South by Southwest Music Festival 2016, Day 3, Part 1

Event: South by Southwest Music Festival, Day 3: Day Parties
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: 17 March 2016

Introduction: Much like last year, the third day of the festival was the longest day for me, and so I'm going to split it into two parts. This post will cover the various day parties I attended, and the next one will cover the Levitation showcase at Hotel Vegas.

I took the day off work and made it down early enough to catch the first band playing on the inside stage at Cheer Up Charlie's for Brooklyn Vegan's day party: Your Friend from Lawrence, Kansas. Their set was marred by the really loud rock music of White Reaper blasting in from the outside stage, but they persevered and brought up their intensity to rise to the occasion. Nominally a dream pop band, they showed a slightly heavier and more psychedelic sound as a result. They certainly weren't aggressive, but they were rather powerful when they were trying to be. They had great keyboard tones, and I liked the spacey vibes even when they were interrupted by the outdoor interference.

Next up on the same stage was Julia Jacklin, a singer-songwriter with an electric three-piece band. Jacklin herself was definitely the main focus, as the lead guitar was barely present, and the strongest element of the set was her ethereal, mellow, longing, reverb-laden vocals. The occasional harmony helped, too. The music was fairly simple, rootsy, Americana-type rock, which wasn't outstanding but worked for the songs. They never got heavy in terms of instrumental sound, but it was easy to get lost in the vaguely heavy emotional content.

[Julia Jacklin.]

I got some tacos and tots at the always-wonderful Arlo's outside and went back inside for a few minutes to catch some of Daniel Romano's set. I only saw enough to know that it was some sort of alt/country/rock thing that seemed to work.

From there, I decided to hop on my bike and try my luck at the new Urban Outfitters backyard venue, Space 24 Twenty. I was skeptical because the trendiness quotient seemed out of control and it was a few miles out of the way of most of the fray of downtown. However, it is right across from the University of Texas and just a block down from the Hole in the Wall. The main draw for me was Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, whom I've been interested in seeing for a couple years. They offered solid indie rock with a free-spirited, exploratory vibe. Their roots may lie in folk, but I actually found it to be more soulful, experimental, and rock-oriented. I liked the unusual rhythms, the variety of synth and synth-like sounds, and the off-kilter energy of it all. Thao mostly played guitar, but switched to electrified mandolin for a few songs. She dedicated the last song to survivors of sexual abuse and rapped a powerful lyric.

[Thao & the Get Down Stay Down.]

I stuck around for Frankie Cosmos, who came out with just an electric guitar and a friend to provide additional vocals. Her standard band was absent for unspecified reasons. Her songs were rather minimal, and her guitarwork was not what I would consider proficient. She wasn't without charm, but the songs just weren't held together well enough.

[Frankie Cosmos.]

I went back downtown and wandered Sixth Street for a bit. I saw a few songs by SIR, formerly known as Sarah and the Meanies, on the rooftop of The 512, but their sound was a fairly generic pop/rock affair, and I moved along. My real destination was the Omni Hotel, where my friend Ian Fisher was preparing to play a solo acoustic set in the middle of their massive lobby. I've reviewed him before, but I think my conflict of interest is too high to provide a score. I'll still share the setlist and a few thoughts.

[Ian Fisher.]

Setlist:

1. Nero

2. Invisible Cities

3. Constant Vacation

4. All Ya Need

5. Ich hab nur einen Koffer in Berlin

6. If You Wanna Stay

7. Almost Darlin'

8. Comin' Down

Ian normally plays with a band these days, but did this show on his own with just his acoustic guitar. His set relied heavily on his new album, Nero, but offered a couple unreleased songs, including "Ich hab nur einen Koffer in Berlin", a rare example of his German language skills, seemingly connected with his disenfranchisement with Berlin and his recent move to Vienna. A special novelty came in the form of the incredible reverb of the venue. It seemed somewhat frequency-dependent, so certain notes would echo through the building unbelievably long while others moved along quickly. It was a cool effect, and Ian chose songs that were well suited to the environment. The most bizarre and hilarious part of the show was that Mannie Fresh of the Cash Money Millionaires was in the audience, and at the end of the set, one of his companions taught Ian how to dab.

