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Smooth
Sailing
andrew liles, from the uk,
is an experimental sound artist with a pretty diverse output. i'm
only familiar with a few of his releases, but they ranged from sound
art, to ambient soundscapes, drone, experimental electronics and
the occasional foray into noisier directions. some good points of
reference, as far as his ambient and drone works are concerned,
would be andrew chalk and vidna obmana, two artists he's also happened
to work with.
kenji siratori is a
japanese cyberpunk author who's had a hell of an outpouring of non-paper
releases last year. this is mostly because he pimped himself out
by "writing to as many industrial, ambient, ebm and goth bands
he could find, including "reviews" of them in his idiosyncratic
style, and asking to collaborate. (this) scattergun approach proved
successful, despite his reviews of non-sequitirs and non-sensical
cyberspeak being interchangeable" [discogs.com]. after all
was said and done he'd put out fifteen total albums, including three
that are on net labels and are availiable to download for free at
smell the stench and dystonia. the bulk of them have been in the
form of collaborations, most notably with gx jupitter-larsen (the
haters), torturing nurse and henrik nordvargr björkk (hh9,
folkstorm, mz.412, et al.). i would be surprised if that last one
is anything short of amazing. i...must...stop...buying...things...
black paper opens up with barometer ii, a beautifully haunting piano
piece by liles, which siratori soon begins speaking over. his words
are all spoken in japanese. emphasis on spoken. this could be poetry
or god knows what, but it sounds great. he's got this gruff sounding
voice that immediately made me think of splinter's voice from the
teenage mutant ninja turtles movies. i love it. there's some great
layering of his vocals near the end, too.
vtr is one of the least musical (most experimental) cuts on here.
there's a whole mess of noises, electronic bleeps and textures from
andrew, and kenji's vocals are affected, in parts, and panned all
over. it easily has the most overall stuff going on at once, but
it works well, due partly to how andrew progresses it. if that was
the album's exercise in maximalism (i think i just made that word
up), the title piece is its most rhythmic. half of this piece features
with some very catchy xylophone (i'm guessing) playing, the rest
focuses on kenji's vocals, manipulated the most here. one of my
favorite parts is where its just him with no music, and there's
also his sped up vocals shooting back and forth between the speakers.
jaguar is black paper's absolute highlight. over liles' sparse backdrop
there's a vocal track in the left speaker, a different one in the
right, a repetitious one in the center and then another, different
track in the center. it's completely hypnotic, wonderful and memorable.
then when that piano comes in towards the end, jaguar achieves total
brilliance. it all strikes me as being rather noir, while maintaining
an underlying sense of beauty. the next two tracks mainly feature
andrew doing some nice, slightly stark, experimental electronic
work. the closer, barometer iii is vocal less and revises the pianos
from barometer ii, but adds some terrific electronic noises over
it.
there's actually two separate collaborations by kenji siratori with
the title black paper, the other is with tardive dyskinesia. that
may cause a bit of confusion, but this one is only available from
andrew liles' website or beta-lactam ring. it's part of andrew's
12 cd set, the vortex vault, limited to only 300 copies. once those
300 are gone, that's it. no reissues. i think if you get one from
andrew it will be signed by him.
i'd also recommend his collaboration with gx. while it's not as
memorable as this one here, there's some mighty fine noise by him,
and who doesn't like mighty fine noise? after hearing all of this
from kenji i've definitely become interested in his literary work...at
the very least it should be interesting.
Vital
Weekly
...The Vortex Vault series,
a series of no less than 12 CD's of both archive and new recordings
plus the odd collaboration thrown in. On Black Paper he collaborates
with Japanese artist Kenji Siratori, who contributes spoken word
and whisperings, delivered in an urgent and dynamic fashion. As
my Japanese is poor, I have no idea what he's talking about, making
the voice sound more like an additional instrument, which perfectly
suits Liles' collage-like style of music. Black Paper is a great
CD (though at 30 minutes a bit brief), which made me want to listen
to the second Liles CD in this series even more.
RE:GEN Magazine
Andrew Liles' new series of CDs, The Vortex Vault, is as ambitious
and eclectic as the composer himself, including everything from
archival releases to new collaborations spread out over 12 CDs.
