SILENCIO – THE POLITICS OF LONELY (CD by Three:four Records) *
JOCELYN ROBERT – CYCLOIDES (CD by GD Stereo) *
CMKK – GAU (CD by Monotype Records) *
KK NULL & THE NOISER (CD by Monotype Records) *
CHARLES-ERIC CHARRIER – C 6 GIG (CD by Monotype Records) *
MINIZZA – A REBOURS (CD by Brocoli)
SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU – KOGETSUDAI (CD by Brocoli)
NICHELODEON – BATH SALTS – (2CD by Lizard Records/Den Records)
INSONAR – L’ENFANT ET LE MÉNURE – (2CD by Lizard Records/Den Records)
LUCRETCIA DALT – SYZYGY (CD by Human Ear) *
G*PARK – SUB (2CD by 23Five Incorporated) *
WATARU ABE – PHENOMENA (CD by Kaico) *
FRYADLUS – POCKET FANTASY (CD by Kaico) *
HOMENAJE A ARAM SLOBODIAN (CD compilation by Amee)
CORRADO ALTIERI & GIANLUCA FAVARON – THE SYSTEM OF OBJECTS (CD by Silentes) *
UNDER THE SNOW – THE BACKGROUND NOISE (LP by Silentes/13)
GIANLUCA FAVARON – SURFACES (LP by Silentes/13)
BRUME – TWO CHARACTERS (10″ by Substantia Innominata) *
ANIMAL MACHINE/EXEDO – ALICE IN ROTTENLAND (CDR by Attention Circuit)
PRESQUE RIEN (CDR compilation by Rhizome.s)
DAVID LINNROS – NOT A SAXOPHONE (CDR, private) *
KET3M – SYN3RGY (3″CDR, private) *
TOM WHITE – TAPE WORKS (cassette by My Dance The Skull)
KOMMISSAR HJULER/MEDIUM MEDIUM – FLUXUS & FUNK 3 (cassette by My Dance The Skull)
AG DAVIS – VOICE STUDIES (cassette by My Dance The Skull)
ESQUILLE – ROCK THIS CLUB DOWN (CD)
SILENCIO – THE POLITICS OF LONELY (CD by Three:four Records)
Julien Demoulin is the main musician behind Silencio, but of the five out of the eight tracks here were composed with others, mainly Bernold Delgoda. The latter plays drums and percussions, bass, synth, electronics and Demoulin plays guitar, guitaret (I am quoting the cover!), ebow and electronics. They play rather smooth music, very post rock like, and partly jazz inspired. Like I wrote of their previous release (Vital Weekly 821 and 857) this is very pleasant music, music without much danger or treat, but also a bit darkly colored, autumn like, melancholic or perhaps sad. It’s autumn here, today, but it’s one of those final warm days of the year, so this music isn’t the best soundtrack for such a day, I would think. It’s not bad, I would think, and it would certainly appeal a large audience I would assume, but what does it do for me? I am afraid not a lot really. I can hear the technical qualities in executing the music, the way it’s recorded and produced, it’s all done in a great way surely, but it’s too smooth for me. I enjoyed their previous releases to some extent but here I don’t know. Maybe I am not in the right mood, maybe it’s something else, but I found it hard to get excited over this. Maybe I should come back to this when the mood is all a bit darker anyway? I am sure this is a great release, but not for me. (FdW)
Address: http://www.three:four.net
JOCELYN ROBERT – CYCLOIDES (CD by GD Stereo)
The name Jocelyn Robert is one that I vaguely recall from years ago, but it’s one of those names which I don’t know where to place, except that he’s from Canada. He’s trained as an architect, but he ‘left the profession in 1989 to concentrate on on situationist strategies in art: urban performances, ‘derive’ inspired projects, recordings from buildings and soundtracks for cities’. Here he has work for player piano – one of those piano things in which you program the notes and it’s then put on top of the keys of a piano and plays the notes as you programmed them. Quite handy if you are not very good at the 88 keys yourself, which Robert thinks it’s him. “In this new work, ‘Cycloides’, the software doesn’t analyse mistakes or odd notes: it simply keeps them in. No forgetting, no forgiving. This project is a series of live improvisations, in which software keeps the notes I played and forces me to take them as the basis for the next ones, whether I liked them or not, whether they were right or wrong. The music continuously comes back unto itself, reaffirming its instant past, in an almost cyclic manner, in a cycloid one.”, he writes on the cover, but perhaps you need a docterate in music to spot these mistakes, I was thinking. Maybe I am all wrong, and trees, barking etc, but I think these seven pieces of piano music are great – mistakes or otherwise. It’s gentle playing, although perhaps a bit mechanical indeed – no Erik Satie here, I’d say – but quite mellow nevertheless and quite pleasant music to hear. I had, maybe, a hard time thinking what the ‘improvisational architecture’ meant, of which this is the first in a series by this re-started label, as I perhaps didn’t see this challenges ‘the boundaries, rules and definitions of architecture and music’. Instead I heard a fine disc of piano music, which I thought was fine enough. (FdW)
