WILD WILD AMBIENT BOYS – WE DON’T ROCK (CD by Esc. Rec) *
BAD SECTOR – KOSMODRON (2CD by Loki-Found) *
AIRCHAMBER3 – PERIPHERAL (CD by Fratto9)
THE ASTRONOMICAL UNIT – SUPER EARTH IS BORN (CD by Gligg Records) *
RUPP & MULLER & FISCHERLEHNER – TAM (CD by Not Applicable) *
NITON – NITON (CD by Pulver und Asche Records)
PINCKCOURTSEYPHONE – PLEASE PICK UP (CD compilation by I/O Sound)
DAMN – FREI-STIL SAMPLERIN #3 (CDR compilation by Chmafu Nocords)
COEN OSCAR POLACK & HERMAN WILKEN – FATHOMLESS (LP by Narrominded)
CZARNY LATAWIEC – MIKOPHONIC WORKSHOP, CHOPPED AND SCREWED (CDR by Mik Musik) *
NOT HALF – ANTIPHON (CDR by Dimetrodon Recordings)
ALOGON – WOUND (CDR by Under Platform) *
ROBERT CRIPPA & CALEB WOOD – A STILL SEASON UNRAVELS (DVD+R by Hideous Replica)
ORPHAX – LIVE VENLO, HOLLAND 11.01.13 (3″CDR, private) *
AYMERIC DE TAPOL – MERIDIENS (cassette by Tanuki Records)
CLADE – VIETNAMESE PIANO (cassette by Clade_Rec)
KOSTIS KILYMIS – ARCTIC SATURATION (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
BEING – CRACKING WHIP OF A COSMIC STRING (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
WILD WILD AMBIENT BOYS – WE DON’T ROCK (CD by Esc. Rec)
Many of the releases on Esc.rec are on CDR or download form, but here’s one on a pro-pressed CD. So esc.rec either has a lot of confidence in this band or someone sponsored this big time. Behind Wild Wild Ambient Boys we find a duo of Hidde van Schie and Jeroen S. Rozendaal. The later is a musician, writer and film maker. He’s been a member of such as bands as Room 1091, De Vogels, The New Earth Group, The Minor Details and Hond & Wolf, none of which I heard about before. he also produces music for (Dutch) movies and has a bunch of solo records. MR reviewed his ‘At My Feet In The Ground…’ LP back in Vital Weekly. He’s is responsible for the electronics here and teams up with Hidde van Schie, who gets the credit for strings and vocals. He’s a musician and visual artists, organizer of events and recently released a singer-song writer album. Their ‘important influences are porcelain flamingos, Microsoft Office, David Hamilton and memories of horses in the late 60s’, we are told in the press release. It’s a fine yet strange album. It’s for instance not easy not to think of ambient music here, but it’s not very standard ambient, defying all things drone like for instance, but the rather pleasant tinkling of guitars, field recordings, fine crackles and throughout a highly melodic touch runs through this record. There are also pieces with rhythm, such as ‘White Limousine/Scarface Interior Design’, chopped up and wild indeed, but also the more introspective kind in ‘Sweet Oblivion And A Soft Headache Singing’. A varied album of moods and textures. The only easy thing I could compare it with is The Books. It has that same playful style, cut up vocals, a near pop sensitivity combined with a fine sense of abstract moods. The references, as far as I can judge, is just a nice line to sell this, but the music doesn’t need that, I should think. It’s quite powerful and strong as it is. (FdW)
Address: http://www.escrec.com
BAD SECTOR – KOSMODRON (2CD by Loki-Found)
Before I recounted of my love hate relationship with Bad Sector, but after hearing this, I think I can safely say I actually just like them. There is always something darker about Bad Sector, but perhaps a lot of the electronic/ambient/drone music I like, happens to be darker and Bad Sector is never really that ‘gothic’ band I sometimes think they are. Maybe they sometimes release on the ‘gothic’ labels. Who cares? This release is actually a re-issue of a super limited release on Waystyx Records in 2005 and which came as a CD and a mini CD. Now the latter has been expanded into a full CD and the whole thing is released in a nice box with a likewise nice booklet, with pictures of Russia’s efforts into space travel, to which the music here is a tribute. More specially to Konstantin Tsiokovsky, the Russian pioneer of astronautic theory, and perhaps therefore (?) the music contains sounds lifted from ancient Russian synthesizers, such as the Aelita synthesizer and