GOLDEN DISKO SHIP – PREHISTORIC GHOST PARTY (CD by Klangbad) *
OSVALDO COLUCCINO – ATTO (CD by Another Timbre) *
ANNETTE KREBS & ANTHEA CADDY & MAGDA KREBS – THREAD (CD by Another Timbre) *
JOKE LANZ – MUNSTER BERN (CD by Cubus Records) *
QUADRAT:SCH – STUBENMUSIC (2CD by Col Legno)
ANTHONY PATERAS – ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY OST (CD by Editions Mego) *
KJETIL MØSTER – BLOW JOB (CD by +3db Records) *
KASPER TOEPLITZ – ELIANE RADIGUE: ELEMENTAL II (CD by Recordings Of Sleaze Art) *
RLW & DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE – DIE EISENBUGLERIN (2CD by Auf Abwegen)
GUIDO DEL FABBRO – CTENOPHORA (CD by Et Records) *
SHALABI & ST-ONGE & COTE – JANE AND THE MAGIC BEANS (CD by Et Records) *
EX CONFUSION – EMBRACE (CD by N5MD) *
ASONAT – LIVE IN TIMES OF REPETITION (CD by N5MD) *
MIKE MOSS – COLD WORLD PLASTIC DREAM (CD by Goosenote)
HISATO HIGUCHI – BARA BARA NA BAMEN (CDR by Apollolaan) *
AKKE PHALLUS DUO – TERROIR/PISSOIR (CDR by Apollolaan) *
MECHA/ORGA – 31:56 (CDR by Kukuruku Recordings) *
NIKOS KYRIAZOPOULS & KORHAN EREL – LIVE ELECTRONICS (CDR by Kukuruku Recordings) *
DANIEL ALEXANDER HIGNELL – THE DICHOTOMY OF SELF/THE ATOMICISM OF SOUND (CDR, private) *
AALFANG MIT PFERDEKOPF – MUTATIS MUTANDIS (CDR by Attentuation Circuit) *
KRYNGE – SINGE BINGE (CDR by Attentuation Circuit) *
MYSTIFIED – LIFE IS A CARNIVAL (CDR by Attentuation Circuit) *
NATHAN MCLAUGHLIN – ECHOLOCATION #1 (cassette by Digitalis LTD)
NATHAN MCLAUGHLIN – ECHOLOCATION #4 (cassette by Sunshine LTD)
RESONAN – COMPOSITION REJECTS SILENCE (cassette by Res Dot Com)
DONNE & DESIREE – [B-SIDE] (cassette)
MESTA/MATTIA COLETTI – TAPE CRASH NO. 2 (cassette by BR)
BBBLOOD / TINNITUSTIMULUS SPLIT (cassette by BBBlood)
YOSHIHIRO KIKUCHI – ONE INTENSELY EATS UP ANOTHER ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE (cassette by Fragment Factory)
GOLDEN DISKO SHIP – PREHISTORIC GHOST PARTY (CD by Klangbad)
A one woman band, Theresa Stroetges, is Golden Disko Ship, who plays more instruments than someone could possible easy carry: guitars, voice, computer stuff, viola, glockenspiel, toys, casio, sampler, kaossilator, accordion, cymbals, and noises. I once had the pleasure of seeing her play live, on a sunday night, following a long saturday night, and while I don’t remember all of it, I do remember it as being quite pleasant. Golden Disko Ship plays pop music. At least that’s what I think. No doubt some people would call this rather folktronic and perhaps its indeed more folk like, and sometimes I wonder why we bother with all these words. Its strange music indeed, that defies description. Stroetges offers twelve pieces in which she sings and plays that variety of instruments, creating sometimes wildly orchestrated songs, with much layers, including many drums, but also more sad, melancholiac songs, in which she reduces herself to playing what seems a harmonium and singing – I wish I could say Nico like, but its less dramatic and Golden Disko Ship has more a voice of her own. Not always with the most clear cut voice, but that’s certainly the charm of this sometimes weird music and what seems sometimes utterly normal music. Ornamented with weird sounds of an electro-acoustic nature, some computer techniques (cut-up, glitch like), this is surely one of the more pleasant surprises of this week. (FdW)
Address: http://www.klangbad.de
OSVALDO COLUCCINO – ATTO (CD by Another Timbre)
ANNETTE KREBS & ANTHEA CADDY & MAGDA KREBS – THREAD (CD by Another Timbre)
Of these two new releases on Another Timbre, the first is by Osvaldo Coluccino, of whom I never heard. He plays ‘various acoustic objects but no musical instruments or electronic manipulation’. It mentions ‘mixed’ on the cover, so I assume Coluccino works with multi-tracks to layer his sound events. Its an odd CD for a label of improvised music, since this all sounds rather composed. Its not very loud music, and the five pieces (called ‘Atto 1-5’ sound stylistically quite similar. Lots of sustained scraping of objects, with occasionally too much use of reverb. I assume this is to give to music more body, but as usual with this sort of thing it also covers up matters a bit. Maybe some more contrast between the various sounds would have been nice, for a change, within pieces but also through these pieces. Its all ok, but not really great.
