Life Unboxed: Bryon’s 2015
This time around, looking back at the past year is interesting, to say the least. Challenges and successes were bountiful, many significant spirits — important both to me and to the cultural landscape — departed for places not of this Earth, and there seemed to be equal amounts of growth and decline exerting themselves, often in the very same places. Mindfulness and gratitude were concepts explored often in my own little circle of associates, made manifest by a special art project / calendar that I was gifted late in the year. In the musical landscape, there was much to relish in 2015. A common theme for me, one that seems to pop up every year, is that there were far too many releases that slipped through my fingers. This year, I created a list of every record I wanted to listen to, and I barely managed to scratch the surface. I realize now that this is not a bad problem to have, and it will probably be a running theme for me in the years to come.
When I collected my thoughts this time last year, I focused on a few releases that were engaging to me personally but were somehow left out of my coverage throughout the year. Whether life itself got in the way, or whether my proverbial radar was inadvertently focused elsewhere, I had meant to write something about those releases but somehow neglected to. I’d like to trod briefly down that same path for 2015, because once again I’ve collected a series of releases that affected me in the past year but managed to evade my critical gaze. This may become commonplace for me as the years fly by, which is unfortunate, but at least these year-end reflections allow me the honor of giving releases like these the attention they deserve.
Visual artist, writer and musician Félicia Atkinson records both under her own name and as Je Suis le Petit Chevalier. A Readymade Ceremony (Shelter Press) is a spoken/sung collage of her writings and found text, backed by gripping electronic rhythms, concrete noise, and evocative tone clusters. Plumbing the depths of this release is like having a whispered conversation with all the ghosts residing in the recesses of the mind, a fractured dialogue that is both harrowing and intriguing.
Equally stunning is the self-titled debut from Perils (Desire Path Recordings), the duo of Kyle Bobby Dunn & Benoît Pioulard (Thomas Meluch). Existing within the windowless spaces that link the oeuvres of these fine sonic craftsmen, these ten pieces of shimmering drone-like bliss and disarming guitar/voice workouts demonstrate the synergistic relationship of the two musicians. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also bring up what might possibly be the most accomplished Sparkling Wide Pressure album to date, the utterly transportive Clouds and Stairs (No Kings). Frank Baugh has perfected his singular brand of warbling, drone-heavy tunesmithery, carefully laying out a series of musical miniatures that induce an encroaching calm and sense of comfort. Like watching snow falling or the crackling of a lit fireplace, these songs are the essence of a content existence.
To me, it feels like 2015 was the year of the box set. There seemed to be career retrospectives jumping out at me from all directions; some of these were the products of artists and groups that I was intimately familiar with and some were completely new to me. Either way, 2015 is the year that I sussed out an enhanced visual and physical aspect to retrospective box sets that somehow seem to transcend that of traditional releases. Whether it’s the package itself, the lengthy booklets with stories and photos, or the paraphernalia that often accompanies the sonic media, this is the year that box sets raised the bar just a little higher for me. Take Leicester U.K. quartet Volcano the Bear, and their Commencing (Miasmah) set, for example. On offer are five LPs with music spanning the group’s entire career plus a 50-page book full of all the information one could ask for, arriving housed in a burgundy silk-screened box. This is the perfect vessel for the group’s surrealist, jazz-inflected avant-rock trickery. Unreleased tracks, early self-released recordings, and live tunes were collected into a package that could actually stand alongside the traditional Volcano the Bear records. Neophytes and connoisseurs alike will find this an essential artifact to behold. Similarly, Krautrock super group Harmonia saw their entire recorded output released as Complete Works (Grönland). The set collects the trio’s two official releases (Music von Harmonia and Deluxe) along with the Tracks and Traces LP that Michael Rother, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius recorded with Brian Eno. To top it off, the Live 1974 LP, that Grönland released last decade, and the material found on the freshly minted Documents 1975 cassette are included. All of this fantastic music is paired up with a 36-page booklet, a pop-up, and a poster, and it is all tied up in a neat box for our consuming pleasure.
Closer to home are a pair of box sets that focus on outfits from my former stomping grounds of Toronto. The self-titled set from Intersystems (Alga Marghen) collects the three officially released LPs originally released by the performance art collective in the late 1960s. Coming across as a sort of psychedelic CNN for the poetry set, backed by cracked electronics and found sounds, the music of Intersystems is essential for fans of the early avant garde. Featuring extensive textual pieces from founders John Mills-Cockell and Michael Hayden, alongside a piece from contemporary Toronto-based composer Nick Storring, this archival collection is highly grip-worthy for Decoder heads. I hope to elaborate further in a future New Interfaces column.
Also near and dear to my heart is the lovingly produced box from Toronto’s own free psychedelic ensemble, Transcendental Rodeo. Entitled Kanata (Cosmic Range), the set compiles a number of the happenings in which the crew — which was co-helmed by MV/EE collaborator Matthew “Doc” Dunn and Andrew Zukerman (Fleshtone Aura, ex-Gastric Female Reflex) — were involved over the years. The set features a cassette, a 7-inch, a full LP and two single-sided 12-inch records, along with a booklet full of images of the players and texts from Rodeo co-conspirators. Throughout its existence, Transcendental Rodeo included in its membership the likes of Randy Gagne (Man Made Hill), Colin Fisher (Not the Wind Not the Flag), Steve Kado (Blocks Recording Club), Isla Craig, Brandon Valdivia (Mas Aya, Not the Wind Not the Flag) and Derek Madison (Grasshopper), among many others, so you can guess the sort of maddening sounds that grace this collection. Love-filled vibes that span the cosmos in a free-wheeling maelstrom of brother/sisterhood to be picked up via shortwave on the other side of the solar system. Beauty incarnate.
I’d like to thank Dwight, Liz, Bobby and my Decoder co-contributors for making my 2015 a pleasant chunk of space-time. And a big thank you to all those brave music-making souls continuing to channel their spirits through the vibration of air. You are appreciated! Here’s to an equally bountiful 2016.
