mono: the latest sound epidemic spreads among American hipsters

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 20, 2004

Yoshi: When I first heard the opening of mono’s “Karelia (Opus 2)” from their debut album on John Zorn’s label Tzadik, I didn’t know what to expect. Initially, the quiet, echoing guitars seemed reminiscent of “Where the Streets have No Name,” but the song takes even longer to build; as it did, it slowly dawned...

No twinkling in these Stars

By Yoshi Salaverry / November 18, 2003

I’m not in the habit of beginning reviews with references to reviews in other publications, but in this case, I must make an exception. The very reason that I took interest in this album is because of the acclaim it received from the British press (as well as the American indie media) last year. This...

Polpo follow-up is symphonic bliss

By Yoshi Salaverry / November 6, 2003

For a genre that was originally conceived by Brian Eno as a sort of aural counterpoint to furniture, ambient music has ironically blossomed into an immersive form, with greater capacity to engage the listener than all manners of in-your-face rock or electronic bands. The catch, of course, is its dependence upon an attentive listener, a...

Taylor uses vocal cameos to take tech-house in new directions

By Yoshi Salaverry / October 23, 2003

Dub Taylor’s sound is essentially formulaic, but no worse for the fact. After all, Tri Repetae++-era Autechre was absolutely formulaic, but that did nothing to detract from their appeal. Their tried and true method of beginning a song with a basic percussive structure, then gradually adding more and more melodic embellishments, gave a sense of...

Niblett’s follow-up falls flat

By Yoshi Salaverry / October 13, 2003

When an artist has a very minimal style, she can take albums following her first release in only a few directions. She can expand upon her sound, adding extra instrumentation, as Mates of State has done with its most recent album, or she can make her “sound” more or less accessible. And then there is...

The Kallikak Family: maturing through sonic invention

By Yoshi Salaverry / May 29, 2003

On May 23, 2007, Andrew Peterson claims he will experience the most important day of his life. How exactly he knows this is beyond me, but it is a typical sentiment coming from Peterson, whose musical creations often playfully distend or displace time, to both hilarious and intriguing effect. For instance, during last week’s Hyde...

Music: Voices Shortcuts

By Yoshi Salaverry / March 11, 2003

M. Ward Transfiguration of Vincent Merge Records There’s a burning question on your mind. That question is “Do I need another pastoral folk/earthy blues album?” This question, of course, presupposes that you already own some pastoral folk/earthy blues and probably like it, too. Assuming that you’re a constituent of this group, then, I suggest that...

Exploring sonic terrain

By Yoshi Salaverry / March 11, 2003

The title of the first CD of Thomas Köner’s Zyklop translates as “a sonorous landscape” or “a landscape of sound,” and he says that his artistic intent is to provide a sonic record of a space. Placed as I am in a position of evaluative authority (albeit slight), I assert that he has totally succeeded....

Of DeLoreans and lipstick

By Yoshi Salaverry / March 11, 2003

Gimme that sweet that nasty that gushy stuff. Ungh. Oh, girls, girls, girls…this one’s for you. Drew Daniel, half of West Coast cut-up team Matmos, wants you to wear copious amounts of mascara, fishnet stockings, your stiletto heels, and freak it like it’s 1986. For me, this album, which he recorded as the Soft Pink...

Anta Baka

By Yoshi Salaverry / March 11, 2003

Towards an Analysis of Video Gaming qua Social Interaction With special guest Joseph N. Liss What can juvenility and vulgarism mean on the University of Chicago campus? Culture is culture, and contemporaneity is important, and personally we find Sony and Nintendo about as useful to consumers of our time as Emile Durkheim. Therefore, we saw...

Plug me in, let me dance

By Yoshi Salaverry / March 7, 2003

For a genre that is intrinsically lively, denoting vigorous activity by its very name, dance music is notoriously lifeless. Too many producers of the stuff are comfortable to sit back with some vocalist hack and let the 808 do its thing; not enough are interested in pushing the audio envelope while making people “shake it...

