J.R. PLANKTON – NEON (CD by Karaoke Kalk) *
TOLOUSE LOW TRAX – JEIDEM FALL (CD by Karaoke Kalk) *
GOH LEE KWANG – AND VICE VERSA (CD by Herbal International) *
CORTEX – THE WHOLE STORY (2CDs by Plinkity Plonk) *
HORNORKESTERET – FJAER OG JERN (CD by Panot)
RHODRI DAVIES & MARK WASTELL – LIVE IN MELBOURNE (CD by Mikroton) *
OREN AMBARCHI – AUDIENCE OF ONE (CD by Touch) *
JASON URICK – I LOVE YOU (CD by Thrill Jockey Records) *
MOE – IT PICTURES (CD by Conrad Soujnd)
LARRISKITO AUDIO DISSECTION UNIT – EXILED IN BILBAO (CD by Dim Records/Gold Soundz/Tibprod/Series Negras) *
MUBLES – EL ACCESO AL SER (CDR by Young Girls Records) *
MIGUEL A. GARCIA & RICHARD KAMERMAN – HOMOPHEST 20110921 (CDR by Copy For Your Records) *
SCENT OF SOIL (CD by Hubro)
WILLEM JETHS MONUMENTO (CD by Etcetera)
STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM – YOKOMONO-PRO/COMPOSED NATURE (LP by Alga Marghen)
STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM – YOKOMONO 3.5 (LP by Staalplaat)
GARY SMITH & SILVIA KASTEL & NINNI MORGIA – BRAND (LP by Ultramarine Records)
ZOIKLE – ILLUSIES (7″ by Tractor Notown)
SELBYVILLE – MANSIONS (CDR by Tea Fist Records) *
THE SHAPE OF SOUND VOLUME 2 (CDR by Ice Age Productions)
CARL KRUGER – LOVEDAY (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records) *
CHRIS HEENAN & DIMITRA LAZARIDOU-CHATZIGOGA – DER SLAUE FUCHS (3″CDR by More Mars) *
YIANNIS TSIRIKOGLU – [DUST] (3″CDR by More Mars) *
FRZIMAGHO/MOON – SINGEL SERIES EIGHT (3″CDR by Burning Emptiness)
ANNEXIFIER – AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENTS (cassette by Foredoom Productions)
GRIZZLY IMPLODED – HE BECAME SOMETHING…(3″CDR by Foredoom Productions)
POITER / OCRA – SPLIT (C30 by Ramshackle Day Records)
ATAY ILGUN & DAVID VINCENT – FRAGMENTS OF SOUND (cassette by Tape Your Mouth)
J.R. PLANKTON – NEON (CD by Karaoke Kalk)
TOLOUSE LOW TRAX – JEIDEM FALL (CD by Karaoke Kalk)
Although J.R. Plankton sounds like one guy, it is actually a duo of Jens Struver and Robert Ohm. Ohm is in the press text described as ‘studio nerd and multi instrumentalist’ who worked with Struver before on a radioplay. Struver is the man from the M=minimal label, releasing music by the likes of Conrad Schnitzler. Their CD has five long pieces (four of them made it to the vinyl version). Great music it is. I’ve already played this at least five times, before even thinking that I had to review this one point. Electronic music, obviously, but with a great drive. Maybe even what we could consider a dance record. ‘Musique Electronique’ is a homage to Kraftwerk with its robotic voice repeating the title, but my goodness what a great drive this piece has, just as ‘Sundance’. That piece comes with a nice guitar lick that reminded me of the best Porter Ricks days, but slowly turns into a 70s disco guitar. Otherwise pieces, like ‘City Jungle’ or ‘Nakamaru’ is then a bit more downbeat, but slowly build up, along minimal lines, before arriving in full steam. ‘Regen’ closes down the CD and is a moody, post dance chill out affair. A fine pairing of minimal house rhythms, cosmic synths and krautrock like minimalism. Excellent CD – first highlight of the year.
