套套卢的音乐

What the fuck is going on? These Wolf Eyes have flipped the music industry coin and it's definitely tails up now. This shit isn't supposed to happen. Labels like Sub Pop aren't supposed to catch on to this heavy underground shit until 30 years after the fact. Jane Magazine isn't supposed to review it EVER. It doesn’t matter what they thought. The Old Testament clearly states they were never to hear it. Are you people losing it or am I in some fever dream? Still unfamiliar with Wolf Eyes? Okay. Cut off a pinkie finger, play a Skinny Puppy record at half speed, drink some of that raw-egg stuff Holk Hogan was all about and you're halfway there. Or just download it if you're particularly weak-stomached. Either way, here's a brief history of slime: One man (Nate Young), two men (Young and Aaron Dilloway), then three men (Young, Dilloway and John Olson). Two DIY labels (Hanson Records and American Tapes) self-release nine thousand tapes. Bulb puts out a record. Troubleman puts out a record. Kinship with Sonic Youth (actually started long before any of this) and Black Dice get the message to the people. Sub Pop signs them, releases a 12" that quickly sells out (a few copies to resurface later) and now follows with Burned Mind. And it's Burned Mind that's got everyone's panties in their ears. (Hey, sometimes you have to improvise.) "Sick" is an understatement. Just as the Wolf boys have completely changed the face of (stabbed it?) the noise scene, their latest offering has made compost of their own discography and presented the band in a whole new darkness. It's crisper and clearer, but simultaneously thicker and murkier than before. The album isn't just dense, it's bloated—in the very best sense of the word. If the album has one fault, it's that it starts with the most brutal material and gets more accessible throughout. I could care less, but the new listeners that will hear this because of the Sub Pop name might jump the gun on the stop button and that'd be a shame. After the initial dark ambience "Dead in a Boat" spontaneously combusts and blazes anew, the lead-off single "Stabbed in the Face" jumps right in, ferociously swinging butcher knives like a mutant hybrid of Muhammad Ali and Jason Voorhees. It pummels. It hurts. Then it really hurts. And it doesn't cease. Wolf Eyes' "Death by A Thousand Cuts" technique—and this attack is precise; certainly not your plug-in-and-go noise—continues through track after track of tape decay, feedback and cross-eyed beats until the title cut. "Burned Mind" is no doubt the highlight, a brilliant choice for the title track. It brings to light everything that is Wolf Eyes, it's 25 BPM thumps accented with light and chirpy, almost playful, accompaniment. After three minutes, a perfectly placed half-second of silence shuts everything up and lets just the right amount of tension seep in before the most powerful bass and noise combination flies out fiercer than anything that preceded it. After it’s all over, I can’t hear. I can’t think. But if I try really hard I think I can maybe wiggle a toe. This stuff is heavy. I can’t lie and say it’s for everyone, but anyone reading this should be able to hear the light. Like the metal gods they’re often compared to, these Michigan smokers are 124% sincere and 162% capable of seeing it’s all a sham. Titles like "Black Vomit" or "Urine Burn" aren’t mere foolishness, but instead the epitome of all that is Wolf Eyes: morbid and funny, intelligent and grotesque, violent and light-hearted; all at once, never canceling each other out. For all their scathing noise, these are still guys who worship Manowar, who dance with brooms and know more about Brazilian psych rock than just about anyone. They are as layered as their noise. One minute they’re Jack The Ripper, the next they’re your older brother lovingly punching you in the spine. Open your ears and embrace the blow. Reviewed by: Mike Shiflet www.stylusmagazine.com

