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Smooth Sailing
andrew liles, from the uk, is an
experimental sound artist with a pretty diverse output. i'm only familiar
with a few of his releases, but they ranged from sound art, to ambient
soundscapes, drone, experimental electronics and the occasional foray
into noisier directions. some good points of reference, as far as his
ambient and drone works are concerned, would be andrew chalk and vidna
obmana, two artists he's also happened to work with.
kenji siratori is a japanese
cyberpunk author who's had a hell of an outpouring of non-paper releases
last year. this is mostly because he pimped himself out by "writing
to as many industrial, ambient, ebm and goth bands he could find, including
"reviews" of them in his idiosyncratic style, and asking to
collaborate. (this) scattergun approach proved successful, despite his
reviews of non-sequitirs and non-sensical cyberspeak being interchangeable"
[discogs.com]. after all was said and done he'd put out fifteen total
albums, including three that are on net labels and are availiable to download
for free at smell the stench and dystonia. the bulk of them have been
in the form of collaborations, most notably with gx jupitter-larsen (the
haters), torturing nurse and henrik nordvargr björkk (hh9, folkstorm,
mz.412, et al.). i would be surprised if that last one is anything short
of amazing. i...must...stop...buying...things...
black paper opens up with barometer ii, a beautifully haunting piano piece
by liles, which siratori soon begins speaking over. his words are all
spoken in japanese. emphasis on spoken. this could be poetry or god knows
what, but it sounds great. he's got this gruff sounding voice that immediately
made me think of splinter's voice from the teenage mutant ninja turtles
movies. i love it. there's some great layering of his vocals near the
end, too.
vtr is one of the least musical (most experimental) cuts on here. there's
a whole mess of noises, electronic bleeps and textures from andrew, and
kenji's vocals are affected, in parts, and panned all over. it easily
has the most overall stuff going on at once, but it works well, due partly
to how andrew progresses it. if that was the album's exercise in maximalism
(i think i just made that word up), the title piece is its most rhythmic.
half of this piece features with some very catchy xylophone (i'm guessing)
playing, the rest focuses on kenji's vocals, manipulated the most here.
one of my favorite parts is where its just him with no music, and there's
also his sped up vocals shooting back and forth between the speakers.
jaguar is black paper's absolute highlight. over liles' sparse backdrop
there's a vocal track in the left speaker, a different one in the right,
a repetitious one in the center and then another, different track in the
center. it's completely hypnotic, wonderful and memorable. then when that
piano comes in towards the end, jaguar achieves total brilliance. it all
strikes me as being rather noir, while maintaining an underlying sense
of beauty. the next two tracks mainly feature andrew doing some nice,
slightly stark, experimental electronic work. the closer, barometer iii
is vocal less and revises the pianos from barometer ii, but adds some
terrific electronic noises over it.
there's actually two separate collaborations by kenji siratori with the
title black paper, the other is with tardive dyskinesia. that may cause
a bit of confusion, but this one is only available from andrew liles'
website or beta-lactam ring. it's part of andrew's 12 cd set, the vortex
vault, limited to only 300 copies. once those 300 are gone, that's it.
no reissues. i think if you get one from andrew it will be signed by him.
i'd also recommend his collaboration with gx. while it's not as memorable
as this one here, there's some mighty fine noise by him, and who doesn't
like mighty fine noise? after hearing all of this from kenji i've definitely
become interested in his literary work...at the very least it should be
interesting.
Vital
Weekly
...The Vortex Vault series, a series
of no less than 12 CD's of both archive and new recordings plus the odd
collaboration thrown in. On Black Paper he collaborates with Japanese
artist Kenji Siratori, who contributes spoken word and whisperings, delivered
in an urgent and dynamic fashion. As my Japanese is poor, I have no idea
what he's talking about, making the voice sound more like an additional
instrument, which perfectly suits Liles' collage-like style of music.
Black Paper is a great CD (though at 30 minutes a bit brief), which made
me want to listen to the second Liles CD in this series even more.