The other release is however strictly from the world of improvised music. Here we find three women from the scene: Annette Krebs (prepared guitar, objects, tapes, mixing desk), Anthea Caddy (cello) and Magda Mayas on piano. One ten minute piece from 2008 (which has only Caddy and Krebs) and a twenty-six minute piece by all three from 2009. Improvised music of some refined nature. Piano and cello stay natural, scraping, scratching, plink and plonk, but its Krebs contributions that lift this up into a more abstract work, with sounds from spoken word (I assume from her tapes). The two pieces are vibrant, dwelling on improvised pieces on their instruments, as well as electro-acoustic sounds, bouncing from very soft to quiet loud, although its never noise or full on immersive sound. The trio piece seems a bit ‘fuller’ to me, and at the same time, at times, more empty, when it comes to silence. There is however never a dull moment to be spotted around here. As a listener you always stay focussed on the next happening. Great CD! (FdW)
Address: http://www.anothertimbre.com
JOKE LANZ – MUNSTER BERN (CD by Cubus Records)
There is a difference between Joke Lanz when he works as Sudden Infant and under his own name. I wasn’t aware of that, until now. I only knew him as Sudden Infant, an one man noise orchestra. As Joke Lanz however he is apparently also a turntablist artist, working solo or in duo with Ignaz Schick, the turntable quartet BETT4 and with The International Turntable Orchestra, TITO. Perhaps this release of a solo concert from October 22nd 2010 brings him out in the open as a turntable player. In this work he is more interested in playing a collage of sound, rather than using the turntable as an object, with objects but by using records to create an abstract collage of sound. It stays away from the more obvious plunderphonics works. He plays around with looped sounds that form bits of rhythm, voice material, which mixes and distorts. It stays away from his noise work and sounds rather good. I have no idea if he also uses external sound effects, but at times it seems there is quite some reverb used. I am not sure if this concert is a special one, or just regarded as one of the better ones he did, deserving a release by itself, but these twenty-seven minutes is a fine showcase of what he can do. An interesting shift from his other work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cubus-records.ch
QUADRAT:SCH – STUBENMUSIC (2CD by Col Legno)
A double cd with chamber music from the Alps, by a quartet from Austria using traditional instruments like the zither. Also the title of the cd refers to a traditional element: Stube is the living room in old farm houses, where people sat together to talk, relax and make music. The group is made up by Barbara Romen (hammered dulcimer) Christof Dienz (zither), Gunter Schneider (guitars) and Alexandra Dienz (double bass). Christof and Alexandra Dienz had some success in the past with The Knodel, another project that tried to inject new impulses to traditional Austrian music. Barbara Romen and Gunter Schneider work mainly as performers of new music, besides their composing and improvising work. One of their highlights is their interpretation of Lachenmanns ‘Salut für Caudwell für zwei Gitarristen’. As Quadrat:sch the four operate since 2009. Half of all the tracks on cd 1 are composed by Christof Dienz, the other half by Romen and Schneider. Their music has similarities with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Friendly instrumentals and ballads based on traditional folk music, albeit not so much on – recognizable – Austrian folk music as far as I know it. Especially they give a new life to traditional instruments in their fictious world music and soundscapes. With this same motive they choose a more radical approach on cd 2. Everything here is composed by Christof Dienz. Pieces are a bit more experimental now. More into searching new sounds from the instruments and creating condensed textures. They play in an extended line up, assisted by Zeena Parkins (harp) and Herbert Pirker (percussion). Plus special mentioning for Kassian Erhart from Tirol. An artist who makes sculptures that can be used for creating sounds. Some of these sounds – like water – are integrated into the music. I’m not convinced by the compositional talents of this group. But they do offer a new life to traditional instruments that is more than just interesting. (DM)
