KEITH ROWE & ILIA BELORUKOV & KURT LIEDWART – TRI (CD by Intonema) *
LUNT – WATER BELONGS TO THE NIGHT (CD by Tremens Archives) *
DAVE PHILLIPS & ASPEC(T) – MEDUSA (CD by Noise Below) *
LEIMER & BARRECA – PREMAP (CD by Palace Of Light) *
AARON EINBOND & ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE – WITHOUT WORDS (CD by Carrier)
MASSIMO FALASCONE – VARIAZIONI MUMACS (CD by Public Eyesore)
TRIO VOPÁ – CHARTREUSE (CD by NurNichtNur) *
DONNA REGINA – Holding The Mirror For Sophia Loren (CD by Karaokekalk)
THOMAS TILLY – SCRIPT GEOMETRY (2LP + CDR by Aposiopese) *
THOMAS TILLY – LE CEBRON/STATICS AND SOWERS (LP by Aussenraum)
GREG DIXON – CEDAR FOREST (CDR by Kohlenstoff Records) *
ROADSIDE PICNIC & DEVELOPER – ROADSIDE PICNIC MEETS DEVELOPER (CDR by Lona Records)
ANLA COURTIS / ALOK (split CDR by Lona Records)
HOLYKINDOF – STAY/SEA (CDR by Eilean Records)
DE FORM – OUT OF EMPTINESS (3″CDR by Eta Label) *
SUDDENLY SEYMOUR – SKID ROW (cassette by Worthless Recordings)
PLAINS DRUID – SUPER REAL ISLANDS (cassette by Blue Tapes)
TASHI DORJI (cassette by Blue Tapes)
WIND ROSE – LAMENTATIONS (cassette by Amusements Banales)
:SUCH: – THE TRUTH ABOUT MIKHAIL BAKOUNINE (cassette by Staaltape)
KEITH ROWE & ILIA BELORUKOV & KURT LIEDWART – TRI (CD by Intonema)
Two very lengthy pieces of improvised music recorded on the same day, 27th of April 2013. A meeting of the old guard, Rowe on guitar and electronics, and the ‘new’ kids Ilia Belorukov (alto saxophone, contact mic, mini-amp, monotron, effect pedals, mini-speaker, ipod and objects) and Kurt Liedwart (ppooll, electronics, objects). The first and longest piece is with audience, the other one without. It’s interesting, I think, to see that the concert without audience is much silent and more spun out than the concert with audience, which is not only louder but also has three distinct positions when things seem to burst out. With respectively forty-two and thirty-one minutes I would not recommend to play these pieces in one go, as it requires quite some attention to fully grasp what is going on. Lots of small acoustic rumble, object on object, part of all three players I should think, before slipping into more sustained blocks of sound. A highly electro-acoustic sound – with emphasis on the ‘acoustic’ and reminding me of Morphogenesis, Noise Makers-Fifes or Kapotte Muziek and with well spaced silence and carefully constructed noise. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what is played on the spot and what is added through say the laptop or the Ipod. This is most certainly not easy going by any standard and that’s what makes this into some great music. It left me entirely tired! Refreshed but tired. I went out for a walk afterwards. (FdW)
Address: http://www.intonema.org
LUNT – WATER BELONGS TO THE NIGHT (CD by Tremens Archives)
It’s been a long, very long time since I last heard Lunt. Back in Vital Weekly 422 I reviewed ‘Broken Words And Lost Answers’, and in 480 it was the turn to ‘Fragments Of Free Volume 1’. That is indeed some time ago, and I have no idea what he has been up to in between, but these days he runs (also) a record label We Are Unique! Records and the “The Tremens Archives” are part of that. I am not entirely sure what this series is about, what makes it more unique than say release albums of electronic and improvised music. You will forgive me that I don’t have Lunt’s music engraved in my memory, but reading my own, old reviews, I would think he’s still on a similar path of guitar improvisations and computer treatments of those improvisations. Maybe it’s a bit more improvised now than I can remember from before, but there is still a fine atmospheric texture to these pieces, even in the distortion of ‘Golem Of Fire (A Tribute To Heraclite)’, by far the noisiest piece on this release. One could say Lunt explores a wider variety of approaches here, from the very ambient to the very noisy, from the sustaining to the more chaotic, chopped up style. That makes it perhaps less easier to pin down and maybe hardcore ambient/drone heads would tread carefully, but I think it’s quite a gain to expand on the notion of ambient and look for other possible treatments of the guitar in particular and the genre of drone/ambient music in general. Great release! (FdW)
Address: http://www.thetremensarchives.com
DAVE PHILLIPS & ASPEC(T) – MEDUSA (CD by Noise Below)