The next band to play the hotel lobby stage was the Great American Canyon Band, a quartet from the Baltimore area. The rhythm guitarist had apparently recently broken his thumb, but it was mended well enough that he could still play, although he didn't try anything fancy. Their bassist opted to just focus on vocals, and the drummer relied solely on a snare and a suitcase. The stripped-down sound worked well with the almost overwhelmingly reverberant venue, where the haunting vocals and lead guitar shined in the spotlight of endless echo. When the drummer would occasionally hit hard, it was terrifically powerful. The music was folky, serene, and very pleasant.

[Great American Canyon Band.]

Scores:

Your Friend: B+

Julia Jacklin: B

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down: B+

Frankie Cosmos: C-

Great American Canyon Band: B

South by Southwest Music Festival 2016, Day 2

Event: South by Southwest Music Festival, Day 2
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: 16 March 2016

Introduction: There was a lot going on this evening, but I had friends arriving from out of town fairly late, so I wanted to be home to greet them. I still had time to catch a few bands, and I decided to just spend the evening at the esteemed Moody Theater (home of Austin City Limits), where I knew there would be seats and good sound.

First up was Moonlandingz, which has some sort of complicated history involving Fat White Family, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, and (maybe?) Sean Lennon. The latter didn't appear on stage, but Muhl and six other performers did, even if half of them were inaudible. The band appears to be some kind of joke, and their lyrics and performance lend credence to that. I was vaguely interested because Muhl and Lennon's other psych rock outfit was unexpectedly really good (Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger), but this is something entirely different. There wasn't actually any psychedelia – just noise, raw punk energy, and a bit of crass behavior. There was no depth to the music, and certainly nothing in the way of a hook. It was trashy and thrashy seemingly just for the fun of it.

[Moonlandingz.]

Incongruously, the second band was a solo instrumental guitarist who goes by Noveller. Normally, I expect SXSW to do a decent job lining up bands that might share an audience, but this was a bit of a stretch. However, I vastly preferred Noveller's warm, synthy, layered, beautiful sound to Moonlandingz's raw buzz. This was almost like seeing a classical performance in comparison. Her combination of loops, effects, and guitar finesse yielded great tones reminiscent of a less aggressive My Bloody Valentine. In a few parts, she did let loose with some solid riffing, but most of the time her music was more of the trance-inducing variety. I enjoyed it, but it did feel a bit tame at times, and it was easy to get distracted. During a break between pieces, she confessed that this was a special performance for her, in that it was her birthday and that she played her first show in Austin while a student at the University of Texas.

The main draw of the night was Iggy Pop, one of the few major headliners to appear on the official SXSW schedule. Unlike most showcases at the festival, he played a complete show of over an hour and a half. I had to leave a bit early, but still caught most of the set.

I will admit that I harbor mixed feelings about Pop, as he has a long history of deliberately creepy, arbitrarily crass, and unnecessarily confrontational antics. Nonetheless, he is a talented performer and hailed as an influence by many others. I like the Stooges as much as the next person, but the side of Iggy I always have liked best is his arty, mechanical, experimental work, best exemplified by his two Berlin-based albums in collaboration with David Bowie. However, considering that Pop released his new collaborative album with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age two days after this show, and Homme appeared on stage as the lead guitarist, I wasn't expecting to hear many of my favorite Iggy songs.

The band opened with the distinctive "Lust for Life", which I figured wasn't entirely out of place, but followed it with the strange "Sister Midnight", which was a delight and a good sign of what was to come. He ultimately played 13 of the 17 songs on his two Bowie-era albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. He also did most of the songs from the new album, Post Pop Depression, but almost nothing else. He didn't perform a single song from the Stooges' canon. I was surprised by his choices, but I largely got what I wanted, and the new material was passable. I rather wonder if he was trying to do a conscious tribute to Bowie by doing so many of their collaborative works.

Iggy might not play any instruments on stage, but he ran around, jumped about, and injected enough energy in the vocals to make it easy to understand why he just focuses on the words. He came out wearing black pants and a black suit jacket (with no shirt, naturally), and it only took two songs for the jacket to come off. About thirty minutes into the set, he did his first stage dive and crowd surf. Some things never change – and thankfully that includes his powerful voice.

