/////////////////RECENT PRESS.........:: Reviews and features for BRG007 Animal Hospital / Memory :: Animal Hospital is the experimental mostly-instrumental project of Kevin Micka, and Memory is the extraordinary record he’s been working on for three years, now finally available through the consistently-great Barge label. Memory is a stunning and beautiful album, at times recalling the work of TNT (1998)-era Tortoise, while at others American Don (2000), Discreet Music (1975), Street Horrrsing (2008), Ocean Songs (1998), and, at one point, the soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine. This would be the enormous step forward that the stagnant and presumed-dead genre of post-rock has for years failed to take if we could actually pin down what that even means. In terms of sheer aesthetics, Memory stands as an impressive achievement by a talented artist; but considered in light of its overarching thematic conceits, both explicit and implicit, this record speaks volumes. I’m immediately reminded of this 1968 film by Alain Resnais, Je t’aime je t’aime, in which a young man named Claude attempts suicide after the death of his girlfriend, Catrine. Waking in a hospital feeling hopeless and depressed, Claude willingly submits himself to the experiments of a group of scientists studying time and memory. The scientists have constructed a time machine of sorts and plan to send Claude (along with a small mouse) back to a precise moment in his memory. As you might expect, something goes awry and the plan falls apart—rather than reaching his desired destination and returning to the present after a planned single minute, Claude is sent careening back and forth through the remote memories of his relationship with Catrine. The memories are disconnected, some significant, others totally banal; like the stuff that goes on our heads, it’s a confused and confusing mess. By which I mean that, intentionally or not, the album addresses the problem of the disconnectedness and disorder of memory by representing and so actualizing personal experience in such a way as to necessitate the listener’s participation in the same process. And it sounds awesome. In a pre-release interview, Micka tells us that Memory “is a rather cathartic experience [which] represents some intense feelings that I may have had a hard time expressing any other way.” Music-making as a form of exorcising personal demons is certainly nothing new, even in the context of instrumental music, keeping words to an absolute minimum to render artistic intention vague and impressionistic. The instrumental artist must work in broad strokes; in turn, the resulting music is traditionally an expression of intense—and typically recognizable, identifiable—emotions. Memory, as the title suggests, is just as broad, an album simultaneously about a) Micka’s memories, expressed through these seven tracks, b) the listener’s memories, which are implicitly projected upon the record, and c) the nature of memory itself, particularly in terms of how it reacts and interacts with music. So: whoa. To break this down: a) Memory is the focused and deliberate expression of not simply broad emotions but of personal experiences, of memory. We go into the album with the little information we have: First and foremost there’s the indicative title, which suggests an overarching theme; beyond that, we’re left with little other than individual song titles, which various early reviews of the record have pointed to in order to discern the nature of the memories upon which each song is based. And so the album’s brief opening track, “Good Times,” comprised of light guitar picking and the distant sound of a broken music box, carries with it the vague suggestion of early childhood and the emotions implicit therein: harmony, wonder, fragility, potential—we take the few signifiers we can hold onto. The song is the first of the album (implying birth), the title (implying fondness), and the music box sounds which comprise the majority of the track (pretty obviously representing the objects of childhood), and we paint a picture from there. Memory is full of these blurry signposts. b) Memory feels like an intensely personal album. But in the nearly total absence of language, the voice of the author is here subordinated to the experience of the listener. This is music upon which we project our own thoughts and feelings. Later in that same interview quoted earlier, Micka asserts that his goal “is to let the listener project their own meaning into the music.” This, while unmistakably simple, is the central thesis at work here: to evoke not the memories and experiences of its creator but to send each individual listener spiraling through his or her own packed skull. c) Which, as a whole, works remarkably well. Like the time-travelling Claude from Resnais, Micka can’t pinpoint or express specific memories, and neither can we. It’s all jumbled, confused and confusing. This is further highlighted by Memory‘s oscillation between