Reviews

Songs with a Viking Soul: Sólveig Matthildur

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It seems like only yesterday that Sólveig Matthildur’s “Affliction” came through the letter box. Moody and brooding, it showed off the Kælan Mikla keyboardist and backing singer’s ability to channel dark waves to full effect.

The follow-up is an album, Constantly in Love. This is where things get interesting: with more space to work with, Matthildur opens up with material that could plays like the precocious child of Dead Can Dance and Psyche. Certainly, her vocals are precise and cutting where they should be, and saw waves carve deep into your soul.

Despite the temptations of minimal wave, the synths never crowd out the vocal lines on the album. On “My Father Taught Me How to Cry,” Matthildur’s voice is the essential feature; stretching like a veil over the rhythmic bass, it goes into Lisa Gerrard territory without wavering.

If one is Constantly in Love, the one might also be “Constantly Heartbroken,” and Matthildur knows how the arc of affection traces its path through the mind. The initial impulses of “My Desperation” and “Your Desperation” give way to the healing of “I’m OK” and wrap at “The End.” This is heavy, heady stuff, but it is skilfully handled with an emotional reach that is both powerful and sensitive.

Look after yourself first, they say, but don’t shy from the experience of being Constantly in Love.

Sólveig Matthildur plays in London at The Shacklewell Arms on 22 May 2019. Free tickets are available through the Dice app.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Brush Up on Your Fieldwork

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Covenant are back with the Fieldworks Exkursion EP. A five-track collection, it shows the Swedes developing their interests in philosophy, sampling and rhythm.

With elements of the sound captured from environmental sources – a la Chris Watson – the band have turned their surroundings into sonic sources. The results are sculpted and moulded around the kind of synthetic scaffolding that they are known for.

For this EP, which is the first of a cycle of releases expected under the “Fieldworks” rubrik, each band member has taken the helm for one song. The resulting variations in style are more subtle than might be expected.

The opener, “Pantheon,” takes us to the sites of ancient temples via a Spanish airport and Kraftwerkian vocoder work. In places, it recalls Brian Eno’s commission from NASA, which makes sense if the temples connect us to spaces we can only glimpse from great distances.

“All That Is Solid Melts into Air” takes its name from a quote by Karl Marx. The lyrics focus on the dual horrors of capital and war, but Covenant manage to avoid the Pet Shop Boys’ bare didacticism. Eskil Simonsson’s distinctive vocals neatly carry the lines over the rhythm of small arms fire.

The French singer Grabyourface makes an appearance on “False Gods,” which pulses insistently with critical synths. The Mayan creation myth inspires “Popul Vuh,” which combines a tale of lost continents with industrial loops and a synth line evocative of Laurie Anderson’s own story-telling accompaniments.

The EP wraps with “Das Nibelunglied (Erstes Abenteuer).” A German voice intones a tale over piano and bass tones, in a form perhaps familiar to Neubauten fans. It is brooding, mysterious and dark. The sounds between the notes are where the feeling lies, and the resonance lingers well after the recording ends.

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Encased in Sound: Twice a Man’s Cocoon

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Like Wire, Twice a Man never make the same album more than once. Their sound might have consistent elements, but each release is an exploration of new combinations and treatments for them.

Like a stone exposed to the weather, time has changed Twice a Man, but their impermanence has been with us for a long time. Cocoon, their current album, has at least twenty predecessors, including some mighty classics of electronic and experimental music.

To keep things simple, every track is numbered: “Cocoon 1,” “Cocoon 2,” and so on. Each has its own distinctive features. “Cocoon 7” is distinguished by an energising combination of rhythms and Dan Söderquist’s vocals. “Cocoon 8” has psychedelic strings layered over a chugging, modulated pattern.

The overall effect is a sonic combination of nature and creation. “Cocoon 1” seems to invoke both the humming of bees and the sound of their industry. Hives aren’t places for solitary contemplation, and the work of different teams drowns out any individual sounds. The environment has its own rhythms, and the ebb and flow of activity changes the sounds.

Cocoon is an unconventional album from one of Sweden’s most unconventional bands. It makes for inspiring listening.

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In Your (Silent) Face: Anna Öberg

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The second album from Anna Öberg is a grittier affair than her previous effort.

Vafan har jag gjort! [EN: “What the Fuck Have I Done!”] doesn’t come with a question mark in the title, because it is a statement.

