NORMAL MUSIC – A SHORT EXHIBITION OF NORMAL MUSIC (CD by Zeromoon)
“BLUE” GENE TYRANNY – TAKE YOUR TIME (CD by Lovely Music)
LALI PUNA – FAKING THE BOOKS (CD by Morr Music)
ASMUS TIETCHENS – SPAT-EUROPA (CD by Die Stadt)
STEVE BRAND – THE QUIVER OF DREAMS (CDR by XZF)
KONTAKT DER JUNGLINGE – FRUHRUIN (3″CD by Die Stadt)
HYRDUS/KETTEL (LP by Narrominded)
BRANDON LABELLE – CONCERT (CD by Sirr-ecords)
WEEDS (3″CDR by Time Stereo)
ELECTRIC BEAR – WORMS (3″CDR by Time Stereo)
PRINCESS DRAGONMON – HAUNTED TUBE 2002 (3″CDR by Time Stereo)
PAWEL GRABOWSKI – GLITCH LETTERS (3″CDR by Sine)
DEUCE – WE CAN MAKE IT FASTER AND BETTER THAN DEUCE (CD by Mik. Musik)
TAPE – OPERETTE (CD by Cubic Fabric)
ANDREW CHALK – FALL IN THE WAKE OF A FLAWLESS LANDSCAPE (LP by Three Poplars)
ZAVOLOKA – 1 (3″CDR by Zeromoon)
ZEROMOON SAMPLER VOLUME 2 (3″CDR by Zeromoon)
WANDER (CD-R by XZF)
WANDER (7″ by Edition…)
BRENDAN MURRAY – ANIMATION (CDR by The Naninani Corporation)
ORIGAMI MINIMALISTIKA – X12 (CDR by Tib Prod)
MOLAR – THE TIME AND MOTION STUDIES (CD by False Walls)
NORMAL MUSIC – A SHORT EXHIBITION OF NORMAL MUSIC (CD by Zeromoon)
If you paid attention before, you recognize the name Normal Music. In
Vital Weekly 373 I reviewed their debut 3″ CDR and stated that they
deserved a full length CD. Normal Music is Jeff Surak (headhoncho
here and also of Violet), Raphael Irisarri (of The Musique Concrete
Ensemble) and Thomas Ekelund (of Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words),
but their collaborative work, which goes back and forth via mail,
goes into a different direction than much of their solo work. Whereas
the previous mini-release had hints of Pan Sonic, Goem or Pole, I
found here the ambient track to play a big role, alongside of course
the rhythms. The funny thing is that Normal Music is not a laptop
trio, but use real instruments, synths, bass guitar, autoharp, field
recordings and record players. Normal Music uses dubby, clicky
rhythms from the best clicks and cuts tradition in combination with
the best ambient sections from labels as Chain Reaction. ‘Transverse
Projection’ is directly influenced by Bernd Friedman. Clocking in at
35 minutes this might still not be a full-length, but alas it’s fine
enough. If this was on ~scape, these boys would be on the cover of
The Wire and playing the big festivals. But let’s hope that this CD
will mean a push forward for them in that direction. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
“BLUE” GENE TYRANNY – TAKE YOUR TIME (CD by Lovely Music)
There is an interesting article by Julian Cowley about Robert Sheff
aka “Blue” Gene Tyranny in the December/2003 issue of The Wire.
Robert Sheff has collaborated with more interesting artists like
Laurie Anderson (on her album Strange Angels), John Cage, Robert
Ashley, Iggy Pop and others… Even though he’s not popular as either
of them, his music is definitely worth to be discovered and heard.
“Blue” Gene Tyranny plays piano and all pieces on this album are
piano compositions played by him. But I’m not sure if ‘composition’
is the right word, because what I figured out from the article in The
Wire, “B”GT likes the improvisational approach to his music: “I don’t
always know where a piece is going. You just follow it to find out
what’s going on. That’s how music teaches me things.” He improvises
while playing different motifs and he plays the piano as a classic
instrument, not like Andrea Neumann for example. The atmosphere on
Take Your Time is often loose, dreamy, a little bit absent sometimes
but it’s not the complete abstraction. Here’s what Robert Sheff says:
“At some point even my composed music is improvised.” I think this is
a good explanation of what’s going on here, a crossover between
composed and improvised piano pieces played by someone who’s crafted
his art very well. Or as a part of the subtitle from The Wire article
says: “…his fervent compositions and piano music mark him out as an
audio researcher par excellence.” (BR)
Address: http://www.lovely.com and http://members.aol.com/bluegenet
LALI PUNA – FAKING THE BOOKS (CD by Morr Music)
Ah… Lali Puna. They sound even more like a traditional
guitar/bass/drums band on their third album Faking The Books. Those
instruments are very much pointed out in the front and the
electronics are in the background, like a fine ornament to the music.