contrasting and irreconcilable elements. In terms of pacing, the album continues to move back and forth between brief movements and enormous suites. The bulk of the album’s weight is found in three pieces—“His Belly Burst,” “And Ever…,” and “Memory”—each of which clock in at around a quarter of an hour and each of which are separated by two- or three-minute tracks. Like how Claude visits memories both monumental and entirely meaningless without reason or discrimination, Mincka treats the smaller numbers not as merely padding or interludes, but fully-formed and significant songs themselves. Aesthetically, Memory simply cannot sit still. Following the minimal briskness of “Good Times,” longer “His Belly Burst” moves slowly but surely from serenity to anxiety to outright dread as Eno-ish strings are overcome and eventually consumed whole by chugging and growing guitar. “2nd Anniversary” mucks around with empty space disturbed by broad strokes of guitar and reverb before petering off into silence once more. But every expectation about the pace and mood of the album is, now twenty minutes in, subverted and then completely fucked with on the unbelievable “And Ever…,” a song you simply need to hear to believe. And then, continuing the album’s tendency toward consumption and disappearance, the track’s rock ensemble is eventually overwhelmed by a wave of white noise. Later we’re given the fleeting “Nostalgia,” the version of “How This Will End” that DeVotchKa would have written if they lost their flare for drama and had a better knack for subtlety. This is all to say that Memory is about as varied and downright thrilling an album as you’re likely to find in this still-waking year. Conventions are introduced and subsequently dropped, styles appropriated and then subverted, and the result is a record that is thoroughly surprising and never for a second dull. -Calum Marsh :: 18 March 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Animal Hospital is a one-man project by Kevin Micka, whose music is created using guitars, a room full of effects and electronics. By today's standards, that set-up doesn't sound all that unusual, and of course, it isn't really. But Micka doesn't take the expected route when it comes to the music, and that makes Memory a worthwhile listen. Most of the album is quiet and introspective, but rather than simply creating an atmosphere, there are some actual tunes to grab your attention. You may have to listen intently to find them at times, but they're there. The guitar is frequently very recognisable, meaning it sounds like a guitar, and the effects are used to color the music, rather than hide the artist's shortcomings. Micka is all over the place, style-wise, and despite this fact Memory is cohesive. It was assembled with care over a period of three years, and each segment dovetails nicely with the next. One suspects that a lot of material was left on the cutting room floor, with only the best of the best saved for the listener. The disc starts off with a short piece, Good Times, an introduction of sorts, consisting of clean, finger picked guitar with a (slightly manipulated) music box in the background. His Belly Burst (could this be about appendicitis?) is the next piece, and it's a seventeen-plus minute monster. It starts off unassumingly enough with a classical sounding suite consisting of cello by Jonah Saks, ebow guitar and general ambience. Halfway through a thudding muted guitar chord used as percussion enters the picture, building toward a rhythmic, hypnotic ending. The next track, 2nd Anniversary, is a transitional, short drone piece which takes you into the album's loudest segment; titled simply ...and ever. It's another long track, and the most obvious comparison you could make would be to King Crimson. Keeping in mind that this music is all created by one man, with limited instrumentation, the piece is quite an accomplishment. The track sounds like a cross between the dirty distortion of the Red era Crimson blended with the cleaner, more melodic, Discipline era. From there the album mellows out a bit, but it doesn't necessarily go down hill. In fact, it ends on a serene note, mixing low end drone with acoustic guitars, which after such a ride seems appropriate. Memory was recorded at various locales, such as an old bank in West Virginia, an antiquated movie theater, etc. Perhaps the artist's intention is to bring the essence of these places, and of memories from his past into his music. Not an easy thing to do with (practically) all instrumental music, but in the least this is a valiant effort. Whether or not you pick up on the theme, it's pretty damned entertaining. - Erwin Michelfelder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ////BRAINWASHED.COM Working at the crossroads between a variety of contradictory approaches—electronic and acoustic, improvisation and composition, producer and performer—Kevin Micka continues to hone his Animal Hospital project's refined explorations on this disc, compounding