Number 410

OÖPHOI & TAU CETI – SUBTERRANEA (CD by Nextera)
PROJECT THE THREE – ANTIMOTHER (CD by Nextera)
NON – LIVE IN OSAKA (DVD by Caciocavallo)
CHRISTOPHER WILLITS – POLLEN (CD by Fallt)
KOMET – ARC, LIVE @SWR FREIBURG / 18.04.00 (miniCD by Fallt)
HARD SLEEPER – LAND, LIVE @ RAUSCH / 05.11.02 (miniCD by Fallt)
PHOSPHENE – THE SINGING WOODSTOVE (CDR by Evelyn Records)
HEDREN – SUN TO SNOW (CDR by Evelyn Records)
UTT – MONOPTIC STYLES TRANSMISSION PT. 1 (CDR by Evelyn Records)
CHEAPMACHINES – MIRACLE SURFACE (CDR by Evelyn Records)
PHONOGRAPH – +/- (CDR by Evelyn Records)
OVO LACTO – MAINTAINING RADIO SILENCE (CDR by Evelyn Records)
THE HAFLER TRIO – NORMALLY (2CD by Soleilmoon)
CEREBRAL PALS – THROB FOR ME (CDR by Musically Incorrect Records)
CLAY FIGURE – CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (CDR by Musically Incorrect Records)
CLAY FIGURE – EYES OF THE SUN GOD (3″CDR by 267 Lattajjaa)
SKULLPTURE – 2 (CDR by Hammasratas)
LAPSED – TWILIGHT (CD by Ad Noiseam)
KADEF – WIR LEBEN ZWISCHEN FREMDEN GESICHTERN, NEUEN BILDER UND
UNERHORTEN KLANGEN (CDR by Tosom)
TSCHELJABINSK65 & NULLKOMMAJOSEFH – DER BAUM DER WUNSCHE ERFÜLLT (CDR by Tosom)
REPTILJAN/IBRAHIM TERZIC (7″ by Some Place Else)
TOM HAMILTON – LONDON FIX (CD by Muse-Eek)
TIMTIM – LET’S PRETEND WE’RE GOING (CD by Bpitch Control)
AGF – DELAYONMYPILLOW (3″CD by Stichting Mixer)
LIONEL MARCHETTI – L’INCANDESCENCE DE L’ETOILE (3″CD by Stichting Mixer)
SPERMANN – HADZA REMIXED (CDR by Stichting Mixer)
CHAOS AS SHELTER – MESSAGE (3″ CDR by Taalem)
ARC – 13TH (3″ CDR by Taalem)
RAUMERKUNDUNG – FLUG 4-5-6 (3″ CDR by Taalem)
YANNICK DAUBY – CHANT DE DUNE (3″ CDR by Taalem)
TIDAL – SILENT KNIFE SPEAKS (3″ CDR by Taalem)
KRISTIAN OLSSON – LAUDANUM (3″ CDR by Taalem)
PAUL DUNCAN – TO AN AMBIENT HOLLYWOOD (CD by Home Tapes)
ROB MAZUREK – SWEET & VICIOUS LIKE FRANKENSTEIN (CD by Mego)
NOEL AKCHOTE & ROLAND AUZET & LUC FERRARI – IMPRO-MICRO-ACOUSTIQUE
(CD by Blue Chopsticks)
BERLIN STRINGS (4×3″CDR by Absinth Records)
KOTRA – LIVE SESSIONS (MP3 by Nexsound)
I/DEX – SEQSEXTEND (CD by Nexsound)
EBSK – SELFTITLED (3″ CDR by Scarcelight)
CONVOLUTION – IN ROUGH CUTS (CD by Spooky Sound)
MARK CUNNINGHAM & JACOB DRAMINSKY – ALEATORY GRAMMER (CD by Spooky Sound)
GILLES GOBEIL & RENE LUSSIER – LE CONTRAT (CD by Empreintes Digitales)
TOBIAS KAZUMICHI GRIME – COMPILED ELEMENTS – 1996 – 2004 (MP3 by Earlabs)
ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – BANDURA SINGS ABOUT THINGS (MP3 by Earlabs)

OÖPHOI & TAU CETI – SUBTERRANEA (CD by Nextera)
PROJECT THE THREE – ANTIMOTHER (CD by Nextera)
Here we enter the world of ambient music, and that should be ambient
with the capital A. No doubt about it. Oöphoi has some reputation in
this direction through various releases on CD and CDR but I must
admit I never heard of Tau Ceti. The latter plays synths and the
first is responsible for synths, loops, flutes, percussions, shells,
stones and crystals. I realize this is quite a mouth full, and it may
not be easy to detect these various sound elements in this release,
which is inspired by the myth of Agharti, the hidden realm located in
Central Asia. The six pieces are timeless and weightless blocks of
room filling atmospheres. It’s music you put on late at night, just
before going to sleep (and I know various people who may do this
after they go to sleep) and it fills your space, and it passes
without too much notion. Mood music of a darker kind. Now I’m writing
these lines in the afternoon, and the sky is all grey and snow might
fall – this music has the same icy atmosphere. If you like Steve
Roach, Vidna Obmana or the entire Hypnos catalogue (to mention some
who have been reviewed in Vital Weekly), then may want to hear this
too. If you just want a spacious lump of mood music, you are in the
right alley too.
On the same label there is also Project The Three, a trio ‘this time’
consisting of R. Senkyr, V. Jenicek and M. Cihak. As far as I
understand Project The Three have been around for some time, but
their last studio recordings dated from 1995, a CDR in an edition of
33 copies, which is now enclosed as bonus tracks. There are four
tracks that make up ‘Antimother’ and they last about forty five
minutes, then there is some thirty five of the older material. I must
say I was more impressed with the new material than with the older
stuff. In the recent material they take the best of Lustmord, Arecibo
and S.E.TI. (circa ‘Knowledge’) and comes with some very nice, deep
atmospheric music. Standing firm in a well rooted tradition, this is
still some really powerful stuff. To compare with the old stuff, I
think that is in general a bit weaker, although probably played with
similar intent. Shorter loops are used with some dark synths, and
reminded me at some point of some of the early Legendary Pink Dots
stuff. Not to say that it’s really bad stuff, and from an archival
point of view maybe ok, but it makes it also into a somewhat lesser
album. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nextera.cz/ambient