Address: http://www.gdstereo.com
CMKK – GAU (CD by Monotype Records)
KK NULL & THE NOISER (CD by Monotype Records)
CHARLES-ERIC CHARRIER – C 6 GIG (CD by Monotype Records)
If you’d say ‘how would an afternoon with Celer and Machinefabriek playing together with the Kleefstra brothers sound like’, then you would not come up with ‘nice breezy blues rock, with Jan Kleefstra Frysian poetry dropping in’. You would perhaps describe something that is captured in the forty-eight minutes of ‘Gau’. It was recorded in March 2012, when the four of them were on Benelux tour – without lux actually – in the Frysian village ‘Gauw’, but the word ‘Gau’ means ‘hurry’ or ‘quick’ in Frysian and on afternoon of jamming, resulting in four hours of raw material, the final edit is forty-eight minutes. It has everything one can expect from such an afternoon session, and true fans won’t be disappointed I guess. The ambient atmosphere, the stretched fields of sound, the sheer emptiness of landscape reflecting through the music, and the somewhat desolate voice of Jan Kleefstra, it’s all here in this piece. As said, fans won’t be disappointed, and I consider myself not really a fan, but I do like this kind of music, and I do think it’s a bit too much of a formula this one. It would have been nice to see a change of menu, do something a bit different, just because you can do things a bit different, and see what happens. Now it’s a fine album, that however sheds hardly any new light upon what they do. They do what they do, and that’s for me, perhaps, the downside of it.
Almost the same length is the collaboration between Japanese legend KK Null and Julien Ottavi, also known as The Noiser. He recently had a solo CD (see Vital Weekly 900), but here teams up with his ‘machines, kaospad, voice’, whereas Null plays ‘computer, kaospad, voice’. This was recorded in 2011 when the two of them played together – live recordings have been used here, somehow, somewhere – and this is quite a heavy blast of music. It has Null’s love of short cut rhythm material, along with lots of noise, feedback and distortion. I am assuming there is a strict division of labor here, with Null providing the rhythm and Ottavi the most noisy parts. It’s however not an album of pure noise. We recognize a tabla here, or a sampled drum machine there, which adds this industrial sense to the album, almost like in an Esplendor Geometrico way. It adds an element of music to the music, which is so often missing in the world of noise. It’s loud, but it’s great.
The other new release on Monotype records is by Charles-Eric Charrier, of whom I never heard, but who apparently worked as MAN, Charles C. Oldman and Oldman, but that also didn’t ring a bell here. The cover gives credit to Nicolas Richard for playing the percussion and accordion and Martin Bauer for playing the viole de gamba. But I am not sure what it is that Charrier does, but my best guess would be these recordings have been treated in some way or another – computer based I’d say – and then stuck together into a forty-six minute work. Sometimes these treatments stay close at home and it seems as if they have been hardly touched, but in other occasions the treatments have been extensively and it’s hard to recognize them. From the multitude of sounds, he collated this piece, which is actually quite vibrant, moving all over the place and never seems to stay too long in one place, yet at the same it retains a certain slowness in development and Charrier plays out his cards with great care, one at a time, waiting, playing. This makes a very peaceful release, slowly moving forward with great confidence. A fine release of computer music, which doesn’t seem to be computer music. Just the way I like it! (FdW)
Address: http://www.monotyperecords.com
MINIZZA – A REBOURS (CD by Brocoli)
SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU – KOGETSUDAI (CD by Brocoli)
Brocoli is a French label, founded in 2005, for artists that into “delivering some demanding yet catchy music”. These two releases, that have much in common, are prove of this. Chaveau comes from France but lives in Brussels. He is a member of 0 (with Stéphane Garin and Joël Merah), of avantrock band Arca (with Joan Cambon) and of improv duo On (with Steven Hess). Above all he is a solo artist if, delivering his tenth solo album with ‘Kogetsudai’. Earlier albums appeared on labels as Fat Cat, Creative Sources, etc. Don’t know any of this earlier work. ‘Kogetsudai’ is a work of very minimalistic songs, taking inspiration from Japanese zen rock gardens. The word ‘song’ is too much said for his radically stripped down work and concept. Chaveau speaks and sings his