BEN FLEURY-STEINER – CLEARINGS (CD by Rural Colours) *
AIDAN BAKER – ALREADY DROWNING (CD by Gizeh Records) *
DEREK PIOTR – RAJ (CD, private) *
NIVEAU ZERO – JASMINE (CD by Ad Noiseam)
OYARRS – BADS (CD by Ad Noiseam)
TECHDIFF – P. CONV (CD by Ad Noiseam)
IGORRR – HALLELUJAH (CD by Ad Noiseam)
FRANZ HAUTZINGER’S POET CONGRESS – WELTALLENDE (THE ART OF AUGUST WALLA) (CD by Loewenhertz)
NEPOSLUSNO – SOUND DISOBEDIENCE (2CD by L’Innomable)
ANNA KRAVANJA & MARKO KARLOVCEC – VRASCANJE INGROWTH (CDR by Botanic)
WATT – ALTER EGOS (CD by Creative Sources Records)
MARC LARDON – MÖRDER IN DER PULVERMÜHLE (CD by Deszpot)
LUIGI NONO/HANS VAN ECK (2CD by Sub Rosa) *
LARS LEONHARD & ALVINA RED – SEASONS – LES QUTRES SAISONS (CD by Bine Music) *
GREGORY ROBIN & FRANCK VIGROUX – ENTRAILLES (DVD by D’Autres Cordes)
LEFT HAND CUTS OFF THE RIGHT – GOMA (CDR by Must Die Records) *
GLUCK/FUGLEWICZ – JANE (CDR by Must Die Records) *
VASTEN – HALLOWEEN SESSIONS (CDR, private) *
COLLINS & PALIX – 7 SCORIES (CDR by Care Not Care Records) *
LID EMBA – TERMINAL MUSE: YELLOW (CDR by Stickfigure)
RULE (CDR by Foredoom Productions) *
PETER LENAERTS – QUIES (CDR by Very Quiet Records) *
CROWN OF BONE & WILT – NEUROSIS OF ENTHRALLMENT (CDR by Obfuscated Records) *
STONED TO DEATH – ALL EARTH (CDR by Claustrophilia Records)
NAR – WHAT LIES BEANETH THE WOODS (CDR by Claustrophilia Records)
NASCITARI/CARRION BLACK PIT – THE CONQUEROR WORM (tape by Forever Escaping Boredom)
IEVA (3″CDR by Pollen Records)
IEVA & HAKOBUNE – A NEW MORNING (3″CDR by Pollen Records)
KAKAWAKA – EIN FROHLICHES LIED AUF DEN LIPPEN DEN WANDERSMANN KANN NCHTS ERSCHUTTERN (cassette, private)
BEN FLEURY-STEINER – CLEARINGS (CD by Rural Colours)
Usually Ben Fleury-Steiner operates his own Gears Of Sand label, but here goes out to Rural Colours to present his music. Fleury-Steiner is a man who loves his ambient to be experimental rather than just nice and smooth. Which is, roughly put, the way I like it. Here he uses electric kalimbas, small modular synthesizers, guitar drones and effects pedals and he created three pieces with that set up. The kalimbas are only to be herd in the opening piece ‘Wind-Up Bird’s Lament’, which ultimately moves into a more gentle ambient sound, which continues in ‘Parallax’, which is even more gentle/less experimental. You could think here that Fleury-Steiner changed his interest, but then there is ‘Glade’, the final and longest track (though not much longer than the previous piece), which shows us Fleury-Steiner at his most experimental, with a somewhat more industrial sound. Fleury-Steiner so it seems walks through a shopping mall, and recorded the buzzing cavernous space and colours the sound in some kind of post processing kind of manner. This brings on a slightly – but only slightly! – industrial sound to the proceedings, a level of abstractness that is not present on the other two pieces, an offering of another way out of the more strict ambient patterns. Multi-layered, always moving, and finely woven textured sound. (FdW)
Address: http://www.ruralcolours.co.uk/
AIDAN BAKER – ALREADY DROWNING (CD by Gizeh Records)
Some people use many names to do many different kinds of music. Aidan Baker mostly uses his own name when it comes to his ‘solo’ music. I put that in parentheses, because this new one is certainly not ‘solo’. Here he has a ‘song cycle’ of seven songs inspired by myths and folktales about female water spirits, all sung by female singers and there is help on various instruments by leah Buckareff (accordion), Laura C. Bates (violin), Nick Storring (cello), Carl Pace (trumpet) and Laurie Rodie (alto & soprano saxophones). Baker himself plays guitars, bass, flute, drums, trombone, piano, drum machine and field recordings. So, as you can imagine, this is pretty much, an album of songs, with vocals, but then in the ‘Aidan Baker’ way. It connects both his solo work (his ‘real’ solo work of ambient moods, that is) and the more heavy textured rock music of Nadja. This is all quite psychedelic stuff. Lyrics are not always to be recognized, such as in ‘Melusine’, but more add to the rich texture of the music. And textured this is! With reversed vocals, lots of guitar parts, spacey drums and all sorts of late 60s studio techniques to keep this psychedelic. But a piece like ‘Mein Zwilling, Mein Verlorener’ is on the other hand deceivingly simple, with just repeated guitar patterns, accordion, vocals and a set of drums that remind me of John Densmore’s more jazzy parts in The Doors. The organ of that band is the only thing that’s missing, I should think. If you are a true Baker fan for all his works inside ambient music, then you may very surprised by this, but hopefully also pleased when you hear this. I certainly was both surprised and pleased. Pleased a lot actually. While some of Nadja’s work is too monolithic for me, some of his ambient work truly pleases me, but there is a lot of it, here’s something entirely different, merging all of this together is some seven great songs. (FdW)
