Patrick Sisson - Writer, Journalist, Cultural Documentarian, Music Lover

PATRICK SISSON

Top 50 Albums of 2009

Feature
Pitchfork
December 18, 2009
Link

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18. Atlas Sound
Logos
[Kranky]

While it has plenty of watery drips and washed-out backdrops, Bradford Cox’s Atlas Sound project can also be very blunt. Like his work with Deerhunter, he places gothic horror side-by-side with gorgeous guitar riffs and sonic textures, a disarming combination. But Logos makes it a point to get dark. Guilt and suffering are commonplace; it’s suffocating to enter the album’s lyrical landscape of cold lights, grey dawns, and regrets. The simple line “my halo burned a hole in the sky” is stigmatizing.

Logos is another turn at making pop music wrapped in sonic gauze, yet all the wounds remain exposed. Just look at its cover; Cox’s own frail, caved-in chest contrasts with a face obscured in a blinding light. But the aura and the album are also revealing and redemptive. “Shelia” spins an elderly couple’s burial into something poppy and romantic. Saints aren’t born saints, Laetitia Sadier implies in “Quick Canal”, later cooing that “wisdom is learned.” Perhaps it’s all about moving toward change. As the refrain says on “Walkabout”, the album’s propulsive and sunny highlight, “Forget the things you’ve left behind/ Through looking back you may go blind.” –Patrick Sisson

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9. Fever Ray
Fever Ray
[Mute/Rabid]

When the first singles for the Knife singer Karin Dreijer Andersson’s Fever Ray dropped, it was clear that her solo project was inscrutable, even by the standards of someone who considers Venetian plague masks a cornerstone of her wardrobe. The first impression is that atmosphere trumps narrative; bass notes, simple rhythms, and stark synth chords creep like a rolling fog while a cast of pitch-shifted voices emerge from dark corners of the woods or darker recesses of the mind. But Andersson’s use of chilling childhood imagery and warped lyrics, filled with morphing perspectives that cultivate curiosity and raise questions that may never be answered, make it addictive. Who knew dishwasher tablets could be so unsettling?

What’s made Andersson’s work even better is how her videos and performances amplify the music’s sense of dread and mystery. Does the dirty rave dancer on a diving board know she’s being watched (“When I Grow Up”)? Why is the Miss Havisham figure in a silver dress cavorting with farm animals (“Seven”)? Are they the same person? It’s deliberate, theatrical smoke and mirrors, constant reinvention, and a David Lynch-like veneer of unseen danger that invite audience reinterpretation. The more material this unique artist releases, the less any of it makes sense. –Patrick Sisson

Read the complete list here.

The Top 100 Tracks of 2009

Article
Pitchfork
December 14, 2009
Link

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91. HEALTH
“Die Slow”
[Lovepump United]

It’s fitting that HEALTH’s most melodic song to date manages to rip and rend something sweet from a grind. It’s a hook that could have been fashioned from sheet metal, but adorned with wiry guitar and Jacob Duzsik’s airy vocals, the cycling, jagged loop gains velocity and feels visceral yet restrained. These Smell alums obviously know how to move a sweaty, packed room; listen for the double bass-hit and the chugging, heavy riffs that make a brief appearance 10 seconds in, a paean to house parties past. What makes “Die Slow” stand out is that it’s some of the best evidence yet that, after a dance remix record and road tip with Trent Reznor, these guys know how to play to a much larger room. –Patrick Sisson

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18. The Big Pink
“Dominos”
[4AD]
Big Pink’s “Dominos” rolls big and boisterous, as carefree and brash as the commitment-averse dude at the song’s center. And when we’re talking about a blur of sexual conquests and quick flings (as the LP’s title says: a brief history of love, indeed), what’s to learn, or more accurately, what do you want to learn? Though some of the lyrics belie grief and bitterness, the massive hooks, slabs of crunchy synths, waves of big beat build-up, and blind optimism of the music encapsulate the rush of a long chain of encounters, one bumping into the next. That you don’t see the end of the line quickly rushing toward you doesn’t matter. Connecting the duo’s influences– noise, shoegaze, and booming pop– can be instructive. But when obsession over a song can be boiled down to big, dumb, and fun, why bother? –Patrick Sisson

See the whole list here.

