Jessica Rylan, Interior Designs cd

Jessica Rylan, Interior Designs cd
Important Records, 2007

On Interior Designs, sound-artist Jessica Rylan presents her first published instrumental works for performance on synthesizer, or as I hear it, four acutely personal and distinctly decorated pieces of charming, introverted flower electronics. Important's press release describes these pieces as more "classical in nature than her work as Can't", but this statement is pretty damned superficial, seeing as whether she's performing under her own name, or as her noisier alter-ego Can't, Rylan's work as a composer and performer is instantly recognizable. The only power-electronics performer whose music I would whole-heartedly describe as delicate and pleasant, Rylan is an artist whose intimate and studied approach to home-made electronic noise and circuit-bent beauty generates warmth within a genre often balked at as cold, grating, and annoying. Instead, her carefully considered, though freely improvised, transitions in tonal depth, volume, colour, and feedback, generates an inviting aural space ruled by a highly personal sense of wonder and whimsy. Although Jessica Rylan's work on Interior Designs might be more self-conciously composed than some of her various cassette and cd-r releases, the clean production and fidelity of the album is what really sets this apart from her other releases. It's not the best production job on an album I've ever heard, but it's fidelity is considerably clearer than a cassette, and that's good enough for me! The music on this release ranges from flighty synthesizer scramble ("Extraordinary"), rumbling tape detritus ("Timeless"), digital bird calls ("Phantasia"), and even some acoustic twang on the title track finale. All in all, this is a sweet, high-quality release that Can't fans should eat up in an instant, and a perfectly enjoyable introduction to the work of this unique and celebrated sound-artist.

From Suspiria (1977), dir: Dario Argento

Marnie Stern, In Advance of the Broken Arm cd

Marnie Stern, In Advance of the Broken Arm cd
Kill Rock Stars, 2007.






I should be enjoying this. Recommended to me by a formerly good friend of mine, long familiar with my affinity for noise riddled rock & the spazzier side of maximalist prog-punk (anyone wanna share a Melt Banana with me?), bedroom progger Marnie Stern's debut album on Kill Rock Stars was supposed to be a sure thing. Too bad for me, it wasn't. In Advance of the Broken Arm has many of the electric eclectic ingredients that should guaruntee a sweet spazz-rock record: eargasmic technical proficiency (this gal can really rip!), erratic switches in time signatures, playful lyrics, and continuous swathes of skull-rumbling double-stroke single-kick drumming courtesy of none other than Zach Hill, who also produced the album! So, you might be asking, with all this to enjoy, what went wrong? Unfortunately for my ears, everything. While Stern spent two years alone in her bedroom privately penning and practicing the demo skeletons of the songs that appear on this album, her overwrought songwriting indicates a serious lack of an internal editor. Stern's unique style of finger-picking is playful, peculiar, and intimately personal, but her songs suffer from seeming directionless and forced. Sure, her guitar playing is impossibly impeccable, but where's the impact, or the escastic oomph and bang of a bitchin' solo? More importantly, where's the soul!? If a soul can be found somewhere in this mess, it's most likely bound to be buried beneath layers of Zach Hill's unfocused, acid-washed production values. As a musician, Zach Hill is a frenetically paced, insanely gifted drummer who, with the exception of Brian Chippendale and Chris Corsano, has few peers in modern drumming. However, Hill's handicap is his own self-indulgent musicianship, and this carries over into his work as a producer on In the Advance of the Broken Arm. Had it not been for Stern's self-indulgent songwriting and Hill's lazy production job, Marnie Stern's debut could have been an enjoyable album full of complicated yet dizzyingly fun songs combined with lightning-fast guitar-gymnastics. Instead, In Advance of the Broken Arm is an instantly forgettable, meandering mess, made by an otherwise gifted guitarist and her pals.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars cd

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Crytal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars
Important Records, 2007.

Japanese guitar-god Makoto Kawabata and his merry band of freaked-out astral virtuosos have been busy melting faces on a near bi-monthly basis for the past few years, releasing more slabs of vinyl per year than anyone should be able to feasibly afford purchasing, on a plethora of labels both domestic and international. To the casual collector, which I admit is a category which includes myself, not every rare piece of coloured plastic these savants of psychedelic rock release is absolutely necessary, but this band inspires a brand of fantaticism which threatens to usurp the once legendary consumer addiction that marked those tie-died freaky Deadheads.

And why not? Friends, let's face the facts: Frank Zappa has been dead and buried for over a decade now, the once-great prog-guitarists have all become bloated with their own self-important, New Agey spiritual adult shitemporary muzak, and the majority of today's so-called Progressive Rock musicians spend so much time "perfecting their craft" (what are they doing, gluing macaronni noodles and pieces of string to their soulless, technically obsessed rock?) that they forget to release an album!

The point is, that AMT have the chops, riffs, talent, whatever you want to call the indescribable holy "It", that makes your heart stop beating and sends your mind reeling completely over the edge until the thought projector catches fire and all you're left with is the pure sound of the Universe beating in your cosmic chest cavity and your brain ascends to Buddhahood. Acid Mothers Temple release an album that makes you feel this incredible at least three times a year, and it becomes addictive. You start checking the band's website looking for information, labels they've released albums on before, your calendar, "when is it going to fucking arrive already!?"

Alright, even if you aren't a fanatic, as I apparently am, Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars has a lot to offer the casual curiousity seeker. For starters, the nicely polished production values on this release make it among one of AMT's most accessible albums, with a clean sound and crisp levels shine, excelling even beyond recent quality releases like "Have You Seen The Other Side of the Sky?" (released 2006 on Ace Fu). Older AMT releases like Electric Heavyland, Mantra of Love, and Univers Zen Ou De Zero have a lot to offer the intrepid lover of crazed rock and roll, and are among a few of the classics of AMT's back catalouge, but their rougher productions values make the task of enjoying them all the more daunting for the casual listener.

Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars starts off with a bang with the relatively short (at seven minutes) free-form psych-rock song, "Pussy Head Man From Outer Space." This opening song is pretty standard fare from AMT, reminding me of "The Man From Giacobinid Meteor Comet" from the heavenly Myth of the Love Electrique released last year. The album's second track however, is an engrossing jam that'll leave you wet and weak in the knees.

Opening with some atmospheric synth work courtesy of Hiroshi Higashi that reminds me of moments from Tim Hecker's Harmony in Ultraviolet, "Crystal Rainbow Pyramid" finds Kawabata quickly shifting gears from a steady blues standard, straight into Space-Rock Heaven a la Hawkwind, transforming this titular track into one of the best single songs that the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. have ever produced ("Pink Lady Lemonade (May I Drink You Again?)" notwithstanding). And you know what? By the time "Crystal Rainbow Pyramid" is over, the album is only half-finished. That's right, "Electric Psilocybin Flashback" is forty minutes long! How epic is that? Not even Yes had a forty minute song!

So what are you doing Space Cowboy (or Cowgirl)? Quit reading this review and blow your mind with this interstellar beauty right now!

Meet you at the top of the Pyramid.

Please note: the contents of this cd are different than those of the lp, also released by Important Records, under the same name.