Address: http://gizehrecords.com
DEREK PIOTR – RAJ (CD, private)
For whatever reason, Derek Piotr (from Poland, then the Uk, now New England) releases his third album ‘Raj’ privately, and not on his own Bitsquare, but I am not sure why (or perhaps that label wasn’t his? Or maybe because it’s first real CD?). He uses voice, organ, and black metal noise on this album. The organ is that of the St. Peter’s Cathedral. Again Piotr keeps his pieces short and to the point, somewhere between two and a bit minutes and six at the most (only once). This new album seems a departure from his older work in that, although still laptop based, the music is much more than before about rhythm, it’s also less abstract than before. It seems that Piotr is more concerned with ‘song’ based material rather than something that resembles a soundscape of some kind. Still owing much to the world of clicks ‘n cuts, the beats have become more beat, and less a collection of indeed click and cut pasted together into a sequential rhythm. Also the use of voice may still resemble a bit of AGF, with whom Piotr on his first release, but more and more he seems to be finding his own voice, literally actually. Maybe the description, with its reference to black metal noise, suggests something different, but this is hardly black metal or noise, or both. These ten pieces are more coherent than on his previous releases, and perhaps also a more something of his own. This is the best Piotr release I heard so far! A major leap forward for him. (FdW)
Address: http://derekpiotr.com
NIVEAU ZERO – JASMINE (CD by Ad Noiseam)
OYARRS – BADS (CD by Ad Noiseam)
TECHDIFF – P. CONV (CD by Ad Noiseam)
IGORRR – HALLELUJAH (CD by Ad Noiseam)
French artist Niveau Zero had much success with his debut album “In_Sect” released a couple of years ago making him one of Europe’s most interesting acts on the dubstep scene. Now he is ready with the follow-up to the debut. Present album titled “Jasmine” continues the explorations into the territories of dubstep. The style of the Niveau Zero is built on the integration of rap metal, hip hop and lots of deep rumbling bass. The expressions are filled with aggression and vocals of pure wrath. The rhythm textures are mostly heavy downbeats moving in sinister synth-spheres. Awesome! Where Niveau Zero’s “Jasmine album” was built on aggression and wrath, the first full-length album from Latvian artist Arvīds Laivinieks alias Oyarrs oozes of atmospheres. Listening to the album titled is like watching a movie on the inner-cinema. Cinematic ambient-spheres circulates inside landscapes of rumbling noises, vocal samples and electroacoustic elements of piano and other musical instruments. The atmosphere are melancholic and quite beautiful. Thus the introvert expressions seems like a great contrast to the aforementioned more extrovert and upfront attitude. Next album reviewed here comes from another specialist in the creation of atmospheres, despite the fact that the album does offer much more than cinematic ambience. Sheffield-based producer and composer Dave Forrester alias Techdiff invokes images of futuristic spacious constructions. Those constructions take their starting point in rhythm-based textures that first of all includes dubstep-beats and heavy deep bass-lines. Thus Techdiff on this new album titled “P. Conv” takes a step away from the breakcore-scene and into the dubstep-scene with an album that offers so much more. Excellent album. Last album reviewed here comes from French artist Gautier Serre calling himself Igorrr. That the artist has a background in the death metal scene comes quite clear with this upfront cocktail of extremities from both the electronic and the metal scene. Brutal guitar riffs executed by guitarist of Norwegian black metal band Mayhem swirls alongside furious patterns of rhythmic textures. However also acoustic expressions find its way into the sonic pallet of Igorrr. Operatic vocals and various instruments takes part of the expression. In a few words: Death metal meets breakcore meets classical music on this tour de force of extreme but also atmospheric aggressions. Awesome! (NM)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