I never heard of Tolouse Low Trax, also known as Detlef Weinrich, who released three EPs and two albums, before ‘Jeidem Fall’, his third full length. Weinrich is best known as a member of Kreidler, who, to my surprise, apparently still exist but I lost them out of sight. His album has eight tracks (six on the vinyl) and also deal with rhythm, but on a bit of a different level. Whereas J.R. Plankton
is danceable and house-like, Tolouse Low Trax finds a more curious mixture of minimalist beats, sampled perhaps, simple drum machines maybe, which are fed through a few sound processors. This minimalism reminds me of industrial music, although its never that loud, or in fact much more easy going. Coming to us with the use of some arpeggio’s on the synth, a vague ethnic notion (think Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia at times), this is a record for the after party and J.R. Plankton more for the party itself. The kind of minimal dance music, that is not entirely danceable. References to PWOG, Esplendor Geometrico, Muslimgauze and Goem could be made, but the nice dark/light contrast in the music is very nice, whereas these references usually are just dark. Great one too, but not as good as J.R. Plankton. (FdW)
Address: http://www.karaokekalk.de
GOH LEE KWANG – AND VICE VERSA (CD by Herbal International)
Yesterday I fell asleep while playing this new CD by Goh Lee Kwang, which in the world of John Cage is probably a compliment. It happened during the long piece ‘Weightifwax’, which is curious ambient piece for electronic insects and mild feedback like sounds. An excellent piece I think. Not because I fell asleep, but something I noted when fully awake. Its not easy to say what Goh Lee Kwang is doing here, in relation to what I heard previously by him – turntable and no-input mixer – but the general quiet mood worked excellent. As said its a long piece, well over thirty-seven minutes, after which ‘Touchpoint’ works as a nasty wake-up call. Although not as noisy as some of his previous work, this loud block of high pitched sounds, nervous, is not so much my cup of tea. The other main tour de force, although ‘just’ fifteen minutes, is ‘Weightofdust’, which is even more subdued and sounds like metal wires being played which an extended use of reverb, pushed to the far end quiet side of the sound spectrum. ‘Endless’ closes down the CD with a strange bouncing rhythm that slows down over the course of the piece, and is a bit like a cover version of Alvin Lucier’s ‘Clocker’. Plus there are two more pieces that are so short they go by hardly noticed. Without that ‘Touchpoint’ intermission, I think this is by far the best work I heard from Goh Lee Kwang. A great variety in approaches to sound material, resulting in some very fine and refined music. Maybe a bit more info on the cover wouldn’t do no harm though. (FdW)
Address: http://herbalinternational.tk/
CORTEX – THE WHOLE STORY (2CD by Plinkity Plonk)
My son was happily surprised when he listened to the first CD of Cortex when we were driving car. At last… short songs and no endless musical experiments or improvisations with long-lasting tones. That’s the power of the first CD of ‘The Whole Story’ of Cortex. Thirty compositions which have been recorded and mixed directly on an open-reel tape machine between 1974 and 1982 by the Belgium musician Alain Neffe. Alain Neffe was very active in the eighties with his label Insane Music and musical groups and projects like Human Flesh and BeNe GeSSeRiT. These tracks have been released at cassette at his own Insane Music label and other labels like The Cassette factory, Aerosol, 3rio Tapes, Grafika, Fraction Studio, Discograph, Stack Orientation, Beast 666, Trax, Music For Midget, Colin Potter, Finger In The Dike, Tear Apart Tapes, Korm Plastics, Innersleeve and Gut Level Music. Alain Neffe used synthesizers, rhythm-box, string organ, ring oscillator, guitar, tapes, percussion, electronics and tape-loops to create his dreamy music. The lyrics have been recited by Mirella Brunello, Isabelle Yernaux, Tina Scatozza and Nadine Bal (also member of BeNe GeSSeRiT). Most of the lyrics are in French and by the way of reciting the music gets a poetic atmosphere. The second CD is full of nine unreleased tracks and one track has already been released (on their one and only cassette from 1984). As been said the power of the music of Cortex can been found in the short length of the music. In a period of one till four minutes Alain Neffe creates a beautiful composition in which the female voice melts together with mostly warm sounds of Neffe. This historical piece of music may not been missed in the collection of the adorer of eighties music and the mix of poetry and sound. (JKH)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl
HORNORKESTERET – FJAER OG JERN (CD by Panot)
Norway is cold and full of forests, which are full of reindeers. The antlers of the reindeers are the main instrument of the Hornoskesteret which has been founded in 1999. The Group explored the natural acoustic sounds through compositions and improvisations on stringed and bowed reindeer antlers. The group uses also bones, ice, coffee pots, rocks, and various woods together with vocals, flutes, drums and field recordings. Using spoken word, free improvisation, noise, folk, blues and drones. “Fjær og Jern” is a overview of Hornorkesteret?s musical development and a great introduction to the band. It features ambient arctic mood music, field recordings, improvisation, traditional and even a Mari Boine cover. Most of the tracks are recorded live to two tracks with no editing, some are studio recordings. The music is connected with the natural environment and elements of Norway. The combination of music-instruments and field-recordings have been used in an intelligent way. Nature and culture come together and the Hornorkesteret are masters to create this mixture. The booklet gives a lot of background information about the group and the compositions. “Fjaer og Jern” is a beautiful album to explore the cold parts of the world in a musical way. (JKH)