Address: http://www.col-legno.com
ANTHONY PATERAS – ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY OST (CD by Editions Mego)
An interesting thought: can an improviser provide a soundtrack to a feature film? Doesn’t one exclude the other? ‘Errors Of The Human Body’ is a feature film by Eron Sheean and stars, among others, Rik Mayall. Sheean knows Anthony Pateras since the early part of this century, and worked on some music before and this collaboration is their first full scale collaboration. So we have here Pateras in a role of composer, scoring this work for a multitude of instruments, such as violin, viola, cello, bassoon, clarinet, horn and himself on piano, prepared piano, organs and electronics. This means that the music here is more ‘composed’, I guess, than improvised. Maybe its a bit more difficult to judge the music here if one doesn’t know the film. There are small stills on the cover, which don’t mean much to me, and I couldn’t possibly say what the film is about based on just the music. Its is, stills and music, however a film I’d like to see. The music is ‘dramatic’, melancholic, modern classical and even rhythmic in places, such as in ‘XIJ’ – is that to a scene taking place in a disco? Certainly the most ‘unPateras’ track I ever heard, but one I really like (as opposed to what the text writes: ‘no one can decide whether they like it’. Other pieces, like ‘Milk & Mice’ sound purely electronic, or drone like ‘Automatic 3’, modern classical. A pretty varied disc altogether, with many different styles and moods, but that makes a great CD. The best new Pateras direction he could take! (FdW)
Address: http://www.editionsmego.com
KJETIL MØSTER – BLOW JOB (CD by +3db Records)
Great title of course for someone whose job is to blow. The tenor saxophone that is. Møster played accordion as a youngster, then the bass in a trash/hardcore band and then the saxophone, which he brought to bands like Ultrlyd, Zanussi Five and The Core, all of which were jazz bands. Later on he played with the electro rock band Datarock and the N Ensemble. This solo CD is his first work into the world of improvised music. Six pieces, thirty-four minutes, of highly concentrated playing. I am not the biggest lover of the saxophone – I am sure I wrote this before – but there are exceptions. Evan Parker I like, some of Lol Coxhill and a whole bunch of recent players, who use their instrument in a different way. Møster doesn’t do this, or at least not too often. Sometimes his saxophone sounds like a saxophone, such as in ‘Partially Natural’, with its short repeating tones. I like the repeated minimalism of it, which seems a rare thing in improvised music. But mostly throughout it is what it is: a saxophone. And – I am sure I wrote this before – I am not the biggest lover of that instrument. Some of it I liked here, and perhaps much of it I didn’t. (FdW)
Address: http://www.plus3db.net
KASPER TOEPLITZ – ELIANE RADIGUE: ELEMENTAL II (CD by Recordings Of Sleaze Art)
You could wonder if its really necessary. Kasper T. Toeplitz released in 2004 his ‘Elemental II’, a composition for solo electric bass, which Eliane Radigue composed for him. That CD is sold out (although I am sure Toeplitz can sell you a CDR in the original digipack – he kindly send me one), but to reprint that is ‘no fun’ he says. Since he has performed the work more or less thirty times, so why not release a newer version of it. Which I think is a valid point, even when the work is not really different than the first version – the length is more or less the same, and so is the structure (I compared both versions in a multi-track program). The differences lie in the details. Its interesting to know that the whole thing is played live, rather than pre-recorded, and still it sounds more or less the same. Its alike classical music in which ‘interpretation’ plays a big role, differences and details. I think this new version has a somewhat lighter touch than the 2004 version, less bass-like and less mildly distorted. It seems. A somewhat gentler version I think. Its hard to recognize the bass in here, but its a very fine piece of drone music. The bass rumbles below and electronics do their thing on top.
