Graham Lambkin/Jason Lescalleet - Air Supply
Astonishingly well-assembled collaboration 'twixt the two. Not that there's anything astonishing about the quality of the disc, though - Lambkin and Lescalleet are both superlative artists in their own right, and they collaborated on another excellent album - Breadwinner - a couple years back. Jason's tape experiments and Graham's incidental music clash and conspire in endlessly interesting ways, twisted and torqued by bizarre edits and surprise blasts of sound. The blasting is kept to a minimum, though, which puts the focus on subtle interactions between cloudy, atmospheric drones, household sounds and deftly-manipulated field recordings. Lescalleet is a master editor - his weird and brilliant juxtapositions are as essential to the character of his music as the sonic events themselves. I read an interview with Graham once in which he talked about his solo work as a search for the "music hidden inside the home", which I think perfectly sums up his contributions here. Third listen in this Week of Cock-addled Public Transportation, and it definitely won't be the last.
Pedestrian Deposit - Fatale
Jesus CHRIST, what a fucking record. I can't even begin to admit how much it's influenced me over the years. Brutal, vulnerable, depraved, restrained, grim, desperate and severe. The perfect soundtrack to losing your grip on the world, bit by bit.
In a review I referred to Lambkin's ("Graham's?") subject as "domestic intrigue," though that makes it sound like it's about adultery, or butlers. It is surprising that there isn't more modern concr'te that draws source material from the home, from ordinary life.
Your praise for the Pedestrian Deposit CD is surprising! I thought it was "fine" when I first heard it but it didn't make an impression on me the way, say, Crumer's Ottoman Black did (they were released around the same time). I'll listen again. This is still a Borges solo disc, right? Straight-up PE? Fuck. Gonna have to dig through boxes of disorganized CDs to find it.
Can we talk about Vatican Shadow? Is it just me or is that shit terrible? Don't get me wrong. I wanna dance. More than anything in the world. (Please, let me dahnce!) But not to this. (Sigh.) I admire Dominick's work generally. I like the guy and I respect his commitment to his aesthetic. Strong vision. Knows how to present his work, and how to make others' work more interesting. Great curator, great designer. I even like his bullshit, his red herrings and conceptual shortcuts. It does seem to me, though, that much of his work relies on gesture, on context, on volume; and I found Cold Cave so completely unconvincing and full-of-shit that I don't think I can hang anymore, if that's all this is. If there's brilliant music in there somewhere, though, lemme at it. I'm all ears.
Would also love to hear a good Marcia Bassett record, but I'm not holding my breath.
"Better a dilettante than a bore."
Crumer's definitely on the level. Need to hear more of his stuff.
I haven't looked into Vatican Shadow, and what I've heard of Cold Cave didn't impress me at all. I think he's a great performer (when he's not diddling around behind a synth) and he's made some great records. The guy's a total fucking workaholic and has played on 100+ records, so he obviously doesn't invest himself in every single project - that'd be impossible - so a certain proportion of his work does rely on the "conceptual shortcuts" you mentioned to get the point across. But I think that's common for someone who's mastered and refined their own distinct approach to performance: in the interest of economy, and the brain's natural impulse towards information compression, some inessential or redundant elements of an original and authentic 'vision' get phased out over time, regardless of their initial importance to the process. (Take this trend too far, and an artist becomes a caricature of himself.) I don't think he's there yet, but time will tell. Of interest (mine, at least): the small army of noize boys who've adopted, per Dominick, the now-standard "PE dude" uniform of impeccably combed hair, tight black t-shirts and black jeans. It gives me nip erections.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X2TPJEpd4UThis right here is the hot potato. 'Noise dudes' can write off Vatican Shadow and Cold Cave as silly bullshit soundtracks for dry-humping at Vice parties, but a lot of people who hung with Prurient through the arc of his synth experimentation finally said "Fuck it!" when he/they started dropping full-bore EBM-type cuts like the one above. The idea of anyone taking this kinda shit seriously enough to be offended is beyond funny. For the record, I am 100% into this song, and I like the whole record (
Bermuda Drain). One of the most awesome and hilarious moments of a live performance I've ever witnessed was when I saw Prurient stop on a dime and go straight into full-on Laibach mode to the horror of two dozen record-clutching noise dudes nodding their heads up front.
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