number 1115
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week 3 ---------------------
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COMMON EIDER, KING EIDER - SHRINES FOR THE UNWANTED, RESPITE FOR THE CAST ASIDE (CD by Cold Spring) IG WITZELSUCHT - SOMETIMES PUNS ARE A SIGN OF A DAMAGED BRAIN (CD by Knock’em Dead Records) * NAKAMA – WORST GENERATION (CD by Nakama Records) CAMILLE ÉMAILLE – BEKKOS (CD by Creative Sources Recordings) EXCESSIVE VISAGE – YOU ARE LOST ANYWAY (CD by Off Record) AKP (CD by Middle Eight Recordings) * MARTYRIA (CD by Malignant Records) * K. LEIMER - IMPOSED ORDER/IMPOSED ABSENCE (2CD by Palace Of Lights) * TELE:FUNKEN - ROCKER SUMMER (CD by Static Caravan) * MASAYUKI IMANISHI - WORN TAPE (CD by Moving Furniture Records) * ZENO VAN DEN BROEK - PARANON (CD by Moving Furniture Records) * TASOS STAMOU - CAVEMAN (LP by Moving Furniture Records) * ROBERT SCHWARZ - DOUBLE NEGATIVE (LP by Gruenrekorder) AKADAMA BROS - SUNSHINE (12” by Adaadat) JOE GERMLIN - NO MASTER DYNAMICS (12” by Adaadat) EILEAN 58 (CDR compilation by Eilean Records) GHOST FLUTE & DICE – KROPSBYGNING (CDR, private) * MIKE KRAMER/CORE SHOFT/RICARDO FREDERIKS - ONTDEKKINGEN (CDR by CS Music) * COMMON EIDER, KING EIDER - SHRINES FOR THE UNWANTED, RESPITE FOR THE CAST ASIDE (CD by Cold Spring) This is what seems to be the ninth full length by west coast ritual collective Common Eider, King Eider. Again on Cold Spring, the label that has also released some of their previous efforts, though this album has also been released by Sentient Ruin Laboratories in the US apparently. The digipak features a picture of bound twigs that, if you’re familiar with their liberal outlook on live, can’t be meant to carry the historical symbolic meaning one may expect otherwise. If anything, it seems to refer to a bond that is more personal, which the song titles also seem to suggest. The cover also features satiny sigils, that are only visible from a certain angle, which i thought gave the whole thing just a bit more (which to me is absolutely essential to even consider purchasing hard copy). So yeah, props for that. For those who have seen them live in the last year or so: this album tracks the atmosphere and sound of their recent performances perfectly. Opener “Cast Out to the Wolves to be Devoured” sports the signature reverb-laden drones that the Eiders are known for. It’s a piece that clocks in at nearly 10 minutes and speaks of deep desolate woodland isolation and its lingering convoluted spectres that nest in the personal existential void. The second track, “The Dark Winter”, is an equally lengthy dirge that has the melancholy of strings and the hollow echoes of howling voices haunting every corner of this room. The climatic build up made me think of the early work of Canadian post rockers A Silver Mount Zion, though Common Eider delivers a sonically denser and physically, a more engulfing experience. The relatively short third track “Elk Tongue” floats like a hushed whisper in the aftermath of the previous bombast and mirrors the bleak solitude of the first song, albeit in a less overwhelming manner. The fourth piece on the album is by far the longest and most dismal one and features contributions by A.G. Way. Again a threnody of strings plays a heart-wrenching leitmotiv that is accentuated by distant guttural vocals. About have way through the initial drone dies out, to be replaced by distraught screams that saturate everything, in a cavernous vocal tour de force that is reminiscent of prominent french ritualists Cober Ord. The mid-range-y tail end lingers on and finally seeps away, back into the soil, roots and rocks where it came from. These guys definitely don’t disappoint. (PJN) ––– Address: http://coldspring.co.uk/ IG WITZELSUCHT - SOMETIMES PUNS ARE A SIGN OF A DAMAGED BRAIN (CD by Knock’em Dead Records) Has the world gone mad, or is it I? I downloaded the book that last week everybody wanted to read (I know, nobody will understand this line in years to come, but so be it) and play Queen’s ‘A Day At The Races’, which I would be appropriate for the stable genii that rule the mad world, but instead I still have work to do and so I ended up with playing ‘Sometimes Puns Are A Sign Of Damaged Brain’, which is something to consider (or maybe appropriate) while reading that book everybody is reading. The damaged brains could very well be that of Dom and Lu, behind which we believe to find Lukas Simonis, best known in Vital world as one of the three Coolhaven harbour masters and Ergo Phizmiz, radio collage Dadaist but also a musician with a keyboard, guitar, bass and voice, and mister Simonis on guitar, bass, banjo, keyboards and voice. Cor Hoogerdijk provides drums, plus there is cello, trumpet, tuba and querflöte (transverse flute) by a bunch of friends and relatives (nepotism here too, like the real world). Just like the rap music reviewed below, this music is nothing at all for these pages. This is rock music of a high weirdo order. Weird voices, solid musicianship (nothing for us), melodies (yuck), verse-chorus-bridge (you don’t know the drill, I guess). I was in a car with the designer of the cover of this, and he said, if I recall correctly, ‘well, maybe you like it, seeing you don’t mind me playing ELO right now’, and boy, he was right. