This playlist has given me LIFE today 🙌: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5sstDj3DDvB0dBKMLXDp8i?si=d957535686324fce

#Chicago
#EBM
#Industrial
#WaxTrax

#nowplaying #waxtrax

fellow lovers of florian zeisig's YOU LOOK SO SERIOUS--a Caretaker-ish 2020 album of tape-loop manipulations of Enya tracks--will be, as the degenerate english say, *chuffed* to find he's put out a second volume, veering further into disturbance and distortion. an instant buy for me.

https://enmossed.bandcamp.com/album/you-look-so-serious-i-ii

#nowplaying #waxtrax

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS...
2000

minimannerism at repetitive maxilength, which is what happens when admirably intentioned 2nd-string improvisers' ultimate musical horizon and sole musitech is the Big Crescendo. long stretches sound like funkless Can or slightly grittier Rachel's or TED talk montage underscore: intense, enveloping, didactic. on paper its ambient insistence is me-catnip; IRL its postrock monotony offends me a little.

#dnb #drumandbass #drumnbass #idm #techno #meatbeatmanifesto #nineinchnails #theorb #orb #house #warp #warprecords #aphex #aphextwin #squarepusher #venetiansnares #vsnares #mbm #cylob #rhythmandsound #moritzvonoswald #maurizio #basicchannel #chainreaction #drexciya #lukevibert #wagonchrist #plug #leftfield #ministry #kmfdm #waxtrax #mlwttkk #skinnypuppy #thrillkillkult #tkk #front242 #frontlineassembly #fla #photek #paradox #reinforced #4hero #cause4concern #totalscience #movingshadow

#nowplaying #waxtrax

Lol Coxhill, Morgan Fisher
SLOW MUSIC
1980

per enoesque title, gathering enoesque fog where occasional Discrete musics appear: arpeggios drifting out of phase, slow diatonic advance, sparse portent, ambivalence. a nearly ideal program of once-experimental minimalist texture, emphasis on 'program' and 'lightly' and 'texture': no melody but the listening-line, how an hour passes through *your* mind, takes on the shape of its waiting.

Meat Beat Manifesto - Strap Down #meatbeatmanifesto #industrialmusic #synth #waxtrax

https://youtu.be/jBpKk9keXGQ

#NowPlaying #WaxTrax

Proem
NEGATIV
2001

ok look

sometimes you don’t want ‘lyrics’ or ‘melodies’ or ‘variation’ or even ‘ideas’

what you want is: somewhat warm synth patches, relatively welcoming glitch percussion, the end.

this album is that. there’s a track called ‘take your pants off’ which sounds as awkward as its title. an intelligent, detail-oriented person made it, none of it matters, and in future the Computer will require all music to sound like this so study up.

I watched "You Weren't There," the 2007 documentary on the birth of the punk scene in Chicago, having only vague notions on the topic. Super interesting, very exhaustive and terrifically fun. #SteveAlbini is a cartoon, #NakedRaygun are amazing, #WaxTrax for ever (up until the "Front 242 Problem," that is).
https://youtu.be/Af5Kjgs8BI4

#waxtrax #nowplaying

Steve Hillage+Miquette Giraudy
RAINBOW DOME MUSICK
1979

approaching platonic ideal of #kosmische: textural #synth+guitar, liberal echo/reverb, light taps at tibetan bell. 'kosmische' for me evokes cold (outer/inner) space free of clocktime; #rhythm's a casualty, though the dynamic curvature on side B imparts dramatic tension. hear it as airlock-metal analog to #KeithJarrett's worn wooden HYMNS/SPHERES & the space makes sense: mathematic-erotic surround, fingertip parsecs.

Friday afternoon listening… #MyLifeWithTheThrillKillKult #TTKK #ConfessionsOfAKnife #WaxTrax

#NowPlaying #WaxTrax
'Power #Ambient' mix, A Strangely Isolated Place (ASIP)
https://www.astrangelyisolatedplace.com/blog/2022/6/8/portals-power-ambient

'ambient' so yes arrhythmic laptop wash; 'power' so too yes drone-mass, heavy somatica--as much #MBV as #BrianEno in the sonic DNA, if dignified+polite like icecaps melting...

