OSCILLATIONS: YOU TODAY by Martial Canterel

This is the second CD by Sean McBride,  one half of Xeno and Oaklander,  the electronics duo from Brooklyn (where Wierd Records is located,  and whose roster of artists is spearheading the current Coldwave revival).  While the cover art of YOU TODAY (2011) is highly reminiscent of the monochromatic,  classically ordered architecture of releases by Xeno and Oaklander,  its depiction of an empty internal space betrays the tension of expectations cloaked in passivity.  While its title may suggest  a personal connectivity,   the lyrics and vocal delivery are deadpan and distant,  almost oppressive in their heavily reverbed mystery.  Strangely enough,  I found this approach both repellent and seductive,  as I strained to glean meaning from words hidden beneath layers of impeccably arranged and played analogue synthesizers.  Here is a world in motion,  quite unlike the quietly beautiful room of the cover design,  whose stillness belies the frenetic sequencers and drum machines that populate McBride's compositions.  What is truly amazing about his solo and group work is that there is no Midi or computers involved,  everything is recorded in a tiny Brooklyn apartment,  live to what I assume is tape.  The irony is that this detached music relies entirely on touch,  on turning knobs and pushing sliders without recourse to digital perfection,  the weight of its imperfections both its theme and its method.

OSCILLATIONS: SECRETS by The Human League

While they continue to be haunted by their mega-hit "Don't You Want Me" (here it's titled "All I Ever Wanted"),  this 2001 release by The Human League stands as their strongest collection of songs since DARE (1981).  SECRETS' use of analogue equipment (credits thank both Analogue Solutions and Analogue Systems) give it a warm, fat sound unlike the production sheen of some of their previous albums.  From my perspective,  the seven instrumentals that crop up within its sixteen tracks are the threads that hold SECRETS together as they morph into vocal tracks.  Phil Oakey's baritone is a bit more expressive here,  especially on tracks such as "Nervous" and "Love Me Madly?",  where he seems more singer than stentorian orator.  The lyrics (which Phil Oakey has suggested are secondary to the "noise") are not quite as silly or forced as usual,  but seem to fit well into their electronic settings and even seem  meaningful at times.  Getting back to those numerous short instrumentals that some reviewers suffered through,  I must stress that they act as welcome bridges to sometimes less than wonderful vocal performances,  much like those found on Whitehouse's RACKET (2007),  where "Fairground Muscle Twitcher",  "The Avalanche",  and "Bia Mintatu" relieved the often tedious,  cliched rants of  Philip Best.  Sometimes a bit of wordless noise is indeed golden.

POSSIBLE PORTRAIT HEADS

                              
                    I rather like the bottom one,  as it reminds me of something the
                    late Irish painter Francis Bacon might prefer, as its realism
                    is skewed to the point of being unrecognizable.  In keeping
                    with Bacon's aesthetic views and working methods,  his paintings
                    presented an expressive realism with equally expressive abstract
                    brushwork,  and the genre commonly referred to as portraiture
                    was transformed,  in his words,  into a series of "heads" in a room.
                  
                

OSCILLATIONS: ELEKTROWORLD by Elecktroids

Given the vagaries of homage,  inspiration,  or mere copying,  this 1995 Warp release blurs the lines between those types of appropriation,  while looking back to Kraftwerk's seminal COMPUTER WORLD (1981) album for...  almost everything!  ELEKTROWORLD barely pushes the boundaries of its much lauded parent.  Even the cover design shamelessly takes that album's simplified graphic sense and color scheme as the last word in futuristic visual propaganda.  This aesthetic extends to track titles too,  especially songs such as "Future Tone",   "Silicon Valley",  "Thermo Science" and  "Japanese Elecktronics".  They may sound rather anachronistic to 2011 ears,  but that's really the fun of this 20th century concept.  Songs are generally chanted catch phrases floating on electricity.  The "group",  as seen on the cover,  wear identical outfits and headgear,  and exude an air of anonymous scientists in keeping with their connection with Drexciya,  Arpanet,  Dopplereffekt,  and Der Zyklus.  This may also be an homage to the Residents,  another identity-free group of sonic adventurers.  While the Elecktroids use the same faux scientific methodology and aesthetic as Dopplereffekt,  there is little of the latter group's somber tone here.  Without science as savior/menace as a totem,  the Elecktroids seem more like The Monkees with analogue synths,  drum machines,  and a vocoder.  Fun,  but hardly nourishing.

