Music Reviews: D. Moebius & Dynasty Handbag
D. Moebius
"Nurton" (Blue Pole)
http://rykodistribution.net
Electronic music pioneer and Krautrock godfather Dieter Moebius is back with his first solo recording in over eight years. His new full-length "Nurton" will appeal to followers of modern ambient electronic music as well as those still enamored with the analogue, sequence-based mood enhancement of the Seventies.
In 1971 Moebius and fellow Berliner Hans Joachim Roedelius formed Cluster, an inventive duo whose unique approach to the emerging instrumentation of the time set a new standard for electronic minimalism.
Cluster diverged from the symphonic, epic-length overtures favored by their more popular contemporaries Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Instead, the duo experimented with silence and embraced an intimate sense of space rather than portray interstellar space.
Cluster also playfully injected elements of pop, dub, and classical composition into their music.
On "Nurton" Moebius reveals he hasn't abandoned such clever craftiness. However, modern ears might bristle upon hearing the clunky, rhythmic thump and noodly synthesizer of 'Gängig' or the old-school waveforms of 'Schleudergang'. His new release may be too retro
sounding for some, but Moebius comes by it honestly.
While "Nurton" has a kind of time capsule quality to it, what's old is made new again. Much of the music here, as on 'Anfahrt' and 'Opaque', is as comparable to that of new minimal electronic standard bearers To Rococo Rot as it is to any Cluster classic.
Dynasty Handbag
"Foo Foo Yik Yik" (Lovepump United)
http://www.lpurecords.com/
"In my dreams / Anxiety, paranoia, nervousness / I can't get what I want / I can't get there". Such is also the strange waking state of affairs of Dynasty Handbag, a.k.a. Jibz Cameron.
Having first collaborated with rockers Dynasty and The Roofies and shared stages with other fellow West Coast compatriots Xiu Xiu, Numbers, and Erase Errata, Cameron eventually moved to New York to focus on her own music.
On her first Dynasty Handbag full-length, Cameron sounds emotionally acclimated to Gotham's urgent, erratic energies. A mix of poetic angst, spare electronics, and Patti Smith styled grunginess; "Foo Foo Yik Yik" captures an artist mesmerized by her new surroundings but swirling inwardly with turmoil.
Cameron's vocals are the thing. Sampled, pitched, and shrieked, her voice is flexed and contorted but it rarely illicits emotions beyond those associated with fear or despair.
I never thought I'd ever find myself comparing an artist to Thick Pigeon singer Stanton Miranda, but Dynasty Handbag sounds a lot like the old singer; and her music has a similar Eighties weirdness about it too.
While Miranda's U.K. Factory label mates New Order and Section 25 were just beginning to make waves throughout the underground, New York band Thick Pigeon already had one foot in the closet of soon-to-be-forgotten new wave acts. They were just too weird and tuneless for their own good.
If the Dynasty Handbag follow up to "Foo Foo Yik Yik" fails to deliver something more substantial than this collection of twitchy, nervous electro-wheeze; she likely faces a similar fate.
