Album Review: Motion - Koen Holtkamp

Koen Holtkamp is one half of Mountains and this solo album - a standalone four-track release - reflects his work within that duo.

Motion is cinematic and somewhat overwhelming - the kind of blissful music that will surround and envelop you in warm electronic bliss, seemingly full of nothing in particularly and yet simultaneously constructed purely out of detail.

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Motion - Koen Holtkamp

I've recently been conducting guided meditation on my morning commute - the idea is that by clearing your head of distraction and focusing only on 'the moment' you become calmer and less distracted generally. Listening to Holtkamp's music feels a little bit like taking part in one of those sessions - you reach a point where through concentrating so much on the detail you can end up is a strange heightened state. This is music to become lost within.

Holtkamp's synth work is quite mesmerizing, the spectral syncopated melodies of Between Visible Things underscored with a contemplative series of bass line chord progression to offset complexity from some full of emotional resonance. It is in this chaos that the album's title makes most sense.

Vert is a similarly shifting moment of frenetic chaos fronted by aggressive electronic guitar work that placed here amongst all the other noise feels strikingly raw, and yet ultimately make from the same stuff: all this electricity. Crotales is a little more relaxed than anything else on Motion, placing 'pure' synthetic noise alongside synthetic versions of real instruments (those titular percussive crotales, an upright bass).

The entire second side of this release is taken up by Endlessness, a track more than 21-minutes long on which Holtkamp allows his mind to run riot and yours to expand. Expect a cacophonous and layered ambient piece that somehow still manages to remain somewhat listenable. It is unlikely to get much radio play but as a experimental and sensory experience Motion delivers.

Motion is released through Thrill Jockey on 24 March. You can pre-order the album on LP, or the extended Motion: Connected Works CD, both on Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links]. Check out the video for Endlessness below:

Album Review: Metafather - Imbogodom

Metafather is the third limited edition album from Imbogodom and their final part in their BBC Bush House trilogy. The album was recorded back in 2011 during the final days of the BBC's Bush House building as it was going through it's decommissioning process.

Bush House was the hub for the BBC's World Service for over 70 years. With the building positioned in London Imbogodom felt that it was well positioned to tap into London's hidden audible secrets and the duo spent evenings between 2006 and 2011 situated within Studio 6, deep within the building's subterranean section.

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Metafather - Imbogodom

Metafather is a sonic experiment that pulls noises together from long lost tapes within the building and uses them for the basis of something new. The album weaves through moments of abstraction but grounds these with moments of psychedelic yet more conventional song-writing. There are moment of haunted elegance such as "Voices of Lists", which feels like a song playing itself, a surreal folk band possessed like something out of Paranormal Activity. "Mirror Dust" is less alienating, a cosmic ballad of glittering gold and silver piano and guitars that bounces around the audible space the duo are creating their work within.

Deeply textural moments provide the album's abstracted pieces, such as the rhythmic and cyclical "The Living Creatures", a track with a distorted and confused spoken word sample and repetitive mechanical instrumentation. Again, it feels in control of itself, the sound of an old studio haunted by reflections of audio that has seeped into the walls over the years,

There are moments where Imobogodom even manage to meld these two disparate approaches successfully - "Behold The Whirlwind" is filled with echoes and feedback set against a series of vocal chants.

In starting with the third part of this experiment it is difficult not to feel like I am interrupting an art installation mid-way through its performance. Everything here feels complex and with little explanation. It only adds to the intrigue - Metafather is a deeply experiential album.

Metafather is released on 14 October through Thrill Jockey, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on LP [affiliate link]. 

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Imbogodom

Album Review: 333 - Double Dagger

Double Dagger's latest and final album 333 comes alongside a curtain call documentary, If We Shout Loud Enough, that portrays the band at their end and their position within the Baltimoor music scene. With Shut Up And Play The Hits it seems like LCD may have created a new micro-genre - the rock band break-up movie.

SUAPTH focused on the simultaneous, somewhat divergent parallels of the impact the band (and its demise) had on its fans and the impact on the band itself - celebratory and sad but cathartic in the release that splitting up brings. Tears are shed, but good times celebrated.

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​333 - Double Dagger

In contrast If We Shout Loud Enough is messier, the lines between fans are blurred here on screen, with local musicians within Baltimoor acting as mutual fans and a close-knit community forming around the group. It reflects a starck physical reality where lead singer Nolen Strals jumps off of the foot high stage at whatever small to medium venue they are playing at and mingles within the crowd, shouting at the crowd and tying them up in the knots of his microphone cable: physically tearing down the boundaries.

Where SUAPTH had catharsis in the ending of something, If We Shout Loud Enough clearly portrays a band for whom the music itself, especially the playing of it live, IS the catharthis. Playing live grinds some bands down and ages its individual members, but does the opposite here.

Strals suffers with a stutter and struggles to get his words out in person, yet on record and in concert rattles through songs and announcements with precision. It's something that has been tackled lyrically within Double Dagger's music, as are his flashbacks to an early concert that was preceded by a particularly gruesome experience, and here within the film.

What comes through in the music on this album, and even more with the documentary, is that the rage exposed through Double Dagger's music releases something. It seems to help, creating distance between Strals and these topics whilst also acting as a catalyst to the listeners, who simultaneously address their own demons.

333 has elements where it sounds like the wound soothed. It may start with the intense, punctuated aggression of The Mirror, a record dealing with the aforementioned stuttering, but there is more range here than on any previous release.

