Fe-Mail featuring Lasse Marhaug: All Men Are Pigs
CD - Gameboy Records, USA - 2004
Reviews:
Fe-Mail: Syklubb fra Hælvete [TV5; 2003; r: Important; 2004] Rating: 7.7
Fe-Mail: All Men Are Pigs [Gameboy; 2004] Rating: 8.1
Fe-Mail are Maja Ratkje and Hild Sofie Tafjord, both formerly of the Norwegian experimental electro-acoustic quartet Spunk. You might also know Ratkje from her exceptional 2002 solo album Voice, on which she demonstrated how the bizarre fury of a woman scorned could produce as intimidating, recklessly creative storm as any force in nature. Only, she didn't actually seem scorned; her solo work, and that with Fe-Mail, can be abrasive, but in general seems more the work of someone who takes more than a little pride in fucking with people. The duo's music, represented on 2003's Syklubb fra Hælvete and the new All Men Are Pigs, can seem an exercise in pushing buttons-- and not necessarily just the electronic kind. Apparently, Fe-Mail want to see just how far they can lead me into a semi-chaotic world, daring me to lean in closer so they can pounce with industrial loops and howling electronic screams.
Surprising, then, to discover that their brand of noise (Merzbow is a better point of reference than any of their peers at Rune Grammofon) is so fetching. Living up to the questionable pun of their moniker, Fe-Mail delight in using images of female sexuality and glamour to contrast the iron-fisted free terror of their music. They pose as calendar models on their album covers-- or use Rik Rawling's lurid cartoons fusing softcore porn with heavy artillery-- and seem only too happy to exploit their rather attractive competitive advantage. I get the feeling they're trying to tell me something, too, be it an ironic statement about improvised noise music, or just a kiss-off to all the hipster chauvinists of the world. Regardless of the concept, Syklubb and All Men deliver on purely musical fronts in spades, so you don't need to feel very guilty for having a nagging urge to stare at the CD jackets.
Syklubb was originally released in an edition of 500 on pink vinyl in Norway last year. The Important Records CD reissue contains two tracks not on the original, "Virus Attachment 1" and "Virus Attachment 2". These pieces foreshadow the near-violent thrust of All Men, and are in considerable contrast withmuch of Syklubb. The former begins with a brief exposition of birdsong, but soon initiates a loop of cut-up, high-pitched vocals and distorted percussion. The sound is not unlike recent outings by New York's Black Dice, using metallic, muscular sounds to construct highly detailed noisescapes. "Jacob's Toy" is much less confrontational: Atmospheric ambience, provided by who knows what analog synthesizer or manipulated field recording, sets up a mildly disorientating vocal section that alternates spoken word with wildly altered screams and laughs. Fe-Mail use the human voice as source material rather than a lead instrument, though it invariably lends acoustic warmth to their music.
Since much of Fe-Mail's music is improvised, it's not surprising to hear it run through several seemingly unrelated textures within a piece. "Water Music" is the calmest track on Syklubb, but even with layers of natural ambience and water effects, the sine tones and suffocating vocal loop (not to mention spooky, discordant piano) lends it a disturbing quality. Likewise, "Modogin" begins as relatively low-key exercise in electro-acoustic minimalism, using what sounds like sandpaper and a plaintive, wordless vocal melody to orchestrate a damaged aria. However, the uneasy peace is broken with a gurgling generator in the left speaker, and a jagged, ferocious roar in the right. And "jagged" seems like the right word for Fe-Mail; a topographical diagram of their music would return severe spikes in mood, texture and volume.
All Men Are Pigs was recorded with photographer and noise musician Lasse Marhaug, and serves as a pretty good "fuck you" to anyone expecting shyer music. If Syklubb had been a study in varying shades of noise, this one is outright terror. Grating, overdriven fuzz swirls through pieces that mix bits of sampled metal guitar and radio static into a single, continuous strip of blades. Rarely, as on "Here's That Rainy Day, Sid Hendrix' Last Grunt", the storm subsides into smaller pockets, though most of All Men seems designed to push listeners accustomed to "lighter" structures to their breaking points.
