Saturday, May 22, 2010

RECENTLY AT AMG

Another burst of reviews have gone live; check 'em out...

At the Gates, Purgatory Unleashed: Live at Wacken
Peter Brötzmann/Paal Nilssen-Love, Woodcuts
Dead Fader, Corrupt My Examiner
Enforcer, Into the Night
Enforcer, Diamonds
Excepter, KA
I Am Abomination, To Our Forefathers
Karma to Burn, Appalachian Incantation
Vektor, Black Future

I also reviewed Glitterbug's Privilege, but that one wasn't run, so here 'tis:

GLITTERBUG
Privilege
German techno producer Till Rohmann, aka Glitterbug, releases a two-CD set of semi-ambient, somewhat minimalist tracks inspired by the international travel his DJ lifestyle permits him, and the thoughts that travel inspires re global inequality, et cetera. As the science fiction writer William Gibson has said, “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” But this is entirely instrumental music, so it’s easy enough to throw it on and let all philosophical and ethical questions vanish, swept away on a wave of humming and whooshing synthesizer melodies and unobtrusively thumping beats. Much German techno rides a fine line between ambient-ish music and steady, trance-inducing beats just loud enough to seemingly counteract the soporific effects of the keyboards, and Glitterbug is definitely in that zone; some tracks, like “After All,” do rise to the point of some kind of crescendo, but it takes eight minutes to happen, so the home listener might be excused for making the “get-on-with-it” gesture a time or two as this double disc patiently unfolds. Ultimately, there’s enough beauty here to make Privilege a compelling listen, though.

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