MICHEL REDOLFI – DESERT TRACKS (CD by Sub Rosa) *
MICROTUB – BITE OF THE ORANGE (CD by Sofa Music) *
MUDDERSTEN – KARPATKLOKKE (CD by Sofa Music) *
THE TOBACCONISTS – STREETLIGHT (LP by Minor Label) *
AHOE AHOEA (LP by Bunkerpop Records)
BOURBONESE QUALK – ARCHIVE 1980-1986 (4LP by Vinyl On Demand)
LAIBACH – LIVE IN HELL (LP by Vinyl On Demand)
DANIEL W J MACKENZIE – EVERY TIME FEELS LIKE THE LAST TIME (CDR by Eilean Records) *
NOISESCULPTOR – KARMA-SHELTER (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
AARON BACHELDER – MUSIC FOR A NEW DARK AGE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
NYM (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
HARD GONZO TAPPERS (CDR compilation by Attenuation Circuit)
KSHATRIY – SAMANTABHADRA (cassette by Attenuation Circuit) *
RAVEN/EMERGE – FORSAKEN (split cassette by Attenuation Circuit)
AGNES PE – ITEM TOURIAN (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records & Tapes)
MICHEL REDOLFI – DESERT TRACKS (CD by Sub Rosa)
For a while Michel Redolfi lived in Amsterdam and perhaps I even met him once or twice as I
participated in a project that would take music into space; the question was ‘what are your
favourite sounds and record those for thirty seconds’, to be shipped off on a CD as part of the
European Space Program. I handed in thirty seconds of frying bacon, but I never heard if it’s now
on a trajectory to space (and beyond); maybe it just never got off the ground? I am not sure if
our enterprise stocked copies of the CD ‘Desert Tracks’ when it came out in 1988, even when an
Englishman who came by on a daily basis heavily pushed the music of Redolfi (and who contributed
to VW in it’s early days under the guise of ‘The Square Root Of Sub’). I am pretty sure I didn’t hear
it back then, or I did not mentally store it, as this re-issue sounds like something I didn’t hear
before.
In 1987, Redolfi visited the California Desert road and made recordings in the Mojave Desert,
Death Valley and Palm Canyon, which, upon his return in France, transformed these into electronic
music. It is now re-issued as part of Sub Rosa’s ‘early electronic series’, and I was thinking “1987?
Early? That wasn’t that long ago. Oh, thirty years. Wow”. Redolfi worked with Luc Ferrari, Bernard
Parmegiani, Pierre Henry and Jean-Claude Risset, putting him right among the best in the field of
electro-acoustic music. From 1973 to 1984 he lived in the USA, perhaps then getting the idea to
do recordings in this hot area. In these years he also started doing underwater music projects, but
later on, just like life on earth, moved onto land. This I thought was interesting because one already
hears much of the digital processes that these days are so commonly found inside laptops and
easy to use software, so that everymen can be an electro-acoustic composer, and here they are
used on this release from thirty years ago. It’s probably the kind of stuff that was thought very
highly off in those years, which makes this perhaps a piece of music that is very much of it’s time.
That, for me, says nothing about the quality of the music actually, as I do enjoy this very much.
Redolfi’s music works with lots of treated sounds of natural sounds, and sometimes it seems as if
we hear the untreated sounds, which is very well possible, but throughout the electronic aspect is
the main thing here. The four pieces of the original (and a bonus piece from 1984, which wasn’t on
the original vinyl) paint a very clear picture of heat, sand, cactus being played, and wind, sometimes
being a small storm. This is a beautiful sonic journey, and perhaps one would not recognize the
Mojave Desert as such (but then, I never been to that place), it sounds all quite organic and
gorgeous. It is an excellent work of field recordings and electronic processing. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.subrosa.net
MICROTUB – BITE OF THE ORANGE (CD by Sofa Music)
MUDDERSTEN – KARPATKLOKKE (CD by Sofa Music)
Here we have two new releases on Norway’s Sofa Music and on both discs we find music played
with a tuba. On the first disc it is exclusively a tuba, but then by a trio of players. Robin Hayward,
who has presented quite a few works on the tuba, which we reviewed, plays a ‘microtonal F-tuba’,
Martin Taxt and Peder Simonsen both play a ‘microtonal C-tuba. This is their third album for Sofa
but it is the first I hear from this trio. One could easily think that this is within the realm of
improvised music, but Robin Hayward composed two of the three pieces, the two longer ones and
the trio composed the short one in between these. This is, at twenty-six minutes, is a rather short
CD, with two pieces of ten/twelve minutes and one that is over three minutes, sandwiched in
between. But what is captured with in this time frame is something that is very captivating. These
three pieces are very minimal in development and the range of the three tubas is very close to each
other, so we have this dense, intertwining sound of the tuba. Drone like obviously, but then in a
very natural way. I noticed before that the tuba might seem like a very unlikely instrument for this
kind of microtonal music, which borders closely to ambient music, but if you listen to this, it makes
very much sense to use this instrument in such a way. I was reminded of the music of Phill Niblock,
but in the live approach of Microtub towards recording, one hears the breathing and the decay of
the sounds (unlike in Niblock’s own recordings, so another point of reference might be the work of
Pauline Oliveros, even when Microtub use no electronics at all. This is however very much as deep
listening as Oliveros’ music, and it’s simply a highly refined experience.