Ah noise. Noise of the variation that I like. It all started with an article about eating fish – www.monbiot.com/2007/04/03/feeding-frenzy/ – recommended to read first. At the foundation of this release is source material recorded by Italian noise improvisation duo Aspec(t) in April 2011 and the scissor approach of Dave Phillips when it comes to transforming this material. Now, an average noise artist would probably play this material through some distortion pedals, adding more noise and fuzz to it; Phillips on the other takes the material apart in an old fashioned tape manner: cutting it up, re-arranging it and maybe (just: maybe) adds some of his own material to it, by colouring it with sound effects. Phillips is a master at this technique I think. He cuts his material very short, adds silence (very important), so whatever short sounds we have, get room to breath. Sometimes he creates a loop, a repeated bang such as in ‘Hammerhead’, adds field recordings, a rudimentary synth here and there, and cuts it off, and switches on something entirely new. That makes these fifty minutes a great trip, a loud one too, as he records his sound loudly, with many swift changes. An excellent manifestation of musique concrete in its most crude and pure form. There is of course the political undercurrent – save the animals, become a vegan – that is also part of the work of Dave Phillips – but it’s not forced down your throat. The message is subtle and the music stands by itself. I am not sure if that is what Phillips would want, but to me it’s like that. Top noise release. (FdW)
Address: http://noise-below.org
LEIMER & BARRECA – PREMAP (CD by Palace Of Light)
In recent years we have seen a new interest (but perhaps it was never really away) in the music of K. Leimer and Marc Barreca (check out Vital Weekly 533, 573, 619, 737, 842 and 844) and here, oddly enough for people whom I would assume know each other for a long period of time, work together for the first time on a musical release. Credit goes to ‘digital synthesis, sampled instruments, electric guitar and bass, audio treatments and signal reprocessing’. It’s not easy to hear any instrument being played in this fine, delicate web of ambient sounds, but maybe there is a guitar or sampled instruments. Just the other day I was playing music by O Yuki Conjugate, and I had to check if this wasn’t something switched with that. It has that same ambient character, with maybe something that is vaguely rhythmic – more abstract actually than in O Yuki Conjugate’s case. I was thinking to write: what’s new for someone with career in ambient music for thirty (or more years)? The most notable shift, I’d say, is that from the analogue synthesizer to the more digital processing side of things. They don’t use anything noise like, but in all of these thirteen pieces everything stays on the safe side, and operates within a great, warm place. Ambient music, obviously, but with a bite. That was something that Leimer already worked with in his most recent music, but also something that is now going for Barreca. Apparently there is still a form of randomness in processing these sounds to whatever extent, random doesn’t equal chaos here. Today has been one of those early hot summer days and I spend most of my time sitting down, doing not much, thinking, drinking coffee and enjoying that mild breeze. And I played this release three times in a row. Partly because I was too lazy to get up and change the disc, but also because I really enjoyed the mellowness of the music, going easy, slow, minimal, but also with enough variation to keep my attention there and not wanting to change that. Microsound – is that a term people still use I wondered – at its very best. Mastered by Taylor Deupree – that should be an indication, I think. Excellent release all around.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.palaceoflights.com
AARON EINBOND & ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE – WITHOUT WORDS (CD by Carrier)
