Words by Sean Victory
Sean Victory is a lifelong artist, tinkerer, and musician. His current projects are Nightmare Frontier and World Hum, having also contributed to the groups Famished Ghosts, Future Toys, and Owl & Swan.
Born Again Pagans (30th Anniversary Extended-Edition) by Coil (Infinite Fog Productions)
Properly credited not just to Coil, but to Coil VS ELpH. ELpH being the spiritual entity that would visit the band in the studio, possessing their electronics, sabotaging the group’s meticulous creative process, leaving behind phantom sequences on their analog synthesizers, digging up digital artifacts, and contributing an element of malfunction to their recordings. Credited most notably on the full length album Worship the Glitch, ELpH is again credited in recording the singles and previously unreleased material collected in this 3LP reissue by Infinite Fog Productions.
The collection starts off with the most single-ready of all the compositions, “Protection.” Sounding very much like a leftover song from the sleepless, drug-fueled marathon session of Love’s Secret Domain, “Protection” has all the acid-house underpinnings that so heavily inspired that album. However, if “Protection” is the soundtrack to the come-up of chemical ingestion, then the rest of these songs are fully the tussle and tumble of a deep trip.
Right off, “Glimpse” (and it’s refrain “Philm #1”) speaks from within the glitch. A Nocturnal Emissions-ready bit-crushed drone runs cycles in 8-bit shimmers, until a dark wing swings open, disrupting the trance, the “Crawling Spirit” drags itself up through the floor. Temporarily pinned down in this room it drags itself in circles, hunting a point of egress, howling its recursive howl. Flickering out of phase with itself, the wing swings closed, and the shimmer-spray of pixels scrambles the Spirit with what was Glimpsed. These forms now transmogrified into “Philm #1,” the familiar crunch of the drone returns, while calls and coruscations flicker between realms and realities.
As far as the sequencing of the rest of the album goes, my only complaint is the two versions of “Static Electrician”. Not only are the orchestral samples too easy to identify—their presence feels like aesthetic-interruptus—but the “Symphonic” version of the song follows too closely behind the original. Truth be told, collected works or not, I think the album would be stronger without these tracks. If it were not for them, the hallucinatory commune with ELpH would feel unbroken.
At just over two hours in length, it is a pretty serious listening commitment. While it might not qualify as must-listen Coil to many, lacking the overall cohesiveness of Worship the Glitch. However, in my time spent with the record I’ve found many new sounds and sensorium scrambling production tricks each time I’ve returned to the realm of ELpH.
Solar Nights by Juha Mäki-Patola (Moderna Records)
Carried in the core of these songs is a clear connection to the foundations of kosmiche music ala Cluster, Harmonia, and other Moebius and Roedelius concerns. Pads permeate the air, cyclical sequences bloom up from the ground, wilt and bloom again, while the rich timbre of a piano introduces a wandering human element to this forest of circuit-based vegetation.
Not quite ambient music but for the insistence of the melodies, still retaining a quality of drift, or the world-enlarging, flesh-minimizing magic of nature and humans set in proper scale to one another. There is a balance and renewal inherent in these songs. Not that humanity is dwarfed by this ecosystem—nothing so egoistic as that, but that we are a part of it, not in command of it. Escaping all the posturing of urbanity and id-riddled digital living, we find the beauty of the impermanent.
Indeed, the album itself seems to infer such a departure by way of the progression of songs. Beginning with “Voices”, following “Trails” to “Lake” and “Rain”, past “Trees” and through “The Wind” to last looks on “Shores”. Listening to the record with this idea of traversal tucked behind your ear allows the experience to unfold like a ramble along an unfamiliar path. Leaving all familiar assumptions behind, there is wonder in the world again. The earth as the only deathless being we know. Though winter may spell the end to blossoms, the flight of birds to kinder conditions, the Gaian consciousness pulls all back from the brink. The cycling and recycling of all things in infinite adjustment, facilitating an eternal return, a verdant self-regulating sealed system.
Lonely People with Power by Deafheaven (Roadrunner Records)
I must admit that I’m very grateful the heavy metal genre has released itself from narrow, homogenized aesthetics and found fresh territory when certain artists are daring enough to take the risk. Of course I like heavy music in general, but when it colors outside of the lines it makes it easier for a person writing about experimental music to fit it into their monthly column.
Deafheaven, having tried their hand at a shoegaze record with 2021’s Infinite Granite, return to a familiar form on Lonely People with Power. While Infinite Granite was good on its own merits, the band shines brightest when incorporating aetherial floating melodies alongside blast beats and raucous guitars. The dense, merciless assault of these latter elements create a sort of claustrophobia that finally relents, allowing the catharsis of sparser instrumentation and reverberant guitars to feel like a much needed breath of fresh air. It’s this push-pull dynamic relationship that defines the band at their best.
