Sectionals: Electronic & Experimental #1 : Luigi Archetti / Bo Wiget

In Sectionals we spotlight music we find interesting that casual browsers might overlook or be unfamiliar with. Consider these our recommendations to make your life more diversely musical. 

Luigi Archetti / Bo Wiget - Low Tide Digials III (Rune Grammofon, 2009)

review via Allmusic:

Review by François Couture  [-]

Guitarist Luigi Archetti and cellist Bo Wiget have been discreetly developing their partnership for a while and, if the first two installments in their Low Tide Digitals series were pleasant and intriguing, this third volume is downright gorgeous. The pair have hit a perfect stride between acoustic droning and noise fiddling. They don't balance acoustics and electronics, they blend them into one cohesive whole. One moment the music sounds like one of Morton Feldman's long, textural string pieces or some post-classical dirge, and the next you're thinking of experimental electronica like Pan Sonic or even Merzbow's noise blasts. And it doesn't feel like a contrast, but a natural extension of what came before. That said, most of the album weighs toward something quiet and achingly beautiful. Archetti and Wiget's music has the vibrancy of improvisations but the focus and intent of meticulous compositions, with every detail carefully placed. It's funny how, through the sober covers and lack of actual track titles (on Low Tide Digitals, Vol. 3, tracks are titled "Stück 24" through "Stück 37," carrying the sequence started in volumes one and two), Archetti and Wiget seem to be imposing a standardization of their oeuvre, while this volume clearly stands out from the first two, and each track has its own character. One of the biggest surprises of 2009; an album of stunning sensual music that moves way beyond genres and styles, trends, and approaches.

Samples can be found over at iTunes 

Auction sites list this CD between $8-20 used, we have a great used copy in the racks for $7.96 +hst

From the racks #7: Giant Sand

Giant Giant Sand - Tucson (Fire, 2012)

Giant Sand is a band started in the early 80s by Arizonian Howe Gelb.  In it's heyday the band also featured members John Convertino and Joey Burns who later split off to form Calexico. The band has always featured a drifting desert vibe combined with a broke down punk heart and a bit of psychedelic spirit keeping things weird.  This 2012 album features a much expanded line up, thus the extra "Giant," here reviewed by Allmusic:

Review by Mark Deming  [-]

A careful look at the cover of the album Tucson reveals that Howe Gelb has credited his band as "Giant Giant Sand," and with the lineup expanded to 12 musicians (and another five cited as guests along with a children's chorus), it's clear Gelb wasn't afraid to think big for this project. And the scale of the ensemble suits the material; Tucson is subtitled "A Country Rock Opera," and with the 19 songs clocking in at just under 70 minutes, it certainly has an operatic scope and an impressive musical heft. In addition to a lyric sheet, Tucson includes a 20-page booklet that attempts to explain the story that ties Gelb's songs together; while the tale is full of atmosphere and telling details, the narrative is murky at best, having something to do with a drifter who frees himself from his possessions, falls in love with a woman he meets at a dancehall, and ends up in an Occupy Tucson encampment with the city's disenfranchised. If Tucson doesn't scan especially well as a story, Gelb's music connects beautifully; shifting between twangy laments, dusty desert rock & roll, stripped-down blues, confessional ballads, and lusty border-town dance rhythms, Tucson conjures up a big and very colorful world in its 19 tunes, and while Gelb's craggy but expressive voice rings through most of these songs, in true operatic form he lets others' characters take the lead from time to time, and Lonna Kelley, Brian Lopez, and Gabriel Sullivan make the most of the spots here, enhancing the changing moods and flavors of this album. Recorded at studios in four different countries, Tucson is a widescreen epic by the frequently shambolic standards of Giant Sand's work, and the effort pays off -- this is an absorbing and engaging album that shows Howe Gelb's vision to its best advantage.

Various auction sites list this record for a wide variety of prices between $30-40... we have a Very Good (our top rating) vinyl copy currently priced at $17.99 in the racks.  

From the Racks #6: Fucked Up

Fucked Up - David's Town, 11 Original Hits from Byrdesdale Spa, UK! (Matador, 2011)  

 info via Audiosoft:

In a post on their Looking For Gold blog, the band announces plans for the release of the fake comp David's Town, which collects the work of 11 fake bands from the fake town of Byrdesdale Spa: "We decided instead of recording any new music, why don't we just release this compilation album from 1977 we'd been sitting on since from before we were all born? We found like 750 copies of this great comp so we're gonna just use that." That seems to imply that David's Town will be limited to 750 copies, so show up at your local independent record store bright and early.

Fucked Up - Do You Feed? (Official Video) from Lance Ludwig on Vimeo.

Various auction sites list this record for a wide variety of prices between $12-40... we have a Very Good (our top rating) vinyl copy currently priced at $16.99 in the racks.