PRESS
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Ego:Echo | Review
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TimeOut New York | Issue No. 276 | Jordan N. MamoneSimply put, Ego:Echo is an out-of-nowhere, art-rock masterpiece.Simply put, Ego:Echo is an out-of-nowhere, art-rock masterpiece. The French trio Ulan Bator has expertly assembled tempestuous guitar clang, mood-enhancing loop/keyboard exploration and oddly played yet sensual pop flourishes into a magnificent, natural whole that dramatically pulses with vivid ideas and gnashing severity. Undulating drones give way to soothing, breathy vocals, which dissolve in acidic tone clusters and hard, sternly stated rhythms—often within a single, shockingly cohesive track. This immaculately performed album jars when you least expect it, then anesthetizes with low-key beauty once you've grown accustomed to the full-on assault. Ulan Bator's enthusiasm, dapper hooks and nimble racket fully counter the asexual, antiseptic cool that too often plagues the rock avant-garde. There is nothing bloodless, self-conscious or distant about this demanding—but never unmelodic—music. Each song is a richly arranged suite of transformations: When the paranoid, sinister nerve-punk of "Santa Lucia" finally explodes, it reorganizes itself into a minimalist flutter of mellow bass figures, wispy drum vapors and abrupt stabs of electric sunshine. A one-note, lengthy mantra of fuzz tones and guttural incantations eventually overpower the continental, soft-funk glide of "Soeur Violence." Elsewhere,......
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ULAN BATOR EGO:ECHO (YOUNG GOD RECORDS) REVIEW
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MEAN MAGAZINE | Dave Cliffordwhere pop music lilts, Ulan Bator soars; where it finds respite, Ulan Bator scratches, carves and gnaws.French culture has a way of imposing a certain sado-masochistic, reverent disdain for upon its art – particularly music. For the French, it’s not enough to love pop music: One must love it with a co-dependent disgust of a couple on the verge of murder-suicide. French avant-rock abusers, Ulan Bator, clearly love the pop-music tradition in the same way – because its first release on an American label is like tracing the trio’s finger-shaped bruises all over the throat of classic Brel, Bacharach, Morricone, Spector, Beatles, Krautrock and early Pink Floyd. However, where pop music lilts, Ulan Bator soars; where it finds respite, Ulan Bator scratches, carves and gnaws. Produced by the master of musical attrition, Michael Gira (Angels of Light/Swans), Ego:Echo merges elements of psychedelia, chamber pop and droning folk. “Santa Lucia†nabs Sonic Youth’s bent-guitar approach to detuned pop, but further mangles it with jagged jabs of ringing bar-chords and sinister bass lines creeping beneath the dissonance. Elsewhere, a fuzzed-out, mechanistic bass line, fanged Wurlitzer organ chords and a barely audible chorus of men’s voices announce the marching......
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Windsor for the Derby | Difference and Repetition - Review
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MOJO MAGAZINE | Andrew CardeenThere's no reason to overlook the third lp from texas post-rockers windsor for the derby. "difference and repetition" is their first for ex-swans leader michael gira's young god label and continues on the gentle trajectory of their earlier work with a soothing mix of repeated phrases, hushed whispers, and organic ambience. think eno, tortoise, and late '60's pink floyd."...
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Flux Information Sciences | Private/Public | Review
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The Chicago Reader | Monica Kendrick...like a letter from the golden age of industrial music...I always open packages from Young God Records with great enthusiasm, because I really do beleive that founder Michael Gira knows some things that must people don't. His latest release, Flux Information Sciences' Private/Public, is like a letter from the golden age of industrial music, which, in my opinion, was before Al Jourgensen stopped singing with a fake british accent -back when ugly frequencies really were dangerous and hearing everything that's fatal and destructive about modern culture getting thrown into the Cuisinart was still exciting. Gira's press release claims that when these 19 clanking, thumping, spine-shuddering tracks were recorded mostly live in the studio, 50 of the band's friends and fans were standing around naked and blindfolded, "like lawn furniture made of flesh." There is a community out there -and always has been- where the creative process is wild like that, inverted and subverted like that, fun and twisted and sexy like that, its undercurrents of rage and frustration aknowledged in the work. Flux Information Sciences' jerky klang-musik may be retro, in that it's reminiscent of the post punk ferocity of classic Neubauten or the New......
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Ulan Bator | Ego:Echo | Review
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San Francisco Weekly | Dave CliffordListening to the trio's first American release (and fourth overall) is like tracing its finger-shaped bruises across the throat of pop history.For the French, it's not enough to love music; one must embrace it with the codependent disgust of a couple verging on a murder/suicide. The French avant-rock group Ulan Bator clearly loves the pop tradition in this way. Listening to the trio's first American release (and fourth overall) is like tracing its finger-shaped bruises across the throat of pop history. Produced by Michael Gira, master of musical abrasion for Swans and Angels of Light, Ego: Echo merges elements of Pink Floyd's early psychedelia, Jacques Dutronc's snide lounge-pop, and Nick Drake's droning folk. The nine-minute epic "Hemisphere" opens the album with a murmuring bass line and a trickling of piano, building to minor crescendos with ringing cymbals and violently strummed guitar, then slowing to a chanted lyric about repetition by vocalist/guitarist Amaury Cambuzat. On "Santa Lucia," the band nabs Sonic Youth's angular guitar approach and further mangles it by placing jagged guitar jabs and sinister bass rhythms beneath the dissonance. Elsewhere, "Etoile Astre" features a fuzzed-out bass line, fanged Wurlitzer organ, and another repetitive vocal......