Address: http://www.sleazeart.com/rosa
RLW & DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE – DIE EISENBUGLERIN (2CD by Auf Abwegen)
Now here’s two guys whose history goes back at least thirty years. Both from Germany and both from the world of cassettes and industrial music, but both having grown into something else, the world of academic music, musique concrete. Ralf Wehowsky was the main man behind P16.D4, but left that name behind to become RLW, while Guido Hubner always remained Das Synthetische Mischgewebe. Especially that is perhaps a bit odd. Hubner’s work is more than Wehowsky’s connected to the world of serious composing, yet he maintains his old ‘band’ name. Both of these men also know each other for a long period and there has always been talk of doing something together, so after much discussion, this double CD ‘Die Eisenbuglerin’ is the result of an extensive ‘music by mail’ collaboration. They both use conceptual angles to work from. ‘Ah, DSM is always very fragmented, maybe I should work opposite’, ‘let’s use mainly analogue, mechanical techniques to transform this material’. Also in the final execution the results are not widely apart, which is fine. It would be hard to say whose CD is who, if you didn’t look at the label. Lots of microscopic detailed sounds – sometimes isolated, sometimes like mass – are the very foundation of this music. A fascinating ride, this is. Some close to fifty minutes by RLW and close to sixty by DSM. As said differences are in the details with this. Maybe DSM is at times a bit more fragmented and RLW a bit more ‘full’ at times. None of the sound sources mentioned on the cover (piano, trombone by RLW) can be easily traced, if at all, in these pieces. Excellent electro-acoustic music in the best tradition of both microsound and serious academia. (FdW)
Address: http://www.aufabwegen.com
GUIDO DEL FABBRO – CTENOPHORA (CD by Et Records)
SHALABI & ST-ONGE & COTE – JANE AND THE MAGIC BEANS (CD by Et Records)
The picture of Guido Del Fabbro shows a young man with a violin, which in the opening seconds/minutes of his ‘Ctenophora’ release shows. But it quickly moves into something else, and that something else is not easy to define. At first it seems that it’s all electronic manipulation of those first few violin sounds, but the cover also lists ‘flutes a bec’ and ‘electroniques’ as well as ‘synthetiseurs’, but these instruments are also presented as they are. That makes an odd result of improvisation, composition, analogue and electronic music. Quite interesting music I must say, perhaps because its so difficult to define. At times very modern classical, but then with all those microscopic pulses, gliding electronic scales, crackles, also very much the work of improvised electro-acoustic music. Fascinating collision of styles and ideas in some gorgeous sounding set of five pieces. Could have been seven as far as I’m concerned, as every time I play it, I regret its over.99
The other release is by at least two musicians by whom we hear more music on the same label: Alexandre St-Onge on bass and electronics and Michel F. Cote on amplified drums, along with Sam Shalabi on electric guitar. All three known from their experiment in improvised music, and here they do the same, but with a slight twist. It seems to me they are using the ‘no wave/no new york’ format of a slightly more pop-like character, sans any vocals of course. Nervous hectic playing on all three instruments, but occasionally leaping into a bit of a rock mode, all in a very free reign of play. Jazzy also times, but not as much as one could all too easily think. Quite a vibrant and energetic release. Exactly the right Ultra spirit, but then from Montreal. (FdW)
Address: http://www.etrecords.net
EX CONFUSION – EMBRACE (CD by N5MD)
ASONAT – LIVE IN TIMES OF REPETITION (CD by N5MD)
MIKE MOSS – COLD WORLD PLASTIC DREAM (CD by Goosenote)
Two new names, and the first is an one-man project by Atsuhito Omori, who works by the name of Ex Confusion. His debut album was on U-Cover, this might be his second release. He plays guitar and piano, which is something I learned from the press text, rather than judging from what I heard. Maybe guitar; but then guitar with a lot of sound effects, until in ‘Sketches For The Truth’ the piano plays a big role, along with some tacky string like sound. Ten pieces of music ranging somewhere from three to six minutes. Ambient music with the big ‘A’. I must admit I was sitting back, enjoying a good book, and I had put this on repeat, simply because on a lazy sunday afternoon I am not bothered to get up easily. I thought it was great music, but then if it wasn’t for Ex Confusion, I might have as easily stuck a whole bunch of Brian Eno music on, or maybe go back to the entire catalogue of Stars Of The Lid. You get my drift? While I think this is all pretty much alright, it does sound like a lot of other ambient music, and that is perhaps the downside of this. Its wonderfully fine ambient music for sure, but it doesn’t seem to add much to what we already know from that specific world. Ignore your wish for something new and you’ll find this a great release.
Something completely different is the music from Icelandic duo Fannar Asgrimsson and Jonas Thor Guomundsson, also known as Asonat. They get help from Japanese singer Chichiro, French singer Olena Simon plus a bit on instruments from Kjartan Olafsson. Asgrimsson and Guomundsson are also members of Plastik Joy and Ruxpin, both bands of which I never heard, but it seems all to be dealing with downtempo IDM, but as Asonat it seems to be more involved with vocals then with their other projects. Melodic, spacious pop music, and perhaps in Vital Weekly I am not the biggest lover of pop music, but privately I might enjoy it. I thought this was quite nice, if perhaps nothing much for Vital Weekly. It sounds like Bjork at times, or Portishead, but all a bit more electronic and less trip-hop like. Asonat also uses a bit of guitar, feeding through chorus pedals so a bit of shoegazing is never far away. On this grey monday morning this dramatic pop works well to start up perhaps a slow day.