RE:GEN Magazine
Andrew Liles' new series of CDs, The Vortex Vault, is as ambitious and
eclectic as the composer himself, including everything from archival releases
to new collaborations spread out over 12 CDs. The first part is a collaboration
with Kenji Siratori, the prolific and avant-garde author who's recently
risen to prominence in the industrial scene by working with everyone from
Portion Control to Nordvargr. On Black Paper, the first impression you
get from Siratori is one of intensity; whether or not you understand Japanese,
his growled speech on opening track "Barometer II" sounds angry
and threatening. "VTR" is less emotional but no less unsettling;
like Siratori's writing, it's cold and mechanical, with Liles' sampled
mechanical sounds making things even more jarring. "Jaguar,"
on the other hand, is almost tranquil in places, with Liles building soft
atmospheres by looping and layering Siratori's monologues and smoothing
them over with judicious sustain effects. Perhaps the most intriguing
piece, though, is the title track. A bit like Einstürzende Neubauten's
quieter "floor pieces," it builds a gentle rhythm from clattering
metal, with melodic accents provided by what sounds like a xylophone.
Though its sound sources—including Siratori's muttered monologue,
which pans back and forth across the stereo channels—its use of
at least some structure makes the arrangements all the more uncanny. Between
Liles' own sonic eccentricities and the fact that few English-speaking
listeners speak Japanese, Black Paper is by definition of interest only
to a select few, but for fans of the avant-garde it appears that The Vortex
Vault is off to a good start.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor
Bizarre Magazine
Consisting of 12 individually released CDs, this is, in part, a collection
of unreleased material from one of the UK's finest electronic experimentalists'
studio archives. A collaborator with similar sound envelope-pushers such
as Nurse With Wound and The Hafler Trio, Liles' music mixes minimalist
drones with antique instrumentation and natural noise for a sonically
surreal sound. This is dark ambience in its most eclectic form - sublime,
sinister and visually spectacular.
By Billy Chainsaw
Vital Weekly
Black Hole has Liles all on his own. Much more contemplative by nature,
this 14 track CD is less outspoken than Black Paper. The 40+ minutes of
Liles-material, full of loops, found sounds and strange effects, will
surely please his ever-growing army of fans. In fact, interest so far
in the Andrew Liles' Vortex Vault series has been so high, that BLRR has
made it possible to buy the whole set in one go at a reduced price. Highly
recommended!
RE:GEN Magazine
Part Two of The Vortex Vault series of random and archival tracks from
experimental composer Andrew Liles, Black Hole features a little bit of
everything. For fans of ambient and drone music, "An Uneventful Afternoon"
is a gentle drift on warm analog tones, and "Humiliated" is
a strange but enjoyable bit of '70s-style space rock synths. "Midnight
Gardener" is quite interesting too; its core consists of distant
church bells ringing through a thickened bank of sustain, while muffled
conversations playing back and forth across the stereo channels conjure
the feeling of waking up from a winter nap to the sound of passersby talking
as they pass your window. For slightly more industrial-tinged fare, try
the echoing clanks of "Pillow Voice" or the panning buzzes and
muffled percussion of "Root Canal," which—perhaps thanks
to the Novocaine haze of the coolly droning background effects—is
far less painful than its title suggests. Alternately, "Without Anaesthesia"
is aptly sadistic, thanks to a shrieking noise that may be metal on metal
but may in fact be actual shrieking, but not without its funky charm,
thanks to a mellow tribal rhythm. While a lot of this is playful but somewhat
inaccessible, actual melodies do make the occasional appearance as well.
"Hello Pharaoh" sets a man's voice humming absentmindedly in
harmony with a lovely wordless soprano, and "Bad Vibes Waiting Room"
pairs buzzing upright bass with tinkling vibraphone, like some coffeehouse
jazz duo filtered through post-industrial surrealism. It's a good collection
of tracks, all things considered; Liles' devoted fans will enjoy the variety
of course, but perhaps more importantly, newcomers will get a chance to
sample a variety of his unconventional flavors in small, easily-digested
chunks.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor
Classical Drone
Black Hole is perhaps the most conventional of the three, thirteen short
instrumentals. Liles doesn't use as much reverb and other effects as many
ambient artists, even on his "ambient" pieces (such as An Uneventful
Afternoon), which gives the album a more human touch, not as many machines
taking the various musician roles. Often there is a simple melody line,
repeated over and over, with other instruments or noises in the background.
Bad Vibes Waiting Room, for example, uses something like a bass guitar
to play a simple two-bar melody, with occasional melodic and textural
variations throughout. He combines this melody with vibes and some very
spare noises. Three minutes and it's over, without wearing itself out
or spinning out to something new. This pattern affords considerable variety,
whether he uses loops from old records (Hello Pharoah), melodramatic soap-opera
gestures on electric organ (Sequential Dreaming) or even sequencers that
wouldn't be out of place on a Klaus Schulze album (Humiliated). The tunes
range from soft drones (An Unspoken Narrative Regarding Institutional
Abuse) all the way to a semi-African jungle rhythm (Without Anaesthesia).