Dramatic, punchy and aggressive, Vafan… is a challenging electronic album. The opener, “Jag blir inte kysst” [EN: “I Will Not Be Kissed”], isn’t pining for contact so much as setting boundaries. The addition of Machinista’s singer, John Lindqwister, adds dimensions to the song.

The title track is storming dark wave material. Dual oscillators play against each other with sinister intent while Öberg alternates between a sing-song verse and choruses that break like waves over the thundering bass.

There are strong, positive sounds in “Fortforande 16” [EN: “Popular 16”]. John Foxx’s Metamatic has left its DNA in some of the synthetic styling, while Öberg’s vocals are terrific in their electronic environment.

The force of the album is a step up in intensity from 2017’s Härsknar: this is easy listening for the hard of hearing.

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Game On for Danskwave

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Denmark hasn’t produced a lot of electronic artists of note. Nephew established a reputation as “the Danish Depeche Mode” (it seems that every country has one), but they have come and gone over the years. Leaether Strip has been a constant in the international EBM scene for decades. It is heartening, therefore, to see the torch of synthpop being carried by Softwave.

Their new album is Game On. With space disco and synthwave influences to the fore, it lets singer Catrine Christensen soar over Jerry Olsen’s fizzing synthesizers. They describe Erasure as an influence, and Olsen certainly likes to deploy bleeps and bloops lifted straight from Vince Clarke’s crate of tricks.

That influence can be heard most strongly in “No Need to Hide,” which provides a positive, encouraging message for outsiders. Fans of Sweden’s Train to Spain will take to Softwave easily, and Game On is a great place to start the journey.

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Machinista Return with Songs from Dark Places

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Machinista’s third studio album is an evolution from those that preceded it. The band’s live show has developed in the four years that have intervened since the last one, too – away from the traditional synth duo structure to a fuller pop-rock act with a guitarist in a bird mask.

Anthropocene features eleven tracks. One (“Across the Universe”) is a Beatles cover; the rest are originals developed by long-distance telecommunications in Sweden. Several have been released previously as singles and EPs, collected here with new material.

The Italo roots of Richard Flow’s instrumentals are on show, but so are EBM and pop influences. The addition of BRD’s guitar and Karin My’s cello takes the sound away from the specialist DJ section and into other areas of the record shop.

John Lindqwister’s vocals and lyrics are as taut as ever. The themes are dark: “The Scare” seems to be about news of the mass shootings that America specialises in; “Let Darkness In” reminds us that “God left us long ago.”

The main exception is, possibly, the stand-out track on the album: “Ásfriðr” finds Lindqwister having his pain taken away by the arrival of his daughter. It is first class and classy poptronica with positive vibrations, a Goldfrapp influence and cello work by Karin My.

It is great to revisit old friends in “Pain of Every Day” and “Seconds Minutes Hours.” It seems like they have been with us for a while, but they are in great company with the new songs brought to life here.

Life is the thing that gets in the way of making great music, but they both come together on Anthropocene – an album it has been worth waiting weeks, months and years for.

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Ghost and the Machines

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

13 Ghost Stories is the second concept album from the Jean-Marc Lederman Experience. Coming four years after The Last Broadcast on Earth, it is even more ambitious than its predecessor.

Spread over two CDs, in its physical form, the project incorporates a book designed by Erica Hinyot and stories provided by Rodney Orpheus (The Cassandra Complex), Julianne Regan (All About Eve) and Christina Zun (Witchblade comics).

All versions draw in a variety of singers to project their apparitions over instrumentals prepared by Lederman. Contributors include Elena Alice Fossi (Kirlian Camera), Christer Hermodsson (Biomekkanik, Spark!), Louise Fraser, Yvette Winkler (Vaselyne), Jenna Fearon, Louise Love (Parralox) and Juliette Bosse, among a stellar set of vocalists.

There are a range of styles on offer, but the surprise for an album categorised as “neofolk” on Discogs is how shoe-tapping some of the material is. On “Upset Karma,” Fossi and Lederman come across like “Ray of Light”-era Madonna with Orbit-esque bubbling synths and reverb. “Tú Sabrás” with Louise Love is fit for a Kylie album.

Darrin Campbell Huss (Psyche) is in powerful form on “Momentary (Ghost in the Room).” As he promises to “keep you safe,” you can’t help but believe that he can keep the phantoms at bay.

