ROBERT NORMANDEAU – PALIMPSESTES (CD by Empreintes Digitales) *
JOHN TILBURY – FOR TOMASZ SIKORSKI (CD by Bocian Records/Bolt) *
ØE – TRANSFER (CD by Murmer Records) *
IVAR GRYDELAND – BATHYMETRIC MODES (CD by Hubro) *
1982 & BJ COLE (CD by Hubro) *
JESSICA SLIGTER – THE FEAR AND THE FRAMING (CD by Hubro) *
OCTAVIAN NEMESCU – MUSIQUE POUR DESCENDRE (CD by Bolt) *
KIKUCHI & TIM OLIVE – BASE MATERIAL (CD by Test Tone Music) *
TIM OLIVE & ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO – 33 BAYS (CD by 845 Audio) *
BRUNO DUPLANT – QUELQUES USINES FANTOMES (CD by Unfathomless) *
JAAP BLONK – KEYNOTE DIALOGUES (CD by Monotype Records) *
ENZO MINARELLI – FAME (CD by Pogus Productions) *
KRISTIN NORDERVAL – AURAL HISTORIES (CD by Deep Listening) *
THE DOGMATICS – THE SACRIFICE FOR THE MUSIC BECAME OUR LIFESTYLE (LP by Monotype Records)
CULTURAL AMNESIA – THIS IS NOT YOUR SHAPE (CDR by Bleak)
ROB OLLINS & DOUGLAS BENFORD – HOUSE OF MIRRORS (CDR by Mission Gallery)
JAKUB ADAMEC – TRAVELLING IN TIME (SWIEZY KURZ/SWEZY KURZ) (CDR by Mik Musik)
RSS BOYS – W DONT BLV N HYP (CDT by Mik Musik)
ST. RIDE – GUANDO ARRIVO ARRIVO (CDR by Niente Records)
TANDEM ELECTRICS – BIG HEARTS, SMALL RATS (CDR by Copy for Your Records)
RICHARD KAMERMAN – NONE FOR THE MONEY (CD by Copy for Your Records)
BRANDKOMMANDO – WILLKOMMEN BEI UNS! (CDR by Tosom)
LITHUANIAN SOUND ART (CD compilation)
GINTAS K (cassette by Copy For Your Records)
SOCRATES MARTINIS – ON MOTION, STASIS AND THE GEOMETRY OF DESIRE (cassette by Antifrost)
THE MARSHMALLOW STAIRCASE – GUNFIGHTERS (cassette by Summersteps Records)
THE ILL FUNK ENSEMBLE – THE DUALITY (CDR)
NOMEN NOVUM – IF YOU LOOK FOR IT, IT’S THERE (cassette by Broad Beauty Tapes)
ROBERT NORMANDEAU – PALIMPSESTES (CD by Empreintes Digitales)
By now I was looking for that first Normandeau CD on Empreintes Digitales, because I remembered it had some great acousmatic piece on it. And I can’t find it – another reason to work on a more serious attempt of putting my CDs in alphabetic order. Over the years Robert Normandeau (1955) has released some more releases, but I always seemed to like the first one best, but it made me also always curious about his new works, which I can’t say for all of the releases on this label. Maybe it’s because there is an element of anarchy in the music of Normandeau, which I like. It appears here in a piece like ‘Jeu de Langues’, which uses breaths and whispers and sounds like a piece of erotic sound art – a genre that hardly exist (which Normandeau finds odd, since its regular to be found in literature, painting and cinema). It’s easily nicest piece on this CD. Some other pieces, like the title piece and ‘Murmures’ seem to work within the very strict style of acousmatic music which the label is best known for, but really is not my cup of tea. ‘Anadliad’ however is piece for two wind instruments and that works really. No rapid glissandi of computer processing but a thoughtful, almost drone like piece of music with some nice storm and thunder sounds. The CD closes with ‘Palindrome’ which also has a more sustaining sound, almost orchestral in approach I’d say, but with various sound elements dropping in and out, in what seems irregular intervals. All of these pieces are quite long, between ten and fifteen minutes, but certainly the third, fourth and fifth pieces are excellent displays of electronic music, and don’t seem to be too ‘easy’. The other two however seem to do that, a bit too heavily as it is. (FdW)
Address: http://www.empreintesdigitales.com
JOHN TILBURY – FOR TOMASZ SIKORSKI (CD by Bocian Records/Bolt)
Tomasz Sikorski was a Polish pianist and composer (1939 – 1988): “At very beginning of his career as a composer, Sikorski clearly defined the path he would take and never departed from it. What he always found the most important was the sound itself – the acoustic object with its initial phase, its resonance, its vibration and its inner substance. His primary interest was always in the tonal gesture, the sounding phenomenon and pinned them to a piece of paper rather as some people pin butterflies.” When he was student he was friends with John Tilbury, who also studied in Warsaw, but after Tilbury got back to England they lost touch. Now this pianist (of AMM fame) plays three of his pieces and a lengthier improvisation dedicated to his old friend. In that piece he shows us how Tilbury has developed over the years as extraordinary pianist with extended techniques above and beyond the piano. AMM fans – and I am one, although I haven’t played many of their works in recent years – will surely recognize his style, ever so apparent on AMM albums. This is surely a different work than the three Sikorski pieces, which are all about playing the keys of the piano in a minimal way – sparse with notes, rather than repeating phrases. The tonal gesture I should think, as his music is very beautiful and poetic, along the lines, I should think (but I am no expert) of Erik Satie or Claude Debussy. Highly classical music, even by the ‘modern’ standard of the time when it composed. It makes a great CD however. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bocianrecords.com