the electro-optical ANS synthesizer. Not all played by Massimo Magrini, main man behind Bad Sector, but heavily sampled here and treated within the computer domain. I am reminded here of the older work of SETI (the Andrew Lagwoski guise) with its deep synth approach, cut up voice from flight control and occasional rhythm. Spacious music indeed, but it’s hard to say why. Is it because of the music itself, or because I see these images of satellites? It’s hard to say, but if we look at this as part of a long line in history, ambient music, cosmic music, electronic music, then this fits that ‘tradition’, and perhaps that’s why we perceive this as spacious music. I quite enjoyed this 100 minute journey into the nearby space. The rusty Soviet space crafts are neatly depicted in these pieces, with the time stretched voices as faint attempts to reach home, and the rhythms caused by bumps in space; the deep synth sounds are of course space itself. Should ever be a soundtrack needed for a documentary on this subject, I think there is some great soundtrack material in here, but without any film this is equally great. Good to see this in print again. (FdW)
Address: http://www.loki-found.de
AIRCHAMBER3 – PERIPHERAL (CD by Fratto9)
Airchamber3 is a trio from Italy and consists of Andrea “Ics” Ferraris on guitar, bass, laptop, effect and, drums, Luca Serrapiglio on alto, tenor & baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, wind controller and synths, theremin, MaTiLda, effects and drums and Andrea Serrapiglio on cello, laptop, casio sk-1, iPad, drums and vocals. The huge range of several instruments and sound sources gives the trio the opportunity to create music with a great variety of sounds and atmosphere. “Crippling Approach Anxiety” for example is a composition in which and repeating synth patterns and drums of Alessandro Buzzi on drums takes care for the base and all sounds are moving around and the craziness is growing and growing and leads to high tones which brainwash you mind. “A body is a map of bruises” is the follow-up of this track, with Barbera de Dominicus on vocals. The track is like a experimental jazz-song somewhere far away in a bar in which the musicians are circling around the soft singing voice. Beautiful song in which different music-styles meet each other. What I really like about this album is that some compositions have a clear composition with a beginning and an end. Other compositions are like experiments in which tones, colors of sound and atmospheres are touching each other. Each composition has it’s own identity and at the other hand all tracks are built up carefully and thoughtful which gives a serious attention to the music. Anyhow, the trio worked three years on this album and that is what you can hear, well composed experimental music with a fine attention to the structure of the musical construction. (JKH)
Address: http://www.fratto9.com
THE ASTRONOMICAL UNIT – SUPER EARTH IS BORN (CD by Gligg Records)
RUPP & MULLER & FISCHERLEHNER – TAM (CD by Not Applicable)
The connection between the two discs is the presence of trombonist Matthias Müller. I am not sure, but I may not have heard of him before. As The Astronomical Unit he has a trio with Christan Marien on drums and Clayton Thomas on double bass. Their press text for this is a bit vague: “Here you hear all the music. Dirty South Hip Hop mixed with the field recordings of Francisco Lopez, in a 9 hour song cycles from the Golden Triangle, inferring the hard edged funk of Betty Davis, and the discordant results of Florian Hecker hanging with Jay Z in a swarm of hornets”. That’s not what I heard here, and maybe it’s just a way of name dropping. The music we get here is all to do with improvisation, of an acoustic nature. Two pieces, recorded live in 2012, of some very fine and very dense playing. At times quite heavy on the bass, which is a nice element to have. They know how to create an atmosphere, either by subtracting tones and keeping the music very quiet or by letting it all bursts out and get close to each other. Maybe all a bit traditional, but nevertheless quite nice.