Because each piece is so short, the album almost seems like a sketch book,
which is of course the theme of the Vortex Vault as a whole.
RE:GEN MAGAZINE
For its centerpiece, Part Three of Andrew Liles' collection of rarities
features two extended experiments in ambient music and found sound. The
first, "All Things Bright and Beautiful and Corrosive," is as
bleak as its title suggests, and as varied. Starting off with quiet ambient
drones, creaks, and occasional tapping sounds, it also features slowly
echoing gongs and washed out crashes of cymbals. For its second movement,
soft chimes slip into the mix, adding a sort of creepy music box vibe
vaguely reminiscent of Coil's early work, and the emphasis on random and
unexpected sound effects calls to mind Nurse With Wound. "George
the Chemist" is less eclectic, but perhaps also less unsettling,
with softly ringing tones evoking the subtle loneliness of Tor Lundvall
or Raison D'etre. It's the scattering of short pieces on Black Beauty
though, that prove to be most compelling. Each a quick experiment in melody,
they run the gamut from beatnik weirdness on the rain stick-soaked jazz
wails of "Dead Roses" to the Tim Burton chiming of "Tender
Box." Each is long enough to present a thought, but short enough
to leave you wanting more; the eerie dulcimers of "A Numbers Game"
in particular would make a good basis for a longer piece. "The Artless
Shaman," on the other hand, is perfect just the way it is; any more
of its mellow tribal beats and puzzled, puzzling growls, and the fun would
be ruined. And Black Beauty is, most importantly, a fun CD; it has its
dark places, but Liles' passion for extravagantly weird music comes through
even in its bleakest moments.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor
Classical Drone
Things take a decidedly weird turn on the third volume, Black Beauty.
For one, although there are still a couple of short tracks that would
have fit nicely on Black Hole, there are two much longer tracks, each
clocking in at sixteen minutes. In addition, some of the music is considerably
more abstract here. The opening track, Dead Roses, is a wispy electroacoustic
piece, with a couple of instrumental reference points with some percussion
and a few trumpet licks, but which otherwise would fit comfortably with
some of the more subdued work of the French-Canadian acousmaticists on
the Empreintes Digitales label. On the longer tracks, he has time to show
how his drones and melodies transform themselves into each other over
time. For example, on All Things Bright and Beautiful and Corrosive, percussion
scrapings and boomings with extended resonance mingle with garbled and
otherwise treated vocal sounds, finally joining with a melodic loop played
on a gamelan. The other long track, George the Chemist, uses slow loops
combined with more constant and ominous drones, with a loop played on
flute and percussion floating in the middle.
BRAINWASHED
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Sunday, 01 April 2007
The latest installment to spill
from Andrew Liles' ambitious and generous Vortex Vault series casts Liles
as the ringleader of a black magic vaudeville act. Theatrical and playfully
whimsical, this multilingual, dialogue-laden album is a striking release
that shifts modes effortlessly, revealing new finds from Liles' unlimited
bag of tricks at every turn. The human voice, both speaking and singing,
forms an integral part of this album. The unpredictable way it's interspersed
with music and the different languages that appear and vanish gives the
impression that there’s some bizarre stage performance in progress,
even if I'm at a loss to explain what it's about. The vocals range from
the spoken word to the operatic, and the effect is jarring only when it’s
intentional.
Musically, there are plenty of fascinating objects to behold in this cabinet
of curiosities. "Bengali Bergman" has dirge-like strings and
a beguiling Eastern accompaniment. Hand drums make up a large part of
"Quicksand Mudslide" as some feline entity patrols the border.
This piece is interrupted by startling electrical zaps as if some modern
alchemical wizard is channeling the secret energy of the universe. It‘s
one of the most arresting moments on the disc. Also surprising, albeit
in a different sense altogether, is the song "God Doesn’t Fuck
About," a percussive jazz funk so convincing that I momentarily forgot
what album I was listening to until the airplane rush of an ending reminded
me.
Although a few recurring titles appear sporadically throughout the album,
they are not simply multiple versions of the same song. Instead, they
are different enough from each other to suggest they are somehow parts
of a related story or theme, even though the instrumentation and mood
are often dissimilar. Yet it's a tactic that works in the service of the
unexpected.