Martin Taxt still plays ‘microtonal tuba’ on the release with a trio named Muddersten, but it’s
without any specific note mentioned and also electronics. The other members of the trio are Havard
Volden (guitar, tape-loop) and Henrik Olsson (objects, friction, piezo). Muddersten we learn is ‘a
type of mudrock whose original constituents were clays. It looks like hardened mud and, depending
upon the circumstances under it was formed, ut may show cracks or fissures, like a sun-baked clay
deposit’. Still flowers can grow on this. The seven pieces here are improvisations and we also learn
that the titles don’t mean that much. The music is quite different than that of Microtub. It is hardly
minimal and has lots of bigger and smaller events within each piece. Somewhere along the lines of
(obviously) improvised music with the two instruments and the electro-acoustic approach of all the
acoustic stuff used, along with the electronics into which these are fed. It moves back and forth,
ranging from the quite (yet not complete) silent and the louder, chaotic (and yet never noisy) bits
that are also to be found here. Their sounds bounce around completely without effects at points
and then pick them up, move them around, through delay, reverb or whatever else there is, and
they apply that to whatever it is they are doing. Sometimes there is no instrument to be heard
and it seems an ‘all-acoustic object’ bash, but then the guitar and tuba pop up, out of nowhere
it seems and their pieces move into something entirely different. I thought all of this was quite
vibrant music, and that Muddersten plays it with some fine energy. Excellent work. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.sofamusic.no
THE TOBACCONISTS – STREETLIGHT (LP by Minor Label)
This is the sixth Tobacconists album according to Discogs, but whereas the group normally
consists of just Frans de Waard (synthesizers & drumcomputers) and Scott Foust (radio,
synthesizer, trumpet), this time Mike Popovich (bass guitar and electronics) is added to the
ranks which turns out to be quite an interesting addition. The lads sat down in De Waard’s studio
after an extensive tour to promote their album “Smoking Is Green” and recorded two albums, of
which the first, “A Secret Place”, was released by A Giant Fern/Fabrica in 2014 and now this work
is out on Minor Label.
Listening to the record for the first time, I was kinda surprised by how groovy it is and this
should be credited mainly to the excellent bass licks that Popovich adds to the mix. The tracks
seem to be structured around De Waard’s rhythmic programming which then gets a proper amount
of drive from the bass guitar – think of a less strict version of Cabaret Voltaire or the industrial
sibling of bands like Main (the early period, “Hydra/Calm”). Although the production and sound of
the songs is quite uniform, there is a stark contrast between tracks that are almost upbeat like
“King Tiger”/ “The Smart Money” and tracks that indeed have this brooding kind of “Main”
atmosphere to them, like “Streetlight”. The latter also sports Foust’s creepy trumpet calls in it.
My favourite is “Solitaire Syndrome”; it drops a repetitive wailing bass siren in the very beginning –
not completely unlike a proper dubstep/d’n’b lead – that then gets incorporated in a mid tempo
6/8 rhythm, which reminded me a bit of cult hit “Misanthropy” by German duo November Növelet.