Lali Puna can create amazing songs, that’s important here. There are
some great songs on this album, the opening intro Faking the books,
Small things, Grin and bear… Maybe you already know that some
people from Lali Puna are also members of The Notwist, Tied And
Tickled Trio, Console and few other great bands from the kingdom of
guitar-pop. So, they’re obviously very much into it. And they’ve
mastered the skills of making good songs very well. They also make me
want to listen this kind of music with more interest. Great music for
all indie-kidz and all hardcore fans of the future-pop trio
Stereolab/Pram/Laika out there! And also for fans of Ellioth Smith,
Too Pure, Morr Music… (BR)
Address: http://www.morrmusic.com and http://www.lalipuna.de
ASMUS TIETCHENS – SPAT-EUROPA (CD by Die Stadt)
The third re-issue of classic Asmus Tietchens deals with the second
album in his Sky Records series. In these four albums (previously
‘Biotop’ and next up ‘In Die Nacht’ and ‘Litia’), Tietchens explores
what he thinks is popmusic, and on this ‘Spät-Europa’, this
culminated in the closest approach, I think. It was Tietchens desire
to keep the tracks at a maximum length of two minutes, but in these
pre-computer days, this seemed not possible, but more or less they
are all around two minutes. Another limitation he set himself too was
using only an eight-track machine in combination with new gear
(Polymoog, EMS vocoder, Ring Modulator, sampler etc.). If you are
aware of much of his later stuff, then this release might be a full
on surprise, as these are indeed short, witty tracks of popmusic. In
each of them Tietchens succeeds in playing around with a few sounds,
a rhythmbox and each has a distinct own melody. No two tracks are
similar, and that is, given at no less than twenty-two tracks, a big
surprise. The two bonus tracks included are from an album that
Tietchens never finished, but forecasts the later (late nineties)
records of the Aroma Club. In German there is a distinction between
‘E’ (ernste, serious) music and ‘U’ (unterhaltung, entertaining)
music, and whereas everything after the four Sky album might be
regarded as ‘E’ music, these four albums are definetly ‘U’ music.
‘Spät-Europa’ might be your thing if you like wacky popmusic, or if
you are distinct follower of the Aroma Club albums. I can imagine it
may not be right thing for the true Tietchens lovers, but completists
should not miss out. (FdW)
Address: http://www.diestadtmusik.de
STEVE BRAND – THE QUIVER OF DREAMS (CDR by XZF)
Maybe the name Steve Brand doesn’t ring the same bell as the one used
in the first track of his release, but maybe if you know that Steve
Brand is the same person who recorded before under the name Augur,
things fall in it’s place. Augur has had releases on XZF, Alluvial
and A Pyrrhic Victory, to name but a few. Steve dropped the name
Augur and now works under his own name. Steve plays traditional
instruments, but also objects which he scratches, rubs and puts
through effect boxes. And if that’s not enough he adds field
recordings, such as in ‘Gardner’, which uses a lot of insect like
sounds. It seems to me that Steve has moved on from his previous
Augur recordings and that he has opened his sound and moves away from
the drone related material. Only a piece like ‘Deep In The Dirt’ has
traces of the old Augur style. Quite an enjoyable release here,
except for the piece called ‘No Music’, which sound like recorded on
a piece of wobbly tape and falls out of place with the other, much
nicer tunes. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pretentious-label.net/
KONTAKT DER JUNGLINGE – FRUHRUIN (3″CD by Die Stadt)
A highly limited 3″ CD in an oversized box, but if you buy this box
you can store the four previously released album in there. As you may
know Kontakt Der Junglinge – a pun at Stockhausen’ ‘Gesang Der
Junglinge’ and ‘Kontakte’ – is the ongoing collaboration between
Asmus Tietchens and Thomas Köner. The four previous albums were all
recorded live, but the two pieces on this 3″ is the first studio work
by the two that is released. The first one has a low end rumble with
on top sounds of stuff washing ashore. The second piece is along
similar lines, except that this exists only of low end rumble. This
piece is very much along the lines of music by Mirror, Ora and the
like, but it’s a wonderfully nice piece. These two tracks are most
promising for a full length CD by these legendary composers. (FdW)
Address: http://www.diestadtmusik.de
HYRDUS/KETTEL (LP by Narrominded)
On the label that don’t live up to their name, the second split LP,
following the one they released last year with Accelera Deck and
Living Ornaments. Here they go for an all Dutch line up. Hydrus is a
duo of Herman Wilken and Almer Lucke who met at the department of
Sonology in The Hague, but also played in rock bands and composing
serious works. As Hydrus however they digest their influences
Autechre and Plaid and loads of other Warp acts, but their pleasant
electronic music has lots of quality of its own. From held-back,
laidback tunes such as the first piece up to fierce drum and bass in
their final piece.
