 An article by Jordan Volz & Richard Allen 10. Boredoms | Vision Creation Newsun With over two decades under its belt, Boredoms has the right to claim itself the reigning noise rock king. Despite flirting with mainstream success, the band has always remained an underground sweetheart. Boredoms has been relatively quiet in the opening decade of the new millenium, releasing only two proper albums, Vision Creation Newsun and Seadrum/House of Sun. If it's possible, the 2000s have only seen the band becoming more daring and experimental, branching out from its noise rock roots and embracing new trends and technologies to keep its sound fresh, invigorating, and powerful: Vision Creation Newsun is an album from a masterful band who's not ready to rest on its laurels and let younger groups steal its thunder. Instead, Boredoms surges forward with one of its most impressive outings. The symbol-only track list reinforces that the proceedings are meant to be fun, and the onslaught of instrumentation, noise, and complete disarray is reminiscent of what might happen if a classroom of kindergarten children were left to its own devices in a recording studio. But, somehow it all makes sense and "Circle," the behemoth opener, pulls itself together enough to show that there is some method to this madness. Later tracks only nail this message home; with a succinctness not seen on the opener, the rest of the album goes for broke and succeeds with flying water colors, or whatever those childlike musicians can get their grubby hands on. Key Tracks: Circle; Star; Omega. 9. Yume Bitsu | Auspicious Winds Yume Bitsu is Japanese for "dream beats," and the music on Auspicious Winds, the band's third album, lives up to the promise. Spaced out to the max, the Portland-based quartet stretches its imagination, the listener's patience, and the definitions of a few genres en route to crafting an awe-inspiring album. The three tracks breaking the twelve-minute marker are clearly the main draw. These tracks stumble around aimlessly like an incoherent drunk hours after closing time. Normally we'd consider such a characteristic to be a negative trait, but the exploratory path traveled by Yume Bitsu works to the listener's benefit. The band is talented enough that its meandering is sufficiently engaging, and Auspicious Winds manages to trip over a few gold mines on its random walk. Combine this with the observation that Yume Bitsu just happens to craft music that is perfect for blazing up, losing oneself in thought, or watching paint dry, and slowly we come to what must be the intended realization -- it's not the destination that matters, or how we get there, but that we throw caution to the wind and have a blast doing it. Auspicious Winds is for space cadets everywhere, who never know where they're going but always enjoy the scenery. Key Tracks: The Wedding Procession; Doctor Trips; Mothmen Meet the Council of Frogs. 8. Hungry Ghosts | Alone, Alone The idea of hungry ghosts crops up in different cultures all over the world. The gist is that when people die and have unresolved business on Earth, or are otherwise unsuited for the afterlife, they return as ghosts and "feed" off the living, be it literally or metaphorically. Such entities live between the physical and spiritual worlds, for they are not physical beings themselves, but they do have contact with the "real world." As such, they must be dissatisfied with the situation and seek a reconciliation of existence. There could be no better parallel for the music of Hungry Ghosts, an Australian trio that came out of nowhere with an enormously impressive album and then disappeared just as quickly. Alone, Alone is an enchanting mix of post-rock, folk, and ambience. Although clearly influenced by artists like Dirty Three and Nick Cave, the band develops its own style and avoids stepping on any toes. Some tracks, like "Nothing has to Happen" and "Trying to Lift a Rock with a Bottle on Your Head," shine with startling elegance and beauty, whereas others, like "Coma" and "No Prior Convictions," take the backseat and soundtrack life's gloomy days with minimal instrumentation. It's this duality in vision and approach that makes Alone, Alone so appealing and able to strike a connection with the audience. Key Tracks: No Prior Convictions; Coma; Nothing Has to Happen. 7. Luomo | Vocalcity One of Sasu Ripatti's most commercially viable releases, Vocalcity is a sophisticated dance floor record that infuses the glitch aesthetic with a lively, soulful essence. The album combines two 12" discs released in 2000 and packs in a few new gems for good measure. As Luomo's debut, it's quite a remarkable work. The album simultaneously merges experimental and dance floor electronica, and it doesn't appear to have any qualms about destroying the line between bedroom musician and rave-inducing DJ. But this is a totally appropriate introduction to Luomo and Ripatti in general; he's long been an artist who has found the rift in electronic music to be silly and easily avoidable. Music doesn't need to limit itself to predetermined genre boundaries where experimental music must be unaccessible and dance music must be creatively stunted. Rather, electronica can be musically exciting and academically stimulating -- yes, it's possible to have cake and eat it too. Although electronica had quite a good run in the nineties, it wasn't until the next decade that its domination would fully be realized when it began crossing over into anything and everything. Many musicians sought to make a quick buck through shameful exploitation, but Ripatti had the mind to mend a fractured community. Vocalcity is where it all started. Key Tracks: Market; Synkro; She-Center. 6. Circle | Prospekt Although Circle has been around for almost two decades and has released an album at the rate of at least one a year during that time period, it's always difficult to predict who will be playing on a new album or what it will sound like. The band has gone through innumerable lineup changes, with only founder Jussi Lehtisalo appearing on every release, and is stylistically all over the experimental map. Early releases were a hybrid of post-punk energy and krautrock smarts, and even though these mainly stayed in the underground (Finnish underground no less!), they didn't escape praise from John Peel. Towards the end of the nineties, Circle's sound picked up threads of space rock and avant rock, and when combined with the progressive nature of the band's earlier work, it created a deeply hypnotic form of krautrock. This period is often considered the band's most interesting, as later works either became vocal-heavy or fell off the experimental deep end, and Prospekt is one of the best albums in Circle's twenty-year career. Like many of the band's albums, Prospekt gets a lot of mileage out of repetition. Songs don't progress over their lengths as much as they become more intense and intricate. Lehtisalo and company always start simple but have big ambitions, and the tracks quickly hit a groove that pulls in that audience. Circle's influence over the years cannot be understated; the band has spawned a large amount of awesome spin-off projects, such as Pharaoh Overlord, Magyar Posse, and Plain Fade, just to name a few, but it always has something special in store back home. Key Tracks: Gericht; Stimulance; Aarre. 