texts over a background of very soberly layered electronics. The closing instrumental title track is the most extreme piece of this bunch of 6 ‘songs’. Very near to silence, simple electronic and sparse percussive sounds make up a whole that fascinated me from beginning to end. In all other pieces there is a meeting of electronic sounds, piano, etc., with the pleasant voice of Chauveau. All is done very effective and resulting from a clear vision. Minizza is a trio of Franck Marguin, Geoffroy Montel and Rainier Lericolais, operating since 2000. Their last album ‘Hotel Monterey’ was an imaginary soundtrack to a film of Chantal Ackerman of the same name. For their new work ‘A Rebours’ (Against the grain) they created an adaption or recreation of a poem by Joris-Karl Huysmans of the same name, written in 1884. It resulted in a work that combines audio-play, song structures and experimental textures. Again music that is close to silence, evoking pleasant ambient textures. Far more romantic then the work by the zen-disciplined Chaveau. In order to grasp where this is all about it helps if one understands French. If not, fine, moody music and sound collages remain. (DM)
Address: http://www.brocoli.org
NICHELODEON – BATH SALTS – (2CD by Lizard Records/Den Records)
INSONAR – L’ENFANT ET LE MÉNURE – (2CD by Lizard Records/Den Records)
Where to start here?! To double cd’s centered around the vocals of Claudio Milano. In total more than 3,5 hours of music. Only for this reason it is already fair to speak of a magnum opus, I guess. Insonar is his duo with Marco Tuppo (Flag of Estonia), with the assistance of 62 (!) musicians. Here we go: Elliott Sharp, Trey Gunn & Pat Mastellotto (King Crimson), Walter Calloni (P.F.M.), Paolo Tofani (Area), Ivan Cattaneo, Nik Turner (Hawkwind), Dieter Moebius (Kluster), Thomas Bloch (Radiohead), Ralph Carney (Tom Waits), Dana Colley (Morphine), Graham Clark (Gong), Richard A Ingram (Oceansize), Albert Kuvezin (ex-Huun Huur Tu), Othon Mataragas & Ernesto Tomasini (Current 93), Nate Wooley, Burkhard Stangl (David Sylvian), Mattias Gustavsson (Altar of Flies), Werner Durand & Victor Meertens, Erica Scherl, Michael Thieke, Viviane Houle, Jonathan Mayer (Paul Mc Cartney), Stephen Flinn, Angelo Manzotti, Roberto Laneri, Vincenzo Zitello, Elio Martusciello (Chris Cutler), Thomas Grillo, Pekkanini, Víctor Estrada Mañas, Eric Ross, Takeuchi Masami, Gordon Charlton, Francesco Chapperini, Luca Pissavini, Fabrizio Carriero, Andrea Murada, Andrea Illuminati, Max Pierini, Lorenzo Sempio, Andrea Tumicelli, Nicola De Bortoli, Francesco Zago, Michele Bertoni, Alex Stangoni, Michele Nicoli, Stefano Ferrian, Alfonso Santimone (Robert Wyatt), Luca Boldrin, Andrea Quattrini, Beppe Cacciola, Simone Zanchini, Paola Tagliaferro & Max Marchini, Raoul Moretti, Pierangelo Pandiscia & Gino Ape. Why so many, one may ask. Anyway, it tells us something of the music and musicians Milano feels related to. How international the crew may be, the music, the atmosphere, it is all very Italian. Same for the record of Nichelodeon. Both albums have much in common. The music is often very melodic and dramatic, following typical Italian aesthetics. Music that is heavily dependent on 70s progressive music, combined with theatrical elements, that are especially reflected in the singing and performing by Milano. There is a continuity with the work of people like Demetrio Stratos and Franco Battiato. Milano studied opera as well as modern singing techniques. Besides he is also trained as an actor and dancer. He has a wide range to his disposal as an singer. On both albums, verbal singing and sprechgesang dominate. But he has also some impressive non-verbal vocal escapades to offer. Most pieces are compositions of their own, but they also reinterpret songs by Peter Hammill, Kurt Weil, Lou Reed, Bowie/Eno, Tim Buckley and not to forget (Ave Maria). Most of the pieces are very melodic, combined with abstract sound constructions. It is this way of extending the song-format, that makes Milano’s music special and different. Differences between the two albums are only gradual. Compared with the Insonar-release the music of Nichelodeon is a bit more accessible and friendly. The Insonar release is more dark and experimental in nature. But in essence both works are framed from the same Gestalt. Another constitutive element is the production of both works. Both albums are very well produced. But also very, very produced. Music that came clearly into being after spending many hours in the studio. The harp, played by Moretti is often in the forefront on the Nichelodeon-album. By the way, Nichelodeon is an avant prog outfit operating since 2008. For this release they are Raoul Moretti, Pierangelo PANdiscia, Vincenzo Zitello and Milano, assisted by about 20 Italian musicians! Other instruments and sounds are added to create different and rich sound textures for each song. It takes a while before one has noticed every single sound. The singing by Milano, his incredible range, expression and intensity are more than remarkable. His music that is a bit out of step of what one expects from avant garde corners. But who decides here? Milano makes a forceful statement with his highly dramatic music and sound poems. You better listen. (DM)
