An unprecedented amount of full-length reviews this month has cut into my Overviewing activities, though here are a few items of interest... Eric Alexandrakis: I.V. Catatonia   (Y&T Music - 1999) (7.8) NOT AMBIENT, but slips in under the broad umbrella of experimentalism, and the instruments (guitars, synths, effects, microphones) are electronic, and there's quite a bit of noise so... thematically reflecting the chaos in the healthcare system, Alexandrakis's broad alternative-rock approach to indictment covers alot of ground... 22 tracks (from 0:04 to 10:28) add up to 71.5 often-scathing minutes. Many pieces (like the title track) in their best moments remind me of my old favorites, the Pixies. Catchy tunes like Ill, Always So Far Away (From Me) and Hooligan Hotline (You Walk Away) (with its trash-can percussion) jangle and jam with an appealing rawness; Eric's already-thin vocals are filtered and multitracked into even-reedier strands sometimes. The Big Crunch Theory is the really experimental stuff... an aggressively overwhelming audiocollage of found-sounds from all over and many assorted mutations thereof... crazy, man! But so is the weird soundscene of Drowning Spock. Part of the long, meandering closing track contains a locational recording, apparently of the artist being released from his own hospital stay which fueled this project... Interesting do-it-yourself rock that goes far beyond the ordinary. Hear for yourself at CD Baby, cause you won't hear it on the radio. Jim Cole and Spectral Voices: Coalescence   (Spectral Spiral Music - 1997) (9.2) "Recorded by Candlelight" - I don't think I've seen that claim made elsewhere... it was also recorded inside an abandoned 120-ft water tower by a group of overtone singers, to further add to the uniqueness factor. 21 reverberous tracks (from 0:047 to 12:06 in length) of beyond-human sounds swirl and resonate in long, droning passages, sheening buzzes and celestial vocalizations. Chasmic lows, shimmering highs and pitch-shifts that couldn't possibly come from human beings, do. Incantation's jetstream choruses evoke forgotten otherworlds. Occasional glimpses of humanity occur, as in the sing-song notes of Smile of the Dew, though most often are diffused in ethereal resonance. Bringing a middle-eastern vibe with it, Jim's glowering tamboura seeps into No Thing and Joy's sinuously writhing vocal chords. What sounds like the gorgeous interplay of several voices during Blue India is in fact the output of one man; Alan Dow's spacious phrasing is accented by light tamboura drones. Breathy gusts seem to cross a vast, airy landscape of heavenly light, though in fact are spiraling up within a dark, confined space... thus proving the transcendental powers of human voice and creativity. See our interview with Jim Cole for more insights into this loveliness. Bill Laswell/Mick Harris: Somnific Flux   (Subharmonic - 1994) (8.9) Plunging deep into the electrified goo of their collective minds, Laswell and Harris deliver two long tracks which plumb a murky underworld of liquified electrons... Complete with blurredly submerged acoustics, bubbling ooze, synthetic synthstreams and far-reaching dronezones, their synergistic Distal Sonority (35:10) makes for a subdued, if occasionally eerie, environment for introspection and exploration. Buzzier presences slip through the gaseous clouds of Capacious (30:45), where organic mutations and clattery/wet outbursts occur, as do elusive drifts of sublime tonal sheens. Tending toward an entrancing grayness, immersively hypnotic surrealism for the ears will draw the mind in too. Iara Lee (Director): Modulations   (Caipirinha - 1998) (8.4) A movie review! Iara Lee's documentary gives a cursory overview of the whole electronic music scene, cramming a lot into its timespan. In fact, with so many genres, artists and topics to touch upon, nothing in-depth is achieved... but hey, where else are you going to get a look at so many of the faces behind the names behind the sounds that we love? Folks from all sides of the electronica scene appear, if only briefly... Tetsu Inoue, Bill Laswell, David Toop, Jonah Sharp, DJ Spooky, Terre Thaemlitz and this list goes on, including dozens of lesser known artists and fans. We get to see several interview scenes with Genesis P. Orridge (apparently there's some sort of Wendy Carlos-kinda situation I wasn't aware of, or something...). Live performance snippets of FSOL, Coldcut, Sasha, Prodigy and others are interwoven into the film. Drum-n-bass, Detroit Techno, Gabber, Trance and, yes, even Ambient get mentions. Historical passages provide glimpses of John Cage, Karl Stockhausen and Robert Moog. A bit all-over-the-place, but with so much ground being covered, what're you going to do? Recommended for the sheer novelty of seeing our "underground" music forms and its many offshoots on a screen, large or small. John Williams: The Lost World: Jurassic Park   (MCA - 1997) (8.3) This has been sitting around forever (a freebie from touring the Universal CD manufacturing facility), and, when finally delved into, serves to remind that when properly wielded, "normal" instrumentation can do some pretty cool things... Adrenaline-rousing in climax after climax (and trepidation-inducing in the lulls), movie-music maestro John Williams's score literally wrings emotion and adventure from every symphonic twist and turn. Edgy, atmospheric, scenic and exciting... symphonic movements convey intense action, sometimes flavored with jungle-drums for that tropical effect. The sheer exasperation of the more-taut moments (of which there are many) bars this from the realm of comfortable, ambient listening. It's too bad this impressive soundscenery was attached to such a dreadfully awful (really, wretchedly bad) film... Posted April 30, 2001 | 1999/2000 Overviews Index

AmbiEntrance © 2000-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).