ARTICLES
Ten Questions: Fat Jon
MUTEK 2006

ALBUMS
65daysofstatic
A Cloud Mireya
Ambarchi and Ng
Another Elec. Musician
Derek Bailey
Band Ane
Barzin
Black Gold 360
The Blow
Boduf Songs
Childs
Darc Mind
Dosh
Duopandamix
Fat Jon & Styrofoam
Liam Gillick
Shuta Hasunuma
Tim Hecker
Ilkae
Jack's Son
Richard Jäverling
Jazzkammer
Junior Boys
Last Days
Hanno Leichtmann
Luomo
Mandelbrot Set
Mountaineer
N.Phect & Dizplay
Part Timer
Karsten Pflum
Benoît Pioulard
Plus Device
+/- {Plus/Minus}
Relay
Saroos
Seht
Shedding
So Percussion
Sybarite
Trio Vopá
Marshall Watson
Weather Report
Donato Wharton
Christopher Willits
Xela

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
ESL Remixed
Four Tet
Garnier & Craig
Ginglik Saturdays
Michael Mayer
Henrik Schwarz

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Colleen
Delano and Xpansul
Detritus
Ed Devane
Eskimo
Feathers
Goldmund
Ezekiel Honig/Graphic
Ezekiel Honig
Eliot Lipp
Robert Lippok
Alejandro Lopez
Evan Marc
Porter & Carr
Sebastian Russell
Somone Else
Spaceships & Pings
SplitEP3
Simon Whetham

Boduf Songs: Lion Devours the Sun
kranky

A decade ago, Nick Cave released an album whose title perfectly captures the brooding ambiance of Mat Sweet's second Boduf Songs disc: Murder Ballads. Not that Lion Devours the Sun (the title derived from alchemical imagery with the sun symbolizing consciousness and the lion emotion) exudes anything as obvious as overt violence; instead, the bluesy collection generates the kind of insomniac tension that finds one tracing a blade along one's wrist at 3 a.m., undecided as to what might happen next. Recording the material at home on a 4-track machine and supporting his spellbinding murmur with little more than an acoustic guitar (an e-bowed autoharp and, apparently, a cymbal-playing monkey, homemade gramophone, and ‘daggers' are deployed too), Sweet's disturbing odes cast spells that transfix from their first moments and remain in place until their final notes fade. The following couplet from “27 th Raven's Head (Darkness Showing Through the Head of the Raven)” conveys the generally bleak lyrical disposition: “Good day to give away and embrace the enemy / With broad arms to wrap around, draw in, and suffocate.” The funereal closer “Bell for Harness” lurches so slowly it seems poised to expire at any moment yet still succeeds in casting the album's most haunting spell, due in no small part to the “Here's your lost lonely drive” mantra that repeats throughout the song's glorious coda. Lion Devours the Sun proves once again that the most powerful music often comes using the simplest of means.

November 2006