It’s about the time when you read the latest CD sleeve-notes from the revolving door of musicians known as Antifamily that you want to fling it out of the window, hopefully onto a passing fan. This is because Antifamily pretentiously describe themselves as “the beat-group as an elementary kinship structure”, the press-release hailing them as ‘avant-punk’. Argh! But, you know, what with books, covers and judging nowadays it’s almost impossible to get away with writing a review just by glancing at the sleeve-notes as per usual, so having picked up the old quill I gave it a rather good spin…

Not too bad at all! The busy and rather interesting pop ‘Law of the Plainsmen’ fashionably bows down to Devo, smudging eyeliner, while ‘The Shaft’ shakes hands with Krautrock while acknowledging the Post-Punk explosion that followed. There’s a hell of a lot going on, I hear nice blips and solid bass-lines in each song; previous pain alleviated, massaged even. Each song has bunches of simple nuances played with sundry instruments: synths and steel drums on ‘Work Cheap’, plus cello and weird percussion on ”The Final’. Singers swap, languages change but are still sung in the same nonchalant tone, the pouting “jah?” kind of way, yet it would all seem hair-tearingly pompous if it was delivered with such fantastic acerbity. “Jah” indeed.

Like a toddler hours past bedtime, the album drags on with agitated and tedious energy, Antifamily releasing slithers of shiny silver pop poo on their Kraftwerk bed-sheets while crying to the nanny state. However, this child insolently defies authority with a pre-pubescent mysteriousness of Nico and an upbeat nature akin to Debbie Harry, leaving the table early to read ‘Nouveau-Poet Monthly’ in its rebellious little beret. I hope to God I won’t have a child so irritatingly talented as this.

http://www.antifamily.org/

Hark! What’s that noise? Well, it’s a fairly new compilation from Housepig records, and it really is noise. Housepig are an established ambient-electronica/experimental label from Minneapolis, and this compilation is a sparse listen with each song averaging 11 minutes of atmospheric synths, throbbing soundscapes and minimalist bruumpling, for need of a real word.

It starts of gently, Unicorn’s ‘Sleeper Wave’ lulling you into a false sense of security with a beautiful three note synth line strung out to barren echoes, but from then on it’s pretty daunting stuff. Japanese maverick Aube kindly offers us ‘Shackle’ – 5 minutes of cicada noise and scraping metal, then another half of piercing blips which gently slice the eardrums in a strange, almost seductive way. Contrary to what you may be thinking, this is oddly inspiring. The song reaches places in the sonic spectrum of which I have never heard before. It’s not just inspiring. This is fantastic, the song “tickles the ears” in a sense. Noise terrorists Bastard Noise unleash pure rage to terrifying extent on ‘Flesh Near Automation’ – like ‘Come to Daddy’ stripped to the vocals and background noise. Lovely ambient telephone bleeps with radio static and dark soundscapes disperse the remaining 3 songs, and the description may not sound incredibly appealing but it definitely is interesting. Pressing ‘stop’ on the player shocks you, this album becomes part of the background, filling the room with dense waves.

This album forces you to consider the possibilities of music without, err, the music. This then prompts the question: is this actually music? After all, Aube – real name (big breath): Akifumi Nakajima agrees: “I don’t think of myself as a musician or an artist. I’m a designer. I therefore consider my sound works to be designs as well.” They do say that music is ‘organised noise’ and this, in my opinion, is indeed noise but masterly pieced together, with a huge emphasis on space.

Reviewing this was like trying to describe something awful but equally attractive at the same time, and I really think there is something to get out of it. This compilation comes highly recommended to anyone with serious horizon broadening to do, or anybody with an open mind looking for a whole new way of listening to music.

http://www.housepig.com/index.php?audio

Drugs are bad, of course, but for the immense potential creativity it yields we have another band to thank the acid/LSD club: Animal Collective’s Grass is a stunning release off the sublime ‘Feels’ album. Nostalgic memories of warm summers wash over to the intro of the title track, in comes the perpetual tribal drumming and distinctive Beach Boys-esque harmonies. ‘Grass’ bounces along like the show-off hare from the tortoise race fame, jolly and rambunctious. Alien electronics and strange Arabic bagpipe rasps fill the atmospheric ‘Must Be a Treeman’ while ‘Fickle Cycle’ does even more to impress: drummer snaps fill out trance pulses and tremelo’d guitars, Avey Tare & co shouting polyphonic harmonies from dense treetops.

The artwork is a vivid collection of tie-dyed faces and quavers popping out of static air. Videos of the singles and also ‘Who Could Win a Rabbit’ from the equally impressive ‘Sung Tongs’ LP come on the bonus DVD and prove a charming and a perfect visual representation of Animal Collective’s blurry genius.

This CD makes you want to stop taking baths, start growing your hair, renounce your detox life and instead take up daily bouts of flower painting and costume making. Animal Collective work in sudden layers, falling denser and deeper – an immense effort to produce surely and one that will always remind me of a blissful, carefree childhood.

http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/release.php?id=168