ALESSANDRO RAINA – Colonia Paradi’es – (CD by Cane Andaluso)
FULL METAL KLEZMER – SAME – (CD by Cane Andaluso)
MM (Compilation CD by World Serpent Distribution)
KID KOALA – CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME (CD by Ninja Tune)
VICTORIA JORDANOVA – REQUIEM FOR BOSNIA (CD by Composers Recordings Inc.)
EXTREME MUSIC FROM WOMEN (CD compilation by Susan Lawly)
KOJI ASANO – PREPARING FOR APRIL (CD by Solstice)
AUBE – BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER (CD by Ytterbium)
KOJI ASANO – PREPARING FOR APRIL (CD by Solstice)
GIACOMO SPAZIO VS. OUTOFFBODYEXPERIENCE – M4SC (Book & CD-R)
JAVIER HERNANDO – LUZ NACARINA
ALAIN WERFIGOSSE – DEEP GRAY ORGANICS
ESPLENDOR GEOMETRICO – LIVE IN UTRECHT
(all CD’s by Geometrik)
“I SAW IT ALL HAPPEN FROM BEGINNING TO END AND I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I
SAW” – LIFE EVERLASTING, AMEN (CD by Firework Edition Records)
SATOR ROTAS (CD by A-Musik)
DAT POLITICS – VILLIGER (CD by A-Musik)
SMOOTH QUALITY EXCREMENT – BIRD AND TRUCK COLLISION (CD by Influx)
HECKER – [R*]ISO|CHALL (CD by Mego)
PAN SONIC & CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE – MORT AUX VACHES (CD by Staalplaat)
ALESSANDRO RAINA – Colonia Paradi’es – (CD by Cane Andaluso)
FULL METAL KLEZMER – SAME – (CD by Cane Andaluso)
A label from Milan, Italy. Well, label might not be the right term. Both
cds come with very nice hardpaper booklets, so it might be more just to
speak of little booklets with a cd as an extra. Anyway these booklets
impressed me more then the music did. Especially in the case of Full Metal
Klezmer we have a beautiful catalogue of photographs in our hands. All
photos show normal household objects, one of which is free floating in the
air. The photos are made by Alessandra Spranzi. I could not discover a link
between these photos and the band presented on the cd. I don’t know what
you expect when hearing the name Full Metal Klezmer, but certainly not the
jazzmusic that can be heard on this cd. Only in one track eastern
Europe-klezmer influences are obvious. For the rest we hear a very capable
but not very original jazzquartet consisting of guitarist Fabio Basile,
alto sax player Roberto Lanciai, Drummer Zeno de Rossi and Teo Ederle on
elastic bass. It is a band you can find in every city. Lyrical and
sophisticated playing with occasional outburts. It’s certainly not boring
fusionmusic. It’s more like a Knitting Factory sort of jazz music.
The solo cd by Allesandro Raina is of a different kind. With guitar, tapes,
etc. he paints 12 short pieces of music. They sound as an echo coming from
a long time ago. Distorted sounds, noises, unprofessional playing and
recording make it sound as if it comes the past. Dreamy and nostalgic
music. Sometimes reminding of the early work of Franco Battiato and
Giovanni Sturmann. The booklet contains old photos coming from an family
album. Music and photos together may bring you in a melancholic mood.
Especially after the last track ‘Generazione Electica’ a great blues tune,
you surely are ‘in the mood’ (DM).
Address: airstudio@tiscalinet.it
MM (Compilation CD by World Serpent Distribution)
Algiz speeds through a welter of French – and how deep are the roots of the
concept of time in folk music? Flute, guitar; sudden swelter of bongos.
The music moves swiftly – to what end? I mean that literally. Backworld
effuse through violins about “The Devil’s Plaything.” Are folk music and
semiotexte two tribes never destined to meet? Are there inroads in folk
music, yet to be explored? Or, are those inroads in ruins? Der Blutharsch
rain drums and tubular bells upon the earth that excoriates titles. Bryin
Dall states that he is so lonely he could cry, stretching out the fingers
of this mood through guitar and strings. Cyclobe curve through the strings
and drums bursting into a ringing of telephone and scuttled voices cutting
through the first five minutes after sleep. Darkwood intone over guitars
(whither goeth the number of strings?) and German, as if something is
indeed waiting in that dark wood – waiting from behind.
Dawn & Dusk Entwined unfurl voices and melding tones and those voices build
– point, counterpoint? Is there a chance to build something over hours and
months and years – is this the legacy of folk music: the gradual build?