The other side is occupied by Kettel, aka Reimer Eising. He is more
known for his releases on labels such as Planet U, Neo Ouija,
Kracfive and Dub. He has six tracks of very melodic and pleasent
intelligent dance music, very much along the lines of music released
on the labels mentioned, but that should hardly be surprise. Cheery
and funny uptempo music. Personally I enjoyed the Kettel side more
than the Hydrus, which seemed to be in a finding their own style
process and things have worked out for Kettel already. Kettel’s
compositions are more worked out, a bit shorter and a bit more funny.
But both sides are truely nice, and it’s good to hear this kind of
music from my own country… (FdW)
Address: http://www.narrominded.com
BRANDON LABELLE – CONCERT (CD by Sirr-ecords)
As you are no doubt aware, a CD is not a concert. In fact it’s not an
installation either. And an installation is usually not a concert.
Brandon Labelle plays around with all these notions on his CD called
‘Concert’. This CD contains five pieces of music, which were all part
of art installations, and I think in all cases the sounds were
derived from the building process of the installations. Each of the
installation is described in the booklet, so I will only state that
each of these installation has a predecessor in time, like Cage’s
Black Mountain Event or Vito Acconci’s project ‘Seedbed’. There is
some stuff to read and view in the booklet, but of course the
listener is remote: he has no longer a connection to the installation
(unless of course he was a visitor and decides to buy the CD), but an
outsider, and will probably judge the CD by it self. So will I.
Brandon’s music is best described as musique concrete: music made out
of various small sounds, amplified and extracted from their own
environment, and together with Steve Roden (with whom Brandon has
worked before), Brandon shares the love of small sounds, the small
gesture. Things move in a seemingely random way and each of the track
is limited to a few sounds. Were Steve Roden moved into carefully
constructed compositions, I think Brandon is still behind – sometimes
his music is more like a documentation of events, of social
interactions, and the beauty of the compositions is not the main
thing. This makes it, at least for me, not always enjoyable. The last
piece here, ‘Learning From Seedbed’, is a mere banging on wood and
simply lacks interesting sounds and composition. But that’s the
weakest brother, other tracks are much nicer, such as ‘Automatic
Building’, with it’s gentle moving of sound. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sirr-ecords.com
WEEDS (3″CDR by Time Stereo)
ELECTRIC BEAR – WORMS (3″CDR by Time Stereo)
PRINCESS DRAGONMON – HAUNTED TUBE 2002 (3″CDR by Time Stereo)
Three small and intimate releases from lovely Livonia (that is near
Detroit, in case you didn’t learn your lesson), with nicely printed
covers and in a first edition of fifteen copies only. Weeds in a trio
of Davin (Princess Dragonmom), Warn (Princess Dragonmom, His Name Is
Alive) and Hitoko (MSBR). On a warm day in the summer of 2002 they
sit in the garden in Livonia, surrounded by weeds, shovels, brushes
and cement. They scrape and rub these materials against eachother
whilst birds sing their song. Truely ambient music of a highly
relaxing nature.
The very same Davin was a year before Weeds in The Netherlands and
played at the lovely Worm club together with his Dutch noise camp
member Ronald Cornelissen. Knowing both their backgrounds, I wouldn’t
be surprised if one of the guys was dressed up as a bear, but
unfortunally the visual element is gone here. Quite a lo-fi noise
monster going on here.