5. A Silver Mt. Zion | He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms The first ASMZ album is arguably the band's best, and is clearly distinguishable from what came before (GYBE) and what came after (a series of increasingly political and vocal-dominated works). He Has Left Us Alone is the group at its thinnest (only three members), its most instrumental (Efrim hardly sings), and its most mournful. The album is dedicated to a deceased dog, but could easily serve as a requiem to any relationship. The interplay between violin and piano is sublime: a bow and a series of hammers attempt to console each other while a contrabass watches helplessly from the hallway. The album is a true reflection of its title, waiting for light yet gathering only glimmers. In this case, we're grateful for the scraps. Key Tracks: Broken Chords Can Sing a Little; Stumble Then Rise on Some Awkward Morning; 13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed. 4. Múm | Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today is OK Due to the fact that the band hails from Iceland, Múm has consistently fought off comparisons to Sigur Rós and Björk, the small island nation's two most beloved exports outside of awesome winter apparel, despite that there's not much of a comparison to be made. While it's true that the band is tangentially post-rock like Sigur Rós and heavily electronic like Björk, Múm distances itself through a network of exotic instrumentation and playful compositions. Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today is OK, the band's debut, embraces the childish spirit inside of all us and runs wild with its inclinations. Tracks are long, non-linear, and whimsical, perfectly capturing a little bit of the Icelandic magic in the process and making the album completely irresistible. A series of lineup changes over the years has pared off several minutes from the average track length, gradually reduced the quality of releases, and stifled the experimental edge of the project in favor of pop-sensibilities, but Yesterday Was Dramatic will always be a picturesque reminder of how excellent Múm can be. Key Tracks: Smell Memory; Awake on a Train; Sunday Night Just Keeps on Rolling. 3. Vladislav Delay | Multila Multila is the record that put Vladislav Delay on the map. One of Sasu Ripatti's many pet projects, Vladislav Delay is arguably the most accessible that the Finn gets; his mix of dub and techno results in a pleasant sound that is easily adapted to the home-listening environment. Years later his technique would be refined so highly that it would begin to mimic that of an ambient producer, but on Multila Ripatti still has the club very much in mind. Rather than creating the same high-intensity drivel as other club-oriented artists, Delay's dub-inspired works envelop his music in a dense fog of hazy beats, glitches, and pulses that seep into our subconscious and warp our perception of time. The music slowly shifts and develops, and tracks like the twenty-minute-plus "Huone" pass barely noticed in what seems like a span of about five minutes. If not appealing directly to the club experience, Multila captures the dazed, inebriated state that many find themselves in while going through the normal weekend routine: uninhibited, out of synch with reality, and functioning on their own clocks. Regardless, Multila is a giant achievement from this forward thinking producer who continues to be years ahead of the pack. Key Tracks: Raamat; Huone; Viite. 2. Godspeed You Black Emperor! | Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven Considered by many to be the pinnacle of the post-rock movement, Godspeed You Black Emperor! is welcomed by those who find Mogwai to be a little too direct, Tortoise a little too unrestrained, Explosions in the Sky a little too sentimental, Sigur Ros a little too gimmicky, and the slew of early-nineties pioneers a little too indie rock. Arguably the collective's best work, Lift Your Skinny Fists... struck a chord with listeners for its desolate soundscapes, terrifying climaxes, and horrific samples. This truly is music for the post-apocalypse, where hope is a scarcity and anyone left with a functioning brain can only wish that he'll be put out of his misery soon. The four part album breaks down into several moments, but there's nary an instance where the band loses focus and each track is awe-inspiring in its own unique way. Eighty minutes of music fly by as the audience is sucked into GYBE!'s world and in the process loses touch with reality. We emerge perhaps a little wiser and a little more jaded, but hopefully with our minds blown completely open by the experience. There are post-rock albums that can grab a hold of our emotions and take us for a roller coaster ride, and then there is Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. Key Tracks: Storm; Sleep. 1. Gas | Pop One of the most prolific producers of the nineties, Wolfgang Voigt slowly and meticulously forged his brand of minimal techno over the course of the decade. In Pop, Voigt delivers Gas' magnum opus, a stunning hour's worth of brilliance that steps out of the electronic realm and gives the best ambient artists a run for their money. After Zauberberg and Konigsforst, presumably Voigt had nothing left to prove among his techno peers, but with Pop, Voigt challenges Stars of the Lid for the title of King of Modern Ambience. But Pop is no ordinary, run-of-the-mill exercise in cinematic landscapes and stargazing drone; rather, Voigt uses his extensive background to unearth an album full of raw energy and rich, organic emotions, where the layers mix, meld, and evolve like a living entity. It's a startling collection of robust ambience that is not so much beautiful as is it devastatingly profound. If there were any goal in Voigt's musical endeavors, consider it thoroughly smashed with Pop. Afterward, it's no wonder that Voigt put down the Gas moniker and settled behind a desk at Kompakt, content to watch the 'pop ambient' project spring into action. Key Tracks: Untitled 1; Untitled 3; Untitled. |