FRANZ HAUTZINGER’S POET CONGRESS – WELTALLENDE (THE ART OF AUGUST WALLA) (CD by Loewenhertz)
Intriguing album! An album dedicated to Austrian Art Brut artist August Walla, who died in 2001. From the included notes I learn that “his self-invented, polytheistic philosophy is often the focal point of his works, which overflow with words and symbols. It is a mysterious world populated by spirits with the prospect of a distant ‘Weltallendeland‘ which can be the realm oft he dead, paradise, purgatory of nothingness”. It is this universe that is convincingly recreated in this musical work by Hautzinger and his Poet Congress: Christian Reiner (voice, whistles), Steve Gander (voice), Isabelle Dutholt (clarinet, voice), Manon-Liu Winter (electronics), Burkhard Stangl (electric guitar) and Franz Hautzinger (trumpet). This ensemble was formed in 2009 working from influences of punk, improvisations, dadaism, etc. Earlier Hautzinger studied trumpet and composition in Graz and Vienna, and became a very profiled artist in the Austrian scene. With “Weltallende” he created a very unusual musical audio work. In a way comparable to works of Goebels and Harth that were also somewhere between music and radio play. In 17 miniatures Hautzinger creates dramatic and intense evocations of Walla’s life and universe, with a prominent role for the voices of Gander and Reiner. One feels that every piece has the form Hautzinger had in mind. Everything is to the point, functional and hitting something. In a fine recording the vocals, the delicate playing, the arrangements are to be enjoyed. A very successful radical work of art in best Austrian traditions. (DM)
Address: http://www.loewenhertz.at
NEPOSLUSNO – SOUND DISOBEDIENCE (2CD by L’Innomable)
ANNA KRAVANJA & MARKO KARLOVCEC – VRASCANJE INGROWTH (CDR by Botanic)
‘Neposlusno’ is a collection of duo improvisations from improvisers from Slovenia released by L’ Innomable, a label based in that same area. The event that led to this release, grew from a contact that started from an AMM-workshop in London 1999 and indicates what kind of improvisation is to be expected here. A very good initiative and unique opportunity to gain some insight in the improv scene of a country we don’t know much about. If there is one thing I learned from this release, it is that they consider improvisation a very serious business. After two CDs of duo improvisations I was strongly in need for some more uplifting, light, improvisations with a sense of humor and funny twists. But that is not what these players (Vitja Balžalorsky, Jošt Drašler, Vid Drašler, Andrej Fon, Domen Gnezda, Tomaž Grom, Marko Jenič, Marko Karlovčec, Ana Kravanja, Samo Kutin, Neža Naglič, Žiga Pucelj, Matija Schellander, Boštjan Simon, Irena Tomažin, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec) are interested in . Most improvisations are sound explorations and improvisations residing in quiet and slow realms of the sound universe. I hoped for traces of local musical traditions, but they are absent. In most pieces we engage a search for small movements and patterns like in the extensive opening piece on cd 2 by Kravanja and Karlovcec. If you want more of them, try their CDR ‘Ingrowth’. They investigate into drone-like improvisations, with few and lengthy notes. To be followed with passages with short squeaks and squires by the saxophone player. (DM)
Address: http://linnomable.wordpress.com / http://botanic-records.blogspot.nl/
WATT – ALTER EGOS (CD by Creative Sources Records)
A trio of experienced players: London-based Ian Smith (trumpet) played with many UK key-improvisors like Evan Parker, John Stevens, Lol Coxhill, Steve Beresford, and many others. He took part in the resurrected Cornelius Cardew Scratch Orchestra, worked with composer Roger Doyle, etc. Hannah Marshall (cello) is of a younger generation but is also involved in a wide range of improvisational and experimental music: The Ex, Diatribes, The Shoreditch Trio, to name a few of her collaborations. Stephen Flinn is an American percussionist and composer operating in improvised and electro-acoustic music, who performed throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States. He is involved in The Cutmen, a London-based industrial-ambient group, featuring veteran Z’EV. Flinn likes to work with unusual sound sources, including self made instruments and found objects. I have no information on how these three musicians met and what made them decide to work together. However, listening to this fantastic album the answer is not difficult. There is a very fine interplay and interaction between the three. They create very subtle, condensed and concentrated improvisations that are a joy to listen to. All three have a very extended vocabulary and many techniques at their disposal. No lack of ideas. But above all one experiences these musicians really communicate and tell a story. Excellent work! A good thing this live recording made it to CD. (DM)