Leutha take their focus – “Wind” – and breathe through it, into it, around
it – or do they mean “Wind”? There is no small amount of crossings and
movement in the sounds – bellsbecome air and air moves through cylindres.
It trembles into the final seconds, vanishing as nature becomes time.
Nobody’s voice rings clear as the bells that succeed it – fractured
blossoms of feedback warble from the sound-sources – and it is not for
nothing that the concept of “longing” is the capstone to the arch of folk
music. Novy Svet rend the proceedings with rude organ and la la lowing –
playing while this Rome burns, like one of the twelve Caesars – “La Aroma
Lola”? ? A hey hey, a hey hey.
Ozymandias. Look for the coming inter view in which it is revealed that
his favourite poem is not, in fact, “Ozymandias”. Piano emerges, and
slyphs out as gently as it had come. Pantaleimon study the strings of
their guitar as through a pastoral life, as though a pastoral life. There
is a sound behind them that suggests someplace in the country where someone
let fall an arrow. The string section bows for an extended period of time.
Much unexpectation. Regard Extreme bring drums and synthetics to trump
l’oeil for the joy of the princess. And so it goes. Skald offer their
respect to days gone by, with plucking and bowing, plucking and bowing. It
is surprising how many of these sounds are intensely visual, telling
stories left and right and down again. …The Soil Bleeds Black feature
flute and big bass drum. Would the compact disc format doom the musicians
herein to a drowning or a burning at the stake were they transported back
to a simpler time? Tor Lundvall, in “My Weakness”, calls from a fog – a
veil of bells and wails, a mist of sounds not missed; of vice and ether/or
– regret? Nostalghia? (DC)
Address: <mailorder@worldserpent.demon.co.uk>
KID KOALA – CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME (CD by Ninja Tune)
Rhythmic music with much instrumentation aside from the tupperwared breaks
that could be construed as “fresh.” Many samples from 1980s ephemera – and
it is a strange situation when a culture which was embraced by “nerds” is
inculcated into these dopey beats. “Don’t steal” – or, so says the cover,
which = much yuks. No reservice on stolen/mysteriously missing copies.
Right.
The children of Mao and Coca-Cola? Boris Karloff. Robert Carradine. Pac
Man (or Pook Man, Puck Man and his endlessly orphaned cousins). Boy that
scratching’ is makin’ me itch. Sorry, that wasn’t part of the re view.
Much scratching. The dating ritual. And let there be no confusion – this
is a highly enjoyable record with which the more erudite amongst the record
collectors gathered here tonight shall impress one and all with their
highly-developed acumen. Joan Rivers.
Cheech y Chong.
One thing that impresses is the sense of Mr. Koala’s notion that his job is
ridiculed – but not ridiculous. How often is that line of reasoning
crossed, balanced and fallen over? (DC)
Address: <ninjah@generation.net>
VICTORIA JORDANOVA – REQUIEM FOR BOSNIA (CD by Composers Recordings Inc.)
The sounds weave forth like the vibrating of a mirror – and there is the
sense of a looming something, as from behind and in back and circling
again. Is it memory? Is it as realistic as a gun loading, the desired
effects and the empathetic response. And this is where the literalist
credo winnows its way in – no place is better-suited for reverb than a
requiem. These feelings, these pains and sorrows – reverberate through a
murder, then to a composer and follow-flow out through sounds and music,
travelling through, and onward… The voices of a child hide behind the
strains of a broken piano – as though exploring it, for the first time. A
toy piano? A toy robot? It is unclear. And is a broken piano truly
“broken” to a child, someone who doesn’t know any “better”?
Four preludes for harp follow. And yet there is a childlike quality to the
way those stings are played – as if she herself is learning as the piece is
written. Strings smooth tentatively, slightly uncertain – then bolt in a
jet of finesse just when expectations lull. The strings themselves seem to
ruminate and concentrate – deep inthought? Morphogenetic field redux with
composer and daydream? A wind shivers the strings, in such a way that the
spinning of the disc and its own laser wind beckon behind it. And silence
is not golden – it’s a silvery pasture…
Once upon a time – is the harp particularly suited to conjure up such
notions as “reminiscence” and “nostalghia”? How justly does it strike a
chord? (DC)
Address: <info-order@composersrecordings.com>
EXTREME MUSIC FROM WOMEN (CD compilation by Susan Lawly)
The way to defuse a loaded situation is to see that it is not loaded – just
filled with a different substance.
