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NJ's IDES did what I'm always a sucker for—treated their live WFMU appearance as something unique and special, considered the medium / opportunity of a live radio appearance, and planned accordingly. In addition to their mini-masterpieces—tight, well-composed songs of 40 secs. to one minute in length, they bridged those songs with a series of improvised, powerful "interludes," cleverly paced and sequenced passages of enthused energy.
I knew immediately upon hearing IDES for the first time that they were a cut above simply another hardcore band, with an intensity and dedication to their sound that transcended genrefication. They pretty much played straight through their 22-min. onslaught, wound tight as a battlefield tourniquet, though there were two ever-so-momentary "breaks," which is where I cut up the otherwise-continuum presented here, for your mp3 enjoyment, stream or download.
Like the predatory sea mammals we have today, the Megalodon cannot stop, or it dies, and the sonic charisma of IDES remains intact. The band have an incredible "swing" to everything they do, such that even an old fart like myself can daydream about careening off the stage head-first into the pit; all you'd see of me would be the flat heels of my Converse hi-tops, back when such footwear actually sort-of supported my meager arches.
The noise bridges are welcome, carefully placed throughout the set, and sound casually great, miles away from anything even remotely half-arsed. So, the verdict is and remains that New Jersey is a reliable, consistent font for all things hardcore and punk, and beyond; look just across the Hudson, 'cause great things are happening.
Can't thank the band enough for playing, adding yet another outstanding, highly memorable live performance to the ever-growing WFMU / My Castle of Quiet pantheon. Thanks also to engineer Juan A. for the reliable, versatile and casual application of his considerable talent, translating the often-chaotic happenings across the double-glass into something radio-ready and highly listenable.
Blissfully unaware of what was to come later in the month, in preparation for WFMU's Web-only, "silent" fundraiser, the plan for My Castle of Quiet was to mount three special programs; The Sonics of Terror, a soundtracks-only special; and two double bills—one improvised / experimental "noise" bill, and one metal bill, the latter showcasing two bands that I'd been "courting" for some months—Chicago's excellent Sun Splitter, passing through on tour, and Brooklyn's relatively unsung black-metal giants, Yellow Eyes. The latter program was to top off a very eventful month on the show, and boy, did it ever.
As great as they are different, Sun Splitter and Yellow Eyes are both exemplary and plainly evident of how wildly varied what falls under the banner of "underground metal" can be; Splitter draw on "rock," with a thick and good-smellin' Sharpie, culling from Big Black, Led Zeppelin and all points between, with a pure, dense psychedelia permeating their unique compositions, while Yellow Eyes are one of Brooklyn's best-kept black-metal secrets, true to the parent genre, while unquestionably having their own sound, wickedly sea-ferring accomplished players, great songwriters with a murky sound and an attitude to match, seeking neither fame nor widespread success; thus far, YE have released their mini-masterpieces only on cassette, though two full-length vinyl releases threaten to drop within the coming year.
Intrepid WFMU sound engineer Juan Aboites helmed both sessions, bringing to both projects the cohesion that their complex deliveries demand, and though Sun Splitter were pre-recorded on 10.24, the night before the broadcast, had I not been admitting of this fact, the listeners would never have known, the band's pulsating energy and sheer volume rattling the walls at 43 Monty; heavy, hypnotic Gibson riffs broken asunder by the psychedelic cage-rattling of men captured in H.H. Holmes' damned filthy Chicagoan underbelly.
Yellow Eyes blistered through four of their finest songs, acute treble and assaultive blast beats casting their vivid mental picture of a band of ghost sailors, maddened by syphilis and too many hours alone at sea, listening to the persistent slap of the waves against the hull.
Keep your eyes and ears on both of these bands, to build continually impressive live performances and discographies, and I cannot recommend highly enough the two full-lengths, Sun Splitter III (Bloodlust!) and Silence Threads The Evening's Cloth (Sol y Nieve.) Huge thanks to Juan and the bands for a night to remember. Both sets are presented as relative continuums, with Sun Splitter's final chunk broken off on its impressive own, and YE's set laid out as one continuous mp3.
