| □ □ | (GATE) – Iterations

Artist: | □ □ | (GATE)
Title: Iterations
Label: Fluttery, USA
Details: CD/DL. 7 tracks, 72 minutes.
Links: www.flutteryrecords.com, www.lc.dds.nl/gate

Sometimes when an act changes direction radically it’s difficult to go with them. You feel like a stuck-in-the-mud conservative, but the new sound just doesn’t work for you. This is precisely the way I feel about Iterations. I was introduced to Gate via last year’s No Exit album on Fluttery. At that time it was a solo project of  Lajos Ishibashi-Brons. While the album was pretty unforgiving, there was a lot to admire and enjoy amongst the harsh noise dished up by Lajos’s (largely) home-made instruments.

The same month that I reviewed the album, Gate became a duo with the addition of saxophonist and reed player Takahito Hayashi. And that, for me, is the underlying problem of Iterations. For most of its 72 minutes the record is subdued as Lajos’s rumblings take a back seat to Taka’s blowing. And the latter is simply uninspired, run-of-the-mill free jazz. Tempos crawl and tracks meander aimlessly past the ten minute mark without much in the way of development. Before you know it, an hour has passed and nothing of any note has happened. It’s only the final track 66x3e that provides any tension or appears to have any real direction. It wasn’t just the volume that made No Exit such a thrill, it was the way that there was always something interesting going on, even if it was buried deep down. For long periods of Iterations, though, nothing happens at all. Aimless and directionless – a real disappointment.

Adam Williams and Leonardo Rosado – Take This Longing; Landrecorder – Morning-Afternoon-Evening

Artist: Adam Williams and Leonardo Rosado
Title: Take This Longing
Label: Feedback Loop, Portugal
Details: DL. 7 tracks, 24 minutes. Free download
Links: feedbacklooplabel.blogspot.com

Artist: Landrecorder
Title: Morning-Afternoon-Evening
Label: Feedback Loop, Portugal
Details: DL. 3 tracks, 13 minutes. Free download
Links: feedbacklooplabel.blogspot.com

Here are another couple of releases from the excellent Feedback Loop label. Take This Longing is a collaboration between label founder Leonardo Rosado aka Subterminal and pianist Adam Williams. This has some parallels to the Fennesz Sakamoto records, but Williams’ piano work has a much more minimal feel to it. On A Sudden Loss Of Meaning he bypasses the keys altogether, plucking the strings like a harp. Rosado weaves his electronic magic around the gentle chords, adding a bit of glitchy chaos here, some rumbling bass droning there, and various manipulated field recordings. The end result is a set of atmospheric and dark miniatures. Highly recommended, especially the superbly desolate title track and set closer.

Landrecorder’s Morning-Afternoon-Evening consists of three tracks called, erm, Morning, Afternoon and Evening. It’s a symphony in miniature. Morning starts with an acoustic guitar mimicking the cry of a cuckoo accompanied by real birdsong and unfolds gently into bucolic bliss. Afternoon flashes by in 73 seconds of gossamer-light keyboard melody and Evening arrives in the form of some restrained piano, music box tinkling, naked acoustic guitar and the calls of songbirds in the gloaming. An utter delight from start to finish, this is about as gentle and reflective as music can get.

Our Ceasing Voice – Passenger Killed In Hit and Run

Artist: Our Ceasing Voice
Title: Passenger Killed In Hit and Run
Label: Wise Owl, USA
Details: CD/DL. 6 tracks, 41 minutes. Free DL, CD €6
Links: www.myspace.com/ourceasingvoice, www.myspace.com/wiseowlrecords

Austrian post-rock quartet Our Ceasing Voice first came to my attention at the beginning of 2009 with their debut EP Steadied Stars in the Morphium Sky. Although it erred slightly on the generic side, it was a promising enough start to keep me interested. The second release consists of one track (the title) from a forthcoming album called When the Headline Hit Home, two remixes, a remix of a track from the first EP and one from the new record plus one tune unavailable anywhere else.

For the lead track think Mono without the histrionics. There are soaring waves of guitar, and yet the feel is paradoxically chilled. This is even more pronounced on the Echelon Effect remix. The Jakesperiment mix of Of Lives Once Lost from the forthcoming LP is a winning mix of glitchtronica and pummelling guitars. All in all, it bodes well for the new full length record.