Address: http://www.lizardsrecords.it / http://www.denrecords.eu
LUCRETCIA DALT – SYZYGY (CD by Human Ear)
This might be a new name for me, and perhaps I didn’t hear her 2012 album ‘Commotus’, so there is nothing to compare I think. I am not sure what she is using as instruments, except her voice, singing in Spanish, English and Catalan; there might be electronics, bass and maybe laptop. The nine pieces are not very long, making the whole album thirty-two minutes. Each of these pieces can be regarded as songs, with the singing usually mixed somewhat to the background, so it’s not easy to grasp what these lyrics are about. I was at times reminded me of the older sound of Edward Ka-spel, although perhaps less heavy on the keyboards, and maybe a bit more moodier at times. Intimate music for sure, but perhaps I’m not entirely convinced by it. I am not sure why that is. Maybe because it’s not entirely pop, so it doesn’t convince me in that direction and in terms of more dreamy pop, I think I heard better stuff. Maybe it’s a bit too fragile, maybe a bit, dare I say this, too feminine for my taste? I am not sure. I played it with interest, a couple of times even, but it never seemed to really grab me. (FdW)
Address: http://www.humanearmusic.de
G*PARK – SUB (2CD by 23Five Incorporated)
When the first G*Park record was released, on Schimpfluch, it blew my mind. For one, it didn’t seem to fit on the label, with their harsh, cut-up styled aktionist music, and it seemed to be all ambient and quiet music. It’s good to have expectations blown away. I followed him a bit, in the mid 90s, when he released some CDs on Zabriskie Point, but his output was quite sparse, so I missed out on his releases on Tochnit Aleph, but here’s a new sign of life, in the form of an all new double CD on 23Five Incorporated. G*Park, the solo project of Marc Zeier, works exclusively with field recordings, which is offers either as a raw block of sound, or something heavily treated, layered and such like. Now, of course, there has been lots of field recording based music since the first G*Park LP, and we might have become a bit more critical, but boy, G*Park is still as unique as always. His music has a drone like character, from layering various events together, or simply taping events of such nature (gas lamps, heaters) and on top he placed animal sounds with a more haunting character. There seems always to be sudden move in here, like a violence lurking underneath, maybe a menace in these sounds, which makes this perhaps both narrative and scary. It’s like a radio play, but entirely without words. A horror radio play if you with these sustaining sounds, loops of squeaking doors, and a swift montage to enter another room. Some hundred minutes of music here and it’s not a minute too long, or too short. Very imaginative music, both in the way it’s made but also a soundtrack for imaginary films. This is an excellent release, restating what great composer G*Park is. (FdW)
Address: http://www.23five.org
WATARU ABE – PHENOMENA (CD by Kaico)
FRYADLUS – POCKET FANTASY (CD by Kaico)
Like the release by Ket3m, which is reviewed elsewhere, the release by Wataru Abe is heavily inspired by Pan Sonic. Abe is from Tokyo, studied classic to jazz music at Berklee College Of Music, programs in Max/MSP and released as murr*murr, Ruibyat and Papa Joe, but now releases his first CD under his own name. Like Pan Sonic he loves a strong beat, and it seems that recently this is making more of school of its own, with Ket3m, Franck Vigroux and Free Babyronia, or even KK Null/The Noiser in this issue. Strong beat material, with a bunch of nasty noisy tones to guide the music around. It bounces heavily around and perhaps you can’t always dance to it, but the impact is massive, certainly if you play this loud. Sometimes the music is a bit out of control, moving too far out, and blasting about. He could keep his pieces a bit more concise and minimal, and be a true dance artist, I think, but this was nice enough already, quite until the moment of quietness arrived in ‘Suspended Partiuclates’, the final ten minutes of peace and tranquility.