NON – LIVE IN OSAKA (DVD by Caciocavallo)
Ah Boyd Rice, now what can I say there? Did I ever review any Non or
Boyd Rice? Can’t really remember. I like our little prankster,
idolizing Mickey Mouse and Joseph Goebbels, with a wide interest in
the ‘subversive’ (hoho). On his first DVD we get to see a show from
1989 which was ‘widely bootlegged’ (nobody ever offered me a copy),
two films and some slides. The show is kinda, erm dull. Herr Rice
stands among a couple of drummers, aswell as Micheal Moynihan (Blood
Axis – and also the first person to appear in Vital when it was a
paper magazine, but this way way times ago), Rose McDowell, Douglas P
and Tony Wakeford. Rice stands like he addressing a political
statement. The concert film is mostly shot from one direction,
zooming in and out and is quite static. I had much more fun seeing
this and hearing his audio commentary. In ‘Invocation (One)’ we see a
man masturbating and a women riding a skull and in ‘Black Sun’ a
bunch of swastika’s – highly upsetting of course. The slides sees
boys in semi-militairy suits at historical sites. Quite a short DVD
with a content that could not entirely satisfy me – but hell, I might
not be one of the Boyd Scouts. (FdW)
Address: http://www.soleilmoon.com

CHRISTOPHER WILLITS – POLLEN (CD by Fallt)
A komet rise for the name Christopher Willits: after an excellent CD
on 12K and the strongest contribution to 12K’s guitar compilation ‘E
A D G B E’, plus a CD with Taylor Deupree for Audiosphere, comes here
his second full length on the re-animated Fallt label. Willits plays
guitar, or at least he claims to be playing guitar. Maybe he doesn’t.
In any case, he produces sounds on a guitar and feds them through a
whole bunch of software and comes with some very lively music. While
I was playing this CD, I kept thinking, why is it so full of cliches?
Ambient glitch for the full 100%? Things tick, scratch, have ambient
drones and it should be something that is to dismissed as a cliche?
But then, why do I like it that much? It’s lively, vibrant, in nine
sketchy pieces, which are held together with a some simple beats and
melodic lines played via software. I am told that Willits plays his
guitar and then feeds the signal into his computer, so after all it
might be true that the warmth of this computermusic comes from
a real instrument? My mind says that this is a true cliche, but why
should I care about that? I think this is a really really good CD,
that definetly deserves good sales. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fallt.com

KOMET – ARC, LIVE @SWR FREIBURG / 18.04.00 (miniCD by Fallt)
HARD SLEEPER – LAND, LIVE @ RAUSCH / 05.11.02 (miniCD by Fallt)
It has been more than one and half year since Fallt released the
first two discs in the their live series. These are so called AB CDs
(with those transparant outer rings) and somewhere between 20 and 30
minutes of music. The series continues with a recording from 2000 by
Komet, aka Frank Bretschneider. In that year he was invited to play a
concert at the SWR Radio station in Freiburg – a station in which
Stockhausen, Nono and Boulez worked in the past. Komet set out to
create his music, using sinewaves and white noise. The music he
forecasts his later CD ‘Rausch’ on 12K. Cold and clinical bleeps, but
over the course of each track, things start to vibrate and get alive.
Komet’s music might find it’s origins in glitch music, but he knows
how to add a good groove to it, and in some cases he goes into the
territory of dub music. Having seen Komet a couple of times live
makes this into quite a nice souvenir of memorable concerts.
Despite his previous releases on Sub Rosa, Tu M’, Static Caravan and
Emigre Music, I must admit I never heard of Hard Sleeper, aka Peter
Maybury. His concert was recorded at Rausch, a festival in Dublin, in
2002. Originally Peter is a designer but also does some music (hence
maybe the release on Emigre, the well-known font makers?). His music
is a like that of Komet, or that of the recentely released Fallt CD
by Christopher Willits (see elsewhere), and while this is altogether
quite nice music, I think it’s of lesser quality as both Komet and
Willits. But it’s hard to pin down why this is, actually. He uses the
some sort of clicks and ambient passages as Willits and similar beats
as Komet, but it lacks the same warmth as Willits or the grooves of
Komet. But let it be said, by itself this is not a bad CD at all, but
a little too mediocre to stand out. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fallt.com

