' roll will never die, but electro could outlast even that hoary beast. Spawned in the early '80s, this robotically funky style continues to enchant young producers, including Koln's Kitbuilders (Benway and Ripley). Wake Up originally surfaced in 2001, but reappears here with two bonus remixes of the title track by BolzBolz Keen students of Kraftwerks' Computer World, Giorgio Moroder, D.A.F. and the Liquid Sky soundtrack, Kitbuilders applies recent electronica's glitch fetish to surprisingly durable '80s synth settings. Ripley's female vocals evoke obligatory anomie and snottiness, but the music's edginess and weird textures help it transcend electroclash ennui. 

-Dave Segal, XLR8R issue 72

Orhcestra Du Soliel- Mondial: An Excursion In Nuclear - SHADO
Orchestra Du Soleil dwells in the land of the lush right next door to the High Llamas, Stereolab, Beach Boys, Free Design and 10CC s I m Not In Love.  The German group layers male/female vocals, exacting timbres and ambient materials to create elaborate musical orbs. About half of Mondial s 17 tracks consist of engaging instrumental interludes. Swooning slide guitar, bird calls and electronic washes dapple both these tweeners and the songs they link. The album evokes air and water rather than fire and water: Tones drip and sound-bits float into the distance. But Mondial turns on songs and singing, and that s the catch here. Vocal harmonies can soar like jet streams, but they can also devolve into scat-like schlock ( Dorado De Flores ) or silly chanting ( Dizzy Time Machine ). On the upside, there s Soul Pavilion  (think Marc Bolan singing R&B in a distant galaxy) and Balloon Part One,  on which vocals and birdsong are tethered to ethereal funk composed of spiky clavinet and wah-wah guitar burbles. In the future, let s hope Orchestra Du Soleil fully embraces the psychedelic vibe it often flirts with and leaves the easy-listening sing-song behind. [S.H.A.D.O., www.shadorecords.com]

- Fred Cisterna, Magnet, November 2003 - read review online

Orchestra du Soleil's debut, A Summerday by the Lake, was called everything from "nice pop" to "pure genius music". The follow-up is even more ambitious than that label suggests. Mondial was inspired by the ideas of theorists Wilhelm Reich and David Bohm, and the label claims that the album is a vision of a post-nuclear utopia. I'm reasonably sure this refers to the period after we collectively decide that windmills kick cooling towers' asses and missiles never did anybody any good, not the time that follows us blowing ourselves up; this music sounds like what the Eloi would have made if they hadn't evolved into helplessness (there's even a track entitled "Dizzy Time Machine"). It's filled with shimmering synths, far-out guitars and layered multilingual singing, and evokes thoughts of near-death experiences and benevolent extra-terrestrials.

These particular aliens are from Germany, contrary to the Riviera implications of their moniker. Stefane Bauer and Silvie Schmidt's blissed-out musical tapestries flow into the subtle beats and samples contributed by The Merricks' Carl Oesterhelt. Conventionally structured songs alternate like beads on a string, with brief intervals of lushly abstract sound sculpture. Orchestra du Soleil draw heavily from the '60s for inspiration; densely psychedelic guitar solos, folky strumming and flowerchild sensibilities all recall the days of peace and LSD, but immaculate production and the rich array of spacy synthesizers give Mondial a thoroughly modern quality. "Balloon Pt. One" features gentle wah-wah washes of guitar that might be funky if they weren't so hallucinogenic, along with seagull cries and calmly cradling male/female voices. Nature sounds are prevalent throughout the record, especially during the between-song breaks -- as a post-nuclear society would doubtless be more hospitable to our four-legged and feathered friends. Despite the masterful melding of digital elements with organic, there's a certain distance to the record, partly caused by the choral nature of the vocals; the numerous overdubs create a "heavenly choir" feel. The fantastical lyrics are also responsible for some of the detachment -- really, are we all going to flit around in white robes and hand-feed the forest critters after we get rid of the bombs? But if the blather about rainbows and multicolored dreams gets cloying, you can always skip to a song sung in French or Spanish. "La Sphere Mondial"'s soothing bossa nova rhythms and lush, spiraling layers of guitar and vocals will charm you even if you're a polyglot.