Oh My… how wonderful!

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 25, 2003

Can I credit Devendra Banhart with the invention of a new musical genre? Because I really cannot imagine any points of comparison with his album, which might be best categorized (although the typical music-journalist project of classification is itself rendered useless by Oh Me Oh My…) as surreal folk. Yes, his guitar is reminiscent of...

Rubato get romantic (so to speak)

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 21, 2003

Mille Plateaux has always paired theory with practice, writing artistic manifestoes that claim intellectual allegiances with the likes of Gille Deleuze and Felix Guattari, while releasing audacious electronic music that attempts to shatter every container that tries to hold it. Just visit their Web site and you will see how seriously they take themselves. Of...

Glitch learns how to dance

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 18, 2003

“Glitch,” as a genre, or more accurately as an aesthetic, was originally called glitch because visionary artists like Oval and Pole incorporated digital errors (glitches) into their electronic compositions. While electronic music in the early 90’s was defined by artists like the Orb, who followed the sound of clubs’ chill out rooms to its inevitable...

Decapitated animals move to DVD. Why, God? Why?

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 18, 2003

If everybody in the world were to draw up a list of their favorite hobbies/interests/activities, I cannot imagine even one person listing “watching short cartoons about innocent animals being horribly mauled.” If you are unfamiliar with Happy Tree Friends, then you probably have no idea why I would even make such a ridiculous claim. I...

Shuttle 358 blasts off

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 7, 2003

When I first heard the title of Dan Abrams’s new album, his third record under the name Shuttle 358, I immediately thought of “Wildlife Analysis,” off of Boards of Canada’s seminal Music Has the Right to Children. That track was an ethereal opening to a dreamy album that utilized analog synthesizers and samplers to create...

A need for polemical professors

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 7, 2003

With the rapid erosion of conservative social norms in late 20th century America, the old adage that children should be “seen and not heard” has, in most cases, flown out the window. Now this is a shift I entirely support when looked at out of context. But this change has accompanied–I would say causally–a shift...

Anta Baka

By Yoshi Salaverry / February 4, 2003

Compilation albums can be paradise or poison. Many comps that are organized and compiled according to genre conventions end up merely as documents of a particular style rather than pleasurable albums in their own right. On the other hand, record label comps often vie for an eclecticism that reflects the variety of the artists in...

Take a ride in a haunted pram

By Yoshi Salaverry / January 24, 2003

Imagine being a baby again. Imagine lying in a stroller wiggling your helpless little limbs as a distant, inaccessible figure, hovering above you, backlit by a yellow lamp, pushes you through a dark street. Now imagine that you can hear a troupe of kids banging on their older siblings’ drums and keyboards in the distance,...

VOICES versus the ravers

By Yoshi Salaverry / August 15, 2002

Don’t try to fight it. Admit to yourself that you think inch for inch, and pound for pound, who needs IDM when there’s acid trance around? Well now. Some of us wouldn’t actually say that, and not just for fear of embarrassment. Some of us prefer the crystalline melodies of µ-ziq to the thumping back-end...

ANTA BAKA

By Yoshi Salaverry / July 18, 2002

What was sentiment before Hallmark? What was emotion before fluffy pastel bunnies cradled pink bubble letters that read “Get Well Soon”? Nobody knows. We’re in the grips of collective amnesia. “Sentimentality” has become all but synonymous with “sappiness” for a culture precariously balanced on the razor-thin line between disgust and outright apathy. Most people don’t...

Let’s kill rock ‘n’ roll

By Yoshi Salaverry / November 9, 2001

Save rock before Les Savy Fav kills it! At least that’s what Tim Harrington, lead singer of the acclaimed post-punk outfit, threatened to do when I spoke with him last Friday. As with The Strokes and Radiohead, Les Savy Fav has been given the distinction of “the band who will save rock and roll” ....