It was a night of true magic, back in early October, when some of Brooklyn's finest improvisers gathered at WFMU / My Castle of Quiet, to offer unique, exclusive performances, on a double-bill to support the station's pre-Hurricane-Sandy, Web-only fundraiser for that month.
First, Lea Bertucci, a master of spacious atmospheres, and gloomy, contemplative soundscapes, on her trademark combine of physical, open-reel tape and electroacoustic bass clarinet. Lea's two sets from this night evoke The Grand Canyon, and Utah's wide-open spaces, where she'd spent several months earlier in the year on artist's retreat. Lea has been performing solo for many years (see her bio, at Broken Diorama, linked above), as well as in the hometown-favorite duo of Twistycat.
Second, K-Salvatore, the duo of Jason Meagher and Pat Murano, coming off the high of their landmark LP, Tsar Ova Elk, a veritable shoe-in for the My Castle of Quietend-of-year music list (like I said, glaring omissions; this one very worthy of inclusion and just slipped off my mental radar at the time the list was being compiled.) Pat has appeared twice before on the show, both solo as Decimus, and in 2010 with Malkuth; both Jason and Pat are founding members of the No-Neck Blues Band. Their set hummed and shook our building; as "top shelf" as anything from the aforementioned newest LP.
Huge thanks to Ernie Indradat, for engineering two live artists in one night, with his usual cool head and cosmic sensitivity. Thanks again to Lea, Pat and Jason, for their ample talents.
The films listed below could all be considered "horror," the great bulk in the genre sense, with a significant few in the true-to-life, human-drama sense. Entries are by no means intended to be up-to-date or contemporary, though many are. A dozen-plus gems near-guaranteed to rock any cinéaste's watch list and/or Netflix queue.
Attenberg - A Greek drama, with a minimum of quirk and a lot of (tortured) soul; an alternately heartbreaking and humorous drama about two female friends, one who's deeply socially and sexually repressed (her closest connection being with her dying Father), while her girlfriend is basically the town tramp, continuously attempting to school her in the ways of love and men. Their stories arc, collide and intertwine, to a thoughtfully employed, rousing score of classic Suicide songs. Great, inspiring, slice-of-life stuff.
V / H / S - My favorite horror film of the year, with Kill List coming in at a very close second. V / H / S churns the handheld-shaky-cam technique to its most clever heights, with what's barely seen, or seen in a peripheral blur, to be the scariest material therein. The premise is also terrific, such that this collection of shorts are all presumed to be on unlabeled VHS tapes, found by some thieves in the house of a man who has either expired, or been rendered unconscious, in an easy chair, faced by a stack of snowy televisions. I love ideas; that's what keeps me coming back again and again to horror films, and V / H / S is simply overflowing. The film was a collaboration, a mash-up of sorts by some upper-echelon undergorund-horror writing and directing talent, people like Oren Peli, Ti West and Joe Swanberg. A tense and harrowing ride throughout. Don't try too hard to figure it out, or apply conventional narrative sense to the proceedings; just let it wash over, and prepare to be genuinely scared.
Punk / hardcore, much like its absentee father rock, will never die, and goes on, as new generations of bands are formed and blossom. Particularly since the mid-2000s, there are some excellent, exciting new bands emerging, and Shaved Women are high on the list of artists not only keeping the genre alive, but also re-shaping and redefining it for our times.
In Shaved Women's songs, I hear great bands of yore, like The Fiendz, The Freeze, early Circle Jerks and Black Flag. Real punks are brutally sincere and earnest in their work—no poseurs allowed, and these are some of the most talented -and downright amicable- dudes you will meet playing HxCx today.
Their 12" vinyl, originally issued by the excellent Rotted Tooth Recordings label, caught the attention of Jussi at Ektro, and is now available on CD, thanks to the hyper-eclectic Finnish label.
Shaved Women came up from St. Louis while on tour, and pounded out a fierce, tight, and meta-accomplished set for WFMU / My Castle of Quiet, and here it is, on mp3 for your downloading and listening pleasure.
Huge thanks are due to Diane Kamikaze, whose highly evolved engineering & mixing skills always make Castle sessions into something more than they would have been without her expertise and accommodation.