Same label, something entirely different is the music by Yoshihiro Furuya, also from Tokyo. He’s still in his early twenties and on his album ‘Pocket Fantasy’ mixes a variety of instruments, electronics, piano, guitar, field recordings, into a variety of music, IDM, jazz, pop, bit of cheesy classical music. He produces his music very well, but is that enough, I wondered? It’s all instrumental, it’s production is wonderful, but it also seems quite light weight to my taste. It’s nothing here which really seems to grab me as a listener, telling me, no, demanding me, listen up, this is great. Maybe that is not the intention of Fryadlus, and all he wants to do us play some easy peaceful, and joyful tunes, and as such he succeeded pretty well. These thirteen pieces in an one hour might be the perfect modern living room music, and not exactly the sort of thing for the chaotic Vital HQ on a rainy day. Nice enough, but I pass. (FdW)
Address: http://www.naturebliss.jp
HOMENAJE A ARAM SLOBODIAN (CD compilation by Amee)
There is much to complain here. Obviously, I don’t like compilations. Full stop. But I see the point here: a homage to one Aram Slobodian, of whom I never heard, but the booklet is all in Spanish, so that’s no real either. Second complaint that was. Wikipedia? “The page “Aram Slobodian” does not exist.” But a search further afield shows me he’s was a composer of electro-acoustic, but it’s not entirely clear what was special about him. Maybe it’s an idea, if you do projects like this, and you want to truly honor someone to present a booklet in a language more people can read? There are thirty-five pieces on this compilation, and several composers have multiple pieces, and some are by Slobodian himself. I must admit I never heard of any of these, and with some of these pieces the length is very short, so it’s a bit hard to figure out where we are here. The music is actually all quite nice, very much alike the traditional electronic and electro-acoustic music. Feeding sounds through oscillators and what have you and build from there new blocks of sounds and compositions. I am not sure – how would I know – if this is an appropriate homage to Slobodian, but I assume it is, looking at the seriousness of the package and such like. But I have to be honest. It’s very hard to grasp any context on this, as I didn’t know Slobodian, nor any of the composers (list at the end of the review) and with all the liner notes in Spanish, this remains all a bit closed for me.
Rocio Silleras, Pedro Linde, Sergio Fidemraizer, José María Pastor, Ferrer-Molina, Carlos D. Perales, Francisco Jose Martin Jaime, Susana López, Josué Moreno, David Vendrell, Rocio Silleras, Reyes Oteo, Roberto Pineda Tenor, Mercé Capdevila / Eduardo Polonio, Sergio Sánchez, Hegel Pedroza, Juan José Raposo, Pedro Guajardo, Sergio Fidemraizer, José Andrés Prieto Franco, Pere Vicalet, Josep Lluís Galiana, Gregorio Jiménez, Vicent Gómez, Miguel Molina Alarcón, Alejandra Hernández.
Address: http://musicaelectroacustica.com
CORRADO ALTIERI & GIANLUCA FAVARON – THE SYSTEM OF OBJECTS (CD by Silentes)
UNDER THE SNOW – THE BACKGROUND NOISE (LP by Silentes/13)
GIANLUCA FAVARON – SURFACES (LP by Silentes/13)
Releases on Silentes are getting a bit more sparse these days, perhaps because of the economic tide etc, but I am also happy to note that they do more and more LPs. However the first new one is a CD with Gianluca Favaron on computer and one Corrado Altieri, who gets credit for electronics and tapes. Favaron is a man whose work appeared a lot on Silentes (as we’ll see here too), and I never heard of Altieri. The eight tracks on ‘The System Of Objects’ are relatively short: the whole album doesn’t last more than thirty-five minutes and it’s inspired by the book of the same name by Jean Baudrillard. In much of Favaron’s work ambient and drones play an important role, even when they are created with the use of the computer. In this particular work however we find him in a somewhat more noisy role, owing more to musique concrete than to ambience. The whole thing has some heavily treated acoustic feel to it, creating seven quite densely knitted pieces of electronic music. Be this field recordings, be this acoustic sounds created with contact microphones, or whatever else, it’s treated into great monolithic blocks of sound. In only a few pieces this kind of minimalism is left behind and more things happen at the same time, such as in the opening piece ‘Objects And Time 1’. An excellent release of highly vibrant electronic music. Quite raw and intense, exactly the kind of noise I like. Not meaningless and pointless carrying on forever, but seven sharp, contrasting blasts.
As Under The Snow Favaron works with Stefano Gentile, who plays acoustic guitar and treated guitar picks, and Favaron is responsible for ‘programming, electronics and signal processing’. They have released a bunch of CDs (see Vital Weekly 771, 786 and 826) of their improvised playing, in which the laptop picks up the guitar sound and treats that on the spot. Following a start in which the laptop seemed to prevail, the later releases had a more fine tuned balance of straight guitar sounds and laptop processing. This one sided LP has a twenty minute piece which continues the chosen road of the previous releases and shows us more crackles, static hiss and bangs on the guitar. Maybe a bit more chaotic than before, I thought, bringing out the element of improvisation more than on the previous releases. At the same time there is also a bit more drone like sounds, closing off the LP, and taking away some of the emptiness previously found in their music. I think it’s great to see them slowly develop and become more and more like an improvised working unit. The combination of live laptop processing a live guitar is perhaps not something that hasn’t been done before, as noted before, but again here, this seems to work rather well.
