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PALESTINE/COULTER/MATHOUL | Maximin
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othermusic.com | MKA brilliant place to start for the uninitiatedCharlemagne Palestine (a noted early minimal composer and conceptual artist) took a break from music for a number of years to focus on his fascinating installations. The last three or four years have seen him return to his minimal roots with a series of brilliant new releases that are varied in their execution, but fairly united in their conception. Pieces tend to range from 45 to 75 minutes in length on compact disc and deal with various aspects of the creation of the drone and its ability to seemingly alter aspects of time. "Maximin" comes as a bit of a surprise. David Coulter and Jean-Marie Mathoul have reconfigured moments from three of the previous new Palestine records with his blessing and participation. Using those records as templates, they have distilled the pieces into anywhere from two-and-a-half to 12-minute sections, then subtly added additional drones, loops, guitars, pianos, etc. One would think that this would drastically alter the intent of the music (Reich re-mixed anyone?), yet they've managed to very faithfully adhere to the spirit of the original pieces. Highlights include the reworked versions of Palestine's "Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn" in which......
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Jean Marie Mathoul | 48 Cameras
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.bio and information I Swear I Saw Garlic Growing under my Father's Steps with Rodolphe Burger (F) DJ Olive (USA) Jem Finer (UK) Michael Gira (USA) Andrey Kolomitzev (R) Chris Long (UK) Gerard Malanga (USA) Philippe Poirier (F) & Agnes Ponizil (D) INTERZONE 007 – mai 2002 Distribution BANG ! (B) &LIMONADE (Fr) I Swear I Saw Garlic Growing under my Father’s Steps is the ten year old Belgian band’s sixth album release. The band’s personnel have changed with each project. Some interesting collaborations have occurred : Eugene Savitzakaya, Gerard Malanga (Andy Warhol’s assistant at the Factory), Rodolphe Burger & Philippe Poirier (Kat Onoma), DJ Olive (We / Sonic Youth), Michael Gira (Swans / Angels of Light). This international network of artists is a musical project of variable geometry. The eclecticism of the participants has created a hard-to-define yet highly accessible mixed bag of exotic musical styles. The press has described 48 Cameras’ music as: Industrial, psychedelic neo-folk, gothic rock ( ! ), ethnic, Art Rock. Comparisons are often drawn between the work of 48 Cameras & artists as diverse as Swans, Psychic TV, Robert Wyatt, Bill Laswell, Eyeless in Gaza. In 2001, having contributed to previous 48 Cameras albums,......
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Devendra Banhart | OH ME OH MY... | Review
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pitchforkmedia.com | Dominique LeoneHe possesses a warble I won't soon forget...and if that isn't the mark of a classic balladeer I don't know what is-- except that he can paint a wild picture of slow snails, cold snow, the Charles C. Leary, and very nice people. There are probably thousands of nomadic, dark troubadours who would stumble upon some surrealist notion of wisdom if given the time and the audience, but 21-year-old Devendra Banhart draws ellipses around more than mere romantic, hard travails and etched self-portraits. In short, he isn't your everyday, everyman's folk singer, though folk aficionados would do well to weird themselves out every once in awhile with his stuff. Banhart's debut release for Michael Gira's Young God label is the work of someone presumably half-awake to conventions like "professional recordings" but fully aware of his own idiosyncrasies even as he performs without much trace of pretension or self-conscious nuance. The music on Oh Me Oh My is rarely more than an uncluttered combination of his unorthodox acoustic guitar pickings, more than a little tape hiss, and his immediately recognizable tenor. Banhart's voice might be a cross of Tim Buckley's flutter, Marc Bolan's timbre, and Tiny Tim's vibrato,......
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Devendra Banhart | OH ME OH MY... | Review
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pitchforkmedia.com | Dominique LeoneHe possesses a warble I won't soon forget...and if that isn't the mark of a classic balladeer I don't know what is-- except that he can paint a wild picture of slow snails, cold snow, the Charles C. Leary, and very nice people. There are probably thousands of nomadic, dark troubadours who would stumble upon some surrealist notion of wisdom if given the time and the audience, but 21-year-old Devendra Banhart draws ellipses around more than mere romantic, hard travails and etched self-portraits. In short, he isn't your everyday, everyman's folk singer, though folk aficionados would do well to weird themselves out every once in awhile with his stuff. Banhart's debut release for Michael Gira's Young God label is the work of someone presumably half-awake to conventions like "professional recordings" but fully aware of his own idiosyncrasies even as he performs without much trace of pretension or self-conscious nuance. The music on Oh Me Oh My is rarely more than an uncluttered combination of his unorthodox acoustic guitar pickings, more than a little tape hiss, and his immediately recognizable tenor. Banhart's voice might be a cross of Tim Buckley's flutter, Marc Bolan's timbre, and Tiny Tim's vibrato,......
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Devendra Banhart - Oh Me Oh My…
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esotericecho.com | by Jason ThompsonBrilliantly original, mesmerizing, fantastic, and all that other stuff we say when we're at a lossWhen I recently inquired to Kerstin Posch over at Young God recently if they had any grand, new interesting things to hear, I was quickly sent a package containing a couple new releases. One of them was this, Devendra Banhart's oddball assortment called Oh Me Oh My… I thought I had heard some very fascinating things during my tenure as a music critic, but seriously, nothing could have prepared me for this. This album has already been mentioned in the bigger music mags, and damn well it should be. You often see us critics tooting horns about the next groundbreaking thing. I often see us doing it and usually pay no mind. To me, a groundbreaking album or piece of music should seriously cut away from the norm and not just be some kind of fucked-together hybrid of overly familiar shit we've heard until our ears are deaf. But in Banhart's case, this album defies all sorts of labels, categorizations, and even largely music itself. It is almost like seriously being in someone else's head and hearing all the music that......