MACHINEFABRIEK & BANABILA – TRAVELOG (CD by Tapu Records/Lumberton Trading Company) *
THE NATIONAL JAZZ TRIO OF SCOTLAND – STANDARDS VOLUME II (CD by Karaoke Kalk) *
SPARKLE IN GREY – THURSDAY EVENING (CD by Grey Sparkle)
BLACK REIGN –SESSION ONE (CD by Black Reign)
RAXIL4 – TAPEMAGNIFICAT (cassette by Raxil4)
ASTMA & A SPIRALE – THE COST OF SERVICE (CD by Zeromoon/Viande) *
HATI – ZERO COMA ZERO (CD by Zoharum) *
ZENIAL – CHIMERA (LP by Zoharum) *
LUMINANCE RATIO – REVERIE (LP by Bocian Records)
MARCO FUSINATO – L’ORIGINE/TEMA (LP by Bocian Records)
KIKO C. ESSEIVA/FRANCISCO MEIRINO (split LP by Aussen Raum)
EMERGE – ONEIRISM (10″ by Attenuation Circuit)
EMERGE – DESECRATE (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
GROENE DRIEHOEK – 02.06.13 (CDR by Oggy Records) *
GUILLAUME BELHOMME/MICHAEL ESPOSITO (book & 3″CDR by Lenka Lente) *
SLEEPER – FROM BEYOND (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
RANGEFINDER – HARMONY STATE (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
CELESTINO – KINDLING (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
WITH MOTHS – FOR SILENCE (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
ARNO BRUIL/FUSILLER (cassette by Hum Rec)
JOSSELIN ARHIMAN – GRAINS DE TABLE (cassette by Hum Rec)
KRIS LIMBACH & MIGUEL A. GARCIA – KEIN ZURUCK (VHS by Emitter Micro)
MACHINEFABRIEK & BANABILA – TRAVELOG (CD by Tapu Records/Lumberton Trading Company)
In Vital Weekly 860 I was very much impressed by the collaborative efforts of Michel Banabila and Rutger Zuydervelt, best known as Machinefabriek. Both from Rotterdam, and Banabila the older of the two, with a long career that took him to world music, experimental music, electronic and Machinefabriek the better known one, certainly internationally. An album of the drones of Machinefabriek and Banabila’s more experimental electronics, digital noise vs silence. It’s of course not really a surprise that I was looking forward to their second album, which has just arrived. Again we are in for a little surprise, I think. They seem to be moving away from the more abstract, sound collages towards more coherent… ‘songs’, is perhaps the word that covers this best. Especially in the first few pieces of this CD, there is a certain ‘pop’ like character to the pieces, a light weight character even, which sets for a sunny tone in these pieces. Also they are well rounded, with strong melodic touches. Something which we perhaps don’t expect that easily from Zuydervelt, whose strong point of recognition is the more ambient, more subdued side of music. Maybe Banabila is the one whose trademark is at work here? I am just guessing of course, but this change of work is great, I think. Even when a piece like ‘Debris’ is more like what we found on their first collaborative CD, it doesn’t become an odd ball in this forty minute collection. Gone are the shorter bits but the addition of rhythm machines here and there make all of this an excellent experimental, instrumental rock like album, at times. It’s a bit of all: poppy songs, post rock, ambient and experiment. It’s all part of this excellent album, which you could play over and over, and discover something new all the time. (FdW)
Address: http://www.lumberton-trading.com
THE NATIONAL JAZZ TRIO OF SCOTLAND – STANDARDS VOLUME II (CD by Karaoke Kalk)
You would be excused if you’d think this is a trio of musicians hailing from Scotland who play jazz standards. However, very little of this is true. Yes, pianist Bill Wells is from Scotland, but he does not play jazz standards – Standards Volume II features Wells’ own compositions and two clever covers (Mary of Argyle – a Scottish classic folk tune and, surprisingly, My Tiny Butterfly, which is a Moondog original). But hey, his songs might turn into classics over the years. Standards Volume II is, as the title implies, the second album by the NJTS. Here, Wells (piano, guitar and samples) works with three vocalists (Lorna Gilfedder, Aby Vulliamy and Kate Sugden). So if