And then, finally, a solo work of Favaron, also on an one sided LP – both of these LPs are highly limited to less then 100 copies and are pressed on grey vinyl. Skip what I said about drone/ambient in Favaron’s work, as on his solo LP he’s taking the work he did with Corrado Altieri to another level. Here we have clearly acoustic sounds, which the cover describes as ‘objects’, and ‘effects’. It seems to me these objects are being strummed, hit or banged and then sampled and fed through a bunch of effects. Here too we are dealing with the more louder areas of musique concrete, but unlike the CD with Altieri, the pieces are shorter here, almost in a sketch like fashion, going all over the acoustic spectrum, cutting in and out with the electronic transformations there of. The objects are used clear and dry, even when not revealing what these objects are, but in the process of mixing, all sorts of transformations are used to make a nice vibrant mix of all stages of the transformation process. Not always very noisy, such as in the fourth (and longest) piece, but it’s a fine mixture of loud and quiet, through some highly intelligent compositions/improvisations (hard to make up my mind here). I thought it was fine that Under The Snow was a single sided record, but here I wouldn’t have minded a second side with more music. This all sounded great. Three excellent releases! (FdW)
Address: http://www.silentes.it
BRUME – TWO CHARACTERS (10″ by Substantia Innominata)
One of the things I like about Drone Records sub-division Substantia Innominata is that it doesn’t exclusively deals with the darker than dark drone/ambient music which one would maybe expect from a series of ‘works inspired by or related to “the unknown” around or within us. There is also room for sound collage, such as with RLW, Column One and perhaps to a lesser extent Illusion Of Safety. Not always the most obvious names and Brume is another one of those less obvious names, I would think. Christian Renou has been active since close to thirty years and in his early years was active with releasing cassettes, in the early 90s a bunch of CDs and in the last decade or so a bit more sparse with releases (or perhaps it has moved out of my sight?). In the old days his sound theory seemed ‘no silence please’, and using electronics in a very raw sort of musique concrete manner. On his new record, he uses “electronics (synths), field recordings (door jarring, water), alto sax, gramophone, tapes, various processed voices, discreet percussion, discreet bass and home made instruments. He paints portraits of two characters, as indicated by the title of the record, and the two pieces, ‘Zaklasta-re the beautiful’ and ‘Glazüük, the dreamer’. In the first the beautiful is unveiled through some dark drones, which move dark and majestically, whereas on top we hear occasionally the alto-saxophone, wailing about, in and out of the mix. This is a fine piece, more ambient and drone like perhaps then you’d expect from Brume, but the saxophone and the occasional electronic sounds add a certain weirdness to the piece. The other side is perhaps less dreamy than it would suggest, and moves in various places, maybe an uneasy night rest? It’s in the second half of the piece that we land into a dreamy world via controlled feedback and reverb, and before that, perhaps more the uneasy REM sleep? Here we find voices slipping in and out of the mix; another sign of musique concrete past. An excellent record. It made me lean towards my CD collection and pick some older works of Brume to play in the more quiet hours of the evening. (FdW)
Address: http://www.substantia-innominata.de
ANIMAL MACHINE/EXEDO – ALICE IN ROTTENLAND (CDR by Attention Circuit)
Saussure famously postulated the principle in semiotics of the arbitrary nature of the signifier, and more recently Quentin Meillassoux in “Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition: A Speculative Analysis of the
Meaningless Sign” Berlin 2012 – has radicalized and absolutized the signifier in signifying nothing in order to make it an absolute of a mathematicalizeable ontology. (For my part I have some problems with Meillassoux, both in his reliance on mathematics in general but also in doing so falling victim to the idea that any sign in mathematics, his chosen ontology, is replaceable by any other – if numbers are signs then set theory announces infinities which are outside of the sign system (counting, listing) of other infinities, but further his ontologizing of the signified via mathematics is for me a privileging?) – none of these problematics arise in noise, in particular noise qua noise. However before continuing it is especially relevant to this review to note that whilst Saussure (and no doubt others) use the idea of the arbitrariness of the signified, and this may well be true , and noise too can achieve a similarly arbitrariness, and despite dogs barking Ouaf Ouaf and Bow Wow (Hav-hav, Vov-vov, gong-gong -http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201211/how-dogs-bark-in-different-languages) there is always the other extérieur autre, problem, always it seems ignored of onomatopoeia, and how we, humans see signs, for instance the number sign for seven, “7 “ seems more sevenish than “8” which ‘seems’ eightish, or that the clangers ‘speak’ Swedish!