The first part is a collaboration with Kenji Siratori, the prolific
and avant-garde author who's recently risen to prominence in the
industrial scene by working with everyone from Portion Control to
Nordvargr. On Black Paper, the first impression you get from Siratori
is one of intensity; whether or not you understand Japanese, his
growled speech on opening track "Barometer II" sounds
angry and threatening. "VTR" is less emotional but no
less unsettling; like Siratori's writing, it's cold and mechanical,
with Liles' sampled mechanical sounds making things even more jarring.
"Jaguar," on the other hand, is almost tranquil in places,
with Liles building soft atmospheres by looping and layering Siratori's
monologues and smoothing them over with judicious sustain effects.
Perhaps the most intriguing piece, though, is the title track. A
bit like Einstürzende Neubauten's quieter "floor pieces,"
it builds a gentle rhythm from clattering metal, with melodic accents
provided by what sounds like a xylophone. Though its sound sources—including
Siratori's muttered monologue, which pans back and forth across
the stereo channels—its use of at least some structure makes
the arrangements all the more uncanny. Between Liles' own sonic
eccentricities and the fact that few English-speaking listeners
speak Japanese, Black Paper is by definition of interest only to
a select few, but for fans of the avant-garde it appears that The
Vortex Vault is off to a good start.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor
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
Vital Weekly
Black Hole has Liles all on his own. Much more contemplative by
nature, this 14 track CD is less outspoken than Black Paper. The
40+ minutes of Liles-material, full of loops, found sounds and strange
effects, will surely please his ever-growing army of fans. In fact,
interest so far in the Andrew Liles' Vortex Vault series has been
so high, that BLRR has made it possible to buy the whole set in
one go at a reduced price. Highly recommended!
RE:GEN Magazine
Part Two of The Vortex Vault series of random and archival tracks
from experimental composer Andrew Liles, Black Hole features a little
bit of everything. For fans of ambient and drone music, "An
Uneventful Afternoon" is a gentle drift on warm analog tones,
and "Humiliated" is a strange but enjoyable bit of '70s-style
space rock synths. "Midnight Gardener" is quite interesting
too; its core consists of distant church bells ringing through a
thickened bank of sustain, while muffled conversations playing back
and forth across the stereo channels conjure the feeling of waking
up from a winter nap to the sound of passersby talking as they pass
your window. For slightly more industrial-tinged fare, try the echoing
clanks of "Pillow Voice" or the panning buzzes and muffled
percussion of "Root Canal," which—perhaps thanks
to the Novocaine haze of the coolly droning background effects—is
far less painful than its title suggests. Alternately, "Without
Anaesthesia" is aptly sadistic, thanks to a shrieking noise
that may be metal on metal but may in fact be actual shrieking,
but not without its funky charm, thanks to a mellow tribal rhythm.
While a lot of this is playful but somewhat inaccessible, actual
melodies do make the occasional appearance as well. "Hello
Pharaoh" sets a man's voice humming absentmindedly in harmony
with a lovely wordless soprano, and "Bad Vibes Waiting Room"
pairs buzzing upright bass with tinkling vibraphone, like some coffeehouse
jazz duo filtered through post-industrial surrealism. It's a good
collection of tracks, all things considered; Liles' devoted fans
will enjoy the variety of course, but perhaps more importantly,
newcomers will get a chance to sample a variety of his unconventional
flavors in small, easily-digested chunks.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor
Classical Drone
Black Hole is perhaps the most conventional of the three, thirteen
short instrumentals. Liles doesn't use as much reverb and other
effects as many ambient artists, even on his "ambient"
pieces (such as An Uneventful Afternoon), which gives the album
a more human touch, not as many machines taking the various musician
roles. Often there is a simple melody line, repeated over and over,
with other instruments or noises in the background. Bad Vibes Waiting
Room, for example, uses something like a bass guitar to play a simple
two-bar melody, with occasional melodic and textural variations
throughout. He combines this melody with vibes and some very spare
noises. Three minutes and it's over, without wearing itself out
or spinning out to something new. This pattern affords considerable
variety, whether he uses loops from old records (Hello Pharoah),
melodramatic soap-opera gestures on electric organ (Sequential Dreaming)
or even sequencers that wouldn't be out of place on a Klaus Schulze
album (Humiliated). The tunes range from soft drones (An Unspoken
Narrative Regarding Institutional Abuse) all the way to a semi-African
jungle rhythm (Without Anaesthesia). Because each piece is so short,
the album almost seems like a sketch book, which is of course the
theme of the Vortex Vault as a whole.
RE:GEN MAGAZINE
For its centerpiece, Part Three of Andrew Liles' collection of rarities
features two extended experiments in ambient music and found sound.