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a fucking great record. It surely is nothing for these pages, because this is pop music of the alternative variation, but it is something great. There is a bit of slide guitar, wacky lyrics, (‘Imagine I’m Aging’), great duet singing, catchy tunes, and a song like ‘Imagine Imogen’ should be on a 7” storming the charts, should 7”s still be storming the charts and not be replaced by endless Ed shenanigans on a streamload of spotify to define what is a hit. Think for that song The Beatles meeting The Dukes Of Stratosphere. If you have no idea what I am talking you should probably listen more. Or ‘Brand’ with its Kinks sound. Great names from the past, fifty years of pop music influences are all over this and yet IG Witzelsucht don’t sound like one of them exactly, taking the best of all and cook up their own fresh pot of tea out of it. The world, this world, is not a world of great justice. The talentless, selfie taking selfpromoters have taken over (‘I will never be a brand, though I long to be a brand’), and we are no longer prepared to look a bit further down the line, afraid we could find something of great quality; we rather hear more mediocre bullshit. God, this music cheers me up and depresses me at the same time, knowing it will never reach the audience it deserves. Argh. Mad world. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.knockemdeadrecords.com/ NAKAMA – WORST GENERATION (CD by Nakama Records) A new sign from the Nakama collective. They started in 2015 arranging concerts, releasing albums by the musicians from the collective. This is the fourth album in the short existence of this quartet of Adrian Løseth Waade (violin), Ayumi Tanaka (piano), Andreas Wildhagen (drums) and Christian Meaas Svendsen (bass). And it is the first one that has Austrian vocalist Agnes Hvizdalek as a member. She released a solo-album this year for Nakama Records, ‘Index’. It is also their first fully improvised album, recorded live during their first European tour. The importance of being a collective is also audible in their improvisations. This is ruly group improvisation. All participants take part in creating one massive stream of improvised sound. There is not so much room for solos, read the individual. It is the collective that counts here. The take their inspiration from the European Jazz and impro tradition, contemporary American Music, traditional Romantic music and classical music from the Romantic. The titles refer to the five generations of our times; The lucky Few, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Plurals. The improvisations are gentle and subtle, developing within a range of dynamics that doesn’t change much. The improvisations are built from little movements and gestures, resulting in detailed and intimate textures. Fine work. (DM) ––– Address: http://www.nakamarecords.no/ CAMILLE ÉMAILLE – BEKKOS (CD by Creative Sources Recordings) It is the Portuguese Creative Sources label that makes the first solo album by Camille Émaile possible. An excellent label, dedicated to abstract and sound-dominated improvisation. ‘Bekkos’ fits perfectly in their catalogue, so you know what to expect. Émaille is a French percussionist and improviser from Nice. She studied contemporary music at the Musik-Akademie in Basel with Christian Dierstein and Fred Frith. She built up varied experience playing with many musicians and artists in very different fields (video, theatre, happenings, etc.). She also has a love for Persian music and music from the Middle East in general, what made her study the tombak and table. No wonder we find her involved in projects of improvised music, modern composed music as well as ‘world’ music. Concerning her debut album ‘Bekko’ we learn more about her as a solo improvising musician. In January 2017 she spent a week at Studio Musikarma, in the forests of Bromont in Canada, for recording improvised sessions. From these sessions she choose eight improvisations for her album. Émaille plays a wide range of percussion and percussive objects, which