 number 1170
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week 7 ---------------------
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DIE PERSPEKTIVE - ALL IN FORM (CD, private) * MAZUREK/SIENKIEWICZ - DROGI (CD by Bolt Records) * ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO - NOT KNOWING (CD by Moving Furniture Records) * ROSE & SANDY - HORIZONTAL ALLIANCES, VERTICAL CONFLICTS (CD by Moving Furniture Records) * FABIEN ROBBE & JEROME GLOAGUEN – ANIMA ANIMUS (CD by Mazeto Square) MARTIN TETREAULT - PLUS DE SNIPETTES!! (CD by Ambiances Magnétiques) * AGNES HVIZDALEK & HARALD FETVIET – HVIZDALEK, FETVIET (CD by Sanntidsmusikk) SAMARA LUBELSKI & BILL NACE – SAME (CD by Relative Pitch Records) HAARMANNHOMMELSHEIM - DIE UMRANDUNG DES NICHTS (CD by Klangmöbel) * JON HEILBRON - PIECES FOR CHORD ORGANS (CD by Intonema) ZIBUOKLE MARTINAITYTE - IN SEARCH OF LOST BEAUTY (CD by Starkland) * ANDRZEJ DOBROWOSLKI - MUSIC FOR ORCHESTRA (CD by Bolt) * NIDAROSDOMENS JENTEKOR, TRONDHEIMSOLISTENE & ANITA BREVIK - LUX (CD by 2L) ABBILDUNG - AT THE GATES OF OULIN (CD by Winter-Light) * BELP - CROCODILE (LP by Jahmoni/SVS Records) KUHZUNFT - SLOTMACHINE (10" by Gruenrekorder) KENJI KIHARA - DAWN (CDR by Eilean Records) * IAN NYQUIST - CUAN (CDR by Eilean Records) * AMP - ENTANGLED TIME (CDR by Sound In Silence) * TIM LINGHAUS - ABOUT B. (CDR by Sound In Silence) * PROTOVULCAN - PSYCHIC PINBALL (cassette by Toy Moon) MAKAROV/BELORUKOV & KOSTYRKO (split cassette by Urbsounds) LE MEPRIS/LE MEPRIS - ECHONOMY SPLIT SERIES #2 (cassette by Otomatik Muziek) * LATHER - BEYOND FADED/MORNING TINNITUS (cassette by Bob Heavens) * LATHER & DREKKA - LIVE: CONCENTRATION CLUB (casette by Bob Heavens) LATHER SOMMER DUO & OPEN SEX - A TRIBUTE TO TONY CONRAD (cassette by Bob Heavens) EDWARD SOL - STRAYED FROM THE HERD (cassette by Village Tapes) EDWARD SOL - BEFORE BLOOD (cassette by Quasi Pop) THE DEAD MAURIACS - SOUPIRS MAGNÉTIQUES, BONS BAISERS DES EMEUTES (cassette by Sentimental Productions) DEL STEPHEN - INTERDEPENDENCE MAP (cassette by Vacancy Recs.) * DIRTY CLOTHES TOUR TAPE (cassette by Dity Tour Records) COSTIS DRYGIANAKIS - CHAINED TO THE WORLD (cassette by Falt) * MEGLAMANCHA - SILICA (cassette by Staertenbard Records) * DIE PERSPEKTIVE - ALL IN FORM (CD, private) From Poland, we have here Piotr Komosinski, who is since twenty-five years a bass player and he played in numerous bands and those mentioned by name are Potty Umbrella, Hotel Kosmos and Variety. This solo CD he recorded calling his project Die Pespektive (“the perspective”) and gets help from Allena and Darius Domanowski (voice, percussion), Arur Majewski (cornet), Michal Mike (trumpet), Tomasz Krzeminski (voice) and Slawomir Szudrowicz (guitar) on a bunch of songs. The nine tracks span thirty-three minutes and it gives the listener quite a confused picture of what Die Perspektive is aiming for. A song like 'Night Walking Part One' sees various wind instruments bathing in too much delay work, and sometimes the element of improvisation is a bit in the way of a good solid piece, such as the wind instruments of 'He Rbst' get in the way of bass driven rhythms. But Die Perspektive are sometimes quite post-punk pop alike, and that brings some great pieces of music, such as the atmospheric guitars 'Drops Of Rain' (sadly at two minutes a bit short) or the synths of ‘Nostalgie'. Komosinski is responsible for all of these instruments (synths, electronics, cymbals, bass, ukulele bass and voice). In 'Last Show' he offers the voice of Allena Domanowski is a synth-based melancholy, and easily the most 'commercial' song on this release. Some of these pieces I wish were a bit longer and some more condensed. I have the feeling that Komosinski wanted to push too many different ideas onto his record and perhaps it would have been better to have a clearer idea of the album as a whole and push tracks that maybe would form a more unified whole. All the potential seems to be there, now it's a matter of finding the right modus. (FdW) ––– Address: <piotrkomosinski@gmail.com> MAZUREK/SIENKIEWICZ - DROGI (CD by Bolt Records) This is a slightly puzzling release. There is a thirteen-minute piece by Bohdan Mazurek, and from the liner notes, I understand that Jacek Sienkiewicz is a big fan of that composer. His pieces on this release last all together forty minutes. Sienkiewicz apparently loved Mazurek's humour and love of nature and in his pieces tries to re-create Mazurek's sound world. Based on those thirteen minutes that is not an easy judgment to make. It has been a while since I last heard music by Mazurek (Vital Weekly 778) and surely don't remember it that well, but it seemed to be orchestral pieces mixed with electronic sounds. 'Little Electronic Symphony' sounds a bit dated now, reminding me of some of the old music by Tom Dissevelt; quite pleasant electronic music, filmic and perhaps a bit of humour in it. Sienkiewicz takes some of that lightness and oddly funny moves to his own eight pieces, with frankly varying results. In some of these it works quite well, such as in 'Drogi 2', but not every time. Sometimes it stays a bit too long in a more single-minded form of sound processing ('My Albo Nie My' for instance) or perhaps just the sound of someone snoring ('Olesny'). That didn't necessarily blow me away. I have slightly mixed feelings about all of this, and it wasn't too clear why this shorter piece by Mazurek was combined with the eight from Sienkiewicz, other than obvious releases of the latter being inspired by the first. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.boltrecords.pl ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO - NOT KNOWING (CD by Moving Furniture Records) ROSE & SANDY - HORIZONTAL ALLIANCES, VERTICAL CONFLICTS (CD by Moving Furniture Records) The name of Alfredo Costa Monteiro is a well-known one, at least to those who have been reading the pages for quite some time. He performs quite a bit of music solo but also in combination with others, such as 300 Basses, who did a CD for Moving Furniture records before. His work isn't easily classified, as it can be seen as pure music, but also as sound poetry or visual art, as his work is also occasionally part of sound installations. On 'Not Knowing' he plays the accordion and apparently it is fifth solo release with this instrument. Unlike before where the instrument is recorded within close proximity of the microphone, here it is taped from some distance and thus the surrounding in which the music is recorded becomes part of the music. In the two parts of fourteen minutes each, Monteiro works it out in quite a different way. The second part is perhaps what one expects most, certainly this being released by Moving Furniture Records, known for all its more atmospheric approaches to music. Here there is long form, sustaining tones and it is not easy to say if these pieces are looped in some way or if they are performed in real time. I would think the latter is the case. The space in which recorded seems small, which is interesting as