Of course, this is what makes All Men such a captivating listen. Rather than milk the fury until it no longer has any impact, Fe-Mail know just when to say "when," and how to frame chaos in the barest skeleton so as to suggest that what is happening isn't strictly chaotic, but a spiky, ill-tempered tone poem. The surreal, nightmarish collages at the outset of "Charmed" seem to logically prepare me for the paranoid apocalypse of its conclusion; the future-jungle calls of "Fresh from the Flesh, On a Bed of Roses" sound like perfect foils for its percussive gearshift loop and maniacal guitar. During a time when many noise and electronic musicians are downsizing to laptops and minimal improvisation, it's refreshing to hear an outfit that has little-to-no appreciation for respectable expectations. (Dominique Leone, Pitchfork Media)
Fe-Mail: All Men Are Pigs
Feminism in music has taken many different forms in recent years, from the pop sheen of No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” to the harder edged punk rock of Bikni Kill and their sisters in the Pacific Northwest. Fe-Mail’s feminism is of a more humorous, if not facetious, vein than the aforementioned, but that doesn’t stop the Norwegian duo from unleashing some caustic grrrl power of their own. Neither Hild Sofie Tafjord or Maja S.K. Ratkje seem overtly interested in preaching an agenda or using their music as a political platform, but despite (and, most likely, because of) this lack of overt polemics, Fe-Mail are a stark example of the fact that noise isn't just for the boys. Joined by (as the album title’s logic dictates) pig and fellow Norwegian Lasse Marhaug, Fe-Mail cause a stir on All Men are Pigs that renders everything but the ferocity of the music an afterthought.
Dispensing with the traditional Scandanavian austerity, Tafjord, Ratkje, and Marhaug are architects of tumultuous noise explosions, mangling electronics, samples and the human voice into a mess of sound that would be frightening if it weren’t so meticulously crafted. Unlike the artists whose medium is sheer, uncontrolled audio destruction, Fe-Mail seem to craft each cataclysmic moment with care, and their shuddering improvisations move with a definite sense of development and resolution. Obvious beats and more ghostly, underlying rhythms propel the music from its most chillingly placid moments (which are few) to the frenzied zeniths of the group’s noisy constructions. Seeped in static and distorted sound samples, All Men are Pigs seems to operate at near speaker-shredding volume, even at a stereo’s quietest setting, as the three musicians stretch and bend the music in an epic match of tug o’ war, There’s no sense of internal competition here, though, only mutual determination and resolution, and the album is stronger for it. Individual voices are lost among the fray, and the efforts of the trio far outweigh and overshadow any singular contribution. As the disc starts, “Oh, You Gritty Thing” explodes in a near-animal frenzy, as a mechanical snarl is damaged and demolished over the course of over seven minutes, and while “Charmed” and “Here’s that Rainy Day, Sid Hendrix’ Last Grunt” don’t reach such levels of aural bombast, there’s never a lull in the album’s intensity or drive.
There doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason for the recent mini-explosion of noise music exports from Norway. However, Tafjord, Ratkje, and Marhaug, as well as Marhaug’s duo Jazzkammer, Frode Gjerstad, Noxagt, and others are making a noisy name for a country that usually receives notoriety for the black metal of Satyricon, Enslaved, Ulver and their stylistic brethren. All Men are Pigs is another damaged feather in the country’s cap, making a stormy clamor that would even impress that father of Norse thunder himself. (Adam Strohm, dustedmagazine.com)
FE-MAIL FEATURING LASSE MARHAUG - ALL MEN ARE PIGS (CD by Gameboy Records)
LASSE MARHAUG & CARLOS GIFFONI - LESBIAN BRUNCH (3"CDR by Gameboy Records)
Only very recent (Vital Weekly 429) I reviewed a collaborative CD by Lasse Marhaug and Maja Ratkje, now it's followed by Marhaug and Fe-mail, a duo of Maja Ratkje and Hild Sofie Tafjord. The recordings are not very recent (from feburary 2002) but maybe only recentely mixed, by 'The Swine', as the cover says - and me thinks they mean
Marhaug. If they can put one man on the moon, why not all of them? is probably the motto of this CD. The CD starts out with 'Oh, You Gritty Thing', a full noise blast, but luckily the album has also some more contemplative moments - for whatever that's worth of course - such as the vinyl abuse of 'In The Slicer With Lasse Neuf' or 'Charmed'. For the bigger part this is of course an ear-splitting collaboration, worthy for the son of Merzbow, and as far as I know not really a pig at all. On CDR in a small size, Marhaug teams up with Carlos Giffoni, one third of Monotract and recentely reviewed with his trio 3"CD with Jim O'Rourke and Lee Ranaldo (see Vital Weekly 430). The recording was made in july 2003 in Antwerps Stereophonics and is a session of improvised laptop noise in combination with electronics and towards the end even some guitars. Of course the two boys play a full on noise thing here, but with enough variation and skill to keep things interesting for the full twenty minutes. (Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly)
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