A double debut so to speak. ‘Without Words’ is the first full-length cd of New York-born composer Aaron Einbond, and also the first appearance of the Ensemble Dal Niente from Chicago. Born in 1978, Einbond studied at several universities, IRCAM in Paris being one of them. He is a composer and researcher in computer music. As an electronic music producer and improviser he has performed with numerous ensembles like the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. But let us turn now to his ambitious debut album. The opening work, ‘Without Words’ written for soprano, 11 instruments and electronics has the complete ensemble at work. The other compositions featured on this album are written for smaller line-ups. The title track plus ‘Post-Paleontoly’ and ‘Break’ make up the main compositions. Dropped in between we find mini-compositions called ‘Postcards’. I think Einbond uses close microphones. Throughout I felt very ‘close’ to the acoustic sounds. Einbond paints in a delicate and very detailed way. It seems to me he uses digital tools to strengthen the experience of acoustical sounds and music. And he does so very convincingly. He structures his compositions from many short movements and gestures that intertwine effectively into a dramatic whole that gave full space to the timbres and other acoustical sound aspects. Pure beauty! (DM)
Address: http://www.carrierrecords.com
MASSIMO FALASCONE – VARIAZIONI MUMACS (CD by Public Eyesore)
Falascone is a sax player, improviser, composer and sound artist from Milan, Italy. He is on the improvised music scene since the 80’s. He plays alto, baritone and sopranino saxophones, and live electronics. He played and worked with lots of other artists, so many that I wonder why I didn’t meet him earlier. For ‘Variazoni Mumacs’, concept and compositions are by the hand of Falascone. Most recordings date from 2011/2012, and have the involvement of numerous, mostly Italian musicians playing violin, cello, piano, double bass, electric and classical guitar, drums, percussion, sound sculptures, baritone sax. Bob Marsh who is also responsible for the lyrics and playing the violin and cello does most of the vocal work. All instrumental contributions are improvised. The work consists of 32 parts that keeps you 67 minutes from the street. Falascone developed his very own sound art. It sounds like a multidimensional collage built from free improvisation, sprechgesang, electroacoustic sculptures, etc. The idea for this project arose after listening to the ‘Goldberg Variations’ played by Glenn Gould. Falascone wrote to musicians to record a piece of music along the instructions that Falascone included. He combined this material with field recordings and earlier recorded music from his archive, plus the text, written and spoken by Marsh. He assembled this piece following his own procedures. Pieces differ in structure and instrumentation. In some instrumental improvisation dominates, in others pieces everything is centered on the voice of Marsh. We are guided along a series of varied sound collages, as such a satisfying experience showing that Falascone can create clear defined miniatures. It is however a very conceptual work that didn’t make a strong emotional appeal on me and stayed on a superficial level of my musical perception. (DM)
Address: http://www.publiceyesore.com
TRIO VOPÁ – CHARTREUSE (CD by NurNichtNur)
It’s been a long time since I reviewed ‘Fauxpas’ by Trio Vopá – Vital Weekly 542 – which was their debut CD. ‘Chartreuse’ is their second release and Trio Vopá is still a trio – duh – of Roland Spieth on trumpet, Cornelius Veit on guitar and Axel Haller on bass. All three of them have an extended background in the world of improvised music. Like on their debut, this album has fourteen pieces of music that are all relatively short (the whole album being forty-three minutes), which makes it possible to enjoy this as fourteen small pieces, or listen to this as long piece although I guess the latter is what usually happens. If you don’t pay attention to your CD player, then it would be hard to tell the difference between one track and the other, even when Trio Vopá plays around with the notion of dynamics. It can be loud – without being noise, or being distorted – it can be dense, it can be minimal, bordering on the drone like (such as in ‘Slow’), it can be highly fragmented; it all sits together nicely on this album. It is perhaps less sketch like than on some of the pieces on their debut CD and more worked out. The element of ‘regular improvisation’, which I thought to be on their debut, seems to be gone also. It seems that Trio Vopá has come together more as a group. Less jumping all over the place, but with a well-balanced variety. Very nice. Let’s hope the next one is closer around the corner. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nurnichtnur.com