Address: http://hornorkesteret.no/
RHODRI DAVIES & MARK WASTELL – LIVE IN MELBOURNE (CD by Mikroton)
A work of changes? That is what this seems to me. Normally we find Rhodri Davies behind a harp, and Mark Wastell playing tam-tam, but not on this one. Here Davies gets credit for ‘low-fi live electronics’ and Wastell for mixing desk, digital delay pedal, stereo and mono contact microphone, mini-disc player, CD player, charcoal, ceramic tile, velvet material, light grade sand paper, cardboard, wire wool, bell, singing bowls, beaters, pre-recorded electronics and likewise harmonium. Yes, it sounds different than much of their other work and as such a change perhaps, but its for one not that radically different and secondly a recording from 2005 already. So, all around a release that promises quite a bit, moving out their usual habit. We are not disappointed here. This is a great release. Loud at times, with piercing feedback like sounds, but the acoustics used by Wastell are never far away. They provide that velvet touch in which this sine wave like stuff moves. Vibrant music also, that is never for too long in the same place. A noisy version of electro-acoustic music, moving away from their usual more carefully constructed pieces – this at times (most of the) quite loud and present. Quite an exciting recording, I think. If you are fan of these two men, then you should be in for quite surprise – if what they do is in general too soft, then be sure to check this out. You too will be surprised. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mikroton.net
OREN AMBARCHI – AUDIENCE OF ONE (CD by Touch)
Its been a while since I last heard something new by Oren Ambarchi, which may be entirely my problem of not noticing, or perhaps Ambarchi’s output was slowing down. Whatever the case, its good to hear something new from him and its surely quite a surprise, or two. One surprise might be obvious, the presence of singing, which is not entirely new in the world of Ambarchi, but then is in his Sun band, but here on Salt we have the voice of Paul Duncan. Another surprise, perhaps a bit hidden, is the presence of a cover of Kiss’ Ace Frehley. But perhaps the biggest surprise is the omnipresence of many different collaborators, which, apart from Duncan, includes Elisabeth Welsh, James Rushford, Eyvind Kang, Janel Leppin, Stephen Fandrich, Josiah Boothby, Joe Talia, Crys Cole, Kessica Kenney and Natasha Rose. Many of them contribute violin, viola, cello, but also percussion, piano and voice. Its not a record to be compared with his previous solo records easily. Mainly due to the fact that the sound not always evolves around Ambarchi’s guitar playing, slow, peaceful, heavy with low tones and minimal. This new album is much varied opening many new doors for Ambarchi. The simple ticking of rhythm machine, wine glasses, voice and acoustic guitars on the Frehley cover, but that’s at the end of the CD. It opens with the Duncan sung ‘Salt’, which is perhaps the closest link to the old Ambarchi sound, but already extended with voice, violin and piano. A slow dramatic song. ‘Knots’, with thirty-three minutes easily the tour de force of the album, accelerates slowly into a heavy free rock improvisation, full on distortion and Talia banging the drums heavily, but with rather majestical heavy ending. More psychedelic music than guitar ambience for sure. Ambient is surely present on ‘Passage’, with all sorts of instrumental passages, but strangely enough, perhaps, the signature guitar of Ambarchi seems absent here, moving gently into the aforementioned Frehley cover. A CD full of surprises, lots of different textures, yet absolutely very coherent. Great return! Excellent work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
JASON URICK – I LOVE YOU (CD by Thrill Jockey Records)
In the movie ‘I Love You’, the main character falls in love with a key-chain who says ‘I love you’ when whistled at. Its the starting point for Jason Urick, of whom I didn’t hear before. Apparently his previous work was ambient on his debut album and ‘rhythmic and distorted tones’ on the one after that. Urick went through a ‘transitional period’, which saw him also move around different places, recording at Worm in Rotterdam, Floristree in Baltimore and at home in Portland. All of the recorded work was ‘manipulated, mixed and constructed on his laptop’, but there is no mentioning of any instruments used here. Maybe no real instruments were used here, and everything is based on samples? That’s at least how this sounds to me. It opens strong with the title track, a hasty, floating piece of layered string like samples. In ‘Don’t Digital’ there is a voice sample, but its hard to hear what it says with all that processing – and its very much at the mid-high end of the sound spectrum, making a shrill sound. Its nice, but long. In ‘Angel Isms’ and ‘The Crying Song’, the connection with samples is even stronger, but I found it hard to relate to. Its a bit unclear what these pieces want, or the composer. Multi-layered music of samples and electronics – slowly opening and closing effects on the original sound material, whereas closing piece ‘Syndromes’ is more like shoegazing with fuzzy synthesizers. Certainly not a bad record, but also something that I thought wasn’t very good either. Quite standard sort fuzzy laptop music, like Tim Hecker does, but then usually better. I have no idea why this ended up on such a high profile label. (FdW)
