Chapterhouse - Blood Music

Year: 1993
Genre: Shoegazer

Highlight Tracks: "Don't Look Now", "Everytime",
"Deli", "Love Forever"

This album brings a smile to my face everytime I listen to it. It is a great combination of shoegazer, pop, and emerging 90's electronica. While their first album Whirlpool is a better straight-up shoegazer affair (with better singles), Blood Music offers up such a joyous combination of styles that I personally like it better.

Something about the carefree attitude of the band in cherry-picking elements from several genres is really refreshing. On Blood Music Chapterhouse are truly inspired in their attempt to carve out a sound of their own; something at the crossroads of genres that hadn't been really heard before. Many shoegazer bands eventually evolved into electronica later in life (see Seefeel, The Telescopes, etc.) ending up radically different from their original sound. Chapterhouse on the other hand incorporated electronica into their lush guitar thing rather than opt for it over the shoegazer elements that made them (semi)-famous. The product is this excellent album.

Blood Music plays like a lush dream. It alternates 'high-def cumulonimbus on crisp blue skies' day-dreaming with 'half-buzzed sunglasses at night hunting for an after-hours bunker party in England' cool. It's real 'watch the streetlights reflect on the cab windows on the drunk ride home' music.

Which is probably why the album inspired so many imaginative remix projects. The American pressing includes a second disc that features two remixes of "We Are The Beautiful" and two b-sides: "Frost" and the collosal jam "Picnic". The UK pressing features the invincible Global Communications remixing the entire album on a molecular level (I'll be giving that bonus disc its own much-deserved entry at a later date).

Had the chance to see Chapterhouse at the old 930 Club on the Blood Music tour and didn't go. Still kicking myself over that one.

Barkmarket - Vegas Throat

Year: 1990
Genre: Noise Rock

Highlight Tracks: "Ditty", "Poverty", "Salvation", "Backstabbers"
Weak Track: "The Patsy"

The best parts of Vegas Throat are when Barkmarket really bring the noise. Which unfortunately usually only kicks in on the later half of most of their songs. The first half of most of their songs feature slow-building rock and weird lyrics that should be both entertaining and disturbing but really aren't much of either. I keep this album around because it is part of the history of my beloved noise rock genre.

Vegas Throat falls in the third tier of that genre however due mainly to the fact that Barkmarket don't convince me they are as depraved as they claim to be. Most of the vocal performance by John Nowlin feels like bad acting rather than actually insanity on display. The band do a great job with the plodding noise-crawls and climactic explosions but without a truly genuine singer the album falls short.

Noise Rock is one of my favorite genres and some of its best examples are on the Amphetamine-Reptile Records label. Most of the bands in that camp completely sell you on their fucked-in-the-head humidity and when they sing about torturing somebody in a shed you really think they did it. Not so with Barkmarket on Vegas Throat released on Rick Rubin's, Def American label.

That said there are some moments of brilliance tucked in between the community theater. The song "Ditty" is near perfect, a quick series of gut-jabs that really make you feel pummelled after its 1:46 run-time. "Poverty" sums up the best of the Barkmarket formula with a long intro of restrained noise that explodes into Nowlin's best vocal performance on the album. Finally "Salvation" is the noise-rock kicker that I was hoping the whole album would be back when I bought it so many years ago. The best song however is a cover of "Back Stabbers" which produces a bizarre performance from the entire band and is the one time they are really firing on all cylinders (oddly enough it is more a creepy atmosphere piece which makes me think maybe Barkmarket should have switched sound direction in their mission statement at some point).

The fact is that Barkmarket are a good band and their lyric writing is awesome. Unfortunately their execution is lacking (due to John Nowlin's vocals) which results in a very uneven album on which each song must be judged individually. Each song is such a weird mix of good and bad elements that it is hard to come up with a final tally tipping in either direction.

Accelera Deck - Addict

Year: 2000
Genre: Glitch-tronic

Highlight Tracks: "Untitled Crank", "Quiescene", "Further"
Weak Tracks: "Trip Through", ";11"

Reminiscent of Autechre but not as 'cerebral' as their later works, Addict is excellent background electronica. Glitchy but not to the point of IDM abstraction, Accelera Deck gives the album a forward momentum with subdued beats thumping over very organic and moody backgrounds. This organic base gives each song a latent melancholy which when combined with staring at the cover picture let's the listener's imagination run wild. The final three songs have a weird hip-hop tinge that works for the most part except on the song ";11" which is definitely the album's weakest track.

When the album isn't background music it runs a little long at over an hour however many of the tracks inspire the imagination which makes it a good album to write too.

Take for instance the second half of the song "Pulling Through" which brings to mind everything from a soot stained sky above frozen trenches to being trapped in the hull of a leaking, Chinese, slave freighter.

Orbit Achieved!

Welcome to my latest music writing project: Satellite Eclectica!

It has often occured to me that in the hustle of the daily grind we find ourselves listening to music from a lot of different sources and in a lot of different situations; however we rarely have the time to actually sit down with an album and give it an honest, thoughtful listen. Music has become mostly a background soundtrack to our lives.

I am a huge music fan with a monster sized collection and even I rarely have the time to devote to listening to complete albums. I mean really listen to them without any other activity going on but enjoying the album itself.

I credit this to being a busy adult. In High School it seemed like all I did was listen to albums all the way through. Nowadays though I listen to albums partially or to individual songs on random. Mainly because I am driving somewhere or walking to class and once I arrive the music stops. Later when I pick up my Iriver or get in the car my mood is different and I put on something different from what I had on earlier.

With this project I have decided to attempt to listen to my entire music collection and chronicle each album I listen to on a daily basis. I vow to listen to at least one full album a day and write in this space about the album in the form of either a review, general observations, or simply what the album inspires me to think about.

This is a daunting task because my record collection is huge but ultimately this should be an enjoyable one. I invite everyone who finds their way here to Satellite Eclectica to join me on my musical journey of full-album rediscovery.