Address: http://www.creativesourcesrec.com
MARC LARDON – MÖRDER IN DER PULVERMÜHLE (CD by Deszpot)
First release from the new Swiss label Deszpot, based in Biel. A label that is devoted to the experimental music scene in Biel. Lardon plays bass clarinet and contra bass clarinet plus analogue electronics. He studied with Harry Sparnaay, a famous Dutch bass clarinet player who experimented with electronics already in the 70s. On the one hand Lardon performs modern composed music, on the other he is into producing music for theatre and as an improvisor under the name of Mörder. He has a duo with Andreas Glauser called Splitter and another one with Daniel Sailer, and played furthermore with Christian Müller, Hans Koch, etc. ‘Mörder in the Pulvermühle’ presents Lardon as a solo improviser. But let’s concentrate on his solo album. The music breathes a dark an teutonic atmosphere, as if one is entering the underworld. But despite the undeniable heaviness of this music, it is also of a very specific beauty. He creates sonic spaces comparable – a little bit – with territories Art Zoyd and Frohmader often visit. Acoustical sounds and electronic treatments are effectively intertwined. The pieces fascinate more because of particular archaic sound world Lardon successfully creates, then the compositional complexity. (DM)
Address: http://www.deszpot.ch
LUIGI NONO/HANS VAN ECK (2CD by Sub Rosa)
Maybe I should not list the two composers here, but the performers, Amsterdam’s Schreck Ensemble, who started out in 1989 under the guidance of Hans van Eck and specialized in presented works which involve traditional instruments and live electronics. Welcome to the world of modern classical music. Here we have a CD, which also works as a SACD (so you can sit in the middle and hear it surround sound), with a piece by Luigi Nono and a CD with a work by Hans van Eck, artistic director of the Schreck Ensemble. In the Nono piece the violin is the central instrument (originally composed for Gideon Kremer). Nono taped Kremer’s violin playing and made an ‘electronic’ tape out of that, which is to be played along with the violin in concert, but with the sound engineer having a flexible role in playback of that tape. I wish I could afford a surround sound set up, so I could experience this first hand, but alas that is not the case. This is an interesting work that no longer has use for words like ‘composition’ or ‘improvisation’ but is indeed both. An interestingly austere work. ‘Nuctemeron’ is a work by Hans van Eck for soprano (voice that is, not saxophone), violin, clarinets, tape, live electronics and stratifier, one of those self build electronic devices. I am not sure if I understood the liner notes alright, but this seems to be a long work, although it’s cut down to forty six minutes here. This is a different work, obviously, using more instruments and which has a more expanded sound. The subject of the vocals, inspired by occult philosophies, kind of eludes me, but the overall nature of this work is indeed quite dark and intense, especially the ‘6th hour’ piece, I quite enjoyed. Modern classical music is perhaps not always my strongest interest, but these two pieces by Nono and Van Eck, and they way they are performed by the Schreck Ensemble is absolutely great. (FdW)
Address: http://www.subrosa.net
LARS LEONHARD & ALVINA RED – SEASONS – LES QUTRES SAISONS (CD by Bine Music)