guarantees a wide range of sounds, and diversity in timbre and dynamic. She creates many different textures and patterns; in ‘Royal ou la résistance’ almost a melodic one. Also the following piece ’Malédie’ sounds very structured, and almost narrative. ‘Neiglier’ is constructed from repeated patterns, changing all the time. Other improvisations like ‘Frémamorte’ sound more abstract and at the same time evocating a hypothetical kind of ethnic music, like in ‘Trecolpas’. A fascinating debut. (DM) ––– Address: http://creativesourcesrec.com/ EXCESSIVE VISAGE – YOU ARE LOST ANYWAY (CD by Off Record) Excessive Visage is a band from Dresden, Germany, started in 2010 by Torsten Lang with a few mates he knew from earlier collaborations. Several releases followed, as well changes in line up. For this new album ‘You are lost anyway’ we have following musicians on board: Larissa Blau (vocals, slide whistle), Torsten Lang (guitar, bass, vocals, synthesizer, fender Rhodes, Theremin), Simon Preuß (bass) and Christoph Dehne (drums). All songs are by the band, and result of a collective process. First drummer Dehne improvised the drum patterns, that functioned as point of departure for guitar, bass and keyboards. Finally the lyrics were written also as the result of a collective work. Production and mix was in the hands of Torsten Lang. The music is first of all rock, staying close to the song-format, with experimental and jazz influences. The opening track ‘Dragged In’ for example is in essence a ballad embedded in a deranged and experimental frame. In fact all songs on this album can be characterized this way; experimental openings and interludes. Unusual twists and turns, but in the end just songs, with very nice vocals by Larissa Blau by the way. For some reason their blend wakes up memories of experimental bands in the 80s, Pere Ubu, Hail with Susanne Lewis. Not earth shaking, but a convincing and enjoyable record. (DM) ––– Address: http://www.off-recordlabel.blogspot.com AKP (CD by Middle Eight Recordings) The one question I asked myself when I was listening to this CD was this: why did it take so long before this was released? After all, it turned out that the recordings that are at the basis of these pieces was already recorded almost six years ago. This is what the website mentions: “Sound materials have been played live and multi track recorded at emitter19 in Berlin on February 2012. The sessions presented three parts that each musician took care and process/edit/mixed separately. Mastered by Kris Limbach at e-19 studios in 2016. Anton Mobin: prepared chamber, tapes / Kris Limbach : drums, tapes, rotors / Pierce Warnecke : electronics, microphones”. So whatever was the cause that we had to wait for such a long time? Maybe schedules didn’t add up or in any other way there was a hiccup in producing the music on this release? I understand the process as this: three people in a room, recording for an x- amount of time and each taking the recordings home for a further treatment/recycling process, and that sounds exactly like something I enjoy; both in terms of music as well as working method wise. Kinda like the ‘Captured Music’ LP Selektion released twenty or more years ago, in which live recordings from a festival on musique concrete became building blocks got new compositions themselves. Something similar happens here and with the variety of sounds this trio has on offer there is a lot to work with/choose from. We have here Mobin’s box of acoustic delights versus the wave like sound generations of Warnecke and in the middle Limbach on percussion, but also adding tapes. While the five pieces (Limbach did two mixes, as well as Mobin and Warnecke one long; each has about 13 minutes at their disposal) surely sound like improvised music, because it retains certain freedom in the organisation, allowing a more natural flow in the music than when it would have been composed along very rigid musique concrete methods. Each of the three composers emphasize what they feel is important in the music; the more freeform improvised approach of Limbach, the surface explorations of Mobin or the catch all noise collage (reminding me of Scissors for Cutting Up Merzbow) by Warnecke, even with some quietness build in. His rapid montage is a totally opposite of Limbach and both are at opposite ends on this release, with Mobin holding the middle ground, yet leaving out rapid montage techniques. This is quite a nice document of what sounds like a very fruitful event in 2012. (FdW) ––– Address: https://emittermicro.com MARTYRIA (CD by Malignant Records) Is it really coincidence that today, the day some people call Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the entire year, I am listening to Martyria, a duo from Greece? Well, yeah it is, of course coincidence. Fact is that today is a very grey day but that’s January in The Netherlands. I love January, mainly because of the fresh start of the New Year and don’t find it very depressing; just lots of time to do some serious work again. Okay, enough about that and let’s have a look at Martyria, the duo of George Zafiriadis (vocals, didgeridoo, synths, ozark harp) and Lena Merkouri (vocals, percussion, wind instruments). I had not heard of them before but seeing this is their debut album that may not really be a surprise. For me it starts off wrong with some wordless Byzantine chant and slow rhythm. All the boxes ticked; yes, gothic music, yes, ritualistik in full form but it turns out this is only part of the picture and I am actually quite positive about this music. Obviously this is not a record of total joy, of positive vibes and such but firmly locked in the world of extensive use of reverb to suggest dark atmosphere; music for grey winter days indeed. There is more chanting, but also spooky, misty textures of what could processed wind instruments or down stretched samples. The rhythm is that of a slow heartbeat, beating the drum at a campfire in some mediaeval castle, such as in ‘Nekros’, which leans towards some old fashioned ambient industrial soundtrack. Some refined drones are placed effectively in these five pieces and despite all the modern day electronics used, it sounds quite ancient. Malignant says this is for fans of Shibalba, Caul, Herbst9 and Funerary Call, all of whom I don’t know (I think, even when Caul might be in these pages in ancient times) and Voice Of Eye, which I do know and I can indeed see a point of reference there, with some highly atmospheric chant and spacious electronics, with the difference that Martyria keeps their pieces within a relatively short time frame. Get the incense and sit cross-legged next to your fireplace and let this music take you on a spiritual (?) journey. Or perhaps just a journey, if that works better for you. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.malignantrecords.com K. LEIMER - IMPOSED ORDER/IMPOSED ABSENCE (2CD by Palace Of Lights) When K. Leimer returned to the world of music with the album ‘The Listening Room’ in 2002, I missed out on that, so for me it was the album after that, ’Statistical Truth’ (Vital Weekly 533) when I became reacquainted with his music. The album before that was ‘Imposed order’, which he released in 1982 on his own Palace Of Lights label. I am not sure why between 1983 and the end of the century Leimer released no music, but as it now turns out he wasn’t quiet and kept recording new pieces, some of which he calls sketches that were abandoned or set aside. In addition to his set-up, which included loops, Lexicon PCM 41, memorymoog, micromoog, minimoog, Oberheim DMX, pianet, piano, Prophet 5 he also worked with a Kurzweil digital synthesizer and mellotron on these new pieces. ‘Imposed Order’ was already released on CD in 2002, but is now remastered by Taylor Deupree and now with ‘lost’ pieces on a separate disc as ‘Imposed Absence’ available on CD (and LP). As with many of Leimer’s earlier recordings the music deals with both ambient structures as well as rhythm. These are looped, I would think, and don’t have that traditional rhythm machine sound but a richer percussive touch; a touch that is sometimes called fourth world music I think. It’s interesting to hear ‘Imposed Order’ again, which for me has been a while (he admitted with a bit shame), with it’s more finished approach in the pieces than the indeed sketch like approaches some of the music has on ‘Imposed Absence’. Of course the latter is perhaps more like a book of ideas, and maybe a ragged bunch of highly atmospheric pieces, but a bit unbalanced. It’s however great to hear all of Leimer’s diverse interests in ambient music, with a variety of approaches, which even includes solo piano music, and it’s like flipping through a photo album with all sorts of excellent snapshots. On ‘Imposed Order’ there is quite a fine balance between the various interests, and much care has been made into putting these pieces in the right order, creating different approaches with rhythm pieces, exotic strings (in ‘Water Music’) and tabla-like sounds, along with spacious synthesizer passages. In a way very much music of it’s time I’d say, with a strong Brian Eno influence when it comes to ambient music, rich in sound, more or less traditional when it comes to the use of synthesizers and other instruments, but it still sounds remarkable fresh today and the music has not aged at all. A most