Another trio with Müller is the one he does with Olaf Rupp on electric guitar and Rudi Fischerlehner on drums. In May this year they recorded this together in Berlin and four pieces can be found on this release. All titles are in Pidgen English from New Guinea, as found by them on a wooden floor in Prague. This is how people find their titles and this free play is also something you find in their music. Here too we find this trio at the more conventional end of free improvisation, but throughout they are a bit heavy and dense and seem to have less sparse moments all around. That makes this for me the lesser of the two releases. This was all very energetic, but also on the verge of draining your energy a bit. Never a quiet a moment in this wildly disorganized stream of sounds, and that brings on a certain fatigue. Only the last piece shows a bit tranquility, but maybe the damage has been done. I can imagine however that of these two releases, this might be the one that is the more exciting to see in a live concert. It’s however nothing I can substantiate with hard evidence. Nice stuff on both of these! (FdW)
Address: http://www.gligg-records.com
Address: http://www.not-applicable.org
NITON – NITON (CD by Pulver und Asche Records)
Niton is an audiodocument of a live improvisation during Drone Night #4 of the Italian musicians Xelius, El Toxyque and Zeno Gabaglio. The Drone Nights is an initiative by Xelius in collaboration with El Toxyque. The idea of The Drone Nights is to create performances of intuitive music which are taking place in several places. For these nights other musicians are invited to join the improvisation. For the fourth edition the duo invited Zeno Gabaglio, who plays electric cello en electronics, who releases also other music at Pulver und Asche Records from Switzerland. Xelius is a nickname for Luca Xelius Martegani and is sound-designer and composer of electro-acoustic music. El Toxyque stands for Enrico Mangione and he explore since 2005 the possibilities of sound created by prepared, modified and self-constructed acoustic instruments. The self-titled album consists four improvisations. “Tai Q” is a beautiful track in which classical minimal music meets electro-acoustic music. The cello of Zeno Gabaglio in combination with some effects fits really well with the abstract sounds of the other two musicians. It is a pity that this improvisations lasts not more than 5 minutes. “B’Done” sounds like a classic improvisation piece in which the several musical ingredients try to find a combination. The ongoing beat is like a heartbeat and when it stops all parts fall together and the mixture has been found and becomes more and more harsh and electronic and floods into a intense mix of repeating cello patterns and electronics. “K’lamp” starts as an uptempo track with a pulsing rhythms which flows into a abstracts psychedelic atmosphere. Although the tracks has been created by completely other sound sources, the music is familiar to experimental post-rock music from the seventies. The last track ASNA is more melodic with a quiet rippling sounds which are disturbed by distorted strings and synths. Again too short to get into the track, because the music develop into a ambient atmosphere. Anyhow… mostly live-recordings of improvisations are not interesting to listen to, because the listener misses the dynamics of the concert. For this project the quality of the music and recording is high, but it would be more interesting if some tracks are more longer, so you can flow into the adventurous improvisations. (JKH)
Address: http://www.pulverundasche.com/
PINCKCOURTSEYPHONE – PLEASE PICK UP (CD compilation by I/O Sound)
DAMN – FREI-STIL SAMPLERIN #3 (CDR compilation by Chmafu Nocords)
A subject which is least favorite to talk about, but here we go again: remixes. What’s the point? Artist A is a great DJ and Artist B is a fine rock group. In order to market B in the target audience of A, a record label commissions a remix from A, so audiences of B will go out and buy the remix of A and of course the fans of A go out to buy the remix, but hopefully, providing marketing schematics actually work, also the original music of B. Gettit? So where does this lead us in our cosy little world of Vital Weekly. Nowhere. Here the audiences of A and B are already aware of each other. The fans of Frank Bretschneider know Richard Chartier and vice versa. Here remix