Another Exit

Absolute Body Control, "Wind(Re)Wind", "Never Seen"
Claus Larsen's announcement that he was reissuing Leather Strip's back catalog with bonus discs of re-recordings of the original albums may have started something of a trend. EBM legend Dirk Ivens of Dive, Sonar, and, oh yeah, just a little band known as Klinik, is turning his attention to one of his first projects, Absolute Body Control. ABC released just a handful of cassettes and singles in the early 80s before the project morphed into the nascent stages of Klinik. Ivens and fellow controller Eric Van Wonterghem recently reunited and have just issued two releases detailing their past and future.

I'll confess my ignorance of the original Absolute Body Control recordings (having missed out on the hella limited "Lost/Found" retrospective a few years back), so I can't say how the "best of re-recorded" tracks that appear on "Wind(Re)Wind" measure up to their earlier forms. That being said, these are stellar cuts that walk a very fine line between the epochs and genres of electronic music and sound great in doing so. Some ("Figures") play at pure synthpop sparkle, others ("Love At First Sight") evoke the tension and awkward weirdness of Fad Gadget (a pretty accurate point of reference for much of this release, actually), while later tracks ("Touch Your Skin") anticipate the menace and commanding tone of Klinik. Ivens and Von Wonterghem have wisely avoided the impulse to wildly contemporize the material via overproduction or excessively "now" instrumentation, and instead have opted for a sleek and polished yet minimal sound that keeps "Wind(Re)Wind" from ever sounding like it's indebted to a particular era.

The EP of new Absolute Body Control material, "Never Seen", has a more uniformly dark mood, but never forsakes the clean and clear sound of their earlier work. The band's impact on pure, dark electro is readily apparent here - opting for a remix by The Horrorist was likely no accident. The two remixes included don't do too much of note with the originals, but the emusic release of "Never Seen" appends the brand new and impossibly limited live from WGT EP, which contains versions of classic material done in "Wind(Re)Wind" style.

There's lots to like in these two releases - here's hoping they portend an LP of all new material which continues to straddle the boundaries of dark electronic.

Absolute Body Control @ Myspace

The Remix: Cleaner - The Voice (And One Re-Interpretation)

So, it looks like the logic board on my computer is blown, which means that it's generally about as reliable as the narrator in a Gene Wolf novel. I bring this up for two reasons, firstly to explain the lack of updates and second to bring up a semi-obscure science fiction reference as a segue into today's particular remix selection. Cleaner was originally called Cleen, and was comprised of two dudes, Thorsten Meier and Daniel Myer of haujobb fame. They produced a classic EP (Designed Memories) and a pretty good album (Second Path), both in a atmospheric EBM style. Around 2000 Meier left the group, leaving the other phonetically identical but differently spelled Myer as the sole concern in the group. It should probably be noted that Myer had about 50 projects on the go at the time, but rather than doing the sensible thing and just letting it go, Daniel changed the name of the project to Cleaner and recorded Solaris for Accession records, which was ostensibly a tribute to the classic EBM of the eighties and his favorite science fiction novels and films. It was, uh, largely not all that interesting. I daresay someone at Metropolis felt the same way, because when the album came out in North America it had two club remixes of The Voice (a song previously released as single) tagged on to the end. The first mix by Beborn Beton was alright, but it's the "Re-Interpretation" by And One that's most memorable. Much like they did with their classic take on Project Pitchfork's Timekiller, And One basically jettisoned most of the original track and re-recorded it, including having their vocalist sing the lyrics. It features a nice arpegiated bassline reminiscent of FLA's Caustic Grip era, appropriate considering Myer namedrops that album in particular in Solaris' liner notes. Oddly enough said bassline is the only moment when you listen to the CD that stands out as being particularly in the style of classic EBM/Electro-Industrial which as you'll recall was kind of supposed to be the musical theme of the record. At any rate, Myer would go on to rename the band yet again as Clear Vision, would release a pretty good album (Deception) and then quietly retire the project.