Address: http://www.thrilljockey.com
MOE – IT PICTURES (CD by Conrad Soujnd)
Moe is a trio from Oslo- Norway and consists of Guro Sknumsnes Moe on bass and vocals, Havard Skaset on guitar and Sveinar Hoff on drums. The album It Pictures is their first album. The bass-player is known as an energetic musician in the Norwegian improvisation scene. And that is what you can hear in several songs. But the music of Moe is more structured than her soloworks. Fast and noisy blasts of chaotic eruptions will lead to a lullaby, where the singer asks “If you could save me?” The style is hardly to describe, for me that is always a good point. All kinds of styles are melt together into aggressive static riffs, uptempo drums, melodic patterns with a hardcore punk attitude, soft voice and evil screams. The trio is inspired by bands like DNA, Melvins, Black Sabbath, Patty Smith and Jesus Lizard, but I hear also many other bands passing by… But Moe is Moe and it is an energetic piece of music with a lot of creativity and without any border which is not leading to a mess of sound. Highly recommended! (JKH)
Address: http://www.conradsound.com
LARRISKITO AUDIO DISSECTION UNIT – EXILED IN BILBAO (CD by Dim Records/Gold Soundz/Tibprod/Series Negras)
MUBLES – EL ACCESO AL SER (CDR by Young Girls Records)
MIGUEL A. GARCIA & RICHARD KAMERMAN – HOMOPHEST 20110921 (CDR by Copy For Your Records)
The connection between these three releases on three different labels is the presence of Miguel A. Garcia, also known as Xedh. I heard some great music from him, but sometimes its besides my taste. This trio proofs that, again. The first one is a meeting that took place in Bilbao between a whole bunch of people: Sindre Bjerga (objects), Oier Ia (electronics), Miguel A. Garcia (electronics), Jan M. Iversen (electronics), Carlos Valverde (guitar), Cam Deas (guitar), Steffan de Turck (electronics) and Kakofunk (radio). Looking at the not-so clear pictures on the cover, they set up in a space and then played together, at the same time and then sometimes not. This CD documents that afternoon/day/days in seven different pieces. If you know these people, and some I do pretty well, you know what you are in for, but it can move all over the place – from clicky microsounding sounds to heavy noise. Hardly a surprise that this sixty-two minute/seven track CD has it all. It would be interesting to know how this was recorded, either straight to a two track recording or if all the parts were taped separately. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the latter, since the material is quite dynamic and very varied, which is usually not the case when these matters come to us in an improvised matter. So if it is a two-track recording, then I bow and take my hat off. Obviously when they delve in the pits of noise, I am less interested, but a piece like the third one is very nice, moving from careful textured feedback to field recordings and white noise. The fifth track is a bit out of place, a guitar duet (the only one with Cam Deas), I think. Maybe it could have all been a bit shorter, but this is essentially a fine release showing the dynamics of laptop musicians being able to set up everywhere, play with everyone and still come up with some music.
A miss I think is the release by Mubles, a ‘group’ of Garcia on oscillators and no-input mixer with the voice of Alvaro Matilla with additional sounds by Kjetil Hanssen, Pilar Biazan and Oihana Vicente. This is the first real-time studio work, as opposed to many of their previous releases which were all recorded live. For all I know (and hear), this could also be a live recording. ‘The result is an intense and surreal landscape of sexual schizophrenia, only for drone-noise lovers’ it says on the information. I love drone noise, have no idea what sexual schizophrenia is, and this rather improvised set of sustaining noise from oscillators and feedback from no-input plus the babble of Matilla doesn’t give me an erection. My favorite track was dark, white noise hiss of ‘Mar De Nordo’, the final track of the album, but it was quite a travel to get there.
September 21 2011 Garcia visited Richard Kamerman in New York at the headquarters of the Homophoni label they played together. Armed, I think (this cover doesn’t say anything at besides artists, title and label name), contact microphones, no-input mixers and a variety of objects, the two create something that is obviously improvised, but it sounds pretty organized. Long sustaining tones swell and disappear, gaps of seemingly silence, bits of scratching the surface, building up again into bass heavy sustaining tones. This they do about three times. Especially between the second and third part there is quite a gap of that sheer silence and random scatter of objects, but it holds the tension pretty well, I think. You assume it will burst again, and it does, but when? That is a fine power they have here and at just over thirty minutes it has absolutely the right length. Fine work. (FdW)
Address: http://dimrecords.wordpress.com/
Address: http://young-girls-records.blogspot.com
Address: http://cfyre.co/rds/
SCENT OF SOIL (CD by Hubro)
WILLEM JETHS MONUMENTO (CD by Etcetera)
In recent times I pretty much enjoyed the improvised music from the house of Norway’s Hubro. Scent Of Soil is a band around vocalist Kirsti Huke and saxophone player Tore Brunborgm along with Petter Vagan on guitar, Rune Nergaard on bass and Gard Nilssen on drums. No doubt they are all great musicians, but this rock/pop/jazz CD is not something I like very much. Not in the real world where I can easily admit to hearing pop music (never jazz), or rock music, but this smooth bunch of songs is not something that belongs to the world of Vital Weekly.