The band did a great job capturing the raw power of Iggy's music, but was also able to lend nuance to the more synthetic songs. I was quite surprised that they were able to take such a mechanized song like "Mass Production" and make it work so well live. "Nightclubbing" was a similar success, even with the plodding beat of the most basic drum machine imaginable. Somehow they captured the passive spirit of the song without making it feel tedious or dull. "The Passenger" was an immediate highlight.

The downside is that Iggy is still Iggy. He couldn't resist performing the truly disgusting "Sixteen", and plenty of his lyrics are simply cringeworthy, even when in the midst of otherwise brilliant material. At least he wasn't particularly verbose in his banter, and when he did speak, it was usually just ridiculous or hilarious. [Edit 2020.07.15: I previously had also criticized his song "China Girl" as "problematic", and while the title is, I've since realized the lyric is more nuanced than I'd previously appreciated.]

Here's the setlist (with some help from here):

01. Lust for Life

02. Sister Midnight

03. American Valhalla

04. Sixteen

05. In the Lobby

06. Some Weird Sin

07. Funtime

08. Tonight

09. Sunday

10. German Days

11. Mass Production

12. Nightclubbing

13. The Passenger

14. China Girl

Encore:

15. Break Into Your Heart

16. Fall in Love with Me

17. Repo Man

18. Gardenia

19. Baby

20. Chocolate Drops

21. Paraguay

22. Success

Scores:

Moonlandingz: D

Noveller: B+

Iggy Pop: B

P.S. Photography was not allowed and I was told to put my phone away after taking the picture of Moonlandingz above. Oh well.

South by Southwest Music Festival 2016, Day 1

Event: South by Southwest Music Festival, Day 1
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: 15 March 2016

Introduction: Another year, another SXSW. I've noticed that the first official night of the festival tends to be fairly tame, and they seemingly purposefully refuse to book any major acts for it. If you want to go out, there aren't any obvious choices: you have no choice but to do some work to decide what to see. I went for a Chilean showcase at Friends that seemed to feature a bunch of atmospheric bands. I realized on the way that I had coincidentally also seen some Chilean bands on the first night of SXSW last year.

Boraj: A seven-piece band in the vein of atmospheric, spacey indie rock, including violin, saxophone, keyboards, acoustic and electric guitar, drums, auxiliary percussion, and bass. Despite the number of musicians, the music was rather sparse and minimal. Some sections picked up and rocked more, and many songs featured good, unusual rhythms, but I was a bit confused by some of the arrangements. It seemed like some of the musicians barely played anything. I liked the general sound, but as is common at SXSW showcases, they had to fight through some sound problems that clearly didn't help set the mood right.

[Boraj.]

Natisú: A trio led by a frontwoman handling guitar, keyboards, effects, and vocals, backed by a bassist and a drummer. The set started with some almost industrial beats and fuzz bass. They gradually moved into a more indie rock direction, but the bassist continued to play strong parts, the drummer often supplemented her sound with electronic pads, and the singer used a lot of effects and loops to keep things interesting. The less heavy songs tended to be a bit vague and unfocused, and I welcomed the return of the industrial sound near the end of the set.

[Natisú.]

Spiral Vortex: I wasn't sure what to expect with such a clichéd name (their highlighted track on the SXSW website was even called "Geometry"!) but they actually delivered solid psychedelic rock. They appeared as a quartet (bass/vocals, guitar/keyboard/vocals, keyboard, and drums) and they managed to merge their sounds quite well. The bassist had consistently great tone and used some heavy effects quite proficiently. This drummer also used some electronic pads. The keyboards were nice and thick and laid a great foundation for a big, hazy, warm sound. The vocals weren't particularly strong, but the music was superb.

[Spiral Vortex.]

Scores:

Boraj: C+

Natisú: B
Spiral Vortex: A-

Golden Dawn Arkestra / Annabelle Chairlegs / Dallas Acid / The Sun Machine - Live 2016.02.27 Mohawk, Austin, Texas

Artists: Golden Dawn Arkestra / Annabelle Chairlegs / Dallas Acid / The Sun Machine

Venue: Mohawk (outside)

Location: Austin, Texas

Date: 27 February 2016

Event: Stargazer Record Release Party (second night)

Golden Dawn Arkestra, obviously, are my favorite band from Austin. Their debut EP was released in 2014, and ever since I first saw them, I've been eagerly awaiting a full-length album. When they finally announced a release party for such an album, I immediately bought a ticket. They actually played two shows, but I only went to the second one, as the lineup seemed more up my alley.

