On The Hi Fi - Recent Synth Soundtrax

CUB - STEVE MOORE
Loving this. This is Steve Moore from Zombi, the synth-prog group who brought us the top faux electronic soundtrack albums Surface To Air and Spirit Animal in the 00s. If you know those records you'll know what you're getting here. This recording is an actual score to a film though. Cub is a retro-synth soundtrack that's so good it doesn't need to pretend it's anything new. This score is the sound of a man and his synthesiser creating fabulous minimal and spooky analogue sounds not unlike John Carpenter whereas Zombi were more like your full on horror prog rock group along the lines of Tangerine Dream or Goblin. Best soundtrack of 2015?

COLD IN JULY - JEFF GRACE
I missed this one when it came out so if you like your synth horror soundtracks, like the above, this is for you. I have come across two excellent Jeff Grace soundtracks previously 2011's The Innkeepers and The House Of The Devil from 2009. I knew this was more synthy than those aforementioned two scores which were a lot more symphonic but Cold In July while tipping its hat to John Carpenter moves beyond mere cloning of ones influences. Jeff Grace feels like a real contender for the electronic score crown. Cold In July is undeniably a post millennial classic synth soundtrack that makes the terrific and very enjoyable music of Umberto, Zombi, Salisbury & Barrow feel like mere fanboys playing at wanting to be their heroes Moroder, Goblin, Tangerine Dream etc. Grace was once an assistant to modern soundtrack legend Howard Shore, hinting at what you're getting here (Carpenter meets Shore meets some mysterious new ingredients) and that something more intellectual might be happening here. Grace has made a synthesiser soundtrack his own like no one has really done since the early 80s. Achieving that is no mean feat and should put into perspective his talent and potential. Somehow he puts new textures into the atmospheres of these tracks and adds a new level of sophistication to synth scoring. I hope Grace continues doing electronic soundtracks as I feel he is on the verge of something great within this field. Cold In July is up there with the best recent soundtracks and gives Mica Levi's brilliant Under The Skin from last year a run for its money. This is some serious synth biz and then some.

BEYOND THE BLACK RAIBOW - SINOIA CAVES

This slab of synth candy is from 2010 but wasn't released until 2014. Beyond The Black Rainbow is highly rated amongst synthesiser soundtrack aficionados and it doesn't disappoint. Caves is a member of the psych-prog rock group Black Mountain and apparently has another cosmic synth gem under his belt with 2002's The Enchanter Persuaded. Having quite enjoyed what I had heard of Black Mountain on the radio, many years ago, I didn't really know what to expect from this Caves soundtrack but geez it's a real delight. After Umberto released the fantastic Prophesy Of The Black Widow 5 years ago at the height of Not Not Fun's great run of releases, I thought there may not have been any life left in this kind of retro synth gear, how wrong I was. On Beyond The Black Rainbow Caves piles on the tension and cosmic grandiosity. VHS memoradelia and dread fuelled dark ambient are the order of the day here. Eerie intergalactic vistas are intertwined with sprawling cosmic prog workouts to great affect, rejuvenating the spooky sci-fi soundtrack genre. Another bewdy.

LAW UNIT - ANTONI MAIOVVI & UMBERTO 

This one came out a few months back and passed me by so I'm glad to be catching up with it now. I'm not really sure who Maiovvi is but I know he released an album on Not Not Fun last year and recorded a soundtrack for the 2012 short film Yellow. I totally dig Umberto's four albums of faux horror/sci-fi soundtracks From The Grave, Prophesy Of The Black Widow, Night Has A Thousand Screams and Confrontations. It's been a couple of years since Confrontations so I've been wondering where the hell Umberto have been. Law Unit delves into much darker territory than Umberto's previous Goblin/Carpenter-esque synth confections. Some of it heads into industrial/EBM/dark ambient type zones making it a bit different from past Umberto releases. Still getting my head around this new, harsher direction for Umberto but I guess I have to start looking at it as a collaborative tangent rather than a wholly new look Umberto. Having said that, it's not bad though.

John Carpenter - Lost Themes

WHAT THE FUCK???