ØE – TRANSFER (CD by Murmer Records)
To do a lengthy quote from a press text is a kind of poverty, I think, but here’s a text that I can hardly summarize: ” The bits stream invades the whole human experience today, influencing the cognitive aspect, perception, learning and communication. Man is irremediably part of this paradoxical process that leads him to experience his emotions by interacting with 0 and 1 combinations, of which the digital videos, images and music are composed. The numerical representation of life and the sensorial stimulation, achieved by combining data into binary format, replaces human primordial needs; by tending towards an abstraction, man sees himself interacting with the machine. The most evolved cultural-technologic manifestation of this new human condition is depicted by the Affective Computing, which is the study and development of devices able to recognize, process and simulate human emotions. These machines should interpret the emotional state of human beings and adapt their behavior to them: the detection of emotional information begins with sensors which capture data about human speech, facial expressions, psychological reactions, skin temperature and language. Giving to machines emotional capabilities makes it possible to establish and simulate empathy between humans and robots. Transfer is a sonic reflection about all affective phenomena which come out by the use of digital interfaces: the emotions are thus converted twice (reality-digital, digital-reality), creating a transfer between the artist’s original purpose and the users.” It’s perhaps also a text that I hardly understand. Field recordings were made in Italy by Fabio Perletta and then transformed using computer techniques. Perhaps this were I am a bit lost, hearing the music and reading the text. The music, nice as it is, is a fairly normal, four track, work of computerized music, very microsound/glitch/warm/ambient like. Lengthy sustaining patterns of sound, crackling, hissing, with vague traces of field recordings (water sounds mostly). I quite enjoyed this, but I must admit I was doing lots of other stuff in the meantime – fetching things, checking mail, making coffee (nothing that involved talking however) – and this played in full, twice, in the background. It didn’t force itself upon me, was never annoying and provided a fine modern day soundtrack. That was fine in itself. Was it something that was very new? Not really. Will I play it again? Most likely, unless something similar comes up again, which is very likely. (FdW)
Address: http://www.weeld.net
IVAR GRYDELAND – BATHYMETRIC MODES (CD by Hubro)
1982 & BJ COLE (CD by Hubro)
JESSICA SLIGTER – THE FEAR AND THE FRAMING (CD by Hubro)
From the four (!, yes, I know…) new releases on Hubro I am happy to leave the most jazzy one, by Moskus, with Dolf Mulder. Let’s start with the ‘solo’ release by Ivar Grydeland. He’s a member of Huntsvile, Ballrogg and Dans Les Arbres, so his music was reviewed before here. I’d say ‘solo’ album, since on three tracks he gets help from Xavier Charles (clarinet, vibrating surfaces), Marius Tobias Hoven (trombone) and Jonas Howden Sjovaag (snare drum), but Grydeland plays indeed the bulk of instruments: tenori-on (a graphic synthesizer), guitars, banjo, pedal steel guitar, mandolin, ukulele, zither and keyboards. Music with a very minimal approach, in “Roll Back” and “Roll” very guitar based, but in the four others more electronic, using all of his instruments at the same time, and with a stronger emphasis on the use of electronics. Melodic music for sure, with repeating patterns on the guitar, small melodies but all of which comes to you with a nice edge, that makes it move away from the world of improvised music, or from being highly abstract. Very pleasant, entertaining music with a great experimental touch to it. Quite classical in approach, but with a surprising soft touch. Excellent release.