The breadth of this album and its beautiful presentation really make it
an impressive package. Even the devilishly genial hand-puppet shadow grinning
on the cover reflects the fun to be found within. Liles and Beta-lactam
Ring are raising the bar ever higher with this series, and they both deserve
a lot of credit for making these incredible recordings available.
VITAL WEEKLY
This is the fourth release in a total of 12 CDs in the Black Series by
Liles, current member of Nurse With Wound and general magic man. Like
the previous CDs in this series, Liles uses more and more vocals in his
music, which complement his music wonderfully. On this disc famous actor/singer
Ernesto Tomasini (who also appeared on Crowded Skies on the BBC television)
adds narration and sings. There is even narration in Urdu (by Dr. Malik).
Starting off with the thumbpiano of To Maim A Donkey we are sucked into
the surrealist world of Liles, where things are never quite what they
seem. Strange samples and dark sounds creep in and out
and are laced with a unique sense of humur (as in A Hippo Took An Apricot).
Before you know it, you're humming along to The cod-James Bond theme And
God Doesn't Fuck About, before you realize it's just a little off-beat
(and definitely off-set!). The best issue of the Black Series so far,
this CD is highly recommended. (FK)
RE:GEN MAGAZINE
Part Four in The Vortex Vault series ongoing series of rarities and collaborative
works, Black Widow sees Andrew Liles bringing in a couple of guest vocalists:
Urdu professor Dr. Malik and Italian cult performer Ernesto Tomasini.
An eclectic mixture of Urdu, Italian, and English draws the album together
in a loose thematic arrangement, while Liles' arrangements and studio
work ensure an ongoing sense of eclecticism. Instrument choices range
from primitive to classical; "To Maim a Donkey, Part I" starts
things off with a bit of thumb piano, but just as you prepare yourselves
for an exploration of African themes, "Bengali Bergman" takes
things in a radically different direction, merging the classical traditions
of East and West in the form of sitar and cello. Voice also plays a prominent
role; "Uncle Alf" is a mysterious little narrative piece—like
a Ligotti short story, it's somehow both innocuous and chilling—set
to gently ringing ambient tones, for example, and "Dove I (Noodles
and Cheese)" layers Italian speech over humming vibraphone. Only
one selection, "To Maim a Donkey, Part III," is built around
actual singing in the conventional sense. It's a sort of operatic nugget
about... well, maiming a donkey. Conceptually, it should be offensive
to opera fans and donkeys alike, but in practice, it's ridiculous enough
that only the most humorless and ardent supporters of either could possibly
take umbrage. Lyrics aside, Tomasini's vocal range on the piece is uncanny;
he sings both the English and Italian parts, in tenor and falsetto, respectively,
and sounds for all the world like two separate people. Dr. Malik's contributions,
on the other hand, are dry and rather mumbling, but this too is surprisingly
effective in places; "Dove II (Hoodle on a Plinth)" is particularly
gorgeous. With nothing more than quiet speech and understated pianos,
it achieves a subtle loveliness that recalls Current 93's Soft Black Stars
crossed with a Punjabi graduate school seminar. At first listen, there's
not a lot holding these tracks together, but Tomasini's campy performance
and Malik's businesslike narration manage to pull things together in an
unlikely cohesion. In any case, it provides further fuel for thought to
Liles' already eccentric output and makes a welcome addition to The Vortex
Vault.
Part Six of The Vortex Vault sticks
mostly to classically-inspired ambient, but it wouldn't be an Andrew Liles
album without a surprise or two. The sixth entry in The Vortex Vault,
Andrew Liles' collection of random pieces and outtakes, Black Sea sticks
mainly to dark, minimalist soundscapes drawing on various classical traditions.
"Anhedonia" opens things with an extensive creepy meditation,
starting off with the cold reverberations of mournful choir singing, but
then moves into a surrealist spoken-word piece, with a man teaching a
child to memorize by repetition such evocative yet bizarre phrases as
"These are not angels, these are hovering flies" and "We
are alone with Walnut Mary." It's at once nonsensical and completely
chilling. "Olisbos (Introduced Instruments into the Belly of Another)"
and "Padavona (The Long Running Dispute Over the D.O.B. of R.J.D.)"
are each instrumental snippets barely longer than their titles, the first
built around the scraping gypsy violin of Annie Kerr and the second centering
on a moody piano phrase. Finishing things up is the title piece, presented
in three parts in descending order. "Black Sea, Part III (A Return
to the Bottom of the Ocean)" is dark ambient, crafted of studio-manipulated
choir pads, their attack and decay lengthened extensively and drenched
in sustain. With its tidal washes of soft fuzz, it's like a less ghostly
take on Salt Marie Celeste by Nurse With Wound, with whom Liles is a frequent
collaborator and live performer. "Black Sea, Part II (Danny Buoy)"
is more dissonant and industrial, with lots of slow rumbles and metal
scrapes, though it eventually adds piano and a reprise of Kerr's violins.