First up was The Sun Machine, a six-piece band from Austin with a garage feel. There were hints of surf guitar, something akin to spooky camp, sunny 60s pop or classic rock, and just a touch of psychedelia. The two guitars and keyboard did battle to occupy space, and the keyboard consistently lost. However, the presence of an extra percussionist really added to the groove and helped the drummer always bring a good beat. I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be funny, creepy, or serious, but it seemed like it rocked more than they'd intended. Or maybe their studio work is just tamer than their live show.

[The Sun Machine.]

Dallas Acid is actually from Austin. They are a trio of two men sitting behind Moog synthesizers and a woman drummer/vocalist. Their music fits into the Kosmische/cosmic tradition in that the beat is minimal, the vocals are sparse, the approach is anything but aggressive, and the sound is astral or pastoral. As if to prove their debt to early Kraftwerk, their music was accompanied by a projection of what appeared to be a German BMW promo video from the 70s. Actually, though, I thought their music was better suited to some philosophical sci-fi movie (i.e. 2001 or Stalker) than an automotive exposition! They played a very serene, peaceful set that seemed a bit at odds with the other bands on the bill, and although the audience chattered through some of it, they were still fairly respectful and gave them quite a bit of applause when they walked off stage with the synthesizers still going.

[Dallas Acid.]

Annabelle Chairlegs is another Austin band, seemingly quite young but rising fast. They had traces of groovy 60s psych and aggressive 90s alternative that blended well. The lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist was good, and the drummer somehow was able to regularly and effortlessly supply great harmony parts in just the right spots. The lead guitarist played with sublime taste; he offered a wonderful variety of effects and style and somehow managed to never be overwhelming. He even played a little slide solo on the last song that came off just right without seeming contrived. The band had a consistently good energy throughout their set.

[Annabelle Chairlegs.]

Golden Dawn Arkestra started with their regular trick of emerging from the back of the venue, wandering through the crowd while dancing, playing horns and percussion, and blowing incense, and gradually making their way to the stage. They launched into a set consisting mostly of long, groovy versions of songs from their new album, Stargazer. This time, I counted fourteen members on stage, plus an older man that danced in place just off stage or on the stairwell.

[Golden Dawn Arkestra.]

As always, their sound is full, and yet the instruments are not difficult to distinguish, and the members tend to trade instruments and positions with ease. There was again quite of a bit of dancing, reminders to take care of Mother Earth, and various pseudo-mystical rituals. This time, in addition to the usual psychedelic funk, there were a couple more ponderous, spacier segments, although they didn't last long. It was also the first time I noticed a baritone sax, a flute, and various percussion instruments, although I may have just had the advantage of perhaps the best spot in the house. I also noticed more of the members, including the dancers, joining in the singing. I seem to always enjoy this band, but by a narrow margin, this may have been the best I've seen of them yet.

[The encore finale.]

Scores:

The Sun Machine: B-

Dallas Acid: C

Annabelle Chairlegs: B+

Golden Dawn Arkestra: A

Free Week at Mohawk 2016.01.09

Event: Free Week

Venue: Mohawk

Location: Austin, Texas

Date: 9 January 2016

Apparently there is a tradition in Austin of booking a ton of local bands for free shows during the first week of January, as this week is typically one of the worst attended for concerts around the country. Somehow I'd failed to catch wind of this in previous years, but I was well aware of it this time, and I decided to make it to at least one of these shows despite a busy week and minimal willingness to actually get out of the house. (Apparently I too am guilty of reclusiveness at this time of year, probably due to something about the January cold and recovery from holiday excesses.) I ended up just going to this one event, but there were solid lineups at venues all over town all week long. The one I chose was sponsored by the consistently on-the-mark people at Levitation, which is perhaps why this lineup leaned so heavily psychedelic.

I spent most of the night at the outside stage, despite the relatively cold temperatures (about 40°F, which I'm well aware is not that cold by the Midwestern standards I was raised by). First on the bill was Moving Panoramas, who I'd recently seen at a Fun Fun Fun Fest aftershow. Their dreamy, spacey, consistent groove was still their core and it was still pleasing to hear, but they played at a distinctly superior level. The drummer seemed more confident and steady. The bassist really held down the grooves, and her harmony vocals were much more distinct and perfectly in tune. They may have simply gotten a better mix than at that previous show, but it felt like their whole sound just came together better. They might not have any big variations or unexpected twists, but their increased confidence and comfort made their tunes all the better.