Torture Team: A Place to Bury Strangers on Homemade Electronics and Dangerous Distortion

Feature
EQ Magazine
December 2009
Link

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Oliver Ackermann’s mixing advice— “It’s all about listening and figuring out what sounds good”—might sound funny coming from a vocalist/guitarist known for working at such a punishing volume. That’s not just hyperbole. When Ackermann and his A Place to Bury Strangers bandmates Jay Space (drums) and Jono Mofo (bass) went to get the single “To Fix the Gash in Your Head”/”Ocean” pressed at a mastering plant last year, the red noise levels on the tape caused the plant’s equipment to malfunction.

The group’s sophomore album Exploding Head [Mute] doesn’t ease off the accelerator, rampaging through 10 speaker-shattering songs that experiment with guitar tones and distortion like Pollock playing with paint. Recording with engineer Andy Smith (David Bowie, Paul Simon) at the band’s Death by Audio studio space in Brooklyn—a former warehouse, which doubles as a venue and base for Ackermann’s custom effects pedal business— allowed them to work without the fear of what could have been numerous noise complaints.

“We actually built the whole second floor,” Ackermann says. “It was rough for morale to live in sawdust for two months, but it worked. I like being in a space where you don’t have to be afraid to saw a table in half if you want to turn it into something else.”

Playing through a bank of custom Death by Audio guitar pedals with names like Full Range Sonic Assault and Total Sonic Annihilation, Ackermann is the unlikeliest candidate to strum a graceful, quiet chord. But while it appears he’s aiming for overdrive, he actually seeks a tight interplay between the instruments and effects. “When you go for that loud guitar sound, it’s all about how it fits in with other instruments,” he says.
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Jahdan Blakkamoore: Buzzrock Warrior

Review
Pitchfork
November 30
Link
6.8

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Jahdan Blakkamoore’s solo debut begins with familiar sounds: a coy flute melody, a clapping cadence, and then the sub-aqueous bass notes of Baby Kite and Nokea’s “Reef”, the slow burner that kicks off DJ /rupture’s Uproot mix. The track– co-produced here by Rupture and Matt Shadetek and rechristened “Get Hustlin”– is a shot across the bow from the Guyana-born Brooklyn MC. That opening selection might be broadcasting intentions, suggesting this heavyweight hybrid is another the-music-world-is-flat spin on bass culture.

Buzzrock Warrior doesn’t reach that plateau, but it does due diligence, rattling with digital bass and opening the floor to showcase the headliner’s vocal talents. Co-produced by Rupture and Shadetek with a roster of collaborators, the music here drives but doesn’t dislodge the bassbin, mostly settling on sleek, polyglot rhythms, some of which have been floating around for months. “Go Round Payola”, a Shadetek joint that originally came out last year, is a restless bit of fizzy, 8-bit energy. “Let’s Go”, by cumbia artist Chancha Via Circuito (Pedro Canale), rides jazzy cymbals and bass in a tight but shuffling rhythm. “Earthshaking”, a dirty shuffle produced by Brazilian Maga Bo, drops plodding low end over the sound of sizzling electricity, and Modeselektor’s “Dem a Idiot” fuses strings and depth-charge beats into a midtempo burner. Buzzrock is positveily laid-back compared to something like the Bug’s London Zoo.

Blakkamoore’s delivery gets plenty of room to flex, pointing to a promising talent who can bridge margins and is at home with dancehall-style riffs, dub-friendly pronouncements, and sweet harmonies, vital in a free-flowing exchange of global rhythms. He doesn’t fully rise to the occasion, however, delivering a dexterous but not truly memorable performance that favors delivery over content. Blakkamoore bounces between loose and languid duets (“Rise Again”), duels with gruff MCs and soulful material such as “Come With Me”, where he recounts his immigration experience– staying with family as his parents worked and saved for his trip, his first snow storm, and middle-of-the-night quizzes so his story would be straight for U.S. customs officials. But his voice occasionally gets saccharine. Fired-up lover’s ode “She Said”, with pace-setting bass riffs, burns out, and the slack groove of “The General” is tweaked too far with Auto-Tune. On “Get Hustlin”, he smoothly lays down rote and unremarkable lyrics, and “Mesmerized”, a muddle of world-in-peril lyrics, is redeemed by Blakkamoore’s alternately sweet and gruff wordplay while trading off lines with grime MC Durrty Goodz.