Mondial may have some high-minded ideas behind it, but they aren't very apparent; perhaps that's the genius of it. Maybe while you're letting yourself drift serenely wherever the musical current takes you, complex theories of the interactions between physics and psychology are embedding themselves in the deepest parts of your brain...

Nah. But it's very nice pop.

-- Sarah Zachrich, Splendid, October 28, 2003 - read review online

v/a - Russendisko - Trikont
When most people hear the phrase "dance club," a fairly narrow range of pictures comes to mind: generally either techno-fueled raves or the stereotypical dance club, where fashionably dressed people try to hook up while dancing to a mix of hip-hop, house music, top 40 pop/R&B, etc. Of course people dance to other types of music, but not usually in the club setting. As a compilation of popular songs from a bimonthly series of dance events at a Berlin nightclub, Russendisko seems like a likely place to find these sounds. But there's little that's typical about Ruseendisko, the album or the events.

Organizers Vladimir Kaminer and Yuriy Gurzhy, both Russians who moved to Berlin, planned the Russendisko nights as parties to showcase Russian music that went against the clichés and stereotypes about Russia held by many of the people they encountered in Berlin. This music was rambunctious and completely off-kilter: wild mixes of ska, rock, traditional Russian folk music, punk, and more. Yet it was also easy to dance to. Right from the start of Russendisko, you can feel what great parties these events must have been. This is music that makes you want to get up and do whatever you feel like; it has a free, anything-goes vibe that screams "party!" no matter what language you speak.

Since the Russendisko events themselves are no more, this collection is commemorative, not an invitation to a party. But more importantly, it showcases Russian music that your average person outside of that part of the world isn't likely to hear otherwise. And it does so in much the same way as the Russendisko events themselves, since it was compiled by the two DJs, Gurzhy and Kaminer, and even includes their notes about each band.

Russendisko is thus an introduction to modern Russian party music that retains the air of a party throughout. It's put together by people who know how to move a crowd, who know what song should lead to what. It's thus both a primer and a party-in-a-box.
Right from the opening drum beat and bass line of "The Little Chinese Bells" by Nogu Svelo!, a band described in the liner notes as "one of the funniest bands in Russia's capital", it's clear that no language barrier can hide the sheer glee behind these songs. Yet many of them also have a twisted side, like slightly devilish amalgamations of the new and old. Witness the punk-rock snarl in the voice of Leningrad's singer on "WWW", even as he's backed by bright horns and enough energy to get a dead elephant dancing.

Rapid, positive-sounding horn sections and jumpy rhythms are all over Russendisko, the mark of the apparent ska influence on so many of these bands, from the obviously named St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review (whose snazzy "Trip Back to Childhood" closes out the disc) to groups like Spitfire and Markscheider Kunst. As Gurzhy and Kaminer write about Spitfire, "When the ska pioneers recorded their first tracks in the sixties in Jamaica, I am sure they never imagined that roughly thirty years later, in the back of beyond, on the other side of the world -- in cold Russia -- thousands of ska bands would form up".

Much of the music on Russendisko seems based on that same notion of surprising the people of the past, of doing something new with old styles of music. While many of the groups draw stylistically from traditional music of the past, La Minor's "A Girl in a Cotton Dress" and VV's "You Took the Piss Out of Me" are both modernized covers of songs from the past, the latter adding an electronic beat to help rejuvenate a song that sounds like it could have been danced to by the band's grandparents. Those twin traits -- universality and vitality -- are part of what makes Russendisko so enjoyable. It's music you can dance your pain away to, and it sounds like music your ancestors could have done the same to, no matter where they lived or what language they spoke.
- Dave Heaton , PopMatters , September 17, 2003 - read review online