DONNA REGINA – Holding The Mirror For Sophia Loren (CD by Karaokekalk)
Sometimes you listen to an album for the first time and you think ‘Wow, this is really great!’ So you listen to it again and you start thinking, ‘Hmmm, do I really think it’s that great?’ and by the time you play the album for the third time, you actually forget it’s on. That is what happened when I listened to Donna Regina’s twelfth (!) album Holding The Mirror For Sophia Loren. For the young Vital Weekly readers: Sophia Loren was a very famous Italian movie star a long time ago. If fact, so long ago the world needs a Wikipedia page for Sophia. You can read all about her at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Loren. Sophia Loren is the perfect name for a movie star and even though Donna Regina sounds like the name of a movie star as well, they are not yet quite as famous as Sophia. Still, the husband and wife team of Günther and Regina Janssen have been trying for over 20 years and no less than twelve albums! At least it works for their marriage it seems. Holding The Mirror is like a dictionary of professional blandness. Every song on this album sounds like it’s been digitally cleaned and polished over and over again. Somehow their professional approach is also their downfall as Holding The Mirror is one of those albums that has every bit of life sucked out of it. There is simply no adventure on this album. Surely, there is the suggestion of adventure as Holding The Mirror ticks all the right boxes of consumer-friendly adventure: slightly unusual sounds but still very radio friendly – check, some off-beat instrumentation – check, carefully constructed clever lyrics, throw in an arty one in French – inspired by ‘the names of colours on the scale of architect Le Corbusier’ no less – check, quote a movie star in the title – check. It’s all there, but it’s also all very safe, pre-constructed, obvious and… boring. Nowhere Donna Regina manages to break away from their mold and swing naked in the trees. At almost one hour (the CD version) Turning The Mirror becomes aural wallpaper after a couple of plays. This does not mean I did not enjoy listening to the album, it’s just that I felt the need to put on something really extreme on the player after listening to Donna Regina. File under consumer-friendly semi-adventurous bedroom pop, the not-so-new electronic Sade. (FK)
Address: http://www.karaokekalk.de
THOMAS TILLY – SCRIPT GEOMETRY (2LP + CDR by Aposiopese)
THOMAS TILLY – LE CEBRON/STATICS AND SOWERS (LP by Aussenraum)
You will have to believe me when I state that both these releases came in the same week. I usually don’t tend to investigate what’s coming and saves things up to lump ‘m into one review. One is ‘just’ a LP and the other one is quite a massive packaging from field recordist Thomas Tilly. A double LP and a CDR of the source material. For this work he went to the Nourages scientific research station in French Guiana, in the middle of the rain forest. For thirty days he recorded sounds with an emphasis on animal communications, some of these using ultra sonic translators. ‘No electronic treatment has been added to these recordings other than a low cut filter and a light EQ mix’ it says on the cover and we have to believe that, sometimes hard as it is. However some of the recordings are overlaying each other so a more dense pattern arises, and the chirping of insects that is already a bit electronically sounding are emphasized, such as in the opening piece, ‘At Night, Mass’. The pieces on this record shift back and forth between untreated – as ‘no mixing, no editing’ – and ‘composition, classic and ultrasonic recordings. Mixing and editing’, and especially those pieces, say ‘Crossroad, nodes’ have a highly electronic feel to them. A very minimal piece of electronic music, almost like a modular synthesizer piece, but maybe a bit less organised, following the more chaotic patterns of the nature sounds. I thought this was a great record. Very much originating in the world of field recordings, but then, the result, from an entirely different kind of planet. ‘Unidentified Insects Colony’ is almost like The Haters ripping paper and doesn’t sound like an unidentifiedd insects colony at all. A truly fascinating work of which the hour long CDR is a nice bonus. Maybe something for the die-hards I guess, but it makes the package all the more complete.