one would (perhaps) expect this to be a large space, with lots of reflections, but that's not the case. Space is kept small and there is quite a bit of detail shining through the music. Monteiro plays his chords/clusters/notes carefully and it has a sad quality to it. The first part is quite different. It starts out with small sounds being played in a big space and then there are some massive amplification and the reflections of high-pitched sounds spark around quite heavily. This is a very rich sonic piece and for the lack of a better word also a noisy one at that. It is only twenty-eight minutes but in all this richness it is well enough. Rose & Sandy return to Moving Furniture Records, following 'Play Cat's Cradle' (Vital Weekly 761) and this time Ruaridh Law (TVO/The Village Orchestra, Marcia Blaine School for Girls) and Dave Donnelley (Production Unit, Marcia Blaine School for Girls) also work with an instrument from the same convent that brought them the zither from the previous release, and this time it is an auto-harp. Donnelly plays it and Law does all the sound processing. This is done with some "custom-built patch splitting the audio into nine discrete spectral bands, processing them using a visual interface based around strings and recombining them after processing. The patch came to Law in a dream about nine threads of strings hanging down and the sound waves travelling through them from the sky, grounding them in the earth", which I must admit has some vaguely religious connotations as well. Sandy & Rose created seven pieces with this, somewhere between nine and eighteen minutes, with one being just two minutes. Much of this comes across as being improvised pieces of music, with both the instrument and the software being tested around, but it does not always lead up to great music. Maybe it is the length of the pieces, which I think is quite long and could have benefitted from either some more editing or a tighter structure when planning to record these. The extended use of reverb may suggest quite a bit of atmosphere, but it also covers up some of the weaker spots in the pieces. At seventy-six minutes this is all quite long and half the length and the same amount of pieces would for me at least increase the overall quality. Now it is all a bit too much and too thin. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.movingfurniturerecords.com FABIEN ROBBE & JEROME GLOAGUEN – ANIMA ANIMUS (CD by Mazeto Square) Picking up this one, first thoughts went to the archetypes of the collective unconscious, anima and anima, referring to the female side of men, and the masculine side of women. The psychedelic cover art suggests I might be right here. It is the title Jérôme Gloaguen (drums, percussion) and Fabien Robbe (trumpet, voice, keyboards, percussion) choose for their duo effort. With substantial support by Julien Palomo playing ARP 2600, ARP sequencer and EMS. Both Robbe and Gloaguen are from Brittany. Robbe has lots of experience in Breton and Celtic music and released a solo album for Improvising Beings in 2015. Gloaguen has a background in rock, punk, reggae, etc. In 2016 both met and started exploring improvising music. This led to the album ´Etats d ´Urgences´, released by for Improvising Beings, the improvisation music label run by Julien Palomo. Paloma produced that debut album. This time he participates as a musician. Palomo has a background in free jazz and a love for old analogue synthesizers. He has a solo album out called ‘Scutigère’ but otherwise, you don’t find him very often on releases, so it is great to have him here. The cd consists of two lengthy improvisations. For ´Utopie I´ they use a theme by Francois Tusques, a French jazz legend admired by all three of them. They use the first 16 notes of the composition ´Gwerz Fanch Tusk´. For the second improvisation, ´Utopie 2´, they take inspiration from a composition by Tanguy Le Doré, former bass player of Tusques, ´Gwerz pour Jo Maka´. With his anarchic and noisy synth treatments, Palomo creates a very weird and open spatial context for Robbe and Gloaguen. This works very well and contrasts effectively with Robbe improvising on the melodic material on trumpet and keyboard. The three take time to dwell through time and space and it is a pleasantly unpolished trip. (DM) ––– Address: https://www.mazeto-square.com/ MARTIN TETREAULT - PLUS DE SNIPETTES!! (CD by Ambiances Magnétiques) For his latest solo album, a sequel to his similarly-constructed “Snipettes!” from 1992, Montreal’s premier turntable-destroyer Martin Tétreault takes hundreds of clips from cassettes and reel tapes and mashes them all together into 31 short collage works. Most pieces hover around the two- minute mark, but some fly past in a matter of seconds and only one breaks the seven-minute barrier. All 31 pieces run together into what sounds like a single piece, though, their flow and unity belying the disparate nature of the source material. As you might expect, the familiar crackle of vinyl surface noise and record skipping plays a prominent role here, but the artist’s dry sense of humour takes the starring role. “Plus de Snipettes!!” begins with an emcee announcing the band about to play: ladies and gentlemen, out your hands together for… Tangerine Dream?! This jokey fake-out slides into rapidly-cut-up pop songs, mechanically stuck off-rhythms, recognizable short clips of melodies and the occasional discernible lyrical fragments. The relatively epic “America” takes some patriotic blues and grinds it against a noisy beat that’s eventually overtaken by gauzy muck. The competing buzzers and smooth-voiced 60’s radio-pitchmen of “Desarme” are more open and dramatically spacious. Other tracks are quick blurts which splice jazz records and slather them in skips and fuzz, thwacking familiar moods with rude bumps and prickly static. All the pieces here are compact and song-like, getting a lot of mileage out of making well-produced recordings out of intentionally lousy-sounding source material. The songs fly by at a clip, not letting a moment pass without attention to shifting density and juxtaposing pace. Those who you who enjoy the sound of a warped tape (raise your hands, people!) will be charmed by Tetreault’s rough segues and full-throttle information-overload. (HS) ––– Address: https://actuellecd.bandcamp.com/ AGNES HVIZDALEK & HARALD FETVIET – HVIZDALEK, FETVIET (CD by Sanntidsmusikk) We are in the company here of a duo of Agnes Hvizdalek (voice) and Harald Fetveit (electronics), producing some of the most extreme experimental music one can imagine. Hvizdalek is vocalist and improviser originating from the experimental music scene of Vienna, based in Oslo since 2008. Abstract vocal music is her thing, exploring it in much multi-disciplinary collaboration. Fetveit is a central force of the Norwegian noise music scene since the early 1980s. Toured the globe and worked with artist like Anla Courtis, Taku Unami, Seijiro Murayama, John Hegre, among others. They entertain us with a one-hour lasting improvisation