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REVIEWS
VITAL
WEEKLY
Andrew Liles may be regarded as
Infraction Records' stable artist,
since 'New York Doll' is already
his third release on the label.
This new release is entirely based
on concert recordings by Liles in
the USA, UK, Sweden, France and
the Czech Republic. These recordings
are now chopped up and re-assembled
at home. As I had the pleasure to
see at least ten of his concerts
in the USA, I know that Liles doesn't
play the same tune every night,
but rather has a few guidelines,
a few sounds, that he mixes around
when playing live. Sometimes the
emphasis is more the synthesizer/ambient
part, sometimes the taped sounds
(people talking, girls singing,
a telephone conversation) play the
leading part. Still there is a great
sense of inspiration from the likes
of Nurse With Wound, but Liles nevertheless
has a strong identity of his own.
His collage work is set against
a hybryd of drone related music,
that can suddenly change mood and
texture. It works quite intense
at times. This double CD shows that
Liles is also producer of great
concert sounds. (FdW)
DE:BUG
Oh, schon der dritte full-length
release von Liles, den ich bisher
verpaßt habe, dafür kommt
jetzt aber eine schicke, dicke 2CD
mit allerhand Sound-Abenteuern,
die es zu enträtseln gilt.
Denkt an die feuchte Musik von COH
und wie sie versuchen, statt nach
vorne zu treten, sich um die eigene
Achse drehen, um sich schließlich
im Niemandsland verlieren. Oder
denkt an die Musik des großen
Labels Die Stadt, verquert und angramatisiert,
zerbeult, mit einem Schuß
Coil und immer voll mannigfaltiger
Pracht. Schwer zu sagen, was hier
eigentlich wirklich passiert, aber
gewiß ist, dass Liles' Stimmfetzen,
seine goldenen Loops und die kristallinen
drones eine Aufmerksamkeit einfordern,
die so manch ähnliches Projekt
als Lachnummer erscheinen lassen.
Deep, very deep.
EAR
RATIONAL
I have become quite a Liles fan
in the past year, much to my happiness.
Droney tones pulled long, like salt-water
taffy, he doesn't take his music
too seriously, this is obviously
fun for him to create. And it is
fun to listen to! Think Soliliqy
for Lilith with about 1000 more
things going on to keep it interesting,
yet still as subtle and sublime
as the Nurse With Wound album. Blended
into the drones are interesting
effects, like in the track on disc
1, Foreigner(but wait, there are
3 songs called Foreigner here!),
you can hear scissors slicing back
and forth, stereo-wise. Lots of
mangled voices here, slowed down
a little, other times sounding like
they are coming out of a little
velvet box in the corner. Other
voices are in other languages, but
my favorite part is when a women's
voice just starts going off "Blah
blah blah bla blah." This 2
disc set has a porcelain doll on
the cover and 50's stylings women
on the interior. What New York Doll
means, I don't know. A wonderful
listen. I am happy to have this
one!
BRAINWASHED
The liner notes read, "This
recording is numerologically accurate
and anagrammatically active."
It's a journey from the recesses
of the human mind to the world of
words and sounds; Andrew Liles has
resurrected his love for the anagram
and created two discs of inverted
uneasiness practically bathing in
the dread and fear of every human
psyche. If a model were to look
into the mirror and see past all
the make-up and fake admiration,
he or she might see their face arranged
into something dreadful, like the
sounds Liles swoops up and twists
into shimmering strands of crawling
self-doubt. Beginning with a "Journey"
and ending it in the same (but massively
rethought) place, Liles deconstructs
an already geographic puzzle of
locations and ideas in order to
reveal the parodies inherent within
communication, thoughts, and recordings.
Voices pan, distort, and stretch
to their limits, connecting the
seemingly empty space between aural
recognition and the dead maze of
concentrated mass that floats through
the soul of the drone. New York
Doll has been around for awhile,
now, and as much as I love Liles'
work, I've been absolutely afraid
of this piece. All the loose ends
and contradictory paths lurching
beneath the electric activity of
the mind are pieced and sewn together
on this record. The entire album
reeks of a discomfort that places
my head in a discrete and incredibly
uncomfortable position, much like
viewing the whole of an enigma,
which simultaneously does and does
not make sense. I've found myself
listening to this record more out
of curiosity than out of enjoyment
and, with but the second disc excluded,
much of what Liles has done on this
full-length feels more like a puzzle
than a record. The notes on the
sleeve, the titles of the songs,
the hauntingly robotic words, and
the general ghastliness all add
up to a kind of riddle, beseeching
me to move around inside of the
album and find its bones, discover
its DNA, and finally unravel it
in a self-destructive fit. The album
pans between consistent tones, clicks,
static, and eerie atmospheres composed
of pianos, telephones, and urban
pandemonium. Never confident than
any one approach will exact the
necessity of his paranoia, Liles
fills this album up with all the
conspiracy and awkward connection
of the most damning philosophical
theories. After finishing the record
it is impossible to deny that everything
is connected by necessity, a limb
of some central organism throbbing
and decaying, pulsing through every
heartbeat and uttered word in human
and animal history. There is something
waiting in the spaces between this
album and its the most unnerving
portrait of the soul he's yet to
conceive. Even as recognizable voices
fill the stereo spectrum on the
second disc, Liles is laughing at
the opinion that it must be terrestrial,
of this world, and not some product
of the mind extracting itself from
nothing. - Lucas Schleicher
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