CD reviews
LE BUTCHERETTES bi/MENTAL
WILD and fiery art-punk outfit Le Butcherettes have not mucked around one iota on their latest album. The Mexico via Texas outfit — led by singer Teri Gender Bender (Teresa Saurez Coscio) — has delivered a hurricane posing as a 13-song album. It is a raw, abrasive and highly personal piece of work that delves into themes of family and mental illness. It can be an uneasy, dizzying experience to be invited into Bender’s world, but it’s always worth the potential nausea. Sometimes her voice is a ferocious howl, and other times it's a high-pitched Kate Bush-like fairy vocal singing from outer space. Sometimes she works the rubbery margins between these two peaks. In any case, it’s always a thrill-ride, like early-career Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. On little/MOUSE the band sound almost like pop music. It’s certainly the most single-like-sounding song on the record. But for every little/ MOUSE there is a
spider/WAVES or nothing/BUT TROUBLE where she pushes at the boundaries while the band thrash out strutting guitars, thunderous drums and occasionally eerie keys or horns. Having punk legend Jello Biafra and his manic energy delivering some vicious spoken word on a song will always be a winner ( spider/WAVES). Equally impressive is the menacing, empowering give/UP, or the tale of personal strength and emotional confidence strong/
ENOUGH, an electronic tune of sorts about distancing yourself from a bad situation.
bi/MENTAL is an impressive album at every turn.
JAMES HOLDEN A Cambodian Spring OST
IS it weird to check out a film soundtrack album before seeing a film? This was the case for me and former techno-guy James Holden’s latest musical offering, his soundtrack to this heartbreaking documentary. The film is centred around three human rights defenders, including a tech-savvy monk, who fight for the rights of the poor people who live around a lake in Cambodia. Their land was forcibly acquired and ultimately sold to a senator. Documentarian Chris Kelly spent six years on the ground, night and day, watching it all unfold. Holden’s songs, similarly, seem to unfold in real time. The finest example is Disintegration
Drone, a three-part tune that mirrors the film’s events while the instrument, an organ, was coming apart at the seams. Most of the music here is rising and falling synth sounds, often melancholic and haunting. Holden’s music slightly resembles the sounds of his youth — on occasion — in a beatless, organic form of trance heard on
Solidarity Theme ( Villagers and Release). These songs feel mystical, like they are being summoned by a shaman around a flickering fire. They also have a sense of hope and epic scale, which reminded me of the sad and happy at once vibes found on Orbital or Future Sound of London songs in the early 1990s.