PHOSPHENE – THE SINGING WOODSTOVE (CDR by Evelyn Records)
HEDREN – SUN TO SNOW (CDR by Evelyn Records)
UTT – MONOPTIC STYLES TRANSMISSION PT. 1 (CDR by Evelyn Records)
CHEAPMACHINES – MIRACLE SURFACE (CDR by Evelyn Records)
PHONOGRAPH – +/- (CDR by Evelyn Records)
OVO LACTO – MAINTAINING RADIO SILENCE (CDR by Evelyn Records)
Back in Vital Weekly 388 I reviewed a whole bunch of releases by
Evelyn Records, ten to be precise which were divided in two series.
Now Evelyn Records releases a third series of five releases based
upon ‘sound-scapes comprising of phonography, environmental sounds
and turntablism’. The first one is by Phosphene, aka John Cavanagh,
who has previous releases on Elsie & Jack, Ochre and Enraptured. Here
he has a highly captivating recording of wind-blowing through an
woodstove. John made some layers of these sound and pitch-shifted a
bit, but did not much else. Strange minimal music of ‘singing
sounds’ here, very tonal, even melodic compared to a lot of other
field recordings. A very simple but very effective recording. Great
start.
Hedren is Graham Williams, who works in more glitchy areas as Son Of
Numrah (and being part of the first bunch of Evelyn Records as such).
As Hedren he works inside field recordings, which he processes on his
computer. Where we are able to recognize them, we hear a lot of
animal sounds, farmyard, insects and birds seem to be his main
obsession. The ideas within these ten tracks are indeed kinda nice,
but a bit too long – forty or so minutes would have been enough to
make his point.
With UTT we come in the other territory, that of turntablism. UTT
employs various form of record playing in his one piece of
forty-seven minutes, which is divided in eleven sections (including a
‘for Philip Jeck’ piece). At times pretty noise, but as a whole I
thought this was an execellent release, with many strong ideas and
some very interesting new views on how to use the turntable. Jeck
meets Yoshihide and Merzbow is doing the remix – that sort of thing.
Similar abusing goes on at the studio of Cheapmachines – almost
weekly regulars these days. Here Phil Julian uses broken and
reassembled vinyl, cracked compact disc and cut-up promotional flexi
discs. Like UTT he operates in a noise area, but unlike some of his
‘real’ noise releases from some time ago, this is actually noise of a
better thoughtout nature. His techniques are a little bit on the
rough edge and maybe not as refined as UTT, but it’s still quite a
nice release, one of the better Cheapmachines.
I have no idea who is behind Phonograph, but his release is certainly
not a remix of Ikeda’s classic ‘+-‘. When a track here is noted by
‘-‘ it means untreated sound recording and with a ‘+’ it’s filtered
and manipulated through various effects. Half of the disc is taken by
a treated track using a stylus, but at the same it’s one of the
lesser tracks. Other tracks use a refrigator, vacuumcleaner, birds
and fireworks. These are more interesting, but overall there was a
lack of dynamic sound among these five tracks.
Also on Evelyn but not part of any series is a release by Ovo Lacto,
aka Richard Atkins from Wales. In a short time this is the second
disc I have of him, and more than ‘The Rubberplant Soundtrack’
release (see Vital Weekly 397), this is a disturbing release. After
two relatively mild opening pieces, ‘Colossal Man’ is a crude techno
like track and the other two remaining pieces are hoovering around
spoken word samples of unknown content, and are less ambient than the
opening pieces, or the tracks on his previous CD. A bit too alienated
and naive for my taste, these pieces. (FdW)
Address: http://www.evelynrecords.cjb.net

THE HAFLER TRIO – NORMALLY (2CD by Soleilmoon)
How on earth did the Hafler Trio get access to voice samples of Blixa
Bargeld? It will probably remain written in the stars. But he did,
and The Hafler Trio managed to get a double CD out of these
recordings. People with a keen interest in the trio would of course
immediately ask: is this also about drones? Yes it is. On both CDs
the sound is stretched out into pieces of an hour or so in length and
they are both thick, swirling pieces of drone music. On the first CD
it’s a particular phrase that Bargeld read whispering, hysterical and
ordinary – but rest assure: none of this can be recognized. On the
second CD three meaningful vowels were taken and arranged to certain
rules of Sanskrit. That says a lot, but what does it mean? Is it
important to know what it means, or do we just take a deep breath and
undergo what it is on offer here? I do the latter. Trying to get to
the point of this is just something I am not capable of, I think. I
don’t want really, either. I look at the shape and judge it to be
very fine, very fine indeed – and to me that is all that matters.
Just another damm fine addition. (FdW)
Address: http://www.soleilmoon.com