In addition to the band’s return to this approach, there are other familiar elements at play in the form of haunting interludes, field recordings, and spoken-word poetry. Aside from these commonalities, the band still manages to push their music into some under-explored territory. Most notably, on “Body Behavior” there’s some bouncy Osees style guitar work, topped off with lead singer George Clarke doing his best impression of John Dwyer’s often deployed Creep Voice. There are other departures from the usual formula, albeit a bit more subtle. The opening riff on “Revelator” wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mastodon record with guitars and drums trading blows, rhythmically interwoven in a way so rarely demonstrated by the group.
While not quite hitting the highest highs like Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, and not as unrelenting and dark as New Bermuda, Lonely People with Power still manages to capture the strengths of the group. Their desire to push out into new territory may ultimately find this record to be one of transition. We’ll have to wait to hear what that sounds like, but it will undoubtedly be as sure-footed as the rest of their body of work.
Honorable Mentions
For Translucence by Lia Kohl and Whitney Johnson (Drag City)
I had the pleasure of seeing this duo twice, here in Chicago. Once at an Art Center (read as quiet/respectful audience) and once at a bar (read as bar). There’s such subtlety, minute variations of tone and texture in their improvisations that whole sections of the performance were lost under incessant chatter and the clatter of bottles (bar). So in seeing them at the beautiful Epiphany Center for the Arts, I was able to hear the music as it is presented here on their debut collaboration for Drag City.
Though the drone of strings or a synthesizer works as the glue for all of these performances, the music lives on top of this base material. There’s a radio tuning through static, locating an opera singer before being swallowed in static again. There’s bird song, bells, maybe a passing airplane, and of course improvisations on cello and viola. The music can either fade into the background, or it can be engaged with as a self-propelled adventure in sound. Headphone or Art Center listening recommended for the most immersive experience.
Stochastic Drift by Barker (Smalltown Supersound)
Barker follows up his excellent 2019 LP Utility with a further excursion into his singular vision for electronic music. His style of music has been described as beatless techno. It’s not necessarily a genre description I fully endorse, but it’s easy to observe the why of this designation. Primarily, the movement of the music simply suggests where a big bassy kickdrum would be situated. Count 1 to 4 at the tempo of the song, and there you have those ghost drums. Since they aren’t there, however, the focal point shifts to the rich timbres, the polyrhythmic elements, the delays and reverbs adding depth and reflection as these sounds cascade and sizzle away.
For all the spatializing effects at work on Stochastic Drift, there is a remarkable level of clarity, retaining focus on the intricacies that make this music sound so rich and complex. The music is never washed out, or obscured by these additions. The motive force behind some of the best tracks conjure to mind a self-assembling automaton, where disparate pieces fly in from offscreen, interlocking in perfect compliment to one another, wires twine together, and new forms rise from these elements locking together piece by piece. It’s a complex and satisfying listen. Without being as abstract as Autechre—for example, it manages to show off the artist’s flare for deliberately crafted tones and soundscapes, without dancing away into left field.
Contrary Motion by Scanner and Nurse With Wound (self-released)
I guess I wasn’t surprised to see that these two artists were working together. In fact, I think I imagined that they collaborated already at some point in their lengthy careers, since they’re usually orbiting within similar circles. To say I expected this joint effort, isn’t to say I was able to predict the form the music would take. At moments I feel it’s easy to identify who brought what to the table. The resonant string pulsing along “Conium Maculatum” has Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) written all over it. Then there is a sort of pitch-bent synth that sounds a lot like a bird call, recurring (a lot) across multiple tracks, and that of course has to be Steven Stapleton (Nurse with Wound). Aside from these instances, these chaps have such similar aesthetic concerns that further parsing out individual contributions seems unlikely. This is a good thing. The rest of the album sounds like its own being.
Of course, the drone is a central form in these songs, the canvas on which further auditory alchemy is layered and blended. Contrary Motion mostly eschews melodic repetition and movement in favor of creating a burbling musical swamp of atmosphere. Given its resistance to form and dynamics, it’s not the most immediately accessible music. In fact, after my first listen I was certain I didn’t really care for it. Returning to it several more times, the mysterious atmospheres grow deeper, where radio signals and other voices discreetly slither in and out of the mix. It’s one of those albums that will disappear almost entirely if you were to put it on your stereo while cleaning house or cooking dinner. It becomes almost as inaccessible as someone else’s consciousness, and until you step fully into the space the music creates it will continue to be elusive. Like dreaming, it should be enjoyed while it’s happening because there’s no telling what you’ll make of the remnants when you wake up.
Mentions (not without honor, just without text)
IC-02 Bogotá by Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Jagjaguwar)
Manheim Hbf by Shit and Shine (12XU)
no floor by more eaze & Claire Rousay (Thrill Jockey)
Everything by Rzekomo (So-Called Records)
Concentrik Quartet by Nels Cline (Blue Note Records)