Following which I played the CD by Mike Moss, ‘an anomaly in the modern world of manufactured pop’ – something I have no expertise on, manufactured or otherwise. This is also dramatic pop music, but firmly pop, and one of the kind I really don’t dig, and for which Vital Weekly is not really a home. Too normal, way too normal new wave like. I have no idea what I am doing with this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.n5md.com
Address: http://www.mikemoss.co.uk
HISATO HIGUCHI – BARA BARA NA BAMEN (CDR by Apollolaan)
AKKE PHALLUS DUO – TERROIR/PISSOIR (CDR by Apollolaan)
Two new names on Apollolaan for me. Although, I could have known Hisato Higuchi from Tokyo. Originally he was a puppeteer, but now plays music from his home in Tokyo. He has had a couple of Family Vineyard, which I don’t know. He plays electric guitar and ‘sings’, sometimes. The title translates as ‘scattered scenes’ and its quite desolate music. Its for a start ‘far away’: there is quite some space between the position of the singer/guitarplayer and the microphone picking his signal up. He doesn’t play chords it seems, but strums very occasionally and it seems irregular on his strings and does some sort of singing. Music that is not unlike some artists did on Black Petal, or perhaps even John Fahey, or highly experimental blues music. Thirteen pieces in just over thirty minutes, which don’t leave the listener jumping and stamping for joy, but rather a bit depressed and desolate. Not bad, but just long enough I’d say.
Jon Marshall (of The Hunter Gracchus, Le Drapeua Noise, Singing Knives Records, Vampire Blues) and Ben Morris (of Chora and Le Drapeau Noir) met for the first time in 2005, but since last year they are Akke Phallus Duo together. They are not a band in a strict sense of the word, but this is one of those exchange by mail music projects, or, as they put it, ‘a process of exchange and abandonment of authorship’. They exchanged recordings and the other was free to do whatever he wanted to do it. There are no instruments mentioned on the cover, but hearing these eight pieces, it could be anything really from acoustic instruments to electronics and field recordings. Its not easy to say either what it is that they done, or who is responsible for what. In some cases it seems to be that they use various layers of acoustic playing of objects and wind instruments, but in other instances it also seems that these instruments are fed through some electronics. Here they arrive too easily at noise and it doesn’t sound too great. Sometimes they use crude field recordings, such water running and insect sounds. There is an interesting ‘anything goes’ aspect about this release, which I enjoyed. It brings an amount of variation to the table, which is nice. Not every moment is great, but throughout a most enjoyable debut release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.apollolaan.co.uk
MECHA/ORGA – 31:56 (CDR by Kukuruku Recordings)
NIKOS KYRIAZOPOULS & KORHAN EREL – LIVE ELECTRONICS (CDR by Kukuruku Recordings)
‘Computer feedback generated with the ‘audiomulch’ application’ it says on the cover of the new Mecha/orga release. Now, we could easily think, this leads to a bunch of noise, but not so in the capable hands of Yiorgis Sakellariou. This work was already recorded five years ago and the title is also the duration of the music. One piece of excellent drone music of a modern kind. Music that sounds much more like modern electronic music from the sixties, think Philips’ ‘Silver Series’, David Berhman and Planet Of The Apes, than a lulling piece of ambient drone music. Mecha/orga’s music is upfront, present, loud even in some of the later parts of the music, which is where some of my interest waned a bit. But throughout I thought this was an excellent work of a sadly underrated voice in our world.
