Having teased us with a new track ‘Satellites’ last month, released to rave reviews and scored
Pitchfork’s Best New Music who said “The most bracing thing yet from an artist already more
bracing than most”, EMA returns with her highly anticipated second album The Future’s Void ,
released on 7 April via City Slang.
Erika M. Anderson first graced the limelight under the guise of EMA in May 2011, when the
brilliantly scuffed debut album Past Life Martyred Saints was released to a multitude of acclaim.
After having spent time in the California underground fronting the genre-defying cult duo Gowns
with Ezra Buchla, Past Life Martyred Saints offered a deeper glimpse into the world of EMA. An
absorbing and ambitious masterpiece that revealed a unique and feed-backed noisy guitar style, a
skill for visceral songwriting and a DIY recording ethos, it showcased a distinctive sonic signature
that sounded like nothing else around.
If Past Life Martyred Saints was an inward exploration of human relationships and their toll, The
Future’s Void catapults them out into space, both thematically and musically. The album meditates
on universal themes of how we interact with the wider world and how that interaction is increasingly
modified by technology. Through collaboration with Leif Shackelford on production duties, the
sound of this record reflects these themes and instead of using electronics to create a polished,
airless environment, Anderson's techno-future thrashes strongly between harsh tones and
paranoia, to beautiful colour bursts and mellow guitar strums.
Lyrically, Anderson tries to answer the question so often put to her during the last round of press
and interviews: "How does it feel?" to be pushed through a media vortex and back. The answer is
of course, complicated. On ‘3Jane’ she seems plaintive and introspective, with lyrics about visuals
and consent that are even more poignant in the age of posted YouTube assaults, bullied teen
suicides and revenge porn. On ‘Neuromancer’, an electronic punk rant with analog synths and
machine drums, she rages, and explores the implications of building an online database of all your
pictures and information. "It's basically an AI (artificial intelligence)" she says. And it's not just those
in the media spotlight who have them, it’s all of us.
This is where Anderson has always excelled, in taking the chaos and angst of the modern age and
making it relatable. While sonically The Future's Void is a big step up and out, lyrically it's in a
similar vein to Past Life Martyred Saints , with EMA herself laying bare, cracking sly jokes, and
making the nuances of her story seem like ours as well.
“I realised that we were all kind of building these AIs, whether intentionally or not, and how the data
we post online is parsed by programs that see patterns in our behaviour that we fail to see
ourselves; how and where and what we eat, status reports that reveal our moods, our shopping
habits, who we date and who we stalk, where and how we spend our money. Literally, they know
more than you do about the things that you do. And that's just the data we give up willingly, to say
nothing of what is taken surreptitiously.”
The opening track "Satellites" was written before the current NSA scandal and hints at a more
nostalgic paranoia, in drawing current parallels to the dream of the former Soviet "satellite"
countries, where "everyone has equal access but is also under constant surveillance". Musically the
track hints at a further emboldened EMA, without forgoing the industrial-noise and glorious fuzz of
her solo debut and previous work with Gowns. Opening with a wall of hiss, scree and galloping
piano motif, ‘Satellites’ bursts into a flame of feedback and bass to provide one her best tracks to
date, as well as introducing analog modular synths into the mix.
As well as EMA pulls off these topical and outspoken tracks, she’s still got a knack for a classic
pop tune as heard on the likes of ‘So Blonde’, with its hooky grunge riff and playful lyrics about
“generic and specific cool blonde kids, maybe you knew one in high school or college or at a party
at 5am in your 20s”. Similarly, the catchy ‘When She Comes’, a nostalgic paean about a teenage
Riot Grrl friendship. Along with ‘Dead Celebrity’, these tracks are at odds with the more abrasive
and electronic likes of ‘Solace’ and ‘Cthulu’, the latter climaxing with a Gary Numan ‘Are Friends
Electric’ style breakdown that sounds like nothing Erika has produced before. Despite moving
towards electronic sounds, the machines are mostly played live and they often possess a DIY ‘first
take best take’ aesthetic that rails against the carefully constructed and glistening sheen of the
digital age. This punk spirit maintains a spontaneity that is all too often lost.