Pedal steel musician BJ Cole is ‘without doubt called a living legend’, playing with Sting, T. Rex, Bjork, Emmylou Harris, Elton John, Iggy Pop, REM, Brian Eno, Luke Vibert, David Sylvian, Roy Harper and ‘countless others’, and yes, some of these people I heard of, but no, never noted the name BJ Cole, which is no doubt my problem. But the three members of 1982 (Nils Okland on hardanger fiddle, violin, Sigbjorn Apeland on harmonium and Oyvind Skarbo on drums) long wished to play with Cole again, after a chance meeting a few years ago. In December last year they booked a studio for a whole day and recorded all day, in various sessions. I quite enjoyed the previous release by 1982, ‘Pintura’ (see Vital Weekly 804), which was hard to pin down in any sort of way (jazz? improvised? classical), which is something that is easier here. The eight untitled cuts from a day long playing together result in total in thirty three minutes of music which has a very relaxing mood, sound scape music. Only in the final piece the mood is outright joyous, but otherwise it seems to depict the Norwegian land during a long, dark winter, but then all of it through the use of acoustic instruments. There is, it seems, an element of sorrow in here, but maybe I read too much of the dark Norwegian mood in here. This is not the kind of dark, drone matter from a bunch of processed field recordings. It’s played thoughtful, with great care for small details, a fine sense of experimentalism and essentially a great release. The pedal steel is a fine instrument to capture such moods and 1982 provides the right setting to expand on those themes.
From the Netherlands, but currently residing in Oslo we have Jessica Sligter, who is also part of The Story Of Modern Framing (see Vital Weekly 610). Her debut album was also on Hubro, but not reviewed here. Now there is her second album for Hubro, ‘The Fear And The Framing’, which, according to the information is less ‘folk-infused and acoustic’ and ‘more electric and sombre’. I assume she also plays most of the instruments, and none of which are mentioned on the cover (nor actually those of guest musicians). There is percussion, guitar, bass, electronics and of course Sligter’s vocals. It’s indeed music with a definite darker touch to it, either intimate, sparse with just a guitar and vocals in ‘The Perfect Vessel’, or banging loud percussion and distorted guitar in ‘Fear’, or multi-layered (double tracked) vocals in ‘Everly’, which is close to pop. Yet that seems to be an exception. While many of these tracks are perhaps ‘pop’ in the ears of whatever else we write about in Vital Weekly, Sligter’s music has a few sharp edges, odd sounds and strange moves, that makes this surely a strange album in the world of pop. An excellent album of moody songs, folk at times, dark always and with a fine production to make it also genuinely interesting for us as lovers of genuinely new music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.hubromusic.com
OCTAVIAN NEMESCU – MUSIQUE POUR DESCENDRE (CD by Bolt)
From Romania I must admit I don’t know many musicians, but Iancu Dumitrescu is surely one I know and like. The liner notes for this CD mentions a few others, as well variations in the world of classical music in Romania, which is where Octavian Nemescu hails from, which is quite interesting. Nemescu (1940) is the last living exponent of the Romanian ‘golden series’ and one of the leading composers of the second (and last) avant-garde, so I read on the cover. He has created a series of pieces ‘devoted to certain moments and hours of day and night’, which do not last an hour, so he’s not composing a whole day (more like Stockhausen composing an opera for each day of the week). On this CD we have the piece for 2 PM and 3 PM, which I played yesterday around that time of the day, but it didn’t bring me extra stimuli or rejection. Just fine modern classical music. Music for a small group of players. ‘EUI or ErUImII for 2 o’clock PM’ is for violin, clarinet, percussion, piano and electronic parts and ‘Ouieiuo for 3 o’clock PM’ for flute, percussion, piano, tuba and electronic parts. In both pieces Nemescu plays the electronic parts. While I am not always the greatest lover of modern classical music, I must say I seemed to enjoy this quite a bit. It all seemed to move about in a gentle way, with sounds dropping in and out, with cheesy electronic bits, contemplative instrumental parts and all in what seemed to me a random way. A random but very nice way. Sometimes louder, sometimes softer and tranquil. A pleasant work throughout, for any time of the day actually. (FdW)
Address: http://www.boltrecords.pl
KIKUCHI & TIM OLIVE – BASE MATERIAL (CD by Test Tone Music)
TIM OLIVE & ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO – 33 BAYS (CD by 845 Audio)
Two works which involved Tim Olive, formerly from Canada but now residing in Kobe. On the first he plays electric guitar pickups and analog electronics and Kikuchi Yukinori, formerly known as Billy?, plays computer and electronics. I believe they worked via mail. Olive recorded ‘single-track mono recordings’ (in Osaka) with ‘additional material, edits and final’ by Yukinori (in Nagoya). Eight pieces in total, with a playing time of just over twenty-seven minutes. So I assume it’s Yukinori who transforms the material given to him by Olive. Computer processing of his electro-acoustic sound material. I guess it’s all alright, but not a single second I had the idea I was listening to something original, or something engaging. It seemed to pass by without too much focus on something. Good, fine, sturdy computer music, but if you have heard that by the bulk, then it’s probably not something hot, new and exciting. It’s not a bad release, except the path has been followed before.