….. might not, in the latter case, certainly is not true, it only shows that we will always attempt meaning, despite there either not being any or not wanting any. So in noise the deliberation or more usual accidental production of the meaningless sign is – though a universal fact, most of the universe – all as an infinity is meaningless, meaning even this can be (at best) regarded as accident, then it becomes an easy matter to place and see significance. A mistake. Even in bothering to listen – which I am, or in making, which I do not. This is where ‘Alice in Rottenland’ both succeeds and fails. (Any land is territorialized. Noise qua noise is always a non-territory, de- territorialized, BWO.) Only mediocrity saves it (and much else here) from being something significant, another irrelevant plus factor for noise, and so can be filed under noise, regarded as noise or not regarded as noise…… 4 tracks of harsh static and very ‘meaningful’ feedback – PE be aware. Though one cannot be aware of the totality of noise- even if one finds loops and beats, a cry or sign, darkness or light. (jliat)
Address: http://www.attenuationcircuit.de
PRESQUE RIEN (CDR compilation by Rhizome.s)
Here’s a bit of a puzzle. Apparently these forty-two composers, improvisors, musicians, artists, did an interpretation of the following line by Francis Ponge: “The water (what it contains) does almost nothing (the latter two words translating as Presque Rien in French, hence the title) to the glass, and the glass (where it is) does not alter the water”. Now, of course you know ‘Presque Rien’ is also a series of compositions by Luc Ferrari, but here the words become the score, and forty-two musicians created a short (under two minutes) execution of this piece. Lots of quiet pieces, of instruments, of hiss, of acoustic objects, bits (few) of motor noise, feedback and silence. You have no clue who does what here, as the list of collaborators – see end of review – is listed alphabetically by the first name, so perhaps they are not in this order on this release? But who cares, you could, quite rightly, so? It’s perhaps the album-as-a-whole which we should learn to love, which is not easy. Perhaps it’s best to have this on random and repeat play, so you will loose any sense of time and place with this? I am not sure. I thought this was a most enjoyable compilation with some great music on it, and leaving more questions unanswered, which perhaps is a nice thing. And now for the cast of actors: Ana Foutel, Barry Chabala, Brian Labycz, Bruno Duplant, Bryan Eubanks, D’Incise, Dafne Vicente Sandoval, Daniel Jones, Darius Ciuta, Delphine Dora, Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, Dominic Lash, Ernesto Rodrigues, Eva-Maria Houben, Fergus Kelly, Ferran Fages, Gil Sansón, Grisha Shakhnes, Iliya Belorukov, Jamie Drouin, Jez Riley French, Johnny Chang, Jonas Kocher (with Dafne Stefanou), Joseph Clayton Mills, Julien Héraud, Jürg Frey, Keith Rowe, Lance Austin Olsen, Lee Noyes, Lucio Capece, Massimo Magee, Michael Pisaro, Paco Rossique, Paulo Chagas, Pedro Chambel, Philippe Lenglet, Rachael Wadham, Ryoko Akama (with John Bryan), Simon Reynall, Stefan Thut, Travis Johnson and Vanessa Rossetto. That many indeed. (FdW)
Address: http://rhizome-s.blogspot.fr/
DAVID LINNROS – NOT A SAXOPHONE (CDR, private)
It was last week, I guess, when I wrote ‘I never see a point in mentioning something you didn’t use’, so here we have a saxophone player called David Linnros, with his first solo release, which apparently doesn’t have much to do with a saxophone. Linnros played in a duo with Lisa Ullen and was the leader of a quartet Konatus, along with Ida Lunden, Niklas Korssell and Dror Feiler (see also Vital Weekly 701). Of his first solo release he writes “one of the working titles for this project was “3 bagatellen”, which was a way to focus on the lighthearted and playful creation of the three pieces. I wanted a break from the demanding concentration of improvisation. In the following years this approach has become my main approach to music making’. There is indeed not easily a saxophone to be spotted in the first two pieces here, recorded in 2011 and 2012. They are very noisy, like his saxophone being fed through some oscillators (analogue or digital) and the result is a very loud noise sound, almost like very chopped harsh noise wall. Perhaps more for Jliat, I thought, but the last piece, also quite noisy, was more in balance with something you could recognize as a saxophone, as well as these electronic manipulations. This is a piece with a fine amount of variations in what it has to offer, both acoustic and electronic and makes up a fine, yet occasional noise collage, and as such I preferred that more than the more consistent blasts of noise of the first two pieces. (FdW)