of voice and primitive electronics of a very extreme kind, which is also of a very reduced kind of music, as they say, goodbye to many if not most conventional musical aspects. They create an intriguing micro-world of sounds and noises. And when your ears are a bit accommodated to it, you discover a richness of nuances. Hvizdalek’s technique results in a wide variety of very abstract vocal sounds that sometimes come close to electronics sounds. This makes this one interesting. Their interaction is concentrated and full of tension throughout. I find it difficult to speak of ‘development’ here, but their interactions, sometimes pulse-driven, change during the one hour set in a way that kept me fascinated. Still, I ask myself why one hour? Sanntidsmusikk, a label that started in 2006 and revived in 2018 after a very long silence, released this. (DM) ––– Address: https://sanntidsmusikk.bandcamp.com/ SAMARA LUBELSKI & BILL NACE – SAME (CD by Relative Pitch Records) How memory and the listening process works. Listening to this one, very old krautrock sentiments woke up (early Ash Ra Temple, Schulze), but also the violin of John Cale in Velvet Underground; Tony Conrad. Or that fabulous concert by the Ava Mendoza Trio last year in Groningen popped up. One immediately starts to compare for some reason. A process that is difficult to stop. Is it inevitable or even necessary for listening and experiencing a piece of music…..? Whatever. Lubelski is an American singer, violinist, guitarist and bassist, who grew up in an artistic community in New York. She has been a member of numerous – unknown – bands like the Sonora Pine and Chelsea Light Moving. Since 2003 she released eight solo albums. As a guest performer or recording engineer she worked with Thurston Moore, God is my Co-Pilot, etc. Very recent are her duo efforts with guitarist Marcia Bassett. Like Lubelski Bill Nace is a veteran in the underground scene. Their album was originally released on Nace´s Open Mouth label early 2018 and received a deserved rerelease that same year for Relative Pitch. With just violin and guitar, plus some applications they create hypnotic psychedelic improvisations and textures. Their intimate and focused improvisations are built from long sustained penetrating sounds and motives provided by the violin. Combined with looped guitar sounds, using feedback, etc. Their interactions move on like slowly moving musical entities. Captivating drones of weeping and wobbling sounds. Excellent stuff! (DM) ––– Address: http://www.relativepitchrecords.com/ HAARMANNHOMMELSHEIM - DIE UMRANDUNG DES NICHTS (CD by Klangmöbel) ‘Die Umrandung des Nichts’ (The Outlines of Nothing) is a thought-provoking title. Ralf Haarmann and Christiane Hommelsheim decided for a serious problem: “How can one create space for the absent through the presence of sound?” It resulted in an absolutely beautiful album, I must say. Hommelsheim is an interdisciplinary artist working mainly with photography as a medium. Based in Berlin since 2007 she ‘co-founded Loris Gallery, a collective and discursive platform for visual, but also societal, political and social implementations of artistic questions´. Haarmann also is an interdisciplinary artist, who studied electronic composition at Folkwang Hochschule in Essen. He composes radio plays, for theatre and electro-acoustic music. For their collaboration they use a whole battery of instruments and objects: autoharp, balloon, bell, clothes hanger, e-bow, field recordings, guitar, glasses, hi-hat, loop pedals, metal pipe, mandolin, mouth harp, synthesizer, sequencer, stones, sticks, string-frog, music box, seashells, tape recorder, voice. All the music is composed, performed and produced by the duo. Recorded and mixed by Haarmann at Klangmoebelstudio Muenster. Words are taken from texts by American writer Gertrude Stein and Danish poet Inger Christensen but also some are by Hommelsheim herself. The compositions can be located somewhere between audio play and song. They have very atmospheric singing and vocals by Hommelsheim, combined with a reading voice. The instrumentation is very tasty and proportionate; minimalistic and to the point. They reach a fine balance between vocals and texts on the one hand and instrumentation on the other. Poetic music of a serene quietness, that drips out of speakers into your room. (DM) ––– Address: http://www.klangmoebel.net/ JON HEILBRON - PIECES FOR CHORD ORGANS (CD by Intonema) If you have never seen (or heard) a Bontempi organ in real life then should definitely hit thrift stores or go online and find one. They look cheap and sound cheap too because the sound is produced by air being forced over reeds by an electric fan, so you have the sound of the fan also. They were popular with children. Look up the company of the same name that still exists and see what they have; lots of children’s toys. I believe they are not too difficult to find and for any aspiring lo-fi drone maker, a must have. Jon Heilbron, of whom I had not heard before is apparently also a big fan (pun intended) of the sound these organs produce and recorded on August 23 of last year two pieces with various types of Bontempi organs as the 2.04 Gallery in Saint-Petersburg, which now found their way to this CD. I assume the sound is picked up with various microphones as the original ones do not have a line-out option for recording and I would think it is also not really a concert recording despite the clear 'on' and 'off' he produces at the beginning and the end, it is a set of multiple recordings being mixed together to make two coherent compositions, of clustering tones intertwining with each other and while it sounds pure and direct, it also has very little additional sound, i.e. the fan. Some hence I think there have been multiple takes and ditto layers, cleverly mixed together, but I can easily say I might very well be wrong and this is a pure, live recording of various (hard to say how many) types of Bontempi chord organs played together in a concert situation. I am a sucker for the Bontempi sound (I have a few myself) and while this is not something that is unheard of, I must admit I enjoyed this very much. Very direct and yet very refined; no bullshit drone music the way I like it best. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.intonema.org ZIBUOKLE MARTINAITYTE - IN SEARCH OF LOST BEAUTY (CD by Starkland) ANDRZEJ DOBROWOLSKI - MUSIC FOR ORCHESTRA (CD by Bolt) NIDAROSDOMENS JENTEKOR, TRONDHEIMSOLISTENE & ANITA BREVIK - LUX (CD by 2L) Here at Vital Weekly, we know very little about classical music; not the old variety, nor the new kind. Yet every now and then we receive music that is distinctly from that musical area and we try to our best, albeit with our limited vocabulary and knowledge. From Zibuokle Martinaityte we already reviewed a CD before (Vital Weekly 1121) and back then I also didn't know what to write. Starkland provided me with some extra information and I learned that this is work for piano, violin and cello trio and that it connects with synchronized video projections. Like I wrote last week when discussing a soundtrack, the lack of visuals is not always easy when trying to discuss a work of music. Like with her previous release, Zibuokle Martinaityte is looking for beauty, and seeing the ugliness our times I would say, quite rightly so. Her piece here lasts seventy minutes and is divided into ten longer and smaller pieces. She uses microtonality here, with notes being very close to each other, making shifts in timbre throughout each of these pieces. Her work has been compared to that Arvo Pärt and I can see why one would think that, even when Martinaityte's work seems to be more down to earth, lighter and surely more profane. Most of the times is the music is not too loud and one needs to turn up the volume quite a bit, which in turn makes that the louder passages, such as in 'Serenity Diptychs' bursts out quite loud. It makes up a very fine contrast here and it works very well. What else can I say about this? I quite enjoyed it, but surely that doesn't really work in a review? As said, I wish I would know what the right lingo is to use here, but try and find out for yourself, if you have an open mind. A small step west and we land in Poland and continue this classical trip with the music for orchestra by Andrzej Dobrowolski. From the enclosed booklet I understand he was an all-around composer of works for electronics, instruments and ensembles, and it might not be a surprise if I write I'd rather hear some of his electronic compositions, as this orchestral work is surely quite good, but even more than the Martinaityte work the proper lingo seems to fail me here. It sounds to these untrained ears as something very mid-20th-century modern classical music, and that is perhaps not very much the music that I am interested in. I find it hard to explain why; too many notes, changes of tempo, too abstract? I am not sure. This is really not the kind of music for these pages; not because it is bad but it's too far outside what we know and can discuss. Which probably goes to say the same for the by Nidarosdomens Jentekort and Trondheim Solistene performing the requiem by Andrew Smith, bookend by two pieces by Stale Kleiberg. They sing in what I would (wrongly no doubt) call Gregorian chanting and along with an orchestral backing in which the saxophone plays a leading role. Surely a bit odd but his civilized playing makes this a very gentle work. It is the most conventional of the three modern classical releases of this week, and here I even more lost. I am a sucker for a choir singing in church, and maybe also the form of a death mass, but that hardly makes me an expert of any kind. This is also released on a hybrid SACD, which surely sounds even better but how would I know with my meagre stereo set-up? (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.starkland.com ––– Address: http://www.boltrecords.pl ––– Address: http://www.2L.no ABBILDUNG - AT THE GATES OF OULIN (CD by Winter-Light) With the first release of Abbildung, also known as Casian Stefan, it looked like a metal band, judging by the heavy metal logo, but this time around it's all returned to something you can read. The cover depicts two pillars, a crescent moon and a figure; a monk? A ghost? Mother Mary? It certainly guides the listener as to what expect from this music. Not some lightweight, happy-clappy ambient music and Abbildung (meaning 'image' in German) don't disappoint in these six pieces with some of his darker musical visions. Apparently, he uses field recordings, samples and drones here and I am not sure if he taped those church chants himself or lifted them from some other sources. Yes, church chants by monks (I assume) play quite a role in some of these pieces, but also the church organ, in the opening piece 'Brejor'. The monk on the cover is really no surprise and it remains vague if Abbildung has a religious concept behind his music or the opposite; maybe he just likes to play around with some cavernous sounds of church organs and monks chanting, adding digital reverb upon natural reverb, creating this vast space of sound. More or so than on his first release, there is surely a gothic element on this release. Obviously, I'd say, with the cover, the sounds used and the heavy use of reverb it is hard not think of some mighty gothic cathedral. Through this music is very dark and foggy, exactly as you imagine a cathedral in the middle ages or in some fantasy flick; your perception of these things are clouded by what you see on television or in the cinema. You do realize that? There is also a bit of 'other' sounds, maybe bowls or percussion, along with even more heavily processed radio waves (I assume, but rather based on my previous review, I must admit) and I can easily imagine this music to be used in some Hollywood production that takes place in a snow covered monastery where demons are exorcised. That happens when the listener has a guided listen; show, don't tell, one of those rules of good literature, doesn't apply to this music, and that's fine. It's cold outside, winter light in the Netherlands, so only a bit of snow, the days are short and the evenings dark and long; Abbildung provides the right soundtrack for such long winter's evenings. (FdW) ––– Address: https://www.winter-light.nl BELP - CROCODILE (LP by Jahmoni/SVS Records) Once Vital Weekly had the announcement not to send anything wilfully vague; stuff that was trying to provoke a reaction out of Vital Weekly by sending something utterly obscure and of course without any information, so the review could be mocked online. It stopped the more silly releases indeed. This LP has absolutely no information on the cover, no name, site or anything, but the good people of Dense, who handle the promotion, send a 'press text' along with this. One could label this text as poetry or fiction, as it made not much sense. "Belp has this ability to bring the most horrible samples in front, and turn over your mind to enjoy first sounds like "horrible", is one of those lines. "It's like if the drum pack was used the wrong way, which is a great way", is another. Yeah, I very much agree with that, providing something was done the wrong way that also sounded interesting, which is not happening on this LP. I don't hear what the person who wrote this about the album wrote: "not bothering about anything reveals a deep understanding of music and arts, a crafted album in details", but maybe I should pick one of these "it just all makes sense, it's a strong critic, it's a joke, it's emotion, it's playful, it's fucked up". I am not handing out prizes if you can guess what my position on this would be. (FdW) ––– Address: http://jahmoni.com http://svsrecords.com KUHZUNFT - SLOTMACHINE (10" by Gruenrekorder) The word Kuhzunft doesn't exist in German; it is the word Zukunft ('future') pronounced in a silly way. This is the project of Achim Zepezauer, who gets credit for electronics, acoustics, drum computer, realization, drawing an idea. I'd say the idea is the most important thing