The other new release by this label is by two people I never heard of, one Korhan Erel and Nikos Kyriazopoulos. The latter gets credit for ‘DIY oscillators, analogue filters and spring reverbs’ and the first ‘Omnibus (computer instruments, touch-interfaces and controllers). Their recording is from March last year and I assume it comes in an unedited form, taped with a microphone. This thing is less controlled than the Mecha/orga release, and comes across like a piece for circuit bending. It has a fine improvised texture, which occasionally sounds like a bunch of wind instruments driven by motors, but also moves into more electro-acoustic and electronic variations. In these twenty-nine minutes we move along various of textures and it makes an interesting and varied disc of improvised music. Excellent covers too: white on black, giving that serious avant-garde look. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kukurukurecordings.com
DANIEL ALEXANDER HIGNELL – THE DICHOTOMY OF SELF/THE ATOMICISM OF SOUND (CDR, private)
Following ‘Soundscape Study 001’, reviewed in Vital Weekly 758, this is the second release by Daniel Alexander Hignell. He graduated from the Dartington College of the Arts in 2010 in contemporary composition and currently studying a masters in music and sonic media. In this new work he works with a variety of dichotomies – analogue/digital, foreground/background, improvised/composed, electric/acoustic, individual/society. Layering all of this together at the same time, it makes up for a minimal music, but through dense layers also not easy to grasp, as a lot is happening at the same time. Also in using a multitude of sound sources it works quite strange. There is a bunch of acoustic instruments, primarily violin and cello, but also harmonium, guitar, saxophone, clarinet, violin. On the other side we find field recordings, found sounds and manipulated samples. The music is quite different from his previous release, which was all about (pure?) field recordings. This new one is all about – it seems – modern classical music. Although not, perhaps, always strictly composed, it also involves improvisation, electronics and field recordings. Three fairly long pieces and three a bit shorter. I think the longer pieces could have been a bit shorter, because after a while you know what the idea of a piece is and there isn’t too much room for further development. Maybe some of these pieces should have been chopped down into shorter pieces with a more fixed beginning and end? I am not sure. Throughout however I must say I quite enjoyed this work of modern classical music (mainly), improvisation (also), acoustic (a lot it seems) and electronic (that too). (FdW)
Address: http://www.danielalexanderhignell.bandcamp.com
AALFANG MIT PFERDEKOPF – MUTATIS MUTANDIS (CDR by Attentuation Circuit)
KRYNGE – SINGE BINGE (CDR by Attentuation Circuit)
MYSTIFIED – LIFE IS A CARNIVAL (CDR by Attentuation Circuit)
Of course I am not the right person to say anything about Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf’s ‘Mutatis Mutandis’, since a little silly thing from me as Freiband was the basis of this. An one minute piece released on a cassette, which people could use to remix, preferably using a four track cassette. There is an unreleased piece by Z’EV, but only Mirko Uhlig has spend a lot of time with it. He’s back to using his old bandname, Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf, and there are three pieces here. One seems a straight remix of the original, followed by the title piece, which takes up thirty eight minutes. Here Uhlig takes the hiss of the original apart, adds sound effects, time stretches bits into long form drones, making an absolute great piece, ending a nice up in your face drone bit and even a short noise bit at the end – but hey of course I am not the right person to write such things. Close to the fire and such things. But to know such a short and hissy piece of loosely formed sounds can make such a great piece, I didn’t know. Excellent, but of course I am not etc. And, best coup about it, its also released on cassette. Now there is something to bring to your four track machine. I know I will!
Even when I know Zan Hoffman for a long time, his music always seems a bit far away from me. Maybe we didn’t trade enough tapes in those days. So the whole existence of Krynge escaped me, apparently some sort of musical company where people mailed in their basic sounds mixed together. Lots of talking here, especially in the (too) long middle part. Its bookend by a more musical piece of distorted rhythm and guitars on both sides. I am not sure what to make of this. Its ‘interesting’ rather than ‘good’. It shows how such things worked in the golden age of cassette, a very free work, which was less based, if at all, on musical ideas. Attentuation Circuit will release more of it, and I am not sure if that’s good idea.
Mystified returns to the same label, following ‘Coming Days’ (see Vital Weekly 811). Its bit unclear what we should think of when we hear ‘carnival instruments’, but maybe Thomas Park did some recordings in some carnival surrounding but he has most surely processed them around a lot to make his more familiar drone scapes. His previous albums were usually mixed affairs of drone like soundscapes, mild noise and rhythm bits. This new album is a bit different. The five pieces here sound alike but aren’t the same. Soft gliding and sustaining sounds, all drone like, no rhythm and no mild noise. Rather pleasant mild drone music actually. Coherent, which is good, although the variety of his previous works was always nice too. Hard to say what is exactly used here, but the labels thinks a Hohner harmonica has been used, which might very well be the case – airy music. I think this is one of the best albums I heard from Park so far. (FdW)
Address: http://www.attenuationcircuit.de