Just 25-minutes in length, 333 is almost too short to be even a mini-album, with three tracks clocking in at under 3-minutes. Two instrumentals, Space Dust and Figure Eights feel content and almost playful. It's like an experimental last session rather than an album.

What it lacks in drama and stature in structure 333 closes with Heretic's Hymn, and it comes through on that record how the band have grown over the course of their career, reassured and rewarded by the feedback of years of intimate gigs.

The film and record are a fitting tribute to the end of an incredibly spirited group, highlighting what being in a band has done for those within it and those that loved them. It will be sad to see Double Dagger's great release end, but exciting to see what the members do next.

Both 333 and If We Shout Loud Enough are out now in a combined release, you can order it now on Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link]. Check out the trailer for If We Shout Loud Enough below:​

Double Dagger - 333 LP and If We Shout Loud Enough DVD - available on Record Store Day http://thrilljockey.com/thrill/Double-Dagger/333 Hear "Heretic's Hymn" from 333 https://soundcloud.com/thrilljockey/double-dagger-heretics-hymn If We Shout Loud Enough will show at the Maryland Film Festival, May 8-12, 2013 http://www.md-filmfest.com/ A Folk Hero Films Release

Video: The Curve - Golden Void

Golden Void - Golden Void - out now http://thrilljockey.com/thrill/Golden-Void/Golden-Void video by Alexander Theodoropolus alexandertheo.com Golden Void tour dates: Fri Feb 15 San Francisco, CA - Slim's w/ Graveyard Sat Feb 16 San Francisco, CA - Slim's w/ Graveyard Mon Apr 8 Prague, Czech Republic - Klub 007 Tue Apr 9 Berlin, Germany - Jagerklause Wed Apr 10 Dresden, Germany - Ostpol Thu Apr 11 Linz, Austria - Kapu Fri Apr 12 Innsbruck, Austria - PMK Sat Apr 13 Milan, Italy - Lo fi Club Tue Apr 16 Lyon, France - Le Sonic Wed Apr 17 Paris, France - Point Ephemere Thu Apr 18 Antwerp, Belgium - Trix Sun Apr 21 Tilburg, Netherlands - 013 venue (Roadburn Festival)

Golden Void's self-titled debut from last year was a heady rush of bluesy psychedelia. The BlackPlastic.co.uk review featured a video for 'Virtue' but that was nothing compared to the band's latest video, this time for album highlight 'The Curve'.

Directed by Alexander Theodoropolus the video perfectly visualises the crazy distorted psychedelic sound of the song - giant gods, floating in space, nude yoga poses, deserts... It's got the lot.

Golden Void is out now on Thrill Jockey, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links]. You can catch the band on tour (although provided a jump to the continent isn't a problem, sadly):

• Mon Apr 8 Prague, Czech Republic - Klub 007 
• Tue Apr 9 Berlin, Germany - Jagerklause 
• Wed Apr 10 Dresden, Germany - Ostpol 
• Thu Apr 11 Linz, Austria - Kapu 
• Fri Apr 12 Innsbruck, Austria - PMK 
• Sat Apr 13 Milan, Italy - Lo fi Club 
• Tue Apr 16 Lyon, France - Le Sonic 
• Wed Apr 17 Paris, France - Point Ephemere 
• Thu Apr 18 Antwerp, Belgium - Trix 
• Sun Apr 21 Tilburg, Netherlands - 013 venue (Roadburn Festival)

Album Review: Total Folklore - Dan Friel

Total Folklore is the aural equivalent of licking wasp flavoured candyfloss and swigging it back with a broken glass blueberry slushy. Dan's basically playing it cutesy whilst also sticking a pen knife in your ear.

I summarised the way Friel's music made me feel back when he first put 'Valedictorian' out for your streaming pleasure last year. None of the intensity has dulled on this long-player. The resulting chaos is a cacophonous musical George's Marvellous Medicine of sounds pulled together to send you doolally.

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Total Folklore - Dan Friel

Friel's vision is an album inspired by urban life, triggered by long walks through the Brooklyn and the world of the commute. Tracks are punctuated with sounds Friel recorded on walks through the city, brief moments representing the pauses in city journeys - moments inside a pachinko parlor or watching kids play basketball.

Friel clearly associates the city with chaos and noise - his effects pedals and noisemakers make that clear. Total Folklore is like a psychedelic-love-letter to a city, and it's shaped by abrasive punk and written like saccharin chip tune. Starting with 'Ulysses' Total Folklore slowly grinds it's gears and rises up, constantly unfurling additional scale when you always think it can't go on. At almost 13-minutes long, scale is one thing 'Ulysses' can't be accused of lacking.

That opening track makes up almost a third of the album's length, so the album's structure itself feels like an additional attempt at confrontation. Dan Friel rushes to get through the rest of the material - only two of the remaining 11 tracks extend beyond three-minutes. It feels a little bit like the boy who has unwrapped one  Christmas present and just can't wait to tear them all open, too excited to slow down.

The ideas also loop back on themselves. 'Scavengers' is another take at the core melody of 'Valedictorian' but with more bass, for example. There are a series of rapid moments on this album - the grit and bubblegum of 'Thumper' and rising crescendo of 'Badlands' - but each feels like a the result of some heavily distorted Chinese-whisper of the last.

If there is one thing besides noise that Total Folklore communicates it is rapid and uncontrollable excitement, overstimulated and over-amplified. In today's world of cynicism and reservation that's a little bit refreshing. It might give you a nosebleed but one thing Total Folklore doesn't do is leave you without an impression.

Total Folklore is out on 18 February through Thrill Jockey, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links]. Stream and download the track 'Thumper' below: