Dou Wei, FM3

I want this album and I can’t find it anywhere. If you want to be nice and share with me, please holler. I’ll … um, make you a mix?

Dou Wei & FM2 Hou Guan Yin
(Lona; 2006)

But what is really striking about this album is how readily it bridges the gap between early seventies prog (like, the experimental kind, and not the more popular formalized version of Yes and ELO) and present day electronic music. Xhol Caravan, Agitation Free, Area, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Battiato — their fingerprints are all over this thing, which isn’t entirely shocking, since some of the roots of electronic music exist in that cluster anyway, but insofar as the intent is to draw the soothing and sore together, I haven’t heard an album that is so evocative of that nexus of noise in a while. Like those bands, FM3 understand that vibrant tremors exist in all sorts of contexts, groupings, and tempos, and that an album doesn’t have to be a collection of ideas, but rather it can be the idea, and that its parts can simply explain the narrative through moods.

-Mark Abraham

Um, I’m getting a little twitchy.

Whoa, when did Cokemachineglow quit hating everything they listen to? I haven’t been there in about a year or so because the constant negativity was bringing me down.

Anyway, I’ve got it. I’ll sneak it to you tomorrow.

Wow, I never took you for a Xhol Caravan, Agitation Free, Area, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, and Battatio fan.

You did notice it said NOT like Yes or E.L.O. right?

Thanks Paul. I just read their review of local luminaries (*cough*) Brothers and Sisters and have to say, the negativity was sorta spot on. But in general I find them to be pretty fair, and actually review more in terms of quantity than most other sites. I wish they had a better way to search for things, though.

Aaron,

It was more that last sentence in the quote than the comparison to bizarre prog groups of the 70’s that got my attention, though I have a feeling you already knew that.

I have that laying around somewhere…

Let me look for it tonight when I get home and I’ll try to rip it and put it in a secret place for you.

If you like the FM3 stuff (aka Buddha Machine!), there’s also a new Robert Henke (Monolake) album coming out where the entire source material for the release (”Layering Buddha”) is samples from said device. It’s actually quite a bit better than I thought it would be.

AC,
Buddha Machine was all I could find last night, so I did grab that. Work today prevented a listen, but I’m catching up as we speak. Thank you!