Articles
Artist Speaks: Rick Wade
Mico Nonet's Top 10
Solvent's Top 10
Ten Questions: Autistici

Albums
An On Bast
Aster
Autistici
Balmorhea
Beneva vs. Clark Nova
Bersarin Quartett
Bong-Ra
Carlos y Gaby
Lawrence English
Coniglio-Marzorati
Daedelus
Detritus
Dom Mino'
Yair Etziony
Evangelista
Fear Falls Burning
Fluorescent Grey
Forestflies
Heribert Friedl
Glowstyx
Inlandsis
KiloWatts
Krill.minima
M.B + E.D.A.
Mico Nonet
Alfredo Costa Monteiro
Németh
David Newlyn
orchestramaxfieldparrish
Pedro
Qebo
Jose Luis Redondo
The Retail Sectors
Robedoor
Scorn
Snöleoparden
Take
Taunus
Temposhark
Robert Scott Thompson
Asmus Tietchens
Z-arc

Compilations/Mixes
Back to Back Vol. 2
Favourite Places
Future Memories
Nothing Works As Planned
Twin Earth Atlantic

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Buzzin' Fly Vol 4 Remixes
Franco Cangelli
Cheju
Figurines
Pär Grindvik
Hugo
Gregg Kowalsky
Lerosa
Mico Nonet
Moldy (featuring Juakali)
Take
The Third Man
Andy Vaz

DVD
MONO

Beneva vs. Clark Nova: Sombunall
Fenêtre Records

That Beneva vs. Clark Nova names one of Sombunall's songs “Institute Benjamenta” is certainly telling, as Frank Benjamin Finger (Beneva) and Rudi Simmons (Clark Nova) share with film-makers The Brothers Quay and composer Lech Jankowski an affinity for wildly imaginative and off-the-wall eccentricity. Last summer's three-inch Flotsam/Jetsam release was certainly a credible enough coming-out but it hardly hinted at just how splendid the group's full-length debut would be. Its audacious material bursts with activity and imagination, and instrumentally Beneva vs. Clark Nova perpetuates the open-ended tradition of groups such as Múm where every possible sound—natural and artificial—is fodder for the group's idiosyncratic music-making (in fact, “I Suppose She Was Telepathic,” with its clicking beats and melodica, could easily pass for a song by the Icelandic outfit). Shape-shifting and mercurial, Sombunall includes a dozen constantly flickering snapshots that rarely settle into any one place for longer than a moment or two.

In “I'm Twins (the Babies Said),” glitch-laden woodwinds, piano and banjo swell into a dizzying phantasmagoria. “88 Kilos of Excrement” presents a dense firestorm of squirrelly beats, shredded voices, and strings. “Thora's Inferno” channel-surfs through episodes of mangled voices that resemble braying cuckoo clocks and scratchy beats that rumble and clatter. The addition of Norwegian vocalist Therese Aune to “His Freefloating Affection” may remind some listeners of Psapp, especially when glockenspiels and a flotilla of percussive noises spill over the song's arresting melodies. “Poligraph Polygraphikov” takes the listener on a rollicking roller-coaster ride before “Nothing; Only Worthwhile” closes the album in a sparkling and high-spirited folk romp. To top it off, the arresting cover photo, Sandy Skoglund's “Babies at Paradise Pond,” provides that rare instance when visual presentation dovetails perfectly with musical content.

March 2008