Then, is if to call the quiet avant-garde classical of the rest of the
album into question, "Black Sea, Part I (Semen, Salt, Sweat, Blood,
Semen)" bursts forth from waves breaking softly upon a sandy beach
into a noisy grind of instrumental garage rock, overloaded and overdriven.
It's more like a Black Sabbath outtake than anything else on Black Sea,
but it's also a fine example of what makes Liles such an intriguing noise
artist. You can't ever rely on what he's done in the past as a predictor
of what he might do in the future. That would be a curse if he was playing
pop music, but it's a blessing for fans of the weird.
BRAINWASHED
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Sunday, 05 August 2007
Another bewitching album to waltz from the Vortex Vault, this one evokes
cinematic imagery if only because there is less of a focus on vocals here
and more emphasis on atmosphere. One of the best things about Liles' music
is how it sparks the imagination beyond the scope of intention, and Black
Market is no exception.
Liles' use of the sustained piano is a common thread running through many
of the entries in the Vortex Vault, and his use of it in the opener "Malcolm"
could be an invocation of the rest of the series. The piano also figures
prominently on a couple of other tracks, including "He Always Worked,
He Never Hit Me," the wistful melody of which reveals a little more
emotion than some of his other solo piano works.
"Robotic Monkey" especially made me think in cinematic terms
as it could easily be the soundtrack to a long-lost David Lynch outtake
with garbled, guttural speech underlying a mystery-laden jazz score. Equally
intriguing is "A Little Adventure After Dark," in which an appealing
rhythm made from what could be the striking of high-tension wires and
additional reverb clanks around for a while until a light keyboard melody
arrives to complement the movement and is eventually joined by horns for
the finale. I was also captivated by "Taking Bumblebee to France
for the Afternoon," a gossamer fugue that ends with the sound of
an airplane flying away, as well as "Time Waits For No Man,"
a droning instrumental with sinister undertones. Since I am both allergic
to bananas and lactose intolerant, I have to admit a fondness for the
title, "Matthew Doesn't Like Bananas In His Ice Cream." Thankfully,
the song itself is much more enjoyable than my own boring trivia as its
heavy, wavering tones are eventually relieved by a hallucinatory airy
passage. Liles ends the album on a different note altogether from which
it started with "Black Grass." Here he unleashes his krautrock
impulses in a slowly unfolding hypnotic rocker that's one of the album's
longer tracks. There are only two songs on the album with discernable
vocals, and both are effective counterpoints to the instrumentals that
populate the rest of the album. The first is "36-23-33 1/2,"
with numerical narration by Alexander Thynn, the seventh Marquess of Bath,
who also provided narration on Mother Goose's Melody. On "Anhedonia
(Part 3)," Tony Wakeford contributes world-weary vocals over the
top of Liles's sparse, brooding piano.
While there are certainly some similarities among the different entries
in the Vortex Vault series, each one has its own unique share of surprises.
One of the great qualities of these recordings is that Liles can go from
moody abstraction to playful structured material and make the transition
seem natural, if not inevitable. His juxtaposition of different styles
and the confluence of radically divergent ideas make his work vital, no
matter what form it may take.
RE:GEN MAGAZINE
Posted: Friday, November 02, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
The second half of Andrew Liles' ambitious 12-album collection of random
tracks, outtakes, and collaborations begins with this offering of short
sketches.Several of the albums in The Vortex Vault have seemed more like
actual albums than collections of rarities and discards, but Andrew Liles
kicks off the second half of the ambitious 12-disc series with a pile
of tracks that, while intriguing, don't have a lot holding them together.