Address: http://davidlinnros.com
KET3M – SYN3RGY (3″CDR, private)
From Tel Aviv, Israel, we have a duo of Shay Nassi (also known as Muse_en_scene) and Tom Kemeny (also known as Darmock) who work together as Ket3m. ‘They joined together for a side-project to explore the boundaries of sound and express themselves together as one, each contributing his own very-unique techniques and perspective’.There has been a release on Electroton before, but me thinks we missed out on that one. There are four tracks on their 3″CDR, spanning only fifteen minutes. In these four pieces they show to be good students of a cross road where we see on the left Pan Sonic with their distorted dance beats and on the right we see Ryoji Ikeda with his super clean sounds in a similar organized fashion. Odd to think that especially Ikeda never got many copyists, but Ket3m are perhaps not mere copyists. At times their music is a bit more chaotic than Ikeda’s and comes more in the land of Pan Sonic. Superloud, super heavy on the bass sound. The sound remains quite uniform here, so perhaps it’s good (and consistent) to have just these four pieces and nothing else. Very to the point and very nice. (FdW)
Address: <ketemta@gmail.com>
TOM WHITE – TAPE WORKS (cassette by My Dance The Skull)
KOMMISSAR HJULER/MEDIUM MEDIUM – FLUXUS & FUNK 3 (cassette by My Dance The Skull)
AG DAVIS – VOICE STUDIES (cassette by My Dance The Skull)
Three new releases on My Dance The Skull, and I started with Tom White, maybe because it seemed a new name to me. His ‘Tape Works’ is a “collection of improvised reel to reel recordings made in London between March and August 2012”, and both sides contain one track only of the longer variety. I am sure we should then see it as one track per side, but that brings on something problematic: these improvisations seem nothing more than sketches of found sound, stuck together to create the illusion of one piece of music, and surely occasionally White leaps into a bunch of nice sounds which loop quite – especially it seems on the b-side – with it’s slightly more industrial, Steve Reich like phasing of loops, but I wondered what the whole point of this exercise was. Surely not my kind of thing.
The next one is perhaps even more curious. One side (the Fluxus side of the title no doubt), we have certified weirdo Kommissar Hjuler with seventeen part making up ‘Kommissar Hjuler i Danmark’ and ‘Abschnitt 1’ and then on the other side (the Funk side) we have nine tracks from post-punk outfit Medium Medium, who were active in the late 70s, early 80s, and best known, I should hope, for the cult classic hit ‘So Hungry, So Angry’, which is not part of this collection. Is that an odd pairing, or what? Hjuler mumbles, in Danish perhaps, tumbs the piano, hand spins a record, and all the sort of tricks you can expect from an outsider, although you can wonder if that makes you still an outsider. You never know with these outsider types, I guess. It’s something we know and expect Hjuler to do. I quite enjoyed the other side, perhaps because I enjoy this post punk period a lot. Pop Group, A Certain Ratio, Rip Rig & Panic, Tank Of Dantzig, so many names, so much music, and it’s good to hear this as part of this package. Medium Medium fans will get to explore Hjuler, and vice versa, although perhaps a few Hjuler fans might remember Medium Medium from the good ol days. Here’s one. Very nice, but very much out of place in Vital Weekly.
AG Davis is responsible for the final new release, as part of the ‘voice studies’ by My Dance The Skull. I am not sure, but I believe I didn’t hear his music before. His two pieces here, along with a somewhat cryptic text. The music seems to me to be all improvised rambling and talking and a form of actionist sound poetry. The best is when on the second side, manipulations are used from a reel-to-reel recorder. It’s not bad, but it’s perhaps at the same time not something I enjoyed very much. It’s maybe something I heard already enough in my life, and Henri Chopin was unique, I tend to think. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mydancetheskull.com
ESQUILLE – ROCK THIS CLUB DOWN (CD)
One James Moore, a publicist, is helping Eskil Stiernbourg with getting online reviews and thus we are one of the few that have received a physical copy. I am not sure if that should make me happy. Esquille plays electronic dance music of the kind that I hear my daughter play on youtube and when I, very occasionally, visit a place where young people dance. It will find it’s way in the world of music regardless if I write about it or not. I won’t say this is crap, ridiculous, a waste of time and space, as no doubt this has been made with the best of intentions. It just ended up on the wrong desk. Maybe one James Moore should be making notes too. (FdW)
Address: http://www.esquille.se