[Moving Panoramas.]

Next up was Christian Bland & the Revelators, whose frontperson is best known as the guitarist of The Black Angels. I'd heard enough about this band to be curious, but I was getting disheartened by their frustrations to get the mix right while soundchecking. When they finally got going, it was immediately clear that the star of their show was their drummer, Bob Mustachio. He was incredibly active, but he always played just the right thing. His driving force brought most of the energy to the songs. Most of the songs lived in a very old-school psychedelic rock space, like they could have been made by a stoner psych band in 1968. The deliberately retro keyboard, heavy reverb, and fuzzed-out haze all spoke to a bygone era, for better or worse. This was reinforced by a straightforward but solid take on Pink Floyd's "Lucifer Sam" (although they confusingly ended with a cover of Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue", which has never been a favorite of mine).

Christian Bland himself had a good guitar sound, but his voice was heavily effected for the entire set, including when he was just chatting to the audience, so he was rendered entirely incomprehensible. I could forgive that, but unfortunately there was an even weaker link: the keyboard. Either the instrument was simply out of tune or the keyboardist was just playing poorly. In any case, it didn't help that the volume level of the instrument varied greatly from note to note such that it was often inaudible and then suddenly way too loud.

[Christian Bland & the Revelators.]

I took a break inside to warm up and see Hidden Ritual. They had a sort of dark, hazy post-punk vibe. The singer wore sunglasses and mumbled sparsely into his microphone in a manner that was not particularly enthralling. However, I was reasonably impressed by the bassist, as he seemed to be driving most of the harmonic and rhythmic qualities of the band. His sound was thick, punchy, and insistent. The rest of the band seemed a bit cold and thin in comparison. The drummer was apparently unmiked and nearly inaudible, and despite having the bass drum lifted off the ground like another tom, his style seemed constrained and unsophisticated. The keyboardist seemed particularly odd and spent most of his time hunched over his instrument, engaged in a ritual that did not seem to produce much actual sound. They reminded me of the early, goth-minimalist style of early Cure albums, but sadly without a comparable standard of songwriting.

[Hidden Ritual.]

Although I was excited to see Ringo Deathstarr last year at Levitation, I ended up feeling like they weren't quite what I was expecting. This time, they stayed a bit more in line with the classic shoegaze sound of their studio recordings. However, they again exhibited a heavy side that isn't entirely documented on record – their thick, swirling energy often burst into an intense rock passage with blazing, wild guitar solos. Their whole set was very active and fun to watch. I liked the basslines and appreciated that the bassist got more opportunities to sing, both on her own and alongside the guitarist.

[Ringo Deathstarr.]

I may have seen Golden Dawn Arkestra twice last year, but they've rapidly become my favorite Austin band. They bring such a strong and unmistakable vibe to their shows that it's hard not to get wrapped up in it. They manage to be incredibly funky, very danceable, thoroughly psychedelic, and bizarrely mystical, all at once. At this show, I counted thirteen members, and their configuration was different than past concerts I'd seen. There was again a keyboardist/vocalist/saxophonist and a xylophonist/keyboardist/vocalist, but this time five horn players, a bassist, one guitarist, two percussionists, and only two dancers. There was a lot of movement on stage and it did seem like many members switched roles and positions throughout the set. The whole thing has a great upbeat, exuberant tone and I don't know how anyone could resist their grooves. They have a wondrous mix of style and substance. I eagerly await their debut full-length album.

[Golden Dawn Arkestra. Note bandleader Topaz McGarrigle climbing up the wall.]