NATHAN MCLAUGHLIN – ECHOLOCATION #1 (cassette by Digitalis LTD)
NATHAN MCLAUGHLIN – ECHOLOCATION #4 (cassette by Sunshine LTD)
More ‘Echolocation’ by Nathan McLaughlin (see also Vital Weekly 760 and 775), and I may have missed out on one. Which is, to be precise, ‘Echolocation #1’. This is only now released and the only one to have some information. It says that the series was recorded late 2009 and early 2010 and that these tracks are largely improvised, with some “common themes or are based on preconceived melodies but they are performed live to a stereo feed with an absolute minimum amount of post processing or editing (and no post effects of any kind)”. The chronology of the series is not really of importance, hence we now see Volume 1, along with number 4 I guess. Number 4 has not a lot of information, except that Sunshine says its an “homage to the mid day meal… a sign of togetherness and humanity” and also that it is based on tape-loops. But I think I figured that one out already. Crude, old tape-loops I should think which are decaying all around, or perhaps dug up from his backyard like that shark from beaches on Iceland after six months, ready for consumption. Which is pretty much what one can say about both releases. Number 1 is apparently not split up in different tracks, but two lengthy pieces while number four has set of seven songs sound a bit more crude than before, meaning perhaps less influenced by Basinski and Asher and maybe more Jason Zeh. Who knows? Its great stuff, I thin, either in long form or short form. Its exactly that kind of low grade sound I like, a bit noise like on the first pieces, but even a bit ambient in ‘4.5’, but also very spooky in ‘4.6’. In ‘Echolocation #1′ things remain on the ambient side, bearing even more resemblance to Basinski and Asher than with the work of Jason Zeh. I still have no idea what McLaughlin does actually – that is still clouded with some mystery. Maybe its all very simple and easy, but it sounds excellent to me. Of these two “#1’ was for me the better tapes – a name from the past I kept thinking of were the very early cassette releases by Dutch label Kubus and De Muziekkamer – who hey, who remembers that? Still a name to watch out for, as I wonder what he will do next. (FdW)
Address: http://sunshineltd.info/
Address: http://www.digitalisindustries.com
RESONAN – COMPOSITION REJECTS SILENCE (cassette by Res Dot Com)
DONNE & DESIREE – [B-SIDE] (cassette)
The name Resonan I connect to noise, but maybe I am not fully informed. Resonan on this tape works with found cassettes (audio and video) in the trash and flea markets and except for some use in reverse no other effects were used to transform this material. Basically this material has been re-edited and layered, and nothing much else. Maybe I should have reviewed this in my Ultra special of last week. Not because this is very ultra or post punk, but quite a fine example of the do it yourself spirit of that time. Even when you have instruments, you can still produce some excellent music. Perhaps in its day it would have been rejected as ‘too simple’, but, after thirty years of plunderphonics, I beg to differ. This is an excellent tape of ‘media manipulated music’ and these guys have a fine sense of composition. None of these pieces lasts too long or too short and in all its minimalism and repetition this could have been released in 1985 instead of 2011. Spoken word cut up, a synth like piece in ‘compose #1’ and ‘compose #2’, some noise in ‘No Visual #4’: its quite varied material and as said, this time around actually thoughts went it before gearing up in action.
The other Dutch release on cassette – spray painted! – is by Donné & Desirée, a duo from Arnhem, playing drums, guitar and vocals. Their ‘[b-side]’ tape I got handed last week at the local Ultra event, where they played last, doing something we hadn’t heard all night: a free jazz/free rock/much noise battle that was simply the best closing down concert we could imagine after such a long night (wait for the CD release of it!). Does music like that survive on a medium as ‘low’ as a cassette? Well, it does, but it doesn’t beat the original experience of the concert – or any concert by them, as I saw various. The fury of the music shares a punk sensibility, loud, aggressive, short, but then with the free spirit of no wave, free jazz and noise. They claim to be inspired by the music of No New York, and yes, that’s it. Its the direction left of anything leftfield, going into a field where few others went before. Just as with Resonan this could have been released 25 years ago, and it makes the overall great impression now as it would have then. (FdW)
Address: http://www.resonan.com
Address: http://www.donne-et-desiree.nl
MESTA/MATTIA COLETTI – TAPE CRASH NO. 2 (cassette by BR)
The note that came with this is rather cryptic: ‘a meeting, two parts between the mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic. Music that goes under skin, music for the long winter and for the wake up of something that was sleeping. In the middle a place were meets and crash each other, a Barchessone like a gravity center, were find things, sure and faithful things. I can be short about Mesta: a guy and a guitar, singing. Not powerful, but tormented. The word sad, I am sad, and my music is sad. Yeah alright. The other side has music by Mattia Coletti, also a man, and also a guitar, but this time no words. In stead he uses a looper pedal and he plays four nice melodic pieces, of which the final one is a bit more fuzzy. Its nice, its alright and its not great. What more can I say about this? (FdW)
Address: <mattiacoletti@libero.it>
BBBLOOD / TINNITUSTIMULUS SPLIT (cassette by BBBlood)
