{"id":340,"date":"2006-11-01T18:00:05","date_gmt":"2006-11-01T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/?p=340"},"modified":"2006-12-06T22:03:22","modified_gmt":"2006-12-06T21:03:22","slug":"circlesquare-pre-earthquake-anthem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/?p=340","title":{"rendered":"circlesquare &#8211; pre earthquake anthem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>       <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">now that the <EM>output recordings<\/EM> label is no  more, i have gone through a major awakening about the label. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">typical &#8211; i only discover the stuff i missed out  on, when it&#8217;s too bloody late.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">subsequently, i have been scouring the racks to  make sure i have everything i need. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">not the ultra collectable vinyl stuff, but the  common cd releases. well i say common, even the releases on cd are not always  that easy to track down.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">so far in&nbsp; my quest, the label has thrown up  some serious long term playlist albums, <STRONG>dk7<\/STRONG>, <STRONG>soft  verge,&nbsp;7 hurtz<\/STRONG>, and for those <STRONG>suicide<\/STRONG> vs  <STRONG>sigue sigue sputnik<\/STRONG> moments, <STRONG>dead combo,  <\/STRONG><\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">but out of them all, this album by  conceptual artist <EM>march21<\/EM> is the one that stops me in my  tracks.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">this album, along with this years ep,  <EM>fightsounds<\/EM>, is for me a current pile killer.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">something about the widescreen sparseness, the  clean but fractured digital sonics, the monotonic spoken, and often  layered,&nbsp;vocals,&nbsp;make for a compelling listen.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">march21, (aka jeremy straw), builds the late night  music out of a consistent palette of sounds &#8211; simple low-sling paranoid drum  patterns, laid back slide guitar, fat ambient analogue synths and very little  else really, other than the biggest bass rattling production tricks this side of  <STRONG>massive attack<\/STRONG>, giving the album a solid flow. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">things start off with the epic eight and half  minutes of <STRONG>klf<\/STRONG>-like track <EM>trancenation. <\/EM><\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">a corny track title it may be, but the underlying throbbing  drone and lonely slide guitar set the whole tone off perfectly, as the song  twists and morphs, so does the mood in very beautiful subtle ways. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">basically, if you dont like this opener, you may as  well call it quits there and then as the rest of the album doesn&#8217;t stray too far  from this template.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the opener&nbsp;is followed by probably the most  straightforward song on the album, <EM>all sleepers, <\/EM>in which jeremy  intones, &#8216;<EM>do you believe in rock and roll&#8217; <\/EM>to the most delicate  combination of clicky beats and speaker threatening bleeps, slow motion gothic  horror soundscapes never sounded so addictive. the fact that the softly  spoken-sung lyrics refer to acts of physical violence makes the track all the  more unsettling. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">wonderful.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">if this all sounds a smooth monochromatic listen  then you are right. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">sort of. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">just as you allow the album to lull you into a  nightmarish coma,&nbsp;in the middle of the spacious album highlight, <EM>the  theme for tonight, <\/EM>is a huge mass of swirling machine noise that disgards  the state of slumber, and reinvorgorates the energy levels, for those with heart  conditions this experiment should be signposted, as it still makes me jump out  of my skin, giving a serious&nbsp;jolt to the previously relaxed nervous system.  thankfully, album closer, <EM>asthmatic, <\/EM>restores the balance and brings  things to a calm understated finish.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">so, as you can see, despite the fact this album was  released a few years ago, it has completely dominated my current  state.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">and word is that despite the record label problems,  <STRONG>circlesquare<\/STRONG> hope to release more music in the future,  <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">here&#8217;s one person ready and waiting for that  time.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/FONT>&nbsp;<\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">out on <EM>output  recordings<\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>now that the output recordings label is no more, i have gone through a major awakening about the label. typical &#8211; i only discover the stuff i missed out on, when it&#8217;s too bloody late. subsequently, i have been scouring the racks to make sure i have everything i need. not the ultra collectable vinyl [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}