Thanks also to Tracy of Brutal Knitting, who continues to craft my dubious band captures into works of art. (Apologies to SW drummer Tom, who's not visible in this shot; it was the best picture I took by far, so it's what we had to work with; you are nonetheless one of the most fluid and skilled drummers to ever grace Castle airwaves with your talent!)
The Gate, at first glance, are an improvisational / jazz trio, but with information freely flowing in from punk and metal (Brian Osborne drummed with Wretched Worst for their very memorable Castle session last March; bassist Tom Blancarte, also a black metal fan) and horror films (tuba player Dan Peck, in addition to being a fan of black metal et al., is also a horror and cult-film buff), their sound offers doomy vistas, and cinematic, creeped-out passages, as well as hearty improv energy.
This live set runs the gamut of rhythmic / tonal delights, and the listener likewise easily escapes any preconceptions about what a tuba, bass and drum trio might be able to pull off. "Plague Face" will bring to mind Alan Silva and BYG Actuel, as often as it does European B-film music. At just over 47 minutes, this set is a real treat for fans of the "out." Mp3 hotspot > 18 mins.
Positive feedback continues to filter in for this live set, presented on the air a few weeks ago. The Spiritual Switchboard, a collaboration between two of Brooklyn's synth heavyweights, is without question a summit to be reckoned with. Jesse DeRosa (of Baked Tapes, Grasshopper, The Hex Breaker Quintet / Quartet, Shingles, etc.) and Joshua Slusher (OPPONENTS, Creeplings, The Grand Selector, et al.) are busy young men, overflowing with talent and a vibrant urgency to express themselves, and put it all out there, as much and as often as possible. Perhaps surprisingly for that M.O., their works are of the highest quality.
It's no secret that I admire them both professionally and personally, so I was only too pleased to provide the My Castle of Quiet program as a forum for them, a vehicle, with which to continue sharing their prowess, on a journey that began for me personally, back when Grasshopper were the second live band ever to be presented on the program, in August of 2009. The Spiritual Switchboard were joined for this absolutely live session by Joshua Greco (also of OPPONENTS), another super-nice guy with a big talent for swinging it analog.
What is metal, or rock for that matter? While others scramble for last-minute sub-subgenrefication, I am happy just to watch those umbrellas widen, and the envelope swell and burst. Occultation are such a band, one that tastefully mines not-immediately-recognizable influences, and much like that pre-job interview adage, "just be themselves, they'll be fine." Fine they did do, having grown leaps and bounds since the impressive Somber Dawn demo, to a sound that defines itself throughout their debut full-length, Three and Seven, on Profound Lore.
That first demo, and an early, related live video clip, led to their My Castle of Quiet invitation, and it was an easy call for yours truly that the band was indeed a perfect fit to the horror-gloom purveyed weekly on the radio program. These complex, richly haunting songs marry almost to an absurd ideal with the essence of MCoQ, such that it was an easy decision to host a live performance, positioned to promote their groundbreaking first release.
Here's their set, short, sweet and brimming with power >
So it goes with "heavy" bands nowadays; it's the ones that defy easy genre-fication that are closest to my heart. Sure, black metal is amazing, but it's the projects that don't let the sound play them that really shine. And so it is with punk-noise bands like Drunkdriver, Tinsel Teeth (ed., avoid name dropping), and our guests a few weeks ago, Wretched Worst.
Wretched Worst appeal to me in the same way Flipper does, that feeling of almost falling off the building, as though things might get reckless in the room at any moment. And they carry on the tradition of anything-goes experimentation, forged by the Subterranean Records scene in the 1980s, where one can just grunt, or make one very sparse, metallic noise with great earnest, or let a good, collective drone just go, for five or more straight minutes. Noise-brut, one might call it. These indefinable, maniacal songs are regardless quite pleasing to the ear.
But make no mistake, one could also hear Wretched Worst and get none of what I just wrote, and just find their head swirling in heart-jarring thrusts, very sexual and wildly human. Hard as hell. L'humian désenchaîné.
