- Turn on the phone - guitars, percussion, keyboards coalesce into the song and the album, then the voice enters, softer and perhaps sweeter (less husky) than earlier albums (more obviously sung), quieter layers behind, cluttering spoon percussion, a brief breakdown as a vocal-note jumps, then returning to the gentle song.
- Purge it from the world - impressively the most hooky songs on the album are some of the most political - this jolly loungey number with hum-along doodoodoos has the chorus 'If we don't like it, we purge it from the world'
- Paris ampheta - crackling electronica winds for about a minute continues as a slow melody of drums and keys as Radulovich chews out an echoed poem, allusive and intriguing.
- For real - a more centralist song (for Radulovich) that deserves the radio tag - hooks, a more abstract echoed percussive opening, bass, twangy acoustic guitar then Marcelo's vocals, multitracked, yearning. A guitar solo over violin/guitar scrape-bowing ends a 'radio' song.
- How it goes - relaxed, bucolic - electronic soundscape of watery crackles and birdsong builds throughout, simple acoustic guitar, harmonised vocals.
- Evolution - tuned percussion, vocal as from a radio, then the lyrics sung, spoken and singing alternate/overlay, strangely a Prince-like scream/squeak pops up a few times
- Trying to convince me - a lovely crystal ringing - almost a separate track - then a rocking heavy number reminiscent of the last album title track.
- Swastikas - totally weird, possibly my favourite track, a cracked poem about banners with swastikas, blood spatter patterns, spoken/sung in different voices overlapping and repeating over a minimal atonal backing.
- Keep the watch - hissing sample, layered miltitracked recitation of a short poem over an electronic soundscape
- Tartamudo - longest on the album, vinyl crackles with bubbling bloops for a minute, then a distant ambient/frippy guitar slides under a Spanish sung/spoken lyric, percussion eruptions, shifting emotions in vocalisation and music - I wish I understood the language - what is that slurping near the end?
- A territorial invasion - distant music as a squeaky voice asks 'let me out of here', the song is a bright and jolly musical number, underscored by the voice recurring,
- Sate sane - a melodica, flowing Spanish, loose strung guitar, intimate and felt
- Combra siembra - a cracking cracked soundscape, Spanish again, bass enters to stabilise and progress the music.
- In case I forgot to mention - another overtly political piece to end the album - including samples of George Bush (some used before in the EP - The Evil One). The first part is a song of regret 'In case I forgot to mention, we voted for you, keep thinking about interventions, and how to get rid of you' -again a refrain whose music burns into your brain; it then morphs into a soundscape where the repeated phrase 'he's a torturer, he's a deceiver ...' seems to lose its initial target and turn back on George Bush. Drifting crackles, guitar and percussive shimmers overly distant speech snatches. A fine, unusual and fitting conclusion.
![Ampersand Etcetera](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jK4rHrykA2w/UXSOX2mDusI/AAAAAAAAASk/K-MprFPOnkU/s1600/IMG_1162.jpg)
From Vivisect to ambience to the newsletter to the website to the blog and back. Returning from a period of stasis (appropriately for an ambient blog) we are re-energised to provide more solipsism. There will be some reviews, some comments and a new trip-down-memorylane called Things In My Room which combines it all. Thanks for listening
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Marcelo Radulovich: Mercurio
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