Lederman’s alter-ego is Ghost, but all of his previous projects, including The Weathermen and Kid Montana, have brought him to this point: electronic and experimental music with balanced senses of humour and groove.

The spirits are real: with all of the songs on 13 Ghost Stories, the talent is material.

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From Forests Where We Feel Secure

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

LAU NAU & PEKKO KÄPPI
CAFE OTO
12 APRIL 2019

“Are you still in Europe?” asks the evening’s host, drily. “I don’t know.”

None of us do, any more. All the better, then, to have visitors from the furthest edge of the EU.

A taster for this year’s Ilmiö Festival, three acts have braved the threat of Brexit to present the current sounds of experimental Finland.

The highlight, after an improvised electro-acoustic soundscape from Ahti & Ahti, is the appearance of Lau Nau and Pekko Käppi.

Laura Naukkarinen has released six studio albums as Lau Nau, and she has earned an international reputation for her work in film and with Matti Bye. A frequent visitor to the EMS studios in Stockholm, Naukkarinen has assembled a suitcase modular system of her own, which glows like the one carried by Thingumy and Bob in Tove Jansson’s Moomin comics.

What is inside is as valuable as the Groke’s ruby: a tangle of wires patching circuits to generate currents that carry Lau Nau’s vocals through the crowd like mist from the sea.

Pekko Käppi, a long-standing contributor to Lau Nau recordings, joins with a jouhikko and material of his own. The ancient instrument reveals hauntingly beautiful tones as it is bowed, as the wind blows through the pines.

The duo begin with Lau Nau’s “Sorbuspuun Alla,” which fills Cafe Oto with the serene sound of Naukkarinen’s voice. It is ethereal and organic, rising as if from the forest floor.

The set continues with performances of Käppi’s own material, as well as a new Lau Nau composition. There are moments of fluidity, tension and release that reflect the waves of the Baltic and the falling of birch leaves. This is music firmly impressed with the Nordic experience, and it passes like a midsummer night. Or a dream.

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Laibach: From Mount Paektu to Shepherds Bush

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

LAIBACH
02 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE
LONDON, 1 MARCH 2019

Photo: Marija Buljeta / AltVenger

Laibach might seem bonkers. They might even be bonkers. But there is a lot of method behind their staging of The Sound of Music.

To start with, it is in accordance with their plan that you will be seated. The band are playing theatres on this tour, so don’t get any funny ideas about moving your hips.

The evening will start with a film: in this case, a documentary about Laibach’s visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the 70th anniversary of its liberation from Japanese militarism.

Liberation Day tracks the band as they prepare to present The Sound of Music in Pyongyang. It is the most internationalist thing in the world: a Slovenian art collective, travelling with some curious fans and their British label boss, putting on an American musical, written by the children of German Jews and set in Austria, for a film co-directed by a Latvian and Norwegian and financed by the Norwegian arts council, in the capital of North Korea.

Their visit in 2015 was not without controversy, either inside or outside of the DPRK. The right-wing press went nuts in the US and Europe. At their welcoming dinner, the representative of the official culture committee read the group some of the criticism received from his comrades. There were many, it seems, who couldn’t cope with the invitation given to Laibach to stage the country’s first Western “rock” show. Philistines raised the same arguments from both sides of the DMZ: Laibach make use of totalitarian imagery and styling; their music doesn’t fit into conventional “rock” forms; and no one can control them.

The culture committee representative, to his credit, appeared to understand that Laibach is like a fairground mirror – reflecting the viewer in ways that confound their expectations. Born in a pseudo-socialist environment, which collaborated with and confronted foreign systems in accordance with the whims of Marshall Tito, Laibach well understand how to select and position images to provoke a response.

Photo: Marija Buljeta / AltVenger

Even so, before it can be put on, the show has to be run through a number of filters: images from Korean culture that are insufficiently reverent have to go; translations have to be cleansed of South Korean idioms; the arrangement for “Arirang” must be normalised; and Nazi space ships have to give up their Maltese crosses.

The group accept these changes with good grace: the show must go on, so long as the power lines can be jerry-rigged and local busybodies can be pushed away. The collaboration works, and a sizeable but bemused audience takes in the performance politely.

