CINEMA PERDU – AMSTERDAM CS (CD by Moving Furniture Records) *
ELEPHANT9 – GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (CD by Rune Grammofon)
UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANE – À TRAVAIL ÉGAL SALARE EGAL (CD by Klang Galerie)
CHANTIER 4 – PHILARMONIE (CD by Swarming) *
NDE – UNITED (THGROIGH IRON AND BLOOD) (CD by Cold Spring) *
NYTT LAND – ODAL (CD by Cold Spring) *
ASMUS TIETCHENS – EISGANG (CD by Klang Galerie) *
ASMUS TIETCHENS – DÄMMERATTACKE (CD by Klang Galerie) *
THURSTON MOORE & ADAM GOLEBIEWSKI – DISARM (CD by Endless Happiness) *
BILIANA VOUTCHKOVA & ERNESTO RODRIGUES & GUILHERME RODRIGUES & MAGDA MAYAS – THE
AFTERLIFE OF TREES (CD by Creative Sources Recordings)
GREBENSTEIN – STRONG PROUD STUPID AND SUPERIOR (12” by Downwards)
THE IMMORTAL EYE (LP by Downwards Records)
ADERN X – SUMMER TWILIGHT AUTUMN DAWN (CDR by Xevor) *
DAN OF EARTH – CLARE WING (CDR by Darker Days Ahead) *
REG BLOOR – SENSORY IRRITATION CHAMBER (CDR by Systems Neutralizers)
BUNNY & THE INVALID SINGERS – FEAR OF THE HORIZON (CDR by Bearsuit Records) *
AUTOMATING – LIGHTBOX SKY (3”CDR, private) *
TIM OLIVE & ANNE-F JACUQES – 05 11 17 (cassette by Flux On Demand)
RAUSCHGIFTENGELLOOPS (CDR by Brand-Stiftung)
SOAPLANDS (cassette by No Rent Records)
CINEMA PERDU – AMSTERDAM CS (CD by Moving Furniture Records)
If you ever talked with me in person you may know that I am probably not the biggest lover of the fair
city of Amsterdam. There are too many tourists in not a lot of space paying too much for everything. I
don’t like being there. One of the places I visited a lot in my time commuting back and forth to my day
job in the city was the central station. I read the title of the newest Cinema Perdu release as
‘Amsterdam’, assuming ‘CS’ stood for cassette, but upon closer inspection of the cover image and the
information CS stands for ‘Central Station’ and this is in fact a CD. Duh! This is the successor to
‘Interventions In A Landscape’ (Vital Weekly 1059) and Cinema Perdu is one man, Martijn Pieck. He is
also part of the [law-rah] collective with Bauke van der Wal and with Jon Unger he is the duo
Woodbender. Recordings from the train station are being processed beyond recognition, well most of
the time at least anyway, and combined, reduced, altered, changed or which ever word you would use
for such matters and it becomes a highly atmospheric mass of sound. Very occasionally one hears a
train entering the station, with brakes and wheels crashing the tracks, such as in ‘6-47’, but there are
lots of instances in which Cinema Perdu just taps the cavernous space that the building also is, and
starts playing around with treating the big empty near silent sound into a majestic drone. No
announcements are leaked I think into the music, and otherwise it seems there is not a lot of human
activity around here, which perhaps seemed a bit odd, knowing the station as a busy place. I would
think that many of the treatments are computer based, and not analogue techniques. Throughout the
mood of these sound collages is pretty dark, but I am sure we should not read more into that;
Amsterdam being a grim place or such. All of this is sturdy computer based drone music and it is
made wonderfully well; nothing that you didn’t hear before I guess, but very well made. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.movingfurniturerecords.com/
ELEPHANT9 – GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (CD by Rune Grammofon)
From time to time I play my old Canterbury-stuff: Egg, Hatfield and the North, some Caravan, etc.
Music that I still find very attractive for example for the keyboards as played by Dave Stewart. This
music surely is a source of inspiration for Elephant9, as well as progrock and jazzrock from the 70s in
general. Elephant9 presents their fifth album tapping from these sources. The line up is back to the
core as on their first albums: Ståle Storløkken (Hammond, Rhodes, grand piano, eminent 310,
mellotron, minimoog), Nikolai Hængsle (electric bass) and Torstein Lofthus (drums, percussion).
