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AGITATED RADIO PILOT – WORLD WINDING DOWN (Cd by Deadslackstring Records) *
THE NEW BLOCKADERS – DAS ZERSTOREN, ZUM GEBAREN (CD by Blossoming Noise) *
DE FABRIEK GOES THE HITMACHINE – HET TERREIN * II (CD by EE Tapes) *
POMASSL – SPARE PARTS (CD by Raster-Noton) *
SORIAH – OFRENDAS DELUZ A LOS MUERTOS (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
VOLCANO THE BEAR – AMIDST THE NOISE AND TWIGS (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
GEORGE AND CAPLIN – HE REALLY GOT THROUGH TO ADVERTISING (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
ARON DUGAN & JEFF ARNAL – DOG DAY (CD by C3R)
BELA KAROLI – FURNISHED ROOM (CD by Helmet Room)
TRIO DEROME GUILBEAULT TANGUAY – ETYMOLOGIE (DVD by Ambiances Magnétiques)
SIEBEN MAL SOLO (CD compilation by Schraum)
TELEPHERIQUE – STAHL UND STEINE (CD by Waystyx Records) *
(AD)VANCE(D) – FLUSHING THE VEINS (DVD by Waystyx Records)
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI & ATSUKO NOJIRI – CONTINUITY (CD/DVD by Asphodel) *
FUCK BUTTONS – BRIGHT TOMORROW (7″ by ATP Recordings) *
DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS (CDR by Mystery Sea) *
NIGEL WRIGHT – FLOTTER (CDR by Gest) *
MARC SPRUIT & MICHIEL DE HAAN – RADICAL IMPROVISATIONS (CDR, self released) *
SOCIALISTIC JONNY GOBLET – LAWRENCE JEBEDIAH MCCRATHER (CDR by Reality Impaired) *
SOCIALISTIC JONNY GOBLET & MOLOCH – THE END OF THIS PLANET (CDR by Reality Impaired)
SUPER COLLIDOR – THE MICRO TRANSISTOR GROWS (CDR by Reality Impaired)
DAVID GROVE & ROBERT PEDERSEN (CDR/MP3 by Common Collector)
ST.RIDE – SE STO QUI, NEUICA (CDR by Marsiglia Records)
SAFE (CDR/DVDR by Panic Research)
SAFE – PUBLIC DOMAIN (MP3 by Zeromoon)
GINTAS K – ELEMENTARY PARTICLES (3″CDR by Retinascan)
PHOENELAI – TINY ARC (3″CDR by Retinascan) *
NUMBERS ON THE MAST (MP3 by Artifical Music Machine)
INVERSION EFFECT – A BRIEF HISTORY (MP3 by Artificial Music Machine) *
AGITATED RADIO PILOT – WORLD WINDING DOWN (CD by Deadslackstring Records)
Agitated Radio Pilot – as I first saw the name of this project on the cover sleeve I expected something in a much larger scale electronic based, than is actually the case. The album puts much emphasis on the acoustic expressions though there is also a proper dose of electronic experiments. The combination of these two sound worlds is accomplished very well, indeed. Agitated Radio Pilot as a project was founded by the Irish composer David Colohan back in 1993. On this latest album he gets assistance from a number of artists, among others Maya Elliott of Current 93. The album with the strong and descriptive title “World winding down” drifts beautifully from the guitar solo works of David Colohan to more ambient-stylish expressions where there is a frequent use of Field Recordings. Thus the album takes its starting point in the neo-folk style with a nice psychedelic touch of electronic experimentation. Being a double disc, the album floats in atmospheres of stark sadness, melancholic warmth and the sound of the forest as it runs through the 100 minutes running time. In the ambient-based moments the album reminds me of ambient-maestro Robert Rich’s guitar-based ambient project of melancholia, Amoeba. As said the project name “Agitated Radio Pilot” gave me associations to something stylishly up-front and more edgy electronic, but what is really heard is warm melancholic neofolk of otherworldly beauty. Highly recommended! (NM)
Address: http://www.desertedvillage.com or http://www.myspace.com/agitatedradiopilot
THE NEW BLOCKADERS – DAS ZERSTOREN, ZUM GEBAREN (CD by Blossoming Noise)
Usually the word ‘final’ means ‘last’, but in the case of The New Blockaders it could mean anything but ‘last’. ‘The final live document’ says the sticker on the cover, but no doubt when opportunity knocks again, there will be another final live document, and another – ad infinitum. No problem, bro, whatever you want. The New Blockaders have been around since twenty or so years and I must admit I have always been fond of their music, but find it always hard to say what it is. Their earliest work seemed almost like acoustic noise, of rusty metal sheets scraped against bicycle tires – at least that’s how I imagined things. Over the years they added feedback like sounds, but their sound reminded collage like, and lo-fi. Not the ongoing noise blast, and not the refined blasts, but a kinda of musique brut, with strange things dropping in and out. Since sticking around for so long they are now officially recognized as pioneers, so they gather up at say All Tomorrow’s Parties – good for them. This recording was made about a year ago, and it seems to me that they are a little bit more inspired by the Merzbowian noise and fury, while trying to maintain some of their original sound of cutting sounds in and out. This recording seems to me one made with various microphones and the various recordings were made mixed together – I might be totally wrong of course. The change, or at least the marginal change, in sound is something that I’m perhaps not entirely used to, but I thought this final recording was a fine one and surely not as final is it suggests. (FdW)
