Erkki Luuk

Days Are What We Live In by Jimmy Behan (er4cd)

Jimmy Behan's debut starts on a blissful note with 'Granby Row', despite its rather straightforward rhythm section, leading a procession of high tones. By 'Mayfly' it gets folkier – a genuine guitar strums while the lazy electronic production is having its way with melody and texture. 'Deeper than Heaven' adds female singing to this array. The demeanor is laid-back, reclining in afternoon or summer haze, but not completely so till the playful 'Complete', which artificially resonates with a feeling of being lost in endless possibilities of summer. The title track could easily be the quintessential one with its nice, minimal, calm thrumming shine. From then on till 'Hanover' the album picks up a certain serial characteristic without ever (to the slightest) losing its summer charm, epitomized in the title of the next track 'Summer on the Wall'. It is an oddly even debut album musically, let alone emotionally, and symbolically as a concept, some welcome aspect of which none of the tracks here fall short of conveying. 'Dandelions', a brief, minimal track, trickles, hums, dripping organic matter and a sample of humanspeak into the mix. 'Normal Situation' is a song again, guitar and piano accompanying the songstress. A more austere, suitably cooler air is emanating from the closing track 'Under the Woods', a nice minimal hike, ending with semielectric birds chirping. I don't know if it's obvious by know, but this sonic adventure, so self-assured, like owing its existence to some definitive external artifact, artifice or reality, sounds more like a soundtrack of a fictional narrative or film on summer than that of summer itself – while literally, apparently, being neither.

Waterland by Alex Fisher (1001AD)

This demo CD gives a taste of Fisher's recent endeavors into semi-abstract dance music. An electric bubbling sound, a favored element of mid-90es atmospheric dnb is, with minimal rhythm arrangements, set as a basis for 'Bubble Bug (Intro)'. Hard-hitting beats and nervous, twisted rhythm saluted by a lethargic horn sample dizzily inform us of the approach of 'Launch'. The house track 'Don't lose' with its metallic tones and discomposing sonority set against mundane melody patches is quite unlike anything you're used to in this genre. All the tracks on this CD sound harsh and saturnine, with eerie sounds rotating supine melodies. 'Smoky' spills melodic lethargy over an illicit big beat score, while 'Launch' and 'Stepping Back Glory' get, as if for a bonus, grubbed by more outlandish rhythm schemes. Fisher's frequent use of guitar samples and the overall slant to big beat hint his rock/jazz background, evident in occasional trips in one of the aforementioned styles (in 'Stepping Back Glory' for example).

Aleatorical by Apollon (ADOR2371)

Kicking off with some distorted chords and reversed/time-stretched vocals growling, 'Aleatorical' is the kind of album you'd want to spin on parties to deplete the dance floor with a contemptuous statement. An ingenious album, with no conventions at sight, no particular style, no nothing beyond the composition laying its dark polymorphic experimental egg into rhythm and ambient alike. The result is a ghastly hybrid with historical/mythical connotations clanking in titles likes 'Kathumi', 'Questions of King Milinda' et al. These are in turn supported by hidden radio mantras and something of the sort buried deep in the mix. The demoniac who probably did this hasn't left us many clues, nor have we much to compare it with, making the recording all the more indispensable. Tracks like 'Another American Flag' and 'The Rape of The Lock' carry the potential of the darkest minimal dance music imaginable, countless others just spook their listener on sight. In either way, it works, and vocal parts and exertions of the sort of 'Scorpion Factory pt3', 'Still Numb', 'Love, Wisdom and Will', 'The Rape of The Lock' and others are especially welcome. Bis!

And I Went To Sleep by Motohiro Nakashima (LCD41)

Ever so rarely there shows up an album of electronic music so captivating yet utterly subdued. In a specific sense 'And I Went to Sleep' is something instrumental electronic music has always striven - and computer music meant - to be: the soundtrack of machine-induced rest. It is in the character of Nakashima's album that its essence escapes us, as is customary with its tracks' beautiful melodies. Balanced, neither sparse nor dense, barely recognizable style traces (except 'Rain' passing for idm) encouraging the perception it's electronic music as it's rarely seen. Alone the adjectives describing this album - soft, harmonic, unnoticeable, effortlessly unpredictable - are enough to tune in for a cozy evening followed by liberal sleep.

Before the Fall by Mondo (MOOF00106)

Mondo's sound shares something with trip hop as it does with more, shall we say, obscure guitar groups like Durutti Column or Neutral Milk Hotel, being by nature (as it is by instruments) closer to the latter two. Also, one can't dismiss shoegaze as a potential touchstone here, in fact... ahh... I perceive something long forgotten... Chapterhouse... and the ghost of AR Kane moves around in most of the tracks here. Especially the latter, and especially as far as 'Avoid the Void', 'Spare Parts' and singing is concerned... There's an admirably long, 'esoteric' and sullen list of names Mondo have established contact with through their beautiful, melancholy, guitar-drenched, chord-wrenched music and, aye Gawds, thank you for that! Desolate messages played back and received but the album isn't all whipped-up dreams of nostalgia as there's the rare and minimalist melodic beauty of tracks like 'Any Time Now', 'Spare Parts', and possibly more. There's also an aspect in their music I don't like (the so-called 'heavy' act they perform now and then) but let's not focus on trivial details, shall we.

The City the Wind Swept Away by Jim Fox (CB0015)

'The City the Wind Swept Away' is about half-hour long instrumental piece done with trombone, violins, piano etc. Characterized by quietude and sparse composition, the melodic theme gently lifts off with a piano, to be later backed by deeper and lower reverberating trombone tones. The composition floats on the selective, gentle and calm moods it evokes. Meditative and restful, it makes a great listening and a potential immersive into innumerable things. More a 'classical' than an ambient piece, it deserves full merit for its virtues, leaving you absorbed yet emotionally alert after each listen. The meditative qualities of this mini-album, to be thoroughly recommended for anyone who can stand silence, can be ascribed to its minimalist cadencies and peaceful trombone drones.

Pardon My French by Cinélux (PAN005CD)

The disk is the first emanation of 'Pardon my French' series, aimed at presenting new French artists with 5-6 original tracks and 5-6 remixes. Hailed as a 'metronomic post-rock' outfit, Cinelux inhabits the murky region bordering jazz, electronica and kraut. Ever so 'post' (whatever) in they sound, not ostensibly 'rock' though, Cinelux is a paradox – monotonous, lethargic drive of the intricate rhythms, thwarted by sudden hitting on brakes, effects and indistinguishable verbal contribution.

The laid-back atmosphere of, for instance, Machinedrum's remix of 'Hollis' is a product of jazz rhetoric merged with 'modern' cut-up and micro esthetics. Mitchell Akiyama's remix of 'Hydrocephalus Enjoyment' overlaps the genre territory of free jazz with experimental digital processing/distortion. Having seemingly mixed a few tracks into one, Tlone apparently rely on a melody-and-rhythm loop and torpid audience with their remix, whereas Cinelux originals tend to accentuate peculiar melodies and ryhtm details in nervous metronomic outpours. My guess, diagnose and file-under tag would be 'an undeniable potential for innovation in jazz circles'.