Les Georges Leningrad - Deux Hot Dogs Moutarde Chou - Blow the Fuse

Canada's Les Georges Leningrad is terrible..by conservative standards, anyway. They don't articulate their language clearly, they spit and shriek and garble their instruments together in a muddy swirl and the lead singer sounds like Stan's brace-mouthed sister on South Park. My mother wouldn't like this, my father doesn't listen to music and my sister never had the patience for this 'kind of racket.' So why do I like this so much? The guitars sound deliriously degenerated, like the twisting metal of a junkyard compressor; the drum machine sounds completely programmed and one-dimmensional and the bass playing is singular (although rhythmic) and sloppy. This sounds like the perfect soundtrack to what goes on in my head 24/7! Not so much the songs per se but the synthetic chaos, the primal childlike aggression, the screameemeemee snot-nosed indignity; the absolute abandon! It takes great strength of character to write and perform material this honest.

-Josh Gabriel, Big Takeover, issue 53

The bastard child of Need New Body and The Residents (whose "Constantinople" they cover here), absurdist prog-punk quartet Les Georges Leningrad would make a fine house band for a mental ward. Given their provenance (they're from Montreal) and their home city's experimental leanings, they just might accept the gig. It'd be a perfect match: they're dancefloor-friendly enough to keep the party moving, abrasive enough to help shake off those drowsy meds, and they sing in an impressionistic, yelping mixture of English, French and toddler gibberish. Off-kilter grooves meet art-damaged guitar and sax, Eastern European and Asian melodies bounce off the walls and collide, and yet they manage some odd -- but undeniable -- hooks. Both "Georges V" and "La Chienne" are strangely hummable in ways that will have you questioning your own sanity, even though they're both essentially built around spasmodic vocal tics. Bizarre stuff here, and certainly not suitable for anything close to mass consumption, but compelling in its own meet-us-on-our-terms kind of way. Weird weird groovy.

-- Ben Hughes, Splendid, September 03, 2003 - read review online

The only obvious move made by Montreal quartet Les Georges Leningrad on Deux Hot Dogs is their cover of the Resident's "Constantinople." The disc's 12 remaining tracks scuttle through outsider music's oddest zones with demented glee. This is invigorating idiot savant-garde subversion, as if Blectum From Blechdom embraced No Wave, Brit rock underground circa 1980 (Fall, Swell Maps, Banshees), Half Japanese, Sun Ra and Nurse With Wound. LGL's lo-fi production seems to emanate from Pluto, their female vocals from loony bins; their guitars, organs and electronic splinter, ululate and squeal, reaching warped frequencies designed to drive music teachers mad. Weird up.

-Dave Segal, XLR8R issue 72

Fun With Ugly, Pop Music Edition
This record brings me back to the first time I heard the Flying Lizards album. I know their twisted electro-pop version of "Money" doesn't really sound very outré now, but back when we first heard it (junior high, 1980 probably) it was the most holy radical I-hate-you noise we had ever heard, me and Jim and Dave all sitting up in Dave's bedroom with his brother Craig's albums, trying to figure out whether it was okay to like anti-music music, noise that so hated pop that it recreated pop in its own image. That flat affectless voice, that robotic Euro-crash ticky-tack beat, both deployed in the destruction and homage to one of Motown's most nihilistic songs -- oh, the lovely randomness of it all! It sounded like the no-future we were sure we were going to have. Finally, a group that understood what it was like to be unlikable just like us.

The ugly and rough and "amateurist" in pop is quite important, and pops up just when we need it the most. For every Elvis, there is a Bo Diddley; for every Beach Boys, there is a Standells; for every Chic, there is a Fall; for every Vanilla Ice, there is a Biz Markie. I'd just been reflecting that the whole "neo-garage-rock" revival was actually quite polished pop music most of the time, really tight and shiny and bouncy stuff that would have sounded very commercial back in the days that they would have existed. And now smooth is the new rough, everyone covering Burt songs and Chris Martin being all a fair-global-trade Billy Joel.

