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Leafcutter John
- The Housebound Spirit
[1] 42
[2] Electric
Love
[3] If You
Have An Enemy
[4] Khom?S
[5] Walk
On My Back
[6] Recain
[7] Mandolin
Work
[8] Short
Sine
[9] House
Of A Soul
[10] For
Two
[11] All
I Could Think Of Was Nothing
[12] Arches
Never Sleep
[13] Escape
From The Globus Playpen
[14] Dead
Men Can't Talk, They Can't Do Anything
[15] Know
Mercy
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| John Burton studied
art and was to follow in his father’s footsteps to become
a painter. After a year at the school he found out that, even though
he was good at painting, it wasn’t right for him. He realised
that making music to be used in galleries was much more rewarding
and therefore turned his complete attention this. John had been
playing piano since he was a little child and learnt to play the
guitar from books and friends. Some of his friends also introduced
him to electronic music and musique concrète and he therefore
purchased a computer. After four years of toying with that he sent
a demo to Planet-µ and the rest you probably know; in 2000
he released the 'Concourse EEP' and the album 'Microcontact'.
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Last
year, in 2003, he released a new CD, entitled 'The Housebound Spirit'.
It features himself on guitar, accordion and xylophone. He uses cuts
of mandolin sounds, sings, arranges orchestral scores, produces beats
and glitches, layers effects, and uses field recordings as well as some
guests popping in to play along. Leafcutter John’s latest album
is completely without comparison in today’s electronic music.
He fuses avant-garde techniques and abstract visual music with folk
and traditional elements. The contradictions are plentiful on the album
and the two very different poles reflect each other in an extraordinary
way.
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The
two first tracks, '42' and 'Electric Love', are of an abstract
kind, refusing to stay in one place, and are instead constantly
changing and quite hard to follow. After some time the music morphs
into an imagined love scene with jazzy rhythms, and vocals from
Nautilis. It then changes again and turns into what at first sounds
like a dinner in a fancy restaurant with trumpets and glasses,
forks and knifes clinking; then John decides to add a choir over
Nautilis' worrying “love scene” before fellow µ-artists
(and some other artists too) scream in an unexpected climax of
the song.
More abstract soundscapes
follow on track three 'If You Have An Enemy' but after about two
minutes a melody becomes apparent, played on cello by Matthew
Peters and on guitar by John Burton, before it all breaks down
and John’s soothing voice comes into display. He repeats
the phrase: “If you have an enemy, then I should have one
too” still backed by guitar and cello. The track is powerful
in itself, but in contrast to the opening the effect of the music
is even more overwhelming and ear-pleasing. |
| On Khom?s
he is joined by singer Kazumi E. Dulwich who complement the electroacoustic
music perfectly, as John plays guitar and send beats that in the
end sounds quite reminiscent of some of the trickery in Aphex Twin’s
Windowlicker. On Recain he is helped along by yet another Leafcutter
player: Leo Chadburn, who features here with recordings of (among
other things) a running shower and rubbing “isopor-insulation”
on a window. Track number 7, 'Mandolin Work', is one of the highlights
on the album, featuring cut-up and effect-laden mandolin playing.
'For Two' is a duo between John, on the accordion, and Rachel Lipson,
on clarinet. The dizzying merry-go-around 'Dead Men Can’t
Talk, They Can’t Do Anything' is one of the most successful
uses of panning that I have experienced (this should be listened
to drunk, on a boat, with closed eyes, focusing to follow the music
that spins around your head with your eyes underneath your eyelids
for full effect). |
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John Burton has
found a perfect match between the existing folk music and the musique
concrète; the complex soundscapes suck you in and the easy folk
songs serve as a break. And if some people find electric music cold
and inhuman, then this is the complete opposite: John sounds warm and
caring throughout the album and it is evident that not only has much
work gone into the composition of melodies and rhythms on this album,
but each and every sound here serves a thought out purpose.
Andreas Ervik
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