the NJTS does not play jazz, what DO they do? Standards Volume II is a slow tempo’d mix of songs that could have been featured on albums by say Belle and Sebastian, Isobel Campbell, Bela Karoli or even Nouvelle Vague. Piano-led soft pop with an occasional hesitant sample and guitar, with hushed vocals by the girls. It’s all very cleverly done, and sounds tres attractive indeed on a late night consumed with a bottle of wine and some French cheese (better leave out the Scottish haggis). With the flickering light from the fire in the mantle piece and the Scottish moors on the background you’re guaranteed of a fine evening indeed. A little too wee for Vital readers? Hell no, after listening to albums filled with experiment (whatever that may be), Standards Volume II is balm to the ears. It’s all very lovely dovey and I’m quite smitten by it all. (FK)
Address: http://www.karaokekalk.de/
SPARKLE IN GREY – THURSDAY EVENING (CD by Grey Sparkle)
Sparkle in Grey is an Italian group. Since 2005 they do their rehearsals every Thursday evening. Firstly a drive of 60 kilometers and then subsequently the members of the band drag up four storeys high the instruments and amplifiers. What an effort to leave the weekly stress of work behind Their latest album “Thursday Evening” is an ode to this weekly rehearsals. The title track begins with some seeking tones, melodies and rhythms are scanning the musical horizon and is evolving more and more. The members of the band Alberto Carozzi, Cristiano Lupo, Franz Krostopovic and Matteo Uggeri know how to to play their instruments. A mix of folk and samples makes this song to a great adventure .
“Thursday Evening” is a worthy successor to the album Mexico and sounds more mature and balanced. The adventure between shoegaze, electronic music, folk influences remained and seems more developed. In “The Piano Song” a ballad is approached. The harmony between piano, violin and bass is broken or challenged by the subtle field- recordings somewhere far in the background. The instrumental album starts with the song “Der Mauer” with a driving bass and drums, the violin and guitar solos support hypnotic which continues in the sequential number and evolves into an explosion of sound. The sampled beats and sounds are a refreshing contrast to the almost traditional occupation and approach to a post-rock band with folk influences. The alternation between subtly played songs and uptempo songs gives the listener the opportunity to go in different ways in different musical worlds.
All in all, “Thursday Evening” a beautiful musical adventure where musical boundaries are broken and musical worlds merge with each other. The music fits perfectly with that sense the artwork of the album and some samples which are calling to fight for a better and cleaner world. That will be possible by mixing traditional and progressive ideas and principles and takes off the best of it and that will lead o a better world. This record will be at least part of that world. (JKH)
Address: http://www.sparkleingrey.com
BLACK REIGN –SESSION ONE (CD by Black Reign)
RAXIL4 – TAPEMAGNIFICAT (cassette by Raxil4)
I reviewed in Vital 893 the new releases of the new drone project Vaelium from the UK. All members of Vaelium have their own solo projects. Timothy C Holehouse plays blues and soon I will review some released albums. The other two members released music more into drone and noise music. Andrew Page combines analog and digital sound sources, like field-recordings, detuned radios, turntables, effects and found objects to create his drony world. The tape “Tapemagnificat” consists two variations of a processed excerpt of Magnificat of Domenico Scarlatti. The piece was firstly digitally time stretched and after that recorded on tape. The sound on tape has ran through several analog pedals. The result are two different atmospheres. Variation 1 has a more ambient atmosphere with a lot of space in sound. Variation 4 has more interrupted sounds. The sound is not fluent