“This record is the sound of resistance to digital commodification” Erika explains. "I naturally
gravitate towards hooks and melodies and in some ways, the structure of these songs is the
poppiest yet. The harshness and production strikes a balance with that so they don’t sound like
they could be on adverts.”
So, The Future's Void means the future IS void? Or the void that belongs to the future? According
to Anderson, both work.
Either way, The Future’s Void is a record that seeks to deal with the fact that certain ideas that
once seemed futuristic are now the norm, while also trying to sidestep a lot of the musical tropes
that come along with exploring technology. It straddles the ugly and animalistic, the pretty and
civilised, the digital and the analog and the past and the present, resulting in a timeless and yet
timely piece of work. And like any great punk record, it questions social convention and rebels
against the status quo.
EMA continues to evoke a unique and ambitious sound that saw her rightfully recognised as one of
the most singular artists to emerge in 2011, and is likely to send her back into the public
consciousness once again in 2014.
Projekt webstore CD • $14
Bandcamp Digital Download • $10
Available at iTunes & Amazon on Tuesday February 4
Timelines is the 18th solo album from veteran Norwegian ambient/electronic artist Erik Wøllo. It’s a warm, epic and shimmering cycle of memorable electronic music. Noted for his many Echoes Radio albums of the month – and placement on “Best of the Year” lists at Amazon, Zone Music Reporter, Schallwelle Award (Germany), and others – Timelines continues in that tradition with nine engaging pieces exploring the idea of music and time: how elements of past, present and future affect a listener’s perceptions.
Layers of acoustic guitar loops and pulsation-patterns create the foundation on which Wøllo’s distinct melodic piano themes are played. The pieces bring emotional synth lines and powerful deep basses together with delicate percussion arrangements. As a natural and important counterpoint to the expressive piano themes, Wøllo’s electric guitar ebow solos are both intense and haunting.
Timelines is an accessible and inviting album: an occasion with which the listener can discover involving music that combines rhythmic grooves and atmospheres with recognizable lyrical passages.
Flicker Alley, in association with the Blackhawk Films Collection, is proud to present The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney as Quasimodo, looking as if he had just stepped out from the original illustrations of Victor Hugo's novel. This new Blu-ray disc edition is now available to pre-order from the Flicker Alley website (www.FlickerAlley.com) for the special reduced price of $34.95.
Hunchback is a huge production: the sets depicting 15th-century Paris covered nineteen acres of Universal Pictures' back lot and included the façade of Notre Dame Cathedral. Filming took six months and the climactic sequence employed two thousand extras, but it's Lon Chaney's performance that makes the character unforgettable. The Hunchback of Notre Dame premiered at New York's Astor Theatre on September 2, 1923. The success of the film was immediate; it made Carl Laemmle and Universal Pictures a fortune, and turned Lon Chaney into a screen legend.
This edition is mastered from a multi-tinted 16mm print struck in 1926 from the original camera negative. (The film apparently does not survive in 35mm.) Visible wear in the source material is diminished with a moderate amount of digital restoration. It is pictorially much better than earlier video editions and represents the best condition in which this landmark film survives today. A new symphonic score arranged by Donald Hunsberger was recorded in the Czech Republic by a full orchestra conducted by Robert Israel.
Bonus Materials Include:
Essay and optional audio commentary by Chaney scholar Michael F. Blake
Rare footage (in standard definition) of Chaney out of makeup on the Cathedral set
ALAS AND ALACK, a 1915 short film in which Chaney plays a hunchback
Dynamic HD photo gallery with over 100 original production and publicity stills
Digital reproduction of the original souvenir program
Tense Men (Cold Pumas/Sauna Youth/Omi Palone) set to release new mini LP
The claustrophobic, miasmic world of Tense Men is a world of scuttling shapes, deformed shadows and rigid, repetitive rhythms. The world of Tense Men has a low ceiling, the walls are wooden, rotting in places and badly varnished. The world of Tense Men is clammy to the touch. Eyes twitch, ears ring. Ears burn, eyes sting. The world of Tense Men is dripping all over your mouldy living room carpet. Reptilian tongues darting in and out tasting the dank air. Human forms jerking awkwardly to a record skipping in a locked, sweaty room. Shrieking voices. Murmuring whispers. Telling you things you don’t want to know over and over again, you listen because you aren’t sure if you’re really hearing it or not. You are! Aren't you?