In October 2009 Alfredo Costa Monteiro toured Japan, together with Tim Olive and all along they created some pieces and spend a day in the studio to lay down two of these pieces. Olive plays an one string guitar and Monteiro electro-acoustic devices. No computers here, as this is all about improvisation, of an uneasy kind. There is a lot of scraping of surfaces, objects and electricity, ranging from quite loud to very soft, the rattling of objects, feedback like sine waves and overtones, but in both (long) pieces I also miss focus and attention. The cover mentions that this is mixed by Monteiro, but it seems to me he mixed all of the material at hand into these two pieces, and not do a selection of the strongest moments and cut them in various shorter pieces. Sometimes I thought it was really good, but at other times I thought they were searching a bit too much for the right spot, to continue or change the idea. Some more editing would have been nicely in place I think. (FdW)
Address: http://testtonemusic.net
Address: http://845audio.org
BRUNO DUPLANT – QUELQUES USINES FANTOMES (CD by Unfathomless)
The one time before I came across the name Bruno Duplant, was when he did a CDR for Ilse Records with other people which went along some kind of score – see Vital Weekly 831. I believe I wasn’t too impressed with the result. Maybe I am a bit surprised to see him on this label, but maybe I wrongly lumped him into the world of improvisation based on that CDR? For this release he collected sounds from St-Nazaire and Waziers and somehow put these to use in three pieces. These last thirty-seven, nine and sixteen minutes. That seems a bit long to me. In the first (longest) piece it seems as if have a whole bunch of small sound events cut next to each other, sometimes with an overlap, but not always. It seems as if there is not much notion of composition here and all of this was cut together, in more or less a random manner. The second piece has more an idea of composition, around a few sparse elements, such as far away fog horns and other sounds from the harbor. The best piece I thought was the third one, which had of all three the most coherency in terms of composition and was packed with some great obscured sounds. Hard to tell wether these sounds were all in real time or in any way processed (this actually can be said of the whole album), but it worked quite well. So in the end it’s that long track which I didn’t particular enjoy very much and having said that I must admit that throughout I didn’t think this was the most strongest release in the catalogue of the label. Must the catalogue number attached to this one – thirteen may not be a lucky number. (FdW)
Address: http://www.unfathomless.net
JAAP BLONK – KEYNOTE DIALOGUES (CD by Monotype Records)
ENZO MINARELLI – FAME (CD by Pogus Productions)
KRISTIN NORDERVAL – AURAL HISTORIES (CD by Deep Listening)
A trio of releases connected with each other, since they all deal with the use of voice, one way or another.
Following his two recent releases, I had a discussion via e-mail with Jaap Blonk about my reviews (see Vital Weekly 839). I thought both releases were a bit too long to be digested all at once, and that it perhaps needed trimming down. Blonk argued that none of his releases were made with the idea of listen-all-at-once, but just like classical pieces or collections of jazz pieces, the listener should play a few pieces and then put it aside, and that he was surprised by my ‘pop music’ attitude towards consuming an album as a whole. I am not sure if that is my attitude, but when it comes to writing about music, I usually take albums as a whole; I am not sure if that is a pop attitude. I played this CD again in its entirety, sorry about that, but I kept in mind I should regard this as separate pieces. I would perhaps skip the title piece, which has a nice computer cut-up of Blonk’s voice, but also a sort of (midi-?) piano which I don’t like. As with all of his work, the voice plays a central in the work of Jaap Blonk, and sometimes hard to believe, nothing else. Sometimes he uses electronics too, but it’s never easy to know which they are, or where we find them. And then sometimes, such as in ‘Featherwater River’, there seems to be no voice material. That is a nice strange, introspective piece of piano and a drone. Odd for Blonk. I am not sure if Blonk’s older solo works are still available, but if you need an introduction into his music, this is a great place to start. It seems to have everything. A piece of noise music, ‘Yapp Yapp’ or ‘AA60’, modern classical music ‘Lone Sphere’, sound poetry/poems such as ‘Cimbrod King’ or ‘Gramm’, electronic pieces for voice in ‘Rage Rage’ or pure computer processing of voices in ‘Sympa Cri’ (also not the most strongest pieces). Something for everybody and a fine overview of all the techniques Blonk has mastered over the years to use his voices, as well, and this might be new, his other musical interests in composing music for other instruments. Excellent showcase!