Fos – Rock

Artist: Fos
Title: Rock
Label: Near the Exit Music
Details: CD/DL. 9 tracks, 37 minutes.
Links: www.fosonline.co.uk, www.neartheexitmusic.com

It isn’t rock, that’s for sure. Fos is the recording name of Anglo-Greek musician Katerina Koutouzi who plays, sings and writes everything herself. She even painted the cover portrait. Using a sampler, all manner of percussion instruments, accordion, piano and harmonium Koutouzi has crafted a varied and charming collection of songs about the sea. Songs in the loosest sense in that around half the tracks are instrumental and others use her vocals as an instrument rather than as a conveyor of any meaningful lyrical content.

This is the aural equivalent of a beachcombing expedition with much of the percussion provided by pebbles and shells as well as an assortment of traditional drums, chimes and cymbals. There are also field recordings galore with natural history of the shoreline – gulls and other creatures – making an appearance. Musically, some tracks burble along on textured loops of keyboard while others have a very European folk feel with accordion and harmonium to the fore. Only a couple of tracks are songs as such, Koutouzi preferring to use her voice as an instrument to be manipulated electronically, but where she does sing straight, such as on the final track In Harmony, she has a pleasingly breathy voice. Rock is definitely worth anybody’s time – an unpolished little gem.

Soundpool – Mirrors In Your Eyes

Artist: Soundpool
Title: Mirrors In Your Eyes
Label: Killer Pimp, USA
Details: CD/LP. 9 tracks, 48 minutes.
Links: http://killerpimp.com, http://myspace.com/soundpool

Shoegaze / nu-gaze or whatever you want to call it is a scene that seems to exist in its own world away from the disapproving eyes of hipsters and critics. It also has a far greater profile in both mainland Europe and the US than it does in the UK and Ireland where its roots lie. Slowdive are still (unfairly) considered as a bit naff here whereas on other shores they are demigods along with My Bloody Valentine and Seefeel – the shoegaze Holy Trinity if you will.

On Mirrors In Your Eyes, NYC quintet Soundpool take the swirling layers of processed guitars, the swooning female vocals clad in clouds of echo and give them a disco makeover. There’s a history of this kind of music flirting with the dancefloor, of course, from the Weatherall remix of MBV’s Soon, through the hip-hop beats of Bowery Electric to the trancey stuff of Ulrich Schnauss. But as far as I’m aware, no one’s gone the whole disco kick with it before (someone at the back is shouting Arthur Russell, but that’s a bit different).

And disco it is. Most of the tunes have a basic four to the floor kick rhythm with funky bass. There are exceptions – I’m So Tired and That Sunny Day are more trip hop, with the latter track covered in layers and layers of guitars that make it contender for the MBV clone of the year award. All in all, Mirrors In Your Eyes is one of those odd LPs that sounds gorgeous and is totally engrossing when you play it, but doesn’t stay in the mind afterwards.

July 2010 Music Magazine Circulation Figures

Only some magazines publish a six monthly figure, the rest (who are registered with ABC that is) do it once a year. For the seven I have, the data is as follows:

Circulation for the six months ending June 2010

Classic Rock 70,323 (Dec 2009: 71,242, Jul 2009: 70,310) 12 month change +0.0%

Kerrang! 44,013 (Dec 2009: 41,125, Jul 2009: 43,253) 12 month change +1.8%

Metal Hammer 44,034 (Dec 2009: 41,777, Jul 2009: 46,004) 12 month change -4.3%

Mojo 91,678 (Dec 2009: 98,484, Jul 2009: 97,722) 12 month change -6.2%

NME 33,875 (Dec 2009: 38,846, Jul 2009: 40,984) 12 month change -17.3%

Q 89,450 (Dec 2009: 94,811, Jul 2009: 100,172) 12 month change -10.7%

Uncut 74,067 (Dec 2009: 75,518, Jul 2009: 76,526) 12 month change -3.2%

So, the metal mags are doing OK. Kerrang! has bounced back a bit after a couple of years of steep decline. Mojo and Uncut are drifting while Q continues its inexorable fall (it was selling more than 200,000 copies an issue 9 years ago)

The big story is NME. I thought the relaunch was a move in the right direction – more actual writing and a wider focus away from its indie rock staple. But the circulation figures are horrendous. They’ve halved in three years! It can only be a matter of months before IPC put it out of its misery at this rate.

The relaunch was needed. It was desperately poor before. As an outlet for music news it could never compete with the web, so more in depth pieces was the way to go. But I think that just drove away more of its low-attention span indie obsessed readers while failing to re-attract many of those who’d already given up on it. It looks like there’s no way back now and a web-only future beckons.

Record Mirror, Sounds, Melody Maker – all gone. The heyday of the music weeklies is now just a sentimental memory for those of us old enough to remember it.