So I suppose it was inevitable that we'd get Les Georges Leningrad popping up in our midst sooner or later. Why shouldn't the next harbingers of the apocalypse be four practical jokesters from Montreal who love the Flying Lizards and the Standells and Tom Waits just as much as they love the B-52's and the Fall, who employ trombones and accordions alongside some furious new wave guitar work and a knife's-edge-sharp rhythm section that ends up only playing half the time anyway? Why wouldn't they be so incredibly avant-garde that they end up sounding kinda dope?

But it's not exactly likeable music that these anarchists are churning out. My first reaction was "Ew, this is all like, y'know, ugly music!" There is much discord here, many dys-chords in fact, and what appears to be such a healthy contempt for being listenable that it has turned into a fetish. Songs like "Cocktail Vampire" and "Georges V" seem cold-bloodedly calculated to turn off listeners, crashing screaming things with overmodulated vocals and sounds that should not be in songs; the latter with its repeated male-female call-and-screamsponse of "GEORGES FIVE!" is one of the most grating uses of the human voice this year (outside Murphy Lee's turn on "Shake Ya Tailfeather", of course). The next time you want to clear the house after the party, feel free to crank up "Prince R." which will do the trick in under one minute with its science fiction soap opera synth lines and its free-jazz duck-call solo.

The last thing this Montreal massive wants to do is make you like their music. They go to some extremes to ensure this -- they cover the Residents' "Constantinople"; their cover art is even more gruesome than the stuff on the record with the really long name by their homeslices Godspeed! You! Black! Emperor!; their third song is actually titled "Bad Smell", and it rattles and creaks and dings and clatters and is "sung", in part, in a heavy Quebeçois accent by a woman named Poney P who can't really sing at all, "Oooh, bad smell! / It stinks! / So bad! / Oooh! / Cause it's & so far out!" It's like, "get the point? This music stinks! You don't like it! We have annoyed you with our anti-music, and therefore we win the contest!" But that's where the whole thing breaks down, because it is music after all, a thundering beast of a Brix-era Fall cover of a Shaggs tune, with some really quite smashing squonking guitar pain. This isn't just "screw art, let's dance", it's more like "screw likeability, let's be loveable". And it works.
Check out "Un Impermeable (Mouille Des Deux Côtès)" for proof. It's a chanson sung in French by one of the guys in the group (most of the singing is by the women, and much of it is in Franglish), it's got woozy trombone and accordion accompaniment, and it's so slapdash it could be the paint in a tenement stairway. But the tar-pit tempo and the wavering moody voice actually end up working, emphasizing the mood that the group wants . . . and I suspect that this took longer than we might think it did.

The dirty little secret here, of course, is that the members of Les Georges Leningrad know exactly what they're doing. They might actually be great musicians; "La Chienne" is an amateurish skank-jam at first, cheap drum machine pissing along and changing tempo at random, crummy little Farfisa line to go with a tuned-then-detuned guitar riff, weird unconvincing rants by the singers about fashion that then get interrupted by a couple of torturous shrieks of the title phrase that completely max out the abilities of the microphone. But after you hear it once, you understand just exactly how much hard work went into this, how difficult it is to sound sloppy and still -- against all odds -- danceable and fun.

