THE FOUNDRY – MOTE (CD by Foundry)
TELETRAVAIL (CD compilation by Adenoide)
THIS IS REGIO TWENTE (CD compilation by PlanetArt)
RAFAEL TORAL – LULLABIES (7″ on Meeuw Muzak)
IF.THEN.ELSE – REALIZATIONS (CD by Emanate)
LILIENTHAL – CASTOR & POLLUX (CD by Emanate)
ALP – AT HOME WITH ALP (CD by Soleilmoon)
GARTEN DER VERSCHLUNGENEN PFADE – JAHR 01 (CD compilation)
BAD KHARMA – KARISMA (3 CD-R – set by Bonbonrecords)
AKIRA YAMAMICHI – PULSE BEATS (3″ CD on Fire Inc.)
HOWARD STELZER – INSTANT NOSTALGIA (CD-R on Bake Records)
THE FOUNDRY – MOTE (CD by Foundry)
Sort of home release fo this band. With the help of eM, another Foundry band, this CD is created and ‘nice’ is the most apt word to describe what is going on. There are stacks of digital keyboards that create atmospheres that are ‘nice’, i.e. put you in a relaxing mood. They use besides a violin (that in that particular piece sounds like a saxophone. Among the thirteen tracks there is no particular stand out piece as the whole things floats by like weigthless space. ‘Nice’ but not more then that. (FdW)
Address: <mote@foundrysite.com>
TELETRAVAIL (CD compilation by Adenoide)
Maybe I was a bit careless, but the information part on this CD is not very high, but then I again maybe I threw away the information sheets. Mostly unknown bands – from the 13 musicians and bands involved, I only recognized the name Ultra Milkmaids – from, I guess, France. The overall tone in these tracks is, too put it mildly and widely, experimental aswell as techno inspired. But both terms should be loosely understood: a group as Group Gris uses a slow rhythm that is like a slowed down techno thing, but is definetly inspired by that. Others go beyond, and dive deeper in the world of electronica. Osaka Bondage uses shortwaves to create drones. At times some of the music is a bit industrial noise, but it never reaches the full blast. Some of this is microwave like, i.e. not techno, not ambient, not industrial, but with trademarks of all this all over. Christian Bouyjou, Cedric Pigot and Ultra Milkmaids and The Vincent’s Price are good examples of this. All in all this is a good compilation of young talent from France. (FdW)
Address: <adenoide@multimania.com>
THIS IS REGIO TWENTE (CD compilation by PlanetArt)
Another compilation with techno and art. If I understand correctly, a bunch of musicians were invited to create ‘noise’ together and each got a FM radio frequency at use to transmit their music. How that sounded is captured in two tracks, lasting 5 minutes: total chaos of noise, techno and people talking. The rest of the tracks, ten in total, are pieces made for this event. There are better bits of techno then in the live capture, there are bits of weirdness, rock music, radioplay like self-indulgence. Very much like flipping through an art magazine that deals with reality. Artistic interpretations of what could be ambient, techno or rock. Involved are Gerald van der Kaap, Sasker Scheerder, Bjjorn & Bas, Jurk and Willem Heerbaart – these names will not ring my bells (except maybe Van Der Kaap who is quite known for his multi-media installations). The CD is overall o.k., but probably made more sense if you were a witness of the event itself. (FdW)
Address: <planetart@wxs.nl>
RAFAEL TORAL – LULLABIES (7″ on Meeuw Muzak)
Rafael Toral was born in Lisbon in 1967 and has been performing since 1984. His predominant interest is the exploration of the guitar as a sound generator and the unpredictable creative power of randomized musical systems, which necessarily includes improvisation with other instrumentalists. Major influences are John Cage, who taught us that death = silence, Alvin Lucier who taught us that room = resonance, and Brian Eno who laid the conceptual foundations for (and coined the term) ambient music, expanding on an idea originally suggested by Satie. Early in his life, Toral fell under the spell of musical systems wherein the music generated itself after a few simple rules were set, allowing the composer to become a member of the audience and enjoy the unforeseen results along with everyone else. He also considers Sonic Youth as liberators of the guitar, who unlike the unreachable genius Hendrix, introduced a democratic approach to the instrument with their broadband noise, opening many different doors to Guitarworld.