Another track I kept playing was “Hidden”, which to me sounds a bit like a Sonar track, with a fast-
paced bass line on top of it. While listening to it, my mind wandered off and the track became the
soundtrack to a high-speed pursuit scene in some sci-fi movie; something with helicopters,
sunglasses and long black leather coats. Nice one. (PJN)
––– Address: http://www.minorlabel.de/
AHOE AHOEA (LP by Bunkerpop Records)
BOURBONESE QUALK – ARCHIVE 1980-1986 (4LP by Vinyl On Demand)
LAIBACH – LIVE IN HELL (LP by Vinyl On Demand)
Recently I wrote somewhere that I don’t care much about retro. It was in an e-mail when someone
invited me to go to a concert of some old new wave band, I already forgot which, but I don’t care
about some has-been rockers in their fifties playing their not-so big hits from thirty years ago plus
a bunch of new songs nobody knows. The market for retro is big, as he who didn’t have any money
thirty years ago, now has some cash to spare as there is now a well-paid job, kids out of the house
and no more mortgage to be paid; so why not go out to see some old has-beens? What an intro to
write about three releases that very much deal with that past, and for all of these three this is not
so much a review (spoiler: I love ‘m all; skip to the next review if that’s enough to know) as much
some private blabber of days long past. So I can more easily skip over the question: ‘why bother
with retro?’, I guess.
Let’s start close to home and with something odd; odd, if you know me. As a 15 year I
discovered the world of weird music, and very soon I decided that everything with synthesizers
was very much up my alley. So when I dived head-deep in the world of independent cassette
releases, that was the musical content. There was no-way of going back to post-punk guitar
music. In them early days I bought a lot of those cassettes from a local store (Rebop, if you want
to know) and I kept a list of every new cassette, and oh boy, I wish I still had that list, because I
would enable me now to tell when I bought the cassette by a local band Ahoe Ahoea. Nijmegen
isn’t a big city but as a 17 year old boy from the suburbs, I wasn’t exactly in touch with the local
underground musicians, let alone squatters, and none of the other kids in my school cared even
remotely what I was into, so I had no clue about this band. I even have no idea why I bought it,
though a low price might have helped, and the fact that it was local. Later on, when I knew more
musicians locally, I asked if anyone had any idea about this band, and all I got were some blank
stares. Which is kind of odd, since Ahoe Ahoea was a rock band, so I expected they would have
played well… somewhere in town? Much to amazement I saw that there is now a LP re-issue shared
on Facebook and it finally got me in contact with the members, and I learned Ahoe Ahoea was a
four piece, rather short lived (1980-1984) four piece band, with an interested in Johnny
Weismuller’s Tarzan, hence the band name, and projecting Laurel & Hardy movies at gigs, since
their films were an influence on the lyrics. That explains some of the humour in these songs, which
probably shocked the serious, extreme left-wingers of Nijmegen of those days. Their cassette is
the only release they, and it surfaced a decade ago on a blog, which now lead to a re-issue of it on
a US label. When I told Staalplaat in 1983 this was a great tape, and they should get ten, and they
never sold a single copy, so they told me when I started working there in 1992. Nine songs on the
LP, plus a few on the bonus download, this still sounds like a great release. Oddly enough (again!) I
still know pretty much every song by heart, which means I must have played this to death back
then. The music, Frans, what about the music? Oh yes, apart that it sounds great, I think if this
would be new and arriving today, I would say something along the lines of “this is great music,
some truly catchy songs, some very humorous lyrics (‘Eiffeltower’ seems to reference both The
Cure and Grandmaster Flash in the lyrics); the band plays with some great energy, and there is a
beautiful directness to the music when it comes to the recording. One could say this is some
garage rock music, and probably is an inch or two removed from our usual musical interest,
though lovely as it is”. But now it’s connected to my personal history, my musical DNA, and I
still think this is great.
So when I was deeply involved in the world of independent cassettes, buying and archiving
information about them, I started my own cassette label and very much as I understood how
these things were, I did cassette compilations, and had a series called ‘6×10=60’, six bands
provide each ten minutes of music, plus a sheet of 4 graphics (it all came in a plastic bag, as
separate sheets, and looked terrible; also the design of the ‘cover’ was a real stinker; I’m so sorry
about that) and I wanted to have people involved that I liked, such as Merzbow and Falx Cerebri
(Volume 1), Controlled Bleeding and Le Syndicat (Volume 3) and Coup de Grace and Bourbonese
Qualk on the second volume (and others as well). Especially Bourbonese Qualk I thought of as
quite a catch. I liked their ‘Laughing Afternoon’ debut LP, but loved ‘Hope’, the second. The
excellent combination of industrial rhythms, tinkling guitars (which I always thought sounded like
Durutti Column), shouty vocals and odd violin/wind instrument treatments, was exactly the sort
of thing I dug really well. So, when they gave me ’10 minutes of Rough Mixes’ I thought (first time
revelation) ‘oh a bit of a throwaway music for a compilation is handed in’, but I kept following them
and over the years remained a big fan, even in their techno/hardcore phase. Still I am quite proud
that their last CD release was for my label. So it was a no brainer that I forked out some cash for
this 4LP set, as it documents what I could easily say is my favourite period of the band, and
essentially a bunch of very rare, early tracks from their earliest cassette only releases, which I
never heard and a compilation of compilation pieces, plus a whole bunch of unreleased pieces. In
the past Bourbonese Qualk had everything online for a free download, but I am sure that didn’t
include these pieces. Now expertly remastered by Jos Smolders at EarLabs, this is a lot of great
music; each side may easily last twenty-five or so minutes. Bourbonese Qualk shows their many
aspects in as many combinations. Some of this is a festival of recognition, as it includes various
compilations that are sitting on the shelves here and there are a bunch of pieces of the split
cassette they did with a guy called Hartmann, plus lots of enjoyment on the unreleased tracks
as well as the ones I don’t know. The biggest surprise here is the first LP, which contains the very
earliest recordings of the Qualks, and these a noisiness about the music that we early see in their
later career, a quick development, as it was not that loud on the first LPs. This is just not from a
historical perspective interesting, but it sounds also very good; exactly the kind of industrial music
that was coming on late seventies on the brink of 1980 from say Clock Dva or Throbbing Gristle.