welcome re-issue and a great bonus disc! (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.palaceoflights.com/ TELE:FUNKEN - ROCKER SUMMER (CD by Static Caravan) The return of Tom Fenn’s musical project has been announced in Vital Weekly 1091, when, after a seventeen year recording hiatus, there was a new 7” by Tele:funken, with some excellent spacious electronic music. I now learn that the pieces on his comeback album ‘Rocket Summer’ have been recorded over a five year period, using “an iPad, a copy of cult iOS software nanostudio, a Chickenbone Cigarbox single string bass and a coffee machine, occasionally enlisting the help of his wife and kids”. If that sounds very ‘hip’ or ‘modern’, the music was this morning greeted by fellow reviewer mister Mulder with “are you spinning some prog rock?”, to which he added “of the electronic variety that is”, which I admit wasn’t my first thought but unlike the 7” which for me was more 80s synth pop than 70s cosmo tripping, I would think that this new one is rather more 70s. Lovely instrumental pieces, inspired by the short stories collection ‘The Martian Chronicles’ by Ray Brudbury (one could consider reading them while playing this, and I didn’t do that) of highly spacious tunes, but Tele:funken isn’t doodling away and lulling the listener to sleep. Far from it. Each of the ten pieces has a fine bass sound, a sparkle of a melody, a happy-clappy rhythm machine (‘Going Home Now’) or an otherwise weirdo element thrown in. Some of these pieces seem to be a bit long in duration (at least for my taste), which one could account for the krauty aspect of the music, for instance in ‘A Giant Tree In A Wide Landscape’. Sometimes everything gets a time warp to ‘now’, and makes ‘Farfisabahn’ suddenly sound like an electronic ditty from Aphex Twin. All of this made me think of soundtrack to 60s documentaries of the space race (did I ever see one? Maybe I just have a vague notion of what they probably look like); music that is funny, serious, sharp and witty. An excellent return and let’s hope the next one is around the corner and not light-years away. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.staticcaravan.org MASAYUKI IMANISHI - WORN TAPE (CD by Moving Furniture Records) ZENO VAN DEN BROEK - PARANON (CD by Moving Furniture Records) TASOS STAMOU - CAVEMAN (LP by Moving Furniture Records) The new year kicks off in a great way for one and only true purveyor of experimental music in The Netherlands; at least when it comes to professionally releasing them and keep doing so, despite the fact the everything else in the market place seems to slow down. I started off with the name that vaguely ran a bell and when I looked it up I thought ‘oh yes, of course’. Masayuki Imanishi had a LP before on ini.itu (see Vital Weekly 1024) and a cassette on Soft Error (Vital Weekly 1080), both which I thought sounded not bad at all but somehow seemed to lack a very strong voice of the composer. Perhaps the somewhat unique selling point would be that Imanishi loves ‘small sounds’, of paper, of objects, of radio and of field recordings, and in his music he works around with these, but not always, and that’s good I guess, keeps his sounds to be very ’small’. I wouldn’t say there is a lot of other people taking a similar approach to working with small sounds in quite the similar fashion, but along the lines of people who were once working with microsound, Imanishi is one that does a more than efficient job. It is not easy, even impossible, to tell what the methods are along which he works. It seems to me, and I agree I might be wrong, that Imanishi works with a bunch of sounds that he recorded on a multi-track recorder and then mixes these together. Sometimes by seeking sounds that fit together very well, but it can also be sounds that are heavily in contrast. So in each of the eleven pieces it is a delicate collage of sounds. Mostly scratching and peeping, folding and crumbling together, or unfolded and spread out, of very loosely organised sounds versus something longer, courtesy of water boiling in a cooker, central heating systems and radio waves. Most of the times the music is rather intimate and sometimes quite obnoxious and loud, as to make a counter point I guess. While still not the most original, I must admit his work is growing on me more and more, because I am sucker for small sounds being played it in a careful yet imaginative way. Zeno van den Broek is a Dutch musician who lives in Copenhagen these days and ages and ages ago was better known as Machinist but since a few works under his real name. His previous release for Moving Furniture Records was ‘Divergence’ (Vital Weekly 990), in which he