This brings me to 4 relatively recent releases from Chicago’s Kranky label: Loscil, Pan American, Dean Roberts and Charalambides. Listening to these back-to-back was somewhat akin to disappearing into an eternal way-too-comfortable black hole for several hours. I remember Kranky having some fractured noise acts on their label but these works represent different colors of the present ambient minimalist spectrum. Charalambides, despite a laudatory review from old noise crank Byron Coley in the February 2003 Wire, is the most tedious offender here. The press packet trumpets that the 3-piece band (acoustic/electric/lap steel/pedal steel guitars, vocals) “atomizes and absorbs blues, psychedelia, gospel, improv and folk.” Sounds promising. Another guy in the Wire says, “Here is a truly 21st century experimental ethnic music that explores quietness and stasis.” They certainly do explore these qualities on their Joy Shapes CD… and explore them and explore them and explore them some more, 5 songs and 75 minutes of exploration. Christina Carter’s hushed vocals/ banshee Diamanda Galas wails are an acquired taste. Tom Carter’s “stately” guitar seems to be about plucking quiet notes in a repetitive fashion. Heather Leigh Murray’s pedal steel adds snatches of drone. There’s a lazy, gauzy, folky-psychedelia and ethnic overtones throughout. But it’s not enough to hold the ship afloat. All the songs just go on way too long to justify their existence. Sure, pretty parts here and there but not nearly enough payback to reward the time commitment. Hey, Byron! What kind of drugs are you ingesting these days? Give me the skronk of Borbetomagus any day.
Dean Roberts, a New Zealand guitarist now based in Vienna, at least has the idea of brevity on the CD Be Mine Tonight. The songs are still long (almost 9 minutes average) but there’s only 4 of them and it’s over in 35 minutes. Roberts’ guitar style reminded me of Loren Mazzacane Connors’ fragile playing as he gets into electro-acoustic improv with the addition of two Italians on prepared guitar (the CD was recorded in Bologna, Italy) and the “deft” drumming of Antonio Arrabbito (if you really want deft improv drumming, check out someone like Hamid Drake). Roberts also contributes piano, percussion, bass, harmonium and glass harmonica to the mix. Sometimes the folk-drone and slacker vocals are too relaxed for their own good, not justifying the length of the meanderings. There are also pretty, hypnotic and elegiac sections and Smash the Palace and What Nerves You’ve Got reminded me of Pornography-era Cure for whatever that’s worth. Worth a listen, but by no means essential.
First Narrows from Vancouver’s Loscil is solo-guy Scott Morgan laying down computer backdrops from various sound sources (sampled instruments, lo-fi cassette recordings) in the vein of Tim Hecker, Thomas Jirku or Polmo Polpo, and then having cello, guitar and Fender Rhodes piano play over those programmed sequences. This is music without sharp edges, with cushioned underwater click beats providing rhythmic rising and falling. No chance of cutting yourself on any jagged musical surfaces. Both “soothing and claustrophobic,” as Darryl Sterdan pointed out in the Winnipeg Sun back in 2003. Indeed, too much relaxation can be claustrophobic. Just like watching and listening to waves rolling in from the ocean. Track 4 Ema is like lo-fi Godspeed drone without the escalating percussion ‘n string crescendos. Mode, another favourite track, uses ping-pong computer percussion with hymn-like organ to good effect. Music to while away the hours to in your sensory deprivation tank.
Says here in the P.R. that Quiet City is the fourth album from Mark Nelson’s (Labradford) Pan American project. Nelson uses electronics, guitar and voice in his computer mixdown and employs some organic instrumentation on 3 tracks: drums (Tim Mulvenna of Vandermark 5, Stephen Hess), upright bass (Charles Kim), trumpet and flugelhorn. These collaborations are the best cuts. From Mr. Nelson you get more muffled beats, quavering drones like rocks skipping off a pond surface…very mournful, downbeat and resigned stuff as befits its title. This release is certainly not about celebrating the wacked-out clamorous noise of the city. But it’s very nicely sequenced by Mr. Nelson and succeeds in evoking the atmosphere it’s looking to reflect, certain areas of the city at about 4 A.M. in the morning. Sometimes it’s so laid-back in atmosphere it almost disappears up its own ass but the best of it is low-key but rather hauntingly effective.
Continuing on the track of ripsnorting humour, I also listened to funny-boy Noam Chomsky’s The Emerging Framework of World Power (Alternative Tentacles), recorded at Northeastern University in Boston in 1992 before Dubya went a-bombin’ EYE-Raq under the most dubious of pretexts. I used to think William Burroughs had the most deadpan monotone speaking voice on the planet, but there was a certain parched wry humor that made him bearable. Chomsky is Burroughs without the humor, deadpanly reciting the details of U.S. foreign-policy hegemony around the world. Of course he’s preaching to the converted in his university audience and his name is like an icon/ monument to certain segments of the liberal intelligentsia. As a linguist, he is absolutely on solid ground when he exposes the U.S. penchant for manipulating language in the pursuit of their dollar-driven agenda. And he’s damn right when he tells you to listen very carefully to these manipulations and realize that everyone, and I mean everyone, has underlying agendas and assumptions that they twist their words to accommodate, especially government leaders around the world (the U.S. merely being the biggest elephant and therefore having the most influence on the financial block). So, to one extent or another, governments and corporations want to keep their quite considerable power and they all end up fudging and spinning the truth, not mentioning certain facts and downright lying while assuming they won’t get caught. Ah, but what to do about all these lies within lies within lies? Mr. Chomsky is never too forthcoming with solutions except the rather vague notion of “more local control.” But more local control can be as fascist as wide, centralized control. What about being a freak in a small town where everybody has decided there’s a certain right way to live? Then local control’s not so cool. We’re certainly not all going to return to the land and grow fruit and vegetables. Bad people still have bad agendas in groups of any size.
I just hope Mr. Chomsky is as forthright when he goes into other countries and lectures their people on the failings of their governments. There’s plenty of blame to spread and manure to uncover.
Noam Chomsky makes you think and encourages you to think and this is a good thing. But remember, he’s got an agenda too. (Incidentally, the best part of the CD is when Noam gets away from his scripted remarks and answers questions at the end.)
That’s 10 reviews and I’m outta here.

(CORRECTION: In the last issue, I mistakenly cast Sam Shalabi as being of Lebanese descent. He is actually of mixed Arab descent, not Lebanese.)
In order to review as many of the zines we get as possible, the reviews are all in a pseudo-column this time. Where I mention “+ post.” you should probably include at least $2 in postage, because it’s really getting expensive to mail zines. Send us your own zine for review to Box 1232, Place d’Armes, Montreal Que. H2Y 3K2, and please specify the ordering info you want listed.

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