CEREBRAL PALS – THROB FOR ME (CDR by Musically Incorrect Records)
CLAY FIGURE – CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (CDR by Musically Incorrect Records)
CLAY FIGURE – EYES OF THE SUN GOD (3″CDR by 267 Lattajjaa)
SKULLPTURE – 2 (CDR by Hammasratas)
A bunch of new releases on Musically Incorrect Records, hardcore, in
many ways, underground from Finland. Whoever are behind the Cerebral
Pals I don’t know, no information is given. They can best be
described as noise merchants. From the wrapped sounds of ‘Gasoline
Rain’ to the noise fury of ‘666th Annual Report’, Cerebral Pals go
all the way on noise lane and back. A combination of Merzbow,
Cosmonauts Hail Satan and Throbbing Gristle (all influences made
clear in their titles).
The man behind Clay Figure is also the man behind the label Musically
Incorrect Records. ‘Curse Of The Cat People’ is his fifth full length
solo release. Here he combines low resolution ambient sources with
him singing and playing guitar both of them in combination with
plundered and processed sounds lifted from various vinyl sources.
Quite rough sounding music, not in terms of noise or anything, but
rather in recording quality. Music from the true underground.
From the same man, different label comes a 3″ CD with three covers.
Clay Figure plays three covers here, by resp. Iron Maiden, Napalm
Death and Pink Floyd. In the Iron Maiden piece ‘Back In The Village’,
he plays acoustic guitar and sings, half way through intercepted by
spoken word collage cut up, whereas Napalm Death ‘Divine Death’ is
some very vague sounding samples. Pink Floyd’s ‘Set The Controls For
The Heart Of The Sun’ is the longest piece here and is a long guitar
solo and drum piece, which get a noise treatment. Since I’m not
familiar (give or take) with the originals, it didn’t do much for me.
The man from Musically Incorrect Records is also involved in a band
called Skullpture and ‘2’ is, naturally, their second release. Other
than on their previous release the three pieces here are slower, and
less sketch like, although improvisation plays a big role here. Quite
nice stuff and a step forward from the previous release. (FdW)
Address: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/musically_incorrect

LAPSED – TWILIGHT (CD by Ad Noiseam)
You may not know Lapsed, the name chosen by Jason Stevens from Salt
Lake City. ‘Twilight’ is his debut album. On this album he has
thirteen tracks and a remix by Displacer (also a name I never heard
of). It’s hard and easy to pin down what Stevens is doing. Let me
explain. Easy because he is using various musical interests and hops
from one to the other, but that makes it more difficult to pin down
in some way. Best is to think a click hop sound of some of the Mille
Plateaux in combination with techno and hip hop music. Glitchy
rhythms are there, but overall his sound is thicker, fatter and more
groovy than much of the work of the aforementioned label. At the same
time, Stevens uses some ambient synths in the background which a
chilly and dark atmosphere. Maybe, as with much of this kind of
thing, the length is a problem. After some seven or eight tracks of
this kind of music, I get the feeling that it’s nice and ok and I
don’t need to hear more. Clocking in over an hour without adding too
many new things to the known palette, is just a bit too much.
Otherwise no complaints about this fine work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net

KADEF – WIR LEBEN ZWISCHEN FREMDEN GESICHTERN, NEUEN BILDER UND
UNERHORTEN KLANGEN (CDR by Tosom)
TSCHELJABINSK65 & NULLKOMMAJOSEFH – DER BAUM DER WUNSCHE ERFÜLLT (CDR by Tosom)
I do remember the name Kadef from a 10″ he did with Merzbow, and
maybe from some other release, but I don’t think I ever heard it for
so long as on this CDR. Almost seventy minutes of noise, divided in
four tracks, each using sounds from other people. These are K2, Ames
Sanglantes, Richard Ramirez and Armenia. Kadef has rather lo-fi
technology at hand to process this sound work. So you hear noise, but
it sounds like it was mastered to a cassette. Very low dynamics
throughout this release, and that’s a pity, because it makes this
into quite an unimaginative affair.
Of more interest is the release by Tscheljabinsk65 and
Nullkommajosefh, both of whom I never heard before. They present two
long tracks with an overall dark ambient sound. I think I heard some
large chunks of processed classical music (slowed down and mutated)
with little dashes of more experimental electronica. Somewhere in ‘De
Destin De La Verganglichkeit’ vocals pop up, but I doubt wether these
are sung by the two makers. I rather think they were lifted
somewhere. Maybe in those passages where the classical music takes
over, it’s all a bit too doomy, gloomy or even neo-folky for my
taste, I had the idea that this was not really my cup of tea, but
after Kadef quite a relief. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tosom.de

REPTILJAN/IBRAHIM TERZIC (7″ by Some Place Else)
A split 7″ from the cold land of the fins. Reptiljan is Niko
Skorpio’s plunderphonic project, whose ‘Pangrenade’ samples death
metal too death. A fierce onslaught on the ears. It remains strongly
in the digital domains, but not as digital sounding as the b-side by
Ibrahim Terzic. His ‘Yuck Brij’ is a highly distorted computer noise,
which sound, when played at the right volume, quite alright. Both
pieces are sure to break down any party you have going on. (FdW)
Address: http://www.someplaceelse.net

TOM HAMILTON – LONDON FIX (CD by Muse-Eek)
Tom Hamilton has been composing and performing electronic music for
over thirty years and is since 1990 a member of Robert Ashley’s
touring opera ensemble, but yet I never heard of him. This new
release sees Hamilton playing a self-built electronic pitch making
system. As an input he used the fluctuations in the price of gold,
using twelve monthly price charts of 2002. Each map ‘charts to
control individual pitch possibilities, range and even portemento’. A
most intruiging point to start, I’d say. In the course of one hour,
divided in six tracks (which work as a continuous flow), synthesized
bubbles fill your space, apperentely in an unrelated way, but as the
work carries on, with a strange hypnotizing mood. Sometimes tones
stretch out and make longer notes, but it stays throughout on the
same level. As you can imagine a highly minimal work, but luckily
enough a work that captures the listener. Hamilton gets computer
assistence by Micheal Schumacher, and if one is familiar with his
work, one can easily dig into that of Hamilton, even when the latters
work is, at least on ‘London Fix’, a much energtic affair. (FdW)
Address: http://www.muse-eek.com

TIMTIM – LET’S PRETEND WE’RE GOING (CD by Bpitch Control)
One of the latest releases on Bpitch Control at the end of 2003
(there are more recent releases in 2004 from Ellen Allien, Paul
Kalkbrenner…) is this debut album Let’s Pretend We’re Going from
Timtim. Maybe he’s known to people who live in Berlin, because he’s
been in various bands there as a guitarist, drummer and songwriter.
Timtim has an obvious songwriter’s approach to his music, but it’s
not the typical songwriter’s music. There are electronics, folky
guitar sounds, vocals and lyrics arranged arbitrary in the songs…
Maybe this is folk-electronica? Or elektronika, looks more stylish.
This is a great album from Timtim. The music has a form of songs.
Quite simplistic but also very sophisticated. Maybe the kind of music
Inflatabl Labl would release if they released more songwriter’s
sounding music. Shitkatapult might release this album as well. Timtim
reminded me of Napoli Is Not Nepal (without the jazz). Composing and
writing songs (mostly) with electronics is the aim they both try to
achieve, and they do that with success. There’s quite a diversity in
Timtim’s songs on this album. There’s the ultra-light lyric electro
touch in Neoncobra, 4/4 rhythm in Atwater.ca, idm atmosphere in Kolln
Concert. But none of those elements is pointed out too much,
everything is well balanced with a strong feel for song structure.
Timtim has made one of the greatest mainstream musics of today. It
sounds like it’s done very easyly. Looking forward to hear more in
future. (BR)
Address: http://www.bpitchcontrol.de

AGF – DELAYONMYPILLOW (3″CD by Stichting Mixer)
LIONEL MARCHETTI – L’INCANDESCENCE DE L’ETOILE (3″CD by Stichting Mixer)
SPERMANN – HADZA REMIXED (CDR by Stichting Mixer)
Over the last few years the work Ante Greier Fuchs gained wide
recognition, either with her band Laub aswell as solo as AGF. I had
the pleasure to see it a couple of times live and listened with
interest to some of her CDs. Yet, I must admit, not much of that
grabbed me, but I never owned a CD myself, so I didn’t repeatedly
listen to it. So, excuse me if this is my first encounter with her
work. Ante combines spoken word, poetry if you want, with delicate
electronic (digital) music. This eightteen minute work is based on
recordings made in Tunesia, in 2001. It’s hard to tell what this is
about, as much of the text is hard to understand, it lies safely
embedded in the music. Over the course of eightteen minutes she
builts a clever collage of music and (processed) spoken word, which
do not seem to tell a story, but rather invoke images; images in the
head. I must admit quite a nice piece, which made me think to
investigate some of her other work too.
Lionel Marchetti belongs to the group of younger French composers,
who crosses over from composition to improvisation and back. Over the
years he has released a couple of his musique concrete pieces, which
were all captivating. ‘L’incandescence De L’Etoile’ is no different.
It’s ‘based on the everlasting universal (re)cycle. It’s hard to tell
what kind of sounds Marchetti has put into this, but it’s a very
vibrant piece of heavily processed sounds. They are wrapped,
unpacked, thrown about in the air, and they fall back on their place
at which point they are immediately lifted up again and swung about
in an entirely different mode. Unlike his other pieces, which seem to
be dealing with a subject (like Japanese swordplay in ‘Dans La
Montagne (Ki Ken Tai)’ – see Vital Weekly 397), this work is more
abstract and tells less of a story. But that aside, because it’s not
necessary, this is another small work to cherish, as it’s great again.
Stichting Mixer also releases CDRs in small editions, and they mostly
carry sound-documents and audio(art-) experiments. Somebody named
Spermman lived for a while in Tanzania with the Hadza people and
recordings he made where released by Musique Du Monde in France. Now
he comes with a ‘remix’ of those recordings, mixing spoken word by
the Hadza people, who use a language of clicks and sharp tickles,
with electronic sounds. Unlike AGF, Spermann stays close to the
original recordings, mixing them with synthesized sounds of his own,
adding organ like sounds, sampling rhythms and voices. They blend
together quite nicely. A small trip into the heartlands of Africa. A
pity of the dreadful artistname. (FdW)
Address: http://www.stichtingmixer.nl