They present six compositions, all moving between five and seven minutes. Because of the limited
length of the tracks, ideas are worked out more concentrated and condensed which is very much
okay. The playing by these guys is as ever top-notch; very tight and fluent. They break no new ground,
which does not imply they are only repeating the past. Far from it. Their melodic constructions are
solid, clearly focused and have their own identity. They do their thing very convincing. A must for
lovers of Hammond, Rhodes, and other old keyboards. A very powerful and tight unit. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.runegrammofon.com/
UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANE – À TRAVAIL ÉGAL SALARE EGAL (CD by Klang Galerie)
When reviewing the rerelease of ‘Rideau’ by Klang Galerie in Vital Weekly 1081, I hoped it wouldn’t
be the last album by Un Drame Musical Instantane to be rereleased by them. We are speaking here
of a very important outfit that remained underrated, at least over here in the Low Countries, if you
ask me. The trio of Francis Gorgé, Jean-Jacques Birgé and Bernard Vitet formed a creative combination
for many years. They were real pioneers in combining jazz, rock and modern classical music, field
recordings, etc., and opened new horizons with their work. But not for historical reasons only, I’m
happy with these rereleases. More important their music is still very worthwhile and enjoyable.
This time Birgé and Gorgé re-master their album ‘Á travail égal salaire égal’, originally released in
1982 for rerelease. In contrast with ‘Rideau’ (1980) the trio works here – for the first time with a
very extended line up. The album consists of two shorter improvisations in trio line up. The first one,
the opening track ‘On tourne’ has a prominent role for dramatic environmental sounds. The other one
has fine stretched out trumpet playing by Vitet, reminding me of Chet Baker combined with poignant
electronic sounds and some electric guitar. ‘Crime Parfaits’ is a work for magnetic tape, string septet
and radiophonic ensemble. Using pre-recorded spoken word and parts of a wide range of pre-recorded
music. Fragments that they unite into a bizarre collage, an intriguing puzzle; modern chamber music.
‘La prevue par le grand nuit’ is a work for a big ensemble, and included in a live version. Here the
music is constructed along more traditional lines, although the music comes close to a point of
deranging. Another live performance of this piece is included as a bonus. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.klanggalerie.com/
CHANTIER 4 – PHILARMONIE (CD by Swarming)
It might also be that the group is called Chantier, and four just denominating the next work. The first
was a CD for Another Timbre, two a French text and three a video. I had not heard of the group before,
but the various members I do know. There is Eric La Casa on microphones and Pascal Batus on found
objects, both present in these pages, one more than the other and Bertrand Gauget on alto saxophone
also but that was all quite some time. His work is to be found in the world of improvisation. Here the
trio heads out to an unlikely surrounding to record their work, the building site of the Philharmonie in
Paris, along with the workers constructing they played their music and I assume with La Casa walking
around with his microphones to capture various angles of this playing, of both his fellow musicians as
well as the sounds from the builders. The three pieces on this release composed afterwards from the
recordings they made, and it’s at that not some kind of documentation but rather an interpretation of
the experience later on. These sixty-four minutes are quite a captivating listening experience; there is
an excellent mixture of making sound on objects and instruments along with that capture in the space.
The saxophone can be recognized, on some occasions, but sometimes not at all and it becomes another
one of the objects that Battus plays or in fact the builders add in the far distance. Most of the time the
sound is cavernous, wide open in this to be filled space, a temple of music, and on a very few instances
very close by, in what seems like a finished small office. Perhaps that contradiction could have been
done more, I think, wide open versus closed spaces. This is, besides captivating, something that is
beyond description; is it musique concrete, sound art, improvisation, field recording or composition?