Something similar can be said of Princess Dragonmon’s Haunted Tube
actions. Here Davin dresses up with a large noise making tube during
halloween and scares the shit out of people. On this recording we can
hear people talk and laugh, so it would have been nice to actually
see this action (and it’s about time that we get 3″ CDR DVDs!). If
you like noise than of course it doesn’t matter, and you can take
pleasure out of this recording. Here Princess Dragonmon comes close
to the old Ramleh sound: thickly layered with a voice shouting ‘The
Haunted Tube’. Quite nice lovely little items. (FdW)
Address: http://www.timestereo.com
PAWEL GRABOWSKI – GLITCH LETTERS (3″CDR by Sine)
The young Polish composer Pawel Grabowski now lives in Ireland, and
he moved from composing works for his chamber music ensemble to
improvising with electro-acoustic music, using computers, field
recordings and a broken violin. On this 3″ CDR release he offers a
live concert from December last year and things move carefully along
lines of audibility and static cracks and hiss. In it’s kind it’s a
nice work, but it doesn’t overstep boundaries and is not something
that wasn’t heard before in microsound. But as said, it’s not bad
either. Just sturdy good improvised music and let’s hope he will part
of the travelling circus of improvisers. Would love to see a broken
violin at work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sine.prv.pl
DEUCE – WE CAN MAKE IT FASTER AND BETTER THAN DEUCE (CD by Mik. Musik)
Many things happened since Deuce arrived on the scene, with his first
release ‘Not In The Kitchen’ (see Vital Weekly 320): recorded this
new full length, real CD release, plus touring in countries as
Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. In case you don’t know this
Polish musician, he combines the best of overground musics like
techno and hip hop with best of underground techniques. Deuce’s music
is distinctely lo-fi in approach, raw and energetic, almost in punk
sort of approach. Sometimes this music sounds like recorded through a
beatbox, but it adds a strong underground approach. Maybe even at
forty-eight minutes this is a sensory overload, but it can be done.
Full on force. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mik.terra.pl
TAPE – OPERETTE (CD by Cubic Fabric)
Remixes is of course something you either like or dislike. Some
people will think it’s a cheap thing to generate more money and never
is better than the original, but others, and I am one, like the idea
of taking the original sounds and expanding them. And what could be
wrong with remixing one of my favourite bands, Tape from Sweden? They
are trio of laptop, guitar, trumpet and keyboards. Here their CD
‘Opera’ gets the remix treatment of ten reknowned artists. Some stay
close to the carefully constructed musics of Tape, but others expand
the material. Can you image Hazard adding a techno beat (that is two
surprises: beats for Tape and beats for Hazard)? Or the expanded
glitchy keyboards of Andreas Tilliander? Or an ambient approach to
the original by Pita? This remix CD has many surprises and is a good
defendent of the whole idea of remixes. It also include such fine
works by David Grubbs, Fonica, Oren Ambarchi, Minamo, Josh Abrams,
Anderegg (great spacious track there) and Stephan Mathieu, and there
is no weak brother around. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cubicmusic.com/fabric/
ANDREW CHALK – FALL IN THE WAKE OF A FLAWLESS LANDSCAPE (LP by Three Poplars)
Maybe I am not the right person to say something about Andrew Chalk
or his music. Usually I judge music by what it is and how it stands
in traditions and wether it’s something new or shedding new light on
tradition it comes from. With Andrew Chalk, or Mirror (the band he’s
a member of), I can’t do that, simply because I like the kind of
music very much. The heavy, thick drone loaded music is just very
much the thing I like. So I’m not an objective person, in cases like
this. What else can I say then? This is Chalk’s first solo release
since ‘Over The Edges’ (LP on Streamline from 1999) for instance.
That he produces similar great music with Mirror, that he works with
Daisuke Suzuki on related material and that I can’t tell what he’s
doing here, instrument wise. There are points on this record where he
plays violin bows over guitars, or maybe e-bows, or maybe organs, or
maybe… well, I just wouldn’t know. It’s a long majestic flow of
sound, that moves very slowly, patientely, with superb control over
the overtone areas. Simply one of the best drone musics around.
That’s it. (FdW)
Address: http://www.diestadtmusik.de
ZAVOLOKA – 1 (3″CDR by Zeromoon)
ZEROMOON SAMPLER VOLUME 2 (3″CDR by Zeromoon)
Kateryna Zavoloka is from Kiev and she offers four tracks on her 3″
CDR of highly distorted analogue and digital noise, which is partly
inspired by the noise movement, but she cleverly combines it with
technoid (android techno rhythms) rhythms. In some of these tracks,
like ‘Hintintin’ she reminds me of Aphex Twin, but in ‘Anty.Copy’ she
lets the noise prevail. Maybe at four tracks only it’s hard to say if
I like it very much: it’s just a bit too short to say something about
it.
