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What Is It With You? continues with the use of vocals. It�s a slower track which leads into manipulated, pleading human voices, like those of families mourning their dead. Chainsaw beats kick in suddenly, eventually fading out to leave those voices alone. Stone Cold Said So features an other-worldly orchestra over hip hop beats, their presence on the track rising and falling every few seconds while a woodwind instrument plays a repeated, downbeat motif. 1/2 A Tiger stalks and sways into place, as muted as the other tracks� introductions, then speeds up towards the end, human-sounding drums machine-gunning in the background, before the album�s undoubted stand-out track appears. Lost is probably the best 3EF number there is (Elliott�s released the new album, The Mess We Made, under his own name and I�m therefore not counting tracks from that here. Lost does, however, form the main factor in the natural progression into The Mess�). It starts with a semi-acoustic guitar playing a simple refrain. Drums join in eventually, but they�re entirely acoustic too � feathered, rather than beaten. A piano enters a few bars in, down in the mix, the guitar sounds get messed around with electronically for a short while, then� vocals. Proper vocals, singing real words and everything. They�re vaguely operatic, but that�s a description that only really holds any water if you imagine the slowest, saddest, most heart-breaking opera ever, then stick it on depressants. They sing �To save� a world that is lonely; To save� a world that is lost,� over and over and over, before ending with �You are lost.� And you think, Jesus, what the hell�s happened to this guy since his last album? Lost lasts ten minutes, but as with all 3EF recordings it doesn�t feel like a stretch, because it swallows you up entirely. In the last three minutes the ambience of the piece changes slightly, the hard, high-pitched metallic effects that presided over Ghost popping in for a peek, but they don�t sound angry or dreadful anymore; instead, they�re as sorrowful as the rest of the track. It then segues straight into Jesus Break. This is a simple track, a slow, sloooow few notes on a piano, a double bass somewhere down there, a chorus humming one note repeatedly and the occasional sound of somebody whispering �Jesus�. It�s melancholy but not overly depressing; a warm sadness, rather than anything more oppressive. The album closes on almost as high a note with the track Goddamnit You�ve Got To Be Kind. The title gives the game away � we�re in more redemptive territory now. It�s a downbeat, resigned form of uplifting, but it�s uplifting all the same. It�s the gentlest, warmest moment on the album and makes the entire thing seem like a journey, one where the moral is that, sure, you go through loss, emptiness, sorrow and hurt, but there�s always at least that one faint glimmer of hope on the other side. It�s the sound of someone putting all of themselves into a record, someone taking risks with their art for entirely personal reasons, someone at the top of their game. It�s an honest-to-goodness masterpiece. The album opens with What To Do But Cry?, a track that forms a relatively easy introduction to the assault that�ll come later. Disembodied voices are a constant on this album � they wash in and out of the mix all the way through. Here they inhabit a soundscape of relentless beats and vaguely industrial effects, ghosts in an abandoned metalworks. The following Corpses As Bedmates ups the ante considerably, slowing the beat down but increasing the presence of those spectral voices until they�re in control of the track. The rhythm speeds up and the piece rages onwards, a major gale blowing, sucking you up into a malignant tornado and tossing you about like a rag doll. Then it stops, a whistling wind and an occasional hint of bass bringing the track to a close. Silence again, before The Star�s Gone Out shows us the after-effects; the wind is still there, but it�s calmed down to a gentle, but still threatening gust. Gates blow open; it finds its way through holes in glass and metal, producing odd whistles that form the merest suggestion of a melody. There�s a sudden blast of white noise halfway through, then the wind dies again, the same chimes as before taking over once more. Finally, all you�re left with is the breeze, nothing else. The Out Sound From Way In is the next track. Again, repetition is the key to the piece. A tattoo is beaten out on a number of metal surfaces and what sounds like a steam-train whistle can be heard every bar. It all sounds like a train winding its way towards its destiny as a wreck of twisted metal, before the drumming stops entirely and leaves us with harsh scrapes of sound, unwilling brakes being applied. I�ve Seen The Light And It�s Dark sounds like the bones on which An Even Harder Shade� would be built and, as such, came as a disappointment to me. After the four tracks that have come before, it appears bare and of little substance. Next up is Ghosts�. I saw somebody link 3EF to My Bloody Valentine a couple of days ago and couldn�t figure out why until I heard this again. An instrumental Kevin Shields on a really bad trip, there�s a two-note refrain running through Ghosts� that I�ve heard somewhere else recently. That�s going to bother me until I can figure out what it is. The track is slow but purposeful, the beats weary and somewhat forced (intentionally). The final piece is Donald Crowhurst - still ambience that�s all loss and isolation. It�s not the last time that Elliott will use a real world reference as a track�s title to increase its meaning. Ghost�s not the greatest 3EF album and probably shouldn�t be the one you start off with � it�s too jagged, too sharp. Once you�ve heard some of Elliott�s other output, though, it�s unmissable.
