themilkfactory » The Village Orchestra

VARIOUS ARTISTS: Physic Or Surgery (Highpoint Lowlife)

themilkman — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:31:46 +0000

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Physic Or Surgery
HPLL058
Highpoint Lowlife 2011
28 Tracks. 138mins42secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

The statement is brutal: HPLL058 Physic Or Surgery – The Final Release. In these days where music has become a commodity with often very little value, the demise of a record label, especially one with such an excellent track record as that of Highpoint Lowlife, is a severe blow. Over a period of ten years, the label spearheaded by Thorsten Sideb0ard has consistently found itself at the forefront of contemporary underground electronic music in its many forms, and occasionally beyond, and provided a steady home or temporary shelter for artists as diverse as Fisk Industries, Erstlaub, Si-Cut.db, Bovaflux, , Marshall Watson, 10-20, Dalglish, Like A Stuntman and the Marcia Blaine School For Girls umbrella of projects, including The Village Orchestra and Production Unit.

As Sideb0ard is turning his attention to writing and drawing comics (Physic Or Surgery is also the title of a comic available to download from the HPLL website), he has compiled an impressive twenty-eight track mastodon compilation which isn’t quite a simple retrospective trying to cram ten years in just over two hours but which instead offers a wealth of previously unreleased material from a big slice of the label’s entire roster. Expectedly, the result is incredibly varied, bringing together lush ambient textures, oppressive atmospherics, dense abstract experimentations, elegant techno, hip-hop-infused grooves, urban flavours or playful electro under one banner.

Picking up highlights is here pretty pointless, so wide is the scope of this compilation, yet some undeniably deserve particular mentions, if only because they crystalize, in their own way, HPPL’s overall visionary approach. Depakote, with the psychedelic Casnoc Is Dead, and Fisk Industries with the more urgent Death Is The Final Step, adopt hip-hop-infused grooves to very different effects, while Gravious’s Ghostly Steps and Spatial’s Checks Out are fueled with pulsating dubsteb flavours, the former wrapped in lush soundscapes, the latter presented in much more minimal form. Beats are present on a majority of the pieces collected here, and come in all shades and forms, but techno seems to dominate at least part of the selection, from the fluid (Marshall Watson’s Liquid Solid) and dubbey (randomNumber’s K Revisited, Twerk’s Have 10, Need 20) to the motorik (10-20’s Bloomback, Marcia Blaine’s Loopy Dobber), and dreamy (TVO’s I’m Everything That Never Happened To You). Erik XVI carves a rather magnificent techno/electro hybrid with When Particles Collide, while Hot City’s No Matter What I Do is a fun and playful soul-infused piece which is not without recalling some of Nightmares On Wax’s early experiments.

When the mood settles for cooler tones, the harvest is as rich, from Bovaflux’s rather sumptuous Temazapam or Pausal’s peaceful and luxurious Afar to Erstlaub’s droney Team Handed We Go, Into The Night, while Friends Of The Jitney’s haunting Leafcutter John remix of Good Mourning recalls the bleak atmospheres of This Mortal Coil’s Filigree And Shadow. On a different level, the claustrophobic textures and heavy groove of Dalglish’s Mordsun and Sideb0ard’s Grind seem to find an unlikely echo in the greasy electro of Kenny Crunk’s Baxter Bad Yin and the deconstructed abstraction of Calika’s Diagonal B.

In the space of ten years and just under sixty releases, Highpoint Lowlife has been one of the most consistent imprints around, and its demise is likely to be felt for some time, yet Thorsten Sideb0ard leaves behind him an substantial catalogue and this last blast of life, which should be appreciated with absolutely no moderation. Farewell Highpoint Lowlife, and thank you for the music.

4.8/5

Highpoint Lowlife
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

TVO/THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA: Amid The Blaze Of Noon (Highpoint Lowlife)

themilkman — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:00:02 +0000

TVO/THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA
Amid The Blaze Of Noon
HPLL056
Highpoint Lowlife 2011
01 Track. 64mins04secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD

Ruaridh Law has, from his debut album, released on Highpoint Lowlife six years ago, created a truly unique and individual body of work. In recent months, Law has been busy establishing his new imprint, Broken20, just as one of the labels who have been so supportive of his work, Highpoint Lowlife, is in the process of folding out. It is therefore quite fitting that one of the label’s last releases should be the latest Village Orchestra opus.