working with strong pieces of steady waves, sometimes called drones, and shorter, pulse like titbits, which are referred as ‘rhythm’. It was a sonically rich album. For his new album, ‘Paranon’, Van den Broek has two pieces of exactly the same length “based on parameter canons of sine wave generators. The canon is a counterpoint-based compositional technique that creates one or more imitations of a musical movement after a given duration. These imitations replicate the initial movement with transformations of parameters.” The sine wave generators were programmed by van den Broek and have different possibilities of phase shifting and different frequencies. If this sounds like difficult techno babble to you, then so it is for me. It is not something I could easily re-write in my own words, simply because I have no idea how it works (well, how it works exactly). In these two pieces sounds are played out against each other of almost a similar fashion, and then start to shift, giving you the impression of going faster or slower (but probably don’t do that). This is most certainly not easy listening drone music. This is one of those releases that made think whether I should play this really loud or on a more moderate volume, and after repeated listening I have no idea. The first ‘Canon’ I think works better if play with some considerate more volume, in order to bring out some fury and makes you want to sit and listen very closely. ‘Canon 2’ seems to be something that works best when it quietly fills your space and becomes an additional atmosphere in your living room. A quiet but firmly presence but not in a way that is physical. Maybe the second canon is the ambient version of the first one? Both of this pieces are very consistent, very rich and while very conceptual also highly enjoyable. If music by Alvin Lucier is something you stick on for a good night of entertainment, I would highly recommend this record as well. At any volume you like really. Then on a LP sized piece of find the music of Tasos Stamou and if I’m not mistaken this is the second time he has a solo record on Moving Furniture Records, following ‘Koura’, reviewed in Vital Weekly 1050. Stamou is an active force when it comes to releasing his music and playing concerts. The two pieces on this new slab of vinyl have been recorded live with Stamou’s ‘portable electroacoustic music studio’, pictures of which can easily be found online (providing they are still actual) and which includes various toys and instruments, the latter mostly dominantly a zither. These are played by hand, or with objects such as electric brushes and by opening these toys and bent the inside circuits to do something new and weird. Both these pieces are ‘complete extracts’ (which seem a bit of contradiction) from solo performances and give a fine impression of the various possibilities his various tools have. From scraping to bending to droning and then back to a more fragmented, improvised approach, he let’s his pieces slowly develop, building towards a mighty crescendo in which noise is no stranger, and then quickly taking everything and start all over again, with just a few sounds here and there. Of the two pieces on ‘Caveman’ I thought ‘Neanderthal’ was nice but a tad bit too chaotic for my taste, but ‘Homo Sapiens’ worked really well. The drones gradually grew and grew in intensity and had a beautiful direct in your face quality and in the second half seem to have been replaced by the shimmering soaring Theremin like quality of a broken doll and mechanical wind instruments and it is an excellent piece of music. Excellent one! (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.movingfurniturerecords.com ROBERT SCHWARZ - DOUBLE NEGATIVE (LP by Gruenrekorder) Twice before I have reviewed music by Robert Schwarz (Vital Weekly 982 and 1048) and twice I more or less wondered what it is that he does. I am pretty sure that this, the third time, doesn’t make much sense to me, or that I have some more knowledge, even when Gruenrekorder that “Field recordings render the core and compositional starting points around which modular synthesizers are built to complex structures that resemble nature’s contingency as their inner logic”, which is something that I could probably also gather from listening to this record. The field recordings were taped in “Wonder Valley, Yangshuo, Fiskars, Palawan, Sandouping and Overton”, which probably could lead to a fun hour on Google maps to see where these are located. So there is a bunch of field recordings on one side and a stack of modular electronics on the other side and then Schwarz sets himself to work with these. Seven compositions are to be found on ‘Double Negative’ and like before he creates some fine music with these elements. Sometimes it all blurs and one has no idea what is what here anymore. I guess one could easily call this musique concrete, but Schwarz’ pieces are shorter and more based on the idea of telling a short story within a limited time frame. These stories aren’t necessarily very positive ones, as somehow the record sounds all a bit spooky and dark, despite some chirping bird here and there. Sometimes one has no idea what is going on, sound wise, and it seems that field recordings are pretty much obscured. It sounded like the window scraper at times, or animals and I was reminded of the music of G*Park even when Schwarz uses more electronics in his work (at least that’s what I think). Through this is a very refined album, not necessarily ambient or noisy, but never too quiet, never too loud or alien. Spooky, sure it is that very much, but there is quite some beauty in these haunting pieces. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.gruenrekorder.de/ AKADAMA BROS - SUNSHINE (12” by Adaadat) JOE GERMLIN - NO MASTER DYNAMICS (12” by Adaadat) A while ago I wrote about rap music. Maybe something that Adaadat didn’t pick up, but it was a short statement: “Now, I don’t like rap. At all. Never did, never will”. Akadama Bros is a J-rap crew from London, fronted by Taigen Kawabe, singer and bass player of Bo Ningen (of whom I actually heard, through their collaborative with modern post punksters Savages), and the music part is by Teppie Ozawa from Fuffie Daddy from comedy hip hop group Hallo Werner Clan, from Hamburg. Rappers are MC Chinza Dopenss and there are two remixes, from Technoman and Patric Catani, also known as Candie Hank (now there’s a name I hadn’t heard in a while). It sounds like rap music and the lyrics are all in Japanese. I know all of this doesn’t constitute what a review should be, and I didn’t earn the title reviewer with this, but I have nothing to say about this. The other new release by Adaadat is ’skweee inspired experimental geeksta rap’ from Joe Germlin, also known as Joe Howe. His first release, as Grenlin, was also on Adaadat, in 2006, and since then he released on a whole bunch of labels and he has been working with lots of people, including his duo Gay Against You. Surely this is rap and yes, surely there is an experimental edge to it. Obviously when there was no rap going, and that sometimes happen here, I quite enjoyed the music. Quite electronic at that, wacky synth pop music, which, as far as this non hip-hopper can judge, doesn’t seem to me very ‘rap like’, if of course there is such a thing. Throughout I liked this record a bit better than the other one, even when at the same time I doubt I will easily play this more often than the other. Is this then a review? No, sorry, it isn’t. Should you have more interest in rap music than the current board of reviewers, then check these out; and enlist yourself to be a reviewer for this kind of music, I have some freebies. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.adaadat.co.uk EILEAN 58 (CDR compilation by Eilean Records) So far the releases by Eilean had lovely handmade card stock covers with stickers attached to them but this new one is a metal box case, which is something that I am not particular fond of. I thought this might be the new line for 2018, but perhaps it is a one-off, seeing it’s a compilation. While looking up what the exact title is of this on the label’s website, I noticed that it’s ‘the final release of 2017’ with ‘all the music artists involved this year’, so maybe the metal box is just a thing for this compilation. Of course it is very well possible that Eilean never read a review in Vital Weekly about how I feel about reviewing compilations (small hint: not my favourite pastime) or perhaps they think theirs a stand out (quite rightly a label should always think that way!) among label compilations. At least, packing it in a metal box means it’s not a throw away product for them; not your cheap carton sleeved label sampler. I am not sure, basically too lazy to check this, if all of the sixteen artists have been reviewed in these pages last year, but a quick glance along the track list (9t Antiope / Ben Rath / Bill Seaman / Cicely Irvine / Daniel WJ Mackenzie / Danny Clay / Francesco Giannico / Giulio Aldinucci / Jacek Doroszenko / Josco / Josh Mason / Jura Laiva / Monolyth & Cobalt / Monty Adkins / Nathan Mc Laughlin / Sonmi451 / Sound Meccano / Spheruleus / Stijn Hüwels / Tatsuro Kojima / Toàn - yes, copied from the website) would indeed confirm that all of these have had their released reviewed. Eilean Records is a label that deals mostly with atmospheric