his broad and considerable talents into a majestic grit that shimmers with supple detail. With a slew of instruments at his disposal, Micka has the means to create haunting and unusual sonic combinations throughout the album, a trait that sets him apart from so many of the do-it-yourself electronic explorers out there. Chimes, oscillators, guitars, toy pianos and Jonah Sacks' cello are among the plethora of noise makers fed and looped through large dosages of reverb and delay. Never one to let the effects speak for themselves though, Micka proves himself an able craftsmen, and any effect here is used as an endorsement of and contributor to the greater structure of the work. The lengthy "His Belly Burst" is a fitting example. Sacks' nimble cello line opens with a line evocative of a Japanese folk melody. Building off of that mood, the piece is crafted upward as lines overlap and loop into an electronic wash of blissful tonalities. Soon interspersed with glitching electronics and, eventually, thudding, militaristic power chords and careening drum lines, the work grows into a textural bath of tone and sharp, staccato punctuation before settling back into its beginnings. That the piece manages to incorporate so many elements in its 17 minutes without ever feeling superfluous is impressive enough, but Micka manages to guide the work into something far greater than the sum of its parts. Each work here presents itself with a similar ear for dramatic lines and structural buildup. On "...and ever," a Neu!-like drum pulse leads to slinking guitar lines, thudding bass and, ultimately, a propulsive brand of head-bangable psychedelic riffage. While Micka's ability to extrapolate on these tiny musical cells and turn them into full scale works is no small accomplishment, and he does it with aplomb every time, the result does dabble toward slightly sterile terrain due mostly in part to its consistance. Even when lyrics slip in to the album for the first time halfway through "...and ever," it fits in so neatly among the other gadgety rhythms around it that the resultant feel is perhaps less surprising than intended. This is by no means a deterrent against his approaches however. Some of these tracks reach truly unexpected heights while never straying too far from a certain breed of electronic-rock loop craftsmanship. Think Caribou but with a more proggy and less literal psychedelic sound. Micka also has the smarts to follow up his epic works with paired-down ones, and these provide smooth and necessary transitions between the three lengthy centerpieces of the album. The gently lilting guitar and wordless vocal melodies of "A Safe Place" rest atop an odd synthesized beat that manages to succeed in effect without shoving it down your throat. The closing title track fittingly displays Micka's talents at their height, as low-end cello rumble, fragile guitar lines and panning clicks grow into a synthesized soup of gooey loop manipulations and Eno-esque ambiance. It all works beautifully, if it seems as though Micka could do this in his sleep. Sterilizing though that may be, the sincerity, skill and vision on display is exciting in a day when few manage to walk the line between experimental attitudes and near pop approachability with so finely attuned a vision. Written by Henry Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ////THE BOSTON PHOENIX - Animal Hospital interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ////FOXY DIGITALIS - Animal Hospital interview / Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barge Records are on a roll: having released 6 wonderful records over the past few years, you would think that somewhere along the way there must be a slight falter in quality and musical genius. But no, this latest release by the New York based label is another absolute stunner. Animal Hospital is a one man band of epic proportions. Beautiful guitar manipulation, backed with the odd bit of percussion and a ton of random effects and it sounds like any other solo drone/noise project... But it's not. Over the 7 tracks on Memory, Kevin Micka somehow manages to pull off something more akin to a trio of musicians (if not more) on his own and with almost faultless brilliance that quite literally fucks with what you should be expecting from an album that appears to be from another solo guitarist with a ton of pedals. Opening with the simple melody of Good Times, music box and awkwardly plucked guitar in hand, things get underway for real with the 17+ minute His Belly Bursts. Now each track here is supposed to be a memory of sorts of the musician's. Title wise I have no idea but this is sublime stuff indeed, although how the title fits in with the music is anyone's guess. Simulated(?) strings slowly ebb away in the distance whilst silent percussion bounces in and out underneath with an undertone so utterly downbeat its crippling. Heartache seems to be a theme here, as with the rest of the album... and then it almost explodes... almost, never