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REVIEWS
The
Representative of the Rubber People
Mother Goose winged it's way towards
me and landed with a honk on my
doorstep this frosty morning.
After wringing it's neck and plucking
the down off I stuck it in the
oven at 190º and sat down
to eat some Weetabix. I've got
a lot of Mr.Liles stuff and I
must admit I have enjoyed listening
to most of his releases. But on
Mother Goose our favourite Jeremy
Clarkson lookalike has totally
exceeded my expectations. This
one is definitely his most beautiful
release yet. From beginning to
end the aural journey takes the
form of a ghost train ride of
epic proportions encompassing
all the dark places a childs mind
tends to inhabit. Sounding like
a minty breathed Uncle Monty,
Lord Bath's excellently spoken
nursery rhymes add the seasoning
here. More plummy than Edward
Fox sucking a pebble. Steve Stapleton
may get the kudos for his releases
in this territory but Mr. Liles
has provided a template here from
which all of us can benefit....and
enjoy. A breath of fresh hair
on the bald pate of dada. My opinion
in a cliche would be "From the
sublime to the ridiculous..."
but that does not do Mother Goose
justice. It is the perfect soundtrack
for a mushroom trip to Brighton
Pavillion. If you listen closely
you might hear some seagulls here
too and the Weetabix never tasted
better.
"Georgie
Porgie pudding & pie...
Kissed the girls and made them
cry.
When the boys came out to play
He kissed them too, he was funny
that way."
BRAINWASHED
Written by Lucas Schleicher
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Little
doubt can be cast upon the fact
that nursery rhymes are of a rather
Grimm history. As innocent as
they may sound, the most unusual
of subjects find their way into
these couplets and tales of misguided,
punished, or otherwise confused
youth. Andrew Liles, with the
help of Lord Bath and Thighpaulsandra
collaborator Sion Orgon, has recorded
the audible equivalent of that
awkward and dark thread that plays
inside the mind of every child's
sleeping head.
Lord
Bath is, so far as I can tell,
an English essayist, painter,
poet, and intellect of aristocratic
background. His work covers everything
from Kama Sutra and religion to
speeches on the importance of
art to essays on world government,
warfare, and punishment. As such,
his willingness to work with Andrew
Liles makes a lot of sense. Both
artists exhibit a body of work
as widely varied as it is perverse
and alluring. Mother Goose's Melody...
is Liles' extension into the realm
of nursery rhymes. Using Lord
Bath's background as a poet and
speaker, Liles employs him to
perform various rhymes after which
an accompanying piece of music
plays out the details of that
rhyme. The result is a little
unsettling, exaggerating, or perhaps
highlighting, the drama and terror
that some nursery rhymes keep
hidden in their simple machinations.
Though Lord Bath and Liles may
not employ any of these rhymes
directly (such as "ashes, ashes,
we all fall down"), the line that
they draw between the words in
the poetry and the music is too
direct to ignore. Though the music
is often peaceful, Liles' now
familiar and twisted perspective
often lurks just below the sweet
melodies and synthetic dances.
No matter how appeasing the music
may seem, there's always a sixth
sense informing me that a Victorian
terror lay somewhere just below
the surface.
Liles' familiarity with the ignored
is more evident than ever on this
release. A interest in ventriloquism,
animal surgery or testing, plant
life, and prosthetics all make
their way into the song titles.
More often than not, the titles
add a dimension of strangeness
to the already odd compositions
and revel in the unusual synthesis
generated. "Cannula Tubes as Fine
as Straw" is a lovely guitar piece
that strolls lazily through a
hillside during the spring. The
name of the song and the rhyme
that accompanies it, however,
places a farmhouse in the distance
with a dark shed where animals
stand, cannula sticking out of
them in bizarre arrangements.
The trickle of water and the tearing
sounds that appear in the song
then become appalling and the
entire piece changes itself from
a meditative work into a song
about pain or perhaps a song about
a very confused maid. The possibilities
are endless as Liles has managed
to paint sounds more expertly
than ever on this release. His
compositions reflect eras, places,
ideas, and nightmares more keenly
than on any of his other releases.
Perhaps it is the topic of this
album that has made that possible;
the deeply ingrained memories
of childhood mixing with Liles'
love for the absurd, the repulsive,
and the unexplainable might be
more inspirational than any historical,
theoretical, or geographic origin
that Liles' has played with before.
This album is far more listenable
than Liles' last solo effort,
the labyrinthine New York Doll.
The music is far more akin to
the melodic and often emotional
My Long Accumulating Discontent.