The name Enzo Minarelli is one I have known for many years, and even while I’m not sure where I heard this before, it must have been on one or more of the many cassette compilations I have in the 80s. Not that I actually remember any of his music, but I knew it was about voice/sound poetry. He’s been active in that field since the early 1970s and has many records, CDs, DVDs and concerts to his name. In the old days with a reel-to-reel machine, but these with a computer, but Minarelli stresses that 90% of what we hear on this CD is his own voice ad 10% from ‘a catalogue of special effects to the software’. That is indeed hard to believe I should think, as I believe to hear much more than just a voice. Pitched up, pitched down, echo effects, rhythm blocks (erm, did anyone say ‘dance rhythm’?), multi-layered: all of which I should think are not easily created with just a voice, but maybe forty years of practice proofs me wrong. Twenty new poems here from the years 2008 to 2010, which are quite short, somewhere between one and three minutes. Each poem is described in the booklet, what it is about and what we hear in there. Not the actual ‘lyric’, should you expect such a thing. Unlike the Blonk release, which is quite diverse, this material is quite closely related each other and form an unity. That’s nice, but a lot of this wordless poem, dealing with voice/sounds, is perhaps too much and it’s hard to pick out those I like. Some of the computer processing is also perhaps a bit too easily found in a free max/msp patch on the internet, which may do the same thing. While I am not sure about this one, I would give it the benefit of the doubt.
Kristin Norderval may represent a younger generation, younger than Blonk and Minarelli. She had her training in using voice and real time computer processing from David Gamper of the Deep Listening Band and the pieces here were recorded between 2000 and 2011, but like Minarelli also sound quite coherent. Here too one has to get used to the voice/computer processing type of music, which, if you have played around with that kind of software (and who hasn’t?), may not come as big surprise. Although these pieces are more like ‘pieces’ than ‘poems’ indeed, the very fact that each lists a year when it composed, makes them perhaps less improvised than composed, even when they sound indeed improvised. I am not sure what to make of this music. It’s all very ‘decent’ – if you know what I mean. There is no anger, edge or nastiness in here. Nordervall shows us how to use a voice in a ‘strange’ manner, and the computer does a bit more to it, but it doesn’t go beyond the ordinary, not like Blonk does in a fine attempt at acoustic noise music. The subtitle here is ‘post-ambient arias for voice and electronics’, so perhaps nasty is not the word we should be looking for. But it’s all so damn decent, brutally civilized. You want it to break out, which only seems to happen in ‘Extreme Weather’ – a bit. (FdW)
Address: http://www.monotyperecords.com
THE DOGMATICS – THE SACRIFICE FOR THE MUSIC BECAME OUR LIFESTYLE (LP by Monotype Records)
Arthur Rother has, probably, a big kitchen, pre-renovation that is. That’s at least where this album was recorded, and it has Chris Abrahams on piano and Kai Fagaschinski on clarinet. But who knows? Maybe a kitchen in Berlin is just very big. Both Abrahams and Fagaschinski are well-known in the world of composition and improvisation and this duet is strictly along the lines of improvisation. The music here, spread out over seven pieces is very quiet and contemplative. While the piano can be recognized as such, most of the times here, except when Abrahams uses a different technique to play the hammers directly against the strings, it’s the clarinet playing of Fagaschinski which is quite far removed from what we usually coming from this instrument. He uses the instruments to create all sorts of sounds, from sine wave like modulations to more acoustic sounds, using the mouth piece to create an electro-acoustic atmosphere. Everything seems to be passing a slow speed, and the kitchen has great intimate acoustics which works very fine for this music. Quite emotional music, hovering closely, at times, on the edge of silence, but there is always something ‘out there’. Excellent record. The cover looks like a black metal music one, and surely that’s a great joke, but perhaps also one that we’ve seen before – or similar at least, packaging music in entirely way as the music actually is (’20 Jazz Funk Greats’ anyone?). (FdW)
Address: http://www.monotyperecords.com
Address: http://www.pogus.com
Address: http://www.deeplistening.org
CULTURAL AMNESIA – THIS IS NOT YOUR SHAPE (CDR by Bleak)
