Chris Rose

Tremulous Monk

A tiny record on a tiny label which probably vanished under the seventeen squintillion records that are released every five minutes, “Sparkle Like Your Shoes” didn’t even show up in any of the five hundred and twelve end-of-year-best charts that I spent my entire Christmas holidays ploughing through. It would be a shame if this delicate, gentle and extremely moving record were to get buried under such an avalanche, however, especially as it can proudly hold its head up against its soul brethren, the various folkateers and neo singer-songwriters who seem to have sprouted like magic mushrooms over the last couple of years.
Tremulous Monk (Thelonius’ shyer younger brother?) is actually one Chris Wilkinson who sits in his bedroom in York writing and recording heartbreaking tales, and probably listening to far too much Nick Drake, David Bowie, Alex Chilton, Lou Reed and goodness knows what else. All of these appear in some form in “Sparkle Like Your Shoes”, from the glam shuffle of “Dry Your Eyes” and “Are You Coming Out?” (both of which break into choruses which Noel Gallagher should be seriously thinking about stealing if he wants to salvage the forthcoming Oasis album), to the tootling psychedelic organ which weaves its way through “Sister Love Her” and “Drinking Holes”, to the standout track, “Trees”. More intimate than epic, the scarce three minutes of this haunting, wrecked piece of music have a slow motion guitar part which shows that Wilkinson too knows an important secret - the best Velvet Underground lp is the third one.

Speaker Stack Commandments by Earl Zinger (!K7167CD)

In which Rob Gallagher comes down from the mountain a second time with an iPod in either hand, ready to deliver the word according to His Zingerness.

And the word is - well, difficult to say actually. In this second chapter of the Earl's bizarre adventures he sets up his own radio station, goes in search of whoever killed Saturday night, retires, then gets hauled out of retirement by an alien with the promise (or threat) of tickets for Vibes FM's Lover's Rock Reunion, disses "City Suits and Hoxton Trash", brings us his fitness video and delivers the "Best Session Ever" (in which the Earl takes a shower and finds an expensive body wash, then finds his cash, keys and phone already on the table, hears Westwood playing his tune as he goes out, notes "everybody who might be someone someday someplace" in the queue outside, and even the promoter even recognises him and gives him a pass, no-one has bad breath or shouts "direct!" in your year, the djs are so good you even like "that experimental one from Detroit" and "everyone plays a four hour set, even the girl who takes the coats", and you realise that "you can stop going out after this - in fact you'll have to stop going out after this", that "in ten years time everybody in the city will have been there", then someone discovers a new drug "entirely legal, natural, no side effects" and the whole thing goes on till 12 the next day, the next year, for your whole life"...only then to wake up and find it's all been a dream).

And all this is done with a mixture of Playground-esque pfunk, swirling Hammonds (the nod back to Galliano on the lush "Who Killed Saturday Night"), bleeping synths, booty-quaking bass and stuttering drum machines, with a cast of apparently thousands.
Far from being a mere puckish satire on contemporary mores (and sometimes the satire is just too obscure - at least for someone who has spent no more than one evening in Hoxton in the last five years), "Speaker Stack Commandments" is indeed a comic book but like the best jesters there's a serious side. Well, not that serious actually - other than the beats. "Only the Ridiculous Survive", "Just Might Be" and "Heavy Hitter" rock like rocking things that rock hard. "Heavy Hitter" is the real standout, with its zoot-suited horn section blowing hard enough against a jump up two-step rhythm to rival Mr. Scruff's "Get a Move On".

Finally, on "Think they all gone home", the Earl reckons that we "can start clubbing again". If I were you, I wouldn't miss it.