And while I am at it, neither does the CD with works by Willem Jeths. Something entirely different, this being very serious, not so modern classic music. No doubt a highly gifted composer, but entirely at loss here in Vital Weekly. Its mentioned, so you now its out there. Should rock/pop/jazz/classical music be something you like, then why are you subscribed here (sorry, wrong move), then why do they think we can write about it? (FdW)
Address: http://www.hubromusic.com
Address: http://www.etcetera-records.nl
STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM – YOKOMONO-PRO/COMPOSED NATURE (LP by Alga Marghen)
STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM – YOKOMONO 3.5 (LP by Staalplaat)
You may have heard of ‘white noise’ before (the sound thing rather than David Vorhaus), and even ‘pink noise’, but ‘brown noise’ might be lesser known, and ‘green noise’: did that exist? Yet all of that is part, somehow of these two records. Staalplaat Soundsystem is not a band/project in quite the regular sense of the word, but rather a fluctuating group around Geert-Jan Hobijn (also founder of Staalplaat, the label), Carlo Crovato (an artist and under the pseudonym plastic-electrics), Jens Alexander Ewald (software developer) and Carsten Stabenow. Their installations are about sound and space and ‘small’ is a word that never applies to these pieces. Its never for one car, one vacuum cleaner, but calls out for loads of cars, vacuum cleaners or one hundred electric office fans. They are altered so that a composer can play them. In ‘Yokomono Pro’, a piece created in New Delhi, for 30 tuck-tucks, the horns can be controlled remotely. They drive a pre-determined route, so their sound starts becoming a rhythm pattern. Ilpo Vaisanen (of Pan Sonic fame) composed a piece out of that, which is hear recorded in Gent (Belgium), so I assume its cars rather than tucks-tucks. Its an utterly annoying piece to hear, certainly if you never drove a car yourself – like me – but it also has something captivating. Hardly like anything that is even remotely Pan Sonic like, but its not difficult to see Vaisanen’s fascinating with a choir of short and long form tones back in this piece for thirty car horns. Towards the end its gets even fast rhythmical and almost melodically. Maybe, however, we lack a visual component here. Green noise is something that we find on the backside, which is a piece of 64 trees, attached with ‘controllable, mechanical vibrators’, which can be played with custom made software. Visitors to the installation can control this with their cell-phones, but its also possible to play this is a piece. On this record we have a composition by Radboud Mens. In both cases its clear what we hear, car horns and trees. But whereas the car horns are slightly annoying and making a novelty record (perhaps due to the lack of a visual element), the ‘Composed Nature’ side actually works pretty well, without a visual side. We hear trees, branches, leaves flapping in the wind, triggered by those vibrators, along with the birds and wind sounds that you get when you an outdoor recording. Radboud Mens cleverly builds up his piece, starting with sparse elements and then slowly going to more heavy motions of those trees (bigger ones I assume). Now here a visual element is not really necessary, as this can perfectly be enjoyed as a piece of music by itself. There is mean drone like sound at its core (why am I thinking of chainsaw?), which comes in and out, but these seemingly random sounds are put together into one great piece of music.