A quick check-in from your kamikaze reporter... Since the marathon ended I've gotten out to check out a few bands: shots are in this order: Magic Circle from Boston, Windhand from Richmond, VA, Rhode Island's Pilgrim, a shot of Brooklyn's own Natur and then live in the WFMU studio on this past edition of My Castle of Quiet: Wretched Worst! This Thursday at noon, the PEER PRESSURE guest on my Kamikaze Fun Machine program will be Mike Hill, guitarist and songwriter/vocalist of TOMBSto DJ a set of music that's sure to be killer! Final photo in this bit is of TOMBS from last year's SXSW performance at Lovejoy's. Enjoy!
FUN—as I've come to know the Philadelphia-based combo, its sounds and membership, I realize how truly appropriate the name is for what they do. FUN are able to apply clever, inventive, fresh ideas to their improvised music-making, minus all the beard-stroking and pretentious, high-minded, music-conservatory-based conceptualization and back-patting that often accompanies similar activities.
For their FUN Go! America! tour, a 50-year project that involves one performance a year, each in a different state, on the very date that that state was inducted into the Union, FUN came to New Jersey on December 18th, to WFMU's Studio B, to render two unique, smartly conceived and individually distinct long-form improvisations. The concept of the tour alone is staggering, and relies upon FUN's members having access to interstate transportation, and living long enough, to execute the mass concept in its entirety.
Mister Matthews is one of those individuals, to be counted on one or two hands, that can truly be called My Castle of Quiet royalty. Having appeared on the show a total of four times, MM first appeared with Telecult Powers, the duo of himself and Witchbeam, the first band to ever play live on The Castle, and a project that helped to shape my notions of what the radio show itself was going to be. Later on, Telecult returned with Lala Ryan of Excepter, performing the Modern Rites of Pei, a performance that will go down in WFMU history, as they successfully conjured pledges during our 2010 marathon. (This performance was also partially filmed for an eventual documentary film on the station.) Later still, he returned with the Hex Breaker Quintet, a combination of Telecult Powers and Grasshopper, two bands that most definitely have shaped Castle history, and finally, this much-in-demand solo performance, which exemplifies the breadth of MM's work, both as High School Confidential and The True Color of Venus Revue, two very different projects from the electronic maestro; the "head" and the "hard," rendered with equivalent expertise.
Though both pieces deal in the bliss of repetition, they are radically different from one another, the High School Confidential track rooted decidedly in the universe of harsh noise, and the TCoV selection recalling the electronic works of Terry Riley, a 70s-soundtrack-meditation for safe travel of the mind and spirit (though perhaps that latter classification could be argued on behalf of either work, solely dependent on the listener's expectations and needs going in.)
Black metal has been, for years now, my power food—visceral nutrition for the body and spirit. For three hours on October 7, the heartiest of metal meals was served up on WFMU by the Southern-California collective known as The Black Twilight Circle. A grouping of ~than a dozen projects, the BTC releases most of their work on their own Crepusculo Negro label, and styles run the gamut from high-powered, tuneful hardcore (Mata Mata) to raw, darkly atmospheric gut-punch black (The Haunting Presence), to the most esoteric of psych-informed, highly creative bm (Shataan, Kuxan Suum.) Many, but not all, of the players in the collective are Mexican-American, so there's that intriguing and arcane element (for most of us Anglos, anyway) of Mayan folklore and symbolism that also serves to make the BTC bands so fascinating and somewhat impenetrable.
The individual members of the BTC are all incredibly talented and accomplished multi-instrumentalists as well, so depending on which project has taken the stage, different players make their unique contribution on different instruments. This evening was, without a doubt, one of finest radio events I've ever hosted, the power staggering, and the range of styles represented incredibly impressive. A total of seven bands played sets that night (a WFMU record?), each project completely distinct from the previous, and each equally magnificent in its own way.
Black metal continues to be the one genre that demonstrates casual and consistent growth, its definitions and trappings existing seemingly only to be challenged and downright shot down, as what falls under its banner morphs and evolves, until the term "black metal" comes to mean a broader and more diverse array of artists, both solo projects and bands, that are loosely dragged together by a punk / lo-fi / "traditional" bm influence, and where the borders are, no one knows (not even the extremely thorough Encyclopedia Metallum, though arguably they try the hardest and are intensely comprehensive.)