Most likely, I would say, it is a bit of all of this. Played freely on the location, using some interesting
spots on the site to record from and thus documenting the temporary site that is always changing, but
using these recordings to compose something that never existed in the first place, a virtual building
site with a lot of sound. This is a great release. (FdW)
––– Address: http://swarming.free.fr
NDE – UNITED (THGROIGH IRON AND BLOOD) (CD by Cold Spring)
NYTT LAND – ODAL (CD by Cold Spring)
First I established an order to go these two and for reasons I am not entirely sure this became it,
starting with the heaviest of the lot, NDE. ‘United (Through Iron And Blood)’ is their third album and
“sees a return to the harsher sounds of their debut”, sayeth Cold Spring. I can’t concur, as I didn’t hear
that album. There isn’t any information towards personal and tactics (to avoid the word instruments),
save for images of soldiers combating in the snow. Russian or German? I don’t have my World War II
library anymore that I had growing up and being more interested in the subject. The label also says
it’s it is their most ‘song-based’ album, by which I gather they mean that the nine tracks stand by
themselves. This is a heavy slab of noise music, ticking all the right boxes. Feedback? Present.
Screaming vocals? Yes. Distortion on all fronts? Obviously. The only more oddball variation I would
think is the somewhat more rhythmic approach NDE takes via ultra short loops of sound in full
repetition cycle. The music reminds me of Whitehouse and Ramleh, especially the vocals of the first
but also of many mid 80s power electronic music. The tracks are simply identified as ‘I’, ‘II’ etc. and
with the amount of sound effects on the vocals, as well as all the noise going on it is hard to say what
these ‘lyrics’ are about. If of course they are about anything at all and not an overall enhancement
of the music. I am writing this and looking outside. There is this great spring sunny weather. No
snow, no nuclear meltdown or decay in these necks of the woods, but inside the house it is firmly
grim now. Thank god, I love to stay indoors.
If I read the word ‘Odal’ I am not thinking of Norsk mythology but of the Dutch noise act, which
has been going since more than thirty years and choose the name for more shock value than what it
actually stands for. I think; I don’t think he’s subscribed to this weekly, not caring much for reviews.
For Russian based Nytt Land it has everything to with heritage and the quartet is inspired by
traditional music of Siberia, the old Icelandic epic and Norwegian black metal. The four year old son
of the couple behind the group also plays along on this record, taped in “one of best Russian studios”
and it was all-live and no samples. There is surely a folk like element to be detected in this music,
with lots of drumming and chanting plus maybe a bit of flutes here and there, Jew harps and
electronics and who knows what else. You could easily see why I wouldn’t like any of this, ticking
all the wrong boxes for me. Too gothic, too folky, too traditional, too moody, too whatever, but with
the sun still up, I sat back with yesterday’s crossword, thinking about silly cryptogram stuff, and in
the background the two voices and many percussion of Nytt Land pounding away. I am sure I
mentioned before that Dead Can Dance’s ‘Aion’ is a particular personal favourite but in fact I enjoy
more works by that group, and while Nytt Land doesn’t have the same complex sound or as many
inspirational sources from all around the world this work I enjoyed very much. I am glad winter is
gone, so it arrives perhaps at entirely the wrong moment for my taste, I like this rootsy stuff that I
can’t relate at all, quite a lot. Perhaps because it is so different from the daily routine and yet so
different from anything ‘normal’ that I enjoy this. Or perhaps I am more connected to this roots stuff
than I care to admit. I don’t know. (FdW)
––– Address: http://coldspring.co.uk/
ASMUS TIETCHENS – EISGANG (CD by Klang Galerie)
ASMUS TIETCHENS – DÄMMERATTACKE (CD by Klang Galerie)
Certainly these two re-issues aren’t the most recent of releases in this week’s issue, but both came
recently to my attention and there is surely more than one reason to mention these. One is of course
that this publication, ever since it came in the form of chopped trees and black ink, has spend many
words on the music of Asmus Tietchens; I wouldn’t go as far as to claim it reviewed every Tietchens
release since the mid 80s, but I am sure it’s a close call. That’s one reason but surely another is that
for both of these CDs, essentially re-re-issues, there is a private interest, having installed the first
version on LP in 1995 and 1997. In 2002 they were re-issued as a double CD on Submergence, and
now with yet another additional bonus piece to each. If I recall well all of ‘Eisgang’ comes forth from
recycling an older Tietchens work ‘Linea’, also on Korm Plastics (and also on Klang Galerie this year),
a work Tietchens had some trouble finding a home for. Seeing this reworking and re-releasing not a
bad thing (not to mention the fact that ‘Linea’ was also part of a work Tietchens did with Vidna
Obmana in the mid 90s as ‘Motives For Recycling’. One could have hoped for the ‘definite’ box
spanning all of these works, although perhaps in the world of Tietchens nothing is ‘definite’.