Although the length of the second Zeromoon sampler is considerable
longer than the previous sampler (which was pressed on one of those
business card cdrs with a length of four minutes), it’s still a short
thing, but nevertheless a nice taster. Actually only Normal Music is
known from their Zeromoon releases, well at least by me. The others
may have releases on Zeromoon soon, and they are Dead + Hurt, Origami
Subtropika, Critikal and Vultrapia. Still the most interesting piece
here is by Normal Music, with their dubby bass. The biggest promise
comes from Vultrapia with their lenghty ambient piece. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
WANDER (CD-R by XZF)
WANDER (7″ by Edition…)
After Beequeen’s transformation into a more pop oriented project, it
seems that Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar started missing the
long drone pieces that they used in Beequeen. Ergo: Wander. Wander
can be described as a completely stripped down version of the earlier
Beequeen, it’s only the drones and nothing else, mostly from organ or
harmonium sounds, maybe a synth here and there. Both pieces of these
discs are one track without much development, the sounds getting
denser here and there, or aother sounds slowly added. For example, on
the CD-R we hear a long track of the same sound origin, somewhere in
the high mid frequencies. Only after about half an hour another sound
is added: a glissando going up and down. This is nothing spectacular
and of course that is exactly the goal. It’s not the music that
changes much, it’s the expectation of the listener. The 7″ is alittle
different in that respect, simply because it’s a lot shorter. There
is no time to play with that kind of content. And that is exactly
what makes it less interesting, because musically speaking this is
not so very exciting. (MR)
Address: http://www.the-label-xzf.net
Address: http://editionellipsis.hypermart.net
BRENDAN MURRAY – ANIMATION (CDR by The Naninani Corporation)
Maybe you haven’t heard of Brendan Murray? That is sad indeed,
because his small output is certainly worth checking out. In 2001 he
made a CD for Create-Transmit which was, sadly, largely ignored and
in 2003 a CDR for Kissy Records, and was a member of Twin and now a
member of The Please. It’s probably the most easy thing to say that
Murray produces microsounding music, but that sort of doesn’t cover
it at all. Brendan Murray processes field recordings in his computer
and outside electronica, but unlike many others he goes for the
somewhat harsher element here, aswell as for the more drone/ambient
side of the musical spectrum. Quite a step aside from his previous
works. Especially in the lengthy title piece this works quite well
here. In these forty minutes, Brendan Murray depicts underworldy, or
underground like sounds, sounds from the middle of the earth. A dark
and desolate space, and worms chewing the insides of Murray’s
computer. Let’s hope that this finally turns a few people to Murray.
If you like drone music as much as you like Mnortham or Roel Meelkop,
then this is the place to be. (FdW)
Address: http//:naninani.free.fr
ORIGAMI MINIMALISTIKA – X12 (CDR by Tib Prod)
The name Origami plus something is used by many people, and you not
always know who these people are, but in this case, I think it’s Tib
Prod chef Iversen who is behind the name Origami Minimalistika. One
day by accident he made this ’20 minute internal recording of a
computer doing nothing’ and then fiddled about with this recording
and created twelve, indeed hihly minimal pieces of music with it.
Things buzz, hiss, scratch and tick their way through an endless
string of computer plug ins. Sometimes it’s minimal in a high end
drone manner, something it’s quiet, and sometimes it’s more
rhythmical. I think things work best when things are kept short. Then
it seems to make more sense. The seventh track, which consumes no
less than about half the discs space, is easily twenty minutes too
long. Otherwise it’s a nice conceptual work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tibprod.com
MOLAR – THE TIME AND MOTION STUDIES (CD by False Walls)
The for me unknown name Molar consists of one Jim Goodspeed on
guitar, one Matthew Johnson on keyboard, laptop and guitar
processing and one Lars Fischer on laptop. They are from New York and
from what I understand their material comes together along the lines
of improvisation. However they are seemingely not very much
interested in careful textures or some such, but rather use crude,
sampled beat material and thrown in a whole bunch of keyboard sounds
and some distorted guitar and more distorted computer sounds and
that’s about it. There are exceptions to be noted here, such as
‘Pulse’, which is somewhat different than the rest, but also doesn’t
make any distinct impression. Among the ten tracks offered here, I
didn’t detect much that was really interesting, really good or really
something new. It missed one or two point completely. (FdW)
Address: http://www.falsewalls.com