The same holds for just about all of this weird angry smiling unpretty record. Every song has hooks galore, but most of them cloak those hooks in so much I-don't-know-how-to-play-this-damn-instrument-isn't-that-funny-ism that it takes a while. But this layer is tiny, easily wiped off, and superficial. Once you hear what's really going on in tracks like "Mysantropic" and "Lollipop Lady", you drop any defenses you have, and just go with the strained riffs, the shredded vocals, the loveable unlikeability of it all.
Or, in a few words: It ain't easy being ugly, but it can be very fun.
- Matt Cibula , PopMatters , September 16, 2003 - read review online

The Painfully Hip
Montreal has sprouted many bands this year that are reportedly making music uniquely their own , but all the while drawing their sound from specific, heavily discussed musical genres. Hipsters and scenesters know to take their staple cues from electrofunk, garage, punk, and no-wave, then mashing it up into some kind of musical blend of noise with a trashy sensibility. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that this Montreal foursome, Les Georges Leningrad, has cranked out thirteen tracks of their own dirty version. It is 2003, after all, and this means that being original takes effort. LGL s catchy grooves, a penchant for 70s art-punk and lo-fi aesthetics have made Deux Hot Dogs Moutarde Chou palatable enough to surpass its oh-so-cool tawdriness.

A certain cheapness, in a non-monetary sense of the word, permeates tracks like La Chienne  (or translated, The Bitch ) in which quaint snippets of lyrics about a Gucci dress, Chanel belt, and chi-chi nails overlay hypnotic twangy samples. The hypnosis only lasts so long however, as an outburst of the words la chienne, la chienne  are unleashed like the snap of a dominatrix s whip. Various indecipherable warble, screeching yelps, desperate whining pleas, and their own secret language accompany an overall preference for repetitive drum patterns and thick, heavy basslines. Tensions abound, and the annoying vocals are at times as painfully shrilling as nails on a blackboard. Obnoxious whines, like that of a bratty child, in Georges V  will test anyone s aural tolerance level for high-pitched vocal frequencies. Shrieks aside, its ghoulish tendencies and electropop beats could have a Halloween costume party dancing till the wee hours (until the end, when the music comes to a halt and the whiners carry on like a child playing out a good tantrum).

Unquestionably a bunch of pretentious attention seekers, Les Georges Leningrad present themselves donned in cabaret mystique and theatrical antics good enough for a dark comedy  this decade s Rocky Horror Picture Show. Their jigsaw sound conflates The Birthday Party, Chicks on Speed, Lydia Lunch, Quintron, Lake of Dracula, and the Flying Luttenbachers  a bleak, yet sarcastically humorous gimmick that fits the times.
-Heidi Chapson, Dusted Magazine August 21, 2003 read review online

The Notwist - S/T - Subway / The Notwist - Nook - Community / The Notwist - 12 - Community / The Notwist - Shrink - Community

Holy Moly! Germany's Notwist sound more like Canada's Voivod than the smooth cosmopolitan alterna-rock of recent years! 1991's self titled affair and 1992's Nook harbour a thick dirge of low end rumble, moody suppressed vocals (sung in English) and flurry of feeding back guitars-virtually nothing like 2002's fantastic Neon Golden. On the other hand, 1995's 12 and 1998's Shrink provide real turnarounds and impose a true sense of where the bands heads were at when they recorded their later works. Tracks like "Your Signs" and "No Encore" (from 12) evoke a palpable mysticism and warmth; no more senseless, stylized bashing. Check out Neon Golden and 12, you won't be disappointed.
-Josh Gabriel, Big Takeover, issue 53

If you never wondered where the exquisitely elaborated post-rock melancholy on the Notwist's last album Neon Golden came from, you maybe shouldn't look to seriously into this bunch of re-releases. On the other hand, you will certainly find some remarkable milestones of an era where guitar, teenage angst and two posts-hardcore and rock - briefly collided. In between the dark Bavarian woods and the high-rising Alps, this poignant state of being was cultivated and shaped into some unforgettable four-minute gems. It's quite a lesson to observe the slight transformations from their self-titled debut (an anger/sandess-driven proto-Dinosaur Jr. blast) to Nook (same, but more articulate and with a sublte speed-metal edge) and finally 12 and Shrink, the latter of which already had all the ingredients which made Neon Golden such a masterpiece.
-Andreas Busch, XLR8R issue 71