Address: http://www.blossomingnoise.com
DE FABRIEK GOES THE HITMACHINE – HET TERREIN II (CD by EE Tapes)
If this is ‘Het Terrein II’, there must be a ‘Terrein I’, which I found in some blog (433.rpm.blogspot.com) being a cassette from the late 80s by De Fabriek and Hands Minimal Arts. I have no idea why this title is now dusted off and used again, unless the process behind this is the same as the one before, but information is something that not well spend on De Fabriek, unlike their many releases. After some thirty years it’s hard to make any sort of discography by this Dutch ‘band’ (?), let alone tell if they have anything to do with releases that carry the name De Fabriek. Confusing? Yes, sir, it is. Information on ‘Het Terrein II’? I’m sorry, sir, no such luck. ‘The Hitmachine Goes De Fabriek’, ‘De Fabriek Goes The Hitmachine’ is all it says, besides the label information. There is however one track on the CD and not two. In a good solid forty minute mega mix (to use that 80s phrase) we, the listener are taken for a ride through both music by De Fabriek and The Hitmachine, my local groupe extraordinary, who are like De Fabriek: always in for surprise. Who does what or when, who sat behind the controls when producing this, it’s all quite unclear. I recognized elements of De Fabriek’s ‘Neveleiland’ release, the live rock elements no doubt come from The Hitmachine (as De Fabriek never plays live), but throughout it’s hard to know what is the outsider rock/noise/pop of The Hitmachine, or the experiment/industrial/techno noise of De Fabriek. It’s like two chameleons in a room, changing color, shape and size every time you look up. It’s probably as much as a De Fabriek and The Hitmachine release. It even has a cover that strongly resembles a lot De Fabriek did – go figure that one yourself. And as per usual: limited to merely 300 copies only. Another pre-programmed collectors item. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eetapes.be
POMASSL – SPARE PARTS (CD by Raster-Noton)
It’s been a long time since Pomassl from Austria released his ‘Trail Error’. Just very occasionally we heard something from him, or from his Laton label, but here he returns, for the first album of his on Raster-noton. When releasing his ‘Trail Error’ album in 1996 he was easily lumped in with the early Alva Noto, early Pita, early Pan Sonic – say anything that was early then in the field of high end peeps and low end bass rumble. The origins of head nod music, the era of clicks ‘n cuts. Now eleven years later, Pomassl still works with on one hand the computer but the other hand is touching ancient sound generators and synthesizers of the soviet union history. The cool cross-over between analogue and digital. However what was ten years something new, sounds now a bit worn out, I’d say. The beeps and thumbs we know and even when Pomassl keeps his tracks short (fifteen in fifty-five minutes) some of them sound like sketches, a drawing if you will. Not every track is as worked out as the other, which makes this a somewhat unbalanced album. What I do like is the fact that some of the pieces have that rough analogue sound such as ‘Valsalva Maneuver’ that even sounds hissy. It makes a fine counterpoint against the clean, digital sound processing of some of the other pieces. In that sense this album is a pretty varied bunch, skipping over the place. However, my main critique, is that this album could have been stronger if some of the weaker brothers would have been left off. Rather forty great minutes than fifty-five of lesser quality. (FdW)
Address: http://www.raster-noton.net
SORIAH – OFRENDAS DELUZ A LOS MUERTOS (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
VOLCANO THE BEAR – AMIDST THE NOISE AND TWIGS (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
GEORGE AND CAPLIN – HE REALLY GOT THROUGH TO ADVERTISING (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
This week Vital received two new releases in Beta Lactam-ring’s ever popular Black series and one that was released on BLRR proper.