HOW NOT TO SHIP A SYNTH

After the recent  fiasco of receiving  my Buchla powered cabinet with part of its top sheared off through careless handling,  I began to reflect on shipping's greatest hits (literally) as they pertain to my experience purchasing electronic instruments.  While most items have arrived alive,  a few instances of ridiculous "packing" come readily to mind.  What seemed like a good idea at the time to the sender,  only made for  stress and anger when the damaged item arrived,  and could have been avoided completely.  Does the aluminum and steel Anvil case ring any bells in the collective unconscious of synth sellers and buyers  everywhere?  Well,  from where I'm standing,  I clearly hear the sound of crashes and thumps as UPS (or FedEx) thugs toss a Sequential Circuits Pro One (still recovering) and an Arp Odyssey (a circuit board dislocated... ouch!),  thinking whatever the Anvil held was protected.  Think again.  An equally ridiculous anecdote involves my purchase of an EDP Wasp from a chap in Greece.  Somehow he took an approach that was the polar opposite of the Anvil case.  He merely wrapped this fragile plastic synth in some lightweight cardboard,  put bubble wrap on the outside,  added an address label,  and off it went on its long journey to the US without a proper box.  How the Gnat arrived totally intact is a miraculous mystery to me. I don't think he even bothered to label it "fragile"  It just goes to show you that creative shipping approaches may sometime work,  while the Anvil is just an invitation to call your nearest synth tech.

OSCILLATIONS: ERASERHEAD OST

With its ambient rumbling and hissing suggesting the textures of urban decay,  a Fats Waller organ motif repeated until it seems to suffocate the listener,  and "In Heaven" providing an apt coda to the horrific/comedic proceedings,  one has certainly been thrust into unfamiliar territory,  that of the compellingly repellent world of David Lynch.  ERASERHEAD (1976)  reminds me of Bunuel's  much earlier  step into the unconscious, UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929),  but with much creepier sound design by Lynch and the late Alan Spelt (1939-1995).  Lynch's film is nearly sculptural in the way its sound and imagery meld into a deeply disturbing experience offering more evocative "silence" than rational dialogue,  and is in many ways a kind of lo-fi sampling that takes John Cage's ideas of "silence" into the cinema with startling results.  There are moments when one seems to be sucked into a vortex of sound/image,  especially when viewing this film in a theater at high volume.  At other times,  uncomfortable silences or near silences give way to real physical distress,  as if the audio itself  seemingly shapes a haptic connection with one's unconscious.  A haunting listen for sure.

THE TALE OF A BROKEN BUCHLA: Distress and Design

It was to be a quick exchange of modules from my two original powered boats to a very nice powered cabinet,  the 201e-18.  But alas,  the harsh machinations of shipping via UPS (or FedEx for that matter) saw that it arrived in pieces,  which didn't surprise me considering their less than exemplary history delivering to my house.  I immediately called Don Buchla to report the damage,  which led him to consider a design change to the cabinet.  Has this kind of breakage happened before?  The folks at Muff Wiggler never mention cabinet damage in their vast and informative archives.  Hmmmm.  Well,  the broken cabinet minus thirteen modules was sent back to Buchla and Associates courtesy the company (thanks Don!)  and a re-designed replacement sent back to this weary,  200e deprived noise boy.  Thanks again,  Don and Jon!  I must say that I very much like the new snaps and leather belt version of the 201e,  with its cleaner look and easy removal.  See accompanying photos and decide for yourself.

