To Live and Shave in LA – The Grief That Shrieked to Multiply

Monotype

When listening to noise, collages, field recordings or other kinds of abstract music, new compilations have always been a welcome listen. Mainly as it is usually very diverse, and for me almost never tiresome. The Grief That Shrieked to Multiply is of course not a compilation as such, but a collection of remixes, done by a big number of well known and some unknown artists from the said scene. Sounds and recordings from the not-belonging-to-any-genre collective of To Live and Shave in LA (TLASILA) are run through the whatever various aesthetic or focal point the individual remixer has. As there are more than 60 various entries over 3 CDs (and one more CD available for download, if you like), it certainly comes out as diverse as any compilation of various artists, and not the slightest bit tiresome, so it works almost in a similar fashion for me.

After listening to the first CD for a while, I realise the tracks are also mixed together, so each CD consists of one long track, making it difficult to work out who is doing what at the time. Not good for the nerd in me wanting to keep track of the artists, but its good that this helps me focusing more on the listening experience. This also makes it almost impossible to not listen to each CD in one sitting, which is a good idea anyway. But it also makes it difficult to play a track or a section over again if you want or need to listen again to just that. I guess TLASILA never wanted to be easy, or easily accessible. However, the aesthetic of this concept makes it worth the while.

But one might wonder, as TLASILA comes out as diverse in the first place, why bother further deconstruction? And do the remixes add to the diversity? I have no idea. I know nothing of what the original recordings sounds like, which is just as well. The remixed set, however, is a collection of rhythmic, non-rhythmic, ambient, noisy, collage, abstract, concrete, improvised, aggressive, house, techno and experimental music, some of it catchy, some much less accessible, etc, etc… The point is, it works. Which matters more.

-Ronny Wærnes-