The other record contains two sidelong pieces. On side A we find ‘Le Cebron’, which is all about the crushing of ice and ‘apart from a slight equalization no electronic modification has been done’, which is again not easy to believe. However it says also ‘composed’, so no doubt Tilly has been layering various events together, which perhaps counts for the electronic sounding music. This is another great piece. Especially the way it opens with the breaking of ice on a number of different levels works really fine. Over the course of the piece it seems to be dying out and it disappears, just like ice disappears when summer is coming. It’s all a matter of having a pair of great microphones and the ability to choose the right location to make your recordings and selecting those to create a piece. Simple? I don’t think so. This is perhaps one of the best of Tilly’s works. On the side there is ‘Statics And Sowers (For Zbigniew Karkowski)’, and this is the first work, which actually uses something else than field recordings. Here it is the recordings beehives and electric circuits (mixing boards with feedback). I am not sure why, but among all these pieces, this seems to be the weakest. In most of his pieces Tilly works with a minimal amount of sound information to a maximum extent, but here the recordings of the beehives (which sound like beehives, unlike many other Tilly field recordings) don’t seem to be mixing very well with slightly deep drone like sound matter from those resonating mixing boards picked up with a trans inducer. It’s quite minimal too, but perhaps too ‘easy’ to make and the maximum output seems to be lacking. A lof of music from Tilly, with most of them being very good. (FdW)
Address: http://aposiopese.com
Address: http://www.aussenraumrecords.com
GREG DIXON – CEDAR FOREST (CDR by Kohlenstoff Records)
Another new name, this Greg Dixon from the USA. He’s a composer, instrumental music teacher, engineer, laptop musicians, guitarist, violinist and has worked on releases for such labels as Seamus, Irritable Hedgehog, New Adventures In Sound Art, Vox Novus, Pawlacz Perski, Flannelgraph Records and Winds Measure – and that last one is the only name I recognize. ‘Cedar Forest’ is his first full-length release on a label from Montreal. The five pieces here owe all strongly to the world of musique concrete, but there are some interesting differences to be spotted within these pieces. A piece like ‘You Station’ uses a whole bunch of field recordings, beneath an umbrella during a rain storm, a metal bowl filled with water, a wine glass and such like and the title piece field recordings and ‘human noise’ and both make up a fine piece of sustaining sounds, sparsely on the percussive side and all of that feeding through some granular system, it seems. Nice, classic and acousmatic music. On the far, other end of the spectrum, we find a piece like ‘Disconnect’ and ‘Diskonacht’, which is build out of very short trimmed sounds, corks popping and sneezing, people talking and other bits of found sound and causes general mayhem. This too is a form of classical musique concrete and while, no doubt, created using the computer, has a very analogue feel to it. Just a pair of scissors to cut the tape and glue the bits together. Somewhere in between we find ‘Fractures’ which uses the clarinet playing of Rachel Yoder and computer processing – music for instrument and electronics, in the lingo of modern composition and while this is no doubt a fine piece, I guess it’s just the kind of thing I don’t like. Apart from that last piece, I quite enjoyed the rest, even when it wasn’t long altogether. (FdW)
Address: http://kohlenstoffrecords.com
ROADSIDE PICNIC & DEVELOPER – ROADSIDE PICNIC MEETS DEVELOPER (CDR by Lona Records)
ANLA COURTIS / ALOK (split CDR by Lona Records)
We have two CDRs from the great Lona label here, and each one uses the umbrella of ‘noise’ to explore interesting textures and salient moods.
Justin Wiggan (Roadside Picnic) and Matthew Reis (Developer) pool their efforts on their collaborative CDR, turning in two intimidating half-hour-plus mounds of atmospheric noise. As might be expected from these two intensely prolific artists, it’s a professional affair, and their individual talents seem to merge effortlessly. The title of “Not Once Did You Look Me in the Eye” hints at someone having been wronged, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect an all-out noise assault from two gents of this pedigree. But instead the affair is ruminatively resentful, journeying through several intervals of sound but maintaining a dourness throughout. Highlights include a beginning section brimmed with industrial clamour, an interlude of twitchy static that collides with audio from a creek, and a dare-I-say pretty outro rendered in electronic bleeps. The second track hints at the absurd: “The Wolves Have Cleaned the Chandalier [sic].” It’s an unpredictable composition with a substantial helping of negative space, running through girders of noise, clipped electronics, and dreary field recordings. Compared to “Not Once,” it’s more of a challenge to parse this piece, which leaves the listener with an uncertainty about what’s on the doorstep.