This is a great find!
And then finally, we move a bit onwards in the 80s with our story, when I found out there
was an artist run space in a city in the proximity of Nijmegen, a place called V2, in the city of ‘s-
Hertogenbosch. I can’t remember what was the first thing I saw there; probably Test Dept
(recordings of which V2 released on cassette shortly after that, the classic ‘European Network’
release) or a night with an incredible Etant Donnes (which I never saw any better than on this night)
and SBOTHI, among others. Either way, Laibach played shortly before and V2 released that too on
cassette, with the plastic case stuck on a cardboard cogwheel. When I became a volunteer for V2
about a year or two later in the shop and label department, one of the duties was to hand cut
these cogwheels as sales continued but not enough to go the place outside town to have them
cut by a machine. Tedious manual labour, which somehow I think we loved, smoking and drinking
coffee. Those were the days indeed; plenty of time as a student. I missed the Laibach concert, but
I had the cassette, and that too popped up on a blog years ago, was already part of a box for Vinyl
On Demand, and now becomes available as a standalone LP. I didn’t get the box, mainly because I
am not that big of a fan, but I guess this particular recording is special to me, having cut a few
dozen of those cogwheels. The recording here is from 1985, as Laibach began building a strong
following and it features some of their classic songs, such as ‘Nova Akropola’, ‘Die Liebe’ and ‘Vier
Personen’. Top heavy on the percussion, with the vocals seemingly shouting from the back of the
stage. Hearing this, I see myself back on the floor at V2, cutting cogwheels, sticking on the
artworks and making all the ends black with a marker. Time was available in endless supply; where
did it all go? (FdW)
––– Address: http://bunkerpop.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: http://www.vinyl-on-demand.com/
DANIEL W J MACKENZIE – EVERY TIME FEELS LIKE THE LAST TIME (CDR by Eilean Records)
Somewhere in the ancient past, Daniel W.J. Mackenzie worked as Ekca Liena, and was a member of
Plurals, but all of this, I think, is no longer the case. There have been a few releases under his own
name, two of which made it in these pages (Vital Weekly 813 and 1033), while there have been
also releases on Fluid Audio, Dead Pilot Records, Under The Spire, Home Normal, Thisquietarmy
Records, Consouling Sounds and now there is a new one. Of the ones I heard, the oldest sounded
quite minimal, reminding me of Steve Reich meeting Machinefabriek, while the other one was very
quiet and subdued. That is something that he continues on this new release as well. The cover no
longer lists instruments, but I should think there is quite an amount of guitars, string sounds and
piano, as well as the usual electronic devices to transform, sustain and extent, plus the always-
present field recordings. All of this is not unusual in the world of say Eilean Records, and yet even
when there seem to be quite a bit of similarities in these releases, there are on a more microscopic
level also some differences. The route that Mackenzie likes to travel is that of desolation, of quiet
music and also of a somewhat more classical approach. His piano sounds are not without a touch
of Satie, but electronically altered, a bit of reverb splashed out over them, and has at times a
sombre atmosphere. There are also pieces that are a bit different, such as the field recordings/
atmosphere only of ‘Varnes’, with a very distant piano. These are rarities and also they are among
the shorter pieces on this release. Mackenzie offers quite some variation in approaches here and
throughout has a keen eye for the journey-like aspect of the music. Many of these pieces consist
of many layers which makes this perhaps a heavy release, not as sparse as some of the other
releases on Eilean Records and clocking in at one hour, this is some perfect music for the sombre
time of the year. The desolation and greyness of January never sounded so beautiful. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.eilean-records.com/
NOISESCULPTOR – KARMA-SHELTER (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
AARON BACHELDER – MUSIC FOR A NEW DARK AGE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
NYM (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
HARD GONZO TAPPERS (CDR compilation by Attenuation Circuit)
