The Most Serene Republic is an indie septet from Toronto, Canada and ...And the Ever Expanding Universe is their third studio album. TMSR certainly does not sound like a standard indie band, both in terms of tone colors as well as varied influences. In their music, there are shades of prog, 60s pop, electronica, psychedelia, even classical chamber music as indicated by "Patternicity". This instrumental piece is clearly the highlight of the album, raising their penchant for orchestration to a new level. If TMSR really wanted to, they could easily transcend the trappings of indie rock and create something phenomenal. Hopefully this album points the way towards future development.
The Mars Volta call their fifth album Octahedron their "acoustic album". The music itself is rather semi-acoustic in terms of instrumentation. However, one can find less excess and more focus here in comparison to TMV's other albums. Experimentation seems meaningful and well integrated, for example the interesting free-jazz piano workout on "Halo of Nembutals". And some of the songs, like "Since We've Been Wrong", are well written, even beautiful. A modest opus by TMV standards, but good music does not have to be noisy nor bombastic. Sometimes less is indeed more.
Boston multi-instrumentalist/composer Toby Driver's first band maudlin of the Well played progressive metal with touches of contemporary classical music. The band released three albums, until Driver disbanded the group in 2003, founding Kayo Dot instead, that continued in even more avant-gardist vein. Recently, however, no less than 87 fans donated enough money to make the fourth album. The band upped the result on the internet for free download.
Part the Second is undoubtedly more listener-friendly than Kayo Dot's Blue Lambency Downward. While that album was almost devoid of metal, then here one can still find elements like shredding solos or double bass drumming. But compared to early works the emphasis is more on what is played, instead of the volume it is played with. PtS also contains less woodwinds than BLD and more piano and strings. Where BLD sounded dark and difficult, PtS sounds more brighter, especially on the album opener with a cumbersomely long title. Toby Driver has earned his status as one of the most inventive composers of modern day progressive music.
Third album from the US synth-prog duo Zombi titled Spirit Animal adds guitar into their mix of bass, synths and drums. The ensemble has been compared to Rush circa Moving Pictures. Still, no trace of virtuoso show-off in their music, even though the duo is certainly proficient on their instruments. Guitar is just one instrument among several. Who does not like soloing for soloing's own sake, would certainly accept Zombi's work.
The record starts out strong. 14 minute title track is a masterful space-prog epic, sounding haunting and transcendent in its multi-sectioned structure, which sounds still coherent, held together by its gloomy mood. Other compositions are also well done, but not on par with the album opener. The album closer, the longest track "Through Time" (17 minutes) deserves attention for its particularly aggressive and apocalypcit synth-rock attack. Overall Zombi demonstrates that there is still some life in progressive rock.
LA avant-gardist's crazy performance at Club Tapper
Eccentric pop musician and avant-gardist from LA, Ariel Pink, was warmed up by Galaktlan and his live group, who are rarely seen performing. One different aspect about their gig was the presence of a guest vocalist, Kadi Uibo, for one of the songs. Galaktlan's quartet played a short set, for approximately 40 minutes.
Shortly before 10pm Ariel Pink made it on the stage with his backup band Haunted Graffiti. The protagonist was dressed in drag (with red skirt and all), his stage movement was chaotic and coggling and his between song stage banter was mostly stream-of-consciousness type nonsense. Just by his stage presence, marked by special feel of drunkenness, it was clear that Ariel Pink is a truly eccentric musician type.
Pure garage rock
In case of musicians with distinctive (home) studio sound one always wonders, how will they sound live? In the five member performance of Haunted Graffiti, Ariel Pink's lo-fi pop-psychedelia gained a heavy garage punk exterior. The band could sound like an authentic obscure garage rock band from the 60s, while having little to nothing in common with today's neo garage rock imitators.
Some of the tunes in the live setting, such as "Trepanated Earth" acquiered at places a level of intensity compared to heavy metal, or at least Boredoms type noise-rock. It also seemed that Haunted Graffiti can easily out-punk most punkrockers, if they want to. In terms of dissonance, synthesizer sounds and improvisational implications there was also some affinity to krautrock. A rare rendition of the rarely performed "Life In LA", where the clarinets of the album version were replaced by kazoos, suggested Zappa style weirdness.