What I like about Bine Music is their commitment to their artists. Once signed you stay there it seems. So here we have a new release by Lars Leonhard, helped by Alvina Red on vocals. She gets the same front cover credit as Leonhard, but only sings on four of the twelve pieces. Red is from Stockholm, ‘gaining her first professional experience at the age of ten as a background singer for Agnetha Faltskog (on ‘Take Care Of Your Children’, in case you wondered) and work in choirs, and in bands. Thematically the album here is about the four seasons, starting with springtime, then summer, autumn and winter. Each season has two instrumental pieces and one with vocals and it opens with nice, breezy ‘Le Printemps’. Leonhard is a man of ambient music, spiced with some fine rhythm, or a man whose slowed down his techno music and added a lot of atmospheric synths – it depends, I guess, from end you look at this. Either case, Leonhard continues what he started on ‘1549’ (see Vital Weekly 798). Deep washes of synth based music, rolling percussion, nice bass sounds and, while never aimed at the dance floor (I think at least), it has too much rhythm to lie back and chill out. It would be a nice challenge to find out if these pieces evoke actually said seasonal changes. Does ‘Soaking Wet’ have that autumn feel, if you didn’t know the title or the idea behind the album? I doubt that, perhaps maybe in the pieces with vocals, providing you don’t understand the French lyrics. I think the addition of vocals is a great move. Perhaps because I like female vocals, but the dreamy voice of Red makes a nice addition to the music. I wouldn’t have minded getting some more of these, say making the balance 50-50 in this album. Excellent stuff, all round here. Perfect waking up music on a dreary winter/monday morning. (FdW)
Address: http://www.binemusic.de
GREGORY ROBIN & FRANCK VIGROUX – ENTRAILLES (DVD by D’Autres Cordes)
Because I never know in cases like this who to put in the header, the composer of the soundtrack or the film maker, it’s best to put them both in there. Gregory Robin is a film maker and his ‘Entrailles’ was shot in the Saint-Etienne coalmine museum, which actually I may have seen once, but with the composer Franck Vigroux in the middle, performing his soundtrack live. We see him in action, and various cameras are used to pick up his action. There are no instruments as such, but an array of electronics, mixer and synthesizers. His action is cut with shots from the museum, which has cordes hanging from the ceiling with mining clothes but look like ghosts from ‘The Sixth Sense’. Vigroux’s soundtrack is, in the first piece, surprisingly beat oriented, with loud, forceful beats and heavy weight sine wave like sounds, which makes it not easy not to think of Pan Sonic, I thought. In the second piece it’s all about using the electric guitar and Vigroux create a loud wall of feedback noise, which fits the industrial environment this is played quite well. Great cinematography for this piece here. In the third piece he starts out with a contact microphone against his throat but also uses the effective chopped up beats again. Later on (fourth piece?) it’s analogue synthesizer and drone time, lights are dimmed and Vigroux plays a nice subdued piece. It’s great to see how the music is made, and some of the imagery is great, but not something you would look at very often. As a piece of music, (four actually maybe), this is great stuff. You’d understand a lot more about his work, I should think. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dautrescordesrecords.com
LEFT HAND CUTS OFF THE RIGHT – GOMA (CDR by Must Die Records)
GLUCK/FUGLEWICZ – JANE (CDR by Must Die Records)
Robbie Jenkins is the person responsible for Left hand Cuts Off The Right and he is from London, although his music was recorded in London and Poland. He is a post graduate MA student in sound art, worked ‘alongside’ Winters In Osaka, TCH, Naked Blood and Jon Aveyard and has three pieces on his ‘Goma’ release. There is no indication as which sound sources are used here, but my best guess is that we have a guitar, electronics of either analogue or digital origin. Or perhaps even both. His music is minimal, electronic and ambient based, although, perhaps less ‘drone’ if that is suggest by minimal/electronic/ambient. In ‘Piotrkoska’ for instance he uses a heavily layered, phase shifting loop at the beginning and starts building further on that, so that the piece remains to have an odd bouncing feel to it, but also with tinkling bell sounds a nice ambient feel. In the title piece this is all more like sustaining notes and many strings, but has a likewise fine setting to the music. In between we have the shortest piece (at almost nine minutes) and here the guitar sounds like a piano, or maybe is in fact a piano. I have to be honest, and while I really enjoyed this, there wasn’t a single moment here where I had the impression to be listening to something entirely ‘new’. Of course no problem, as sometimes beauty is all you need and all you get.
