Reviews

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Euthymia is a feeling of stability and balance. In philosophy, it also refers to a sense of authenticity and integrity.

The title of Pieces of Juno’s latest album is fitting. It is the final installment of the series that included Kalopsia (the delusion of things being more beautiful than they are), Tacenda (things that are best left unsaid) and Metanoia (a fundamental change of mind). Euthymia completes the cycle with a sense of presence in the flow of things.

There are traces of jazz and pop in the mix, but Euthymia is an experimental album. Juno, herself, refers to the style as Northern Noir; and the sounds certainly move like the branches of birch trees in the breeze, waving in patterns that are entrancing and centering.

“Waking Divine” winds with reverb in the way that Harold Budd’s keyboards used to, while strings resonate like wind chimes. Juno’s voice drifts with the lightness of vapour between them. It fits as a companion piece to “I/O,” which has the subtle touch of the lightest kiss on the back of your neck. You feel this material through the teasing of your cilia before it is processed in your mind.

“Needing” starts with a touch of Tom Waits, but evolves quickly into classic Pieces of Juno. “Let things flow, let it go,” she sings, and the shuffling, rhythmic loop of life continues to spin. The philosophical element of Juno’s work provides coherence, but it also leads to beautiful results.

The entreaty to “Wake Me Up” comes on one the most structured of these songs. It’s a simple request, but loaded with epic consequences.

Open your third eye and see; open your ears and feel.

(Photo: Cecilia Riis Kjeldsen)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]LAND WITHOUT GOD
IRISH CULTURAL CENTRE
LONDON, 31 JANUARY 2020

LAU NAU & VILE ELECTRODES
CECIL SHARP HOUSE
LONDON, 1 FEBRUARY 2020

The film, Land Without God, screened in London for the first time on Brexit night. The Irish Cultural Centre became a refuge for those still able to claim EU citizenship and those about to be stripped of it. Both groups were exposed to a tale of trauma and identity that overshadowed the “independence” party in Westminster.

Built around the story of Mannix Flynn, an Irish politician, Land Without God reveals his family’s experiences of abuse at the hands of the Irish state and the Roman Catholic Church. No saints, the Flynn family were not just demonised by educators, police and priests; they were raped by them, beaten by them, ripped from their families and ultimately stonewalled by them. Those who spoke about justice or preached it were the ones who most vigorously and selfishly denied it. The accounts of Flynn and his relatives are harrowing, but not unique among the poorer classes crushed under the weight of Ireland’s colonial legacy.

The film is a poem in three layers: Flynn’s words, Lotta Petronella’s cinematography and Laura Naukkarinen’s music combine in a mist of agony that hovers over the island’s almost unimaginable beauty. Directed by Flynn, Petronella and Maebhdh McManon, the source material is mainly derived from interviews Flynn conducted with his family members, many of whom spent time in Ireland’s institutions to pay for the original sin of their family name. It is infused with the sounds of Flynn interacting with the spaces he suffered in, as well as a haunting and impressive soundtrack from Naukkarinen.

The next evening, Naukkarinen performed some of the material from the score as Lau Nau. It lost none of its emotional strength in live performance; indeed, the deft and delicate touch she applied brought some of the audience at Cecil Sharp House to tears. The beauty of Lau Nau’s songs is unrivaled in modern experimental music, and it is clear why she was commissioned to compose for the film: the sounds of songs like “The Saints” are stretched and filtered until they betray such fragility that they would simply break apart in the hands of less sensitive artists.

Comparisons to Lisa Gerrard were made, and the appeal to fans of many 4AD releases could be seen, but Lau Nau’s vocals in songs like “Unessa” (from Poseidon) lack the Dead Can Dance singer’s bombasity. Her songwriting, infused with the traditional styles of her native Finland, is restrained and intimate. Another track lifted from Poseidon, “Sorbuspuun alla,” had listeners marveling at her ethereal treatment – every child should have a mother who can sing to them with such care and character.

Lau Nau’s vocals were accompanied by sounds generated or processed through her suitcase modular synthesizer. Only days before, she had been in Stockholm’s EMS studios, making use of a room-sized set-up, but this box of tricks was sufficient to demonstrate the potential of electricity and underline the organic beauty of Lau Nau’s singing.

The modular theme was embraced by the other act on the bill. Vile Electrodes remain Britain’s best electronic duo, but they are as well known for their technical wizardy as for the strength and tone of Jane Caley’s vocals. The challenge they took up was to build a set using modular kit, so it was a good thing that the UK had not diverged from the Eurorack standard in a fit of post-Brexit pique.

Were they not sitting in front of a screen that allowed the audience to see their hands, the Viles would have looked for all the world like two air traffic controllers diverting flights over Sussex. The slow, growing oscillations of their instruments yielded synthetic patterns that took shape before dissipating like vapour trails. Power pylons were serenaded and satellites tracked. Snow fell, and each pulse was as unique as the last.