With my head firm down in the world of cassettes – I’m speaking 1980’s here – it’s was 90% noise, noise and noise, and among the many tapes I heard few bands leaped out. Pseudo Code was always a firm favorite, The Legendary Pink Dots always leaped out with their psychedelic pop music, and there was the odd great song. I should have compiled all those odd great songs and do my own great pop compilation (I could still offer such a compilation for any aspiring retro label for free), as somehow I always I seemed to like the element of pop. On a US compilation cassette I found two, ‘Boulevard Circulaire’ by Atom Cristal & Satellite and ‘Where Has All The Difference Gone?’ by Cultural Amnesia. I noted that band before, on “Endzeit”, which, in all honesty, I got because of The Virgin Prunes and Section 25, but which had just great music all around. One of those bands that ‘obviously’ had disappeared over the years and then are re-discovered when the old releases pop on blogs dedicated to obscure and forgotten music, ending up on vinyl (on demand) again. Which is great of course, because it brings great old music to a young and interested audience. But what is also nice is that some of these people never stopped doing music, and apparently Cultural Amnesia is one of those bands. This album was already available last year as a download only, but comes now in a nice box, with booklet and a bonus piece on CDR. To be honest I don’t know all of the previous. older, music of Cultural Amnesia that well – only ‘Uncle Of The Boat’ found it’s way through download here, but their music from this side of the millennium sounds quite alright too, in fact, perhaps, a lot better. Firmly rooted in electronic music, on the pop side of things, but surely also estranged enough to stay away from the charts – of any kind. It’s recorded way better than in the old days, which is hardly a surprise given all the technical improvement over the years. I know there are ‘out there’ suckers for the ‘real, old’ sound but in the current much cleaner version Cultural Amnesia sound more poppy but with that sufficient amount of strangeness, weirdness that make them leftfield enough. This is an excellent collection of modern day pop songs – classics in time to come. Good to see this on CDR – vinyl in ten years? (FdW)
Address: http://www.bleak.at
ROB OLLINS & DOUGLAS BENFORD – HOUSE OF MIRRORS (CDR by Mission Gallery)
Here’s a name I haven’t heard in some time: Douglas Benford. Erstwhile known as Si-Cut.db (pronounced ‘Sye Kut Dee Bee’). I am not sure what he has been up to in recent years, as his website seems partly out of date, but here he has work with sculptor Rob Ollins. It’s an installation piece at the Mirror Gallery and it deals with Swansea: “Comprising of a series of acoustic mirrors and speakers that are arranged in such a way as to create a soundscape, the audience will navigate through creating a relationship between space and sound. ‘Sounds harvested from natural and urban environment from Swansea and coastal locations create sonic snapshots of the area.” I assume what I hear on the CDR is done by Douglas Benford alone. It’s an audio capture of Swansea (text in Welsh also on the cover), a place I never visited. It seems to me this is all pretty straight forward recording of Swansea, but the collaged together in some way. It shows us indeed seaside snapshots and urban life, cars passing and people talking. It’s a fine release, but perhaps a bit too dry for me. I think I like my field recordings a bit more processed, a bit more reworked and composed. This release has a great cover with text in English and Welsh, and looks like a fine art item. Maybe visiting the installation helps? (FdW)
Address: http://www.missiongallery.co.uk
JAKUB ADAMEC – TRAVELLING IN TIME (SWIEZY KURZ/SWEZY KURZ) (CDR by Mik Musik)
RSS BOYS – W DONT BLV N HYP (CDT by Mik Musik)
Mik Musik is a Polish label hosted Wojciech Kucharczyk. In 1994 he was already active in the cassette subculture and has been involved in numerous projects in (sound) art. After many wanderings he re-started the label Mik Musik in March 2012. Whatever it is and which way it will go up to him is a mystery. For me at least it has become clear with the two releases of Jakub Adamec and RSS Boys that the label has a great love is for free and experimental electronic music.
The album “Travelling In Time” (Swiezy Kurz / Svezi Kurz) by Jakub Adamec lasts just under 30 minutes, but is a continuous abduction of many sounds, voices, beats and atmospheres. The eight compositions are composed of several soundtracks for his own movies he has made. The soundtracks have been mixed and reinterpreted. The album is a kaleidoscopic musical adventure that needs all attention of the listener. No bite-sized chunks pieces of music, but layered compositions built with a clear sense of and commitment to the music. The mix of frantic beats, radio sounds, synth melodies, vocals, noise and even traditional song structures make this short album to an intense musical journey. The CDR comes with a collection of photographs and handmade chart by Adamec himself.