Very short, six minutes only, is a 5″CDR of ‘Jane’, “the text, a poem recently composed, read aloud and put to loops’ – I assume by Jeremy Gluck and remixed by Dave Fuglewicz. Gluck has worked with Lydia Lunch, Dub Gabriel and Mick Harvey and his poem (I assume so, at least) is set to rhythm loops, some sounds and reading the poem aloud. It lasts three minutes and twenty-two seconds but it’s over before you realize it. In the remix, ‘active member of Tapegerm collective’ Fuglwicz uses samples from his collective, pushes the sound a bit further down, removes the rhythm, and in general composes a spookier piece of sound poetry, meeting music, and all of that in two minutes and forty-seven seconds. I have no idea what to make of this. Sorry. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mustdierecords.co.uk
VASTEN – HALLOWEEN SESSIONS (CDR, private)
Late last year I was first introduced to the music of near local chaps, Vasten, from Arnhem and Veenendaal. They are a trio of Hans, Chris and Remco, playing probably all three of them guitars (maybe one of them handles the bass?), effects and amplifiers. Feedback is their main dish, but don’t dwell around in playing a wall of feedback for ages. The ‘Halloween Sessions’ (no prizes if you guess when it was recorded) seems them progressing forward. Both in terms of sound quality, which is much better now, but also in approach to their guitars. Howling feedback, the use of objects on strings, but also the dynamics in their approach. It occasionally gets down to being near quiet before picking up another thread of the game. Still very much rooted in ‘New Zealand’, this free flow excursion into rock land, but otherwise howls and flows about, spacious but loud and wild. Perhaps I may offer two suggestions: those covers look horrible. Period. Why not get your music out there, internationally, into the world of CDR labels and make yourself better known in this world. The music deserves this! (FdW)
Address: <vasten4@gmail.com>
COLLINS & PALIX – 7 SCORIES (CDR by Care Not Care Records)
‘Scorie’ is of course not a real word. It’s a combination of ‘score’ and ‘story’, and the two musicians see their work as ‘assisted improvisations: improvisations that are recorded, remixed, learned, replayed, re-recorded, re-remixed’ etc.’ We have one Palix here on laptop. He’s a man that does the field recordings, electro-acoustic sounds and electronics. Paul Collins, an older gentleman (who saw Soft Machine play at the age of fourteen, so go figure), plays sruti box, guitar, piano and effects. They worked together before, on an album called ‘Wipe Out’ (2005), which I didn’t hear. Six of the seven pieces here were recorded in 2009, while one piece is from 2007. All of these pieces were recorded live, but ‘newly remixed and remastered’. It still sounds, most of the times, like a live release, so it’s a bit unclear for me what this ‘replayed, re-recorded, re-remixed’ is all about. I thought this had to do with taking a bunch of live recordings and cut ‘n paste these recordings together and make up an entirely new pieces. But the second piece (all untitled) sound pretty much like a straight forward live recording. The improvised aspect of this music is pretty high obviously and that is hidden away in the fact of some sort of processing, post-editing or anything like that. There is however an element of drone music in here, through the use of the sruti box, guitar and effects, in which piano, objects and field recordings sit in quite nicely. So it’s not always the most traditional kind of improvised music, but also not really quite difficult to access. It crosses over between improvised music with a slight jazz like feeling, musique concrete and drone. Maybe not something that stuck immediately, but was quite pleasant to hear. (FdW)
Address: <care.not.care@gmail.com>
LID EMBA – TERMINAL MUSE: YELLOW (CDR by Stickfigure)
Following ‘Terminal Muse: Red’ (see Vital Weekly 817) and ‘Terminal Muse: Blue’ (see Vital Weekly 788), it’s now time for ‘Terminal Muse: Yellow’ to complete the trilogy started by Lid Emba, also known as Sean Moore. In the text that he mailed along he writes that the first piece of recording he did, was his dog being hit by a car. He was ten years old and probably has been looking for something of similar impact since. Or perhaps Lid Emba is his perfect guise for doing stuff with similar impact. ‘Yellow’ was worked on when he was ill (but luckily he’s better now) and has five tracks to offer, which still sound along his two previous works. Rhythm machines play an important role, still, in his music and he adds his guitar playing, synthesizers and effects and to that end the music is quite forceful, but never noisy. In ‘Vow Of Owls’ rhythm disappears and voice appears and makes a spooky piece. It’s surely the moment of ‘rest’ when the other four a pretty out and about rhythm ‘n noise like. Still perhaps not entirely tea, cup, sugar for me, but every now and then I can surely be entertained by the likes of this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.stickfigurerecords.com
RULE (CDR by Foredoom Productions)