quite hitting that extreme peak but somehow it feels just right, the chugging power chord loop and the almost anticipated percussion is unexpected and uplifting to the max. And then slowly, very slowly, it fades away... Something almost totally unexpected happens from here on in and without killing the mystery of this almost unclassifiable album, you don't expect to come across something quite so oddly out of place yet utterly perfectly positioned as ...And Ever on a record that has so far been beautifully and gut wrenchingly composed. It's almost as if Boris have taken over and decided enough is enough and something needs to explode. And it certainly does just that. Vocals and dirty guitar solos rip through the centrepiece track like a tidal wave of immense destruction and all you can do is go with it, all the while trying not to look down for fear of quite literally hitting the floor from a hell of a height. And then? It's gone again, back down to Earth with a hangover but no headache to speak of. A little time passes and some small almost interlude pieces slot into place like the peace in the eye of a storm. So back down to Earth, quietly and slowly brooding away, dreaming of the clouds and thinking of the ground and its restrictions. Memory brings the album to a close with almost horrific beauty, doing what the album was expected to do by making everything dark around you and letting you feel something more human. And it's wonderful. Enlightening almost, yet still keeping that heartache and longing right there in your ear drums. Memory hits you in the face, then lets you go again and drops you back down, and all the while you quite simply can't comprehend something that feels so very personal without wanting to listen again and again and again. Micka has thrilled me with this, as have Barge. You couldn't really ask for a more eccentric and beautiful body of work on one CD. This one is special stuff that words really can not define without missing the point totally. Like I have probably done here. Excellent stuff indeed. Title: Animal Hospital - Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ////FOREST GOSPEL I think that the very best new music being produced is often the kind that is near impossible to define. You know, the kind of music that avoids easy categorization and somehow overturns all preconceived notions about what an album should be. Animal Hospital’s Memory is shining example of that kind of album. However, I think I would do it a disservice to stop there - to simply say, “This is some of the best new music I’ve heard and you’ll only understand once you’ve listened to it.” While that statement would be true, it’s just more fun to risk embarrassment by trying to define something that is this good. I think the first and safest way to approach Memory is in terms of Barge. What I mean here, is in terms of the label which has presented this fine recording. The first thing that you should know is that Barge Records does not put simply ‘good music.’ In fact, the label seems to avoid even ‘great music.’ Nope, with only a couple releases seeping out a year, Barge only has time to spend their energy on the very best new music being produced in the realms of forward thinking experimental music. This couldn’t be more evident than in last year’s glorious sophomore release from The Fun Years, Baby, It's Cold Inside. With Memory, Barge has just upped the ante. Animal Hospital is one Kevin Micka and Memory is pretty much the coolest experimental record I’ve heard, probably since that Fun Years record. Micka is a multi-instrumentalist of the highest quality and in the years proceeding Memory has honed his skills in a live setting by playing and looping his instruments into effervescent concoctions that sound like the work produced by a four piece band (and a talented one at that). Memory continues this aesthetic, using a looping pedal at a much more sophisticated level than I’ve heard in the past. However, even with his obvious relationship with loops, Memory provides so much more. The album’s seven tracks range from 2 minutes to 17 minutes in length and in the course of the album’s stretch, make some unexpected turns that extend the realm Animal Hospital’s sound into mythic territory. The opener starts things of peaceful, contemplative and clear with a tinkering music box and crystal guitar lines. This is followed by the epic stroke of “His Belly Burst,” a gorgeous and lengthy track built up Cello work contributed by Jonah Sacks. The work morphs and bleeds into "2nd Anniversary," a transitional track filled with swelling drones that are punctuated by resonant staccato guitar plucks that pierce the atmosphere of the song. All this builds up slowly to the centerpiece of the album, “…and ever.” I almost feel like I should put up a spoiler alert here because it might be better if you were blindsided by this track without being previously tipped off. Consider yourself warned: after laying an elegant foundation, Micka sends