Level Live Wires

Odd Nosdam | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 28, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Anticon
• ASIN: B000T988E2
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,659 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

An Odd Nosdam record is more than music. More and more, David P. Madson's albums are collections of wordless short stories and scenes, intricately woven audio scrapbooks that buzz with singular experience as lived through the eyes and ears of one very electric human conduit. 2005's threateningly dense and gorgeous Burner was built amongst bad relationships, nasty headspaces and East Oakland situations, but Level Live Wires is the distinct product of inspiration, bizarre happenstance and wonder, lived out in a series of bright moments eventually brought together under the roof of an unruffled West Berkeley cottage. 8-track cassettes, samplers, synths and Dictaphones, lost records and found sounds, field recordings and happy accidents are brought to stirring life by our humble collagist.

Nosdam's fascination with these odd moments gives Level Live Wires its enveloping draw. Each bit that becomes a part of a song is an otherwise static and eventually staid sound that could have become mere memory. Instead, he takes each into his life (often burning sounds onto disc and listening to them throughout his day), and gives them blood in return.

This fully-realized work includes contributions by a number of Madson's co-conspirators: Dee Kesler of Thee More Shallows, Why's Doug McDiarmid and Yoni Wolf, Chris Adams (Hood, Bracken), Jessica Bailiff, Cosmos Lee, Tunde Adebimpe (TV On The Radio), and more. Also included with Level Live Wires' first CD pressing is a limited bonus CD of isolated sonics--a fine ambient EP in its own right--that allows listeners to hear the album's underpinnings from Odd Nosdam's peerless perspective.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting, beguiling...hey, look at my shoes - they're so shiny......, April 15, 2008

By 

B. Marshall (A small village on a large lake in Queensland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Level Live Wires (Audio CD)

I checked out the tracks Kill Tone and Up in Flames over and over on Odd Nosdam's MySpace site, then decided wtf, why not chance the whole cd. Glad I did. This dreamy, shoe-gazy, post-rocky meld of sounds and musical themes is totally self-indulgent, charming and, ultimately, enchanting. And it's not just the two tracks mentioned above that are good - I think it's all good, and hangs together as a whole work. A Boards of Canada comparison can be made. In fact, I just made it. So if that turns you off, and you don't dig what's on MySpace, you should probably pass on this one. But if it doesn't, for what it's worth, this one gets my recommendation. It's wistful, and poignant, and I suspect the other reviewer has it, beautifully and poetically, right - this may be what it sounds like to drown.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great idea sounds..., October 27, 2010

By 

LuvzMuZiq - See all my reviews

This review is from: Level Live Wires (Audio CD)

Probably a good descriptor is "dreamlike" -- a hash of all sorts of "found" sounds brought together into an unlikely harmony, droning with big swells and warm distortion. Sink into the couch with this. No substances needed. ;-) Definitely sets the chill-out mood. Recommended!