The first, "All Things Bright and Beautiful and Corrosive,"
is as bleak as its title suggests, and as varied. Starting off with
quiet ambient drones, creaks, and occasional tapping sounds, it
also features slowly echoing gongs and washed out crashes of cymbals.
For its second movement, soft chimes slip into the mix, adding a
sort of creepy music box vibe vaguely reminiscent of Coil's early
work, and the emphasis on random and unexpected sound effects calls
to mind Nurse With Wound. "George the Chemist" is less
eclectic, but perhaps also less unsettling, with softly ringing
tones evoking the subtle loneliness of Tor Lundvall or Raison D'etre.
It's the scattering of short pieces on Black Beauty though, that
prove to be most compelling. Each a quick experiment in melody,
they run the gamut from beatnik weirdness on the rain stick-soaked
jazz wails of "Dead Roses" to the Tim Burton chiming of
"Tender Box." Each is long enough to present a thought,
but short enough to leave you wanting more; the eerie dulcimers
of "A Numbers Game" in particular would make a good basis
for a longer piece. "The Artless Shaman," on the other
hand, is perfect just the way it is; any more of its mellow tribal
beats and puzzled, puzzling growls, and the fun would be ruined.
And Black Beauty is, most importantly, a fun CD; it has its dark
places, but Liles' passion for extravagantly weird music comes through
even in its bleakest moments.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor
Classical Drone
Things take a decidedly weird turn on the third volume, Black Beauty.
For one, although there are still a couple of short tracks that
would have fit nicely on Black Hole, there are two much longer tracks,
each clocking in at sixteen minutes. In addition, some of the music
is considerably more abstract here. The opening track, Dead Roses,
is a wispy electroacoustic piece, with a couple of instrumental
reference points with some percussion and a few trumpet licks, but
which otherwise would fit comfortably with some of the more subdued
work of the French-Canadian acousmaticists on the Empreintes Digitales
label. On the longer tracks, he has time to show how his drones
and melodies transform themselves into each other over time. For
example, on All Things Bright and Beautiful and Corrosive, percussion
scrapings and boomings with extended resonance mingle with garbled
and otherwise treated vocal sounds, finally joining with a melodic
loop played on a gamelan. The other long track, George the Chemist,
uses slow loops combined with more constant and ominous drones,
with a loop played on flute and percussion floating in the middle.
BRAINWASHED
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Sunday, 01 April 2007
The latest installment to
spill from Andrew Liles' ambitious and generous Vortex Vault series
casts Liles as the ringleader of a black magic vaudeville act. Theatrical
and playfully whimsical, this multilingual, dialogue-laden album
is a striking release that shifts modes effortlessly, revealing
new finds from Liles' unlimited bag of tricks at every turn. The
human voice, both speaking and singing, forms an integral part of
this album. The unpredictable way it's interspersed with music and
the different languages that appear and vanish gives the impression
that there’s some bizarre stage performance in progress, even
if I'm at a loss to explain what it's about. The vocals range from
the spoken word to the operatic, and the effect is jarring only
when it’s intentional.
Musically, there are plenty of fascinating objects to behold in
this cabinet of curiosities. "Bengali Bergman" has dirge-like
strings and a beguiling Eastern accompaniment. Hand drums make up
a large part of "Quicksand Mudslide" as some feline entity
patrols the border. This piece is interrupted by startling electrical
zaps as if some modern alchemical wizard is channeling the secret
energy of the universe. It‘s one of the most arresting moments
on the disc. Also surprising, albeit in a different sense altogether,
is the song "God Doesn’t Fuck About," a percussive
jazz funk so convincing that I momentarily forgot what album I was
listening to until the airplane rush of an ending reminded me.
Although a few recurring titles appear sporadically throughout the
album, they are not simply multiple versions of the same song. Instead,
they are different enough from each other to suggest they are somehow
parts of a related story or theme, even though the instrumentation
and mood are often dissimilar. Yet it's a tactic that works in the
service of the unexpected.
The breadth of this album and its beautiful presentation really
make it an impressive package. Even the devilishly genial hand-puppet
shadow grinning on the cover reflects the fun to be found within.
Liles and Beta-lactam Ring are raising the bar ever higher with
this series, and they both deserve a lot of credit for making these
incredible recordings available.
VITAL WEEKLY
This is the fourth release in a total of 12 CDs in the Black Series
by Liles, current member of Nurse With Wound and general magic man.