Soriah hails from Portland. Ofrendas Deluz A Los Muertos (offerings of light to the dead) is the follow-up CD to Chaos Organica In A Minor. Whereas that CD featured a lot of layers of organ sounds and throat singing, this new one is quite different. The CD features two long tracks. The first one features hand percussion (perhaps castagnettes?), deep bass sound and feedback tones to create a rich ambient piece, which never bores. After a while incomprehensible vocals are introduced and concrete noisier sounds. Track two continues this theme, but adds singing/chanting in a Pandit Pran Nath-kind of way. Ritual/shamanic music you could say. More often than not, that would not be a recommendation, but Soriah pulls it off on this interesting album. Soriah makes the most of his music during performances, which have taken place in tunnels, churches, deserts and even a tree. Would love to see a video of that last performance. A good listen and definitely a name to keep in mind.
Volcano the Bear have been active since 1995. Members Aaron Moore, Nick Mott, Clarence Manuelo and Daniel Padden have recently released this follow up to their Classic Erasmus Fusion album. Despite the beautiful hard-carton book package and the great quality paper of the insert booklet (for the first 1000 copies of the CD), I’m having problems with this album. Volcano The Bear try to mix trippy songs with Nurse With Wound-ish collages and Residents-like piano/saxophone playing. This might be a good idea if it would work, but somehow the combination just doesn’t gel on this disc. Tracks one and two (The Sting of Haste and Before We Came To This Religion) set the 60s jam psychedelic freakout idea, with acoustic guitars, tablas and flute. The weirdness starts with Larslovesnicks Farm where the NWW/Residents piano kicks in. Tracks like Cassettes Of Berlin and One Hundred years of Infamy are again more collage/avant-garde like. Best track of the bunch is Burnt Seer with its banjo playing and Robert Wyatt-like singing. In all, this is a nice but also rather uneven album and I’m not quite certain at who this is aimed. It sounds like Volcano The Bear basically make music for themselves, which is a good thing, but as a result this album failed to impress me as a whole.
The surprise of the bunch is George and Caplin (de facto Jason Iselin and Jeffrey Stevens). Their CD He Really Got Through To Advertising gives us 27 minutes of pure 80s popsongs. The title track features a nice rhythmbox and slightly crunchy guitars. The introduction of a harmonica in Horse Fair is a nice touch. Psychosomatic loses some of the magic, but it is well made up by the last few songs on the CD. A nice, subtle and friendly piece of work this is. Shoe tapping for shoe gazers. (FK)
Address: http://www.blrrecords.com
ARON DUGAN & JEFF ARNAL – DOG DAY (CD by C3R)
The small canadian C3R-label was established in 2002. Gradually this label builds up a personal catalogue of very diverse experimental music. Albums by Maja S.K. Ratkje and Lasse Marhaug, Tsurubami, Gordon Monahan, Jesse Stewart, Axel Dörner and Diego Chamy have already been released. Also an excellent CD by Jeff Arnal together with Michael Evans, called ‘Meja’. An impressive album of improvisations by two percussionists. For ‘Dog Day’ Arnal is in the company of guitarist Aaron Dugan, and this album is another highlight. Again Arnal proves himself as an amazing drummer who often takes the lead in the battles with Dugan. As a duo they have been actively collaborating since 2003. On a day in december 2006 they recorded 14 improvisations for this album. Aaron Dugan is a new name for me. He has performed with Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Susie Ibarra, Ikue Mori, Ori Kaplan, Zeena Parkins, and many others. He toured and recorded with Matisyahu, and has three albums out produced by Bill Laswell. Originally he comes from Philadelphia, but nowadays he works in New York. I haven’t heard any of his previous work, but is very refreshing and surprising to hear an guitarist improvising, but at the same time staying close to rock and even metal music concerning his sound. It gives the feeling of listening to some free rock music. As a duo they amaze with their constant flow of ideas in high-energy improvisations. Arnal dances on his percussion, playing highly subtile, speedy and multicolored patterns, with great virtuosity and refinement, whereas the guitarist in contrast plays in a consciously stiff and a bit clumsy, nonchalant way. The maximizing strategy of Arnal and the minimizing style of Dugan make up a very explosive brew. This one is not to be missed when you love improvised music. Highly recommended. (DM)
Address: http://www.c3r.ca
BELA KAROLI – FURNISHED ROOM (CD by Helmet Room)