One thing that puzzled me is why one side of the record is called Yokomono Pro, as I thought this whole Yokomono thing dealt with vinyl, vinyl killers and such like? To which end Staalplaat goes as far as to pressing records for these installations and invite composers to deliver sound material. I am not sure how this will end up in the installation pieces, but if its still the same thing as with the vinyl killers, then this ‘3.5’ is worthy one. To explain what it is, I have to copy the original text by Staalplaat: “Our first attempt was the release of Yokomono 03 where we hoped to cut two tracks, one spiraling from outside in and the others from inside out. So that the needle would move in different directions. This attempt failed (for reasons that we will not go in to at this moment). This new record has three parallel soundtracks where the cutting needle was lifted twice with short intervals, in order to make the needle used during “wiedergabe” to jump tracks randomly. To play this record you must not see your turntable as a reproduction machine that reproduces the music on the record. You can not put it on and sit down to listen. See the record and turntable much more as a music instrument that with each turntable model and with each setting if your machine you will create a different sound and mix of this record. As with any instrument you have to learn how to play your turntable and find what setting you like best. Of vital influence are the skate settings en the wait [sic] on the tone arm, these and others you must very to experience the options of the record.” There is a brown noise (inserts quote again: “In science, Brownian noise, also known as Brown noise or red noise, is the kind of signal noise produced by Brownian motion, hence its alternative name of random walk noise. The term “Brown noise” comes not from the color, but after Robert Brown, the discoverer of Brownian motion.” with sound pieces by Cynthia Zaven and Merzbow, and a white noise side with Mika Vainio and Jaap Blonk. Now this is certainly a most strange record. I stood by my turntable, changing the weight of the tone arm hearing say Blonk, but then moving into Vainio and back, or the piano tones which I assume are Zaven’s going into Merzbowian noise, sometimes with white/brown noise blocks coming in, quickly and disappearing equally fast. Stuff you can do on vinyl only and which have a highly added value to what you get. Hardly plain music, but also not just a DJ tool. Very nice, even without the art installation itself. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staalplaat.com
GARY SMITH & SILVIA KASTEL & NINNI MORGIA – BRAND (LP by Ultramarine Records)
Nine tracks of improvised music by Gary Smith, Silvia Kastel and Ninni Morgia. Guitarist Smith has played with Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine, with Rhys Chatham, Aufgehoben and sometimes solo. Also a guitarist, Ninni Morgia before released a LP with Marcello Magliocchi (see Vital Weekly 793) and Silvia Kastel is a singer and synth player – her solo tape was reviewed in Vital Weekly 794. Their trio record was recorded live last year. The label says this ‘trio takes things further’, but I would think: depends on which point you start from. Though various of these pieces I really like, throughout it sounds to me like a fairly ‘normal’ record of improvised music. Guitar abuse, bits of feedback, moaning, howling, screaming voices and strings this is certainly not bad, but perhaps works better in a live context than on record. Much of the tension that improvised music can have shows only in the ‘there and then’ moment of when the action takes place. Brought back to record, moving out of that context of the concert, the tension is not always present. It works best for me when there is a fair amount of electronics used. It adds an extra dimension to the music, that necessary extra layer of sound to move out of two abused guitars and improvised voice. But unfortunately that doesn’t always happen. (FdW)
Address: http://www.ultramarinerecords.com
ZOIKLE – ILLUSIES (7″ by Tractor Notown)
G.W. Sok is back again. After a long period of playing with The Ex he starts a new period in his musical life. He performs solo as poet and plays in now in different bands like Cannibales and Vahines, Beuk Orkest and Zoikle. Zoikle is a new band which consists of G.W. Sok (voice), Lukas Simonis (guitar), Nina Hitz (cello) and Cor Hoogerdijk (drums). The single is their first release with two songs in the Dutch language. Both illusions are inspired by the German singers Marlene Dietrich and Hildegard Knef. Illusie 1 is also the soundtrack of the experimental short movie of Marit Shalem. Both songs are connected with each other. The first one started with staccato guitar riffs, like – sorry to say – The Ex. The other side of the single is more theatrical, because of the use of the instruments and the way of declaiming the words in different speed and intensity. This short debut of a new Dutch band is a interesting and hopeful start and I am looking for more! (JKH)
Address: mail@druxat.nl
SELBYVILLE – MANSIONS (CDR by Tea Fist Records)