and the choir is coming up and down, likewise a bad adjusted radio frequency. Nice tape with creative interpretation of classic music. Ross F. Fury has lived in HongKong and before he started the Vaelium project he made music in Black Reign. In 2007 he on effects and A. Urquiola on guitar recorded a few tracks and send them to friends. Three years later Black Reign booked some studio time and recorded in one take three tracks. Two bonus tracks created by himself completed the dark ambient record. The sounds are scary and dark. The repeating abstract tones are recorded with a lot of reverb, which give a lot of space to the music. Although the music is that kind of anguished, that there is no space at all. Nice album for a scary evening. (JKH)
Address: http://raxil4.bandcamp.com/album/tapemagnificat
Address: http://rsseizure.bandcamp.com/album/session-one
ASTMA & A SPIRALE – THE COST OF SERVICE (CD by Zeromoon/Viande)
Much to my amazement it’s been already a year since I reviewed ‘CaseMatte’ , a collaborative release between Russia’s Astma (Alexei Borisov (electronics, guitar, voice) and Olga Nosova (drums, percussion, voice, contact mic, effects) and A Spirale from Italy, (Mario Gabola on acoustic and feedback saxophone, scream, amplified strings and Maurizio Argenziano on electric guitar). I thought it was much more recent, maybe two months ago. But not so; one year! In that year they have played together at the festival ‘Noise & Fury’ in Moscow and another tour in Italy, all under the banner of ‘radical impure, noise rock, spoken word, hippo, postcore, song writing, combining Bruce Russel with Alboth! and VoiceCrack with Dalek…’ and it seems to continuing the music of their first collaborative release. Lots of wild drumming, feedback, screaming, but also, occasionally something that is more introspective and mellow. Even intimate sound poetry finds a place here. It seems as if these more careful moments are placed on more strategic positions here and bring a better balance to this disc. Thirty-three quite intense minutes here which will leave no listener unharmed or relaxed in anyway, I should think. There is a fine, raw energy emerging from this disc. Tiring, but satisfying. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.comhttp://www.viande.it
HATI – ZERO COMA ZERO (CD by Zoharum)
ZENIAL – CHIMERA (LP by Zoharum)
Back in Vital Weekly 538 I reviewed ‘Zero Coma Zero’ by Polish Hati, which was also the introduction to this band (even when not listed as such with a title I see now). This new edition is an expanded one, with extra tracks from the 3″CDR ‘Recycled Magick Emissions’, now totaling to seventy minutes. It shows us the early ways of this duo (Rafal Iwasnki and Dariusz Wojtas) with their ‘archaic and recycled sounds: animal horns, bamboo pipes, wooden pipe, plastic tubes, tabla, steel gongs, metal discs, Chinese gongs, Tibetan bells, steel jingle bells, Indian bells, cymbal, steel lids, wood wind chimes, little drum with balls, poppy-head, stones, screw + nut, wooden table, tile floor’. Here Hati experiments with music that is quite heavily rooted in the world of percussion and atmospherics. I would think they don’t use a lot of additional electronics (if any at all), but there is a fine sonic richness in this music. The gongs and horns provide a deep end bass sound to create a drone like atmosphere, while they add some percussive tinkling on top of this. Natural reverb comes from the recording space(s) used by Hati. Hati have worked with Z’EV whose influence doesn’t go unnoticed here, but whereas his metallic playing has a more ‘free’, throw around character – especially the earlier work – Hati works more organized, planning and executing whatever it is they are doing, and create dense sonic patterns with their music. Maybe this is all a bit too ‘magickal’ for me, but this is just to be found in these earlier works. In more recent times this seems to be less and less. This is a fine reminder of the likewise great early days.