Where New York Doll harnessed
its energy in the fractured essence
of its many samples and locations,
Mother Goose's Melody... finds
all the power it needs in the
atmospheres and songs Liles has
crafted. With that in mind, this
recording has deepened a split
in Liles' output. On one hand
there is the Andrew Liles that
works intimately with drone and
natural instruments. He combines
the two, uses them to recall old
places, forgotten ideas, and possibly
to reveal a disturbing underworld
of subconscious desires and bottled
up evil. On the other hand, there
is the Liles who plays with sounds
and draws them all together with
a concept laid out before hand.
New York Doll and Aural Anagram/Anal
Aura Gram fit this bill with the
bulk of their sound being drawn
from some concept, instead of
the other way around. What makes
Mother Goose's Melody... such
a solid album is that Liles has
allowed his influences to flow
both ways. That is to say, there
isn't just a concept informing
his music here, the music is also
informing the concept, perhaps
simultaneously. That not only
strengthens the album's music,
but it feeds the ideas behind
the recordings and makes them
more intimate with the material
everyone hears. It makes drawing
connections easier and more fun.
In turn, the record is more fun
to listen to and twice as effective
at convincing anybody that this
sound world is real and directly
related to the one we live in.
TOUCHING
EXTREMES
Should you try to lull your baby
to sleep by playing this record,
be ready for strange surprises
when he'll be growing up as Andrew
Liles has written a series of
warped melodies and droning songs,
mixing them with more "traditional"
narration taken from classic children
literature to hassle your aural
balance with this bunch of contrasting
elements. Backward voices, animal
sounds, morphing synthesizer waves
and guitars create a fabulous
world where nothing is like one
could expect - and even when it
is, there's always a lurking fear
of something suddenly coming out
from nowhere to change the rules
of the game, therefore destroying
every notion of comprehension
that our brain might have been
memorizing during the process.
Those who follow Colin Potter's
label will find their natural
environment here, although a little
submerged by bubbling oleaginous
waters; make no mistake about
it, this is not some sort of luxury
joke for kids, instead it is an
album whose peculiar shape and
delicious craftmanship will bewitch
you at first listen.
Massimo Ricci
QUIET NOISE
Vorliegendes Album formiert sich
aus knapp einem Dutzend lose zusammenhängender,
lebhafter Klangfragmente, welche
als Tracks von moderater Spieldauer
jeweils zu Beginn eine exzentrisch-humorvolle
narrative Einfassung oder Skizzierung
durch von Lord Bath rezitierte
nursery rhymes, die man sich vielleicht
als in Richtung Abzählreime
bastardierte Wiegenlieder vorstellen
darf, erfahren. So gesehen kreist
»Mother Goose’s Melody
…« gelassen um eine
Schubladisierung als Konzeptalbum
und überrascht als eine Art
abseitig-eklektisches Ambient-Patchwork
aus Field Recordings, Drones und
Loops, durch das sich überraschende
Soundfragmente und schüchterne
Melodien in einer angedunkelten
Atmosphäre pirschen. Andrew
Liles, unterstützt von Sion
Orgon sowie dem bereits erwähnten
Lord Bath, präsentiert sich
hier von seiner besten Seite,
indem er unter Berücksichtigung
feiner Details großartige,
fesselnde Soundscapes, Humor und
eine packende Atmosphäre
einander näher bringt. Denn
trotz einer gewissen augenscheinlichen
Divergenz oder auch, aber nicht
negativ: Zerissenheit legt die
Musik niemals diesen faszinierenden
Duft zwischen unheimlich und verdreht
ab. Und so gleicht das Hörerlebnis
einem vertagträumten Schweben
durch eine Abfolge unsicherer
Dämmerzustande, einer Klangreise
zwischen Kindheitserinnerungen,
Déjà-vu und Wegdriften,
an die man sich danach nur noch
fragmentarisch erinnern kann.
Was naturgemäß als Aufforderung
zu wiederholten Aufenthalten in
diesen großartigen Soundscapes
gelesen werden kann.
Tobias Bolt
THE WIRE
The latest project from the fabulous
Andrew Liles is dedicated to the
notion that nothing good ever
happens in a nursery rhyme, even
when enunciated with such gleeful
relish by guest narrator Alexander
Thynn, the seventh Marquess of
Bath. Scratching kittens have
to be placated, half-awake children
are left to wander around the
town at night, and we all know
about the girl with the curl in
the middle of her forehead. Aided
in a couple of places by Sion
Orgon from Thighpaulsandra’s
group, Liles takes his time over
teasing out the darker strands
to be found woven into childhood’s
brighter moments, carefully stacking
eerily sustained tones, desiccated
samples and disembodied voices
against Lord Bath’s exuberant
delivery. The results feel like
a compendium of forgotten folklore
awaiting its future.