‘Dämmerattacke’ is based on electronic and a bit of acoustic sources and not a reworking of ‘Linea’.
The music, man, what about the music, after all this detailed discographical information?
The music is slow and quiet, but not as quiet as Tietchens would largely produce after 2000,
inspired by the microsound movement. The ‘synthesizer’ element that was a strong feature in the
mid 90s runs through all of these works as well as a more or less nautical theme; rusty ships in cold,
salty water, such as in ‘Zweite Dammerattacke’. It reminded me of the very first Werkbund LP,
’Skagerrak’ (and no, let’s not go into the whole discussion if Asmus equals Werkbund), with that very
same submarine below sea surface sound. This is the tail end of the industrial sound as used by
Tietchens in some excellent long form pieces on ‘Eisgang’, especially exemplified by his new bonus
piece ‘Die Barentssee’, a chilling piece of music. If the post 2000 Tietchens music is too quiet for your
taste, but you like his more ambient approach then these two are certainly something you should
check out. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.klanggalerie.com/
THURSTON MOORE & ADAM GOLEBIEWSKI – DISARM (CD by Endless Happiness)
Just recently I read ‘We Sing A New Language’ by Nick Soulsby, a book about the collaboration
Thurston Moore took outside Sonic Youth. While I couldn’t recognize Sonic Youth song to save my
life, I heard quite a few of the releases mentioned in this book and it tells us a remarkable story of a
well-known rock star who just lives and breathes music, and is willing to explore new musical
language with anyone, anytime and anywhere. ‘Disarm’ is also mentioned in this book, which is
already a year old, so let’s pretend we didn’t see that this CD is also a bit older. Polish drummer
Adam Golebiewski first played with Thurston Moore (on electric guitar; obviously) as a trio with
Yoko Ono and then a couple of more times. In May 2014 they recorded five pieces of improvised
music in Warsaw and Poznan; I couldn’t say if these are studio or live recordings. Judging by the
way it sounds I would think the latter. There is overall directness in the sound, certain sharpness
that says ‘live’ rather than ’studio’. The music is throughout con furioso, with the short ‘Disturb’ in
the middle as a relative point of quietness, but the other four pieces are played with much gusto.
Loud, distorted, at times even violent and aggressive, this is not something for the weak of heart,
and best played very loud as well. Both drums and guitar remain, as they are intended, even when
they may play with objects; they are not altered in such a way that these instruments are no longer
recognized. There is a pleasant, disturbing punk rock quality to these improvisations I think,
disturbing and dissonant to stick with ‘dis-‘ titles of the five pieces. (FdW)
––– Address: https://endlesshappiness.bandcamp.com/
BILIANA VOUTCHKOVA & ERNESTO RODRIGUES & GUILHERME RODRIGUES & MAGDA MAYAS –
THE AFTERLIFE OF TREES (CD by Creative Sources Recordings)
Since I first heard of Biliana Voutchkova by her impressive and forceful solo work ‘Modes of Raw’
(2016), I’m eager to know more of her musical activity. With ‘The Afterlife of Trees’ there is a new
opportunity. It has Voutchkova (violin) in the company of Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), Guilherme
Rodrigues (cello) and Magda Mayas (piano). This is a release by Creative Sources, a label founded in
2001 by Ernesto Rodrigues as an outlet of his own music. The label soon became a very profilic label
for improvised music that focuses on sound, texture and timbre, on silence and spatial aspects of
music. Also Guilherme Rodrigues is present on many of the releases on this label, and often we meet
them together. Like on this new effort that is completed by Mayas. She is a Berlin-based pianist who
works with many improvisers from all over the planet. Often with Australians Tony Buck, Jim Denley
and Chris Abrahams, a.o. The CD contains five improvisations that perfectly fit within the focus above
mentioned, recorded by Dietrich Petzold on 22nd October 2016 at Studioboerne in Berlin. The
improvisations are intense and concentrated. They move slowly forward and give time to notice and
enjoy all the little movements and gestures that are created. The sound textures breath a dark
atmosphere, created by acoustical means only, using some extended techniques. Improvisations
are created from a very reduced set of parameters, by improvisers who know to tell intriguing
stories within these limitations. (DM)
––– Address: https://www.creativesourcesrec.com/
GREBENSTEIN – STRONG PROUD STUPID AND SUPERIOR (12” by Downwards)
THE IMMORTAL EYE (LP by Downwards Records)
Its good to get out of the house every now and then, out of the bubble that is Vital Weekly and hear
something else. Some time ago I was out and about and tapping into something that I not heard of
before. Grebenstein and Seefried from Kassel that is, who have some material on Downwards Records