What a nice surprise to brighten the gloom of my past week or perhaps add to the gloom but that will make me happy. Why didn't someone think of this earlier? Just get John Carpenter the music composer to do albums without the films. The films, have been nowhere near as brilliant and influential as his scores. I don't necessarily hate his movies but I think his scores are 20th century masterpieces. I dunno if I've heard anything by him from this millennium, though. Anyway lookout Zombi, Pye Corner Audio, Drokk and Umberto the real deal is here to give you a run for your money as just a recording artist. I'm a little excited by this prospect I must say. Halloween 1, 2 & 3, Escape From New York, Assault On Precinct 13, Christine, The Fog and Prince of Darkness are among my favourite pieces of music of all time! I'm not the only one who thinks this. Check out industrial music, 90s Memphis Rap, Techno, Doomcore et al. as well as 21st century genres like Deep-Tech and Ratchet. I was only saying the other day right here on this blog that John Carpenter might be the most influential musical artist of the 21st century. His music is universally adored and held in high esteem. Let's hope this record lives up to our expectations. If not, don't worry there will be another Umberto record around the corner (I hope) and whoever else Carpenter is currently influencing like Xander Harris, Gesaffelstein, Shay & Sinista etc.

This sounds very good indeed. It more than makes up for the lack of a new Umberto album last year.

2013 Best LPs

eMMplekz - Your Crate Has Changed
Semi lucid ranting over hallucinatory electronic dub splatter.

The Focus Group - The Elektrik Karousel
A spooky and disorientating trip out to melt your mind.  Psychedelia for now and never.

Ensemble Skalectrik - Trainwrekz
Transmissions from.....somewhere or nowhere.

Gesaffelstein - Aleph
Beautiful paranoid urban atmospheres, bangin streamlined EBM and cold rushes.

Primitive Calculators - The World Is Fucked
More confrontational than ever. Age has not mellowed Australia's greatest post-punk band!

Tim Hecker - Virgins
The ghosts of 20th century's monumentalism.

Umberto - Confrontations
The soundtrack to match the alien invasion movie in your mind.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
It was hard to resist those tunes on the back half of this album in the end. Get your singin & dancin shoes on.

House In The Woods - Bucolica
Rural isolationist journeys into sound.

Lieven Martens Moana - Music From The Guardhouse
Dolphins Into The Future's main man delivers another warped environmental electronic masterpiece. He's on an oceanic roll.

The others I also liked

Skull & Shark - Lazerhawk
Ooga Boogas - Ooga Boogas
New Dark Age Of Love - Xander Harris
Fire Funmania - The Horrorist
Cold Mission - Logos
Cortex Meridian - Panabrite
Devesham Dub - Ekoplekz
Earl Grey Whistle Test - Robin The Fog
Secret Songs Of Savamala - Howlround
The Harbinger Of Spring - Children Of Alice
She Beats - Beaches
Testpressings 1-3 - Demdike Stare
Watching Dead Empires In Decay - The Stranger

The others that I didn't

James Ferraro - Cold,
James Ferraro - NYC Hell 3am
Stellar Om Source - Joy One Mile
Grouper - The Man Who Died In His Boat

On The Fence

Tomorrows Harvest - Boards Of Canada
I dunno if this is great, just ok or a complete waste of time (and I love their other records).
A Fondness For Hats - Moon Wiring Club
Only got it today, I'll get back to you on that.
Night Slugs All Stars Vol. 2 - Various
It's good and all that but it sounds more like the recent past than the future (as many claim it to be). Then again it's good though....or is it?....
Living In The Past - Manix
Well the title says it all but when those mentasm stabs kick in towards the end it's a little bit awesome.
Empty Avenues - John Foxx & The Belbury Circle
A charming new pop direction for GhostBox or 'sounds a bit like Nik Kershaw singin over a crappy library record?'

Stay Away From My Eardrums Pleaz

Lorde
Lilly Allen
Arcade Fire
And most of what's on my Channel V ie. 10,000 of Mumford's sons.

Boards Of Canada-Tomorrow's Harvest

The opening of the new record Tomorrow's Harvest seems funny to me. They have a little logo tune or is it a logtone? An Ident? I don't recall them having used one before and to me it seems like a nod to the people they've influenced ie. The Belbury Poly, The Advisory Circle and the rest of the GhostBox crew. Then there are hints of John Carpenter that I don't recall being referenced before on their previous records, which could possibly be a nod to Pye Corner Audio or even Umberto. One wonders whether they keep up with all this stuff or it's just a coincidence.