RSS Boys are unknown persons and the album “W DONT BLV N HYP” is the first album by a series of albums that are created by musicians who choose not to reveal. Perhaps there are new musicians, perhaps old well-known musicians, whoever it may be .. they will operate undercover. It’s not about the name, but the music will count. The CDR comes with a set of photos of the photographer Andrzej Tobis and is a limited edition of 44 pieces. The album consists of six tracks with beautiful (industrial-based) beats, deep synth basses, distorted field-recordings and continuous marimba parties. Several elements are subtly interconnected and lead to a pleasant mix. Indeed … the name does not count, but only the sound and that is more than enough. (JKH)
Address: http://www.mikmusik.org/
ST. RIDE – GUANDO ARRIVO ARRIVO (CDR by Niente Records)
The duo St.ride from Genova, Italy comes again with their beautiful musical concept. Every album is a new statement in which Edo Grandi and Maurizio Gusmerini discover the use of synthesizers, samplers, guitar and drum machines. In the past the voice of Maurizio Gusmerini was a very important part of their music. In this album it is more at the background or distorted as an electronic sound layer. Guando Arrivo Arrivo seems more based as a discovery of sound, it is more intense and in eleven short songs the duo creates different atmospheres. Sometimes it is like a mix of a new wave bass line in combination with a dance string synthesizers and jazzy drums. Sometimes it is like an electronic experiment or a wicked DJ in combination with a heavy metal guitarist, who is cannot round of his riff. That is the power of this duo, the combination of different music styles and make their own sound of this elements. Their last album Tutto Va Bene (Vital 815) was an interesting step forwards, but this album surprises me again. Nice piece of work. (JKH)
Address: http://nienterecords.blogspot.nl/
TANDEM ELECTRICS – BIG HEARTS, SMALL RATS (CDR by Copy for Your Records)
RICHARD KAMERMAN – NONE FOR THE MONEY (CD by Copy for Your Records)
The Tandem Electrics CDR is a full size disk with only three inches of ‘silvered’ recording surface. It is “signal recorded line-in direct no mastering” work by Richard Kamerman and Reed Evan Rosenberg. This is difficult to describe sonically, various glitches, violent feedback, loss of signal and mains hums. Sometimes a hint of a recording or radio signal, as if someone either of great ineptitude or drunk or both was setting up a P.A. and rewiring phonos and jacks in real-time whilst the P.A. is set to Max. The other CD sports similar effects, with Part 1, “Twenty-Four Sycamores” seemingly using the lead out of Vinyl L.P.s as a sort of rhythmic device, although this may be just coincidence. Track 8 is mainly some pop ballad which again becomes subject to our incompetent sound engineers work. These works are very much “collages” even though ‘live’ and seemingly randomly disorganized… Their greatest danger is the seeming “poetics” of such work. A delight in the inconsequential, though such a ‘danger’ could be regarded as a positive attribute, some romanticism of technological failure and collapse which is more ‘original’ than what normally is presented as a critique of modernity by P.E./ Industrial work. (jliat)
Address: http://cfyre.co/rds/
BRANDKOMMANDO – WILLKOMMEN BEI UNS! (CDR by Tosom)
“We are proud to present again, for the second time, this great Power Electronics and Noise project from Poland.” This begins quite glitchy but soon huge drone/pads appear to indicate how much Power Electronics is about ‘looks’ rather than ‘depth’. Or rather about “depth” rather than “content” or lack of content. Once a Goth could only use second-hand clothes and dog collars, now boutiques sport tailor made apparel for the weekend emo or goth, who is probably unaware of the derivative “Gothic” and its in terms of Victorian pseudo copy facades masking modernity’s finely
calculated structures of iron, and absolutely nothing like the rule of thumb magnificence of the medieval stone masons. (apply this metaphorically to this music..) Victorian gothic has its charms, St Pancras is magnificent, if over the top in many ways, as is Highgate cemetery a wonderful necropolis to explore, but the boys and girls in black in shopping arcades, or Malls in the U.S. just doesn’t cut the mustard, whatever that means. Such criticism sounds pompous and elitist, after all its only a fashion, not to be taken seriously, or if it is then they should maybe visit Chartres – “the real thing”, and not some ‘joke-shop’ gothic copy of a copy of a copy… but maybe the network manager who seemed to have it in for me where I worked once – who was a goth- has colored my views – but not black- please. Those original cathedrals were brightly painted – so how about some lively P.E.? (jliat)
Address: http://www.tosom.de/
LITHUANIAN SOUND ART (CD compilation)
GINTAS K (cassette by Copy For Your Records)
Did I ever mention that reviewing compilation albums is my least favorite business when it comes reviewing. I’m sure I did. Especially those which have no theme attached to it, such as this one: the state of sound art in a certain country. Nothing against such countries, nor against such composers, far from it, and I’m sure these compilation serve a purpose. Usually funded by the state, given away at conservatories, music festivals or magazines, they will reach a group of interested listeners. But would anyone rush out to get a compilation like this, based on the good review I am about to write? How would I/we know this is a complete picture of what Lithuania has to offer, soundwise? I name checked Lina Lapelyte, Antanas Jasenka, Arturas Bumsteinas, Audio_Z and Gintas K, who curated and released the CD. I hear various interesting computer works, a piece that was a bit too noisy for my taste (by Antanas Dombrovskij), instrument processing and field recordings – the latter by Sala in a piece of fermentation (‘the emission of carbon dioxide’), which was short and to the point. Actually most of it I thought was quite good, without any real surprises. From my experience in the field, I could have told you Lithuania has fertile soil for sound art. But perhaps this CD proofs it.