of which I also never heard but who also released Eyeless In Gaza, so I guess it’s a small world after
all. The music here is something that is, while quite dance based, fits these pages quite well. On the
first side Jan Grebenstein and Christine Seefried produce dance music that is not necessarily very fast,
and which is also quite dark. It has the gothic feeling, mainly in the use of Seefried’s vocals with mucho
reverb, along with those dark beats and oddly shaped feedback synth sounds and a somewhat dub-
inspired extra layer of a drum sound. I am not at all the sort of man to put into any sort of box, such as
‘Witchhouse’, but I can imagine it could be. A fine but odd piece of music. With Joshua Bauer, on the
other side, Grebenstein has two pieces and there is a similar darkness about these pieces, but without
the gothic undercurrent. Reverb plays an important role here as well, mainly to suggest atmosphere.
In the first piece with not much in terms of beats in the first half, but with a lot of drones before the
drums kick in and in the second piece there is a deep rolling beat in the best Pan Sonic tradition, but
with a little more going than in the Finnish counter parts. The air is dark and the mood heavy.
The second is a compilation with four artists that are new to me; well three are new, counting
Grebenstein and Seefried as a known entity now. They open up with a piece in which the voice is
mixed a bit further down than on the other piece but the tempo seems to be up a bit. Layne on this
side has a spooky piece of experimental techno, with sounds fading in and out, and not-really sort of
techno beat. Autumns on the other side opening up with a likewise experiment into techno, but then
a lot faster and chaotic, yet also with that spooky edge on the synth and lots of delay on ‘voices’. Dva
Damas sound after all of this pretty straight forward with a normal drum machine pattern and more
voices (plus delay and other treatments). All of these pieces on these two records aren’t what I would
think would be straightforward techno music, which I guess makes it all the more exciting. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.downwardsrecords.com/
ADERN X – SUMMER TWILIGHT AUTUMN DAWN (CDR by Xevor)
There isn’t a lot of music releases by Adern X, also known as Andrea Piran, but every now and then
there is something new. Here is something that was already started in 2013, when it was a radio
broadcast and it consists of three different things, “a bunch of loops, some field recordings and layered
samples”, and uses a CD player, iPod and a reel-to-reel recorder. Apparently it has been reworked over
the years, making things a bit clearer all around. The whole thing is about the twilight at the end of the
summer, light fading out and such. Piran is also a visual artist and while I haven’t seen his work as such,
I can imagine there is an element of collage to it, just as with the music. Adern X takes all sorts of sound
elements and sticks these together; a children’s playground for instance with some vague rumble of
electronics, or the loops of orchestral passages and sometimes this is cut short, to make space for
another configuration of sound. Sometimes Adern X uses a gentler approach by using cross fades. I
would think that in the forty minutes of this piece some of these sounds are a repeat mission, yet
making new configurations all the time, but perhaps also at times allowing for new sounds leak in
from the pavement (around twenty-five minutes for instance). The only part that seems entirely
different is the final eight minutes in which there is a very rusty (or dusty perhaps? It sure sounds
very unclean) drone being played and the transformation on the children voices is complete; like it
has all been recorded through a long cardboard tube. This is quite a fine piece of electronically
treatments of field recordings, or a rather a combination of treatments and clean recordings. It adds
another fine work to Adern X’s small catalogue of similar electro-acoustic works. Not too intense, not
too much easy listening; I guess just like the way we enjoy ‘m best. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.xevor.net
DAN OF EARTH – CLARE WING (CDR by Darker Days Ahead)
There is a subtitle here, which is ’Sisters Of St. Francis of Assisi Convent Demolition’, and that is
something we have to take very literally. I am not sure if I ever heard of Dan Of earth before, but he
writes me that while jogging he heard the sounds of a demolishing going on a convent, so he took out
his recording device (why not take that out while jogging indeed?) and back home he “wrote some
primitive software to sort of ‘homogenize’ the sound of snippets of the original recording –
algorithmically re-arranging very short samples until its something of a blur”, and something of a
blur it surely is. The whole piece lasts sixty-one minutes and you can off and on recognize hear the
reverse signals of trucks, but throughout it sounds like be being locked inside conveyer belt that
never ends; a constant crushing, if you will, by the wheels of industry, but then decay is okay, I guess.
