Tu» 5.2002'
MUSIC
Teen queens
Imperial Teen grows up; plus international glitch,
trickles and rally cries
“the shape of the letter v.” Still, as in other
works by Berthling, this C D is a pretty serious
piece. This one will please fans of Pole,
Carsten Nicolai and Vladislav Delay.
—TN
F ountains
Kenneth Atchley •
Auscultate
Research
O n
Imperial Teen • Merge Records
F
ounded eight years ago in San
Francisco by Roddy Bottum,
an unlikely gay pop music fig
ure during his stint as keyboard
player for ’80s rap/metal outfit
Faith No More, Imperial Teen was
a breath of fresh New Wave air.
Bottum recruited friends Lynn
Perko, Will Schwartz and Jone
Stebbins (all singers who alternate
instrumental duties), and together
they set forth a nonchalantly
utopian boy/girl, gay/straight vibe
on two albums full of catchy,
rhythmically punchy songs that hid
a bittersweet, sometimes sardonic,
sometimes darkly sexual, lyrical
bite in their sing-song melodies.
The Teens don’t sound like
Imperial Teen’s latest is right On
Sleater-Kinney, but a comparison is
apt; both groups came together at almost the
Activist Strategizing in Los Angeles.
same post-Cobain cultural moment, and both
The band’s work fights social injustices with
are queer/queer-friendly guitar bands who rock
sound and action while defying conceptual
sweet and direct, not self-indulgent or preten
boundaries. On this recording we have rally
tious. Their spiritual forebears are the G o-G o’s
cries from the streets and updated techno beats.
and the Smiths— not the grim, stifling, (most
It’s chock full of lush electro buzz and click
ly) heterosexual male claustrophobia of grunge.
amid urban tribes telling their stories through
With On, they’ve released their most accom
chant. Sizzling open wires, street samples and
plished record yet. The guitars are clean and
minimal glitch are just part of this urban saga.
lean, Bottum and Schwartz add keyboard layers
Alongside understated tribal rhythms, the
to nearly every song, and the expanded musical
streets of Los Angeles are presented as a breed
ing ground of boiling strife.
scope lends an abundant stylistic diversity. The
propulsive rockers “Ivanka” and “Baby” are rife
At just less than one hour long, this perfor-
with addictive tambourines and hand claps.
mance/exhibition soundtrack aims to provoke
(The latter has a chorus that irresistibly goes “1
a list of visual references. With help from
love baby, baby is a dog”— it’s the best love song
G.R.R.L., Otto von Shirack and Spike, the
to a dog since the B-52’s “Quiche Lorraine.”)
mix has a sense of confident absurdity in
“Million $ Man" and “My Spy,” with their
approaching its social criticisms.
decadent guitar/keyboard excesses, wouldn’t
Since 1994 one of Ultra Red’s main objec
sound out of place on an early 7 0s Roxy Music
tives has been creating public installations deal
album. The sweeping, almost unbearably tune
ing with issues like queer public sex, housing pro
ful “Captain" is the best song the Beach Boys
jects and needle exchange. These audio activists
never recorded, and “Undone,” for all its
have developed a faceless style to analyze queer
melancholy ambivalence about radio hits,
class structure at its various points of erosion and
sounds deliciously like a should-be radio hit.
have made ambient interpolations that capture
the apolitical complacency of the time.
Lyrically, the approach is more subversive
than confrontational; the themes are post
— TJ Norris
modern (media/celebrity on “Ivanka” and
T iny little white
“Teacher’s Pet,” individualism vs. conformity
on "Our Time,” “Mr. & Mrs.” and “City
ones ( like
HANDFULS OF SALT)
Song”), but it’s all too playful and engaging to
Andreas Berthling •
be a treatise. These smart California kids prefer
Mitek
sassy and wry to preachy, probably (and right
fully) because it’s a lot more fun that way.
On actually couldn’t have come at a better
ndreas Berthling
time; with our pop choices increasingly nar
creates micro-
wave symphonies
rowed to overblown pseudo-earnestness or
screeching vapidity, it’s good to have sonic
of digital glitch. This one— his sixth release
since 1999— on Swedish label Mitek was
proof that the desire to create gratifying ear
candy and the need to say something meaning
recorded in Chicago and Miami Beach.
ful aren’t mutually exclusive.
Squeaky noises, drones and static draw mul
—Christopher M cQuam
tiple images for visual lis
teners. Replete with sam
ples by Jim O ’Rourke,
S ustainable D evelopments
Tomas Hallonsten and
(D esarrollos S ostenibles )
Johan Berthling, this gem
Ultra Red • Beta Bodega Coalition
modifies our contemporary,
vibrating culture to a T.
os Angeles collective Ultra
The recording plays on
Red, led by the forthright
Dont Rhine, offers a record
multiple-layered tracks and
has a sense of humor as in
ing of depth and power as an
adjunct record release party to
titles like “while brent was
out in the kitchen” and
the exhibition Democracy When?
A
I
«
round Fault
Recordings
sublabel Aus-
cultare Research introduces us to the world of
Kenneth Atchley s symphonic sculptures here
on Fountains. This debut is certainly not easy
listening, it’s active listening.
Like an oblique performance art piece, this
disc blends field recordings with a long list of
natural and synthetic ingredients accumulating
sounds from sculptural fountains. Atch
ley's academic approach meets where the
senses do—sight and sound embedded
outside gallery confines.
Fountains treats its listener to rushing
floods and other spectacular water-based
sources. These trickles, falls and geysers
temper the mind’s consistency as the
noise channels change in tones and
drones. The recording documents three
“fountains” (each about 20 minutes in length)
dedicated to performers and creative luminaries,
inspired by sounds and words, streets and liquids
in a range of variables.
“fountain_l999.20” is a memorial to radical
queer composer Phil Harmonic (Kenneth Wern
er), who performed with Boston’s Sonic Arts
Union in the mid-’6Qs, and composer Jim Hor
ton of the League of Automatic Music Com
posers. This first fountain plays delicately in its
wet wisdom of serene and disjointed phrasing.
A t the center of this triptych is
“fountain_l998.3,” an uninterrupted sonic
waterfall in which the background noise
becomes the foreground to a waning sequencer,
barely audible over the din. Inside this barrage
of Merzbow-esque tranquillity there are lost
slight voices and pitch tests leaking out.
In closing, “fountain_2001.5” drips seductive
ly through organic spaces between crystals and
metal objects. Nature’s pounding is synthesized,
remanufactured and processed. A pleasant, con
torted surprise for the lil’ surfer in our mind’s eye!
— TN
J A
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I ntegracao
M arc Behrens •
SIRR.ecords
| ortuguese label
' SIRR.ecords is
making an
indelible mark with
intriguing releases by artists like Pimmon and
Oren Ambarchi. Integrate (Integration) is like
an audio theater piece filled with layers of com
mon sounds and sparse silences; you’ll notice
yourself moving closer to the sound system.
Marc Behrens has developed intensely intri
cate and, at times, claustrophobic pieces of
eerie brilliance. His work on a Mac is blended
with “performance” sounds of Italian forests,
collectively pairing our natural and digital
worlds. This C D took one year to piece togeth
er, informed by trips to Slovenia, Germany,
Italy, Spain and England. It is best experienced
with one’s eyes closed.
— tn jn
C hristopher M c Q uain is a Portland free-lance
writer.
TJ NORRIS is a Portland free-lance writer and
artist. Find him at www.tjnorris.net.
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