Rosemary Malign creates a vibrating reflection in amber that will last and
melt and be distilled. There is something writhing inside it that was
outside all along but as in most amber, the light plays tricks so that
there are twelve ways to pronounce the suffix “-ough”. Lisa and Naomi
Tocatly move through their sounds in such a way that the old clawfisted
bathtub is scraped of older baths and the resultingcleanliness is viewed as
through a diamond. Dolores Dewberry speaks a paragraph 64 as the twitters
of Kurt Schwitters range their ways through the calm and
multilayeredmeanings of the past that inevitably emerge from the numbering
of a paragraph. Candi Nook hafts her sounds through a television set and
speaks to the broadcast, several of them, several million of them. All
twisting and curling and hafting themselves, muchas the sounds are
imprinted into a subconscious and this is why one fails to recall the name
of the bully from fourth form but why another remembers that Steven
Stapleton played live with Whitehouse at one time.
Annabel Lee brings forth the wolves from another place, which could be
grounds for grievous slander if revealed. Mira Calix pulses several voices
and windings and balls them into a piece that creeps out as velvetly as it
rolled in. Clara Clamp’s answering maschine moves from one speaker to the
next, and is revelation ever properly recorded? Are there things left
unsaid that lie coiled in the hiss of cassette tape, no matter how small?
And, ultimately, recording devices fail to catalogue those nuances, in the
way that is vital and living in the face-to-face confrontation and taste.
Debra Petrovitch narrates in dislocation – and how long does rationale go
through surreality and freeforming until a beat, a cadence, a pattern is
imposed on the action? Where is the portion of the brain that imposes
order on chaos? And this, even in the apparent face of entropy…two lines
of the = sign are equal until you look closer to see that one is longer,
one is shorter – yet both remain straight lines, utterly, for an instant.
Karen Thomas kicks ticks and pops from the speakers as the deepened glare
of a rotating pail crumbles through the air, it is so difficult to figure
out from whence comes the sound, and deeper still the mystery of the words
because how often will I actually speak with this person? Beth Cannery
wishes luck with a capital “F” as the treble clef is rent and at least two
distinct tones rise their heads, biting towards the pineal glad and the
words are clearer, grabbing those tones by their necks and then.
Gaya Donadio storms out the thunder – and it oscillates across the space of
a room. If the memory of a piece of music resonates, can we say that it
gives a space (cf. of a room) resonance itself? What roles do sound and
memory and space play within each other? Maria Moran and the prurient
interest – does a conversation immersed in heavy sound make one actually
listen more intently? The clouds clear at times, go live in another
speaker at others. Fraulein Tost paints a panic as perhaps Rupert writes a
rainbow – vastening washes of flange across the canvas that is 2:07, 2:06,
2:05 and onward. Measured. Finite. If one paints with sound, is time the
canvas? Wendy van Dusen speaks of dog, saturating and calculating. Much
echo, and is this how the dog hears commands, again and again? Is this how
the dog tries to speak, barking, again and again? Cat Hope’s sounds
vacillate in time, and something is broken, many times. It is reminiscent
of the aural Rorschach test given to inmates in the asylum – repeating
words until they become sheer sound, and Neil Hill, we still miss you.
Diane Nelson mounts and subsequently dissects an insect. Wings beat and
voices inject outwards through the pins impaling them. The final kick of
the impulse, and does it really take so many seconds?
I have the gravest regrets that I did not call upon a female colleague to
assist me in recording a literalist version for “Extreme Music From Women.”
It would have been so… (DC)
Address: <info@susanlawly.com>
KOJI ASANO – PREPARING FOR APRIL (CD by Solstice)
The piano stretches, sand across its wilderness, much like the attendant
cover of the recording. Would that an lp version could have been afforded,
if only to see the larger view of the photograph! Perhaps one day…and
“one day” is the underpinning of a preparation. Is the piano prepared as
well – or is it the recording of the sounds that it makes? It’s sand
through the microphone, a bit, or dust from another time, from an crack
into the attic and down to the parlor floor. What is the fine line between
“memory” and “reminiscence”? Is it “regret”? Is it something wholly
other, undefined yet lying tantalisingly within reach, gotten to by a key
in “gee” or even a microtonality?
The notes rain down, to urge April closer – the girl, or the season?
Starts and stops trickle across the keys, as though this is a very old
recording indeed. Is time given to practicing lessons counted in “time
lost”? Or has it simply fallen through the cracks between the keys, to be
unearthed and retaken at a later date? It’s rather like the first time the
piano is looked at closely, and how long one can make the plink-plonk sound
last. (DC)
Address: <solstice@retemail.es>
AUBE – BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER (CD by Ytterbium)
“What’s that sound?”, from the other room. Brain-wave sounds.