KSHATRIY – SAMANTABHADRA (cassette by Attenuation Circuit)
RAVEN/EMERGE – FORSAKEN (split cassette by Attenuation Circuit)
This blast of new releases by Attenuation Circuit starts of with NoisescupltoR, as is the preferred
way of spelling, like I already said a few weeks ago, when I reviewed ‘Solap Are’ by the same musician
in Vital Weekly 1058. Now we learn some more about Robert Sipos from Eggenfelden, but I am not
sure if it is all-true. The Bandcamp page has a whole story about techno, and some guy named
Mixer Smith, who gave Sipos equipment and that this “techno primarily within industrial and dark
line moving”. I hear nothing of the sort on this disc. We have five pieces here that are exactly
’11:49′ in length and one that is ‘5:55’, with the same sort of electronic noise and reverb as the
previous release. Maybe the whole story is for lazy journalists who re-write a story without listening
to the music; unless of course there is a mistaken identity in this, with the wrong files being copied.
No rhythms, just this shrieking sound bouncing around in feedback with lots of loops. Somehow I
seem not to be able to link this too: “His work has been featured on various compilation discs, and
well-known DJs and producers like to use them for their mixes.” Bad karma here I guess, but I miss
the point of all of this.
A new name then, Aaron Bachelder, and that is a very German sounding name, I think, but
he’s in fact from North Carolina where works as a composer, songwriter, educator and multi-
instrumentalist. As a drummer he plays with Clare Fader and the Vaudevillains; the Darnell Woodies;
and currently, the ever lovely Eugene Chadbourne, as well as improvising with others, recording
music for commercials and releasing works on Albany International, Microearth Records, and other
labels. And yet, I never heard of him. The four pieces on this release have very little to do with the
world of drumming or percussion, and all with the world of electronic music. I couldn’t say if this is
the kind of modular synthesizer set up or something else, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. The
music of Bachelder seems very formal in a way, thought out. Like Jos Smolders last week, it might
very well be that Bachelder sets out a few parameters and within that he finds his operations.
Sounds are short and without much sustain, like small, overlaying blocks, in patterns that are a
constant change course. It has both a mechanical feel as well as a human feel. It owes, as far as I
can see, more to the world of serious composed music from the 60s than the current day trends
of modular synthesizer playing 80s soundtrack pieces, the current popular genre (for some), or
those who do another imitation of Tangerine Schulze. I must admit I didn’t understand the title
very music, as yes, I agree these times look grim, but this music can cheer you up; well, in a kinda
of grim way. I for one thought this was a very enjoyable release.
So far the name Nym popped up twice in Vital Weekly and I had no idea who he is, but from a
review found on the Attenuation Circuit website it seems (but is it reliable?) that behind name we
find labelboss Sascha Stadlmeier, but then anoNYMous, which makes it odd when I reviewed the
release Nym did with Gerald Fiebig and Emerge; the latter also being a name used by Stadlmeier
(hence me asking about the truth about that claim). The music is a re-issue of two earlier pieces,
and everything is ‘untitled’ here, nothing for the release itself and for the two pieces. I don’t think
I would have guessed Stadlemeier is behind this but with the newly acquired knowledge it is perhaps
not odd to see. Throughout these two long pieces samples play an important role, just like with
Emerge, but everything has become denser and closer together, maybe because of an even more
extended use of delay and reverb units. The first piece, clocking in at thirty-one minutes has a
great industrial music feel to it of machine like sounds, situated in a great hall, and the microphone
is moved slowly around to catch various mechanics humming together and new configurations
arise, a new dialogue arise out of the fog. The second piece is a bit louder and more obscure; at
times perhaps a bit too loud, just on the edge of distortion. There is an aspect of collage in this
piece, which makes it a bit chaotic for my taste, though it was not bad; it is just that the other
one seemed more captivating for my taste.