The Notwist - 12 - Community
The Notwist - Shrink - Community
With their first two albums, Germany's The Notwist showed they were capable of some good, albeit ordinary, hard rock, skillfully meshing metal music with aspects of hardcore punk and early '90s alternative rock. Aside from a small handful of standout tracks, however, they're hardly consistent enough to warrant more than a cursory listen or two from fans who are more familiar with their recent, much more mellow work. Still, when you listen to all five of their albums in sequence, you're hearing one of the most remarkable rock metamorphoses in recent memory, as The Notwist blossoms right before your eyes (er, ears) from a rough, unpolished, American-sounding, alternative band to one of the best post rock acts in the business today. Their third and fourth albums, 1995's 12 and 1998's Shrink, even sound a bit ahead of their time, predating the recent trend of blending organic instrumentation with laptop samples, but unfortunately, the band's American label went under right as Shrink was coming out, and the chance at some wide recognition Stateside all but vanished, aside from a collection of positive reviews from über-hip fanzines. Now that their fabulous album Neon Golden has garnered heaps of praise over here, U.S. distributors Triage and Caroline have done a very good thing, having re-released those first four Notwist albums, thereby making it much easier for new fans to get to know these guys better.

If The Notwist's first two albums, 1991's The Notwist and 1992's Nook showed signs of steering into a slightly different direction, then their third effort, 12, is a considerably sharper turn entirely, the first very noticeable shift in the band's style. Gone altogether are the metal riffs; there's still plenty of guitar noise courtesy of singer/guitarist Markus Acher, but the emphasis is on even more of a Sonic Youth/Dinosaur Jr.-style noise, as opposed to the big, fat metal guitars. You hear that instantly on songs such as "My Faults" and "Puzzle", as the band awkwardly tries to mimic the post-grunge sound of the mid-'90s, with their insistent, melodic guitars interspersed with distorted noise, upbeat rhythms, and perky melodies. On "The String", though, they throw in a catchy, repeated riff and a danceable beat provided by drummer Martin Messerschmid, which makes the rather formulaic set-up a bit more palatable. However, what makes 12 such a key transition album is the fact that The Notwist dares to stretch out even further, even though it's a bit tentative at first.

On this album, they employ the services of noted laptop arranger and future member Martin Gretschmann (he of Console notoriety), who puts his programming skills to work on about half of the tracks, and as a result, you're offered a glimpse at what kind of band The Notwist will become. Gretschmann's influence is most evident on a handful of songs: The beautifully dark "Torture Day" employs a subtle techno accompaniment and tiny hints of loops underneath the sparse drums and guitar, as Markus finally has a sound that's best suited for his thin voice. "Noah" has more of a laptop feel, as Gretschmann's Autechre-like aural collages start to become more audible, more and more intertwined with the sparse arrangement of guitar and vocals. The closing track "12" has more of an organic feel, as the trio manage to sound like Radiohead before even the Oxford band themselves started to sound like Radiohead, with its dark chorus, and its sudden shift to jazzy improvisation, with strings and bass clarinet (that jazzy sound comes into full fruition on the band's next album). It's not a consistent record, but 12 marks a massive leap for a band who started off as sounding so one-dimensional.

Shrink, though, is the album that has The Notwist fully realizing their potential for the very first time. Now officially a quartet (the two Achers, Micha and Markus; the two Martins, Gretchmann and Messerschmid), the band proceeds to blend such disparate sounds as laptop cuts and bleeps, jazz, and traditional pop song structures in a way that becomes thrilling at times. Radiohead might have received the vast majority of acclaim for their similarly-styled 2000 album Kid A, but The Notwist beat them to it a couple years earlier. In between those two albums, the members of the band worked on various side projects, such as Village of Savoonga, Console, and Tied and Tickled Trio, which gives the listener a clue as to how The Notwist's sound took such a huge turn toward the experimental.