CHAOS AS SHELTER – MESSAGE (3″ CDR by Taalem)
ARC – 13TH (3″ CDR by Taalem)
RAUMERKUNDUNG – FLUG 4-5-6 (3″ CDR by Taalem)jm
YANNICK DAUBY – CHANT DE DUNE (3″ CDR by Taalem)
TIDAL – SILENT KNIFE SPEAKS (3″ CDR by Taalem)
KRISTIAN OLSSON – LAUDANUM (3″ CDR by Taalem)
The Harmonie sublabel Taalem just released another six 3″ CDR
releases and they all fall more or less in the category of ambient
music. The first one is by Israelian Chaos As Shelter, who has become
a household name in the world of dark ambient music. For his piece
‘Message’ he uses a spy message lifted from shortwave radio. He feeds
this into a whole bunch of electronics and builts over the course of
twenty minutes a hallucinating piece of dark, broading music. Loops
built and built and electronics are added. Nice piece.
Behind Arc are Aidan Baker, Richard Baker (whom are no brothers, much
to my surprise) and Christopher Kukiel. They operate in a very
traditional ethno ambient style with deep washes of synths and sparse
percussion and a heavily treated guitar. Not unlike bands such as
Voice Of Eye or Life Garden and maybe not with a very up-to-date
sound, but still quite alright chill out music.
Raumerkundung is Lutz Pruditsch, whom you may know as Tarkatak and
Robert Steinberger, the man behind Disaster Area. Although the exist
since 1990 they have not released other than one cassette. They play
their music on guitars, samplers, tapes, contactmicrophones, metal
and radio. Their sound is not unlike a band like Troum: thick and
dark clouds of sounds of heavily processed instruments. I had the
pleasure to see them a couple of times live, but over the years they
certainly progressed. The new quiet approach suits them very well.
The name Yannick Dauby might be known from his collaborative works
with Mnortham, Alio Die or Thomas Koner. The title piece was already
released in 1999, but now added with a new piece. Dauby specializes
in field recordings which he records. On the title piece he uses
sounding sands, dunes that make sound. Over the course of the piece
he builts up towards a large crescendo. In ‘Mlil (part 1)’ he uses a
close miked rattle sound. Quite nice.
And with Tidal we hop back into the world of dark ambient music.
Tidal is David Brownstead and he has a couple of releases already.
Thick clouds of sound over the course of some twenty minutes. Minimal
but kind of hallucinating.
I never heard of Kristian Olsson, but apperentely he is one half of
Heid and also known as Survival Unit for more aggressive noise. He
too sit nicely in the world of dark ambient, but unlike Tidal his
material is much more ‘present’. Using samples of metallic percussion
he represents a more violent approach to ambient music.

Address: http://www.come.to/taalem

PAUL DUNCAN – TO AN AMBIENT HOLLYWOOD (CD by Home Tapes)
I will leave any jokes about his surname aside, not assuming he’s the
brother of. Paul plays a lot of instruments on this record: guitar,
vibraphone, bass, drums, pedal steel, trumpet, airorgan, various wind
instruments and vocals plus he gets help on violins, saxophone and
trumpet. Don’t be fooled by the title of this CD. It has nothing to
do with ambient music, as the twelve tracks here are more about
singer-songwriter than ambient music. This is the kind of music that
falls normally out of the categories of Vital Weekly, but I must
admit I damm like it. I have been playing this CD a lot in the last
weeks, and find it to be growing all the time. There is a fine line
between the more traditional songs and some of the more experimental
sounds used. The opening of ‘Film Life’ has acoustic guitar playing
and in the background what seems to some Max/MSP sound processing,
but the combination works really well. The delicacy of this CD is in
the finer details of the great production, melancholical songs and
singing and make this is into an outstanding CD. Far away from 90% of
Vital Weekly, yet greatly appreciated. (FdW)
Address: http://www.home-tapes.com

ROB MAZUREK – SWEET & VICIOUS LIKE FRANKENSTEIN (CD by Mego)
Of course this has entirely to do with me, but I do recognize the
name Rob Mazurek from Chicago Underground Duo and Orthon Socket, but
I heard (and liked) only the latter. From his solo work I recentely
reviewed a 12″ he did for En/Of (Vital Weekly 394), which I quite
enjoyed, so I was curious to hear a full length solo release.
Apperentely this is made from field recordings (close by and far
away), analogue and digital electronics and lot of other things. This
results in two tracks, in total spanning more than an hour. From what
I heard I had mixed feelings. There are certainly good moments to be
spotted in here, especially when the work takes on a softer spot, but
there are also moments of pointless noise outings, which aren’t done
in any original way. As for the composition of both pieces, I think
they are kinda meshed together of various parts, cross-faded into
each other and which do not seem to fit together. I almost had the
idea of loading the music on my computer and edit the nice bits out
of there and compile it into a new work, but time lacks. I think I
will put on Orthon Socket instead. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mego.at

NOEL AKCHOTE & ROLAND AUZET & LUC FERRARI – IMPRO-MICRO-ACOUSTIQUE
(CD by Blue Chopsticks)
The composer as improviser. Luc Ferrari is of course a well-known
composer (at least I hope so), and composed music for improvisers but
never improvised himself. Several years ago he saw Noel Akchote
playing his guitar and was taken by his playing and thought it to be
‘real-time musique concrete’. Together with percussion player Roland
Auzet, the three went in the studio and Ferrari was on the piano and
each of the players were armed with hand-held microphones, plus there
were several microphones to pick up the sound. Afterwards Ferrari
mixed the material. Of course this is improvised music and of course
it’s played with an ear for detail. But the thing that makes this
release really interesting is that it’s recorded with a great, almost
microscopic care for detail. In each of the five pieces, a musical
notion is researched: contrast, pulse, continuous sound, minimalism
and rhythm. These explored within these strict boundaries, but each
piece has a wide variation in sounds. A very fine work indeed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bluechopsticks.org