The first time around I dozed a bit off, as the sound of this hard work made me quite tired, for no good
reason, but even wide awake this industrialized nightmare of a soundtrack sounded quite pleasant.
Not so much in terms of variation but it also luckily refrained from sounding too noisy and that’s a
good thing. This is a very, very present soundscape of a less ambient and more industrial variation.
Whatever is used in terms of software is hard to say, but indeed whatever fragmentation there was,
sound wise as I’m sure thee was enough debris flying about, it surely is blurred now. A crew is
already building at the old site, so a new work is promised as a sequel of this. (FdW)
––– Address: https://darkerdaysahead.bandcamp.com/
REG BLOOR – SENSORY IRRITATION CHAMBER (CDR by Systems Neutralizers)
Reg Bloor is as a guitarist from New York. In the 90s she started her activities in founding the
experimental band Twitcher, with Bloor as the composer and guitarist of this band. The band played
a No Wave-style of music. Between 2005-2014 she started another experimental band, called The
Paranoid Critical Revolution that released several albums on Systems Neutralizers. Over the years
she worked with artists like Mike Watt, Thurston Moore and many others. Also she worked with her
partner Glenn Branca and toured extensively as a member of the Glenn Branca Ensemble and
performing many of Branca’s symphonies. Since 2014 she is also doing solo projects. Ás a solo
performer she debuted with ‘Theme from an Imaginary Slasher’ on Branca’s Systems Neutralizers-
label. ‘Sensory Irration Chamber’ is her next step. The album is from start to finish done by her:
composition, performance, production and engineering. The cd consists of eleven compositions, all
located in the same sinister registers, dominated by loud and harsh sounds. The simple compositions
are built from repeated riffs, resulting in very aggressive rock-based exercises. Manipulations make it
sound like a huge orchestra of electric nervous guitars. This is very extreme and over the top metal-
influenced music. Not everybody’s cup of tea. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.regbloor.com/
BUNNY & THE INVALID SINGERS – FEAR OF THE HORIZON (CDR by Bearsuit Records)
Scratch. Scratch. That’s the sound of me thinking/scratching my head while listening to Bearsuit
“veterans” Bunny & The Invalid Singers. One reason is that I had no idea if this is a band or one
person, but according to the information it is one person, Dave Hillary. He’s also a member of Idiot
Half Brother and Whizz Kind and founding member of AWSTS. Sometimes he works as Harold Nono.
Then more thinking is about the instruments he uses, but my best guess is that it is all sampler based,
or a combination of sampling and lots of guitars. Like with the previous album, ‘The Invalid Singers’
(see Vital Weekly 986) those guitars sound very rock like, and I must admit this time they gave me a
serious hard time enjoying then, along with those samples sounds from a bunch of exotic, lounge
records, groovy rhythm machines or what have you. It was again all a bit too old-fashioned noise
pop/rock for my taste, and something that I would think is a bit out of place in Vital Weekly. Surely
it is sometimes funny but that in itself I thought was not enough. As said: it’s not bad at all, just not
really the sort of coffee I drink. (FdW)
––– Address: http://bearsuitrecords.bandcamp.com
AUTOMATING – LIGHTBOX SKY (3”CDR, private)
Coming up in a few days is the first anniversary of the passing of Mika Vainio, one half of Pan Sonic,
who also had a solo career in noise and rhythm, as ø and under his own name. Sasha Margolis of
Automating did this piece “especially for a long-term supporter of Automating. All live, no overdubs,
with a setup inspired by Mika Vainio and his use of feedback loops”. I saw Vainio a couple of times
perform and never thought of his setup as feedback loops, but who knows and maybe it was.