Paul Watson’s (BBBLOOD ) material is created by manipulation of junk metal and a step-ladder, ‘field recordings’ which are cut up – re-assembled and layered. Through use of looping, notably on the second track the resultant ‘image’ though a construct could itself be a field recording- it sounds very like a goods train. It might be argued that this then is a ‘representational’ work – albeit accidentally, but then the sound of a goods train could be equally an accidental re-representation of a BBBLOOD track. Tomas Bennett’s side uses found sound with the addition of electronic feedback loops resembling old shortwave data signals which are pushed and distorted into harsh “walls” of noise, especially in the second track where these are pushed and folded dis-continuously into dense blocks, one of the “best” HNW I’ve heard in awhile. A track which demonstrates the solution to the problem of representation in noise, be it human or accidental only “works” under a total erasure, of sense, method, meaning, value, structure etc. otherwise we are left with a “brutalism” lite, which can only work with a sense of humor as in Cementimental. A process / work I can best “describe” by an extensive / [adapted!] quote from John Mullarkey’s essay on Henry… “Affects [here the “blocks”] are as much like points, therefore, as they are like passages. But this is not to concede everything to some kind of mathematical punctualism [or integer arithmeticalization] or ‘misplaced concreteness’ (at least not yet). The puncta in question are felt, and are much closer to Ronald Barthe’s use of ‘puctum’ – the shocking point in an image, the pathetic suffering of thought – than mathematical points on a line. They are monads of experience…” and so in this work of Bennett’s the problem of Henry’s representation – like that of Watson’s is sufficiently ‘overwritten’- or as Henry says the image (of thought / sound / idea) is projected into the milieu of exteriority. (jliat)
Address: http://bbblood.blogspot.com/
YOSHIHIRO KIKUCHI – ONE INTENSELY EATS UP ANOTHER ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE (cassette by Fragment Factory)
Kikuchi’s recordings were made in response to glitches and errors in software on an Apple computer in reading or converting between audio stored in .WAV format and .AIFF format, the two being (almost) the standard audio file format for Microsoft and Apple respectively. Kikuchi doesn’t say which software or precisely the actual details of the files, for both formats can store sound in various sample rates and formats. Details of these are found in the files (header) from which software can detect the number of channels, sample rate and sample size. This is a labyrinthine world of technical and so techie delight, but one with both philosophy, metaphysics, and surreal
humor. For instance a likely source of the error could be Apple’s changing its format from big-endian to little-endian. In simple terms which end of an address (here its data I know) is the most important. So yourname@hotmail.com is little-end (ian) because you are smaller than hotmail, or wonderfully child’s myname, my street, my town, my country, the world, the solar system , the galaxy the universe. Compare that to the Big endian 1,000,000 – where the 1 is Big, though wiki says that in big endian the first byte, lowest in address is the biggest, and gives Arabic numerals as an example, because I assume 1,000,000 is where we address memory 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, so 1 is in position 1, this is confusing because one might assume the end is position 7 and not 1. The article goes on to explain this has caused bugs!* And just before anyone goes completely insane, the terms little and big endian – wait for it- come from Gulliver’s travels where the two nations (Lilliput and Blefuscu) go to war over which end of the egg goes into the egg cup, the big end or little, or is it which end sticks up… I think I should get back to the review but with Kikuchi’s help I’ve established that the world of so called logic and computer science is far more otiose – ontologically (love it!) than anything those French post-modernists could dream up – well, maybe not, but certainly someone is giving someone a run for their money. *For my part rather than “think” I tend to try each end (when programming!) and listen to the result, see I’m an Englishman and at heart an empiricist, even if I try my hardest I cant go metaphysical for love or money. Perhaps the Japanese share the English sense of empiricism, Gulliver was you see written by an Irishman, as was Finnegan’s wake, though I’m enamored of Deleuze’s transcendental (or is it transcendent- 🙂 Ha! There’s a BIG difference ….. empiricism…. And so infinite virtualities… but empirically an audio sample (which is a two byte signed integer) say +303 would be stored as 2F 01, or 47 256 (2F is hex 2×16 + 15) or 0101111 00000001 which is 47 + 256 = 303. The 2F is the least significant byte, the 01 the most significant… in binary 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128 in the first byte 256,512,1024… in the second byte, so 1 x 256 (from the second byte) + 32+8+4+2+1 = 47 (from the first) = 256 + 47 = 303 so empirically we know that if 303 is stored as 2F 01 then the system is using little endian. Obviously we need to know a priori that our number is 303, then the endian format becomes obvious or “visible”, tangible and no more a theoretic object. And this is no more irrelevant than a review of classical music which uses such terms as C sharp, as in “what does C sharp sound like?” – what does this cassette sound like, sounds like a possible endian conversion error in PCM data. And as such a review exceeds any subjective impression in giving an empirical fact, representation of the work, could then be criticized as, and this is true, saying nothing at all, but being a mere doubling, as if I am nothing more than a cassette recorder. Surly (even) any realist can see a mistake here? (jliat)
Address: http://fragmentfactory.com/