music, drones, ambient or whatever is your current favourite phrase and their artists use acoustic instruments, synthesizers and field recordings, all of which at one point or another gets a firm make-over which is called ‘processing’. Sometimes it works out in a more abstract sense, the world of drones, but it can also be more music like, a miniature sound composition with a mildly processed piano chord or two and some sailboat rumbling field recording in the background. There is, perhaps sadly, not a great deal of variation (save perhaps for the fast arpeggio guitars of Jacek Doroszenko, a case of Frippertronics) among these sixteen pieces, and just as well could have been a long album by one composer, but it is a fine show case of all that Eilean does and should the more melodic ambient, the chamber orchestra instrumentation and carefully styled field recordings tickle your fancy and you want a new place to start, then this is your place. (FdW) ––– Address: https://www.eilean-records.com/ GHOST FLUTE & DICE – KROPSBYGNING (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) The first release by Mikkel Almholt’s curiously named project Ghost Flute & Dice was called ‘Melody Is God’ and reviewed in Vital Weekly 977. But not by me, but I heard his second release ‘Live At Echokammer’ (Vital Weekly 1058) so before deciding who to give it to for a review I checked it out and I kept listening to ‘Kropsbygning’ (meaning ‘body type’, says Google translate). Almholt on his first release worked with some other people, but the second and now this new one all seem to have been made by him and he uses the piano as his primary instrument and adds to that real time computer processing or some kind of electronic set-up. Again this is an interesting mixture various musical interests that not always mix properly on paper one would think. There is surely a vast interest in modern classical music I would think, even when Almholt keeps his material with a time frame of three to seven minutes, which one could as easily label as ‘pop length’. Sometimes leaning towards the work of Erik Satie, spacious and introvert, but also towards the classical minimalism of say Reich and Glass, taking a left turn to the world of musique concrete and very occasionally a bit of noise or drone and in each of his pieces he delivers a sound world of its own. There is quite some variation in these eight pieces, but that works very much in favour of the release. The diverse approaches is not a show off of what Almholt can do, but it is to present a most interesting musical release. Great cover too! (FdW) ––– Address: https://emerge.bandcamp.com/ MIKE KRAMER/CORE SHOFT/RICARDO FREDERIKS - ONTDEKKINGEN (CDR by CS Music) There is a long description on the information about the project of which ‘Ontdekkingen’ (discoveries) is part, but it comes down to the royal harmony (is that a word) Sint Philomena Chevremont handing out commissions, and one was to poet Ricardo Frederiks, who speaks five parts of a poem, guided by music of Core Shift, also known as Mike Kramer (who before was Evolution Garden, but then we’re speaking of a very long time ago), who after a short flurry of releases (Vital Weekly 988, 940 and 931) became silent again. Or perhaps less interested in releasing music and more into playing live? Here Kramer lays down his field recordings and processed ambient sounds down as a fine woven tapestry. Like before his inspiration comes from the world of ambient dance music, so besides some vast sustaining soundscapes there is also the thumping of a beat. Not loud, not massive but presence. It isn’t as thick and long in duration as Gas does it on ‘Narkopop’ (one of the more disappointing records of last year, but I guess I will be burned at the stake for this heresy), but with a keen ear for delicate details, and not just a long smear of reverb. There are two pieces on this release. One has Frederiks reciting his poetry in Dutch, with that dialect of the area, which, and more burning ahead, reminds me of the one politician from that area everybody hates, but Frederiks poetry is about the very opposite of what that politician wants. Discover something! The music is somewhat pushed to the background, giving room to the voice, which is a good thing, but not something I for one would play a lot, unlike the instrumental version of the same piece, allowing us to discover the finer details of the music. A fine built up of synth washes, dripping sounds and the momentary presence of a beat. This is mostly minimal music but has quite a sonic richness and it made me think: why doesn’t mister Kramer release a bit more music? (FdW) ––– Address: https://coreshift.bandcamp.com/ |