Automating’s music before dealt with a lot of field recordings (see for instance Vital Weekly 1117),
but here in this twenty-one minute work goes all electronic, using quite a bit of effects on top of those
feedback loops and cooks up a sound that is very dense and quite dark. Yet it never seems to reach for
the sonic disturbance Vainio was known for, or a similar use of dynamics, ranging from very quiet to
super loud. In Automating’s homage to the setup he seems less interested in doing something similar
as Vainio but rather a more ambient exploration of these sounds in a long cascading deep rumble of
forceful electronic sounds. So while not alike Vainio that much, Automating stays closer to his own
earliest work I know, and presents a beautiful beast of a piece that for all I know could have been a bit
longer than twenty-one minutes. If anything else, think Arcane Device in a more ambient mode (‘Also
Sprach Zarathustra’ or ‘Envoi In Cumin’ for instance), as a possible other source of inspiration. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.automating.bandcamp.com
TIM OLIVE & ANNE-F JACUQES – 05 11 17 (cassette by Flux On Demand)
RAUSCHGIFTENGELLOOPS (CDR by Brand-Stiftung)
Almost every year, in recent times that is, Tim Olive makes his way from his hometown Osaka to
Europe to play a tour of improvised music and last year that was with Anne-F Jacques from Canada,
once the home country of Olive. Sadly this time around they didn’t pass through my town but they hit
upon Mainz in Germany where this tour document was recorded in May last year. Olive has a set-up
which is basically a bunch of objects and pick-ups and very little when it comes to electronic
manipulation and I have no idea what Jacques does, as I never saw her in concert, but she too seems
to be into building her own devices and machines to generate a more musique concrete like approach
to making music. Throughout the music is very careful, like a sturdy research of surfaces with small
objects, but amplified. Careful equals here ‘silent’, which is an approach they seem to like. Small
sound exploration in the best John Cage tradition, with the avoidance of feedback (which Cage would
actually have allowed), and without any visual representation it is not easy to say what is going on
exactly. Save to say it is all quite mysterious and strange and there is a fine interaction going on
between both players. I have no idea if there was any editing of the material after it was recorded
but I could easily believe none was the case and this is pretty much a straightforward recording.
Flux On Demand is run by Brandstifter, erstwhile a member of Inox Kapell, but these days very
active when it comes to (found) visual art and music. His ‘Rauschgiftangelloops’ is quite an old release,
so I mention this in passing as well, partly because I like the four pieces. It was recorded in 2009 in
New York and as far as I understand the ‘drug angel loops’ it is a sort of art installation of objects, lights
and vinyl being spun at various speeds. For the four pieces on this CDR (twenty minutes) there is a
very direct approach to recording, picking it up from the New York gallery space where this was
captured in 2009. There is a pleasant sort of chaos buzzing around these loops, of sounds that we
longer can identify in any way, but which seems to be employing a number of voices for sure. Obviously
everything comes in the form of rotation, loops and vinyl locked grooves, without it all becoming dance
like; rhythmical but not groovy. Now this would be something to see in complete action one day. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.brand-stiftung.net/https://soundcloud.com/brandstifter
SOAPLANDS (cassette by No Rent Records)
No information on either cassette or Bandcamp page and, likewise not much on the piece of paper that
came with, but it provided an idea about the music, being “exotic synthesizers & power electronics”.
There are four pieces, of which the first three around just under and over two minutes and the last one
is eight minutes, with the program repeated on the other side. You know me, so it should be no surprise
if I write: why not a bit more, for instance on that B-side? I understand the power electronics angle to
the music, as it tends to be quite loud (but not too) and the exotic synthesizers thing is of course one has
to take the musicians word for it. There is also a bit of rhythm in here with much bass end on a slow note
and it sounds rather nice, especially the three shorter pieces, but of which I then also think they are all a
bit too brief. ‘Techniques of Religious Ecstasy’ reminded me of Dissecting Table with furious vocals and
feedback. In the last ‘Godmode – Potential Immortality – Pure Pleasure’ the whole sound comes together
in a longer orchestrated piece, again Dissecting Table was something this reminded me of but also
others who use a more orchestral approach to their gothic vision (think early Cold Meat Industry) and
while this was not really something that belonged to my daily digest I quite enjoyed these four pieces;
as said, another four would have been most welcome. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.norentrecords.com/