Electroencephalograms. “Okay, whatever turns you on…” And so on. I
think what he meant to ask was, “What were they thinking when they recorded
this?” Which is an incredibly salient point. The sounds come from those
brain-waves but what thoughts engendered those waves? So often these
recordings by Nakajima-san are tied thematically but what lies behind those
themes? The rhythmic ravens call names and cross a jungle to fly again,
and again. One raven flows into another, and becomes a duck, dipping into
the ocean, never coming up – instead flowing into a raven, and so forth,
and so forth.
The brain-waves travel down through their brother pulse, onetwo onetwo, and
then the waves come crashing down across the seashore, filling the
fauntanals and seeking their own level. A measured time emits while the
chaos of other signals tatters the synapscape. Various high pitches voyage
through past the body’s systems until gradually fading to pitch-black. The
sounds calm unto rumbles, pacing, waiting, as if asleep in some way. The
sound – or the brain-waves themselves? It’s as if the sounds create a body
for themselves – calling to other sounds to join cell to cell, growing and
aging into something that will be revealed…
As if transmitted over radio waves – much like the body does – the sounds
beat together, warble apart and build in intensity, gathering more laboured
etchings with each thought carrying through. As the final moments of the
piece group into one, they mist into vapor, just another passing notion…
(DC)
Address: <Ytterbium, 110 Rue St Dizier, 54000 Nancy, France>
KOJI ASANO – PREPARING FOR APRIL (CD by Solstice)
Koji Asano has already released 15 CD’s of which this is the first one for
me to hear. It seems that his style ranges from piano works to computer
synthesis to bands and so on. In his piano works, the environment of the
recording is as important as the piano pieces themselves. In this case it
may actually not be the environment that is so important, but more the
medium on which they were recorded: microcassette. The result consists of
monophonic recordings with a lot of hiss and almost no dynamics. The pieces
are not dynamic either: they are more or less tapestries of tones
withshifting movements. Some of them are slow, some of them fast. In a
sense it’s like he is trying to blend the (composition of the)tracks with
the recording medium, which is interesting for some time, but then
questions arise: why 67 minutes? why 6 tracks? The compositions themselves
are not strong enough to carry the whole CD, so if we’re dealing with a
conceptual piece here, it lacks the necessary contextual limitations. This
works is not clear and developed enough to be appraised according to the
abovementioned critics. (MR)
Adress: personal4.iddeo.es/koji
solstice@retemail.es
GIACOMO SPAZIO VS. OUTOFFBODYEXPERIENCE – M4SC (Book & CD-R)
A mysterious release by the man behind Cane Andaluso: a book in b&w with
only numbers and a CD-R with a little drawing. I guess the numbers form
some kind of secret language (although I didn’t take the time yet to find
out if my intuition was right), so the content remains somewhat obscure.
The (comic) picture on the cover depicts three astronauts from the back,
with the letters O, B, E on their oxygen containers. In the text balloons
they are referring to a certain Dr. Spazio. The CD contains one track of 52
minutes and starts with spacy sounds, some voice fragments and breathing
(Space Odyssey). Some synths fade in and the whole thing is getting pretty
ambient. After six minutes more syths arrive, a sequence is started and
wehear some distant female singing. This is interrupted by a spaceship
landing and around ten minutes into the piece the beat starts. Sort of easy
techno (the breathing continues). And then the first song really takes off.
We can dance now (probably not easy in space…). But it sounds nice
enough. And so it goes on basically. Personally I’m not too enthusiastic
about one track CD’s (unless there’s one very good track on it), but this
is more of a concept album, so it does make some sense (we are waiting for
the movie). Oh, only 33 copies! (MR
Address: airstudio@tiscalinet.it
JAVIER HERNANDO – LUZ NACARINA
ALAIN WERFIGOSSE – DEEP GRAY ORGANICS
ESPLENDOR GEOMETRICO – LIVE IN UTRECHT
(all CD’s by Geometrik)
Three new releases on Geometrik, a label that has been going since the mid
80s but who were quiet in more recent times. They started a new
sub-division Microgama, which releases music from Spanish musicians.
Javier Hernanda was a member of groups like Xerox, Melodinamika Sensor and
Sinusoidal (all unknown for me), but he now produces his first solo CD
under his own name. The best thing to say it’s ambient, even when this
might sound negative. It’s more hinting towards Oval or that school of
thought, but it remains ‘normal’ electronic to be really daring or
challenging. Hernanda has certainly his own touch in playing his sounds,
but overall he stays too close, for me, on the sweet side.