"Malcolm" starts things off with deep moody piano chords, then
"Robotic Monkey" takes things in a jazzier direction with bouncing
saxophones and upright bass. "Taking Bumblebee to France for the
Afternoon" embodies its title perfectly with sunny layers of fuzzed
out brass and a soaring jet engine. Fortunately, the music on "Undiluted
Puce Diarrhoea" is less directly related to its title, consisting
of minimalist ringing tones, and the echoing cymbals and soft harps of
"Horsehair and Milk" are more pleasant than such a concoction
has any right to be. "Anhedonia (Part 3)" sees Liles reprise
a track from the previous CD in the series, this time adding Tony Wakeford
of Sol Invictus, who delivers the song's surrealist phrases ("We
are alone with Walnut Mary") in his usual dour baritone. Generally
speaking, Liles' work alternates between disturbing and playful, and Black
Market offers plenty of both, ranging from the eerie darkness of "Time
Waits for No Man" to the tinkling IDM of "The Jean Michel and
Vangelis Taboo Liaison," an inside joke for those with electronic
music obsessions if there ever was one. There's even a nod to Krautrock
on the hypnotic psychedelic guitar strums of "Black Grass."
The downside of all this variety though, is that it's really only going
to appeal to people already familiar with Liles and his work. If you're
going to journey into the depths of The Vortex Vault, this is probably
too overwhelming a place to make your first incursion.
Brainwashed
Andrew Liles shuts the door on the Vortex Vault with this final installment
which includes contributions from Steven Stapleton, R.K. Faulhaber, and
Matt Waldron. It's an atypical entry in the series and one of the most
intriguing if only be cause of its spectacular finale.
Stapleton is listed as contributing to the first track, "Ohm,"
but it's unclear exactly what he does. The atmospherics the song delves
into toward the end sound more like his style than does the voice that
repeats the title as if i n a mantra devoid of mysticism. It's a somewhat
disappointing track given the personnel. More amusing is "As On a
Dung Hill," in which R.K. Faulhaber lists se lf-deprecating traits
such as "I am filthy/I am riddled with lice/Dogs, when they look
at me, vomit/My skin is encrusted with the scabs and scales of leprosy
an d covered with yellowish puss." Its playful organ and drums make
it one of the more accessible pieces from the entire series and one of
its most humorous. Matt Waldron's vocals and distorted guitar provide
the backbone for "Kojack Witho ut the Hat," but the song is
a little too repetitive without much of a payoff, and its novelty wears
off after repeated listens.
While those three songs aren't without their charms, the real jewel is
the nearly 40-minute "Kay-Loong-Meu-Tuk," which sprawls haphazardly
in continuously cross-fading 8- to 34-second increments over 95 tracks,
cycling through a variety of musical styles in the process. Parenthetically
subtitled "(The Beginning of the End of the End of the Beginning
of the End)," some sections hint at elements that may have been culled
from previous Vault material. Yet it's no retread either. Other than the
ending passage lifted from the recurring "Anhedonia," I can't
pinpoint any specific tracks that may have been used, only general i mpressions.
Either way, this song is wholly its own with high-tension drones, rattling
machinery, rushing water, sparkling pianos, and a harrowing choir, among
many other elements, that make it such a bizarre cinematic treat.
As an ending to the album and the Vortex Vault itself, this track may
not be an echoing boom, but the haunting impression it leaves is no less
subtle. It has been a fantastic run, and this sweeping epic seals the
Vault shut unforgettably.
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Monday, 10 March 2008
Classical Drone
The last volume, Black End, goes even further off the deep end. Liles
shows his penchant for black metal (a "black" phrase that somehow
didn't get used for a title in the series) in the track As On a Dung Hill,
a truly morbid poetry reading by R. K. Faulhaber recalling the lyrics
of the more obsessed black metal artists. Liles has expressed a love of
metal in interviews, and we also get some deranged surf guitar (played
by irr. app (ext.)'s Matt Waldron) of Kojack Without The Hat. Most bizarre
is the last item on the disc, a thirty-nine minute excursion entitled
Kay-Loong-Meu-Tuk (The Begining of the End of the End of the Begining
of the End) [sic], which is divided into 95 tracks ranging in length from
… well, it's hard to say. For the two shortest tracks, iTunes reports
the time as "not available" and reports the two longest tracks
at more than 15 hours. There's some serious f***ery going on in the CD's
table of contents. Also notable is that Black End is the only Vortex Vault
CD that is not available at emusic, Amazon, and iTunes. The piece itself
is quite lovely, moving through watery field recordings, drones, a minor-key
melody looped on the cello that segues into Auld Lang Syne on bagpipes,
sampled choirs and orchestras, power tools, all combined in a fitting
epic to close the suite.
What comes across through the three Vortex Vault albums that I've heard
is a dissatisfaction with any individual genres, but a healthy curiosity
and exploration, a refusal to get pinned down in any single area of music.
I come away from this set with the highest admiration for Liles, and I
look forward to hearing more of his music in the future.
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