BERLIN STRINGS (4×3″CDR by Absinth Records)
Now here’s a real beauty: four mini CDrs in a 7″ package, sewn
together and silkscreened. This is the second release, this time
dealing with strings-music. The first one had as a theme ‘reeds’. On
the first mini CD we find the lovely music of Andrea Neumann and
strings are far away, at least so it seems. She plays ‘inside piano’
and mixing desk. In “*” this results in a brutal noise affair and ‘
”” this noise is somewhat held back. In ‘End Of A Motor Noticed By
Five Pick Ups’ a handheld device is used to play the strings of the
inside piano and the sounds slowly dies out.
The second disc is by Micheal Renkel, who plays guitar, zither and
preperations. I never heard of him before. His release has one long
track of careful acoustic guitar playing, with lots of small sounds
happening and also involving silence. Although more happening than at
a solo work of Taku Sugimoto, the two sound a like.
Also on the acoustic guitar is Olaf Rupp, but what he is doing in his
nine part ‘Metal Peace’ is of an entirely different nature. He plays
this with quite fierce strummings and is at times pretty nerve
wrecking. Much alike his aclaimed, at least by me, solo CD ‘Scree’
(see Vital Weekly 341).
Another new name is Serge Baghdassarians, who plays electric guitar
and mixing desk. Here we enter the world of Andrea Neumann again.
Many cracks and hisses in which it’s hard to recognize a guitar
again. But played with similar intent. Strong work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.absinthrecords.com

KOTRA – LIVE SESSIONS (MP3 by Nexsound)
Kotra is the moniker for one Dmytro Fedorenko from Kiev. This release
is a collection of pieces from various live performances made at
Clubtransmediale Festival in Berlin, Garage Festival in Stralsund and
miscellaneous shows in Kiev. Kotra works in the field of digital
noise-sharp textures and frequencies that are akin to scraping your
eardrum with a razor. Kotra takes such sounds and beats them into
shape creating loops and repeating motifs. The first 12 tracks here
are all around a minute or less which depending on your pain
threshold might be a good thing. The last 2 tracks are longer pieces
and i think here is were Kotra starts to really develop his ideas
into what sounds like binary heavy metal-riffs formed from digital
errors with enough testosterone to get your fist pumping into the
air. These 2 tracks would make an impressive single. (JS)
Address: http://www.nexsound.org

I/DEX – SEQSEXTEND (CD by Nexsound)
I/DEX is one Vitaly Harmash operating out of Belarus and here he
offers up a collection of different styles of contemporary
electronica from clicks n cuts, dub & idm. His goal here is one of
creating mood music for your home or work, a little something to
brighten your mood. As background music it works really well, as
Harmash displays adroitness in arranging hiss, static, beats into
pleasant compositions. The opening track is one of my favorites, a
walking bass line coupled with static noise textures. The fourth
track entitle .DOC is a droning loop that I wish was longer than just
three minutes. While listening to this cd I lost my sense of time, to
the point that I felt the cd was going on for way too long. Perhaps
its because there are no silences between tracks and Harmash succeeds
in transporting the listener into a different time. (JS)
Address: http://www.nexsound.org

EBSK – SELFTITLED (3″ CDR by Scarcelight)
EBSK is the Washington DC area duo of Eric Bruns and John Rickman and
this is their second release, and a giant step ahead of their debut
offering. Here they dish up 2 tracks of music made with bass guitar,
clarinet, the old casio sk-1 & sk-5 samplers and drums. The sound
brings to mind the 80s hometaper heydays, no part due to the
instrumentation and the lofi analog sound of the casio samplers. The
bass provides the riffs, the casios crank out the crunch and the
melody, and the drums propel the tracks along resulting in something
akin to lofi krautrock. The tracks feature several transitions and
never lose focus, something which was a problem with the duo’s first
release. The sound has matured and gotten edgier which is a positive
development. (JS)
Address: http://www.scarcelight.com

CONVOLUTION – IN ROUGH CUTS (CD by Spooky Sound)
MARK CUNNINGHAM & JACOB DRAMINSKY – ALEATORY GRAMMER (CD by Spooky Sound)
Mark Cunningham has a legend status since his pioneering work with
‘no’wave’ bands as Mars, John Gavanti and Don King. But that’s a long
time ago. Also he moved from New York to Barcelona in the early 90’s.
He wanted to make a new and fresh start, sol et us forget about the
past. His musical output surely changed a lot. All hard edges are
gone. Instead trumpeter Cunningham nowadays makes an ethereal and
spacy kind of music builded around his Jon Hassel-like
trumpetplaying. He recorded several items with his band Raeo, joined
Pascal Comelade’s Bel Canto Orchestra and formed Catch 22 with Jakob
Draminsky. In 1997 he released his first solo cd ‘Blood River Dusk’.
For this cd Cunningham was assisted by Sylvia Mestres. From this
collaboration grew Convolution a multimedia project. They already
released at last two mini-cd’s,’ Goes West’ (Spooky Sound) and ‘1 to
5′ (Sublingual). ‘In Rough Cuts’ is their third one. It’s another
mini-cd containing 7 songs and has Cunningham on trumpet, voice, and
Kaoss and Mestres on guitar, voice and sampler. The song-structured
pieces produce an warm and hypnotic atmosphere. Echoing and spacy
sounds from the trumpet and guitar added with street noises, animal
sounds, transform this one into a little gem. Unsensonational music
but done with love.
Together with Jakob Draminsky Hojmark, Cunningham recorded another
cd: ‘Aleatory grammar’. Both gentlemen worked with Pascal Comelade
and danish composer and musician Hojmark lives also in Barcelona. And
so they crossed their paths. But their cooperation completely failed
to attract my attention. Cunningham plays cornet and Kaoss II, and
Hojmark uses a laptop MAX/MSP. Are differences with the Convolution
cd that big? No, we have the same ethereal sound, but pieces carry on
endlessy here and are leading to nowhere in my experience (DM).
Address: http://www.arrakis.es/~silmes