Toral’s music was introduced to a wider audience (read: The States, then by trickledown to Europe) by Phil Niblock and Sonic Youth. He works with a guitar, an e-bow, delays, feedback, equalisation and frequency filters and resonators to create huge, harmonic drones that, yep you guessed it, define, and are defined by, the space they sound in. Apart from performing frequently with his countrymen, he has improvised on stage with the likes of O’Rourke, Zorn and Chatham in a variety of instrumental duels that aptly demonstrate his complete familiarity with his axe. There are some, however who consider his studio work the most convincing. Slow digestion produces less hot air. Toral’s composition “Wave Field”, which he considers the result of ten years’ of work with the guitar, was initially only available as a tiny edition on a local label, until it was reissued in America on Little Jimmy Orourke’s label Dexter’s Cigar in 1998, to critical acclaim. Surprisingly, some reviewers were quick to laud Toral’s idea that the record has ‘twofaces’, a word which is meant to imply that the music can be listened to very loud or very soft. Those with ears know that this is nothing new, and indeed is a characteristic of so much drone music that is produced. The innovative Dutch label, Meeuw Muzak, responsible for a rather unusual catalogue of limited 7″ emissions (e.g. Felix Kubin, Atsushi Tominaga, Mark Poysden), and who will also be releasing a CD of versions of the John Cage composition 4’33” in cooperation with Staalplaat in the not too distant future, commissioned this music from Rafael Toral, which I think convincingly displays many of the qualities of sound he seeks to reveal and express.
There are three tracks; two on 1 and one on 2 (which ends in a sweet locked groove, so you can listen to it all night). The first track, which sounds like an eccentric, gritty music box, emphasizes resonance. The plucked notes peal like small bells in a stone shell, and it ends with as a big a chord as a music box might manage. Then there’s a gentle piece highly reminiscent of Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists (on Valium). Small pings fall in random clusters like a gentle shower of metallic dust. The second side contains another exploration of reverberant space, warm and comforting with soft curling notes – a bit like David Cunningham’s ‘ext.night’ (Piano Records, 1997), without the continuous blur produced by endless sustain. A sublime and quietly radiant triptych of brief moments in audibility.
This release is also limited to about 300 copies. (MP)
Address: <laridae@xs4all.nl>
IF.THEN.ELSE – REALIZATIONS (CD by Emanate)
LILIENTHAL – CASTOR & POLLUX (CD by Emanate)
It must have been a while ago, but I do remember raving against the term ‘intellectual gabber’. Intellegent Dance Music, short IDM, seems to have a growing interest in the US of A. I will not go into the sam raving again, but the good thing is that most these people don’t use the term either. Among the many rising label in this field, we find Emanate Records. Their catalogue is small, three releases so far, and we received the last two (only?). Both releases have striking similarities, we humbly wether it’s just the same people working under different names – it does happen a lot y’ know. Who, what and how are the avoided questions here.
If.Then.Else is the musical outing of one Deno Vicha, also the entrepeneur behind Emanate Records. His nine tracks are long, but never boring. Every development in each and every one of his tracks is a logical one. Crunchy and clicking beats with deep bass lines (Deno was a bassplayer before) and lush synth lines. Despite all the rhythm stuff going on, quite a relaxed listen. There is a definite UK sound going on. Think Autechre, think Bola, think that whole thing, and you’re there with a very nice US counterpart.
The differences with Lilienthal (not to be confused with the band in which Asmus Tietchens was a member 25 years ago) are small, but notable. There a distinctively more beats to be found here and the keyboards are less soft and mellow. This one is more ‘floor’ oriented – although I usually wonder if this really will fill floors around. In general the Lilienthal tracks are a bit shorter, without being too short to get a life of their own. Again this too is influenced by the whole Skam/Manchester scene, but Lilienthal presents enough of their own to make this a worthwhile CD of it’s own. And me? I am being to get curious to the other releases from this label! (FdW)
Address: www.syncopated.net/emanate
ALP – AT HOME WITH ALP (CD by Soleilmoon)
“You have new mail” – your computer flickers and buzzes. Before you read it, you go to the fridge, get a frozen snack, put it in the microwave to defrost it. Everything in your life makes a sound. Not many will notice it, but it’s there. Always. It doesn’t take great effort to hear the sounds around you. Behind ALP we find Roger Horberry, one of O Yuki Conjugate’s founding fathers, and he simply attached contact microphones against common household appliances, such as his computer, fax, microwave, a pan of boiling water or a xerox machine. A very simple idea, but very well executed by Horberry. Do not expect some sort of O Yuki Conjugate – or any of their other many off-shoots – worldy ethno/techno ambience. It’s much more darker, maybe even noisier (even though that is not the most appropiate term here), but certainly more denser then the other conjugates. This is ambient music for those who dare to listen to something new, odd and thoroughly different.. Brian Eno can be proud. (FdW)