Cleaner - The Voice (And One Re-Interpretation)

ae-sthetics

Goin' to check out IDM patron saints Autechre tonight, which is exciting. Last time I saw them (in 2005 I think) they put on a mammoth show, distinct from everything I've ever seen in their deliberate lack of any kind of stage presence. Seriously, they don't even have lights on, they walk out on stage and start fucking around with their gear bathed in the soft glow of lcd screens. It's a tacit admission that more often than not electronic music is not performed in the same fashion as other musics, and throws into sharp contrast the band's lack of concession to the traditional expectations for a concert. Whereas contemporaries like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher will make a point of slyly winking at and deconstructing those traditions, Autechre have always seemed more intent on ignoring them altogether. It's something you can see reflected in their obtuse song titles, their abstract visual aesthetics and best of all in their live sonic representation. The band doesn't perform tracks from their albums, moreso they build whole sets of live music using the same sorts of algorhythms and happy accidents that define their studio works. I don't expect to hear any of the "songs" from their recent (and very enjoyable) Quaristice, I expect to hear some variations and inversions of it's sonic motifs. And while it may not give me much to look at, it sure as hell promises to give me something to sink my teeth into and ultimately digest. And in a world of self-conscious rock antics and earnest but incredibly boring soul bearing, it'll be nice to hear something meant to be taken on a purely cerebral level. Intelligent Dance Music indeed.

Autechre - Inhake 2 (Peel Session '95)


Autechre - Second Bad Vibel

The Record Swap and the Things I Got There

So, hungover and severely underslept I managed to drag my sorry carcass out of bed and down to Vancouver's Annual Record Swap. I think the term "swap" is largely traditional at this point, as in my experience the only thing being swapped for records is cash money. I'm normally not to good at these things, mostly because I'm not a collector. The moment a dude starts talking about japanese reissues and rare pressings my eyes glaze over and I start mentally recounting the plots of old Doom Patrol comics. That, and the fact that despite having a voracious appetite for music I don't really buy a lot of vinyl, and these sorts of things are geared towards people who fetishize the stuff. I mean to say, I was born in the seventies, I grew up with LPs but shit dude, if it comes down to it I don't really care about format all that much. I like to have a physical object rather than just a file (if only so I have a backup in case of hard drive failure) and CDs are more convenient for me in that regard. In any case, I halfheartedly leafed through a few crates of stuff labeled "eighties and nineties", was tempted to purchase a nice copy of Momus' Tender Pervert (which I really should write about at some point) but generally came up empty. Eventually whilst clawing through a crate marked "80s Indie" I found a copy of Coil's Anal Staircase 12" which has a version of the track on it I'm not sure has appeared on CD ever. It was a decent price so I went for it. Plus, the cover art (pictured above) was kind of cool. Much less cool was another seller who was trying to hawk a copy of the bands debut album Scatology for $80, which is overpriced even if it were in good shape, which it wasn't.

I eventually found my way over to a table where a dude was selling mass quantities of CDs for $5 a pop. A lot of garbage, but a few treasures. Firstly a copy of Celebration's debut LP which Bruce has always had nice things to say about. Secondly, one of Off Beat's ol' Tyranny Off the Beat comps, which are great fun if you're a fan of forgotten mid-nineties EBM and Electro. This particular volume has a neat version of Velvet Acid Christ's Star Trek sampling Futile, a track which he would later update for his Fun With Knives album. But the real find was an original Wax Trax pressing of KMFDM's Naïve. For those that don't know, the album was deleted in the early nineties due to an uncleared sample of Orf's Carmina Burana (you know, that one bit that is the basis for Apotheosis' O Fortuna, a song I could happily never hear again) on the track Liebeslied. The album was reissued eventually with the offending samples removed, but the original pressing has gone on to become something of a collector's item, fetching high prices on ebay. So yeah, a productive and worthwhile trip to the record swap, although I didn't get to have my picture taken with Chad Allan of the Guess Who. More's the pity.