The second release on Microgama is by the sympathetico person Alain
Wergifosse, whose name in the only thing Belgium. His title is a very apt
one: it’s gray, it’s deep and it’s organic. A highly synthetic sound,
despite the fact that there is a bassplayer helping out. All of these
tracks were “improvised, spontaneously composed” (what’s the difference?)
over a year or so. Sometimes I was reminded of Conrad Schnitzler or Asmus
Tietchens. Nice stuff which works best for me in the shorter excursions.
The long longer pieces towards the end of the CD are for me a bit
redundant. Without these pieces it would have been a very nice CD.
Maybe Esplendor Geometrico belong to those bands who make their best work
when they start. Their first LP, first cassette and first 7″ were powerful
statements at their time and still sound surprisingely fresh. Me personally
I lost my interest after those early releases and only heard EG
sporadically. It was many years after the release of the ‘Live In Utrecht’
that I got it. Now, eleven years after the concert, there is a CD re-issue
of it. It was a nice reunion, a bit of nostalgia. Their pounding rhythms,
shouts and radiointerferences now may sound a bit outdated, but for me, as
one of the gold guys, quite nice. I doubt it will bring the band new fans,
but some of the old might be pleased.
Address: <rotor@ran.es>
“I SAW IT ALL HAPPEN FROM BEGINNING TO END AND I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I
SAW” – LIFE EVERLASTING, AMEN (CD by Firework Edition Records)
This recording somehow seemed such an obvious idea after I’d heard it for
the first time, and so perfectly timed when I consider how we stand with a
foot slightly raised and move it so slowly into a new millennium, while all
around us technological developments hurtle forward at breakneck speed like
some unstoppable virus or Frankenstein’s monster on amphetamines. (I read
an article the other day concerning the relationship between the increasing
pollution in the [Western] world and its related obsession with cleanliness
– vacuum cleaners with micro-filters, designer detergents that would have
saved Michael Jackson a fortune in skin creams, bleached air in controlled
environments, oxygen therapies and genetically modified everything. It
raised the point that the number of allergies amongst children born in the
last ten years or so of the twentieth whachamacallit have leapt up by an
alarming degree as a result of this streamlining, which again underscores
the requirement for rapid advances in medicine, already overtaxed by its
paramount task of finding some way to cope with Alzheimer’s Disease.)
‘Life Everlasting, Amen’ is a simple, yet unnerving comment on this state
of affairs. The major part of this 80’00 CD consists of ‘a recording of a
life-support machine and its relentless quest to keep the patient alive. In
doing so, it becomes part of that patient, attached by tubes through which
the fluids of life pass, pumped by a metal heart into one made of human
tissue.’ The patient and the machine are engaged in a dance of life and
death, when the meat falters the robot helps it to regain its balance, when
mute organs fail, the robot’s voice cries for assistance.
This is an extract from a 6 hour long recording, played live on an
octophonic audio system as part of Sonic SeaAir in Brighton, May 1999. The
piece was conceived of and constructed by Jeff Sedgeley, a videomaker from
Brighton responsible for the ten-minute track ‘After Life,’ and an
ambassador of a New Country. (If I may side-track for a moment – all of you
interested in New Countries should get hold of the book ‘ How To Start Your
Own Country’ by Erwin S. Strauss, published by Loompanics Unlimited, P.O.
Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368, USA. I heard that Loompanics went out of
business a while ago, following the Oklahoma bombing, but have not had this
confirmed by a reliable source. If this is true, and the book is
unavailable, then this reviewer might be persuaded to provide a Xerox copy
of the book for expenses plus postage.)
‘Life Everlasting, Amen’ is a haunting reminder of how reliant we have
become on our technology, most especially its lowest common denominator –
electricity. There are many theories, but who knows where our symbiotic
relationship with machines, which started with the Industrial Revolution,
is headed. We are already cybernetic.