equals masturbation, and I love that. It’s great fun to poke around with some else’s sounds and do a re/de-construction yourself. Bring in an extra beat, remove the vocals, that piano bit, add field recordings. But effectively it’s to pleasure yourself – “see what nice stuff I did, your music has improved” – because neither artist will get new fans. I wasn’t blown away by the original Pinkcourtesyphone music, Chartier’s darkwave pop music or whatever it’s called. Here being reworked by Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand, Frank Bretschneider, Yves de Mey, Pjusk, Simon Scott and Yann Novak & Robert Crouch – all label mates from Chartier’s Line label or acquaintances from 12K. Why not Afrojack, Junkie XL, Armin van Buuren or Tiesto, to name some of those pop sensible top DJs (all of which are Dutch. I must be proud – should I know any of their music)? Then you would really bring the music somewhere else. The interesting piece is Chartier’s own two pieces with Kind Congo Powers (formerly of The Cramps, The Gun Club and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds), which is highly reverbed voice, dark wave disco in the best Coil tradition, which gets remixed by Creepy Autograph and Coh. Don’t get me wrong: there is some nice music on this CD, by all involved and some of it spices the original a bit more, which it needed, but as said: for whom exactly?
And, to stay on the nagging side, here’s also ‘Damn – FreiStil Samplerin #3’ and I wrote in Vital Weekly 8706 about number 2: “A follow-up to Freistil Samplerin #1 here, reduced from 2CDs to 1 CDR, and quite short at that, only thirty three minutes. The only thing that ties these six compositions together is the fact that are composed by female composers, mostly played by women, but not exclusively. Music wise things are wide apart. There is a sort of short pop like song by Cherry Sunkist, a very short musique concrete piece by Rdeca Raketa, more or less improvised pieces of music by Ute Volker and Gravida, a fine piece of semi-orchestral string quartet with vocals by Evangelista and an interesting piece of ambient drone music by Elisabeth Schimana with a dreamy, sleep inducing context. You could wonder for whom this is released, because, as said, the music is quite far apart moving in a variety of musical directions. Strictly taken as a compilation of various bits of modern, experimental music however this is quite a nice effort. If exploring new musical names is your thing, then this is surely something to investigate.” This time the musicians are Liz Albee, Isabelle Duthoit, Ingrid Eder, Tanja Feitchtmair, Elisabeth Harnik, Irene Kepl, ingrid Laubrock, Ushi Reiter, Ingrid Schmoliner and Dorothea Schürch. Oddly enough, male companions are listed in the small print, such as Thomas Lehn playing with Schürch, or Mark Holub with Kepl. But essentially this is a wide apart thing again, just like number two. I’d be surprised if you would like all ten pieces, but it’s all quite enjoyable, even in it’s most experimental moments. What more can I say? You may have guessed: compilations aren’t really the kind of thing I like reviewing. (FdW)
Address: http://iosound.ca
Address: http://www.norecords.net
COEN OSCAR POLACK & HERMAN WILKEN – FATHOMLESS (LP by Narrominded)
Somehow, it seems, I missed out upon ‘The Language Of Mountains’ by Coen Oscar Polack and Herman Wilken. The latter is a member of IDM duo Hydrus, and Polack is a man to bring you environmentally based sound scapes. If I am right both sides of this record are based on field recordings. On ‘Barents Sea’ they use sounds from up there, north of Norway and Russia where you find the Barents Sea (named after a Dutch sailor) and on ‘Sundarbans’ we move to India. This reflects the music. Both pieces are soundscapes, made with field recordings, processed versions thereof, but there are also differences. ‘Barents Sea’ is a deep and somewhat glacial piece of music in which a cold North pole wind is depicted. You could almost feel it. Deep isolationist music with a solid deep end bass and devoid of any melody. That’s hardly a surprise with this kind of music, I hear you say, but there is some on the other side. Here it contains the busy life of birds or insects, slightly processed and ornamented with a synthetic melodic line, before moving over into a different territory of what seems to me processed guitars, but which very well be may any type of Indian stringed instrument. This might not always be the most warmest either, but it has a warmer quality to it. Both sides are great and have a cinematographic quality to them. Either from long shots of the barren, snow covered lands of the North Pole to the busy city life of the sub Asian continent. Two different sides, one fine record. (FdW)