Of a more experimental nature is the music by Zenial, also known as Lukasz Szalankiewicz, who recorded much of the basic material for this album at the EMS studios in Stockholm. There are three pieces on side which are not related to each other and two on the other side, which are dedicated to ‘Franz Bardon, Czech scholar of hermetics’ and named after the ‘Rosora’ a sort of acoustic instrument used in magical practices’. The analogue synthesizers found at EMS are put to great use here: a loud but clean sound of humming sine waves and square shapes. Zenial adds, perhaps, a bit of field recordings in the title piece, but that might very well be also some kind of synthesizers. In his compositional approach, Zenial, is a highly minimal. In ‘Unclean/Clean’ for instance various layers of ‘wind’ like sounds layered together – it’s the only piece not recorded at EMS and has quite a laptop like approach to it. In ‘Rosora 28’ quite harsh layers of synthetic sounds bounce against each other for quite a while, before some more sounds of equally loud proportion come in. In a way all five pieces may remind the listener of old school industrial music in a way, but it has a crystal clear sound, which may remind the listener of some earlier private studio electronic music from the sixties. Monolithic in approach, but I thought was all great music. Quite loud, maybe even noise related but with a strong compositional approach. An excellent post industrial music record. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zoharum.com
LUMINANCE RATIO – REVERIE (LP by Bocian Records)
MARCO FUSINATO – L’ORIGINE/TEMA (LP by Bocian Records)
This is nearly the end for Bocian Records, who are about to cease their activities and if you are smart or a late commer, then you should surely buy all Bocian Records before it’s too late. They will provide a very strong esthetic in sound and images, ranging from improvised to musique concrete and everything in between, I guess. But who collects everything by one label, these days. This ain’t the 80s anymore. First we have Luminance Ratio, a quartet from italy with Gianmaria Aprile (guitars, effects, kaoss pad, sitar), Luca Mauri (guitar, effects), Andrea ICS Ferraris (laptop, bass, cymbals, contact mics, effects) and Luca Sigurta (tapes, electronic junk). Some of these people have been reviewed before in Vital Weekly, with other projects. There are also a bunch of guest players on cello, sax, bass clarinet and percussion. The ‘everything in between’ bit for Bocian Records is something that perhaps fits this LP. The eight pieces of improvised music are throughout mellow, but not always soft per se. It’s guitar heavy, so any relation to post rock is never far away, I think. Each of the pieces is a slow burner: the developments take place over the course of a piece, which makes, perhaps, many pieces a bit similar in compositional, improvised process. That perhaps is a bit of a pity, but the moods created by Luminance Ratio are quite nice. It fits the part rain/part sunshine of the last few days and the music takes a similar course. A very experimental post-rock outfit, I should think, in which much more happens then just a bit of guitar tinkling.
The other record is a bit more confusing. The cover shows us ‘L’origin Du Monde’ from Gustav Courbet in black and white, and the only thing in english is ‘Tema Homepa’, the rest is in Cyrillic. I have all the info from the website. The music is by guitar player Marco Fusinato, who found inspiration in “the “Action Direct” expanded guitar performances of Masayuki Takayanagi”. I am not if knew Takayanagi or Fusinato, but this record certainly fits the extreme side of Bocian Records. The guitar is as such not to be recognized and could have been any sort of sound producing device possible. The electronics I’d say are all the stomp boxes a musical gear shop would sell you and this is used to feed the guitar sound too. Recently I was playing some of the later Merzbow releases, the long distorted pieces and I can easily see a link between Fusinato and Merzbow, although perhaps Fusinato uses maybe a bit more cut-ups. Its hard to say if this is all played live or the result of layering multiple recordings, and perhaps a question we should worry about. It’s forty minutes of extreme sonic approach, and maybe it would have been more along the lines of Jliat to review, but hey, a fine piece of noise a day is never a big deal. Not something to play on repeat, but it’s fine sonic blast for sure. (FdW)
Address: http://bocianrecords.com/
KIKO C. ESSEIVA/FRANCISCO MEIRINO (split LP by Aussen Raum)