Like some of Law’s more recent releases, Amid The Blaze Of Noon is essentially an hour-long piece, but this is more than just one lengthy experiment. Articulated around a series of distinct sequences, Amid The Blaze Of Noon goes through a series of beautifully crafted ambient sections, where acoustic and electronic textures are at times supplanted by field recordings, before picking up pace in later part

Amid The Blaze Of Noon is the fruit of a three years process; its basic components were sourced from a live performance at Cafe Oto, North London, at the end of August 2008, for which Law collected field recordings around Dalston and Stoke Newington on the day of the event. The various components were later brought together and assembled into the different chapters forming the final piece.

The album opens with big slabs of distorted electric guitars pushed slightly in the distance and drenched in reverb as to smooth all splintered edges and retain the intensity of the recurring discharges of energy. As they progressively withdraw to reveal clusters of field recordings, then a much more settled atmospheric passage, the piece takes on a very different aspect. Glitches and slight distortions can be heard in the backdrop, and processed guitars are still part of the fabric of the piece, but the overall tone hints at vast kaleidoscopic spaces which, while continuously changing, retain a particular glow which continues to radiate for some time as Law progresses toward another segment.

For over half an hour, the mood remains extremely subdued as Law continues to draft the outlines of sumptuous introspective sonic structures, at times drifting on the verge of kosmische, but, while there is no major mood shift, he builds a very different sonic space past the half way mark, assembling tiny acoustic guitar motifs into shimmering layers. While the vast majority of these eventually evaporate, leaving only a handful of textural loops, this simmering activity eventually leads to a more upbeat and clearly defined part of the record as Law introduces a techno-infused beat and assembles analog electronics into dense layers, pushing this record in yet another direction.

For the next ten minutes, Law switches to much sparser and more progressive rhythmic structures, which he applies to vast ethereal soundscapes. As the beat gains density, it appears to ripple deep down into the backdrop in seismic pulses, but it is soon swallowed by a latest wave of organic matter as voices and street noises become once again predominant. For the piece’s last section, Law drifts into hypnotic vintage ambient reminiscent of Higher Intelligence Agency or early Pete Namlook or Orb, as pulsating electronic sounds give the piece a surprising late boost.

With this latest record, Ruaridh Law demonstrates once again his impeccable knack at putting together strong sonic narratives and sustaining them convincingly over their entire course. Amid The Blaze Of Noon is a superbly crafted ambient soundtrack which retains its atmospheric edge even when Law ventures into upbeat territories.

4.8/5

The Village Orchestra | Highpoint Lowlife
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD

Like some of Law’s more recent releases, Amid The Blaze Of Noon is essentially an hour-long piece, but this is more than just one lengthy experiment. Articulated around a series of distinct sequences, Amid The Blaze Of Noon goes through a series of beautifully crafted ambient sections, where acoustic and electronic textures are at times supplanted by field recordings, before picking up pace in later part

Amid The Blaze Of Noon is the fruit of a three years process; its basic components were sourced from a live performance at Cafe Oto, North London, at the end of August 2008, for which Law collected field recordings around Dalston and Stoke Newington on the day of the event. The various components were later brought together and assembled into the different chapters forming the final piece.

With this latest record, Ruaridh Law demonstrates once again his impeccable knack at putting together strong sonic narratives and sustaining them convincingly over their entire course. Amid The Blaze Of Noon is a superbly crafted ambient soundtrack which retains its atmospheric edge even when Law ventures into upbeat territories.

4.8/5

Dalston. Ala from Bryan Kerr on Vimeo.

TVO/THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (Broken20)

themilkman — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:23:07 +0000

TVO/The Village Orchestra
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
B2001
Broken20 2010
05 Tracks. 94mins01secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

Earlier this year, purveyor of fine electronic and experimental music Highpoint Lowlife announced that they were to cease operating at the end of the year. Around the same time, The Village Orchestra’s Ruaridh Law launched Broken20, a label set up with Production Unit’s Dave Donnelly and Erstlaub’s Dave Fyans. While he has released music on a number of labels, Law had become one of the most highly regarded members of the Highpoint Lowlife stable, first as part of the excellent Marcia Blaine School For Girls entity, then with his own project, The Village Orchestra, under which banner he released what remains to this day one of the finest electronic records of the last ten years, Et In Arcadia Ego, in 2004.