Like the previous CDs in this series, Liles uses more and more vocals
in his music, which complement his music wonderfully. On this disc
famous actor/singer Ernesto Tomasini (who also appeared on Crowded
Skies on the BBC television) adds narration and sings. There is
even narration in Urdu (by Dr. Malik). Starting off with the thumbpiano
of To Maim A Donkey we are sucked into the surrealist world of Liles,
where things are never quite what they seem. Strange samples and
dark sounds creep in and out
and are laced with a unique sense of humur (as in A Hippo Took An
Apricot). Before you know it, you're humming along to The cod-James
Bond theme And God Doesn't Fuck About, before you realize it's just
a little off-beat (and definitely off-set!). The best issue of the
Black Series so far, this CD is highly recommended. (FK)
RE:GEN MAGAZINE
Part Four in The Vortex Vault series ongoing series of rarities
and collaborative works, Black Widow sees Andrew Liles bringing
in a couple of guest vocalists: Urdu professor Dr. Malik and Italian
cult performer Ernesto Tomasini. An eclectic mixture of Urdu, Italian,
and English draws the album together in a loose thematic arrangement,
while Liles' arrangements and studio work ensure an ongoing sense
of eclecticism. Instrument choices range from primitive to classical;
"To Maim a Donkey, Part I" starts things off with a bit
of thumb piano, but just as you prepare yourselves for an exploration
of African themes, "Bengali Bergman" takes things in a
radically different direction, merging the classical traditions
of East and West in the form of sitar and cello. Voice also plays
a prominent role; "Uncle Alf" is a mysterious little narrative
piece—like a Ligotti short story, it's somehow both innocuous
and chilling—set to gently ringing ambient tones, for example,
and "Dove I (Noodles and Cheese)" layers Italian speech
over humming vibraphone. Only one selection, "To Maim a Donkey,
Part III," is built around actual singing in the conventional
sense. It's a sort of operatic nugget about... well, maiming a donkey.
Conceptually, it should be offensive to opera fans and donkeys alike,
but in practice, it's ridiculous enough that only the most humorless
and ardent supporters of either could possibly take umbrage. Lyrics
aside, Tomasini's vocal range on the piece is uncanny; he sings
both the English and Italian parts, in tenor and falsetto, respectively,
and sounds for all the world like two separate people. Dr. Malik's
contributions, on the other hand, are dry and rather mumbling, but
this too is surprisingly effective in places; "Dove II (Hoodle
on a Plinth)" is particularly gorgeous. With nothing more than
quiet speech and understated pianos, it achieves a subtle loveliness
that recalls Current 93's Soft Black Stars crossed with a Punjabi
graduate school seminar. At first listen, there's not a lot holding
these tracks together, but Tomasini's campy performance and Malik's
businesslike narration manage to pull things together in an unlikely
cohesion. In any case, it provides further fuel for thought to Liles'
already eccentric output and makes a welcome addition to The Vortex
Vault.
Part Six of The Vortex Vault
sticks mostly to classically-inspired ambient, but it wouldn't be
an Andrew Liles album without a surprise or two. The sixth entry
in The Vortex Vault, Andrew Liles' collection of random pieces and
outtakes, Black Sea sticks mainly to dark, minimalist soundscapes
drawing on various classical traditions. "Anhedonia" opens
things with an extensive creepy meditation, starting off with the
cold reverberations of mournful choir singing, but then moves into
a surrealist spoken-word piece, with a man teaching a child to memorize
by repetition such evocative yet bizarre phrases as "These
are not angels, these are hovering flies" and "We are
alone with Walnut Mary." It's at once nonsensical and completely
chilling. "Olisbos (Introduced Instruments into the Belly of
Another)" and "Padavona (The Long Running Dispute Over
the D.O.B. of R.J.D.)" are each instrumental snippets barely
longer than their titles, the first built around the scraping gypsy
violin of Annie Kerr and the second centering on a moody piano phrase.
