RICHLAND WEEK 37:

(STUDY):
The Alps: "A Path Through the Moon"
I think I was once supposed to see these folks at a drone festival, but they didn't show, so I wrote them off out of spite. Their hum is a little pretty and straight, not as edgy as I like, but it is glamorous indeed, refreshing, twinkling, sparkly, a lovely stream. The slow whir, like wind, is propelling. This is very suitable study music, but if I weren't using stimulants, as I have been the past two months, the repetition mixed with slow whir pace might lead one to fall asleep.
Taiga Remains: "Descend from Ivory Cliffs"
This is just a 22-min track, and is also largely a slow whir, quite a beauty, but the nice thing is that it progresses, unlike a lot of drone. I love how Taiga Remains has been straightening out lately, it's not the din as it once had been, although you might think so if you hopped right to the end. That's the loveliness in art, the traverse, it's all perspective. When the crackles come in, when the wash accomplishes its scrub with scratchy grit, you still feel clean, if you came in on the sail of the whir's wind.
Barn Owl: "The Conjurer"
Mostly heady slow guitar spiderwebs, lots of reverb, some sustained cymbals, a prickly pretty crash, and oh that minor tonal bliss. However, I aver, it treads too similar to Steven R Smith, who I think is superlative, especially in capturing the east. Perhaps with time this artist will learn how to transform this peculiar whine into a flapping flag, for there is a sustenance inside these victuals.
Matt Bauder / Zach Wallace / Aaron Siegel: "Memorize the Sky"
There are some wonderful spots, but this experimentalism falls a little flat, however post-Sonic Youth post-Stockhausen it may be in its appreciation of the "otherness" of sound (the rhythmicity of tones, the melody of atonality, the thump and texture of using instruments in juxtapositions or nonconventions). It's still nice, but seems like that academic chamber-jazz-tonepoem stuff. I bet the chamber moments would be splendid in remixes or sampled. The long drone at the end is splendid, however. I love drone that does not rely on electrics (it's like the mid-late non-raga Pelt).

(BIKE):
Guided By Voices: "Bee Thousand"
Guided By Voices: "Alien Lanes"
Guided By Voices: "Do The Collapse"
Why hadn't I listened to any of these all the way through before? Pollard is excellent, his lyrics are good enough for me to call them poetic, they sometimes leave a lot to be interpreted, so this time around, I'm trying to pay attention if there's anything swell in there. I can't help but wonder what his most recent stuff is like, since older equals deepening, so I expect to select some of his recent solo titles soon. Damn his melodies are nice, how does this not seem like pop? Why haven't pop-rock stars covered him? Another funny thing is that the melodies resemble a lot of Kim Deal's later melodies, so (although many people knew this), it's nice to see the connections of her being friends and influenced by him. I bet, if neither dies of drug abuse soon, in their old age they will have amassed a splendid history for rock and roll. (But listen to me, who cares, it's rock, i hate and eschew rock! I don't even know why I have been allowing myself all this alternative rock music for my biking records the past few months!!!)