Scores:

Moving Panoramas: B+

Christian Bland & the Revelators: C+

Hidden Rituals: C-

Ringo Deathstarr: B+

Golden Dawn Arkestra: A

Einstürzende Neubauten - Lament (2014)

Artist: Einstürzende Neubauten

Album: Lament

Release Date: 7 November 2014

Label: Mute (BMG)

Producer: Boris Wilsdorf and Einstürzende Neubauten

Tracklisting:
01. Kriegsmaschinerie
02. Hymnen [adaptation of various national anthems]
03. The Willy-Nicky Telegrams [adapted from telegraphs between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II]
04. In de Loopgraf [Paul van den Broeck adaptation]
05. Der 1. Weltkrieg (Percussion Version)
06. On Patrol in No Man's Land [James Reese Europe cover]
07. Achterland [Paul van den Broeck adaptation]
08. Lament: Lament
09. Lament: Abwärtsspirale
10. Lament: Pater Peccavi [Clemens non Papa adaptation]
11. How Did I Die?
12. Sag mir wo die Blumen sind [Pete Seeger/Max Colpet cover]
13. Der Beginn des Weltkrieges 1914 (dargestellt unter Zuhilfenahme eines Tierstimmenimitators) [Joseph Plaut adaptation]
14. All of No Man's Land Is Ours [James Reese Europe cover]

Einstürzende Neubauten are a fascinating and long-lasting band, and one of a relatively small number of German bands that both regularly sing in German and manage to have a following in English-speaking countries. While they have consistently embraced experimentation, philosophical songwriting, and custom-built instrumentation, they have changed quite a bit through the years. From their earliest days as a percussive, punk-inspired noise band, they evolved through the 80s into something of an avant-garde industrial band. The height of their English-speaking popularity probably came in the 90s, when frontperson Blixa Bargeld started occasionally writing in English, their music began fitting into existing structures and patterns, and they even sometimes embraced melody. They were early adopters of not just a multimedia and internet-enabled experience, which seems to have kept them active and productive when they otherwise may have broken apart, but also the idea of self-releasing music instead of depending solely on mainstream distribution.

However, even being the longtime fan that I was, I started to get somewhat skeptical of the band in the late 00s. Their supporter's projects sounded cool, but they were too expensive for me at the time. Besides, the most of the songs on the first supporter's album ended up (albeit in alternate forms) on the public-release Perpetuum Mobile, which was clearly the better album anyway. The second supporter's album, Grundstück, wasn't very good, and the third, Jewels, wasn't either, and it even got a public release, despite earlier claims that it would not. The next major release, Alles wieder offen, had some great songs but on the whole seemed like a step down from their earlier albums. During this period, they also had released a series of eight highly experimental albums that I had no interest in whatsoever. The last blow was when they were forced to cancel their planned USA tour in 2010 due to visa problems. At that point, the band seemed to enter a period of less activity.

It wasn't until 2014 that they released another album, Lament, and it still remains unreleased outside of Europe (and Hong Kong!?). Disappointed by recent albums and discouraged by the rather high cost of importing the album, I abstained from acquiring it until a friend remarked that the album was "absolutely astounding" in terms of "packaging, production, fidelity, performance, composition, and theme". That was plenty enough to convince me to give it a try!

I was not disappointed. Lament is not at all like previous Neubauten records, although it is decidedly an album by the same band. The hallmark of self-made instrumentation is abundant in spades, and Bargeld's precise, dramatic vocal delivery immediately identifies this as the work of Neubauten. But where previous albums were focused on matters of theory and concept, this album is firmly grounded in a very real and specific historical event: the assault on Diksmuide, Belgium by the German army at the outbreak of World War I. The town commissioned the band to commemorate the hundred years' anniversary with a performance work, which was also "recreated" in the studio.

The album starts off deceptively quiet, but the gradually increasing clattering of "Kriegsmaschinerie" is meant to be read along with a text that describes the slow buildup that leads to war. This first track already proves that this is an album that requires more than just listening: the accompanying liner notes of the physical editions are essential. (The additional descriptions found on the band's website are also quite helpful.) Many other songs greatly benefit from the additional contextual information.

Almost every song has a unique story. "Hymnen" is a mashup of several national hymns, proving that they really are fairly meaningless and interchangeable. "The Willy-Nicky Telegrams" is a surprisingly successful vocoder duet, with Blixa as Kaiser Wilhelm II (left channel) and Alexander Hacke as Tsar Nicholas II (right channel). The two were cousins through marriage and exchanged friendly telegraphs even as they were mobilizing their armies. "Der 1. Weltkrieg" is a statistical composition, representing the individual nations at war with individual percussion instruments played for the duration of their participation. Two songs are minimalist, eerie adaptations of obscure Flemish poems about the mundanity of the soldier's life, and another two are basically covers of marching band tunes from the Harlem Hellfighter's military band. ("On Patrol in No Man's Land" even features lead vocals from Hacke!)