After being active in the Denver music scene for years, the three women of Bela Karoli have released their first CD on Helmet Room records. Originally Bela Karoli was the solo efford of Julie Davis (vocals and double bass), but now Carrie Beeder (strings) and Brigid McAuliffe (voice and accordion) have joined. The unorthodox trio has created a wonderfully lush album with both sparse acoustic and more electronic soundscape songs. The serious, literary air that Bela Karoli wants to portray is reflected in the title (which comes from a poem by TS Eliot) and the track Some Things That Fly There (which lyrics are a poem by Emily Dickinson) but luckily that never stands in the way of the music. Surprises are reinterpretations of Summertime and Ol’ Man River (probably my favourite Frank Sinatra interpreted song) with wonderfully sparse arrangements. The fragile track Machine reminds me of UK jazz band Carmel. A very nice late-night atmosphere setting album this is, which can probably be best described as avant-garde lazy jazz-oriented pop. (FK)
Address: http://www.helmetroom.com
TRIO DEROME GUILBEAULT TANGUAY – ETYMOLOGIE (DVD by Ambiances Magnétiques)
This trio is around for more then a decade now, and two CDs preceded this dvd. The first dvd-release by Ambiances Mangétiques if I,m not mistaken. The three musicians need no further introduction. All three of them are veterans of the Montréal jazz and impro scene. Most of the time they play their own work or any other modern music. But from time to time all three of them show their love for the tradition of jazz. Guilbeault did a project on Charles Mingus. With his quintet Réunion Tanguay played work from Duke Ellington and Ben Webster. And also in this trio-format they concentrate on the history of jazz, although on their first CD ’10 compositions’, they did only pieces by Derome that he composed during different stages of his career. On this dvd they play compositions by Eric Dolphy, Duke Ellington, Lennie Tristano, Misha Mengelberg, a.o. Plus 2 compositions by Derome. One of them is ‘Etymologie’, a piece dedicated to and composed in the style of Ornette Coleman. Tanguay plays drums, Guilbeault doublebass and Derome plays saxes, flute and voice. In their interpretations they show their deep affinity with the material. They stay close to the original pieces, but not in a nostalgic way. In their reworking labour they try to proof the relevance and beauty if these pieces for the present time. From what I read, they are successful in reaching a younger public and younger jazz musicians. I don’t know why they chose the dvd-format for this particular release. But it opens the opportunity not only to hear but also to see the interplay between these three gifted musicians during a concert at the L’Off Festival de Jazz de Montréal in 2006. (DM)
Address: http://www.actuelle.cd/
SIEBEN MAL SOLO (CD compilation by Schraum)
Berlin’s Schraum label released with their first six releases group improvisations, of anything bigger than duo’s, but it was a wish from them to release a CD with solo works. In June of this year they invited seven musicians to Berlin to play a short solo concert – each lasted about ten minutes. Of the seven musicians, I think I only recognized the name Sabine Vogel, who plays bass flute and live electronics. There is a variety of course in instruments (ogrephonique, alt saxophone, electric bass, accordion etc), played acoustic or with electronic amplification. Its this variation that makes this quite an interesting release and perhaps less because all the tracks are great. Ute Völker plays an intense piece on his accordion, Vogel an modern classic piece on her flute, but then Christopher Marien percussion piece was of lesser interest. Throughout the pieces are good, although the players stay close to the original ways of improvisation, I think, but then that has been Schraum’s line so far. Also included are Dave Bennett, Lars Scherzenberg, Axel Haller and Paul Hubweber. (FdW)
Address: http://www.schraum.de
TELEPHERIQUE – STAHL UND STEINE (CD by Waystyx Records)
(AD)VANCE(D) – FLUSHING THE VEINS (DVD by Waystyx Records)
The title of this new work by long serving members of the ambient/industrial/rhythm scene Telepherique translates as ‘steel and stones’ and it might be programatic for the music on this CD. Although there is no information otherwise available on this, I am quite positive that Telepherique took a bunch of metal sheets and stones into their studio to create the seven pieces on this release. The sounds that can be created with those elements are sampled, fed through electronica (read: analogue synthesizers) and lots of sound effects. Somehow I think Telepherique deals with computers, perhaps solely to record their music on. We hear the rust coming of the sheets, stones rolling, chains and other such like being looped around. Which is perhaps a bit of the problem I have with this. In some cases it’s a bit too loop based. Sounds are looped around, fed through some sound effects and synths, but then stay too much in that. No real tension or follow up, a sudden change, but sticks around like a carrousel. Some of the pieces are definitely too long for what they have to offer. Some editing could work nicely here, to add some liveliness to the music, get it drifting away. I must say I heard them do better.