‘The real northern noise-underground’ played live at Sturmglocke, Hannover on the 9th of
June; I am not sure what ‘real’ means; is there also a ‘fake’ underground then? Or are there other
people claiming to be the real ones? Judging by the music this is a bunch of people who love their
noise to be ‘real’ noise. Ah, real again. You know the drill (literally?); vicious, loud, unrelentness,
distorted and without a moment of introspection. We switch on these pedals, that synth; bang
that piece of metal, amplifier is on at 11, and rock on. Orifice, Ca$hperv, Java Delle, Wind Of Change
(whose website is https://www.the-scorpions.com/, according to the cover, which leads you to
the real (no? yes!) Scorpions, composers of sa(i)d tune, which gave Wind Of Change their name)
and Helge Meyer, ending in a fine tradition, the “altogether now on stage ‘open jam live
improvisation'”, and five times noise makes so much more noise. Apart from the pretty useless
live improv-of-all, I enjoyed the five other pieces quite a bit; very minor differences to be noted in
their approaches. Wind Of Change seems to have a bit heavier, distorted guitar sound and Helge
Meyer uses more voice material than the others, in a start-stop mode, whereas Orifice sounds very
digital in approach. To those not in the loop when it comes to the world of noise, this all might be
nit-picking; that’s something I realize, but when it comes to the ‘real’ underground you can not
make mistakes.
And finally two new cassettes. The first one is by Sergey Bulychec from Vsevolozhsk, Russia,
who works as Kshatriy, a project he started on June 19, 2004. First he did a concert and then
started to release music on such labels as Vetvei, Zhelezobeton, Muzyka Voln and Attenuation
Circuit (and no doubt many others). Of the name I now learned that it “reflects only memories of
ancient society in which spiritual values were no less important than material ones”. Both pieces
on this cassette are long form compositions, or rather loosely organised pieces of music, based
around the uber-drone of massively formed sounds from the reverb unit and on top machine
humming in ‘Samantabhadra’ or bell-like percussion in ‘Samantabhadri’ on the other side. It
continues a path already walked for some time and it is something that Kshatriy does quite well.
It is good, it is solid, but perhaps it is also possible to re-think the strategy a bit?
The other cassette is a split between Raven and Emerge. Behind Raven is someone from Cacak,
Serbia, who calls himself an ‘anarchist, blogger, environmentalist, musicians and activist for human
and animal rights’ and he says he dabbles with harsh noise. His two pieces, both fifteen minutes,
aren’t exactly the kind of noise bursts one would perhaps think of when imagining harsh noise; sure
enough it is quite loud, but within each of these pieces there is more happening that fifteen
minutes of feedback and distortion; there is a sense of rhythm, movement (backward and forward),
and even composition through the use of small synthesizers (long live the monotron) and plenty
of effects, but it’s the twiddling of knobs that makes the difference between boredom and
excitement. This one is from the latter world. Labelboss Emerge has a thirty-two minute piece of
samples fire sounds, or so it seems, although the description on Bandcamp says “EMERGE also
uses and recycles raw material from a variety of artists/musicians”, so I might be entirely wrong
there. It sounds in places like the treament of fire sounds, going through the usual line of reverb,
delay and loop stations, and this time it works out pretty well; what is captured in this piece works
very well, I think. There is a beautiful interaction between close by and far away sounds, and from
time to time there is a real menace in this beast. (FdW)
––– Address: http://attenuationcircuit.de
AGNES PE – ITEM TOURIAN (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records & Tapes)
In Vital weekly 1050 I reviewed an extended catalogue/jubilee book from the activities of the Zarata
Festival, with a CD and I noticed that one Agnes Pe was on DJ duty on a lot of occasions. I wasn’t
aware she did music by herself as well, although I now learn that her own Bandcamp has quite a few
of her releases. She offers here eleven pieces, although perhaps ‘songs’ would be a more
appropriate word. Agnes Pe has a sampler, a keyboard and sings her songs. She doesn’t operate in
one specific area; it starts with something that could be hardcore techno, with fast pulsating beats
and a certain amount of distortion is not uncommon in her songs. Chaos is another feature, and Pe
likes to plunder other people’s records for sounds and present them, whether or not they are
changed, in the form of a song back to us. Along with the samples (rock music, classical, techno),
she plays her keyboards in a similar chaotic fashion; some of the songs are pretty melodic and
would pass the test as a wacky pop song, such as ‘Al K-Pony Car Song’ or the sweeter ‘Two Legged
Rat’, with its bleep Gameboy sounds. Think of this as a sort of even freakier version of Felix Kubin
and you are on the road to Agnes pe. (FdW)
––– Address: http://powderedheartsrecords.bandcamp.com