The band incorporates the gentler, more melodic style of 12's "Torture Day", and takes it further on Shrink. Gretschmann's influence is much more prominent on this record, something you hear immediately in the opening moments of the first track, "Day 7". A hypnotic melange of percussion samples plays for more than two minutes, as the rest of the band slowly comes in; the song then kicks off with Messerschmid's insistent beat, a fuzzed-out bass, and clean, chiming guitars, with Markus singing lyrics that are as sublime and aching as his vulnerable, slightly accented voice: "I can see the shore from here / I see your town, your house, and you . . . I count the letters of your name / I count the days 'til you are here again / Day 7 / And I'm love galore." The gorgeous "Chemicals" sounds exactly what New Order would sound like if they were led by as cutting edge a programmer as Gretschmann, a perfect blend of organic instrumentation, electronic tones, and cut-and-paste IDM sampling. "Another Planet", "No Encores", and the dark, enigmatic "Electric Bear" are more of the same, the guitars and bleeps engaging in a gentle give-and-take with each other.

The jazz influence on Shrink is just as prominent as the laptop programming, something you hear immediately in the instrumental "Moron". A by-the-book lounge piece, it combines bass clarinet, electric piano, a fantastic improvised sax solo, and sharp accents by muted trumpets that bring to mind Bernard Hermann's unsettling score from Taxi Driver. "N.L.", another instrumental, is more of a fusion of jazz, rock, and laptop, and as a result, fits in better with the rest of the album. "Your Signs" is a fantastic, seven minute tune, carried by a head-bobbing beat, vibraphones, bass clarinet, and some Bacharach-inspired horn flourishes.

"It shifts you, grips you," sings Markus Acher on the lovely title track, and there's no better way to describe the effect that Shrink has on the listener. A woefully underrated minor masterpiece, this album deserved a bigger audience in North America five years ago, but with the re-release of this fine album, hopefully it will become as revered as the masterful Neon Golden. For those people who are curious enough to take the time to lose themselves in The Notwist's early albums, they'll discover some very differing past incarnations of a band who has continued to improve with each subsequent release. At this rate, the next official Notwist album should be something to behold.
- Adrien Begrand , PopMatters , August 6, 2003 - read review online

The Notwist - The Notwist - Subway
The Notwist - Nook - Community
Chances are, if you're reading this review, you already either own, or at last have heard The Notwist's most recent album Neon Golden. A stupendous marriage of post-rock, laptop, and traditional pop songwriting, the German band's fifth album is easily one of the best albums of 2002, or 2003, depending on what side of the Atlantic you live on, or how savvy you are in the file-sharing department. There's a reason why Neon Golden sounds so accomplished, so assured; the fact is, The Notwist has been recording together since 1989. Band biographies always emphasize the fact that they started off as a punk/metal power trio, but when you listen to their current effort, the thought of them doing such a thing is very difficult to fathom. If your first introduction to The Notwist was through Neon Golden, then the possibility of hearing them do metal has to make you just the tiniest bit curious. How does a band go from metal riffs and fast drumming, to one of the best, most sublime post-rock bands in the world today?

Thanks to both Caroline and Triage Records, North American listeners can hear for themselves what the band was like in the '90s, as their first four albums have been re-released Stateside. The Notwist's evolution over the past 12 years or so is nothing short of fascinating, especially when you take into consideration what kind of band these guys were at the very beginning. Keyboard and programming whiz Martin Gretschmann didn't join The Notwist until later that decade, and before that, the band was strictly a rock trio, consisting of brothers Markus (Guitar/vocals) and Micha (bass) Acher, and drummer Martin Messerschmidt, and on their albums The Notwist and Nook, they sound about as far from their current incarnation as a band could get.

If you listen to something as beautiful as Neon Golden's "Consequence", and then pop in the band's first album, the difference is jaw-dropping. You're hit over the head with a pounding, thunderous drum beat, and a killer metal riff, courtesy of Markus. That song, "Is It Fear", sounds heavily influenced by European metal and Canadian thrash pioneers Voivod especially, with its combination of muscular guitar riffs, deft time signature changes, and vocals sung in broken English. However, the rest of the album is just as surprising, as the band doesn't just stick to the Euro-metal sound.