Broken20’s inaugural release comes in the shape of a two-fold release from Law bringing together two of his slightly different projects in one compelling record. Recorded live in Manchester during the Future Everything event, as part of The Hive Collective’s Memories Are Brighter Than Our Digital Debris showcase earlier this year, the first part of this project is The Village Orchestra’s epic hour-long title track, presented here in its raw, unedited version. Based around the idea that memory is a fragile and fleeting thing, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale is a sprawling piece which gathers found sounds, voice recordings, brooding electronic textures and dark and complex soundscapes in a gigantic atmospheric collage. After a lengthy silent phase, crackles slowly emerge, at first sounding like static abrasions on a record, but progressively becoming much denser and grainier, before erupting in flashes of radio interferences, and later on, much more abstract noises. It takes a good ten minutes for the first echoes of music to appear, and they do so in layered drone forms. From there on, the mood takes on a much more intense and sombre appearance as more components are added. This is repeated a number of times throughout the piece, and each time, these ominous soundscapes dissipate unexpectedly to reveals spoken sections, melodic vocal motifs or extremely delicate passages.

Law’s parents can be heard at regular intervals throughout, taking it in turn to reminisce about their respective childhood and life or discuss the very idea of memory and how it deteriorates over time. This is echoed in the persistent decay of Law’s sound components, and how they materialise and evaporate without warning, from the initial series of statics and noises and aural resonance of choral work to the beautiful rhythmic patterns found toward the end of the piece or, ultimately, the vocal loop which brings the piece to a close.

While build from the same sound pool than We Can Remember It…, the remaining four pieces differ greatly. Attributed to TVO, these largely swap the deeply atmospheric character of the previous piece for much more immediate grooves. Much shorter and punchier in form, these contrast with the first part of the project by introducing a totally different dynamic. But, while Wasted Memory is a forceful piece of angular minimal techno , Bc7 Memory and Remaindered Memory feed on the moody elements and textures of We Can Remember It…, cast into hypnotic electronic washes set against very linear grooves, creating an increasingly emotional landscape. Closing piece Lost Memory sees Law slowing the pace drastically down again and injecting dubbey pulses which radiate through the whole piece as he develops a fragment of melody set deep within a sumptuous Vangelis-like warm electronic soundscape.

Originally released in digital format, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale is also expected to see the light of day in DVD-R format later on in the year, comprising the five tracks and all visuals used during the Future Everything performance. With this new output, Ruaridh Law continues to assert his position as one of the most masterful atmospheric electronic musicians of his generation, and takes the opportunity to introduce a more angular side to his musical persona. If there was need for any confirmation that The Village Orchestra is a much more than just an amateur marching band, then this is it.

4.8/5

The Village Orchestra | The Village Orchestra (MySpace) | Broken20
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

TVO/The Village Orchestra

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

B2001

Broken20 2010
06 Tracks. –mins—secs

10 YEARS IN 20 RECORDS

themilkman — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:17:18 +0000

The noughties have seen probably the most radical changes in the music industries since the advent of the record. Consumption habits have dramatically moved from traditional to digital formats, music has been increasingly seen as something to steal rather than to buy, and listening habits means that nowadays, the album is becoming increasingly redundant. Or is it? Whereas it had, at least in some circles, become totally acceptable to fill records with substandard music, it is now essential for artists to create consistent pieces of work if they want to retain the attention of their audience. The last ten years have delivered their fair share of hits and misses, and this list doesn’t pretend to be in any way shape or form exhaustive. This is just, in no particular order, the definitive list of the 20 albums that have defined the noughties at themilkfactory.

JOANNA NEWSOM
Ys
DC303CD
Drag City 2006
05 Tracks. 55mins41secs
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An album like no other, by an artist like no other. Containing just five songs, some developed over fifteen minutes, Ys, named after a small mythical city on the coast of Brittany, France, is the second album by American folk singer and harp player Joanna Newsom. Van Dyke Parks wraps lush orchestrations around Joanna Newsom’s weird and wonderful tales to give her poetic lyrics additional relief and accentuate the emotional nature of her compositions.

themilkfactory » The Village Orchestra

VARIOUS ARTISTS: Physic Or Surgery (Highpoint Lowlife)

TVO/THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA: Amid The Blaze Of Noon (Highpoint Lowlife)

TVO/THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (Broken20)

10 YEARS IN 20 RECORDS

THE 2009 REVIEW

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THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA: I Can Hear The Sirens Singing Again (Highpoint Lowlife)

VARIOUS ARTISTS: Magnetism, That Electricity (Highpoint Lowlife)