The last two hours of My Castle of Quiet's 9.23 show, roughly from 1 a.m. onward (I incorrectly stated, "since 2 a.m." at one point in the broadcast), was programmed solely by RB, architect behind the highly original band Raspberry Bulbs (in themselves a definition-challenging project), and owner / proprietor of the Seed Stock Records label. The broadcast was not a focused promotional of the label itself—though what they have to offer is considerable, and at this point in history, core to the genre—but instead, a choice overview of RB's personal collection, a black metal fan's treasure trove, and as I stated in the subsequent post on my personal blog, "[it] provided me with a wealth of dark corners to explore, releases to seek out, and money to spend in the hungry pursuit of same. Black metal is the genre that keeps on giving, and has opened up to the point where each individual project, fronted by creative nihilists and misanthropes from all over the world, can crank out releases—demo cassettes, vinyl and CDs—with the energy of a one-stop spiritual freight train."
Here now are the last two hours of that show, the Seed Stock portion, edited down to a streamlined one hour and 57 minutes, for one to download, carry around and enjoy. Though two mic breaks are included, one can also view the full playlist at the MCoQ playlist page for that evening's horrorcast™ (again, from about 1 a.m. onward), or by downloading this handy text document I created solely for the purpose of accompanying the edited, pod-version of the show.
Again, my personal thanks to RB and Seed Stock for a broadcast to remember, two hours of pure enjoyment for any black metal fan.
You may contribute to WFMU, and support the My Castle of Quiet program specifically, during our entire-month-of-October "stealth" fundraiser, by clicking on the widget embedded below. My eternal thanks and darkest hails to Castleheads everywhere!
Pat Murano waited a good, long time to fly completely solo, but when he did, it was worth the wait for performer and listeners alike. Starting out as a founding member of the No Neck Blues Band, and during that time, co-founding and co-piloting the excellent project K Salvatore (I owned and enjoyed many K Salvatore recordings before I made the connection that Pat was involved), Pat became even more active in the past half-decade or so, starting the outstanding and distinctive black-metal band Malkuth (or "Mal-koot," as our French friends render it.) Malkuth was, to say the least, a surprising move, that someone from two of NY's premier improvised-music combos would also have up his sleeve a groundbreaking, one-of-a-kind voice in metal's much-maligned and misunderstood bastard-son subgenre. (You can hear Malkuth's Jan 2010 live My Castle of Quiet session by clicking here.) As if that weren't enough, in the last year, Pat whipped out yet another great improv duo, the excellent Key of Shame, with Mark Morgan of Sightings (you can hear KoS on Brian Turner's show, coming up September 6), and last but surely not least, his mind-expanding solo project, Decimus, which made its WFMU debut two weeks ago on My Castle of Quiet.
It goes almost without saying that Pat has a lot of music in him, all of it remarkably parsed out with little or no stylistic overlap, and without question, Decimus is the most melodic, uniquely psychedelic and focused (naturally, being a solo oeuvre) of the lot. This performance, rendered live without a score and only minor beforehand preparation, is a supreme effort in patient, mindful listening, and responding in kind, a focal point, a beam of individual will with little precedent in New York music. To render evolving, encompassing drones, and/or high-volume collage or "wall" noise as it's called, is an achievement in and of itself, and we've heard many a great session along those lines on The Castle—hopefully I've presented the "cream" of local and nationwide artists working in that milieu—but to do something like Decimus is another matter entirely, in that it's one individual really sounding like a "band," and as Pat expressed in the post-session interview (and I paraphrase), to change the environment in this way is to change people's minds via suggestion. In my personal view, the Decimus works achieve this in spades, and as a result sit comfortably alongside some of my most-favorite music—because a true journey occurs, and to follow that composer's gentle yet powerful suggestion, to take the journey, is the great joy of listening.
This particular set, "Decimus H" (as Decimus LPs are numbered, and digital and/or live works are lettered) is highly recommended for fans of Conrad Schnitzler (R.I.P.), Asmus Tietchens, instrumental works by Throbbing Gristle, and for a more contemporary reference, Hive Mind. It's sure to please, in general, fans of the more electronic side of Krautrock music, and post-TG global-"industrial" electronics.