here. "This 10" vinyl record documents the website project of musician/artist Achim Zepezauer. It mixes up recordings of 45 seconds long in a slot machine. Online the user can combine three tracks by 13 different artists with different instrumentations, either hand sorted or completely randomized from the 158 recordings. Every artist provides at least ten tracks to generate from, which leads to the theoretical possibility of 1 billion different combinations. Even the names of the songs are put together by the single names the artists had chosen for their recordings." Yes, that idea is a great one; I mean such a website. I checked it out in Chrome but got no sound and in Safari it didn't load very well. I was going to write something along the lines whether it was really necessary to document such a thing (other than the hipness of doing it on vinyl), but it seems it is necessary. The record has quite some random approaches but it works out quite well. Seeing many familiar names from the world of improvisation this is of course nothing weird (Jaap Blonk, John Chantler, Jerome Noetinger, Michael Vatcher, Simon Whetham) and there is a nice anything goes (times a billion apparently) attitude in these pieces, but I remain a bit sceptical about the whole necessity of documenting website onto vinyl. If you like to be lazy and like a bit of free improvisation, noise, spoken word in short fragments of thirty/forty-five minutes than this surely is the thing you want. (FdW) ––– Address: http://kuhzunft.com KENJI KIHARA - DAWN (CDR by Eilean Records) IAN NYQUIST - CUAN (CDR by Eilean Records) From Kenji Kihara I reviewed a cassette before, on the Inner Islands label (Vital Weekly 1141) and his music is inspired by the natural surroundings of the place he lives in, Horiuchi, Japan, which is near the beach and mountains. Back then I thought he created his music with the use of guitar and pedals, dotted with a few field recordings but with this new release I am not so sure anymore. It could very well be that there is still a guitar at work here, but more likely seems to be that Kihara immersed himself with laptop technology, taking samples from instruments, which could be guitar, organ, field recordings, glockenspiel and on an endless trajectory through the veins of the laptop, resulting in some neat rhythmic ambient music. Mellow and melodic music at that and throughout these forty-five minutes it sounds like a delight. It moved away from the slightly more ambient/new age inspired previous release I heard and ventured into the delicate yet light vision of ambient glitch music, with quite a fair bit of rhythm. And yes, that might be music you have heard before and a lot of it (think of the releases on Flau and Spekk for instance, both being also from Japan) but Kihara does a very fine job. The first two pieces are a bit too short and sketchy, but the other five spanning six to nine minutes take their time to explore and expand the themes and it works very on this rainy morning. I don't think I heard of Ian Nyquist from Dublin before. Apparently, he has a background in field recordings and sound art. 'Cuan' is his first physical album, and the title is Irish for 'bay' or 'harbour', and each of the pieces is about a specific place in the Dublin Bay Area. Here too no specific instruments are listed, but clearly, there are quite a bit of piano sounds in here, sitting next to heavily treated yet sparse field recordings, creating music for/from a small space. It is intimate, chamber-like ambient music, with an occasional expansive treatment of reverb, creating a more open space. That makes up a fine balance between the small and the slightly bigger approaches of Nyquist. Other instruments used might be harmonium, violin, guitar or a zither, carefully plucked and treated. Nyquist uses quite a bit of variation in instruments but that too works out pretty well I think. Unlike Kihara, there are much less rhythmic elements in his music, and it's all to do with creating ambience. Of the two new Eilean Records, I prefer the music of Nyquist. It's a bit intense, personal and full of small emotion, whereas Kihara keeps it at a colder distance. Perhaps Nyquist also is a bit more original in approach to sound treatments and less reliant on computer technology for all his treatments, but I am not sure of that. It is not a competition; it's something I just noted. I am curious to hear what Ian Nyquist comes up with next. (FdW) ––– Address: https://www.eilean-records.com/ AMP - ENTANGLED TIME (CDR by Sound In Silence) TIM LINGHAUS - ABOUT B. (CDR by Sound In Silence) Off and on, I recounted this before, I keep up with the work of AMP, the duo of Richard Amp (guitars, keyboards, programming, percussion) and Karine Charff (vocals, musical direction) and I do this for a long time now. Not actively seeking out every new release but keeping up with whatever comes across my eye. They had a release before on the Greek label Sound In Silence (Vital Weekly 1062), which contained a bunch of live recordings, now there is a new release, which I think is all studio recordings. AMP rarely disappoints and this time too it is all great; they reach for that AMP sound of lush ambient textures, guitars flanging, phasing and chorusing, spiced up with beats that have quite a bit of echo and reverb, shaking around a bit, seemingly a bit unsteady (it is not a beat to dance too, I would say), while Charff adds her wordless chanting and humming on top of that. At times it reminded me a bit of good ol' shoegazing, however without the strong emphasis on the distortion and the over-use of the chorus pedal. AMP stays here on the ambient side of things and they do a great job. It is a dreamy, poppy and relaxing at the same time, hazy, fuzzy, vaguely and yet oh so lovely stuff. It is one of those bands you don't see in Twin Peaks I guess, but it's one of those bands that should be seen in Twin Peaks. This is another fine release. The name Tim Linghaus is new to me. He is from Cuxhaven, Germany and released an EP on Moderna Recordings in 2016 and an album in 2018 on Schole and 1631 Recordings. This release on Sound In Silence has thirteen new pieces as well as four reworked tracks from his debut album. All of this within the space of twenty-six minutes, meaning the shortest is twenty-nine seconds and the longest is three minute and thirty-seven seconds, yet most are between one and two minutes. If you know his debut album was called 'Memory Sketches', then it might be less of a surprise that these pieces are most of the times also merely sketches. Linghaus’ main instrument is the piano and a couple of guests provide other instruments, such as cello, saxophone and violin. The music is throughout moody and atmospheric and very much along the lines of the oh so popular modern chamber music of people Like Nils Frahm and Max Richter. Linghaus adds a few electronics and vinyl crackles to the menu, but throughout these remain intimate miniatures and they sound great. As I have recently noted with music that is made