On cassette we have solo music by Gintas K, which contains five pieces of his computer music. What I remembered from his older releases was something that was rather clean cut, not too dissimilar to the sound world of say Raster Noton, but here we have a rather more noisy mood going on. Some kind of sounds are let loose in the world of max/msp patches and go wild in there. But the opening track of side one takes with eighteen minutes way too much I think. The second piece is much nicer, more contemplative but also lasts only three minutes. Side two opens also with a longer track – thirteen minutes here – which is not as chaotic or noisy but also doesn’t know how to convince me. Here again I have the impression that someone is testing a software patch. You could call it improvised music as well, but either way… Same I can say for the other two, shorter, pieces on this side. It’s all in the world of computerized noise, and it’s perhaps releases like this, the easiness of how this was made, which give cassettes a bad name. A medium for inferior music. I heard Gintas K do much, much better. (FdW)
Address: http://gintask.dar.lt
Address: http://cfyre.co/rds
SOCRATES MARTINIS – ON MOTION, STASIS AND THE GEOMETRY OF DESIRE (cassette by Antifrost)
This odd cassette without first researching its origins sounds like ‘field recordings’ only not of actual fields but of industrial environments, possibly the continuous sound of a train or tram ride. Some are short, a few seconds others longer, all consist of such ambient sounds of mechanical travel… or perhaps an air conditioner or continuous extractor fan. No other sounds – human – animal or atmospheric except perhaps the slight sound of a garment on the microphone or a police siren of the European kind. The cassette arrived without card insert but from the on body print and via the Anitfrost website Socrates Martinis can be tracked down – a sound artist working in Greece. From here the tape appears to have 2 tracks on side A, and a further 2 on the B side. The B side containing again recordings in situ, only some of much more quieter ‘locations’ if these are actual
locations, and I guess now the short silences indicate where one track starts and another ends, though this is not obvious. Occasionally one is aware of the sound recordist ’s breath… but that is as expressive as this tape gets in a ‘representational’ sense. Why the printed inserts were not used is not stated, however this lack of information helps the enigmatics of this work. As such it has a strange beauty about it, clearly not in the telos or anti telos of noise, but much more the idea of listening as listening to sounds that are remarkable in their unremarkability and ubiquitous of industrial urban life and its environments. As such it poignancy captures the actual fragility of such environments which are seldom documented, noticed or of interest. ‘Art’ then in the great tradition of art, as who once would have thought a railway station a suitable subject for a painting….(jliat)
Address: http://www.antifrost.gr/
THE MARSHMALLOW STAIRCASE – GUNFIGHTERS (cassette by Summersteps Records)
THE ILL FUNK ENSEMBLE – THE DUALITY (CDR)
NOMEN NOVUM – IF YOU LOOK FOR IT, IT’S THERE (cassette by Broad Beauty Tapes)
The tags for this cassette (on bandcamp where it’s also available) read: “alternative garage indie rock outsider psychedelic rock opera space rock western Pennsylvania”. I wasn’t sure when I started to write about alternative garage indie rock, and I have no idea who The Marshmellow Staircase are. The vocals are not about great lyrics, I guess, as they are not to be understood. The music sounds a bit muddy, perhaps the result of a garage production and the rock opera space rock western is an element that is entirely lost on me. I played it, however, with interest. There is an organ sound buried in there which I’d like to inspect more. Maybe there is more like that to be discovered in the music when recorded and mixed properly? Or perhaps this is not the sort of thing for Vital Weekly? Ah, that’s the case!
Ah, that’s the case! Too: The Ill Funk Ensemble. Hip hop. R&B. Do I need to go on? This is by far the release that has been most out of place. Why did they even consider Vital Weekly?
But let’s on a positive note here. David Norbery is Nomen Novum from Atlanta, and while his text reads about ‘gleeful pop deconstruction, using samples as fluently as it did layers of guitars, its lyrics as process-driven and cut-up as its instrumentals’ it sounds like pretty normal pop music to these ears. It’s hard to hear the ‘late 90s Warp Records, Krautrock and current top 40 radio), but these songs are all quite alright actually. Quite pop like, a bit stuttering in the rhythm department – perhaps to add a feeling of strangeness to these songs – but then effectively were just odd enough to be something that was actually liked here, in terms of pop/alternative/experiment – all a bit of that, and then perhaps at the same time not just quite ‘it’. See, sometimes Vital Weekly does like pop music – we even write about it every now and this is an example. Not quite the refinement of say Hinterlandt – reviewed elsewhere – but quite alright anyway. (FdW)
Address: http://summerstepsrecords.bandcamp.com
Address: http://nomennovum.bandcamp.com