Huge thanks to engineer Ernie Indradat for helming yet another successful Castle session, his sensitivity to many types of music is plainly evident in the body of work he's done with the show. And yet again, Tracy Widdess saves the day by making a valid rendering of my amateur photo capture of an artist who plays in near-complete darkness. Boundless gratitude to Pat for sharing this excellent work with WFMU and My Castle of Quiet listeners.
Decimus has many recordings available, including several on LP (two of them very new) and more for listening and download or purchase on his bandcamp page.
In a creative universe where everything but everything is postmodern, where citation of creative influences is unnecessary and irrelevant, where "might appeal to fans of ____" doesn't go the mile or two that it used to, what impassions me personally about a band? Why this one and not so many others? I'll try and delineate.... It's the casual earnestness, for one, the way Lady Piss just do, simply lay it down, jumping from one well-written, expertly crafted song to another, with notions of "rock" or "punk" or "metal" or "heavy music" casually abandoned in the face and favor of free-flowing creativity. This is what they do, this is who they are, and miles-above-average song composition and arranging is so very key to their presentation, and sets them obviously apart (to my ears) from the mass of bands on myspace, or Facebook, or wherever. Noel's intelligent, gloomily animated, on-key and fully immersed horror-host delivery of the lyrics and vocal element of the band also propel Lady Piss forward, in a way that simply eludes many bands of their ilk. It's just the right alchemical balance of everything—a perfect moment in time in the form of a rock band.
I hear echoes of The Birthday Party, The Jesus Lizard and many of my historical favorites in these seven songs, though none of that would matter a whit if the songs weren't so damn good and rendered with the irrefutable oomph of a mass UFO sighting. Any band that drives from Baltimore to New Jersey to play an unpaid session at 12:30 a.m., on a moderately popular show on a widely beloved radio station (that and one gig in Brooklyn two nights later) has the right stuff in carefree abundance, and the need (because to "want" is childish) to put their stuff forward in a forum like The Castle, where I made it very clear that I believed in them, supported what they were doing, and felt wholeheartedly that they had the ability to reach greater heights in their field. By now, it's my hope that most regular Castle listeners know that the invitation to an artist to perform live on the show is never extended flippantly, or without this core belief. Like many who have come before me, I choose to believe in music, and its performers, rather than God or such other misty intangibles.
So, enough leaden praise—you've got the point; here now are the songs.
Expert and enthusiastic live engineering by Diane "Kamikaze" Farris. Colorful, high-impact manipulation of my band photo as always by Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting. You can pick up a copy of the Streaming e.p. (all six songs are featured in this set) by writing to Lady Piss on myspace, or through bandcamp, where you may choose to purchase a record with a free download code, or just grab the digital album—such greatness to be had for three measly American dollars. Endless gratitude to the band for making my birthday number 47 something more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.
Taking into account all my years on WFMU, including my original tenure doing the weekly Hip Bone program (1984-1999), this live performance, a world debut by the Raspberry Bulbs 4-man combo, is one event that I shall place among the highest, most gratifying events I have ever had the decided privilege of presenting on the radio. Infused as it is, with a taste of the original rock 'n' roll energy, spirit and earnest delivery that made parents in the 50s fear Gene Vincent, and corporations in the 70s suppress the efforts of The Sex Pistols, this RB set is music + power defined. Something to spring on my hopefully appreciative grandkids.
I purchased the Raspberry Bulbs' debut cassette, Finally Burst...With Fluid, in 2009, from the man himself, long-time Bone Awl drummer, founder/proprietor of Seed Stock records, also known as He Who Crushes Teeth. My intense Bone Awl fandom re-ignited, as he described the tape as a solo project of his own, and my need to be on tap with all things Bone Awl was further satisfied, when I got home, and played this little motherfucker of a tape. The similarities to the parent project were there, sure, but the songs struck an instant chord of originality as well, owing more to first-generation punk, Oi!, and garage rock, and goddamn if the songs weren't catchy as hell.
Thus began a casual email discourse between Mr. RB and myself, I knowing that the tape (and the others that followed) were a one-man effort. I nonetheless threw it out there that were he to ever organize a combo to render this material live, the My Castle of Quiet program would be a welcome place to roll the dice, the invitation was open.