out of sketch-like pieces, I wish it was longer and this is what I think should be here; with many of these short pieces you would hope it would continue and of course it might be a consideration of Linghaus to create something that says 'leave them wanting more', but I do want more. Not just the bits, I want the whole dish! Perhaps I should seek out Linghaus proper full-length album then? Based on these seventeen bits and bobs I should say I should definitely like it. (FdW) ––– Address: https://soundinsilencerecords.bandcamp.com/ PROTOVULCAN - PSYCHIC PINBALL (cassette by Toy Moon) Back in Vital Weekly 999, I was pleasantly surprised by a CDR release by an American duo Protovulcan. Deric Criss plays the drums (related to the drummer of Kiss I wondered back then; the current press release says he's not) and Will MacLean plays Moog, Wurlitzer and vocoder. I must at the same admit I also forgot all about them in the following years, but such is the life of a reviewer I guess. When I looked up the old review I remembered it very well, and it's good to know that they are still around and 'Psychic Pinball' is their latest release. While of course, I am a big fan of cassette releases, I am not entirely convinced this is the best medium for Protovulcan. Their music with drums and big synth sounds deserve something that gives them more dynamics than those that are now a bit lost. Turn off Dolby, turn up the volume and enjoy. This is some very un-Vital Weekly music and I love it. This duo guides you through the ages of drum and synths, usually those that are the heavy end of the musical spectrum. Sometimes they bang on, vicious and noisy, sometimes the vocoder is used for some part robotic, part alien vocalizations, and sometimes it is a bit more Moroder like disco, funky and playful. Italo with real drums! It is the perfect hybrid between loud rock, disco and cosmic pop extractions. I was reminded, again, of Zombi, Steve Moore's filmic duo for drums and keyboards and that's certainly quite a compliment. Unlike Zombi, I don't see Protovulcan do soundtracks, but never mind; these songs are strong enough by themselves. (FdW) ––– Address: https://toymoonmusic.bandcamp.com/ MAKAROV/BELORUKOV & KOSTYRKO (split cassette by Urbsounds) On this split cassette, we find three Russian musicians, two of them working together. On side A we have Oleg Makarov with two pieces. He uses DIY synthesizers, sound objects and a laptop with Max/MSP. I had not heard of him before. His improvisations, however, are at the extreme end of modular synthesizers. No careful exploration of sounds, but crude blocks of sounds, raw oscillations and a noisy treatment of field recordings. His 'Track 2' is more delicate in approach than 'Track 1', with metallic sounds being manipulated and motors being started. It's good without being great. On the other side, we find one long piece by Ilia Belorukov (modular synthesizer) and Sergey Kostyrko (on ‘modular’ says the cover; don't know what the difference is). I know Belorukov from his mostly more careful approaches to the flute and laptop processing thereof, and Kostyrko for a more rough end approach to improvisation as shown on his Spina Records cassette label. I would think duties are divided here, left and right channel, one for each player, which means that the listener has the option to do a little DIY mixing (I always wonder who actually does). If Makarov was rough than this duo does noise; it's vicious and it's loud, without being just a silly wall of noise - well most of the times that is. Both sides are exactly what the medium of the cassette is for; the quick documentation of a single action that one wants to hear for some time and then most likely forgets about. Also, this side was good but not great. So it goes. (FdW) ––– Address: https://urbsounds.bandcamp.com/ LE MEPRIS/LE MEPRIS - ECHONOMY SPLIT SERIES #2 (cassette by Otomatik Muziek) Germany's Otomatik Muziek label started a series last year and we missed the first but this is the second in their Echonomy series, in which they "select works already in small editions or download-online and to recontextualise them". The pieces here, on side A, were released 12 years ago, and on side B from more recent time. Behind Le Mépris was one Reiko Matane, a Japanese woman who looked like coming out of Godard film and playing the piano. Apparently back then she was ”minor media hype". Now she is back, although the text suggests it's not the same person ("Le Mépris might be rather a means for creating music than a real person"), hence, perhaps, Le Mépris/Le Mépris’. The difference between musical approaches could indeed indicate that we are dealing with two different persons here, but seeing the lapse of time, you could also think these are indeed two different artists. Or, the third option, which is that the two long pieces on the second side are, remixes of the first side? The four pieces from all those years ago see Le Mépris playing the piano along with a bunch of sound effects, which mildly distort the music at times, or which add a more shimmering effect to the music. Think of it as a sense of decay, such as in 'Nakano'. It is music on the edge of modern classical and glitch, not unlike that of the more well-known pianists from that scene; intimate and yet also a bit strange. Quite lovely. The long pieces on the other side perhaps also sound a bit dated, not 'now', I'd say but time stretched sounds is, of course, the oldest laptop trick in the book. I could think they are played inside space and picked up from there, which adds fine warmth to music. It is all not a really big surprise but very well made; old or otherwise. (FdW) ––– Address: https://otomatikmuziek.bandcamp.com/ LATHER - BEYOND FADED/MORNING TINNITUS (cassette by Bob Heavens) LATHER & DREKKA - LIVE: CONCENTRATION CLUB (cassette by Bob Heavens) LATHER SOMMER DUO & OPEN SEX - A TRIBUTE TO TONY CONRAD (cassette by Bob Heavens) These three new tapes by Ben Myers/Lather on his Bob Heavens label (the label’s logo and name are puns on a terrible diner chain in the American south called Bob Evans) showcase three different facets of an energetic and exciting artist. On his own, Lather’s “Beyond Faded/ Morning Tinnitus” combines TNB-lineage junk rattling around in a dryer with Myers’ aggressively stage-whispered vocals (imagine Etant Donnes without the pretentiousness or incest) and bedrock of bedroom-acoustic non-fidelity. I love it. This isn’t a noise assault by any means; there’s a tinge of nostalgic melancholy to Myers’ warped-tape ambience. The occasional thwack of some plastic object being moved from one place to other, the 60-cycle-hum and omnipresent hiss are artefacts of the process; they all add to the visceral beauty of this music. The cassette version ends after two tracks, one on each side. The digital version appends a short bonus track called “Fuckin’ Up”, which sounds like an nth-generation cassette dub of the end of a rock song, slowed down and played through a small guitar practice amp. Neat on its own, but it’s a