Releases on Foredoom Productions aren’t exactly fine examples of how to present a release with a lot of information. As usual, there is none. ‘Rule’ might be the title, it might be the artist, hey, it might be both in fact, and what you can easily spot yourself, the length of the work is also mentioned, unless ’48:51′ is the title of it. This here is one piece, in slow rhythm, feeding maybe through a synthesizer, perhaps even two, and some effects. It’s very loud but not noisy. It goes on and on, but, and that’s perhaps the most curious thing about it, it never ever seem to stay the same. Even from beat to beat it seems to be changing, which is absolutely great. A strange kind of dance music perhaps? Even when the beats are all too slow to be dancing widely around, after a while this beat gets you and you stump along the basic groove. Maybe this is all about a conceptual approach to the world of dance records? I don’t know but there is something truly captivating in this very straight forward release. I was going to write naive, but hey, what’s naive now? Maybe there is something so much deeper here that we can hardly grasp what that is all about…? Maybe it’s someone having a laugh and stabs the dance music scene in the heart. (FdW)
Address: http://foredoomproductions.blogspot.com
PETER LENAERTS – QUIES (CDR by Very Quiet Records)
The fourth release on Very Quiet Records is by someone I never heard of, I think, Peter Lenaerts, who I believe is from Belgium, and who did a bunch of recordings in South Australia, December 11-21 in 2011, along the Oodnadaata Track, a dessert place. Like the previous releases, this is indeed a very quiet recording. I couldn’t resist to see what is ‘in there’, so I put some of these pieces in my computer, made them zero db and then it turns out to be still very quiet in the long opening piece. Lots of hiss (obviously from making this louder), bits of winds blowing in the microphone and the occasional rumble. Is Lenaerts walking or recording from a silent position? In the other pieces there is a bit more sound, even without putting everything to 0db, but still the events are quite obscure. This is altogether quite an extreme listening experience! No doubt because a lot of the time you don’t hear anything – or seem to be hearing anything (which is a difference), and I was thinking: this is all perhaps a too radical for my taste. You hear the buzzing of your environment (computer, a hard drive) better than the music on offer here, which is a pity (certainly for someone like who doesn’t want to be playing music through headphones when at home). Maybe it would have been a idea to put the sound up a little more and make it less of a challenge to hear this? Quiet is the new loud, anyone? (FdW)
Address: http://veryquietrecords.blogspot.nl/
CROWN OF BONE & WILT – NEUROSIS OF ENTHRALLMENT (CDR by Obfuscated Records)
Two solo pieces here by each band/person/project and then a lengthy collaborative piece. I don’t think I heard of Crown Of Bone before, but this kind of loud, unrelentness (harsh) noise (wall) is not so much my cup of tea. I could have passed this on to Jliat, like I did with the other two new releases on the same label, but actually Wilt is something I quite dig. Here we have two pieces of dark dramatic drones, lots of reverb and the guitar is slowly burned down. Or wait, maybe it’s some sort of metallic thing tossed around in the basement? I don’t know, really, but it sounds quite alright. Maybe as subject matter all too dark and too ‘gothic’ (too much reverb at least) for me, but the sun is shining and I’m in good mood. The best thing here is the thirty-five minute collaborative piece between the two. It leaves out the noise element of it all but ends in a fine racket of distorted guitars at the end, which is great, but is also way more complex than the Wilt solo pieces. Its more like shimmering tones, deeply processed feedback, not too much reverb (or perhaps so much we hardly hear it anymore) and altogether a more than excellent piece of very dark ambient music with a loud coda to it. Great collaboration. (FdW)
Address: http://www.obfuscatedrecords.com/
STONED TO DEATH – ALL EARTH (CDR by Claustrophilia Records)
NAR – WHAT LIES BEANETH THE WOODS (CDR by Claustrophilia Records)
NASCITARI/CARRION BLACK PIT – THE CONQUEROR WORM (tape by Forever Escaping Boredom)
Here we have a couplet of harsh noise wall releases from Italy’s hyper-obscure Claustrophilia label, run by the very amiable Lorenzo Nascitari. Stoned To Death’s ‘All Earth’ boulders around in low-frequencies over its stately duration, skirting ear-shattering malevolence for a hollowed-out and ominous approach. Nine minute “Term Death” sounds like wind rushing against a ratty old tape recorder mic, while “Rock ‘n’ Roll” boils down the rock genre into a resentful stock of pedal feedback. I suppose this isn’t quite HNW in a traditional sense, since the kernels of harsh noise don’t vibrate at quite the same frequency throughout, but it’s an enveloping artifact of lo-lo-lo-fi guitar waste regardless.
Nar’s ‘What Lies Beaneth [sic] the Woods’ — limited to a beyond-scant fifteen copies — comes replete with dried up old twigs and a solitary leaf, both housed in a DVD case. I suppose it’s supposed to be very portentous, since we all know that only e-e-evil things live in the woods (let alone ‘beaneth’ them), though the proceedings are pretty matter-o’-fact. Nar’s opus is a gristly seventy minute HNW that raises the abrasiveness quotient above Stoned to Death’s refined rumble. In it, a meaty glob of generalized chaos bloodies the ears at an effectively constant rate. If you put your ear up to the hood, you can almost hear subterranean waves of feedback boiling and crashing against one another, though that may just be a false multiplicity that comes from listening to noise music for too long. A seventy minute harsh noise wall is a work of art on concept alone — and, yes, I’m aware that about a million HNWs of this length come out each year — but it’s a treat to hold this thing in one’s own hands.