Fast forward to the first third of this year, and much to my pleasant surprise, a Raspberry Bulbs appearance on the show, not only a live set but a sheer *debut* of the newly formed RB combo, was now in the planning stages. And here it is, fulfilling and surpassing any expectations I might have had, like human gunpowder, well-rehearsed and ready to take the world over. Saying "thanks" at this point seems trite, despite my earnest gratitude, as RB & Co. surely know by now that they killed it, bagged it, and took it home.
What to say? Live appearances will follow, and I can't encourage you strongly enough to attend one or all (Saturday 6/30 @ Red Light District, as part of Burning Fleshtival III, and Sunday, 8/21, as part of a great bill @ Secret Project Robot.) Much credit must go to WFMU's own Diane "Kamikaze" Farris, who engineered the set, and lent her expertise, while at the same time being open to input from the band, and myself, as the live sound was fine-tuned. Thanks also, as always, to Tracy Widdess, for rendering my abysmal-as-ever iPhone capture of the band, making it something worth looking at more than once.
Academic credentials have I not, but to my experienced ears, Rust Worship's live set, from my program of 27th May, would be a ready thesis for any student of "serious" electronic music, both in its breadth and voluminous content. It also proves, beyond any doubt, that "noise" is no longer even a serviceable adjective for the newer, DIY brand of electronic, improvised music. I point to composers like Bayle and Parmegiani often (perhaps too often, I admit) in the case of performers like Paul Haney, because these are not only my favorite of the INA-GRM school, but also because their best works have gravitas as well as innate listenability, buoyancy even, in comparison to their contemporaries like Varèse.
I met Paul Haney at No Fun Fest 2009, as I was preparing for a return to WFMU's airwaves, as the concept behind My Castle of Quiet the radio program was gelling in my mind. Paul was instantly very open with me, very personable and bold with his opinions and personal points of view, on any number of subjects, not merely music. He was eager to talk, to express himself, and it's this amiability that shines through in Paul's music, and it's been enjoyable for me, as a fan of Rust Worship, to witness Paul growing the project, to the point where experimental stabs and jolts evolve into thoughtful, in-the-moment composition of great variety and emotion.
This 45-minute journey in sound is album-like in its movements and complexity, such that it cannot be easily digested in a single lump; hell, it's taken me a week and a half, and multiple listens, just to assess how I feel about it, and to analyze its successes. And as I began to launch into my post-performance spiel that evening, the one many bands and soloists have heard, about how it's wise not to immediately rate one's live radio performance, but to judge it over several listens and come away from it for a while, etc., Paul said, "I feel pretty damn good about it right now," and he's been just as quick in the past to hang what he thought was a poor Rust Worship performance—not an egotist or a back-patter, just honest.
So it's my suggestion to listen to "Suite of Exhaustion/Recipe of Problems" good and loud, on a good system, over and over a few times; take it in like any good work of art, sonic or otherwise, and don't race to the finish line. There's a lot going on in this piece.
In a few short months after that first meeting, Paul was guest DJ'ing on The Castle, and I found him to be a person of excellent taste, and ready always to spill over with praise for the music he loved (his Obsolete Units label and its excellent track record being further evidence of this.) His live solo Rust Worship performance on the show now brings things full circle, to the point where Paul's work must be praised and analyzed, much like the live and recorded work of the icons that got him there. The piece's guitar-based coda serves to remind us that our performer cut his teeth listening to Dead C and Skullflower records, and the grand tradition of abuse of signal-processing gear that got the whole ball rolling in the first place.
Thanks to Castle listeners, for giving in-the-moment praise where praise was due, and to Bob Bellerue for sterling and sensitive session engineering, certainly due in part to witnessing Rust Worship develop as I have. This week's photo of Rust Worship in action was taken by your host and author, at a RW performance in Nyack, NY, and photostepped—"Rusted," if you will, by Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting fame. Thanks especially to Paul Haney for bringing it, even after local public transportation had had its way with him, hence the piece's title.