jarring and unnecessary coda for an album that already came to a satisfying finish. Myers’ split cassette with Drekka (aka Michael Anderson) was recorded live at Concentration Club in Indiana, where both artists reside. Again, it’s a success. Lather’s side is more conventional “drone”, but the cassette-tape whines and the telltale acoustics of tapes being played out of small speakers give the steady-bed-of-hum a pleasing gloss of instability. My favourite section of this tape, indeed my favourite section of all three of these tapes, comes about 3 minutes into Drekka’s side. It’s remarkable how tailor-made to me, specifically me, this glorious section is. Anderson gets a lovely, lilting drone happening… low-key, not insistent, just a floating ommm that seems to emanate from small speakers in an empty room… and then, just once you get comfortable, he lets the thing crash to the ground in the greatest way possible: a flurry of warbling cassette goo. And he only subtracts from there! It’s so good. Anderson creates the expectation of new-New-Age ambience, and then confidently yanks the foundation away. Not only are we treated to one of my very favourite sounds, that of fingers leaning onto the ‘play’ gears of a cassette machine, but Anderson leaves in the haphazard non-amplified plastic click/fumble of his manoeuvring tapes and objects around on his table. That clatter punctuated as it by woozy ’bloooop!’ and ‘wwwhooooo’, bravely fails to fill the cavernous space with intermittent glorps. Does it build up from there? Hardly! It builds DOWN! Minutes pass with the sound of mystery acoustics barely filling the void. Fantastic! The final split tape is pretty close to rock n’roll… or perhaps just roll. Both Lather Sommer Duo and Open Sex made mantric, motorik metal as a tribute to the late Tony Conrad. Maybe the Conrad inspiration is audible in how meditative/repetitive both sides are, minimal in composition (though not as severe as what Orthrelm or Sleep has done, as far as minimal metal is concerned) if not content. Lather Sommer Duo is Myers with a drummer, and they blast off in a psychedelic stoner-metal mode with wah-wahs blazing. As they crunch a single chord and pound circles around a pretty-much unchanging beat, I’m reminded of Munehiro Narita fronting 5ive. The guitar spins variations of the same riff over and over, building up layers of fuzz and soaring feedback that eventually gives way to echoing tape loops. On the other side, Open Sex play a more recognizable psych-rock jam, but the same general idea remains: a few elements repeated for the duration, starting with acoustic guitar and gradually adding more instruments. For me, it doesn’t work as well as Lather Sommer Duo’s contribution. While LSD’s side (oh wait, now I get it! Ho ho) has undeniable forward momentum and heft, Open Sex’s side is relatively deflated and unconvincing. (HS) ––– Address: https://lather.bandcamp.com/ EDWARD SOL - STRAYED FROM THE HERD (cassette by Village Tapes) EDWARD SOL - BEFORE BLOOD (cassette by Quasi Pop) THE DEAD MAURIACS - SOUPIRS MAGNÉTIQUES, BONS BAISERS DES EMEUTES (cassette by Sentimental Productions) Here we have two new releases by Edward Sol, on two different labels, but both are enterprises run by Sol. About Village Tapes, it says on Discogs: "Non-ambitious private label for contemporary avant-garde music and art. Based at the village bear Kyiv, Ukraine and run by sound artist Edward Sol", whereas Quasipop "is an independent label with a focus on releasing physical media: vinyl, cassettes and CDs. No digital sales at all. Label's repertoire includes a wide range of experimental non-commercial music: from musique concrete, electro-acoustic, tape collages and contemporary music to free jazz, improvisation, noise, industrial, ambient and even lo-fi pop". Let's see how Sol works out where to put his music when it comes to releasing it. 'Strayed From The Herd' is a limited edition of twenty-three copies and has one piece on each side. As before in his work Sol uses quite a bit of electronics, tape-loops, radio waves and lo-fi sounds, derived from the sampled mechanics of broken toys, picked up with contact microphones and with these elements he creates dense collages of sound. These two are a bit darker and alien than some of his other work but it fits what I heard of the man so far, with 'Four Men With No Names' being all dark ambient and 'Scent Of A Black Dog' ending a ride of various rhythms (drum machine most likely). This is pleasantly creepy music. 'Before Blood' promises two tracks per side and if there is a difference than I would think it is in the fact that besides the loops from old reels and new cassettes, the synthesizer plays a bigger role here. Washes of sound, oscillations and bubbles are blown over the loops of concrete sound; tracks seem to fade over into the next, so it more or less sounds like one piece per side, which is fine actually. Stylistically these two tapes don't differ that much; it is more within the execution of the music, the way Sol chooses various instruments and sounds that make up minor differences. Both of these releases were great and I didn't prefer one to the other. In Sol's 'business' imperium there is also the label Sentimental Productions, which is announced as "Ukrainian independent label for finest electroacoustic and vibrant experimental music. Established in 2015. State-of-the-art concepts in music and packaging. Small art editions." There are art editions and regular editions. I got the latter from a release he did of the French duo The Dead Mauriacs, of whom I hadn't heard anything new in quite some time; I believe the last was 'Un Cabinet De Curiosites', back in Vital Weekly 995. No longer individual band members are named on the cover, only the instruments and sound sources; field recordings, electro-static recordings, larsen, electricity, glass tube, plastic tube, piano, real and fake computer. Of course, the latter calls upon my imagination. In the past, I compared the music of The Dead Mauriacs with that of Andrew Liles and Nurse With Wound, somewhere along the lines of music concrete and radio drama. To some extent, the eight pieces on this new tape are less of both, really. It seems to play with electronic sounds, effects and loops and the musique concrete aspect is less about small cut-up collage-like sounds and now makes grander gestures of drones, extensive use of reverb on field recordings and it becomes more a 'song', with stuff being carefully placed with a compositional frame and keeping things within a relatively short frame of time. It sees an interesting development for The Dead Mauriacs, taking the elements of their music we already know into some new territory. A bit more darker ambient and perhaps a little musique concrete, but their roots have not been forgotten. Great tape! (FdW) ––– Address: https://www.facebook.com/villagetapes/ ––– Address: https://www.facebook.com/quasipop/ ––– Address: https://www.facebook.com/sentimentalproduction DEL STEPHEN - INTERDEPENDENCE MAP (cassette by Vacancy