A new label from Switzerland, a daring move in these difficult times. Its inaugural release is a split Lp by two of Switzerland’s finest composers moving on the fringes of musique concrete, noise and ambient. The one that is, perhaps, least known is Kiko C. Esseiva, who had a few releases reviewed here (see Vital Weekly 839 for the most recent one). He also had a collaborative concert recording with Francisco Meirino (see Vital Weekly 682). In their split recording they use the same source material, culled from many hours working together. They use reel to reel tape recorders, EMF detectors, piezo transducers, analog synths, various homemade sound objects and electronics. On the Esseiva side the interest lies in creating a heavily layered piece with a strong focus on the acoustic sources. Less inspired than his previous work by Nurse With Wound, Esseiva finds more a voice of his own here. The ringing and singing of objects on surfaces that move along soundwaves – say speakers – give this a strong vibrating side. Meirino on the other side finds more a balance between the acoustic sources and the electronic sounds. Less than in some of his other work he uses abrupt changes to move from one piece to the next. Here it seems as if all is floating more naturally into each other and only once an abrupt change takes place. The electronic sources make up for the drone and atmospheres, both soft and loud, which is another of Meirino’s trademarks. His side is more balanced, Esseiva’s side is more fixed on single minded sources. A different result from the same origin. Great record, fine start for a label. (FdW)
Address: http://www.aussenraumrecords.com
EMERGE – ONEIRISM (10″ by Attenuation Circuit)
EMERGE – DESECRATE (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
Two new releases by Emerge, one of the driving forces behind the label Attenuation Circuit, and one of the more active artists on the label. The first is a 10″ (although we got it on CDR – yes, we know about our rules, we do) and the second piece of vinyl on the label, following Emerge’s split with B*Tong. A 10″ record – the format of doom as a friend of mine once said, but I never understood why, I always loved them – with two pieces that last twelve minutes each. I am not always blown away by the music of Emerge, but when it turns to the darker ambient I am surely more interested. On the 10″ the dark ambient is largely generated by the usual acoustic sources – although none is mentioned as such – which are transformed and a large amount of reverb is placed on top, like a heavy rock. Maybe it’s a bit too much reverb I was thinking, which makes the first piece like a solid mass of sound but working very much in the high end of the sound spectrum, and is a bit shrieking, but the second piece goes all the way down, into the lower regions and here we have a nice bass rumble. Here the music is rather vague, obscure and unworldly, working a bit in the good ol’ overtones, but this is surely a great piece.
On ‘Desecrate’ this is continued with a piece that uses church organs, electric guitar feedback and field recordings of animal sounds. Here too we find some of the good ol’ reverb doing the overtones, but it’s a warmer piece of music than the one on the first side of the 10″. The pieces on the 10″ seem to me more ongoing affairs of sound, whereas on this release it seems to more a collage of various bits which are linked together. Maybe in some stage of post-production these bits were joined together and edited with more sound effects. Less drone like and less atmospheric then the 10″, and certainly the b-side thereof, but nevertheless ‘Desecrate’ is a fine affair of dark ambient moods also. Nice works, both of them. (FdW)
Address: http://www.attenuationcircuit.de
GROENE DRIEHOEK – 02.06.13 (CDR by Oggy Records)
Maybe I got it wrong in Vital Weekly 890 when I did a review of a release by Ralf Gerritse and Oscar Wyers called ‘Groene Driehoek’, but now I have another release and I am thinking Groene Driehoek might be the name of an ongoing band/project/concern. Here we have more musicians, besides Wijers and Gerritse, such as Len Berns, Herman van Delft, Lin Gerritse and Wietze de Leeuw. I assume they are all from the beautiful city of Nijmegen, like Wyers is. They came together on June 2nd 2013 to record these three pieces of improvised music. Again it’s hard to tell what they are using here, but my best guess would be again the combination of laptops and electronics, lo- or hi-fi, but also some acoustic objects of an obscure kind, picked up with contact microphones and normal microphones, sound effects and such like. A whole bunch of material indeed, and lots of players, but curious enough it all sounds pretty coherent, perhaps more coherent than one would expect from such a bigger line-up. There is quite a bit of careful playing around here, and everybody seems to be into listening and interacting. The whole thing is less chaotic than previous (duo) release of Groene Driehoek and here we have some nice, exciting electro-acoustic improvisations. Much of which, I gather, is created in the editing and mixing process afterwards, thanks to the core members of Gerritse and Wyers. That’s the way to do it. (FdW)
