Kanellos - Destroy music // NMMREM XXII

I have been curious about Kanellos since I spotted the track Assassins in the sky in Fuck your speakers vol. 2 music collection. It is among the best material on those 2 cd's I listened and reviewed.

Sure enough, I finally bumped to a Kanellos release. Destroy Music is his fourth release, making switch to a new ground, Sirona-Records when the previous releases by Kanellos have been released on Dramacore and Glitch City. Both labels which I can recommend as they have some truly great stuff in their catalogues.

Like so often I did not know what to expect from the release. And sure enough, peculiarities lied in await for me. I had to double and triple check the genre of the release to figure out what exactly I am listening. One of the main genres is supposedly Hip Hop but I have never heard Hip Hop like this. Especially as it is completely instrumental. Is this some sort of Ambient Hip Hop? That cannot be a genre.

Second track In a breath sounds like its recorded in an echoing hall with something between you and the sound taking away the "top" of it. It is for sure a peculiar feeling and switch of the sound after the intro Gouvernementalité. When Gouvernementalité has an epic lead melody and something to grab on In a Breath fittingly seems to blow by you with harmonies that float around and just manage to avoid contact.

Lie in Wait a short spacey ambient piece leads to the main goodness of the EP. Calmingly ominous All Broken has a tasty beat and atmosphere to spare. Infectious, lovely dirty overpeaking. Groovy Yanqui follows and doesn't notch down the quality. It takes some of those spacey ambients introduced in Lie in Wait and places them in a sandwich with an organic beat, and munchy, almost sexy bass riff. These two tracks, especially All Broken sound like Kanellos could be a great pair with the underground rap group SDSA; and their suicidal hiphop lyrics.

Like the end of All Broken also Yanqui transforms towards ambience and flows into a distortion space-hymn which is naturally followed by more of cosmos in the title track Destroy Music. It is a very FluiD (pun intended) transformation and indeed, does remind me of the album Envisioning Abstraction: the Duality of FluiD.

More surprises; space-hymns flow on to the final track No One Left, which supplies distant guitar and piano melodies (?) and suddenly a catchy rhythm. With all the different sounds Destroy Music equips, it proves that good old craftmanship is not dead, and leaves a lasting impression.

"The passion for destruction is a creative passion" - Mikhail Bakunin

8+/10

Free download: http://archive.org/details/Siro584Kanellos-DestroyMusic

Yacht - See Mystery Lights // NMMREM XXI

Spelled "Yacht" but pronounced "Throatwobbler mangrove"

This blog is really based on free download releases. But since lots of people are in the false impression that free download releases are shitty, and major record label releases are better. Exception confirms the rule. This time as a review there is an actual cd-release (ooh!). An album that I randomly bought from Norway in 2011. 

The album in question is Yacht, a duo from Portland, Oregon and their 3rd full length See Mystery Lights released in 2009. I bought it cause it was cheap, but also the artwork was nicely minimalistic. Only later noted that it actually reflects light when looking at a right angle forming bigger and smaller triangles! Extremely cool.

I really had some hopes of this album after digesting the cover arts. Yacht also has a huge amount of listens in Last.fm (3,5 Million) and all of the tracks of the album in question have over 50 listens last week. But Yacht's See Mystery Lights is a mostly an annoying release. First time I lasted only 2 songs before the reek of trendy indie hipsters became overwhelming. Some 5 more times I urged myself to last the whole album because at least, it is varied and experimental enough to keep me well awake at work.

Album kicks off with a fine build up and a cool odd guitar melody, but unfortunately it proves to be the best melody of the album. The first song Ring the Bell does transform and could go to places but semi-annoying vocals and a stupid chorus keep it on the ground. I hope you go to hell. 

Next track The Afterlife introduces the female vocals. I do not digest them; at all. In fact the vocals ruin the ok sounding backgrounds. The singer sounds like a cheap bootleg version of Finnish-American singer Vuk; but fails. 

The third track I'm in love with a ripper puts in a steady and cool beat, effing up the second most promising track start. Only to become fucking annoying at 18 second mark with the terrible shout background effect. While I approve experimentations with vocal samples more than anyone, this is just not a beat/sample combo that anyone should put on repeat. Sounds like humour music but its not funny. It sounds very juvenile. But hey, the kids may dig it...

The album does have more cool ideas and odd breaks, but even more ideas that have a reek of indie hipster pseudo-intelligent oddness in them. Also very annoying vocal melodies and god-idiotic lyrics. For example Psychic City which does not really seem to go anywhere. It is really a shame cause the lyrics sound interesting for a few verses. Then it goes idiotic. Have you ever heard a humming melody "aai-aai-ai-aa" so without emotion and colour? No I am wrong it has colour. It is SHIT-BROWN, one of the most annoying vocal melodies I've ever heard.

I've spotted multiple comments of this being a "fun" release. What exactly is the fun of this. Tracks are not dancable, their lyrics are at best average, and usually sub-par + cheesy. The funnest song is probably Summer Song which cannot have been made seriously. The track has a sense of irony in it, as it is probably the darkest track on the release. The lyrics urge: "move your feet to the summer song" and it is absolutely not-danceable. The band makes sure of it by dullifying the rhythm when it seems to become danceable. I'm not sure if its intentional but it is pretty funny.

The only decent showing of the female vocals come in the minimalistic and short version of Psychic City, where she sounds actually good in a noir-bluesy way. Probably cause in this track she is actually forced to sing in her own voice and not trying to sound cool amidst compositions that should not exist.

Third of the three tracks that don't make me want to tear out my hair is the combo track It's Boring/You Can Live Anywhere You Want. And it really is repetitive and quite boring, but it at least has a post punk vibe and decent vocals. It might be a homage to old Killing joke, which usually is pretty damn boring. But a lot better than Yacht, thank god.

The sounds are actually solid and lots of random odd and stupid ideas are thrown into songs. You can hear that a lot of creative effort has been put on See Mystery Lights. But overall; I really don't get the point. If I wanted to dance, this record would make me sit down. If I want to listen music I prefer not to get fucking annoyed by it. To summarize i'll quote Yacht's song We Have All We've Ever Wanted: 

"I don't know so I ignore you". 
"Protect yourself from digital decay".

1/10