Address: http://www.narrominded.com
CZARNY LATAWIEC – MIKOPHONIC WORKSHOP, CHOPPED AND SCREWED (CDR by Mik Musik)
If I understand this correctly, we are dealing here with a sort of ‘let’s take a whole bunch of releases from one label, Mik Musik in this case, and re-edit, chop, cut, paste and collage several sounds out of all of these and do a whole new piece out of this, all with a nod to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but I expect this more to be part of the digital world than analogue know twiddling. Much of this stuff has been no doubt been reviewed here in these pages, but that doesn’t necessarily means I recognized each and everyone. There is a list of releases used, including music by Retro Sex Galaxy, Opopop, Urkuma, Pawel Pesel, Molr Drammaz, Freiband and 8rolek. I didn’t even recognize that one name I should know in here. I am not sure if this is all a work of reconfiguration or wether there has been more processing applied. Somehow I think it’s not that, although I don’t know why. I think it’s all a matter of having them play at the same time and see what happens. The thirty-four minutes of this release is quite nice. A steady stream of electronic sounds, bits of rhythm, ranging from somewhere something very quiet to something forcefully present, although never a bunch of noise. It’s made with some fine care and sounds really nice. This is a remix, and I surely like it. You never for whom this is! (FdW)
Address: http://www.mikmusik.org
NOT HALF – ANTIPHON (CDR by Dimetrodon Recordings)
Track 1 begins with a deep drone hum and builds with mixed amalgams of electronic noise overlaid in reverb, track 2 begins and continues with a similar structure, however the drone is replaced with a more ‘noisy’ source, the next track is a vocal of someone talking about the university of Manitoba and music therapy, from a radio interview? which develops by being overlaid with the same recording at differing speeds. This again proceeds along the same pattern as the first two tracks, the final track begins this time with clicks and glitches and spoken and processed speech, white noises… and follows much the same pattern, though this time the noise is never harsh or particularly dominant. Somewhere in the packaging was a note – though it probably isn’t related to this CD? As it states ‘there is nothing new on this CD’ – true, That it ‘is not a new genre’, also true, but that ‘it’s a modern me trying an old style, HNW. Yes, HNW. But not really harsh. And not too noisey’. Now will I be criticized for saying that strikes me as a little odd. Or to go further and say if its not harsh or noisy then it isn’t HNW. Maybe in the age of the ‘All day breakfast’ such a pedantic approach of any criticism of that kind would be wrong? But would the same people not make a fuss about horse meat in beef burgers, they probably might, or if vegetarian say not, unless the horse meat was in a tofu burger… so something new has arrived, a flexible ‘truth’. And its not that I don’t care for this truth or this music, or that the new isn’t new… its truly indicative, and so not HNW. And at the same time is, or does it matter? I think this review is like an all day breakfast. And we gaze with suspicion at the sausages! (jliat)
Address: <not_half@hotmail.com>
ALOGON – WOUND (CDR by Under Platform)
In a more melancholic mood I sometimes wonder about all the new names that arrive on this desk. There is, on a weekly, basis always something new to explore. There is always new people doing music, releasing CDRs and perhaps that what’s keeping this interesting. Here we have a CDR from Belgium, of a duo who call themselves Alogon, being one Tim Marsoul and Giel Bils, and that’s about the extend I know. No instruments are mentioned, but judging by the music I’d say this has to do with computers/laptops and obscure software doodles, perhaps written by themselves. I might be all wrong actually. There are eleven pieces here, ranging from thirty-one seconds to just over eleven minutes. Much of the music seems to be hovering at the lower