The second release by Mars Wellink’s new solo project (Ad)Vance(d) takes the form of a DVD. Wellink was one half of the Vance Orchestra, ‘which lost after 10 years most of his magic’, as we read in the booklet. We also read that Wellink was treated for cancer and that this new DVD ‘symbolizes my feelings’ and hence the title. The images and sounds were created by Wellink and processed by one Mooreezz. Like Telepherique (Ad)Vance(d) likes to use loops, but whereas they are simple in the ‘Stahl Und Steine’ release of Telepherique, with (Ad)Vance(d) they are produced on a wider scale and he takes the listener on a more coherent journey. Tinkling bells, animal sounds, voices, street sounds, they all rotate with a constant tempo. The images have a similar process: colored fields rotate about, return, change shape and color, and keep on rotating. Music and images have a hallucinatory effect if you watch and listen this closely on a TV screen and with the sound quite loud. Or it works as a nice ambient environment to which glance every now and then, while having the music. Many possibilities there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.waystyx.com
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI & ATSUKO NOJIRI – CONTINUITY (CD/DVD by Asphodel)
When I popped in the DVD once I opened the package I checked wether volume was a bit more down. Zbigniew Karkowski is in my book a noise composer, even when he did a lot of softer things in his life too. The DVD started playing and I was surprised to find some modern classical music. I turned to the DVD/CD case and noted a whole bunch of musicians and instruments mentioned. I know Karkowski is a trained composer of real notes, real scores but I don’t think I ever heard any of it. Or at least I can’t remember. The press text is not very clear on the proceedings. It says ‘Karkowski employs a variety of tools to process and rework original acoustic instrument recordings’, so I assume they talk about their own release? If I understand right, CD and DVD (which hold in total five different pieces) work along these lines. On the DVD the third piece, ‘Membrane’ is a pure electronic piece, while the other two are a mixture of acoustic instruments (including bass drum, bass trombone, contrabass clarinet, violin, cello, guitars, and percussion among others). I must say I found the first piece ‘Float’ great, with lots of tension and abrupt sounds, whereas ‘Tritonal Rapture’ was a bit too minimal for me. ‘Membrane’ was more a classic Karkowski piece, but here I though the visuals of Nojiri worked really well, keep the ‘flow’ of the piece. In the other two, Nojiri also follows the music quite well, but the highly abstract nature of it (lines, squares) is not too well spend on me. The CD has two long pieces (twenty-six an forty-one minutes) of music that seems to take the instruments indeed into a whole new electronic environment. Probably running it through Max/msp, sounds glide up and down the scale, and form a thick mass of sound. These layers drift apart from eachother collide with others, but drift again. Like icebergs but with faster movements. The music is not as noise based as some would probably expect from this man, but it’s still heavy, if you catch my drift. Quite a remarkable release this one, showing, as far as I can recall for the first time the various aspects of Karkowski’s composed output and thus should serve as a fine introduction. (FdW)
Address: http://www.asphodel.com
FUCK BUTTONS – BRIGHT TOMORROW (7″ by ATP Recordings)
Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power started Fuck Buttons in 2004 as a noise band, but quickly grew out of that. The element of noise is still present in the music, but there is also melody and rhythm, as proven on this 7″, my first introduction to this band. The title song has a simple bass beat, a simple melody on a like wise simple keyboard, until some noise like vocal is kicked in but then the track fades out quite abruptly. Distorted guitars, another simple melody on the keyboard and a drumloop is the b-side. I’m sure a band like this would do well on a stage, but on record I found them less convincing. The music is meant to be loud, but it lacks true aggression – as said: on record. Live that might all be different. If they would play around I would certainly check it out and get convinced otherwise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.atpfestival.com/atp-recordings
DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS (CDR by Mystery Sea)