PROGRESSIVE & PSYCHEDELIC
MUSIC
This item surely has some
classic narrative English literature
association with it, performed
and written by Lord Bath, who
has a really pleasant and effective
narrative voice. This voice-with-electronica
brought back in mind the contemporary
electronic composer Paulin’s
Oliveros and her “Beautiful
Soop”, and her recording
from 1966 based upon a text by
Lewis Caroll (-an association
I had before with Thighpaulsandra’s
2005 release-). The nursery rhyme
poetry as well might have something
of an Alice in Wonderland world
in them, as being told by Mother
Goose (who stands for a known
symbol of a mother narrating fairytales
to her children), and as being
part of a different dimension
with a surreal reflection of the
harder to understand parts from
the adult’s world, seen
from an innocent vision ; this
vision might find many experienced
communicative situations surreal
or at least incomprehensible or
odd, or just makes spontaneous
humorous reactions. The experimental
ambient music to it is really
beautiful and expresses its own
world too of reflections. I already
mentioned Thighpaulsandra in the
beginning of this review. It seemed
that Sion Orgon, from this group,
collaborated here with extra instrumentation.
Part of the instrumentation is
acoustic (double bass, guitar,
and acoustic sound mixes and loops).
Some of the voice recordings are
remixed backwards. In total this
sounds like a work of art that
listens like a book with music,
with a sometimes relatively simple
but always crafty and effective
body.
MUSIQUE
MACHINE
Brighton based Andrew Liles has
been releasing his own brand of
surreal sound collage for around
ten years now. He has released
a wide range of Cd-Rs vinyl singles
and full length albums, and Mother
Goose Melody or Sonnets for the
Cradle is his latest.
The first interesting thing to
note about this album is the presence
of the eccentric Alexander Thynn
who happens to be the 7th Marquess
of Bath. His narration of various
nursery rhymes throughout the
album add an extra element of
the bizarre to an already surreal
and curious collection.
The first track titled The Milky
way seen through the Cripples
Telescope is a minimal affair
that builds like much of Liles
material from simple tonal elements
that create an uneasy droning
miasma through which other piece
of sound fall through. There are
hints of very creepy synthesizer
melody that emerge from the fog
and have me thinking of those
70s horror movies with Peter Cushing
freaking everybody out with his
endless stare.
T here seems to be a central theme
of nursery rhymes, children’s
fantasies and other curiosities
throughout the album. Safety in
Numbers begins with singing children
and the Marquess of Bath before
entering into a crackling vinyl
montage that brings to mind that
cavernous depths of The Caretakers
ballroom nightmares. There is
something fundamentally unsettling
about hearing this sort of forgotten
old time music run through the
mill of modern technology. Voices
from the past and all that.
Gilberts Potoroo has a similar
undertow and augments the mood
with more low end drone electronics
and plucking strings. Sounds of
the netherworld with Nurse with
wound like tapings scrapings and
what sounds like a cartoon character
madly running round in circles.
One Misty Moisty Morning is a
purely tonal piece that at times
sounds like a number or organs
playing in an old abandoned church.
Slow chords and creeping melodies
that both lull the mind and unnerve
the soul.
Cannula Tubes as fine as Straw
is my stand out track from the
album. Field recordings and guitar
are the primary sound sources
and they mix to create an atmosphere
that draws you in, conjuring up
images of lonely towns in green
fields and children playing in
the sunshine. But if this sounds
all a bit idyllic be warned that
the repetitive strums and sounds
of water hint of an impending
danger and fear on the wind. Sion
Orgon of Thighpaulsandras band
pops up on the more noisy Quivering
Umbels and L314.00 (Floating),
where he sprinkles flecks of sound
from the Audiomulch sound processing
software. The final track Mechanical
Substitute for Arms is a long
droning tonal workout that leads
the listener back to the surface
after a trip through a childlike
underworld of dread and candy.
Much of what Liles does on this
record can be compared to the
work of Steven Stapleton, Irr.App.(Ext)
or others. But Liles certainly
has his own take on things. His
fascination seems to be primarily
with mood and atmosphere rather
than creating the most strange
and complex mix of sounds he can
find. As a result this album has
a direct simplicity to it that
gets into your head and is very
difficult to remove once the music
has come to an end. A deeply unnerving
record. - Duncan Simpson
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