Tomorrow's Harvest does seem a lot darker and not as lovely* or gorgeous* as previous efforts. The beats seem to trudge and appear quite inert. It's still unmistakably Boards Of Canada with no sign of the guitars used on The Campfire Headphase.  The Jury is still out for me as I'm only half a dozen listens in. Still it must be alright even if I've played it that many times. I remember playing Music Has The Right To Children about 5 years ago to someone who only listened to trance and he said it was like electronic funeral music. He didn't even think you could chill out to it. So the darkness thing was always there but now we're splitting hairs over its minute shades.

*Lovely and *Gorgeous are two terms, I learnt yesterday, that announcers on a certain Melbourne independent radio station are never supposed to use on air about the music they are playing. Guess what all you prince's and princess's of darkness nice is nice! The Black Crow King obviously still wields influence in Melbourne town.

Umberto - Confrontations

What's lost is now found. This is the 4th Album (well I've got 4) for one of my favourite groups of the last few years Umberto. I was gonna try and write about them without mentioning Dario Argento, John Carpenter or Goblin but hey that's absurd. On this record though I could probably chuck in Giorgio Morroder. The cover says it all really: Nite driving with an alien invasion. Italo-Disco meets Italo-exploitation with added hand claps. This could be my favourite of their releases so far. I could listen to this all day and all nite, er.... that's what I've been doing. Something tells me these aliens aren't gonna be that nice and might be wearing hockey masks but you kinda want them to land anyway.

What's Goin On?

These are the main reasons I've not been posting much this year. I have a computer that's busted. I have 2 cd players that aren't working and a turntable that needs a new stylus. I can play tapes and my i-pod through the stereo but that's about it. I'm not in the zone for writing about music and culture. It doesn't feel right doing it on another computer where all my files aren't. I have the new Umberto album but I can't find it so no comment there. I've been listening to Trick Or Treat, the LP Ariel Pink did with VDO (some Mutant Sounds folk) under the name Shits & Giggles pre 4AD signing. Also just discovered Marcus's 1978 LP From The House Of Trax. Another new discovery is Nuts & Co's Kangouruo LP from like 1984. I have to thank the awesome Mutant Sounds once again for alerting me to these last 2. They do have their problems over there though with Rapidshare and stuff which I hope gets all sorted. I tried to download 6 things but I only got 2. They're still the best! I even started reading David Toop's Ocean Of Sound which has been on my shelf for years and I've never been in the mood to read it!  Hopefully Cardrossmaniac2 (ab)normality will be resumed soon.

Notes for a future Manifesto/Theory/Philosophy

Some Quotes:

"Just because you are doing something in inverted commas doesn't mean you're not doing it"
Quote from Tim Space Debris at Cardrossmaniac2, 23/11/12.

"What is there in uselessness to cause you distress"
The title of an AMM song from AMMMusic 1966.

I had more but I've forgotten where I read them. Anyway some food for thought that may one day be put into some kind of coherent passage of words.

Other Stuff

*I saw a bunch of musicians in the states are doing a tribute to The Band's Last Waltz concert/movie. Fuck me wasn't the first one tedious enough. Imagine what it'll be like with 2nd and 3rd rate indie musicians doing it. I feel sick. Are they gonna get Marty to film it as well, now that would be weird. No hang on they should get some 2nd rate Scorsese wannabe to film it. Hang on that starts to make the concept almost interesting. When is this shit gonna end? Didn't Nels Cline used to be some kind of avant musician?

**Here's a collaboration I'd really like to see Skrillex V Umberto. Doncha reckon that'd be good? Or would it end up sounding like some kind of witch-house? Either way I'd like to see that happen.

***What ever happened to Salem?

Umberto - Night Has A Thousnad Screams

Just got this today and am V excited and cannot wait to listen to it despite having to go to hospital tomorrow and miss a once in a lifetime chance to see Goblin live in Melbourne. So this is the new Umberto LP Night Has A Thousand Screams. If it's anywhere near as good as the last one Prophecy Of The Black Widow and the one before that From The Grave we're in for a real treat. I was gonna do an extensive post about awesome spooky soundtracks and their fake soundtrack spawn. That'll have to wait though. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to write that when I'm convalescing and bored shitless. One flicker of happy in an otherwise dismal day. Hopefully it'll be Umberto's 3rd classic in a row.