Thomas Ekelund’s project Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been around for some time, and has had numerous releases on MP3, CDR and CD, mostly knitting ambient and glitch music together. If I understand this right, this new release deals with on land sounds. Perhaps a first for Mystery Sea? So far much of their music had a sub-aquatic theme, with sounds that if not recorded under water surely sounded like that. For the three lengthy pieces on this released by Ekelund he uses the sounds of the park, of walking about, the sand, stones and glass under his feet. All of that goes into the holy computer to arrive strongly altered, smeared deep and low with rumbling sounds to the listener. Each track starts out relatively calm, but unfolds over time in mighty dark beasts – loud, perhaps even violent, dark rumble. Maybe that is a bit of a pity since it makes all three tracks a bit single minded, since they all sound alike, certainly the first two pieces. However the first and third piece are quite, over which I prefer the third. Here the dark rumble and field recording keep in perfect balance. Maybe the second piece is a bit redundant, and without it, things would have been a bit stronger. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
NIGEL WRIGHT – FLOTTER (CDR by Gest)
Since about five years works Nigel Wright inside experimental music, as member of Nest and solo, having releases on CMR and some that were self-released. Here he releases ‘Flotter’, which is created from field recordings, guitar and tape loops, which all feed into the laptop and which are used to create a thick smear of sound. I say smear, but I mean this positively though. Wright staples sound on sound on sound (etc), thus blurring the fine lines between field recording, guitar and tape-loop, and something else arrives: a finely woven pattern of sounds, that only reveal their beauty by either looking very close by or from some distance. The first piece, ‘Wildts’ has some angular loud sound, but the following three are soft, meditative but also dark, moody atmospheric. As such Wright doesn’t do much new work, not in the sense of his background as a New Zealand composer (although this is far from the usual lo-fi), or in a wider sense of dark ambient music made with field recordings, but I think he does a pretty fine job in creating some autumn infected tunes of low fog music. Quite nice. (FdW)
Address: http://nest.or.gest.googlepages.com
MARC SPRUIT & MICHIEL DE HAAN – RADICAL IMPROVISATIONS (CDR, self released)
Some weeks ago we were introduced to the work of Marc Spruit, through a self-released short 3″CDR. Here he teams up with Michiel de Haan, of whom I never heard. He plays guitar and ‘mix-tracks’ whilst Spruit plays turntables and also ‘mix-tracks’ – whatever they may be. They call the nine tracks ‘radical improvisations’ and they last around at least three minutes each. So ‘much’ longer than on Spruit’s first release (which lasted only eight minutes in total). In the first few pieces I thought this would be a rather noisy affair, but it turns out to be a lot more different than just that. There is indeed a certain noisiness about these nine pieces, but the two apply a strong elements of collage to it. Sounds cut as brutally in and out, breaking the whole thing up and down, with small portions of silence. It’s cut through the middle where stereo separation could have added a bit more variation between the pieces, but it’s actually quite nice, if not a bit long at times. Perhaps not as radical as we could expect in the pages of Vital Weekly, but they do quite a nice job. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com.haanspruit
SOCIALISTIC JONNY GOBLET – LAWRENCE JEBEDIAH MCCRATHER (CDR by Reality Impaired)
SOCIALISTIC JONNY GOBLET & MOLOCH – THE END OF THIS PLANET (CDR by Reality Impaired)
SUPER COLLIDOR – THE MICRO TRANSISTOR GROWS (CDR by Reality Impaired)
Perhaps the most interesting item from these three new releases on Reality Impaired is a release by Socialistic Jonny Goblet (new entry in the contest for silly names) called ‘Lawrence Jebediah McCrather’, which comes with a four page story and many xeroxed photo’s on this person, whom I doubt ever existed. I can look it up on the internet, but frankly I gave up believing what I read there, plus, perhaps, I don’t want to spoil the fun. Maybe it’s true and McCrather exists, but who cares. The story about his satan life, imprisonment and such like is nice, so why does it have to be true? The music is spread out of nineteen tracks of improvised noise, with voices, guitars, electronics, drums. Sometimes heavy inspired by rock, sometimes towards more pure noise and sometimes in more open ended free rock improvisation. Perhaps all a bit long and tiresome and it could have been a bit more to the point.