Also of note is this lively little split tape between Nascitari (Claustrophobia head Lorenzo’s own project) and Brazil’s Carrion Black Pit, which comes courtesy of noise juggernaut Forever Escaping Boredom. The inspiration here is Edgar Allen Poe’s poem of the same name, which reps the sort of nasty morbid stuff any noisester worth his (or her) weight in contact mics is more or less obligated to worship. CBP’s side starts off with the dessicated score to some long-lost horror-film, flayed vocals bleeding into the void, before sending things off into a dense mass of Earth’s-mantle-layer growl. It slowly grinds you down over the side’s duration. On the flip comes Nascitari’s own creation, which begins with an excerpt from a ubiquitous orchestral score before abruptly curtsying off a precipice into truly hateful noise. Here the gloves come off. The sound is mean and bristly, though almost wafer-thin: Nascitari’s noise skips sub-bass for a grim middle-range that resonates through the bowels and stays crudely in-the-red. It’s the meanest rattle of them all. (MT)
Address: http://claustrophiliarecords.blogspot.com
Address: http://www.foreverescapingboredom.com
IEVA (3″CDR by Pollen Records)
IEVA & HAKOBUNE – A NEW MORNING (3″CDR by Pollen Records)
Samuel Andre lives in Kyoto, although he is from France, and works as Ieva. He had a 3″CDR on Taalem before (see Vital Weekly 819) and now has some new works. His full length CD ‘Il Etait Une Fois’ came without a cover and a small note with lots of Japanese lettering. Despite the fact that I think this has some nice music, I don’t think I can review such things. Why else would l have ‘read the review submission guidelines’ at the top of every weekly? But perhaps it’s also a reminder to send me the real thing, preferable with information in a language other people can also understand (but find out about this CD on www.shrine.jp if you care too!)? The other two releases are on Pollen Records, a small label from Kyoto, which primarily releases musicians from that city. Here we have on the Ieva solo CD (with a Japanese title) a bunch of field recordings, piano music and lots of treatments, it seems, of both. Both are pushed forward in a rather intuitive way, which not always seems to be connected to each other. Like he recorded a bunch of improvisations on a piano, window open, and then cut ‘n pasted them, aided by the use of the computer and effects into these two pieces of music. In the second piece this seems that all is more tied in together. It a fine disc of more daring ambient music, that however stays friendly throughout.
Oddly enough, perhaps, is that the music on the release that Ieva did with Hakobune also stays on the friendly side. Odd, since it was recorded following the earthquake in 2011 and part was released on a benefit compilation to especially help women (wether or not pregnant) and new born children. Ieva provided field recordings during the recording, and together they played synth and effects and Ieva later on did the edit of the music. It’s a twenty-three minute of gentle, sustaining synth sounds, which indeed may have some what saddening effect upon the listener. The field recordings seem to be pushed a bit away in the first half. The last few minutes things seem to get a bit nastier, wild a mild form of distortion. Maybe it’s because I know to what end this was recorded, but it’s all pretty evocative stuff here. Quiet and gentle, but with a somewhat creepy undercurrent. Excellent stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://pollenrec.bandcamp.com
KAKAWAKA – EIN FROHLICHES LIED AUF DEN LIPPEN DEN WANDERSMANN KANN NCHTS ERSCHUTTERN (cassette, private)
Once I saw Kakawaka play, at the Eurovision Noise Contest in 2008, certainly one of the more funny afternoons in my life, and I seem to remember about it that I actually enjoyed Kakawaka, whereas his releases never did do much for me, I think. But after 2008 I may not have heard a lot of music. Here we some release which deals with wandering, in some late 18th century romantic notion, it seems, and Kakawaka has come a long way, I think, creating music that now only partly owes to the world of harsh noise and more to the world of electro-acoustic music. He uses hunting-horn, pan lid, monkey drum, toy keyboard, human voice, rain, computer, laundry rack and door and created two ten minute pieces of music, which actually tell a story, that of a wanderer through woods, through villages – the outdoor life but then translated through sound objects. There is occasional an outburst of noise, but then you never know what hides in these necks of the woods. But this is kept very sparse, and while some of these electro-acoustic movements may seem a bit long, composition wise, the whole thing as such is a delight to hear, I think. An excellent work of electro-acoustic music: this is surely a way to go! (FdW)
Address: http://kakawaka.bandcamp.com