Sixtoo

With Sixtoo's star apparently in the ascendant in the alt-hip hop heavens (is there not another word for this kind of music? Please let me know if there is), an e-Bay busting retrospective round up of the Canadian's earlier work seems like a timely release. However, his next appearance as part of the Ninja Tune stable (the boy having found his spiritual home there) will have to be something mighty indeed if it's to live up to this collection.
I'm not entirely sure of the "Psyche" referred to in this record's subtitle is the name of the label the stuff originally came out on, or a description of the music itself. The generally slow pace and introspective mood as well as the choice of samples and sounds hint at both psyche as in "-delic" and also as in "-chotic". Sixtoo weaves a web that is always threatening to tangle, but never quite does, however complex and deep it becomes.
Lyrically, Sixtoo shifts across a wide spectrum. Opening thumper "Destroy" seems to be a standard piece of rap brag, with it's repeated declaration "It's time to crush the opposition" and its insistent "Destroy" sample, but then goes on to set out a clear agenda "Self-distribution...we record ourselves on 4-tracks to keep the cost to a minimum...from the sidelines we advance..." A manifesto for leftfield hip-hop, and possibly the first (to my knowledge) reference in popular music to distribution methods.
Other favourite themes are mysterious global cataclysms (the disturbing "Caukazoid Germ" seems to tell the story of some horrendous virus in a piece of dystopian science fiction, or it could all be a sinister allegory that I'm missing), and above all the weather. While his preoccupation with global warming is admirable, and the shocked declaration that "My son will never see the snow" on "Lacking Precipitation" is very moving, he does occasionally verge on sounding like a grumpy old bloke complaining that the summers aren't what they were when we were kids.
Going deeper into his psyche, Sixtoo isn't afraid to look into himself either. The gorgeous, haunting "Sultry" weaves an (appropriately) sultry cello around some intimate beats while Sixtoo talks (and definitely doesn't rap here): "take these lies in the poem of your heart...they're all I have...this one box that holds my entire life in it", before offering said box to the listener by the end of the piece.
While Sixtoo's rhymes intrigue, the greatest strength here is the music itself. A great range of samples from trumpets, cellos, a didgeridoo, flutes and god knows what else seem to haunt the beats in a sound not ever so far from what we used to lovingly call "trip hop". A few instrumental interludes tease and then fade before building into anything substantial - and this is a great shame. Sometimes you find yourself wishing that Sixtoo would stop his flow and let us just listen to those great beats more. An instrumental version of this album would be a fine thing, fine as Sixtoo's rhymes are.
Less shouty than the Def Jux people, lusher than Anti-Pop and not as self-referential and overtly wacky as Clouddead, more of Sixtoo's psyche is worth keeping an eye out for.

I Tweet A Birdy Electric by Icarus (BAY36CDP)

It starts off with some tiny clicking, a plangent drone and some delicately picked strings which then build and shift and mutate like a cloud formation or waves on water until a couple of minutes of live breakbeats shatter the growing calm and bring the 8 minute plus opening track "Ganglion" to a finish. The rest of the record has trouble living up to the magnificence of this stunning piece of music, reminiscent at once of some Rune Grammafon stuff, Four Tet in a more extreme moment, or Plaid out in a beautiful place in the country.

It's indicative of what Icarus do here, however - acoustic and electronic sounds mingle, clash and bounce off each other throughout the whole record. Sometimes it sounds like a challenge, other times a harmony, but you sense that part of Icarus' project is sounding out the limits of the natural world, finding where organic sound becomes electronic sound, where the "natural" becomes "treated".

"Essen" takes a simple piano figure and turns it upside down, inside out, letting us see and hear it from dozens of different perspectives at once. "Gnog" does a similar thing with string sounds, stretching them out until they sound like the woeful animal entrails strings would once have been made from. "Jokun's Civet" and "Birdz Max" (titles which sound like Autechre having swallowed an ornithology textbook) use bird sounds - or is it high-pitched electronic whirring?

Similar to Dorine Muraille, Fridge, the last Matmos record, Colleen or the aforementioned Four Tet both in sound and intent, Icarus' "I Tweet the Birdy Electric" sets a new highpoint in the field - an incredibly densely layered and textured recording which nevertheless manages to sound light and effortless, however occasionally tricky and difficult.