Combining too many flavors can often dull the final results, and while this album is far from bland, it also lacks a compelling identity or strong message. A decent set of global grooves isn’t bad, but Brooklyn internationalist Blakkamoore sounds poised to achieve more.

Gift Guide 2009

Article
Pitchfork
November 25, 2009
Link

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Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and Its Legacy
Edited by Nikolaos Kotsopoulos; Black Dog publishing

This thick tome might as well be called the field guide to krautrock (“notice the long, unkempt hair and colorful plumage on Gerd”). The original genre tag in part represented the condescension directed toward this vibrant strain of German music. This book– a Taschen-like wealth of photos, cover art, timelines, and bios, including specific producer write-ups– treats the kosmische artists as visionaries. Introductory essays demarcate and dissect the cultural landscape, especially Michel Faber’s grounded examination of the unpopularity of krautrock in Germany, and the completist set of profiles and images showcase the personalities behind the scene. As Steve Krakow writes in a brief contribution, “the Germans picked up the freak-flag torch, and took it further out.”

Freedom, Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83
Compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker

The design fetish for Blue Note’s cool urbanity often obscures the color and personality of art from more obscure corners of the jazz world. Within the free jazz milieu chronicled in Freedom, Rhythm & Sound, freedom wasn’t a pose. Personal ideologies and collective organization, as well as economic realities, helped turn the scene into an incubator for independent labels commissioning vibrant, striking cover art. Broadcaster and fervid collector Gilles Peterson and Soul Jazz label boss Stuart Baker assembled a gallery of African-American jazz albums– European and Asian artists and labels are largely out of sight– beginning with Sun Ra’s pioneering Afro-futurist sketches and Egyptology and branching out into Emory Douglas-like collages and striking black-and-white photography. Some lack polish, but like the uncompromising music they represent, all the covers broadcast a sense of bold, brazen ideology.

[Read the complete gift guide for more suggestions]

Interview: Kode9

Interview
Pitchfork
November 23, 2009
Link

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A lecturer in music culture at the University of East London, Scottish producer, DJ, and theorist Steve Goodman is anything but an ivory tower intellectual. How many of your professors have spun at Fabric? Under the name Kode9, he has immersed himself in the subject he writes about and discusses. His work as a producer and DJ and founder of Hyperdub, the enigmatic label that’s released seminal work by artists like Burial and Joker, has made him an avid participant in and catalyst for bass-driven electronic music in the UK.

His forthcoming book, Sonic Warfare, examines how sound systems are deployed in wars of mood, sensation and vibration. By analyzing the politics of sound and especially frequency while weaving together insights about Afro-Futurism, military sonic warfare, and the viral spread of music and musical culture, Goodman has laid out a philosophical analysis that links together bassbins and sound bombs. Before the release of the Hyperdub five-year anniversary compilation this month and his book, set to come out in November via MIT Press, Pitchfork emailed with Goodman about Hyperdub, the state of constant hype and the use of unsound.

Pitchfork: You’ve spoken about going to shows in Edinburgh in the early 1990s and hearing jungle, and how that was a transformational experience for you. When you think back to those nights, does the experience of hearing the music, the vibrations and the frequencies and such, match up with many of the theories you discuss in Sonic Warfare?
Kode9: Actually, those clubs I went to in Edinburgh the early 90s that were really influential on me were Chocolate City, a rare groove and 1970s funk club, and Pure, a hardcore techno club. Both were at a place called the Venue. I had only heard early jungle on mixtapes, pirate radio, and compilation tapes I picked up from 1993-94 onwards, before I used to travel down to London for the Metalheadz Sunday Session at the Blue Note in 1995. All of those experiences were just sonically really intense and really exciting and inspirational. Much of the book was formulated in bass bins since then.

