REVIEWS

Buy this album from Amazon.com

Andrew Liles
Black Beauty

Beta-lactam Ring Records

Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

For its centerpiece, Part Three of Andrew Liles' collection of rarities features two extended experiments in ambient music and found sound. The first, "All Things Bright and Beautiful and Corrosive," is as bleak as its title suggests, and as varied. Starting off with quiet ambient drones, creaks, and occasional tapping sounds, it also features slowly echoing gongs and washed out crashes of cymbals. For its second movement, soft chimes slip into the mix, adding a sort of creepy music box vibe vaguely reminiscent of Coil's early work, and the emphasis on random and unexpected sound effects calls to mind Nurse With Wound. "George the Chemist" is less eclectic, but perhaps also less unsettling, with softly ringing tones evoking the subtle loneliness of Tor Lundvall or Raison D'etre. It's the scattering of short pieces on Black Beauty though, that prove to be most compelling. Each a quick experiment in melody, they run the gamut from beatnik weirdness on the rain stick-soaked jazz wails of "Dead Roses" to the Tim Burton chiming of "Tender Box." Each is long enough to present a thought, but short enough to leave you wanting more; the eerie dulcimers of "A Numbers Game" in particular would make a good basis for a longer piece. "The Artless Shaman," on the other hand, is perfect just the way it is; any more of its mellow tribal beats and puzzled, puzzling growls, and the fun would be ruined. And Black Beauty is, most importantly, a fun CD; it has its dark places, but Liles' passion for extravagantly weird music comes through even in its bleakest moments.