...until final 15min: sawtooth tidal wave of glitch+bash+dense antiquiet hits shore. lonely machine buzz aftermath.

seaside-cave chapter of macfarlane's #UNDERLAND.

an extraordinary enveloping sonic narrative from ASIP.

#nowplaying #waxtrax

Crowded House
WOODFACE (1991)

the best(?) #CrowdedHouse album: neil+tim finn's intuitive collab extends from natural-as-breathing songwriting collaboration--slow build of 'weather with you,' bridge of 'how will you go' quickening the pulse, how 'four seasons' sneaks back mid-lyric from instrumental break--to harmony vox anticipating sweet/spice blend of #AnimalCollective's panda bear+avey tare. impeccable pop miniatures open inward to mezzoforte singalong bliss. lovely.

#waxtrax #nowplaying

listened last nite (as has become a weirdly specific family tradition) to amy winehouse BACK TO BLACK on the ride back home from central mass.--incredibly talented and natural singer, mostly strong material dropping off steeply, fetching but monochrome ronson production, and killer one line ('what kind of fuckery is this?!') that nearly crashes the car every time i hear it.

she and the music were lost before she was gone, though.

#NowPlaying #WaxTrax

bill frisell
IN LINE (1982)

#BillFrisell's debut on #ECM: half duets with arild andersen, half solo tracks. #ambient-adjacent portraits, w/andersen's melodies flowing beneath BF's sound-clouds. from the first note of his first album you'd never mistake frisell's pastoral electronicamericana for any other guitarist's work--he arrived with a fully formed sensibility and style, and has spent decades growing into it. the usual adjectives apply: 'beautiful' 'spacious' &c.

There's got to be a reasonable chance they're already on fedi, right?
So which one of you has the privilege of doing this teardown/fixup?

#Industrial #SkinnyPuppy #WaxTrax #cEvenKey #Atari #ST

#NowPlaying #WaxTrax

#Soultek
DREAMING UNDER A STARLIT SKY
2009

pillowy, gently propulsive #ambient #dub #techno--square steady beats beneath digisynth washes and ordinary bleepbloop patterns--i.e. the subgenre in miniature, but more than usually welcoming, 360° wraparound like aural gauze.

i can't take a 'critical' stance on this dreamy album--it matches my attentional needs and aesthetic preferences too perfectly.

Loving all the #WaxTrax in my feed this morning

#NowPlaying #WaxTrax

Tokyo Bloodworm
self-titled LP (2007)

yesssssss! rich ambient soundscapes that maintain transporting coherence across a range of emotions (none demonstrative), always '#downtempo' but more than just down. pattern, #glitch, deformation, light marks on sonic space--'scorpion vs mantis' builds to subtle narrative climax, which turns out not to be a contradiction in terms. just beautiful--an album that sounds to me like looking up at 10th-story apartment windows through rain.

#NowPlaying #WaxTrax

Monoland
COONING
2001

slavish german #Loveless knockoff suddenly individuates w/track 4 and goes to a subtly trippy dub-psych place, where it happily stays almost for the duration. (not that Loveless is a bad album to knock off, mind you.) closer 'honolulu' goes back to square one but even #Shoegaze-by-numbers can't squander the built-up goodwill.

art needn't be 'distinguished' to be good, joyful, beautiful--this is undistinguished and quite good. enjoy.

was listening yesterday with warm gratitude to #Digitonal’s SAVE YOUR LIGHT FOR DARKER DAYS (2008), and wanted to write a #WaxTrax entry that’d’ve been a dozen variations on ‘thanks for this.’ but months-ago-me already did, talking too on THE BATMAN, #Vangelis, #TreyAnastasio, and me being a dick

https://waxbanks.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/irreal-life-top-10-allergy-season-2022/