ANDREW LILES

BLACK MARKET
Forming part of 'The Vortex Vault' a mail-order only series of 12 CDs.

TRACK LISTING
Malcolm
Robotic Monkey
Taking Bumblebee to France for the Afternoon
Time Waits for no Man
Trouble in the Barshams
Undiluted Puce Diarrhoea
X Marks the Spot
36-23-33 1/2
A Little Adventure after Dark
Anhedonia - Part 3
Beef Tub
Gawd Bless the Scum
He Always Worked - He Never Hit Me
Horsehair and Milk
Choker - Suspenders - Fishnets - Belly Chain
How to Make Snakes
The Jean Michel and Vangelis Taboo Liaison
Matthew Doesn't Like Bananas in his Ice Cream
Black Grass

Special thanks to Tony Wakeford who sings on ‘Anhedonia - Part 3’ & Alexander Thynn who narrates on ‘36-23-33 1/2’

REVIEWS

BRAINWASHED
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Sunday, 05 August 2007

Another bewitching album to waltz from the Vortex Vault, this one evokes cinematic imagery if only because there is less of a focus on vocals here and more emphasis on atmosphere. One of the best things about Liles' music is how it sparks the imagination beyond the scope of intention, and Black Market is no exception.

Liles' use of the sustained piano is a common thread running through many of the entries in the Vortex Vault, and his use of it in the opener "Malcolm" could be an invocation of the rest of the series. The piano also figures prominently on a couple of other tracks, including "He Always Worked, He Never Hit Me," the wistful melody of which reveals a little more emotion than some of his other solo piano works.

"Robotic Monkey" especially made me think in cinematic terms as it could easily be the soundtrack to a long-lost David Lynch outtake with garbled, guttural speech underlying a mystery-laden jazz score. Equally intriguing is "A Little Adventure After Dark," in which an appealing rhythm made from what could be the striking of high-tension wires and additional reverb clanks around for a while until a light keyboard melody arrives to complement the movement and is eventually joined by horns for the finale. I was also captivated by "Taking Bumblebee to France for the Afternoon," a gossamer fugue that ends with the sound of an airplane flying away, as well as "Time Waits For No Man," a droning instrumental with sinister undertones. Since I am both allergic to bananas and lactose intolerant, I have to admit a fondness for the title, "Matthew Doesn't Like Bananas In His Ice Cream." Thankfully, the song itself is much more enjoyable than my own boring trivia as its heavy, wavering tones are eventually relieved by a hallucinatory airy passage. Liles ends the album on a different note altogether from which it started with "Black Grass." Here he unleashes his krautrock impulses in a slowly unfolding hypnotic rocker that's one of the album's longer tracks.

There are only two songs on the album with discernable vocals, and both are effective counterpoints to the instrumentals that populate the rest of the album. The first is "36-23-33 1/2," with numerical narration by Alexander Thynn, the seventh Marquess of Bath, who also provided narration on Mother Goose's Melody. On "Anhedonia (Part 3)," Tony Wakeford contributes world-weary vocals over the top of Liles's sparse, brooding piano.

While there are certainly some similarities among the different entries in the Vortex Vault series, each one has its own unique share of surprises. One of the great qualities of these recordings is that Liles can go from moody abstraction to playful structured material and make the transition seem natural, if not inevitable. His juxtaposition of different styles and the confluence of radically divergent ideas make his work vital, no matter what form it may take.

BIZARRE MAGAZINE
Consisting of 12 individually released CDs, this is, in part, a collection of unreleased material from one of the UK's finest electronic experimentalists' studio archives. A collaborator with similar sound envelope-pushers such as Nurse With Wound and The Hafler Trio, Liles' music mixes minimalist drones with antique instrumentation and natural noise for a sonically surreal sound. This is dark ambience in its most eclectic form - sublime, sinister and visually spectacular.
By Billy Chainsaw

RE:GEN MAGAZINE
Posted: Friday, November 02, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson

The second half of Andrew Liles' ambitious 12-album collection of random tracks, outtakes, and collaborations begins with this offering of short sketches.Several of the albums in The Vortex Vault have seemed more like actual albums than collections of rarities and discards, but Andrew Liles kicks off the second half of the ambitious 12-disc series with a pile of tracks that, while intriguing, don't have a lot holding them together. "Malcolm" starts things off with deep moody piano chords, then "Robotic Monkey" takes things in a jazzier direction with bouncing saxophones and upright bass. "Taking Bumblebee to France for the Afternoon" embodies its title perfectly with sunny layers of fuzzed out brass and a soaring jet engine. Fortunately, the music on "Undiluted Puce Diarrhoea" is less directly related to its title, consisting of minimalist ringing tones, and the echoing cymbals and soft harps of "Horsehair and Milk" are more pleasant than such a concoction has any right to be. "Anhedonia (Part 3)" sees Liles reprise a track from the previous CD in the series, this time adding Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus, who delivers the song's surrealist phrases ("We are alone with Walnut Mary") in his usual dour baritone. Generally speaking, Liles' work alternates between disturbing and playful, and Black Market offers plenty of both, ranging from the eerie darkness of "Time Waits for No Man" to the tinkling IDM of "The Jean Michel and Vangelis Taboo Liaison," an inside joke for those with electronic music obsessions if there ever was one. There's even a nod to Krautrock on the hypnotic psychedelic guitar strums of "Black Grass." The downside of all this variety though, is that it's really only going to appeal to people already familiar with Liles and his work. If you're going to journey into the depths of The Vortex Vault, this is probably too overwhelming a place to make your first incursion.