Articles
2010 Artist Picks
Francesco Tristano
Albums
36
Access To Arasaka
Aeroplane Trio
Christian Albrechsten
Gilles Aubry
Andreas Bick
Wil Bolton
Caroline
Chaim
Scott Cortez
Dead Voices On Air
Margaret Dygas
F. Gerard Errante
Seren Ffordd
Field Rotation
Marcus Fischer
The Ghost of 29 Megacycles
Tania Gill
Gord Grdina Trio
Herion
Hummingbird
Ironomi
Yoshio Machida
Machinefabriek / Liondialer
Phil Manley
Matta
Mem1
me:mo
Miko
Momus
Moshimoss
Roger O'Donnell
orchestramaxfieldparrish
Cédric Peyronnet
Resoe
Danny Saul
Dirk Serries
Shedding
Clive Tanaka y su orquesta
Robert Scott Thompson
Two People In A Room
Undermathic
Wires Under Tension
Clive Wright
Compilations
Joachim Spieth Selected 6
Playing with Words
Reconstruction of Fives
20 Centuries Stony Sleep
EPs
Balmorhea
Clara Moto
d_rradio
Deepgroove
Kyle Bobby Dunn
Fear Falls Burning
Hammock
ptr1
Quiroga
Sawako
VA:
The Reconstruction of Fives
n5MD
What elevates a compilation above the norm? How about a fabulous line-up of contributors making over favourite tracks from the n5MD catalog in their own signature styles. To celebrate its tenth anniversary, the label has done exactly that in commissioning front-line artists such as Pale Sketcher, Nadja, Jasper TX, and Rafael Anton Irisarri to re-interpret compositions by n5MD stalwarts Proem, Bitcrush, Last Days, Lights Out Asia, and subtractiveLAD, among others.
Pale Sketcher (Justin Broadrick) gives Proem's “Secret Knots” a marvelous makeover, turning the track into a towering five minutes of pounding beats, bass thrust, and sweeping, starlit melodies. Ben Lukas Boysen (Hecq) later covers Proem's “And By Sweet I Mean,” and the results are just as good, with Boysen's piano-and-strings-laden treatment getting maximum dramatic mileage out of the original. Nadja's cover of port-royal's “I Used To Be Sad” begins restrainedly with hushed vocals and ambient washes but the glorious crush comes just as one expects it will about halfway through in a resplendent, slow-motion blaze of guitars and drums. Over an eight-minute span, Jasper TX treats Bitcrush's “Colder” to a massive buildup that eventually decompresses to little more than a peaceful electric piano playing, while Architect (Daniel Myer) digs into Tobias Lilja's “Blood Tracer” with a hard electronic frenzy. On a slightly more becalmed tip, Hologram's “XX” receives a particularly celestial makeover courtesy of Dalot (Maria Papadomanolaki), and the Bersarin Quartett turns in a lovely autumnal rendering of subtractiveLAD's “The Deep and Lovely Quiet.” Worriedaboutsatan's reading of Plastik Joy's “63 (She Was Trying To Sleep....)” is a definite highlight, layering as it does a supple weave of ecstatic string melodies and voices over a simple repeating pattern until the piece blossoms even more halfway through when a churning beat patterns enters. In addition, Winterlight and Boy Is Fiction offer up stirring, anthemic readings of Run_Return's “National Geographic” and Lights Out Asia's “Oh! Toronto,” respectively.
With The Reconstruction of Fives, n5MD pays tribute to its own ten-year run and give its listeners a collection that's as inspired in conception as it musically solid. Would that all compilations might be as good.
January 2011