depths of the sound spectrum with an occasional shriek in the high end. All of these pieces have titles, so we can’t confuse them for a single track being cut down in eleven. With the abrupt changes in the middle of some of these tracks, this is actually not a bad assumption. But wrong. At the core there might field recordings, which are heavily processed and treated in the ‘usual’ microsound way, with an occasional touch of noise, thrown in to create a fine counterbalance. The music is dark, but also remote, not very warm. That is, I think, part of the esthetic this duo wants to create. Post nuclear soundtrack music perhaps. Sometimes very minimal, with seemingly one sound in a track, albeit with some sound effects, and disturbingly quiet at times. Disturbingly nasty at very few other occasions, such as in ‘Ferns’ or ‘Dismall’. It’s where ambient and noise meet up, in favor of the more subdued moments actually, and as such ‘intelligent noise’. I quite enjoyed this new duo and wonder where we will find them next. (FdW)
Address: http://www.under-platform.com
ROBERT CRIPPA & CALEB WOOD – A STILL SEASON UNRAVELS (DVD+R by Hideous Replica)
This is a data DVD+R with a thirty seven minute/twenty-two second piece by Roberto Crippa on laptop and electronics – the musical department – and Caleb Wood on laptop, which I assume is the visual component. The music and visuals were performed at Flussi Festival in 2012 and this is a documentation. ‘Visuals were created in real time by running the audio content through a custom coded generative performance patch, built using the programming environment Processing’. The dense spider web pattern which unfolds on my screen changes only minimally and for the love of god, I couldn’t say how the music acted as its trigger. I guess it looks alright, certainly in combination with the visuals. A very minimal sound, very microsound, with lots of deep bass rumble, heavily processed sounds. Spacious, ambient and drone like, but I must admit I played this also without looking at the visuals and I thought it was all a bit less interesting. Then the music, certainly once you know all the low end rumble and high pitched glitches, becomes a bit too improvised and it seems to loose direction, or composition if you will. It becomes loosely played sounds and one can’t help thinking: shorter would have been better. It’s not bad at all, as a gesamtkunstwerk, but the separate elements I thought were less convincing. (FdW)
Address: http://hideousreplica.co.uk/
ORPHAX – LIVE VENLO, HOLLAND 11.01.13 (3″CDR, private)
No doubt there is interesting stuff to be heard on radio waves – informative I mean, rather than as a source of sound production – but with the amount of music gathered over the years, I can safely say I rather play a LP/CD/cassette then listening to radio. However Wil and Jeroen are two guys from the Majjem radio station in Venlo – a bit south of Nijmegen – whom I happen to know to promote ‘good’ music. And they have been doing that for 25 years, which called in for a little celebration with in-studio performances by such likes of Sietse van Erve’s Orphax. He now releases his piece on this 3″CDR in a rip-off Sonic Youth bootleg cover and informs us that he uses ‘audiomulch and a casio SA-10’ for this piece. The recent Orphax release, ‘De Tragedie Van Een Liedjesschrijver Zonder Woorden’ went down really well here, with it’s carefully constructed computer driven drones. In his live work Orphax is always a bit more on rough side, but in this piece – maybe due to the relaxed atmosphere of playing at a radio station – things are surprisingly mellow too. Once it’s past the more louder opening minutes, say after minute break seven, it moves slowly in a nice, deep end drone sound scape and towards the very end lands in a neat ambient field. It’s not really a surprising piece: Orphax does whatever he does and he does it well. The main surprise here seems to me the more mellow approach towards playing live. With a the vague idea of Orphax doing a tour in The Netherlands, it would be good to witness this myself. Refined stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.orphax.com
AYMERIC DE TAPOL – MERIDIENS (cassette by Tanuki Records)