A trio with Michael Kamin, Artie Fischer and Derek Kimball who are from Portland (Maine) and Pittsburg (Pennsylvania) – which seems hard for me when it comes to band rehearsals – and who are called Selbyville. I believe they all three play guitar and there is a little bit of electronics in play. Plus they have friends who add cello, trombone or violin when needed. As I was banging away on my keyboard writing other stuff, I was playing this in the background. When the music was over, I realized that was not a great idea. Not because the music was demanding, far from it actually, but because it was so gentle, it got a bit lost. Then I decided to play it again and again, all along not doing anything in particular, well, other than sipping coffee, and thought this was great music. All instrumental, all gentle, with just that nice extra touch of electronics in the background. Think post rock perhaps, but then much of it without drums. A bit Americana with that occasional violin and banjo (which I didn’t see listed). But if anything, I think this is 12K music, in their 2012 mark of blending lots of acoustic instruments with bits of electronics. They maybe sparse on this release, but all the more exciting, I should think. This is some excellent acoustic ambient music, a gentle touch. The Durutti Column of some years ago, but then with three guitars all at once. Refined stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.teafirstrecords.com
THE SHAPE OF SOUND VOLUME 2 (CDR by Ice Age Productions)
The first volume of ‘The Shape Of Sound’ may not have reached us, but here is the second. Of the thirteen names I name-checked Arthur Cantrill, Screwtape and Undecisive God – I think. Cantrill seems to be the big hero here, his piece opens the compilation and is the longest. But its also a bit of haphazard collage of field recordings and electronics spliced together. The next ten tracks are much shorter (only the thirteen track is again almost ten minutes) and show a variety of musical styles. Avant-Garde noise rock, noise, ambient, drones, free jazz (Admin Bldg with a blearing saxophone – brr), turntablism, field recordings: its all there. But to be honest, I thought none of these pieces really stood out. Its one of those compilations which is city based, and all you can think, ‘Melbourne is a city in which a lot of people do nice music’, but perhaps I rather longer pieces by some and none by others. Aspiring label honcho’s can, obviously, find something of their taste for their own labels. Includes also: Barnaby Oliver. Penguins, Galactagogue, Mad Nanna, Bonnie Mercer, Dark Passanger, Oranj Punjabi, Monolith and Ernie Althoff. Maybe I am not so fond of compilations? (FdW)
Address: http://iceageproductions.bandcamp.com/
CARL KRUGER – LOVEDAY (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records)
Bicephalic doesn’t tell us more than ‘Carl Kruger is an American male of European ancestry working in abstract sound design’. I reviewed some of his music before, but don’t recall what I thought of it, which is, given the amount of music heard, perhaps really an excuse. But I think I should go back to them, as this new one, with five untitled pieces, is actually quite interesting. I may have put him down as someone who plays noise, this new one is indeed ‘abstract sound design’. Kruger uses his laptop to alter acoustic sounds in an interesting way – the rumble of plastic, voices and perhaps instruments. The modern version of musique concrete I should think. A great deep production with some wild bass sounds, which hit the conus quite hard, looped segments of acoustic crackles and hiss and static. Cracks ‘n cuts was once the name of a series of evenings, with improvising musicians playing together, with usually someone ‘processing’ the acoustic instruments and I remember hearing stuff like Kruger does here. It seems a long time ago. It also reminded me of some of the works on Ritornell, that experimental off-shoot of the once mighty Mille Plateaux label. I should think that Kruger could easily fit on that label with his loud, abstract, sometimes noisy, sometimes introspective but highly intelligent computer music. Excellent stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bicephalic.net/
CHRIS HEENAN & DIMITRA LAZARIDOU-CHATZIGOGA – DER SLAUE FUCHS (3″CDR by More Mars)
YIANNIS TSIRIKOGLU – [DUST] (3″CDR by More Mars)
Two small discs of improvised music, in the usual nice packaging. The first one is a duet between Chris Heenan on contrabass clarinet and Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga on zither. In May of last year they played in Berlin, privately I think, this fine fifteen minute piece of concentrated effort. Drone like with motors licking the zither, and the somewhat darker sounds of clarinet that seem to follow the gestures made on the zither. In the second half of the fifteen minute piece, the roles are reversed and here it is the clarinet that takes the lead in a more louder, more dense, piece of sustainment. Very nice.
Stranger is the release by Yiannis Tsirikoglou, which has six tracks but last only eleven minutes. Before the word ‘[dust]’ there are some dots, hard to reprint. The liner notes are hard to read, but there are also on the website of the label. Tsirikoglou lives in The Hague and works here with visual artist Mariska de Groot, using optical sound – “old technique of capturing sound on film also used at the first synthesizers” – and uses projections and loudspeakers. There is a narrative here at work, but its hard to say what. These six pieces reminded me of early, abstract electronic music, maybe both from the execution of these small pieces and the description of the project. Without images it still works quite well. Perhaps its a pity that this is all so/too brief and its hard to make up ones mind about it. Here I could have easily enjoyed the time range of a 3″ – twenty-one minutes wouldn’t have hurt. (FdW)
Address: http://www.moremars.org
FRZIMAGHO/MOON – SINGEL SERIES EIGHT (3″CDR by Burning Emptiness)