Address: http://viezecocktails.bandcamp.com/
GUILLAUME BELHOMME/MICHAEL ESPOSITO (book & 3″CDR by Lenka Lente)
My knowledge of the French language is rudimentary, if I am honest (or, apart, from recognizing some words, perhaps non existent), which is all my fault. I should have paid more attention in school, I know. But of course one day you regret this, and that is not today. It happened earlier when I got French language music magazines, but it could have been today when I got this nice little booklet with a text by Guillaume Belhomme, who is a writer and musician, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t grasp what it was about. But perhaps it has something to do with death people, ghosts or such like, as here we have also a 3″CDR by Michael Esposito with ‘EVPS from case file PAW06’, an almost nine minute piece of processed EVP sounds, with occasional loud out bursts, but throughout has a weird, gentle sound of broken digital sounds. A most odd release I thought, but it works quite well. Now, if only I could read that nice little book. The whole thing is limited to 100 copies and has a bibliophilic character. That alone makes this a nice item to have. (FdW)
Address: http://www.lenkalente.com/
SLEEPER – FROM BEYOND (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
RANGEFINDER – HARMONY STATE (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
CELESTINO – KINDLING (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
WITH MOTHS – FOR SILENCE (cassette by A Guide To Saints)
A quartet of new releases by A Guide To Saints, Room40’s off shoot for releases on magnetic tape. A first glance learns they are all new names, and I played them in a random order. C.J. Parahi calls himself Sleeper and he is from ‘the land of the long white cloud, Aotearoa’, co-founder of Cooper Cult Records and musician. It’s hard to say what he plays here. It seems like synthesizers, at first, but then perhaps it’s something of a more orchestral nature, sampled and looped. In the two pieces on side A, which seem to flow right into each other, this has sombre, yet melodic touch to it. It loops around but constantly does small sifts. The two pieces on the other side, ‘Edge Of Darkness’ and ‘Creeper’, essentially the same thing is done, but then the material is all a bit more abstract, and perhaps creepy indeed. I am very much reminded of ‘Kamer Muziek’, an ancient and probably forgotten tape by De Muziekkamer from the early 80s cassette scene. Sleeper here has a similar slow meditative, looped sound, but is also a bit darker than De Muziekkamer ever were. I can easily think of this being played at a low volume all night.
Last week we had two releases by Will Long, as Celer and as Oh, Yoko, here he debuts with a tape as Rangefinder, and returning to the synthesizers of the 70s and the 80s, the Yamaha CS-60, Yamaha DX7 (which we see almost every week in these pages) and the Roland MC-500, if you nerds must really know. Other then working with computer which he normally does, Long’s interest here lies in the immediate composing on multi-track and keep it all more fresh. Like Sleeper it’s not easy to try and don’t think of the 80s and the many synth doodles that were released back then. This thirty minute tape has relatively short pieces, twelve to be precise, and that makes the pieces rather sketch like and short. All of these tunes are instrumental, and a bit spacious. These could easily be the start of a great new composition, a lengthy cosmic tune if you will, but it’s not the case. It’s just a nice pencil made sketch of electronic music. In the early 80s you’d find this on ICR, YHR, Neumusik or Third Mind, or one of the many compilations that were floating around in those days. The years of my coming to age with electronic music, so you can be sure I quite enjoyed this tape.
Gabriel Celestino Higgins is the man from Portland who is behind Celestino. Now where’s Rangefinder has something ‘pop’ like over it, here the music is all drone based and perhaps not unlike that of Looper, but it lacks the soft melodic touch of that release. Like with Looper, its very hard to guess what the instruments are that Celestino uses here. For all we know some rusty tape loops found in the dirt outside, along the road. It’s quite abstract, this music, with a vague hint of distortion in ‘Shrineroom Door’ (oh, perhaps that’s the sound source!), but with a nice atmospheric feel to it. Quite densely orchestrated this music, and not always the most open kind of music. Play this at night and a nightmare or two might occur I think. Relaxing to some, but probably scary to others.
