Cormac

Drawn From Life

[ review of: Drawn From Life by Brian Eno, J. Peter Schwalm (CD Album) ]

Eno first performed with J. Peter Schwalm (and Holger Czukay of Can) at the opening of Eno's installation Future Light-Lounge Proposal in Bonn. That was three years ago and the result of their collaboration is Drawn From Life. Recorded in Eno’s studio in West London and Schwalm’s studio in Frankfurt Drawn From Life features contributions from Laurie Anderson, Neil Catchpole and an eavesdrop upon the conversational meanerdings of Eno's two daughters, Irial and Darla.

Eno, whose work now spans over thirty years, we assume needs no introduction. Schwalm's background however is considerably less documented.
J. Peter Schwalm is a young German musician trained as a drummer and composer. His influences are a mixture between fusion and in particular the music of Miles Davis. Normal enough criteria for an Eno collaborator except, like Howie B, this guy's also a club DJ. Eno recently said of him, 'Sometimes you hear something and think: "Now this is how the modern world feels to me". Peter's music is like that, capturing excitement and speed and ambiguity and even wistfulness and melancholy... a complex emotional palette which feels to me like real life.' Fair enough.

So what's the music like? Where 'The Drop' is a 'jazz recording from outer space', Drawn From Life is very much an earthling, taking most of it's influences from ambient hip-hop, 20th century classical music and vocal collage with the haunting strains of Catchpole's eastern string arrangements. But altogether it is absolutely beautiful. And you can hear moments from his back catalogue: from Bowie's 'Low' to U2's 'Elevation'. If you liked Eno's work on Ferry's 'Mamouna', Bowie's 'Outside' or Passengers' 'Original Soundtracks 1' then you'll fall in love with this disc. If you think that everything that he's done the past fifteen years is shit then you better go out and buy Ultravox when it comes out on remastered CD.
Posted by Cormac at 00:00, 08 Jun 2001

Day For Night

[ review of: Day For Night by Peter Cusack, Max Eastley (CD Album) ]

With the popularity of the opening Peep Show on mainly european radio stations Day For Night happened to come together bringing with it 25 years worth of collected sounds dating from 1975 to 2000 by "favourite sound" archivist Peter Cusack and sound sculpturist Max Eastley.

The title, Day For Night, is taken from a filming technique whereby, as Eastley explains, "You put a filter over the camera during daytime and it looks like night". This process also conjures up other notions; the way in which one can enjoy the experience for example, "I think some of the tracks are very tangible and some are very much interiors to do with the mind, you know, sort of spaces with which you can use your imagination."

The preluding Peep Show, as the title suggests, provides a fleeting glimpse into a collection of sounds that exist in separate sonic worlds. Opening with a harmless bonfire night, the mechanism of an old brass clock (without the chime) winds itself up, opening our anticipations to a collection of other fascinating sounds as varied and as rich as you can hope for: broken glass being brushed along inside a 5,000 square foot area with a clean electic guitar waterfalling down through the whole space; stretched elastics ripping through fresh forest air. The track acts as an excellent prelude to pure, raw and hardcore sounds. Sounds that would take 25 years to compile. Sounds that people might not hear in a lifetime.

And within the remaining tracks we are not let down neither in terms of density of structure nor richness and variation of sounds: rotting carcasses with deers barking a Lord of the Flies soundtrack; Japzenlike made instruments warming wind into spiritual bliss; the ferocious sub-bass inside a nest of wasps. This is nature cranked up to 11.

Purposefully underexplained in the sleevenotes each new listen awares the listener to new things taking place making this disc a real stodger. Played in your home it seems to bring the outside in. As Eastley states, "Some of the tracks are landscapes and obviously some are interiors".

Posted by Cormac at 00:00, 01 Jun 2001

Look Into The Eyeball

[ review of: Look Into The Eyeball by David Byrne (CD Album) ]

Byrne's back after four years and he's doing what he does best. 'Look Into The Eyeball' is a collection of great, dark pop songs. Songs that are majorly minor then turn majorly major with a unique sense of fluency and ease. And as you can say about any Byrne project, it's probably his most personal work to date.

This release sounds very much like an amalgamation of all of Byrne's previous solo efforts. The opener 'U.B. Jesus' (which was inspired by a loop heard at a Tricky gig) is like a superior carbon copy of the 'Feelings' opener 'Fuzzy Freaky'. 'Smile' and 'The Revolution' are comtemplative tracks akin to those found on the dark, self-titled 'David Byrne' whilst 'Like Humans Do' would not be lost on the super happy 'Uh-Oh'.

As I stated, this is very much a David Byrne recording, not a Talking Heads rehash and, as you would expect, there are as many new surprises as old ones. The Rei Momo-esque 'Descondo Soy' is Byrne's first attempt at writing and singing an entire main melody in Spanish while 'Broken Things' harks back to Eno/Byrne times as it clanks along like a found object experiment.

If this sounds too much like old hat there are two completely fresh new styles for Byrne. 'Neighborhood', inspired by the Philadelphia soul sound, was arranged by legendary Philly soul arranger Tom Bell and 'The Accident' is a Kurt Weill inspired piece with a string/woodwind arrangement by John Zorn bassist Greg Cohen.

The orchestration of these tracks are indeed rich and diverse focusing mainly on the drums but also with a strong emphasis on lush string arrangements. And due to Byrne's vast history in music writing and recording there are sounds that just seem to bring you back to another part of this man's illustrious life. Notably 'Walk On Water' has very much an 'And She Was' feel and the female harmony on 'Like Humans Do' and 'Everyone's In Love With You' sounds spookily like a Kirsty MacColl line.

As Byrne says, "Who's still working on his masterpiece?". A bit Godot but it's safe to say there's life in the old Head yet.
Posted by Cormac at 00:00, 25 May 2001