Not just a thought-provoking audio document, but a meditation too. (MP)
Address: <touch@touch.demon.co.uk>
SATOR ROTAS (CD by A-Musik)
DAT POLITICS – VILLIGER (CD by A-Musik)
Marcus Schmickler never ceases to amaze me. I have been following his work
for quite some time now, either as a musician (under his own name, also as
Pluramon and Wabi Sabi etc.) and as a producer (name anybody from the
Cologne scene) and you hear well-crafted electronic music with additions
from post rock (as in Pluramon). Here is his latest work, under the
monikker Sator Rotas. Recorded at various concerts in the last two years,
this comes off as a one track piece, as it one continious flow. No guitar
sounds (or at least not as such recognizable) but a fine flowing tapestry
of electronic sounds, which grows organically everytime there is a new
track id on your CD player. From soft to wild, with radio transmissions
mixed in from above and beyond. Excellent experimental stuff that will
please more the lovers of the previous Wabi Sabi then the rockers of
Pluramon.
Quickly Dat Politics gained a name for themselves. With three people of
Tone Rec plus two more members they have a split 12″ on Fat Cat, a LP for
their own label Skipp and this CD for A-Musik. The 12″ and LP were nice
already, but this CD blows my mind! Dat Politics are announced as a
computer group, or lap-top quintet, so I expected heavy improv doodlings
like Rehberg & Bauer or the rest of the Mego posse, but how delighted I am
to find something different. Dat Politics bring us 11 cuts of cute music –
popmusic maybe. Each track – no titles – is well-balanced, structured
around guiding themes. Hardly a weak brother in here. There are hints of
hip hop and techno elements, but it avoids falling in these traps.
Excellent stuff – I wouldn’t be surprised if they soon have a big record
deal!
Address: www.a-musik.com
SMOOTH QUALITY EXCREMENT – BIRD AND TRUCK COLLISION (CD by Influx)
The name Ure Thrall I’ve seen before, I think it was in the almighty
cassette business. I never heard his music, but here he pops up in a trio
with of likewise unknowns as Paul Locasta and The Fruitless Hand. Five
traks (sic), five lenghty improviations over a whole array of instruments,
such as midi bass, upright bass, guitar, low tech sampler and more. Armed
with this, the trio improvised some 20 hours worth of music and each is
doing his own edit. This particular edit is by The Fruitless Hand. Overall
a dark and bleak atmosphere, ambience if you want, of moving music. Music
that is drenched into sound effects, that slow but steadily moves. Even
when this all sounds a bit outdated – ten years ago it would have been more
hip – it still sounds nice and well played. Boys that handle toys in a good
way. (FdW)
Address: <influxcommunication@angelfire.com
HECKER – [R*]ISO|CHALL (CD by Mego)
Not much we know of this guy Hecker, other then his 2 productions, one for
Mego and one for OR. Yet he gets a remix treatment by some nice blokes and
certainly not the least: Bruce Gilbert, Jim O’Rourke, Gescom and Holger
Hiller. Hecker is one of those lap-top players: they run a bunch of sounds
through real-time processing programs and present the result. Some of them,
and Hecker is one, built their own programs and his work is very good. I
can imagine that it’s not easy to remix. 11 out of 12 remixer stay tuned on
the audible side, Francisco Lopez – and he’s is the odd ball in here, as I
am not sure if he did ever such remix work before – stays 10 minutes on his
own, almost inaudible side. Although if you listen close enough it changes
throughout. But the others are mostly sampled bits and pieces around which
new pieces are made. My favourites include the aforementioned Lopez piece,
CD_Slopper with a very nice sense of timing, O’Rourke who does something in
his own league, and still very good and Ilpo Vaisanen’s strong rhythmic
feature. Others are not bad either, but stay to close to the original
Hecker sound which is a pity… (FdW)
Address: www.mego.at
PAN SONIC & CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE – MORT AUX VACHES (CD by Staalplaat)
Well, here is an odd couple one might think. Two widely aknowledged acts
from quite a bit different directions, but as the sleeve note suggests it
is all about bringing together two different generations. This was
originally organized by the IJsbreaker in Amsterdam in co-operation with
Staalplaat for an event in the, now burned down, Roxy early 1999. Along
that the session for VPRO radio’s show De Avonden was recorded and is now
the latest in the Mort Aux Vaches series. What we hear on this CD is a
rather unusual thing from Pan Sonic but more the usual side of Charlemagne
Palestine. The whole piece, wich is in five parts, is dominated throughout
by Palestine’s droning organs and Pan Sonicmanage to decorate it and give
it more colours with their very own way of using frequencies and ocasional
drifting pulses. We do also get some stranger bits in it like hectic low
volume organ hamming(if I can call it that) and a bit industrial like heavy
beats wich actually brings to mind NON. For something more than just good
measure I’d say. Overall it is a very interesting combination and it does
really bring something specialfrom two different generations together in a
very perculiar yet sucessfull way.(HB)
address: <mailorder@staalplaat.com>