Castevet are a powerful band, pulling in elements from all types of unexpected corners of the musical spectrum. That said, they are very decidedly and inescapably a black metal band in sound and approach, all the same, it's rare that names like Ligeti come up in black metal interviews, or that touches of Yes, Magma or even Fugazi are brought to mind as part of one's impressions of a black metal band's live set.
It was clear from my brief contact with Andrew, Ian and Josh that they simply do not limit themselves, and why should they? They're talented players, so why suppress their chops? Speaking more generally, it was inevitable that aspects of the genre, like the wearing of corpsepaint and strong anti-Xtian rhetoric, eventually subside, leaving less-easily-deciphered, more eloquent and abstruse musical and ideological facets rise in their wake. Point being, you can bring the "art," without sacrificing one ounce of ferocity, as this session bears out.
After over a decade of black-metal fanaticism, I'm learning that what really matters, when a band is called to the mat, is songwriting—original, interesting, "catchy," powerful or all of the above—it's the songs that separate the good from the great, and these songs exemplify top-shelf black-metal songwriting and arranging.
Don't miss an opportunity to see Castevet live (May 7th at Mother Pugs in Staten Island, and May 8 at The Acheron in Brooklyn, both shows with Richmond natives Bastard Sapling and Inter Arma.) In the meantime, you have their full-length debut, Mounds of Ash (Profound Lore) to explore and enjoy. There are layers of great shit happening on that record.
Tremendous thanks are due to Diane Kamikaze Farris, for showing up under the weather and pulling off a great job engineering this live session, to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting for collaging and photostomping Johanna's band portraits, and to Johanna Lenski for taking pictures, hanging out, and essentially making the event happen.
Right around the time that the date was set for this live session with Long Distance Poison, I was at home, acquainting myself with Klaus Schulzes' L' Vie Electronique sets, volumes 1-3 (consisting mostly of 60s-70s unreleased material from the genre-defining "Berlin-school" synthesist.)
It all seemed to fall together quite perfectly, as this band referenced Krautrock in the most pleasing of ways, which is to say just enough, but not too much. They still had plenty of "edge," and in this day where bands travel hundreds of miles to bang it out at an INC gig for seven minutes, LDP had the "audacity" to play 60-minute sets! I knew when I spoke to Nathan after the first set I saw them do live, and we talked of John Carpenter, and The Entity, that the band would eventually visit the Castle, and that they'd pull off something special.
Which brings us to Sisu. On Nathan's invitation, I "imagined" a film (from the year 1972; my choice) and Sisu was born. Everyone would expect horror, so I did a romance, which can still be quite devastating...especially in Scandinavia, in the early seventies. The band picked up on the essence that I had in mind quite deftly, and with a minimum of discussion; what was on my mind were Tangerine Dream's soundtrack to William Friedkin's Sorcerer, in addition to their deceptively simple Rubycon, as well as a much more minimal overview of all of John Carpenter's scores to his early films.
There's a keyword with Long Distance Poison, recurring, at least to me, and that word is cinematic. Several times in the two weeks that have passed since the live session, I've been in my office or car, thought to myself, "what is this I have playing? what great soundtrack CD is this? whup—it's the LDP session from my show—right on!" So, "Sisu" succeeds in my book many times over, as music to a film that never existed, might be, or could be.
The set is an often chilly, but also alive and growing, piece of top-shelf synthesizer ensemble music, and I'm always humbled by the flourishing sounds that bands purvey live and without a net when they visit the Castle, making these sessions memorable for all involved by the sheer will of making them come off at all. I have, once again, to extend huge thanks to engineer Bob Bellerue, who comes and stays late after a full day of work to engineer, mostly for bands that he's seen live before (which any band will tell you is a huge help.) Bob used to run the Il Corral experimental music and art space in Los Angeles, and nowadays lives in Brooklyn and runs the impressive Anarchymoon Recordings label, in addition to collaborating with everyone from Z'EV to, uh...me.
Thanks as always to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting, for gorgeously fucking up my mediocre photographs. She made that crazy, wooly, horned-demon mask I wear in pictures sometimes. Thanks especially to Nathan, Erica and Casey for offering me this unique opportunity to collaborate, and for knocking out an excellent performance.