All of these stylistic nuance variations refer to the music critic consensus that in Ariel Pink's music one can recognize quite a bit of which has been intriguing and inventive for the last five decades in underground rock. It was particularly evident on this concert. Which was really long, over two hours, including many songs that Haunted Graffiti usually does not perform. And arguably this was even crazier than Ariel Pink's average gig.
How eccentric
This gig was a rare case in Estonia not only because of seeing an act at his peak live. But also because the public got the taste of how eccentric the best sort of underground-rock can get. A lot of contemporary acts seems so restrained, compared to the exuberant charisma imbuing from Ariel Pink's stage presence. Then again, imitating him would also prove itself as a pointless perspective. Because natural authenticity (which Pink had plenty) is impossible to copy successfully.
Acid Mothers Temple, led by guitarist Kawabata Makoto in its various incarnations has become the flagship of Japanese neo-psychedelic rock during the last decade. Makoto is staggeringly prolific, to the point that one loses count of how many records he has put out. Nonetheless, Lord of the Underground: Vishnu & The Magic Elixir is a pretty good record. It consists of three tracks. The 15minute album opener "Eleking the Clay" sets the record going with its memorable Turkish psychrock guitar line, on which the band cruises powerfully propelled along by kraut-motoriks. "Sorcerer's Stone of the Magi" is a slower, folkier ballad and the shortest on the album (three minutes). Far longer, 25 minutes, is the duration of the third track, Ash Ra Tempel styled jam "Vishnu And The Magic Elixir". It begins slow and druggy and eventually develops in faster, noisier and weirder directions. A well done record in the area of cosmic psychedelia.
This year's Kumu Night festival was more modest in terms of selection of artists. Still, good music was heard even this time. Although with less diversity than before. There was more emphasis on improvisational and electronic music.
Electronic music was presented slightly less and the quality level varied. Kosmofon with its vintage retro synths and four-four disco grooves created an 80s vibe in a good way. On the other hand, Data with its sterile synth-prog trappings (and extremely tasteless synth sounds) sounded stuck in its own time in a bad way. The Battle of Skweee, comprised of Mesak and Joxaren, brought us danceable, yet deep, bubbly electro.
Music based on improvisation dominated more and this varied more in terms of stilistic variations.
Estonians did free-er improv. Liis Jürgens shined with intriguing concoctions of sounds from harp, piano (played by Liisa Hirsch) and live-electronics. Electro-acoustic free-improv at its best. Rainer Jancis contrasted the song based nature of his All album with a dual-bass (electric + acoustic) quartet improv, sounding a little like a slightly jazzier the Dildos. Triophonix' psychedelic electro-jazz with its blend of acoustic instrumentation, looper and samplers was really enjoyable at its best, but near 3AM it could sound tiresome.
Two foreign bands however did kraut jams. Wooden Shjips (USA) was energetic and rocking, but all of their songs sounded the same. Also, they focused on the arguably least interesting flavor of kraut-rock: straight guitar-rocking, but more drawn-out.
The Finnish K-X-P, however, embodied the more adventurous aspects of krautrock: electronics and metronomic drum grooves. Their drummer could hold a groove very insistently and propulsively, but he also possessed a formidable playing technique. The rhythm formed as a solid backbone for K-X-P's technoid psychedelia that flirted with monotony, yet was never one-dimensional.
A good aspect about this event was improved sound quality compared to the last year. Not that the sound balance was absolutely ideal even now, but there was nothing ear-grating. Feedback was minimal to non-existent. Even this is an improvement.
The Most Serene Republic is an indie septet from Toronto, Canada and ...And the Ever Expanding Universe is their third studio album. TMSR certainly does not sound like a standard indie band, both in terms of tone colors as well as varied influences. In their music, there are shades of prog, 60s pop, electronica, psychedelia, even classical chamber music as indicated by "Patternicity". This instrumental piece is clearly the highlight of the album, raising their penchant for orchestration to a new level. If TMSR really wanted to, they could easily transcend the trappings of indie rock and create something phenomenal. Hopefully this album points the way towards future development.
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