Songs like "Bored", "Crack It Open", "Think for Yourself", and "Be Reckless" are some good imitations of American melodic punk such as Fugazi and early Hüsker Dü, but are ultimately made weak by Markus's earnest, yet cliché-ridden lyric content, which basically say what's already been said in hundreds of punk songs ("We are bored / Always bored"). Although The Notwist is a mildly likeable album, it was hardly groundbreaking for something coming from 1991. The only hint of the band's future sound you can hear is in Markus's plaintive voice, which often sounds very oddly matched with his roaring guitar riffs. The songs that manage to work best are the ones where his vocal melodies aren't as overwhelmed by heavy guitars, like on the racing "I Have Not Forgotten You" (which boasts a pummeling, 80-second intro that would make Anthrax proud), the very Hüsker Dü-ish "Seasons", and the well-crafted punk-pop of "Nothing Like You".

1992's Nook continues the band's evolution, but only very minimally. On this album, the production is much slicker, more powerful, and is driven home immediately on the Mercyful Fate-meets-Helmet opening track "Belle de L'Ombre/Walk On". However, the focus on the rest of this album is less on metal and more on the very-much-in-vogue American alternative rock, as songs like "Unsaid, Undone" and "No Love" take on a blatant Dinosaur Jr. quality, with the emphasis put on Markus's slick guitar solos and laid-back, J. Mascis-like singing style. Meanwhile, "Welcome Back" and "This Sorry Confession" continue the same Fugazi/early Hüsker Dü obsession the trio showed on their first album, and hints of Sonic Youth's dissonant experimentation start to creep into tracks like "One Dark Love Poem" and "I'm a Whale".

The Notwist are at the vanguard of a guitar-based sound that strives to achieve loftier heights than six strings and an amp head could ever reasonably allow. 2002's Neon Golden proved this to anyone who cared enough to listen, but the group's earlier albums chart their steady (if not always assured) growth from rambunctious noise addicts to intelligent sound designers. Originally released in the autumn of 1998,

Shrink incorporates guitar rock, electronics and occasional jazz instrumentation en route to confirming the band's vision and alluding to the brilliance they'd achieve several years later. Reissued in an effort to capitalize on the global popularity of Neon Golden, Shrink functions ably as a companion piece. Shrink is a strong record -- it just boasts a more out-and-out fascination with the post-rock wave of the late nineties and lacks the experimentalism of the Notwist's subsequent work. It successfully binds up these guitar histrionics with laptop lolly-gagging; it's just not done as astutely here as has since been demonstrated. But there are glimpses of greatness, and when they shine through, they shine brilliantly. "Electric Bear" is a down-tempo creeper that alludes to Neon Golden's broken ballads and suggests a less ambitious atmospheric edge than Radiohead's art-rock triptych. Similarly, "No Encores", all glitched electronics and grimy acoustic guitar sounds, has been a fan favourite since its initial concert appearances and was featured prominently throughout the Neon Golden tour. "Your Signs", with its use of vibraphones, clarinet, tenor saxophone and cello, proves that The Notwist were dissatisfied with retreading the salted earth of guitar-based exploration and had committed themselves to developing a truly panoramic vision of a pop world infused with electronics and richer instrumentation. It is every bit as good as the material on its more accomplished sibling.

Over the course of a thirteen-year career, The Notwist has experimented extensively with their sound. It seems fair to suggest that they didn't hit their stride until Shrink, which carved out a unique sonic identity for the group that has since come to represent and entire field of like-minded artists who now regard Neon Golden as a shining jewel. Shrink may not shine quite so brightly, but it shines all the same

-- Mike Baker, Splendid, September 25, 2003 - read review online