KMFDM - Liebesleid


Velvet Acid Christ - Futile (LSD mix)

And The Radio Is In The Hands Of Such A Lot Of Fools Tryin' To Anesthetize The Way That You Feel

My brother works and writes for Canada's leading classical music publication, La Scena Musicale. A recent editorial of his (found on page 11 of this pdf) brought to my attention a proposed set of changes currently being enacted on the programming of CBC Radio Two, which would effectively strip the station of its longstanding classical music mandate and replace it with "more light contemporary like Diana Krall and Joni Mitchell" in the words of the CBC's blog. Also shuffled away from daytime programming is DJ and bon vivant Jurgen Gothe, whose pithy banter has delighted audiences for decades. Globe & Mail columnist Russell Smith (hands-down the best writer at the Globe, just barely eking out Carl Wilson, their savvy pop writer) has been covering this story well and his latest editorial includes lots of contact and petition info for those upset by the changes.

Why am I writing about classical music on IEI? Well, let's ignore the well-documented links between contemporary classical music (or "art music" as its often called nowadays) and our end of the pool for the moment and look at this more structurally. Unfortunately, fans of industrial and experimental music have just been down this road with the CBC. When Brave New Waves was cancelled just over a year ago, the main impetus for myself and many other listeners to tune in to the CBC was lost. Brave New Waves helped to introduce thousands of listeners to a dizzying array of artists and genres that we'd have otherwise never encountered. DJ Patti Schmidt featured and interviewed countless groundbreaking acts past and present: Coil, Michael Gira, Diamanda Galas, Wolf Eyes, El-P. CanCon wasn't just a formality on Brave New Waves, and the show raised the profile of Canadian acts from Skinny Puppy to Venetian Snares. When Brave New Waves was axed, CBC forsook a devoted, built-in listenership to compete for commercial radio's listeners. By stripping Radio Two of its classical music identity, they're doing the same thing.

I tend to loathe nationalism in all of its forms, but the two major institutions that make me proud to be Canadian, the CBC and Medicare, are contingent upon their being held to a higher standard than privatized industries, and the notion that they are able to provide services that their private counterparts simply do not deem profitable (non-mainstream programming and health care for those unable to afford it). Their power and effectiveness, therefore, lies in their unique nature. Once a public institution begins to measure itself by and adopt the policies of their private counterpart, its raison d'etre ceases to exist.

"Forget Me Not, Or I'll Forget Myself"

April Fool's joking aside, it's ten years to the day that Rozz Williams checked out.

I interviewed Faith And The Muse a few years back and asked them if they felt that the romantic image of Rozz was in danger of eclipsing the man and the work lying beneath it. William was confident that the body of work Rozz left behind would continue to match up to whatever myths evolved over time. I think he's right. Here's a fragment of that corpus.

MP3s
-Christian Death, "Down In The Park" live, from "The Iron Mask"
-Christian Death, "When I Was Bed" from "Ashes"
-Faith & The Muse, "Romeo's Distress" live, from "Vera Causa"


Videos
-Christian Death interview circa "Catastrophe Ballet"
-Christian Death, "Romeo's Distress" live (1990?)
-Rozz Williams & Gitane Demone, "Flowers"

Rozz Williams: 1963-1998

Joy Division - From The Vaults

While hunting around in his personal archives for material for the recent Joy Division reissues, Bernard Sumner came across something rather astonishing: a Super-8 reel of the lads, three sheets to the wind, running through a very sloppy version of ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" during the recording sessions for "Closer" at Brittania Row studio in March of 1980. Even more astonishing? Handling vocals on this boozy cover version is none other than visionary producer (and notorious cough syrup abuser) Martin Hannett.

On the video's Youtube description, Barney had this to say: "Marty had us running through 'Atrocity Exhibition' for eight hours straight. The whole time he kept humming that stupid song, and by 3 am taking a stab at it made sense. It worked out well for Ian, Marty wasn't able to give him shit about his vocals for the rest of the recording."

It's easy to get wrapped up in the gloomy, romantic myth of Joy Division, but any serious fan knows that the band had their laddish, goofy side. Here's more proof that, even while recording one of the darkest albums ever put to tape, these Manc boys maintained a sense of humour.

Joy Division, "Don't Bring Me Down"