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While James Kirby has never done "happy" per se, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was finds the Stockport-hailing producer plumbing new depths of melancholy. Track titles like 'Not Even Nostalgia Is As Good As It Used To Be' and 'When Did Our Dreams And Futures Drift So Far Apart' leave you in no doubt as to grave mindset of our producer and protagonist. Renouncing the hauntological sampling strategies of his acclaimed Caretaker project, this album is the sound of Kirby's heart laid bare. Stately chord progressions, aching piano melodies, and ever-present, wraith-like synth loops - all played by Kirby himself - make it one of his warmest and most accessible works to date, despite its intimidating three-disc scale. Whereas The Caretaker records sounded quintessentially English (partly due to the sample sources), there's a decidedly European frisson to Sadly, a certain snow-hushed romanticism perhaps reflecting Kirby's recent relocation to Berlin. For some reason I found myself thinking of the Polish scenes from David Lynch's Inland Empire, and indeed Angelo Badalamenti - Lynch's favoured soundtrack composer - is an obvious but helpful reference-point for the sound of Sadly. It's not just that the two artists use similar sound palettes. In Kirby's music as in Badalamenti's, lightness and dark aren't separate entities but functions of each other: ominous drones give birth to heart-burstingly pretty melodies; upwards-rising, optimistic chords are destabilised by ghost notes of pure despair. In Kirby's world every cloud has a silver lining, but fuck me, are there a lot of clouds. Sadly is a work which merits deep immersion, which is fortunate, because its sheer duration demands it. As with pretty much any triptych or trilogy ever, it's the middle act - in this case Disc 2 - that's most powerful. 'I've Hummed This To All The Girls I've Known', with its drifting pads and quivering theremin lead is almost unbearably poignant; so too the washed-out Harold Budd-isms of 'Not Even Nostalgia Is As Good As It Used To Be' and 'When Did Our Dreams And Futures Drift So Apart''s creeping ambient jazz. Disc 3 - Memories Live Longer Than Dreams - is less taut, but nonetheless it brings the journey to an amply satisfactory denouement, the GAS-like crunch and swirl of 'A Longing To Be Absorbed...' giving way to ecstatic closer 'And At Dawn Armed With Glowing Patience, We Will Enter The Cities of Glory (Stripped)', the title reminding us that despite all his archiving of pain, Kirby hasn't lost his sense of humour. Sadly The Future Is No Longer What It Was is a magnificently sustained achievement, and - to date - James Kirby's most human and anguished work. It's an unfashionably immense album about an immense and unfashionable subject: loss, and time's stubborn failure to redeem it. Compulsory listening, then, but perhaps best avoided by the recently dumped. ——Peter Strathairn

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CD多了有时候要找一张就很麻烦，这些天重听Britpop的时候就想到了这张，找了好几天终于出现了。 记得2001年初的《Select》上他们还是很青涩，大家还在怀疑他们的未来。现在这些都不是问题，2003的巡演对他们或许是个过渡，他们需要一段时间去面对成功后的虚无，因此这些记录显得真实而令人感动。 2000年之后，《Yellow》似乎是最后能以“歌”的形式于我留下印迹的。明年他们将在上海开演唱会，我问Yno去吗？ 或许这张Live可以先做一下预演，捎带一点过去的记忆。

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以前我纳闷为什么 Rune Grammofon早先Rune Arkiv这个子线出品了名为Fra Lippo Lippi的三张唱片，分别是《Songs》《The Best Of Fra Lippo Lippi》《The Early Years 》（RACD101-103），而且是与现在Rune Grammofon旗下毫无瓜葛的80年代的音质；接着了解到这个挪威乐队Fra Lippo Lippi中的创立人之一Rune Kristoffersen就是RG厂牌的老板，原来这样，于是一头雾水慢慢褪去。 Rune Kristoffersen借机怀旧一下，于是我也逐一听了下来。 收录了80－84年间作品的《The Early Years 》还沉浸在后朋克的黑暗气息里，幸好没有像当时众多Joy Division的模仿者一样一路把自己闷死，Fra Lippo Lippi凭着悦耳的旋律及标志性的钢琴把自己解脱出来，到了新浪潮时期的那张《Songs》（1985）他们竟然成为了一支炙手可热的流行乐队。当然，他们毕竟不同于诸如Duran Duran（算得上那个时期色艺俱全的好男儿，好听地竟多了几分胭脂气）那般的新浪潮乐队，有哥特传统的Fra Lippo Lippi做起流行乐来还是渗着那种冷冽的气质。All music guide说假如Ian Curtis没有自杀身亡的话，也会变成Fra Lippo Lippi的样子，吼吼。 这是Rune Kristoffersen的前传，其后他让我们知道北欧不只是宜家和ABBA，还有一个Rune Grammofon和散绕其周围的那些才华横溢的年轻人们。 前些日，在徽杭之间的山上正好碰着一群挪威年轻人，闲聊之际我问他们知道不知道Fra Lippo Lippi，他们面面相觑；接着问他们Rune Grammofon和Supersilent，还是同样的表情。得知他们是在上海念书，就跟他们提起了Notch07，于是当中一个挪威女孩有点疑惑地问我“挪威的乐队在中国很流行吗?”当然不是了，后来我想唬唬他们也好的。 向一群挪威80后们提及一支他们本国80 年代的乐队，显然不会有什么结果的，但他们不知道“如日中天”的Supersilent显然我有点失望，这至少印证了少数派在任何国家的情形都是一样的，尽管有的时候会有些假想。 Rune Kristoffersen的作用有点像Manfred Eicher之于ECM，事实上Rune Kristoffersen在90年代中担任了ECM的挪威区厂牌经理，于是借鸡孵卵，搭着ECM这条大船Rune Kristoffersen在97年成立了Rune Grammofon（意为“Rune的唱片”）厂牌，所以不奇怪为什么早期RG出品的CD上会有ECM的字样。 从Joy Division路过Duran Duran，最终撑起北欧新音乐的一片天空，Rune Grammofon把自己从80年代的一道声音转型成为无数种声音的放大器，显然更有意义。

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