Together with one Moloch the same band, Socialistic Jonny Goblet is a duo, there is also ‘The End Of This Planet’. Stan and Sciron on ‘noise & destruction, sounds of fury’ and Pr Sergiy on ‘all intuitive poisoned impulses’. More noise related than the previous release this one, this one howls and screams all over the place. Feedback, mayhem, destruction, screaming voices all do their good part. It’s o.k. I guess and the tracks are more to the point but then close to forty minutes is still quite long.
As a total counterpoint is there the CD by Super Collidor. I am not sure if this has anything to do with the software of the same name, somehow I don’t think so, but the music is quite apart from the other two releases. Atmospheric and ambience play the main tune here, but Super Collidor uses some low resolution samples which make this whole thing quite nice. There is a certain graininess about the sounds (synthesizers? guitars? software?) uses, which is quite nice. Not very outspoken, but after the rather violent blasts of the Socialist Jonny Goblet this comes as really nice chill out music. (FdW)
Address: <dm_prae@hotmail.com>
DAVID GROVE & ROBERT PEDERSEN (CDR/MP3 by Common Collector)
Both the label and the artists are new to me and hail from Vancouver. Grove plays a ‘primitive home made synthesizer’ and Pedersen (prime mover behind the label) plays ‘modified cassette recorders’. How these are modified and in what way they are different from a normal cassette recorders we are not told. On September 28, 2007 they sat down together and recorded this almost twenty six minute improvisation. It’s a pretty gritty, lo-fi affair of suppressed noise, of magnetic tape against tape heads and the synthesizer producing square waves. Maybe it’s my imagination but things are picked up with a microphone and that’s it. It’s surely a nice work, if not a bit long. I think, in my sincere and humble opinion that not every freak out session should be released. Why not record a number of improvisations and splice the best parts together. Why this? Why not tomorrow’s session, or last months? It’s hard to figure what makes this a stand out session that they are so desperate in getting out. So for now it’s o.k., but in the future some more effort please. (FdW)
Address: http://www.commoncollector.com
ST.RIDE – SE STO QUI, NEUICA (CDR by Marsiglia Records)
Music by St.ride has been reviewed before, and usually I made mistakes in describing what they do. Here on the cover of their latest CDR release, things are in Italian, but it seems (!) that Edo Grandi plays rhythm and synth, Maurizio Gusmerini vocals and guitar, plus there is various room for more experimental outing which shortwave and contact microphones. The seven pieces on this new release make a leap forward, I think. From the cut ‘n paste sound of before, they now explore to make proper songs, held together with a strong rhythm and sequencer. On top the voice is not really singing and doing things that resemble singing. The rhythm is hip hop like. There is also extra sounds, such as skipping CDs, guitars (??, hard to recognize though) bring in the ornaments of the music, and make throughout quite a mature impression. This is not music to dance too, even when the rhythm is forceable present, but it’s great popmusic to hear, with a strong sense of experimentalism to it. Very nice! (FdW)
Address: http://www.marsigliarecords.it
SAFE (CDR/DVDR by Panic Research)
SAFE – PUBLIC DOMAIN (MP3 by Zeromoon)
Despite being a recent collaboration, both Dave Vosh and Tyler Higgins, who make up Safe have a long career in music. Vosh since the early 1970s when he started to play around with analogue synthesizers and Tyler Higgins who is an improviser on various instruments, here with the autoharp, banjo and electronics. How it looks, we can see on the DVDR part of the self-released package. It contains a seventeen minute concert recording at the excellent Sonic Circuits festival on last september. It makes sense, I think, to watch this first before going to the CDR part. The CDR has four lengthy cuts of improvised music, and seeing them doing it, makes things a bit clear. Vosh provides an ongoing back drop with his modular synthesizer, over which Higgins brings his sparse sounds on the autoharp and banjo. The biggest problem in all of this activity is that they are straight recordings from the board and seem to have no editing afterwards. In the DVDR part that is no problem, since it’s always fun to watch people do their work, but on the CDR things are a bit too long and spun out too much to true captivate the listener. And certainly when there is nothing to see things may get a bit too problematic.