Barcelona in Dub by Various (DECCD002)

You might think that the last thing the world needs right now is another downbeat dub compilation CD, and you may well be right, but just to prove that there is in fact always just enough room left for just one more, here's "Barcelona in Dub".
This compilation brings together some of the diverse styles of dubmasters at work today, ranging from the mysterious Hey's welcome introduction of an accordion into a slightly clickety piece, before International Oberver, Waldeck and Don Air out-kruder dorfmeister, if you know what I mean. Just as you're about to slip off into a pleasant snooze. Up, Bustle and Out appear to pick up the pace and soon we're back to dub's reggae roots with Sugar Minott and the awesome Joe Dukie soul-inflected track "Midnight Marauders", Roots Manuva remixing Nightmares on Wax and Playgroup's joyously wacky raga-tinged take of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" (though I can't help thinking their "Surface to Air" would have fitted this collection's hazy, stoned vibe better).
The 13 choice cuts here shake the floor even from my rickety stereo, leaking a maternal, aquatic bass and occasional blips and drifting voices that have the effect of slowly, pleasurably drowning in warm honey.
It's a long time since I've been to Barcelona, and now I associate the city more with the ventilaor rumba-flamenco of Ojos de Brujo. However, while I can't quite see the Barcelona connection, it's certainly just as strange that I associate this sound with Vienna or Berlin - dub's endless spaces and rolling bass seem to have conquered the world, sucking up other musics into its cavernous interstices. When it sounds as good as this, long may it continue to conquer.

E.P. by Ronin (BAR20)

"Bar La Muerte" might not sound like the kind of place where you'd readily stop for a pint, but it is a fine name for a record label. Bruno Dorella, who runs the label, is also the head honcho of Ronin. In a swerve away from his punk/improv roots, Ronin are a bizarre mixture of spaghetti western (or perhaps polenta western, given the region of Italy that they're from), Balkan folk and Italian roots music.
Their debut ep has five tracks which occasionally sound like Calexico surrounded by Central European fog rather than Texan dust, Godspeed You Black Emperor at a Bulgarian wedding party, a Morricone soundtrack for an Emir Kusturica film. The "Ronin Theme" and its reprise are the standout track, an almost Ry Cooder-ish gutar phrase counterpointed by accordion creating a bizarre shifting perspective - one second you know where you are, then you're somewhere else, and finally you're not at all sure where you are. "Nada" sounds like Loren Mazzacane Connor or even hints at John Fahey, a delicately picked guitar and some rattling echo conjuring up ghosts of some other place.
The building, sweaty, manic, disturbed and disturbing "Canzone d'amore moldava" is something which, like Ronin themselves, ought to be enjoyed live rather than on record. Probably in a place called something like the Bar La Muerte.

Papercuts by Jason Kahn and Jon Mueller (crouton 22)

One of my earliest memories is of someone flicking through the pages of a book, and me laughing as the pages made a breeze which fanned my face. I'm reminded of this listening to "Papercuts", and realise that books and paper obviously have an atavistic power for many people - the smell, sight or sounds of old books, letters, newspapers, pictures.
It's not clear if this 18-minute recording built from the sounds of different kind of paper was made using books or letters or virgin blank stuff (the only credit is to "various grades of handmade and commercial paper"), but it manages to evoke all kinds of bibliophile memories.
The sensory appeal of the sounds (which range from a high pitched whine, almost like that of the human sensory system, the sound you get when you block out all others, chirping crickets, beating bird wings, slips, slaps and the flickering of turning pages) takes you back to letter writing, sketching, rifling through secondhand bookshops.
The piece builds until it sounds like fire, paper burning at that the famous 451°F, then the thing ends, almost, but not quite, with a the sound of a book shutting.
The disc comes, naturally, in a beautiful piece of heavyweight paper, folded like an envelope, the music inside a letter - who it is to depends on the listener.