Its been quite a while since I last heard from Burning Emptiness, the French home for all sort of electronic music. I assumed they disappeared – these things happen. The idea of a split we should take very literal here. Each has four tracks, first one by FrzImagho, then one by Moon, then one by FrzImagho etc. FrzImagho is a new name for me. A duo of two guitarists, using computers to process their guitars. Clicky, hissy ambient textures in which, other than some of Fennesz’ work we can still recognize the guitar. The music is apparently a bit older, from 2003-2004 and recorded in one take. Mininature like this works quite well. The four pieces by Moon are of course also quite short. This one man band is to be found behind a load of analogue and synthesizers and plays ambient music. Gentle music, but here the short time frame of the music is a bit too short for my taste. Pieces like this need at least a couple of more minutes to evolve, and not be as sketch like as they are now. But no doubt it serves as a nice introduction to the music of Moon. Quite a nice one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.burningemptiness.com
ANNEXIFIER – AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENTS (cassette by Foredoom Productions)
GRIZZLY IMPLODED – HE BECAME SOMETHING…(3″CDR by Foredoom Productions)
The C17 has no label to distinguish sides, one of which has drumming and distorted guitar noise and very distorted human vocalizations, which plod along in a beat through a miasma of noise, the other side lacks the drum rhythm beat, has harsh static feedback and distorted vocal roars, deep throbbing industrial hums, bass guitar, drum thuds. Once “anything” exhibits features it forms or is capable of falling into taxonomic ranks, Species, Genus, Family, Order Class, Phylum, Kingdom, Domain, LIFE. Or death metal, grind core, shit core. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_styles … from which noise escapes in its univocally, perhaps not HNW? But of course these are not real structures! One is born an individual with nature, God, or some musicologist making no decision as to what, Genus, Family, Order Class, Phylum, Kingdom, Domain each “thing” is to be, such an apriori location is almost essentialism, as a distinction unlike the haecceity as ens inquantum ens being qua being i.e. noise qua noise. Here music’s taxonomy implies an Aquinan metaphysics capable of reforming an ontological argument, and do we really want to go there? It might be agued the radical free improvisation, drums sax .etc. on the CDRa-priori could likewise be critiqued, but apart from my liking such a “live” deconstruction of music qua performance it fails to do anything other than be an improvisation, and so falls out of any taxonomics of subtleties found elsewhere, shoegaze etc. – could be considered as a biblical choice of time place species sent forth to multiply. In other words as its essences is indistinguishable from its existence it’s the kind of music that Duns Scotus would dig – dadio! Francesco Gregoretti: drums Maurizio Argenziano: guitar Sergio Albano: guitar (jliat)
Address: http://www.foredoomproductions.blogspot.com/
POITER / OCRA – SPLIT (C30 by Ramshackle Day Records)
The Poiter track superficially could be described as sounding like a faulty air conditioning unit or industrial filtration unit, long clunky drones, these appear however to pan from channel to channel giving movement to what would otherwise be a dull monotonous sound wall. This might be a good or bad thing depending on your taste, or depending on some other aesthetic. The piece is thus located between noise, what could almost be a field recording, and the industrial genre. The Ocra track is very different, layered mechanical drones, slow oscillator sweeps which slowly evolve, again a mechanistic sound field but here it lies in heavy reverb pushing the sound from the banality of the industrial real into the fantasy fictions of science fiction. Its evolution of layers building before dying away giving it a symphonic form, the old male orgasm played out this time in a hyper-real space. I prefer the Poiter realism, if anything is now real, and anyway the structure of evolution despite all its Darwinian credentials whilst not falling back into some fundamentalist / creationist Yahweh ejaculation symphonic / musical dissemination, of some 6,000 years ago, is faced with numerous problematics, “evolution by jerks”, bags and bulks. Its not so much the nihilism of the extractor fan but the banality and mechanistic repetition which even challenges the creativity of Deleuze’s infinite speeds and planes, or Derrida’s impossible events. Like a factory replacement unit the Poiter work appears to be moving into some world of infinite warehouses, I think a step into mono might be fruitful here because just as binocular vision gives an animal perspective to the world a monaural cosmos has no perspective, no reverberation, and so is effectively infinite, like an airless planet lacking a sense of distance and scale, and sound, and so impossible for both territorialization and or de-territorialization of the peeing wolf. (jliat)
Address: http://ramshackledayparade.wordpress.com
ATAY ILGUN & DAVID VINCENT – FRAGMENTS OF SOUND (cassette by Tape Your Mouth)
Two sides of the same coin, the coin of atmospheric music. It seems like a duo disc, and perhaps it is. It could have been as easily a split release I think, as they are very different. I never heard of either Atay Ilgün (of Svefn Plural, Treefingers) and Daniel Vincent (also of The Resonance Association, Onion Jack, Safety Deposit Box), nor of any of these projects. One day, November 5th of last year, they went in to Mrs.Vee studios and recorded these four pieces. The twenty minutes on side one are filled with finger picking guitar music. Technically this could be great. No, it is great. But its so awfully soft that the hiss takes away a lot of the fun. That’s a real pity, I wouldn’t mind hearing the hiss free version of this. The other side sees the guitars shut down and put away, and the synthesizers are switched on. Here they play two long pieces of ambient music. Luckily this can be heard quite well, and it sounded really nice. Quite cosmic like, I think and it works very well. Its an odd release, with those strictly divided sides. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tapeyourmouth.com