Tense Men was two and is now three men, varying in tension, height and origination. These men also exist within other entities, namely Sauna Youth, Cold Pumas and Omi Palone, amongst others. It began in the bleak Autumn of 2010 and has henceforth been peddling its suspect wares back and forth, here and there. Prior to Where Dull Care is Forgotten, there was an unnamed cassette on Cazenove Tapes.
Tense Men's Where Dull Care Is Forgotten mini LP is released by Faux Discx on 10th March 2014, available on 12" vinyl (ltd to 300) and digital download.
If – as Mojo magazine said in its 2012 rave review – REBEKKA KARIJORD’s last release, We Become Ourselves, was “an album that creates its own world”, then the Stockholm based musician’s latest collection is an album that helps generously furnish, and enlarge upon, worlds created by others. The pragmatically titled Music For Film And Theatre gathers together fifteen (largely) instrumental pieces written and produced by Karijord over the last half dozen or so years for films, plays and dance performances. It’s a task that she has frequently embraced with relish.
“I've always found that it’s a good complement to my solo work,” she explains, “since I get to experiment sonically, and push my musical boundaries and knowledge. I also really enjoy the process of finding sounds through loose experimentation.”
Originally from Sandnessjøen, just south of the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway, KARIJORD moved to Sweden a decade ago, where she’s composed music for over 30 films, modern dance and theatre pieces, as well as writing plays and short stories. She’s also acted in films and theatre since the age of 12, while Cirkus Cirkör’s international travelling performance, Wear It Like A Crown, is centered upon KARIJORD’s song of the same title. (She also provided all the additional music for the performance, which has now toured the world for four years, playing over 400 shows for 200,000 people.)
Making some of this far from ‘incidental’ music available is an idea she’s had for a while, but it’s only recently that she’s been able to take a break long enough from touring, composing for new projects and starting work on her next record to explore her archives. The result is a collection that unusually – given the genesis of the material – operates successfully outside of its original context, providing a whole that KARIJORD describes as “soothing, yet stirring and complex in its layers and contrast”
Though elements of her previous work are undeniably evident during Music For Film And Theatre, it represents an alternative side to KARIJORD’s muse, with vocals employed as instruments rather than as a song’s focus, and her fascination with stringed instruments also very much to the fore. “They’re an attempt to get away from the melody driven formula,” she elaborates of the compositions, “to challenge my sense of form, to dare to be more abstract than I allow myself when I write traditional songs. My solo songs have to stand up for themselves, whereas film music pieces are players in an orchestra. I see them as something underlining the emotional thread, the unsaid, the fundamental tone chiming throughout. The music is supposed to capture that, in a subtle way, sometimes pulling along with it, sometimes working against it: creating understanding, creating friction. Sometimes the music can be a manipulator, but in a caring way, softly resting a hand on the viewer’s back, saying ‘Go this way...’”
Music For Film And Theatre provides a gorgeous, frequently lush experience. It’s one to which KARIJORD herself often accurately applies the label ‘ambient’: within the repetition of tracks like ‘Madrigal’, ‘Salhus’, ‘Migratory Birds’ and ‘Morula’ there’s an undeniable Eno-esque quality, though inevitably KARIJORD moves in different directions to the godfather of the ambient movement. Elsewhere there are other comparably experimental excursions: the angelic choral vocals and Arvo Pärt violin of ‘Nowhere Home’, the ethereal, mystical ‘The End, and ‘Kjaere Gud’, which conjures up the remarkable ghosts of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. There are also airier tracks, like the placid, moving yet strangely tense ‘Snö’, the gentle piano strains of ‘Waltz For Norma’, and ‘Anchor Boy’, as delicately melancholic as anything Agnes Obel has delivered.
There will be more to come, too. Now that Music For Film And Theatre has been compiled, KARIJORD is currently working on a further three film projects, and has also begun work writing for her next album. For the time being, however, Music For Film And Theatre is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy another, mesmerising side to an extraordinary artist’s talents.