The centerpiece is a trilogy under the title of "Lament". It starts with an almost ambient piece of multi-layered vocals that builds up to the phrase, "die Mächtigen lieben den Krieg" ("the powerful love war"). This is followed by a downward spiral and then an adaptation of a Renaissance motet written by a composer that lived in Diksmuide. The latter is accompanied by the voices of various prisoners of war who were recorded by German linguists to document the wide variety of dialects and languages throughout Europe. It's a tricky matter to handle, but Neubauten treat it with the respect it deserves.

The last part of the album changes track a bit. "How Did I Die?" is an original composition that fits into the Neubauten canon well enough that it could have appeared on past albums without seeming out of place. "Sag mir wo die Blumen sind" ("Where Have All the Flowers Gone?") is a Pete Seeger song from the 1950s, translated into German and performed widely by Marlene Dietrich. The band's version is a rather minimal arrangement, but it's great to hear them take on the folk standard so successfully. "Der Beginn der Weltkrieges 1914" is a dramatic reading of a short story from 1926 telling of the onset of World War I from the perspective of various animals. It's a rather long track, and perhaps the one with the least relistening value, but it is particularly notable for ending with the appearance of Hitler!

While Neubauten have worked in theatre and have composed soundtracks before, this album is special for being a unique production with its own narrative and structure, but incorporating a wide variety of other sources. While an album so full of adaptations and covers is certainly an unusual step for the band, it seems to have rejuvenated the band and restored them to their creative best. The fact that it comes off so well in terms of content and sound makes it a resounding success. Considering how wonderful some of Neubauten's older cover versions are (Lee Hazelwood's "Sand" and Bonnie Dobson's "Morning Dew"), I wonder if Neubauten have an underappreciated talent for rearrangement and recontextualization.

Score: A

P.S. The one flaw of the album is that several sections of the liner notes are plagiarized straight from Wikipedia without credit. For example, the bit on the Harlem Hellfighters is copied from here, and the section on "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" is copied from here. The description of Joseph Plaut is clearly translated directly from his German article. Considering that the band supposedly hired two historians to help with their research, and Hartmut Fischer is credited with "literary research and text compilation", I would've expected someone to have treated that matter correctly.

P.P.S. Also, on "Achterland", Hacke is credited with performing "amplified crotches". This is clearly a typo and should read "amplified crutches", but I was slightly disgusted and humorously confused until I realized the error.

On Losslessness

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the nature of audio file formats and online distribution thereof. There seems to be a growing camp of people demanding lossless digital download options, but also a camp that claims that decent lossy compression is good enough for most people. Although I'm decidedly in the former camp, I would like to more thoroughly explore what the actual differences are between lossless and lossy compression.

Plenty of people have tried to determine if the differences are easy to hear. Generally, these analyses fall into two camps. The more populist surveys usually barely show a favorable outcome for the ability of an average listener to correctly identify a lossless file versus a lossy version. (See, for example, here.) The more specialized, audiophile studies fare somewhat better, although the specifics vary widely. Some people claim to be able to discern the difference with no difficulty, but these people tend to have high-end hardware and trained ears. (See, for example, here or here.) Most people can barely hear the difference, and it would seem even that requires more concentration and effort than is usually afforded during casual listening.

However easy it may or may not be to hear the difference, I am nonetheless interested in what exactly that difference is. The effectiveness of flac (the Free Lossless Audio Codec) in reducing file sizes to about half or two-thirds of uncompressed wav files should prove that some amount of lossless compression is possible simply by eliminating redundant data. Lossy compression also removes redundancies, but by definition also removes actual audio content to further reduce file size. The most obvious elimination is any frequency over 16 kHz, since many people cannot hear frequencies above that point, or cannot hear them well. Even I top out somewhere between 17 and 18 kHz.