The first 3EF release I bought was 1998�s You Guys Kill Me, an apocalyptic brew of biblical references, deepcore drum and bass, sinister atmospherics and darkly cynical humour. Elliott�s is a difficult sound to describe as there are so few points of reference to link to; so very few other records that sound anything like these. The opening A Galaxy of Scars kicks off with a slow rhythm that sounds like it�s being played on bones and an electronic moan forming the� ahem� melody. Another voice joins in about a third of the way through and the rhythm shifts slightly. Then the rhythm suddenly drops out entirely, leaving you in this odd spectral wash of clouds, before coming back in to lead in to the next track, For All The Brothers And Sisters. And this is where I originally had trouble with the album. It�s a similar problem as that mentioned in this thread - you need to acclimatise to the style of the sound that�s assaulting you before you can get over its oddness and begin to understand it. There are a couple of atonal electronic animal screeches and a strangely muted drum and bass rhythm here, and that�s it. The beats stop entirely and the track ends in a different place from where it started, with half a minute of threatening ambience. Like the vast majority of 3EF tracks, it echoes like it�s been recorded in a huge occult chamber underneath the ruins of an abbey. Next up is There�s A Fight At The End Of The Tunnel, which sounds like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop on serious downers. The beat here nods along underneath it all, very occasionally hinting that it�s slipping into Aphex/Squarepusher style breaks before pulling back from them and continuing along the path it previously set. Then all of a sudden� thwack. The first couple of seconds worth of silence on the album suggest that something�s changed and An Even Harder Shade Of Dark bursts through your speakers. The beats here have been produced live, sampled and fiddled around with (a little like some of the tracks on the Lips� Yoshimi, only with the intention of creating exactly the opposite feeling � where Yoshimi is warm and ultimately uplifting, this is uncompromisingly dark and wicked). As with those that preceded it, this track is built on the constant repetition of one phrase, this one being a deep, deep, backwards-tracked, swelling bassline. Fuzz and interference join in as it gets louder and more insistent, and wordless human vocals can just be heard inside the mix. It�s an astonishing eight minutes and the first time that you really �get� it. It�s followed by Lions Writing The Bible, a totally beat-less track that leads the listener gently from the apocalypse of the previous track into the fury of the next, No Dove No Covenant. The nearest comparison here is Squarepusher again, although only in terms of beats. The melody is that of Lions� and carries on throughout the track, coming out the other side even more depressed and withdrawn that it entered. I�m Sick And Tired Of Being Sick And Tired follows, with more of those beats forming the backing to a harsh, reverb-heavy series of metallic scrapings, the merest suggestion of a John Barry theme hidden just within sight. That Would Be Exhibiting The Same Weak Traits is the nearest to standard darkcore to be found here, yet it still manages to sound a thousand times more urgent and menacing than anything else you�ve heard. The final track on the album is In Bristol with a Pistol, a wonderful attack on trip hop (specifically Portishead and Tricky, from the sound of it). You can hear Elliott playing them at their own game, stalking them through smoky bars and neon-lit streets until he finally catches up with them and finishes them off with a chainsaw. Unfortunately, it's money that's somehow got to last me the next five months, which I think we all realise just isn't going to happen. The best thing to do would be swallow my pride and go back to my old job for the summer. Hell, though, it's not just a matter of pride - quite apart from the drop in pay and the shift onto a shitty flexi-time contract, I'm fairly convinced that I'd either go completely fucking nuts within a couple of days or quit the first time anyone decided to give me shit. It's not like anyone's going to be willing to take me on for that period of time doing the stuff that I've spent the last three years getting trained for, either. The really gutting thing about this is the job ad we found on the 'Net a couple of weeks ago, asking for a Visual Basic programmer based in Shrewsbury for a month's contract. Pay was �1500 per project which, unless there was going to be some creative wording in the contract and it ended up being per completed project with the given project being a six-month job, would have meant a minimum of one-and-a-half grand for a month's work. As for VB programmers in this town, I must be one of about, what, 15? 20? Then take into account how many of them would have seen the ad. The drawback? To start ASAP. This was two or three weeks back, and I've still got another three weeks to go now. The other possibility is that I might have a bit of freelance web design work coming my way, which'll be particularly fantastic if it happens - Wolverhampton have completely skirted around design issues, limiting them to a few mentions of the basic interface principles that are best summed up as 'common fucking sense', so actually having some bits and bobs to whack in the old CV would go a long way to helping out in future. It's all gone quiet since I said I'd do it, though, so I'm not holding my breath on that one. Currently my CV is all retail-based, which isn't going to be of very much use when it comes to getting anything I'd actually enjoy doing. And you know what? If there's one thing I've learnt from the last ten years it's that I am not going to be spending the rest of my working life doing something I get no pleasure from. I'm wondering, does this still exist? I don't overtly identify with labels in the way I did as a teenager, but there are still a couple that seem to fit me like a glove. Leaf have an admirable 'no style' policy in place which wins them votes, but even without this they'd get mine simply for releasing Susumu Yokota's recordings in the UK. Warp, true to their self-promotion, *are* electronic pioneers. The hype can occasionally become unbearable (I still don't understand the Boards of Canada thing - can somebody please explain how the second album was in any way, shape or form different from the first?) but anybody associated with Chris Morris is okay with me. The reason I've been thinking about this is because it suddenly struck me that I spend a lot more money on Domino releases than I do anything else. Smog, Will Oldham, Dave Pajo, Jim O'Rourke, Third Eye Foundation, Fridge, FourTet, Stephen Malkmus, Royal Trux, Weird War, Loose Fur, Quasi, Clinic, Sebadoh/Folk Implosion... it's a list of acts that's pretty much unbeatable. I think I'm getting the label bug again. It seemed to start with my discovery of Catmobile some months ago and the realisation, or re-realisation, that obscurity can be extremely cool and that cool - contrary to opinion - doesn't necessarily need to be a stance that excludes everything popular or mainstream. I'm sat here reading what I've just written and I'm thinking 'Why?' What's the point of this post? Maybe it's this; it's time to reclaim cool. Take it back from the ugly clutches of cultural elitism and redistribute it equally. Can I see a show of hands? |
Losing the fight against mediocrity for the last few years. | ||
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