(Below are combined the two original reviews of the vinyl and CDr releases of Hands/Birds and The Meat And Bread Variations which are both now available online digitally direct from Jowonio – references to the extra CD etc are now sadly redundant, and the releases have been modified slightly in the new format).
Hands/Birds finds poet John Siddique in shifting moods, one moments or three drifting across textural landscapes, the next commenting, reflecting, proposing. Sometimes, as on the rightously noisy “Hard Paki”, he’s making a blunt statement of presence in the landscape as an integral element therein, defying and defining at the same time. These sentiments are put more reflectively in “Nine Drive”, replacing the chaos and crunch with a journey defined in environmental and electronic sounds and words – “I’ve not seen enough of this city” – a comment which applies to urbanites everywhere; how many new places are there to be found in everyone’s town, borough, backyard, or those already known re-examined?
The title track itself takes a soundscape trip over the moors and railways; travelling on carrier waves and the sometimes foregrounded recording. The perception of nature and the built environment is scrutinised, expressed, worked over, listed and catalogued, named. Drift occurs again, connections transmuted. When the technological storms cut into the mix, as feedback becomes an end in itself, the precise definitions of music are tested and probed. As much can be communicated emotionally through the stutters and temporal manipulations of a delay effect, the layering of radio ghosts or in the recursive modulation of a sample loop as through a chord after all. There is even a short song, “Shadow Of Yourself”, a simple improvised piece which lilts a lo-fi path in raw miniature.
As a bonus, copies ordered direct from Jowonio Prouctions come with an extra CD, The Great High-rise Escape, holding two live tracks. “Green Room Live Warm Up 1999″ makes an ironic take on the death of Burroughs in a manner highly reminiscent of Gus van Sant‘s cut-up The Elvis Of Letters, complete with sampled Old Bill himself to a slow drum machine and bass Beat(nik) accompaniment. “Live At The Termite Club 1998″ takes a similar route to “Hands/Birds” and brings up the volume to scrape round Siddique’s words on life, death and the need for a diamond focus; a powerful piece which creeps forth to demand attention as it makes an expansion into void-filling density and radio babel.
The Meat And Bread Variations find Siddique in collaborative mode. “Seekh Kebab And Nan” is a slide through shimmering bowed devices and instruments and the power electronics of Merzbow. The rustle, rumble and emergent squeal of the electronics runs together nicely with the bowing, diving glimpses of the rosin on what could be metal, might be a ‘real’ instrument, but the results are concisely soothing. Chris Robinson combines his decks with Jowonio‘s own and live drumming and percussion to make a beatish mix of feedback and groove for “Panicos Chicken Kebab”
The synths get a ponderous airing next alongside drum machinery and Big Block 54‘s guitar and balalaika dissonances, with a nice dissolve into hiss, but “Sausage And Brown Sauce” brings the mood up into cheesy, cheery preset toy keyboard land; chuckling ditties wander through a gradually incrementing delay fog, slipping lightly into decay and lo-fi hallucinations. But best of all is “Apocalype With Dill Pickle”, in which Siddique tackles Current 93‘s “Imperium II” to the accompaniment of Alan Stivell‘s beautiful harp playing. This cover really brings out the simple melancholy of the song, as the richly-wistful voice delivers a version of one of David Tibet’s most eloquently sorrowful pieces in fine style. This is a terrific interpretation, one which does more than justice to a classic, and deserves immediate attention.
-Antron S. Meister-