Pitchfork: How did that initial passion grow beyond DJing and producing into philosophy and theory, or were those concurrent developments? Was the initial journalistic bent of the Hyperdub site a big part of that shift?
K9: They were concurrent. The book came from a synthesis of theoretical work I had been doing on information warfare in the second half of the 1990s, and the ideas behind Hyperdub when it was a webzine.
Read more…

Night Life: Photographer Michael Abramson captured the magic of 1970s South Side Chicago

Article
Wax Poetics
Issue #38
Link

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A camera can be an annoyance or it can mean access. For Chicago photographer Michael Abramson, his 35mm Leica M3 was his way to penetrate the curtain of clubland and document a world both public and private.

“Nightlife is eternal,” says Abramson. “It went on 100 years ago, and it’ll go on 100 years from now. We’re not talking about palatial nightlife. We’re talking about the little conversations, people trying to have a good time, trying to score. I’m sure it’s happening now.”

His camera and curiosity helped propel him into South Side Chicago nightclubs in the mid-‘70s. Functioning as part participant and part documentarian, he created a striking body of black-and-white images collected in the new book Light: On the South Side. A cache of fleeting moments and forgotten nightclubs, Abramson’s work is the flipside of self-serious documentation. The people, from patrons to bartenders, are the focus, not the performers. Exuding sharpness, rich skin tones, grain and detail, the photography is lush, aided by the occasional use of extra lights. Subjects look back from the page, inviting readers to concoct the story of that evening’s events. The photos don’t just frame a scene from a culturally distant time. They heighten the electricity, small triumphs and hidden glamour of life after dark.
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Pylon: Chomp More

Music Review
Pitchfork
November 10, 2009
Link
7.7

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“Life is nothing but death and taxes/ And all the trees that get the axes,” Pylon singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay dryly coos on “K”, against a backdrop of prickly guitar tones and a taut bass line. “I’m tired of moving my jaw,” she also sneers, in case you didn’t pick up on her disinterest. The morose opening track on Chomp More reinforces the standard notion that the R.E.M. contemporaries were Athens, Georgia’s version of Gang of Four. But this reissue, another DFA-sanctioned dip into the band’s brief back catalog, highlights the unhinged spin the band put on post-punk, a joyous take on mechanized funk.

Recorded in 1982 after Pylon had already taken a U.S. road trip with Leeds’ most famous Marxist rock collective, Chomp sounds more assured and more open. Packaged in a record sleeve with a die-cut “bite” on the edge and filled with stripped-down dance rhythms and proto-indie guitar riffs, it telegraphs bigger ambitions than 1980’s Gyrate. Hay’s attitude and vocals, the flipside of the bright camp coming from her contemporaries in the B-52’s, swings from dry observations to passionate fury, further broadcasting the group’s desire to evolve. She’s slick yet airy on “Yo-Yo”, a taut take on a relationship’s heavy emotional swings, while she growls on the bright New Wave of “No Clocks”, a passionate song about the honeymoon period. “Crazy” finds her slowly becoming unhinged, escalating into possessed, shriek-laden crescendo. R.E.M.’s jangly cover, which appeared on Dead Letter Office, wisely dials back, since Stipe’s vocals lack Hay’s fury and sharp edge.

The creative guitar playing of the late Randy Bewley, who passed away earlier this year, highlights the stylistic crossroads the group never steered away from. Bewley pivoted a bit towards college rock riffs on Chomp, with the wry, surf-like playing on instrumental “Italian Movie Theme” and the crisp, cold runs on “Crazy” and “Gyrate”. But his wiry, pointillistic style, like the flinty tones that open “Beep”, dominate and helped drive Pylon’s dance floor rhythms. His scratched, staccato notes on “Yo-Yo” were a perfect counterpoint to the oozing bass of Michael Lachowski.

The expanded section of Chomp More — which includes three alternate mixes and “Four Minutes”, an echo-laden, slow-motion collage of samples and sounds — is mostly surplus reels of studio experimentation, intriguing considering the group disbanded shortly after album’s release. The 7″ mix of “Crazy” is more breezy and less interesting than the album cut, but the pitch-shifted vocals and faint echoes found on “Yo-Yo (Male Version)” suggest a faint dub feel, and the reworked “Gyrate” churns together sound effects, a vortex of rhythms that collapses on itself. It’s unlikely there will be additional Pylon releases in the future (the band had hinted at new recordings prior to Bewley’s death). In addition to getting more work from this pioneering band into wider circulation, Chomp More points to the upward trajectory they achieved after only a few years. Coming years after the post-punk revival strip mined the genre’s signifiers, this album still manages to sound unique.