Memory in to astral territory. “...and ever” is announced by a thick base line that is quickly layered with a series of guitars and then punctuated by a griffin slaying guitar line that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Boris record. As the structure heaves, Micka’s briefly adds vocals into the mix and then continues to send the structure heavenward. The track continues to build until the building fades into the sky and the clouds become the building and the building becomes the clouds. It is kind of what you would expect to accompany an onslaught led by Zeus or something. As the dust of construction clears, a heart beat emerges along with a clutter of loops and again, that throbbing bass. I don’t know exactly how this here Animal Hospital works, but the entrance of Micka’s wordless vocals and comforting guitar line on “a safe place” makes me feel like the previous destruction/construction was simply the cleansing agent necessary for some poor animals full recovery. Once “Nostalgia” sets in, everything feels perfect and resolved, but this brief beachside sojourn is simply a daydream setting up the final sixteen plus minutes of the title track. I won’t completely destroy the sequencing by revealing the ending, suffice it to say – it is good, really really good. So yeah, there's not a specific defining thread that I can tie the whole thing together with, but Memory is all the better for it. I don’t imagine that there is any other way to move from Scott Tuma to Godspeed! to Mogwai to Boris to Tortoise to The Fun Years and still make a cohesive and wholly individual record. After you hear Memory, it will all make sense. I guess I can only say this: Thank you Animal Hospital and thank you Barge! - Lil' Thistle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ////BOOMKAT dot com - Record of the week 03/05-03/12! The people behind Brooklyn's Barge imprint have clearly spent the last six months trying to work out how to follow up last year's jaw-dropping "Baby, It's Cold Inside" album from the oddly monikered 'The Fun Years', one of the most satisfying and immersive releases of the year. Their response? Why they've only gone and produced this astonishing, multi-layered epic from Kevin Micka, aka Animal Hospital. "Memory" is a record that engages with familiar techniques and proceeds to completely f*ck with the programme. The album starts with a shimmering duet for music box and guitar, laying the foundations for what's to follow. Except things don't quite develop in the manner you might expect if you're into this sort of delicate, engrossing home listening, "His Belly Burst" is up next and slowly evolves from the sound of a mournful, solitary Cello (beautifully played by Jonah Sacks), to a rumbling, droney, sometimes distorted mass of sound that brings to mind the post-post-rock of, say, the Constellation label, or Mogwai's quiet/loud blueprints but with a completely unfamiliar backbone shaped by electronic, experimental and classical traditions. By the time "2nd Anniversary" sweeps in it becomes hard to really identify what sort of album you're listening to, finding yourself in the presence of distilled, affected guitar noises that lie somewhere between late, treated John Fahey and Neil Young's amazing soundtrack for the film "Dead Man" - the dissonance at once jarring and deeply moving. In turn, "A Safe Place" sounds like a cross between Oval, Tortoise, Mika Vainio and Radiohead, rearranging and rewiring human sounds inside reverberating bass and malfunctioning electronics before Micka's voice resonates through the sparse elements to ground the music in a deep, mournful clearing. Fuelled by coffee and heartache and recorded in an old bank, an antiquated movie theater lobby, and various apartments around Virginia and Cape Cod, It's left to the 17 minute title track to close the album with perhaps its most astonishing and heart-wrenching segement. The opening once again seems indebted to Tortoise, but the unusual, wordless vocal layering introduces entirely different dimensions. 8 minutes in and things become quietly colossal, merging sweeping strings, twangy, edgy drops with extraordinary arrangements that keep you at once transfixed and disturbed. And that's the thing about this amazing album - it has all these different, wildly incompatible ideas that somehow come together and merge into eachother, making use of electronic devices, shelves of effects, delay units, as well as shiny guitar tones, vocal washes, and dramatic build-ups that create a unique sound you're unlikely to come across again despite all the familiar elements squeezed in. It's the realisation of one man's messed up vision, held together by things that shouldnt work but somehow really do. Just awesome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
////////OTHER PRESS//// BRG001 : INNATURE : VARIOUS ARTISTS BRG002 : THE FUN YEARS : LIFE-SIZED PSYCHOSES BRG003 : GEOFF MULLEN : ARMORY RADIO |
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