Finishing things up is the title piece, presented in three parts
in descending order. "Black Sea, Part III (A Return to the
Bottom of the Ocean)" is dark ambient, crafted of studio-manipulated
choir pads, their attack and decay lengthened extensively and drenched
in sustain. With its tidal washes of soft fuzz, it's like a less
ghostly take on Salt Marie Celeste by Nurse With Wound, with whom
Liles is a frequent collaborator and live performer. "Black
Sea, Part II (Danny Buoy)" is more dissonant and industrial,
with lots of slow rumbles and metal scrapes, though it eventually
adds piano and a reprise of Kerr's violins. Then, is if to call
the quiet avant-garde classical of the rest of the album into question,
"Black Sea, Part I (Semen, Salt, Sweat, Blood, Semen)"
bursts forth from waves breaking softly upon a sandy beach into
a noisy grind of instrumental garage rock, overloaded and overdriven.
It's more like a Black Sabbath outtake than anything else on Black
Sea, but it's also a fine example of what makes Liles such an intriguing
noise artist. You can't ever rely on what he's done in the past
as a predictor of what he might do in the future. That would be
a curse if he was playing pop music, but it's a blessing for fans
of the weird.
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.
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.
Brainwashed
Andrew Liles shuts the door on the Vortex Vault with this final
installment which includes contributions from Steven Stapleton,
R.K. Faulhaber, and Matt Waldron. It's an atypical entry in the
series and one of the most intriguing if only be cause of its spectacular
finale.
Stapleton is listed as contributing to the first track, "Ohm,"
but it's unclear exactly what he does. The atmospherics the song
delves into toward the end sound more like his style than does the
voice that repeats the title as if i n a mantra devoid of mysticism.
It's a somewhat disappointing track given the personnel. More amusing
is "As On a Dung Hill," in which R.K. Faulhaber lists
se lf-deprecating traits such as "I am filthy/I am riddled
with lice/Dogs, when they look at me, vomit/My skin is encrusted
with the scabs and scales of leprosy an d covered with yellowish
puss." Its playful organ and drums make it one of the more
accessible pieces from the entire series and one of its most humorous.
Matt Waldron's vocals and distorted guitar provide the backbone
for "Kojack Witho ut the Hat," but the song is a little
too repetitive without much of a payoff, and its novelty wears off
after repeated listens.
While those three songs aren't without their charms, the real jewel
is the nearly 40-minute "Kay-Loong-Meu-Tuk," which sprawls
haphazardly in continuously cross-fading 8- to 34-second increments
over 95 tracks, cycling through a variety of musical styles in the
process. Parenthetically subtitled "(The Beginning of the End
of the End of the Beginning of the End)," some sections hint
at elements that may have been culled from previous Vault material.
Yet it's no retread either. Other than the ending passage lifted
from the recurring "Anhedonia," I can't pinpoint any specific
tracks that may have been used, only general i mpressions. Either
way, this song is wholly its own with high-tension drones, rattling
machinery, rushing water, sparkling pianos, and a harrowing choir,
among many other elements, that make it such a bizarre cinematic
treat.
As an ending to the album and the Vortex Vault itself, this track
may not be an echoing boom, but the haunting impression it leaves
is no less subtle. It has been a fantastic run, and this sweeping
epic seals the Vault shut unforgettably.
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Monday, 10 March 2008
Classical Drone
The last volume, Black End, goes even further off the deep end.
Liles shows his penchant for black metal (a "black" phrase
that somehow didn't get used for a title in the series) in the track
As On a Dung Hill, a truly morbid poetry reading by R. K. Faulhaber
recalling the lyrics of the more obsessed black metal artists. Liles
has expressed a love of metal in interviews, and we also get some
deranged surf guitar (played by irr. app (ext.)'s Matt Waldron)
of Kojack Without The Hat. Most bizarre is the last item on the
disc, a thirty-nine minute excursion entitled Kay-Loong-Meu-Tuk
(The Begining of the End of the End of the Begining of the End)
[sic], which is divided into 95 tracks ranging in length from …
well, it's hard to say. For the two shortest tracks, iTunes reports
the time as "not available" and reports the two longest
tracks at more than 15 hours. There's some serious f***ery going
on in the CD's table of contents. Also notable is that Black End
is the only Vortex Vault CD that is not available at emusic, Amazon,
and iTunes. The piece itself is quite lovely, moving through watery
field recordings, drones, a minor-key melody looped on the cello
that segues into Auld Lang Syne on bagpipes, sampled choirs and
orchestras, power tools, all combined in a fitting epic to close
the suite.
What comes across through the three Vortex Vault albums that I've
heard is a dissatisfaction with any individual genres, but a healthy
curiosity and exploration, a refusal to get pinned down in any single
area of music. I come away from this set with the highest admiration
for Liles, and I look forward to hearing more of his music in the
future.
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