As their hands swapped wires and swept dials, each acted as a living Tesla coil; and the looks that flashed between Caley and Martin Swan were the code that replaced the relative safety of MIDI. It was a high-wire act on high-voltage equipment, walking a path between danger and beauty. In the world of modular equipment, there cannot be one without the other.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]CULT WITH NO NAME
THE LEXINGTON, LONDON
22 SEPTEMBER 2019

Cult With No Name took the stage to support Rose McDowall, the former Strawberry Switchblade beauty. They used their slot to show off some of the material from their new album, Mediaburn, along with highlights from their extensive catalogue.

The duo of Erik Stein and Jon Boux resist strict categorisation, but they call themselves “post-punk electronic balladeers.” That label has to be broad enough to cover Stein’s detours into Lou Reed vocals, experimental music in the domain of Tuxedomoon, jazz, and delicious covers of tracks like The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown.”

It works, and Stein’s smooth vocals are the perfect foil to Boux’s keyboard work. Cult With No Name mix with musicians like S’Express, John Foxx and Tuxedomoon, but there really is no box that they easily fit into. Take them as they are, then, as Stein towers over the crowd and strokes their eardrums softly with stories about liars and other dark characters. They have love songs, but the material is more True Romance than romance novel.

The exciting thing about this show is the opportunity to hear the new material from Mediaburn. Songs like “All This Spite (Comes at a Price)” and “Mona” demonstrate the duo’s capacity for songs that have power and restraint in equal measure. They don’t power through songs so much as glide – and they do it with so little friction that you barely notice that their studio collaborators – talents like Kelli Ali (Sneaker Pimps) and Blaine L. Reininger (Tuxedomoon) – are missing from the show.

As a live act, Cult With No Name shimmer rather than flare; they step through their songs with class and coolness. These qualities are among the rarest on the electronic stage.

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Presto Fervant have been making EBM from their base in a Swedish nuclear bunker on and off since 1989. The duo of Fredrik Lundvall and Ronny Larsson started with contributions to tape compilations and put out a split release with Punch & Judy, but their formal output has been relatively limited.

This is their 20th anniversary, so the duo has planned a live appearance at BodyFest in Stockholm and put out a formidable retrospective.

Evilation 1988-1994 gathers tracks that have seen the light of day before on CD and presses them into grooves on transparent vinyl with blood-like splatters. That is a very good thing for fans of the old-school EBM style, as Presto Fervant have a line in clever, energetic beats and bass lines that is well suited for the turntable.

The material makes great use of samples from films to create atmosphere, and there is is an affinity between some of the material and contemporary Skinny Puppy or Front Line Assembly. The killer, as with all great EBM, though, is the sequencing of the bass, which creates tension and momentum throughout.

When the Berlin Wall was breached, Germans partying on top of it had a ready-made soundtrack from a Canadian synth band.

“Dancing on the Berlin Wall” was one of the tracks on Rational Youth’s 1982 debut album, Cold War Night Life. It had references to Michael Caine’s nerdy rival to James Bond and David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Armed with a bass line that Kraftwerk wish they had written, the song carried a message about dancing as a social reaction to political repression. It was conveyed by Tracy Howe’s distinctive, calmly spoken vocals – an antidote to the worry and tension surrounding the introduction of medium-range nuclear missiles in the Central European Theater at the time of recording.

Those vocals can now be heard with additional clarity as the result of an excellent remastering job by Universal. A new edition of Cold War Night Life is now out on vinyl and CD with additional tracks. The singles released by the group around the time of the album – some of which have been available only as bootlegs and needle-drops for many years – have been put together here for the first time. As a whole, this package represents the first opportunity for fans to hear the material the way Howe and Bill Vorn intended when they went into the studio in Montreal.

The equipment used by Rational Youth to make Cold War Night Life seems quaint in its simplicity, but it had masses of character. The modular and keyboard synths that Howe and Vorn had collected were matched with a TR 808 drum machine and CV-controlled sequencers to make sounds that Canadians had until then only known from Japanese and German imports. The remastering highlights the importance of the band’s sound design, which was influenced by YMO, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream but also grew from their own engagement with the hardware.

The tracks included in the new edition are: “Power Zone,” “Coboloid Race,” “I Want to See the Light,” “Saturdays in Silesia,” and the French and English versions of their second single, “City of Night”/”Cite Phosphore.”

The album includes extensive notes and graphics from Howe’s archives, along with testimonials from artists and music writers. Joakim Montelius (Covenant), Phil King (Lush), Tobbe Lander (Romo Night) and Chi Ming Lai (The Electricity Club), among others, offer their impressions of Cold War Night Life and its place alongside the pioneering electronic music of the day.

Rational Youth recently toured Europe with Psyche. Most of their shows were in Germany, which continues to take to heart their confidence that love can grow in no-man’s land and the barricades can be your dancefloor. This new edition takes the sound and impact of their message to a new level.