The choice of the musical was to overcome the difficulty of selecting Western material that the North Korean audience would find acceptable. On paper, as one side of a cultural exchange, it makes sense. In the hands of Laibach, a band known for the low growl of Milan Fras’ vocals and martial rhythms, it sounds bonkers. In fact, it is brilliantly subversive.

The Sound of Music is one of the best known and loved musicals of all time. The film version, starring Julie Andrews, is one of the most viewed films globally. For Laibach to tackle the material makes sense on a number of grounds: they are more theatrical than “rock,” even if they make albums and appear with guitars and drums; the U-rated material invites repurposing just as readily as images from Christianity or Western political traditions; and the universal reach of the 1965 film means that the songs will be familiar wherever they go.

In fact, a careful balance is achieved between corruption and conformity: the performance is largely faithful to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s songs, while the use of propaganda graphics and Fras’ distinctive voice mine at the foundations of standard expectations. Idealisation of states, they seem to say, isn’t much different than idealisation of states of mind.

Photo: Marija Buljeta / AltVenger

The most significant change to the material is a tweak to ask, “How do you solve a problem like Korea?” Fras hasn’t changed his typical head-dress; but, in the context of this performance, it takes on the resemblance of a nun’s veil.

The band are joined for this performance by Boris Benko and Marina Mårtensson, who both performed on the album version of the show. They add striking vocals that contrast with and complement Fras’ own.

After the intermission (this is theatre and not a standard “rock” show, remember), the band returns to play a number of songs from the back catalogue. Mårtensson leads them onto the stage for a belting version of “Sympathy for the Devil,” her hair seemingly expanding as the song goes on.

There are some songs from their early days, which make good sense in the confines of a theatre. You can’t dance to them, but you would have fun trying.

The show comes to an end with some material from the Iron Sky movies, completing the conceptual arc from a film about music to music from films. Fras exchanges his head-gear for a cowboy hat, which he tips to hoots and hollers from the audience: for certain, subverting music genres is one of their favourite things.

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Born to Stun: Cosey Makes Waves with TUTTI

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Cosey Fanni Tutti started life with an ordinary name, was raised in an ordinary town, and had an ordinary (which is to say, dysfunctional) family life. By the time Christine Newby left her parents’ home in Hull, she was ready to recreate herself as a very special artist.

In 2017, Hull was named City of Culture, and Tutti was invited to present a film about her time in the COUM art collective. They had obviously overcome some of the anxiety the city felt when Tutti and her collaborators, including Mr Genesis P-Orridge, staged their direct actions in its streets and squats in the 1970s.

Truth is, they had probably breathed a sigh of relief when COUM’s main actors relocated to London and started the pioneering industrial band, Throbbing Gristle. Tutti’s involvement in these projects became a source of pride rather belatedly and only after TG had become a ghost. With several decades of work in Chris & Cosey and Carter Tutti behind her, Hull could invite Tutti to stage new music with assured safety for the sensibilities (if not the hearing) of the middle classes.

Tutti’s staging of Harmonic Coumaction, her autobiographical film, featured the music that is presented on TUTTI. It was then developed as part of an installation at Cabinet gallery in London before being refined into its current form.

The album features eight tracks in a range of styles. The title track opens with plaintive sounds from Cosey’s cornet before a thundering bass line comes in, reminding us of the electro-industrial performance by Carter Tutti Void at the Mute Short Circuit Festival.

That’s the first taste of the dancefloor-oriented sound that Cosey pioneered with partner Chris Carter. The rest of side one combines complex beats with samples (“Drone”), dirty techno (“Moe”), and reverb-saturated modulars (“Sophic Ripple”).

In a tale of two halves – reminiscent, perhaps, of the running order on the Leer and Rental classic, The Bridge – side two is more atmospheric. On “Split,” modulars follow the vagaries of their envelopes and filters with a rumble dark enough to put a chill into the most Zen of Underground workers. “Heliy” makes some use of Tutti’s breathy vocals but avoids a traditional song structure. “En,” which is the Swedish word for “one,” swirls with cinematic, brooding intensity, before “Orenda” dissolves into a close as pacific as a Bering Sea ice-breaker.

Unlike Tutti’s first solo album, Time to Tell, which featured a spoken word recounting of her experiences as a sex worker and art terrorist, TUTTI does not confront a specific target. TUTTI is another embodiment of Tutti’s motto that her life is her art and her art is her life – at an age when many are looking forward to retirement, it is both a summation of her evolution and a platform for further action.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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