With Moths is from Wellington, New Zealand, and here to the card that says ‘mood music please’ is played, but it’s a bit different from the other three. With Moths, with releases on Kimberley Dawn and Vinyl Only Tapes (which sounds like a great name for a cassette label), plays guitars and keyboards and very occasionally adds vocals. The ‘bit different’ approach here is the addition of vocals, but also, I guess, the more open ended strumming of guitars and the overall psychedelic character of the songs. Everything here seems to be touched by the colors of the rainbow, yet you can also see it’s getting towards the twilight hour again, as With Moths is also quite dark. Of these four this is the tape that I cared for least. It’s not bad I guess, but just not my cup of incense, I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://emporium.room40.org
ARNO BRUIL/FUSILLER (cassette by Hum Rec)
JOSSELIN ARHIMAN – GRAINS DE TABLE (cassette by Hum Rec)
New names all around here. Both the label, and the three artists that created the music. We start out with Arno Bruil, who is a member of France Sauvage, and whose side of the split with Fusiller starts out with some pretty loud electronic sounds, which made me think we have another composer along the lines of Emmanuel Allard – see last week’s issue – in a more brutal form of musique concrete, but it turns out such is not the case. It is a strong opening I’d say, but then moves over to a bit of noise, but quickly lands in a more ambient field. The electronics have been pushed to a minimum and some vocal loops pop up, which have a semi religious feel to it (well, actually I was thinking of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, the party sequence), ultimately working towards a level of abstraction and quietness. Quite nice altogether and a varied bunch of interests, part of one piece. Fusiller – rifle in French – runs the Tanzprocesz label and his electronic music is a bit harder to define, partly because it’s not easy to find out what it is that he is doing here. Maybe he (?) uses a bunch of electronic devices too, but for all I know there might be some form of guitar part of this too. It’s all pretty vague, the way this sounds and it lacks definition. Maybe that’s intentional and part of the esthetic of the music, I was thinking. But I found it all a bit too muddy, the way this was mixed. It’s, I guess, about drones and atmospheres from a more unusual perspective. It sounded a bit retro, as in 80s cassette releases, to me. It’s nice, but open for more development.
The other tape is entirely by Josselin Arhiman, who is a trained pianist, which he doesn’t use on this tape, which is all about laptop and feedback mixer. If I understood well, he recorded four hours of improvisations (on 4 and 5 February 2012), which were edited down to three shortish tracks and one long. It starts out with heavy noise, but then played with sustaining, i.e. not the harsh noise walls, but with an attempt to bring rhythm into this material, which is nice, since it breaks away from the more usual approach in the field of harsh noise music, walls and such like, and it’s of a similar heavy weight. Music that will cause the uninitiated to get an aspirin or two, but I wonder if the die-hard noise fans would like this. They are never known for their love of hearing something different then what they already know, and Arhiman plays noise which is different. (FdW)
Address: http://humrec.org/
KRIS LIMBACH & MIGUEL A. GARCIA – KEIN ZURUCK (VHS by Emitter Micro)
At Vital HQ we have some rules, and one of them is: send the original item. That only works for items that actually can be played, so an 8-track cartridge is a bit difficult. A VHS tape also, as it turned out. None of the Vital reviewers have any that works, or that is hooked up to a place where reviews are written. This VHS tape has four hours of music and no images, by Miguel A. Garcia and Kris Limbach and comes with a nice silkscreened poster with the titles and such. From the website: “recorded in a time span of 9 months in Madrid and Berlin. some of the recordings are live duos, others are especially mixed and first published on this VHS-Tape Multiple. A ultra-wide variety of sound, no input mixing, field recording based scapes, harsh noise and improvisational electronic music can be found on this 240 minutes of Tape.” Next time send it on a four hour DAT: I surely can still play that! It looks great this, I must say that, and certainly something to have casually lying around. ‘Oh that’s something I am also reviewing’. ‘What’s that, a big cassette or what’? (FdW)
Address: http://www.staalplaat.com/recording/kein-zuruck