Address: www.soleilmoon.com
GARTEN DER VERSCHLUNGENEN PFADE – JAHR 01 (CD compilation)
Every month there is an interesting experiment going in Berlin, maybe you saw the little announcements in these pages before. The Garden with hidden paths might be most adequate translation. Kein Babel, a kind of DJ collective, invites interested parties to come play in a kind of living room, which is transformed into a kind of laboratorium. Now that the first year has passed, the initiators (who are accidentely also the publishers of the German language magazine Artefakt, of which issue 6 was just published), they wet through their minidiscs of recordings and compiled a nice CD with audio souvenirs. Among them we find many German/Berlin groups like Column One, Sniper, Sudden Infant (he moved…), Marc Wannabe, Miwon but also passing friends, like Nomex or Das Synthetische Mischgewebe. Like a laboratory, the experiment is the most important thing. This can be from downright noise of Nomex to experiments with rhythm and drums of Column One to musique concrete alike experiments with scraping sounds of the metal (most of the others). All in all an entertaining CD. (FdW)
Address: <fro-zen@mail.blinx.de>
BAD KHARMA – KARISMA (3 CD-R – set by Bonbonrecords)
This CD-set comes in a limited edition of 100 copies and might be difficult to get a hold of. Packed in a minimal grey & black paper cover, these CD’s are actually quite different. The first one, called ‘Kali’ presents 9 tracks of sheer noise, much like Merzbow & followers. Now of course it’s very easy to compare any noise with Merzbow, but in this case it holds quite true I think. The tracks are powerful, not too long and give your stereo a pretty hard time. I wouldn’t go as far as to state that this is a Merzbow rip-off, because the music does have it’s own character and that’s why I like this disc. But hold on, it gets better with ‘Klone’, the second CD: 6 tracks with a drony, but piercing character and sudden cuts. Sometimes with increasing noisy sounds and distortion, but never as much as on the first one, this disc builds up tension in a more sneaky and surprising way. Some excellent nasty sounds disturb the texture of most of the pieces and that gives them another layer. This music stands somewhere between noise and drone/ambient, but with strong compositional elements. Good work. The third CD is called ‘Kundalini’ and has 6 tracks again and, judging by the first track, is probably the weirdest of the lot. Yes, I think so. Noise is alternated with wacky songs and strange sounds to create quite fierce collages with a relentless energy. Parts of (stupid) music are fucked up, blasts of totally distorted noise hit the eardrums, thundering drones invade the personal space, bleeping and crackling build up to silences. It’s all here. Yes, this is pretty good stuff for noise lovers (and even for those that are not noise lovers per se).(MR)
Adress: http://bonbonreords.cjb.net
AKIRA YAMAMICHI – PULSE BEATS (3″ CD on Fire Inc.)
The title of this small one is absolutely appropriate: each one of the three tracks is made exclusively with pulses. Pulses that shift, swirl, pan, layer, reverb and alternate. Most of it is in the high frequency ranges, sometimes accompanied by a deep pulse or some hiss. It has a kind of swing, but is not really dancefloor compatible. Yep, this is ‘microwave’ in its purest sense. It sounds good and is well done. If I sound slightly disinterested here, it’s because I feel that there is a little too much of this stuff around lately. Don’t blame it on the music. (MR)
Adress: http://www.fire-inc.demon.nl
HOWARD STELZER – INSTANT NOSTALGIA (CD-R on Bake Records)
The back of this CD-R explains a little about the music and serves at the same time as sort of an apology for it. Which I think is not really necessary (the apology I mean). A lot of people contributed in one way or another to the making of this disc. Three tracks here, of which the first one is surprisingly short: three and a half minutes of environmental recordings (or things similar), fucked up by distortion. Very old fashioned and lo-fi. Cool. The second track is almost forty minutes long and starts off with tape manipulations creating a layered noisy texture that is sometimes cut up and interrupted, which makes it possible to hear the constant hum in the recording. (The cover shows a broken cassette, so that’s not very surprising). Around eight minutes into the piece the noise makes way for different sounds: rumbling and bits of fucked up music flash through the ether. This part is a little quieter, but is followed by harsher cut ups again. This sequence of events keeps repeating itself throughout the rest of the piece (but not necessarily in the same order). The last track actually starts off with someone playing (or should I say torturing) a guitar and someone else beating around on a drum kit. But the recording is of such an appalling quality, that one can easily consider it as an environmetal recording, not unlike the ones made by Eric Lunde for example. The audience (if there is any) plays at least as big a part in this piece as the ‘band’.
Fifteen minutes of noisy chaos to top off this very very lo-fi disc. The title is very adequate: with a certain glee I remembered the days when almost everything sounded like this. (MR)
Adress: http://www.staalplaat.com
Ooops:
There was a small error in the last issue of Vital Weekly concerning the Aalborg Noise Jihad review.
The street number of the address is 10 and not 19.
Ordering + info can also be requested at aarrgh@hotmail.com or kfi@image.dk