Recs.) DIRTY CLOTHES TOUR TAPE (cassette by Dirty Tour Records) Two tapes from two different labels from Ontario and what connects them is the person of Del Stephen, also known as Stephen Del Duca. He has here a solo release and he's part of the other tape. I reviewed his solo releases before (Vital Weekly 1018 and 1097), both on the 'recycled' label of Vacancy Recs. Unlike the previous release, it seems that he recorded all of this the artist and it's again something different. His previous release had a jazzy nightclub feeling to it, and the one before was quite ambient in a sort of Oval way. Here he has seven pieces of gentle electronics, played on a keyboard, minimally changing but throughout with a very pleasant tone. Stephen adds a voice (of Julian Anderson) in 'My Hand Is A Map' of reciting poetry, or field recordings in 'Flashes Of Sun'. It is all about the keyboards and what he does there I quite enjoy. It reminds me of traditional minimal music, played on a single keyboard but in a rather jumpy and melodic manner, which is most pleasant to hear. Maybe it is all very tacky music, I am not sure, really, but it is the addition of field recordings that really makes it different. If these were just the keyboard(s) and nothing much else I could easily be thinking it was sort of new age pastiche but now, even when the field recordings have a slightly arbitrary feel to it, it adds some excellent vibrancy to it. Sounds picked up on a holiday in the sun make up a sometimes-joyous feeling, such as in 'Memory Island'. This is a remarkably pleasant release, a ray of sun on a winter's day. Something entirely different is on offer with the other tape, of two Toronto-based artists (Del Stephen and Jeffrey Sinibaldi) going on tour with two from Kingston (David Parker and Bree Rappaport). Del, Sinibaldi and Parker toured before and a recording is found on the first side of their tour tape (all hand made and hand written cover), while the other side has a Del/Sinibaldi piece and one by Dance Flower, the name used by Rappaport and Parker). On the trio, they use a contrabass, cymbal/sampler and keyboards and the recording was made at CFRC radio. This is quite a lovely piece of solemn bass tones and a moody piano chord with the cymbal is an odd role of playing weirdest noises and bowings. There is a bit of electronic processing going and that adds further to the strangeness of the piece. As it progresses all instruments become more expansive in their weirdness. Del and Sinibaldi together deliver a fine mellow duet of synthesizer and guitar motifs in a nicely direct piece of music, recorded in a small space. It is not unlike Del Stephen's own release but with the addition of guitar. Parker and Rappaport use clarinet, guitar, percussion and interviews captured on tape on what is surely the most experimental compositions here; the instruments are explored in a rather improvised manner with speech being garbled all around it. It's a solid piece for sure, but not my favourite on these two releases. (FdW) ––– Address: https://vacancyniagara.bandcamp.com ––– Address: https://dirtyclothesrecords.bandcamp.com/ COSTIS DRYGIANAKIS - CHAINED TO THE WORLD (cassette by Falt) So far, most releases I heard on the French Falt label seemed to be about the debris of the sonic world. Damaged cassettes, half-decaying radio signals and some kind lo-fi electronics, but with this release by Costis Drygianakis, things are a bit different. We know him for his more or less group-oriented works in which the studio plays a big role, taking sounds apart and put together again. This is no different here with various people contributing instruments (Mado Anastasiou, violin; Christos Kaltis, bass; Fanis Panagiotopoulos, sax; Agapi Zarda, trumpet; Monday’s Drop(s), e-bow drawer) and a bunch of voice recordings culled from "online sources, old vinyl and radio programs". This has very little to do with the usual lo-fi constructions but it is rather expansive piece music with occasional orchestral proportions, interspersed with electronic outbursts and a multitude of voices. Sometimes there seems to be a rather random approach to the use of well... all of it, instruments and voices, distributed over a vast amount of tracks and in ever-changing combinations with each other, coming to the listener through various routes of sound effects. It can take a long form, or very short ones, cut up to small bits, expanding to massive sound bursts and chaotic collaging. And perhaps in a sense that is also very much the world of Falt; it is a collage, after all, like we know and love them from this label, but now one that is quite a bit different. (FdW) ––– Address: https://falt.bandcamp.com/ MEGLAMANCHA - SILICA (cassette by Staertenbard Records) In a somewhat nerdy and not often published quirk I do spell covers for interesting bits of information and recently I noted on various covers by Machinefabriek, Dead Neanderthals and O Saala Sakraal the name of one Marlon Wolterink, who did the mastering for these people in his White Noise studios in the unlikely surroundings of Dutch city Winterswijk. I checked his website and it's a proper studio indeed, for rock bands to record their music, but also Wolterink likes his extreme sound jobs and out of the blue he announced that he'd mailing a new release, which includes him on drums and Freek Philippi on guitar and synthesizer. I had no idea what to expect and I am pleasantly surprised. 'Silica' is one, long piece of forty-two minutes (same piece on both sides). It is a slow and dark piece. It opens with slow pounding drums (though without too much reverb, so that's good), on top of which the guitar plays repeating motifs. Slowly cymbals are added and then all of a sudden a synth has appeared in the background. These elements start to make the difference in the piece, with the synth and cymbals changing quicker than the drums and guitar. In a way, one could say this is from the world of heavy metal, but then rather polished and polite. It's not built on the world of massive distortion or feedback, but on more or less mathematical principles. Well, at least that's what I think since counting is not my strong point. I wouldn't be surprised to learn there is some kind of score behind all of this, which they carefully execute but also leave some room for open-ended playing. Over the course of these forty-two minutes there lots of small changes, even when the 'beat'/bang' go on, with one point the cymbals making a lot of changes and the synthesizer running wild. It is what makes up quite a hallucinating piece of minimalist drone rock. The last five minutes are reserved for a meltdown of it all and feel like disappearing into a void. I understand this is different from their previous work, and I must admit I am quite curious as to what their previous work sounds like. There is something to do on a winter's evening! If you are a fan of Dead Neanderthals, then this is certainly something to explore. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.meglamancha.com/ |