A good way of easy checking out what Safe is about, you can always download ‘Public Domain’ on Zeromoon. It’s not that is better, but it’s free and the three pieces there give a good idea what Safe is about. The three pieces don’t make up anything different than on the CDR/DVDR release. Nice all of this, but a bit rough and in need of some refinement. (FdW)
Address: http://www.panicresearch.com
Address: http://www.archive.org/details/zero085
GINTAS K – ELEMENTARY PARTICLES (3″CDR by Retinascan)
PHOENELAI – TINY ARC (3″CDR by Retinascan)
One my favorite CDR labels is Retinascan, who take great care for the covers, a rare thing in the world of CDRs. Both of these three inch releases come in nice printed cardboard boxes. Gintas K is of course someone who came across before and here he goes into conceptual edges of sound, working very specific frequencies that reflect male or female speech, 80hz sine wave ‘which sometimes goes below the scale of human hearing – hell, and 10 khz sine wave which goes above the scale of human hearing – heaven’. Originally made for a podcast, but of course it’s hard to translate these frequencies into MP3 (a format unsuitable for any kind of experimental music, but that is probably a different discussion). It may seem altogether quite complicated, but Gintas K actually manages to create some nice music. Continuing his somewhat more crude sine wave cut ups of his previous releases, like a bastard (although in a positive manner) son of Alva Noto, his sine wave music has balls. Deep rumbling, cut to fit beats that are hardly danceable, but which are surely groovy. Still under the influence of early Pan Sonic, this is actually another fine release by this Lithuanian composer.
I have no idea who is behind Phoenelai, but he has had releases before on Retinascan and Instruction Shuttle. There is no mentioning of instruments on the cover of the release, but me thinks Phoenelai uses a laptop to create his music. Taking his inspiration for the most part from the world of dark ambient music, he manages to add elements from the world glitch through a sparse clicky rhythm, hiss and amplified static. However through the four pieces here stay ‘dark’, ‘atmospheric’ and ‘ambient’. The four pieces also show that Phoenelai has some experience and skill in producing this kind of music, as despite it’s minimalism he knows how to hold attention from the listener. Based around shifting loops and dark textures this is pretty nice release. Now this could have been a bit longer, I think. (FdW)
Address: http://www.retinascan.de
NUMBERS ON THE MAST (MP3 by Artifical Music Machine)
INVERSION EFFECT – A BRIEF HISTORY (MP3 by Artificial Music Machine)
Both of these bands have a different line up, but they curiously sound quite similar. Both are from texas, both have an extended amount of gear at their disposal, both are trios, both sound electronic but all of the music is created through improvisation. Numbers On The Mast is Eric Archer, Trey Smith and Matthew Thies along with a whole bunch synthesizers, effects pedals, circuit bend electronics, a CD player, guitars and much more. They deliver six improvisations that hoover somewhere in the grey area of cosmic music, psychedelic music and electronic music. I am not sure but it might seem to me that everything was recorded direct to two track, cut from a series of improvisations. If they would have been great than there would be no problem, but the improvisations here at hand, are long, tedious and absolutely not to the point. They drag on on end, with much variation, change or tension.
Martin McCreadie, Thomas Fang and Dan Burton make up Inversion Effect, as such they use guitar, synth, field recordings, radio, scanner frequencies, turntables, circuit-bent toys, laptop and bass. They are sometimes helped by other musicians. There is not much difference with the release by Numbers On The Mast, except perhaps they have more track in less time. That is good news however since they keep things tighter to eachother than Numbers. However they too sometimes sink into pointless improvisation, which drag on less end than the other band, but here too I think it’s not great either. It’s a pity since some of the tracks such as ‘In The Shadow Of The Vampire’, show they can produce a nice tune which needs a bit of fine tuning. (FdW)
Address: http://www.artificialmusicmachine.com