GILLES GOBEIL & RENE LUSSIER – LE CONTRAT (CD by Empreintes Digitales)
This one is the fruit of a very long friendship. Both gentlemen
helped each other out some 28 years ago when they were starting their
musical investigations. They took different ways afterwards but
stayed in contact. Gobeil found is way in the electro-acoustic
universum, Lussier started with ‘art-rock’ group Conventum and
developped himself to a very unconventional and inventive
guitarplayer. Over the years he moved away from rockmusic and entered
the world of improvised music and other contexts.
The Canada Council for the Arts brought Gobeil and Lussier together
again after so many years. They decided to work on a project inspired
on Goethe’s ‘Faust’ and to compose an electro-acoustic work build
“according to the very architecture of the poem”. That was in 1996.
In 2003 they finished this project and it was premiered on october
15th. So over a period of 7 years Lussier and Gobeil composed this
work at a slow pace by trial and error, permitting themselves all
kinds of liberties.
Gobeil is responsible for the original idea, research, editing,
spatialization, voice, noises, synthesis and sound transformation,
travel reminiscences. Lussier signs for editing, guitars, daxophone,
voice, noises, sensitive platform, luminous Achille, foot tapping,
percussion. Text excerpts are read by Benoit Fauteux and Antonin
Billard. Luckily they are not to many of them.
The work is divided in 17 parts, each telling a part of the story,
albeit not in original order.
But because I’m not familiar with the story anyway, this doesn’t
really bother me. I feel more attracted to take a good dive into this
soundworld, whatever the narrative aspects may tell.
They are sounds that can easily be identified, like dogs barking,
church bells, cats, doors, etc. But also many sounds that are
rendered beyond recognition.
It’s hard to decide who is doing what on this cd, apart from the
obvious guitarplaying by Lussier. Some pieces like ‘Rats et contrat’
and ‘Le lavoir’ are dominated by the guitarplaying of Lussier and
originated from his improvisations I guess. Other pieces start from
somewhere else, some soundmanipulation where it is hard to judge
whether it is composed or also improvised. Maybe the distionction
between improvisation and composition makes no sense here.
The story of Faust is abstracted into a complex construct of all
kinds of noises and music, that is very well recorded. All sounds are
carefully interwoven in a dramatic piece that should interest anyone
who is interested in electro-acoustic music (DM).
Address: http://www.electrocd.com

TOBIAS KAZUMICHI GRIME – COMPILED ELEMENTS – 1996 – 2004 (MP3 by Earlabs)
ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – BANDURA SINGS ABOUT THINGS (MP3 by Earlabs)
Here we have two recent releases from the fine net label earlabs.org.
Tobias Grime is a sound artist from Sydney and this collection of
tracks was compiled from three cdrs that he submitted to earlabs.org.
Recorded over a span of 8 years, the tracks have a good sense of flow
and coherence, so I guess the label did a good job in choosing tracks
that work well as a unit. Grime explores drones and ambient textures
and at times the music is visually suggestive. No doubt this is a
result of Grime working in TV and film. “Campfire” could be straight
from a nature documentary, with its processed marimba and bongo type
sounds. “Aphelion 2” is a dynamic composition with changing sheets of
tones ending in processed water sounds. “Atmos” is Grime at his most
hypnotic-an extended wash of light sound that later is augmented by a
looped rhythm. A very pleasant release.
Andrey Kiritchenko hails from the industrial wasteland of Kharkov,
Ukraine and has been reviewed in Vital several times before. Here he
presents two tracks based on the bandura, which is a plucked-string
musical instrument from Ukraine. This work is quite different from
other works by Kiritchenko, as for the most part its a combination of
raw unprocessed sounds culled from the bandura, and some sounds
processed digitally. The bandura is strummed, plucked, and attacked
in all manner of ways. At times the juxtaposition of untreated sounds
with digital droning is jarring and seem to be at odds with each
other. But there are moments when Kiritchenko eases up on the bandura
and the sounds become a harmonious mixture. It is these moments when
the work really starts to gel. An interesting experiment for which
the mp3 format is well suited. (JS)
Address: http://www.earlabs.org

correction: Starlight Furniture who released the Dustbreeders/Junko
CD (Vital Weekly 406) want you to contact their distributor directly:
http://www.midheaven.com and not the address previously listed