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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Amp is the project of London-based musician Richard Walker, a project
vaguely related to Bristol's psycho-ambient tribe
of Flying Saucer Attack and
Third Eye Foundation.
Walker recorded his first cassette under the monicker Amp,
Green Sky Blue Tree (1992), with help from
friends such as Dave Pearce of
Flying Saucer Attack (originally with him in
Secret Garden and in a multimedia project titled AMP Art Co).
In 1994 Walker met French vocalist Karine Charff, a meeting
that laid the foundations for a group.
Sirenes (Petrol, 1996) contains both "songs" and avantgarde pieces.
The two songs quite different in nature, although the basic reference point is
Flying Saucer Attack (and possibly
Seefeel):
the distorted whispered "shoegazing" melodies of Souvenir,
versus the spoken-word recital of Merry Go Down floating in a whirlwind of electronic drones.
The more ambitious compositions attempt different strategies of
soundsculpting, but they have in common the result: a chaotic ambience that
is not quite relaxing chill music, but rather a claustrophobic and
almost apocalyptic meditation on the post-industrial world.
The instrumental Frieze harks back to the archetype of the British cosmic-psychedelic raga, Pink Floyd's Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun.
The other hyper-psychedelic track (and the other standout), Soft Stone Soul, is a dilated lattice of organ-like and vocal fragments (think of Stockhausen's equivalent of a Gregorian chant).
Rave Mantra is the fresco of a terrifying land, in which Scharff's voice appears to mumble senseless words while being engulfed in a boiling magma of senseless noises.
Its counterpart is the brief piano sonata that closes the album,
So Be It, a glimmer of hope in a broadly hostile universe.
The first venture into dance music, Mathilda's Shorts Wave, is perhaps the most un-emotional of all tracks: its protagonist is a frantic drum-machine set against a ghostly breeze of echoes. The second one, Eternity, boasts an
equally hysterical beat, and even more syncopated, set against a wall of guitar noise a` la My Bloody Valentine.
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The first album was preceded by the single
Get There/ Remember (Linda's Strange Vacation, 1995)
and was followed by an intense sequence of singles:
Frise`/ Le Petit Chat (Wurlitzer Jukebox, 1996),
Ombres (Enraptured, 1996),
Beyond/ Lutin (Wulitzer Jukebox, 1996),
later collected on Passe`-Present (Enraptured, 1998).
For the album Astral Moon Beam Projections (Kranky, 1997), Walker was joined by vocalist Karine Charff and drummer Gareth Mitchell (who was also in Philosopher's Stone). The music changed compared to the first album, progressing (or regressing) to a higher level of abstraction and expansion, leaving behind the somewhat naive space ballads of the early work. The influence of the Texas post-psychedelic and post-ambient school (and perhaps also of the New Zealand avant-garde, Dead C and Gate above all) is very strong. The tracks are long and ethereal, lacking structure and rhythm.
The pattern of their tracks may seem always the same, but in reality it constantly varies. The fairy-like trills of the singer float over the eleven minutes of reverberation and chaos in Onehopesinuncertainty, immediately recalling early Sonic Youth, the guitar maelstroms of Lee Ranaldo paired with the subconscious cries of Kim Gordon. The vocals are instead fused with the other instruments in the underwater evolutions of Lightdripglow. The drone of Transmigration, which includes a diving airplane, rises into a raga-like crescendo. The music that Walker has in his blood (My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins) comes to the surface in Stellata, which does the same things as the other tracks but compresses them into a more limited space (and time).
Walker tests the listeners patience for about seventy-five minutes (perhaps half would have sufficed), but one must recognize his talent in orchestrating these cacophonous mini-symphonies. Walker later recorded alone (under the name AMP Studio) the single Colorful Clouds For Acoustics (Darla, 1997), the EP Heart And Soul Dissolve (Darla, 1997), and the single Misstype Dolittle (Earworm, 1997).
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
The double EP
Perception (Darla, 1997), almost totally improvised, is made of
four extended pieces for a total of 88 minutes. While the self-indulgent
pieces do not achieve the nirvana of the major works, they do show a more
languid and placid attitude towards ambient music.
On Stenorette (Kranky, 1998) Walker proves that he knows how to learn
from his past mistakes. Abandoning the long, self-indulging swoons of recent
outings, Walker returns to the format of brief, structured tracks.
In other words,
this is a collection of songs, some "sung" by the piano and some sung by
Karine Charff.
The piano leaves a strong mark on the music, thanks to
melancholy patterns that are reminiscent of Brian Eno's
Music For Airports (particularly in the eerie Just Ice)
and invent a rarified form of lounge balladry
(the dejected atmosphere of Songe).
The syncopated and ethereal synth-pop of Tomorrow relies on a rich
tapestry of piano notes.
On the other hand, while Robert Hapmson helps fill the
(production) blanks with his sampled guitar loops. Walker and Hampson concoct
dramatic effects that give the music a much more intense and almost manic
feeling.
Outlier is sheer violence, emerging in the form of metallic distortions
from a bubbling magma of electronic noises.
Tango Non displays the driving, savage fury of
Suicide and
Stooges coupled with an insistent riff a`
la Led Zeppelin.
The Nico-esque lament of You Are Here is set against an almost
symphonic backdrop that even borrows
ideas from Pink Floyd (the Welcome To The Machine-like wall of vibrating
noise, a helicopter sample, a martial rhythm).
Zoe is the most experimental piece: loud distorted guitar and keyboard utter melodies that are juxtaposed with a sample of disconnected vocals over a
dub-like industrial rhythm.
Sunflower, that adapts
Cocteau Twins' dream-pop to
Walker's hypnotic guitar shuffle, sounds like pop music compared with the rest.
Stenorette has a heart and a mind,
whereas Astral... only had a (very long) name.
This marks a return to form for an artist who is easily prey to fashionable
sounds, but who displays true talent when challenged by new ideas.
A.M.P. Studio is the solo project of Richard Walker.
Syzygy (Ochre, 1998) offered a bizarre mixture of
ambient and psychedelic music, and the two suites of the
mini-album Lost/ Found (Fourth Dimension, 1999), also known as
Unconscious Country,
steered towards avantgarde music, but
Alien Registration Office (Ochre, 2000) returns to the
rock song format, albeit with a German twist (Can and Faust).
Walker is experimenting with loops, drones and samples in a childish manner,
and only occasionally finds an intriguing combination.
Recorded in 1999 during their European tour, Amp's
Saint Cecilia Sinsemilla (Space Age, 2001) recycles some tracks of
Stenorette and adds a few new songs.
Amp's L'Amour Invisible (Space Age, 2002) does not break any new ground,
but offers the usual dose of classy, dreamy trip-hop.
The reformed Amp (Richard Walker, Karine Charff, Olivier Gauthier, Jan Zert)
is quite a different ensemble than it used to be, much more eclectic (running
the gamut from the poppy Curious Smile to the experimental
Glasshouse Jam) and specializing in surreal ambience
(Junkyard Blues).
The triple-CD All Of Yesterday Tomorrow (Rroopp, 2007)
collects singles, compilation tracks and rarities.
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