Mini-Reviews of Music

Note: I intend to review music in the context of music to "Web" to. This column will thus not be intrinsically about the music - but rather how it fits into the context of the Net. Also, I will review which ever CDs I happen to be listening to as I Web or write this column - so the reviews will grow to cover any and all of the types of music I own or borrow from friends. Please send any comments you might have to me at hauben@columbia.edu

9/13/96

Recent decent Techno and Ambient purchases:

Euronervous Techno Travel Compilation. A slamming HARD techno CD. With tracks by Sir.Cus, Carl Cox, Laurent Garnier, DJ Sonic, Kenny Larkin, Miss Djax, Joey Beltram, Estelle, etc. Sweet! on Nervous/Sorted
the Orb, Auntie Aubrey's Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty: The Orb Remix Project. A nice 2-cd collection Orb remixes of other artists. Note however that much of the music is MONO for some reason. GRRR. On deviant records
Possession: African Dub, Off World One. A nice mellow dubby african-inspired project on Sub Meta by Bill Laswell, Fousseny Kouyate, Duday Musa Suso, and Aiyb Dieng.
Textures: 2-CD remix project of the Trance Europe Express Series by Darren Emerson (Trance CD) and Alex Patterson (Ambient). While I am a HUGE fan of the Orb, I am not so impressed by the ambient mix. However the Trance CD is very VERY smooth. Seek this out. On Vital?
Less recent T-Power: the self evident truth of an intuitive mind. Ambient/Intelligent Jungle. AMAZING. I have not been a big fan of jungle until hearing Method One spin at Mosaic in Baltimore. Intelligent Jungle is amazing because it brings the best dreamy elements and flow of ambient to the hecticness of drum and bass and marries these two distinctly opposite elements into an amazing mix. wow :) on Sour
Xandgix: Amazing smooth trance on Fax.

7/17/96

Review of Dead Can Dance's NYC stop at City Centre.

4/11/96

Drop everything and go out right now and buy Stereolab's Emperor Tomatoe Ketchup. They are just one of the most engaging pop bands making music today!

11/10/95

Wowowowo, Stereolab's latest collection of singles, Refried Ectoplasm (subtitled Switched On Volume 2), is simply incredible. I always find a "new" album from the lab so incredible fresh and inovative to my ears. While their sound is not "fresh", it is definitely welcome change from the standard top-40 schlock pop fare, ditties by the number or by pure amount of unstrategic use of feedback. In any case, this album is a keeper and I intend to do a proper review, when I have the time. Lab on!

Review of a recent Chemical Brothers show

9/10/95

CMJ '95 Reviews

Thursday, Pram and Laika Live at Wetlands.
Friday, Phenomena - Mu-Ziq Live at the Kitchen

6/3/95

Pluto - the Orb Live at Roseland Ballroom

4/3/95

Slowdive, Pygmalion:
Space - reverb, loop, male, female. Nice. Lots of emotions let out here. A really nice work. Worthy of attention. Currently only available on UK's Creation label. Slowdive are no longer signed to SBK in USA. So wait, or purchase the import. [grumble: Slowdive is no longer slowdive, they are now Mojave 3 on 4AD.]

1/7/95

Mini Reviews

My description of great music is music that moves me and otherwise effects my emotions in different ways - not necessarily good or bad ways. Some recent albums which do that for me include

First, a couple of "alien" albums - music which is sublime, but oh so different than anything else I have heard in a while. Sort of takes one away to a foreign landscape...

Plastikman Musik, on Novamute. Alien in a way - but a good way. Paints a soundscape which seems very sparse and unfamiliar. Great album. Great listening music. Sparse Detroit techno from the wizard Richie Hawkin.
Woob em:t 1194 on Instinct/time records. Healing, helped me through finals. Very Beautiful woven in with different samples. Ambient Techno with an occasional beat. [Catchy cover of a penguin!]
Robert Fripp 1999: Soundscapes - Live in Argentina on his own label Discipline Global Mobile. Again, very "alien" - not what your used to hearing - but much better than much out there. This is Fripp doing "frippertronics" updated for the 1990s. Sounds different. Solo guitar and effects units sound different than frippertronics. Amazing walls of sound.
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works II. Sire
Just does it. weird long soothing, as with the rest not your average pop music, but much much better. Just guess I need to practice writing about music more in order to get my feelings straight.

Portishead "Dummy" on Go!Beat?. Sultry songstriss on top of some happening music [a lot of hip hop beats, nice "dirty" (not as in the state of my mind thank you) samples from Mission Impossible, Weather Report, Issac Hayes and so on. My favorite songs are the first two, last two, It's a Fire, and rest are 50/50. I expected a album long spy movie. Rather we get an album of singles. Good music, but not as effective as possible in this genre. Some dopey journalists in Englandland label this genre as "trip-hop." Apparently Portishead's music is similar to stuff by Massive Attack, the Mo Wax label (I really want to pick up Headz), and possibly the NTone Label. [I DID pick up Headz - good groovy stuff!]
Praxis "Metatron" on Subharmonic. Great great stuff. Guitar/Bass/Drums/Samples/Toys! Basically instrumental and better than much "ambient techno" or "ambient house" out there. Not quite the same as there is that "riff" and it is harder, but worthy and much more towards the aesthic. If someone else can describe this better...please let me know! Kinda funky in a "hard-rock" way. But NOT the same as say Faith No More, Red Hot Chilly Peppers, etc.

3/9/94

Enigma - MCMXC a.D. 1990

Cool musical meshings - combinations of a softer (but not quite ambient) dance sound with various samples with some good female half spoken/singing lyrics. The use of the the monk chants work really well when they are used. However, I did not think they were used enough for my taste. I think I preferred the first half of the album over the second half. (I really did not like the last part of the last track - The Rivers of Belief from Back to the Rivers of Belief) The Album can can be described as sensual in a sense. Use of french lyrics every so often and "heavy breathing" give it a soft sensual feeling. I guess my hesitantancy to rate this album is because I prefer the more ambient side of the new dance music to the dance side. Thus, I like the older progenitors of the current Ambient House trend (like Tangerine Dream, etc) as compared to the dancier roots (techno/rave, etc). But tons of other people really grove this album, and you might too - so like anything else I write here, take it with a grain of salt until you actually get to listen to an album! [One more quick meandering point - I would probably grow to like this album more if I had it and listened to it more...but we shall see.]

Oh, but back to my original idea for this column - this would make good webbing music - not throbbing annoying (to me) like some techno, and not devoid of interesting sounds (like some of the ambient scene.) so good as a background to your probing of the Net!

3/8/94

Negativland - Points 1981

Wonderfully weird stuff. Dunno if I would listen to this CD again, but a once through is definitely worthwhile. Negativland play with "found" sounds. Not unlike sampling but different. I think the entire album is a collage of these sounds they have taken out of their normal contexts. It makes for a wild ride, as you never know what you will hear next. I do not know if it would stand up to repeated listenings however. When I saw a discography of these guys works, I remember it saying that Points was from early in their career (1981) and that later stuff is more accessible from a pop sensibility, or more structured towards a "song" format.

[Warning - this review is the result of a first listening and I wrote it before I listened to the whole album, so your mileage my vary.]

Scarce and Yo La Tengo at Irving Plaza in 1994

My Review of a Stereolab/Unrest Concert at the Grand in NYC

My Review of a Stereolab gig at the Mercury Lounge in NYC

Review of various Techno/House Parties (raves) from 1996 and 1997.

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You can reach me at hauben@columbia.edu / Michael Hauben