After that, though, exactly what gets cut is not necessarily easy to describe. Fundamentally, information that is considered inessential is removed by the algorithm. However, some of this information may be detectable in its absence by careful inspection. To this end, I did some internet searching and found a few articles and discussions that address some common trends. Here are some of the conclusions I've come across:

1. Transients (e.g. snare hits) suffer. They get blurred, lose their sharpness, and may even acquire pre-echo. All forms of percussion can lose some of their natural punch. Such quick bursts of information are often too short for the codec's processing frame size and they get blurred across the frame.

2. Vocals lose focus and clarity. Our ears are particularly sensitive to the human voice and can detect seemingly subtle changes.
3. Cymbals and applause get distorted and rough. This is because high-entropy (i.e. "random" or rapidly changing) information changes too fast for the codec. This can sometimes also materialize as ringing or warbling.

4. Bass instruments get muddier. Lower frequencies have longer wavelengths, which can be longer than the codec's processing frame size, and thus do not get represented accurately.

5. Stereo separation and phase become distorted. Some of this is due to M/S (mid/sides) stereo mode, which instead of storing left and right, tries to reduce information redundancy by only storing the center (shared) and side (differences).

6. Dynamic loss and EQ loss is somewhat inevitable. Some sounds may get attenuated more than others, and the others may thus seem louder.

7. Noise (general murkiness, an underwater feeling, hiss, etc.) sometimes creeps in where previously there was desirable content.

8. Lossy compression can simply make things sound different, even if not necessarily worse. However, any deviation from the intentions of the artists and producers can reasonably be considered undesirable.

9. Lower-fidelity source material may actually suffer even worse, as whatever noise and other flaws exist in the uncompressed original may become exaggerated.

10. Genre, style, and the nature of the audio in question matter. Some types of music seem to compress better than others. Any reasonable audio comparison test should use a variety of types of music or audio.

There are, of course, a couple other factors to consider, such as the differences in acquiring and storing lossless and lossy audio. Hard drives are constantly getting cheaper and bigger, so the cost of storing lossless audio is a fairly marginal issue anymore. Acquiring the audio is another matter, although the difference there is also no longer as vast as it once was. New CDs are still only slightly more expensive than most mp3 stores, and used CDs are almost always cheaper. (The rip-and-resell approach has detractors but has been thus far legally unquestioned, at least in the USA.) Lossless online retailers are generally just about as expensive as mp3 stores, or at worst slightly more expensive than mp3s but still less than CDs. Hence, cost of acquisition is hardly a dealbreaker.

The real problem in acquisition is still that of availability. Lossless online retailers, while ever increasing in number and in content, still do not represent anything near all of the world's available music. It can be a pain to track this stuff down if it doesn't have the right type of following or industry support. There are a few significant websites (such as Bandcamp) and many individual indie labels (Sub Pop, Merge, etc.) and bands (speaking from experience: Ride, The Church, Wilco, and others) that offer lossless downloads, but many artists are still hard to track down.

This is also confused by the proliferation of HD retailers, which offer even higher sample rates and bitrates, despite that most people do not have the equipment to take advantage of the additional audio content. This wouldn't be a problem except that HD files are several factors larger and usually more expensive than any other digital format. (Only vinyl competes at that price range, and that's yet another story for another time.)

For me, lossless is the answer. While the quality advantage of lossless music may not be vast, the matters of file size and cost are less significant to me. The difficulty of acquiring lossless audio can still be a challenge, but it seems to be getting easier with time, and I am not opposed to CDs. In fact, if there is one issue that still gets me about most digital music downloads, it's the lack of album art. This is a big deal to me, and in fact was one of the first things I ever wrote about on this blog. Sometimes this can be found on discogs or other sites, but finding it in decent resolution is usually tough. If that hurdle can be crossed, then lossless digital downloads should clearly be considered the standard.

References:

Sound on Sound on lossless compression

Wikipedia on lossy compression artifacts

HardForum discussion on lossless audio
Dan Turkel's signal detection theory approach [Edit 2019.10.29: broken link; archived here]

Reddit discussion on discerning lossy compression

"Why mp3 sounds bad" from Production Advice
https://cdvsmp3.wordpress.com/

P.S. For the purposes of this discussion, I consider "lossless" to mean redbook audio CD quality, i.e. 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. HD audio is entirely another discussion with its own contentions, such as whether most listeners actually benefit from it, whether listeners can distinguish it, and whether the online retail options are any good. I do not have solid opinions of my own on these matters (yet).