Millipede - Full Bloom

Millipede
Full Bloom
(2010, Install)
RIYL = Yellow Swans, The Goslings, Fennesz

Loud. It’s a term whose description is most notably a reference to sound produced at high levels of audible volume. That the term feels uncomfortably lacking when used as a descriptor for Millipede’s latest album, Full Bloom, is telling. This album isn’t simply loud, it’s is deafening. This is one of the few albums that demand a parental advisory sticker (remember those?) for audio abrasiveness alone (notifying Tipper right now). It's the tangible threat of Millipede’s thunderously noisy guitar jarring loose components of one’s inner ear. Despite having listened to the album well over twenty times now, whenever I start listening to Full Bloom, without fail, the sheer audacity of the recordings require that I turn the volume to its lowest level and then slowly ease myself into the uproar. Otherwise, I fear the unbridled raucousness of Millipede’s guitar will cause my headphones to sprout teeth and consume my ears whole. Like boiling a live frog, or something. What? I don’t know. However, the fact that Millipede’s latest (and might I add at this juncture, greatest) album is indisputably, to put it ever so lightly, loud, is not to say that the tonal architecture here is ugly. Do not be fooled into thinking that something so vociferous cannot also be intensely gorgeous, because - my friends - that is exactly what Full Bloom turns out to be. Once you’ve peeled through the oniony layers of this dauntingly strident album, what you’ll find running underneath is almost beyond description in terms of its depth and beauty. Up front, the guitars are shattering like crystal, but the refracted vision that these fractured tones illuminates something wholly unique, and gorgeous. There sits deep within these recordings, that, I’m sure, to 99% of the population can be simply qualified as unbearable noise (“kids these days!”), a Zen that isn’t manageable at softer, more contemplative tones. Full Bloom achieves what all those minimalist drone kids are aiming for, but can never quite attain: something concrete, compelling and enlightening, all at once. Don’t get caught in the crowd that will flippantly label this as just another noise album. I promise, it is so much more.

-Thistle

Millipede on MySpace
Full Bloom via Install

Millipede - Sand & Surf

Millipede
Sand & Surf
(2009, Install)
RIYL = Yellow Swans, Geoff Mullen, Mouthus

For anyone who found the super incredible Death Mountain (the Millipede full length released earlier this year) a little too brief, Millipede and his cohorts at the Install label have teamed up once again to provide us with a little supplemental listening. Sand & Surf is not really directly related to Death Mountain, but it is still pure Millipede, which translates to earth shattering feedback via guitars and pedals. Sand & Surf is being toted as a digital 7”, so things are still pretty brief; however, the four songs here are al up to snuff with Millipede’s previous work. In fact, amongst these four mosaics of tone destruction, Millipede sound tip toes into some new area with the non-destructive prettiness of “Sand,” offering a short respite from the gluttonous malingering of its sandwiching tracks. All and all, there isn’t a lot to say that hasn’t already been said about Millipede’s previous releases here on FG. And we are still awaiting the release of a new full length that is in the works and should also be due out later this year. Millipede is keeping himself busy, that’s for sure. Oh wait, I almost forgot. Millipede and Install are giving this gorgeous “seven inch” away for free. Check the link below, enjoy and destroy!

- Lil' Thistle

Millipede - Sand & Surf

Millipede - Death Mountain

Millipede
Death Mountain
(12.2008/01.2009, Install)
Verdict = Merriweather Post Pavilion and now this!? I think I could sleep through the rest of 2009 and be just fine.

Though part of a marginally larger edition than his Hyrule cassette (30 copies), Death Mountain is still a criminally limited edition at only 50 copies. The concept for Millipede this time around is the same: Zelda + My Bloody Valentine = monolithic cathedrals of towering guitar feedback that somehow instills a depressing beauty amidst the swirling chaos. Think Fennesz, if he was performing an exorcism gone horribly wrong (but at the same time - horribly right!). I don’t know why the labels that are putting this stuff out (and they’re great labels to be putting it out at all, that’s for sure) aren’t placing more stock into it because Millipede’s brand of melodic guitar feedback is devastatingly good. Let me be the first to request that someone put this stuff on wax at an edition of 500 or something because once someone notable finds out about this stuff, it’ll be gone in no time. But then again, I’m just a lowly music blogger, the scum of the music world, what do I know? Well, if nothing else, I know that Death Mountain is noise done right. This is the kind of stuff that us odd, experimental leaning folk devour after wading through pools of the BS noise releases that everyone else and their little sisters have cranked out on CDR. This is one of those holy grail type records that make wading through the crap a bearable means to an end. And let me just say this so that I can be the first (why else blog about music?): If Millipede keeps this up, there will be a day when his moniker will be uttered in company with noise stalwarts like Yellow Swans, Axolotl, Earth and Sunn O))). His stuff is that good. Don’t sleep on Death Mountain on the basis of its limited edition status or its peculiar Nintendo associations – this ain’t no lame, glitched out NES cover band. Death Mountain is transcendent, apocalyptic, magnificent and searingly beautiful; a true work of art. As you could imagine, I could probably go on all day. However, I’d rather give my full attention back to Millipede and Death Mountain. Sample below for the unbelievers…

-Mr. Thistle

Sample of "Daphnes Nohansen"