Champagne and Plastic: Phoenix Mixes Experimentation, Perfectionism, and Distractions to Produce Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Feature
EQ Magazine
June 2009
Link

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Somber French poets and friendly prostitutes sound like fitting inspirations for a raucous, balls-out rock album. While these characters were part of the neighborhood color near the studio where chic French foursome Phoenix—comprised of Thomas Mars, Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, and Deck D’Arcy—recorded the bulk of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [Loyaute/Glassnote], their album wasn’t the by-product of wicked indulgence, especially on the inflated rock-and-roll scale of indecent behavior.

A glittering slab of well-crafted electronic pop, the band’s follow-up to 2006’s It’s Never Been Like That is a result of the group’s perfectionist tendencies (they recorded over 14 hours of music in total), a long recording process, and an attempt to be more abstract. According to guitarist Brancowitz, the group even listened to a soundtrack of modern classical and ambient music to cleanse their auditory palette, and they used Eno’s famous Oblique Strategies cards to get through creative roadblocks.

“As a creator, you’re always frustrated by your limits,” he says. “You want to find strategies to go further. I actually learned Morse code at one point, and I tried to type words rhythmically to see what kind of patterns they would create.”

After a search for inspiration that took them to New York and back, the group asked friend Philippe Zdar to co-produce Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, camping out in his studio in Paris’ Montmartre district for nearly a year and a half. Designed in the early ’80s by audio guru Tom Hidley—a famed engineer and studio designer— Zdar’s studio was an ideal place for the band to challenge its creative process. Half of French house duo Cassius, the producer owns a cache of vintage gear, giving the group plenty of equipment to work with, and his helpful approach kept them focused.

“I think Phoenix has very good taste,” Zdar says. “The band members are great producers, and they just needed someone to guide them and keep them on track. It’s like directing Marlon Brando. I don’t think Brando needed help—he just needed a little guidance.”
Read more…

Self-Directed Shoegaze: Maps’ James Chapman Takes a DIY Approach for Gauzy, Dancefloor-Ready Pop

Feature
EQ Magazine
November 2009
Link

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“Chameleon,” from the Maps album Turning the Mind, begins with flittering synths and syrupy layers of Roland Juno-G melodies, a common feature of James Chapman’s airy, escapist music. But the words sung by Chapman—those of Marsha M. Linehan, a professor and proponent of a cognitive therapy system called Mindfulness— are about embracing, not ignoring reality. The album’s title came from a book about the practice, which helped him cope with a “spot of trouble with certain mental states.”

That self-reliant slant could be a metaphor for the Northhampton producer’s current style, which takes his well-regarded bedroom-production aesthetic and adds a layer of polish. While his previous work earned comparisons to Spiritualized and My Bloody Valentine, as well as a Mercury Music Prize nomination (for debut We Can Create), he’s lately stepped away from shoegazer bands and more toward techno, blending ribbons of synthesizers (and no guitars) with driving rhythms.

“To be honest, I lost touch with the whole band thing,” he says. “I wanted to make an upbeat album, though some of it is quite dark. This album is more to the point where the first one was more abstract, especially lyrically.”

Tim Holmes, half of the ever-shifting Death in Vegas duo and a producer for acts like the Chemical Brothers, was an important collaborator on Turning the Mind [Mute], helping to streamline Chapman’s original bedroom demos with old analog gear in his Contino Rooms studio. Chapman isn’t one for unnecessary gear or self-aggrandizement; when he works at home in Northampton, he uses a Yamaha SU10 sampler and records his work to a Yamaha AW16G 16-track hard-disk recorder, as he has for most of his career. He freely admits he loves his Elektron Machinedrum SPS-1 drum machine because the operators on the helpline were quite useful and professional.

“I have an OCD way of doing things, and I’m not going to change,” he says. “If you get into music, start with something like a microKorg and just find your own path. Don’t be worried if it’s not what everyone else is doing.”
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