A cassette of field recordings, by Aymeric de Tapol. The a-side us collected en route en Afrique, capturing street musicians, rituals and field recordings in Senegal and Mali. De Tapol used a dictaphone, back in 1999 and for help from Ludovic Grandseigne. On the other side we find ‘street musicians, gypsies wedding and Adhan over Istanbul’, captured in 2012 in Turkey. It’s thirty minutes per side and a truly fascinating audio journey, even when you have never visited any of these countries. Lots of road side, people chanting, people talking and various more obscured actions. A side line business from the 80s cassette world were audio tours and those seem to be lost these days, but this example proofs they are still made. I find it hard to comment on the practices or the music as, quite frankly, I have not much knowledge of the world of Anthropology. I do know I think this is a fine release, a fine documentation of two journeys in audio. (FdW)
Address: http://tanukirecords.bandcamp.com
CLADE – VIETNAMESE PIANO (cassette by Clade_Rec)
The ever so mysterious Clade returns home, from a trip, in 2012 already, to Vietnam. In Hanoi they (?) found themselves in Hanoi in a house with an upright piano and a few microphones were set up. No post-editing was used and ‘all treatments were applied in real time and no other sound sources were intentionally employed’. This release seems them moving from in an all together different field of music than before (see Vital Weekly 821 and 895). It’s still atmospheric, as that’s what Clade does, but it stays away from the guitars, effects and such like. The music is very sparse. We recognize a piano somewhere in the house, but it might be a few flight of stairs down from where the microphone is placed. Which is great. It sounds as if no electronics were used in this, but still manages to sounds like bunch of decaying cassette tapes in the best William Basinski tradition. Totally improvised, utterly vague – what exactly are we hearing – and some really nice sounds copied on these tapes. Excellent release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cladistic.org
KOSTIS KILYMIS – ARCTIC SATURATION (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
BEING – CRACKING WHIP OF A COSMIC STRING (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
Kilymis’ mini-bio details his process as “work with feedback systems and representation in musical contexts or otherwise,” which is sufficiently vague. But it speaks to the attention to detail that typifies his approach. His electr(on)ic machinations are subtle and meticulously programmed, but still adherent to the darkened textures Mazurka Editions specializes in. He establishes a consistent technique from the start: a damp pattern of low-end squabble is used to cradle various digital blips and burbles in the foreground, evoking the academic experiments of early electronic composers but saddling them with the lo-fi whimsy of three decades’ worth of noise-bros. It’s as though you’re in a room surrounded by huge wall-panels, each dotted with connector-cables, but then there’s some scrawny pale dude hunched over a contact mic on the floor. Ultimately, the title turns out to be a fitting descriptor – like many of Mazurka-curator Jarrod Skene’s selections, this tape is a cold and polarizing listen, though it’s also one of the label’s least overtly noisy affairs. Kilymis’ particles of sound are purely mechanical, and everything human has been stripped tidily away. If you live at an appropriate latitude, keep this one on hold until a snowy evening comes by.
Contrasting with Kilymis’ faceless contraptions, ‘Cracking Whip of a Cosmic String’ has the fingerprints of its human creator all over it. Luke Tandy, a true harsh noisester, brings us the most abrasive of Mazurka’s tapes thus far – and, meeting expectations for the veteran ear-abuser, it’s a hardy gust of pedal-abuse that never takes a moment of pause. The title comes from a physicist’s hypothetical description of an anomalous burst of radio waves from outer space, and presumably Tandy’s attempting to emulate the sound of that cosmic whip with his array of junk-noise generators. “1 Millisecond” treats you to fretful blocks of hulking contact-mic buffoonery, a delightfully fitful dose of the harsh noise ritual. “3 Billion Light Years” lifts the frequency a tad, introducing a more train-falling-off-the-tracks aesthetic to the proceedings. It captures him playing with jubilant abandon, smiling warmly as he reduces his audience to an organic pulp. Two sides of Mazurka at its meanest. (MT)
Address: http://mazurkaeditions.blogspot.com