OSCILLATIONS: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE MENINBLACK by The Stranglers

Widely regarded as their worst album (that honor really goes to later Hugh Cornwall-free releases),  this 1981 album is still worth a listen,  especially by those interested in electro-pop and the instruments that made that sound possible (the EDP Wasp monosynth is the main culprit here,  a small, cheap instrument that opened the wild world of synthesis to the masses).  MIB is a darkly comic concept album about extra-terrestrials,  conspiracy theory,  and organized religion,  whose genesis can be heard on a track ("Meninblack") from  their previous album,  THE RAVEN (1979).  While Dave Greenfield's keyboards have always been an integral part of The Strangler's sound,  here they become the prominent sound and structure with  guitar use kept to a minimum.  BTW,  Greenfield is said to have had three Wasps connected together in his live rig at the time of this recording.  MIB can certainly be seen as their most experimental album,  as electronics abound,  even treating some of the vocals so they sound "Just Like Nothing on Earth", a standout track here. A Korg VC-10 Vocoder apparently accomplished that feat.  The remastered CD edition points out that much of the music,  both synth and percussion sounds,  was created extensively through manual tape looping rather than through the use of sequencers or drum machines,  giving this album a fat, plodding mechanical sound more akin to early Devo than Tangerine Dream.  Its electronic sheen has led bassist Jean Jacques Burnel to regard MIB as a proto-techno album years before techno became a widely known sub-category of electronica. I think Burnel is somewhat off the mark,  as tracks like "Second Coming",  Waiting For the Meninblack",  Two Sunspots,  and "Manna Machine"  sound mainly like good Stranglers tracks given an electronic treatment,  not a major overhaul.  In many ways I think MIB is far more creative and riskier than albums like LA FOLIE (1981),  FELINE (1983) and AURAL SCULPTURE (1984),  releases that showcased their conservative side and left most of the group's anger and experimentation by the waysde.

OSCILLATIONS: BLACK ALBUM by The Damned

See what happens when a bit of keyboard (piano,  synth) is added to the mix?  Words like "polite",  "accomplished",  and "bloated" are bandied about like sacred icons keeping evil spirits and bad manners away.  Well,  this 1980 release by those punk saviors The Damned IS their most accomplished and bloated (see the 17 minute "Curtain Call" for proof of that progressive tendency) album,  a double at that!  I think of the first LP in this set as playful,  pretentious,  and ambitious,   and better for it.  This is really a well-written and played pop record with great songs  and catchy melodies.  Its central concept is summed up in the first track,  "Wait For the Blackout":
                    
                                              In darkness there is no sin
                                              Light only brings the fear
                                              Nothing to corrupt the eyes
                                              There is no vision here
                                              At first you may seem strange
                                              But do not go away
                                              The dark holds the power
                                              That you won't find in the day

 This absence of light suggests something far more openly creative than a Goth/Punk hybrid,  it announces  The Damned's arrival at musical and lyrical maturity with all its influences absorbed and ready for duty in the world of Perfect Pop.  This is not an abandonment,  but an embrace.  It's songs are no longer the angry cliches that punk eventually found itself mired in,  but attempts to insinuate ideas from history,  literature,  and psychology into Punk's limited palette.  Tracks like "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde",  "Lively Arts",  and especially "History of the World Part 1" are hummable,  thought provoking,  and even touching at times.  It's always good to begin with an ending,  as "History of the World Par 1" does:

                                     I just hit the ground, boy,  have I arrived
                                     Tell the dinosaurs they just won't survive

                                              

STRANGE ATTRACTORS: TAXIDERMY

To stave off death and embrace eternity may seem the domain of Egyptian Pharaohs,  certain Capucchin monks,  and movie vampires,  but a 19th century craze for the myriad mysteries of all nature's creatures led to the development and perfection of the process we commonly refer to as taxidermy.  Keep in mind that its beginnings weren't stimulated by an expansive internet,  but by limited edition books containing starkly beautiful engravings that quickly tantilised  naturalists and slowly made their way to laymen.  Hmmm... so that's what a narwhal looks like?  Let's stuff one!  Here lies the genesis of our many museums of natural history filled with glass-eyed animals fixed in grassy dioramas complete with painted perspectives. While I've collected unusually large insects from Costa Rica,  the occasional turtle or turtle shell,  and seemingly domesticated frogs (a craze in France for a short time) performing household chores,  entertaining "friends"  or firing rifles,  I'm still on the prowl for small taxidermal moments.  But why are some of us atttracted to these reconstructed moments and lives?  I guess the answer lies somewhere between extensive psychotherapy,  past drug intake,  and weird spiritual awakenings... wonderful!