For their split, Anla Courtis and Alok each contribute a piece of their own design, which is then remixed by his tapemate. Sound art legend and Reynols co-founder Courtis brings the terrifically tense source material for “Serial Space,” which converts electric hum, delay-coated grand piano, and all matter of ambient goop into what sounds like the score to a stranded-in-space sci-fi horror film. The whole thing is an impeccably engrossing work of art, but the finest segment approximates a roomful of digital knives sliding against one another. The track picks up steam near its end, bringing the haunted atmosphere to a calamitous climax before the bottom falls out and our protagonist is left alone, suspended until expiration in the vacuum of space. “Silver” comes from Alok (né Alok Leung), who runs Lona Records. He’s been involved in avant-sound since the early 00s, and here he matches the spook factor of “Serial Space” but opts for a much more minimal approach. This is a world of attenuated noise: sculptures built from the troughs of white noise and dosed with ample echo. The track isn’t as absorbing as its successor, but it does a fine job of evoking the standard dark ambient milieu: rubble, decaying warehouses, litter tumbleweeds. A solid split. (MT)
Address: http://www.lona-records.com/
HOLYKINDOF – STAY/SEA (CDR by Eilean Records)
Sometimes I think there is no end to new names and new labels, and of course that’s a great thing. Here we have one J Bryan Parks, who works as Holykindof, of whom I don’t know anything else. He has three pieces on ‘Stay/Sea’ and per track he lists what he uses, sound wise. Vinyl in all three, but also tape, cello, 1976 Yamaha DX-27, various effects pedals, tape decks & tape loops, sleepdrone 5, harp and such like. That’s an interesting bunch of sound producers and the result is like-wise interesting. The vinyl is used to scratch and loop sounds and comes across as, well, scracthed sounds. In ‘Ceremonial Magnet (part 1)’ this is still a bit chaotic, but in ‘Nocturne; in S major’ it’s quite an introspective loop. The electronic instruments provide a nice drone element to these pieces, which are in contrast with the chopped sounds from the vinyl. It may seem an odd marriage, but Holykindof know how to hold ones attention, even when that ‘Nocturne; in S major’ is a bit too long for what it is – a bit more variation would have been nice in these eighteen minutes. When it’s around the ten-twelve minute, this music works quite well. In ‘Requiem et cetera’ the cello plays a dominant role and everything else is reduced to a bit of crackles and plinks and plonks. Here the acoustic side of the music prevails. It’s an interesting different approach to the world of drone music. It has three different approaches, and each of them is again different from the other. Improvised, atmospheric, partly chaotic. An excellent release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eilean-records.com/
DE FORM – OUT OF EMPTINESS (3″CDR by Eta Label)
Behind De Form – not to be confused with Die Form from France – is one Piotr Michalowski and he says that ‘the foundation of this project is to create music in a short period of time, under strong influence. That’s why the form is less important here, the emotions contained in the music are the most important’. Now it’s never easy with instrumental music like this to check these emotions, if they are there and if so, which emotions that would be. The short amount of time didn’t mount too much music, only fourteen minutes. Maybe he was under too much influence? The other day I was listening to some old Harold Budd records and I can easily see a direct link of inspiration from Budd to De Form. A synth with some long form chords, with minimal changes and on top a desolate lone piano, playing a few notes every now and then. Or maybe a bit more percussive like in the second part, and the piano being treated a bit more. Mood music that can easily meet with the best. Its very nice, not very original: who cares about that? Maybe next time a bit more pieces, making it a real album of forty minutes? Now it’s a bit too short to have a full-on opinion about it. (FdW)
Address: http://www.etalabel.com
SUDDENLY SEYMOUR – SKID ROW (cassette by Worthless Recordings)
Under his Suddenly Seymour alterego, James Killick continues his theme of loading noise walls onto pop ephemera. You may remember when I profiled the latest release from his Love Katy project, in which he selects a different Katy Perry track for each album and subjects it to an hour of unwavering noise. Suddenly Seymour extends this approach to ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ this time affording a chipper version of “Skid Row” the same injustice, kicking off with a small bit of the cheerful source material before segueing into crumbly, large-particle noise exquisiteness. Then this tack is maintained unabated for the duration of the side. That set-up is repeated on side B, though the noise is brittler, and an innate randomness adds a tetchy, unpredictable flavour to the proceedings. There is a humour factor here, of course. It’s an absurdist gag if I’ve ever seem one – on each side, the same dinky song is played for a few minutes before being buried by a block of ridiculous white noise. And there is also a vague quasi-political element embedded in the muck. This is conveyed in the dystopian cover art, as well as the particular lyrics from “Skid Row” that have been selected as the tape’s two track titles (“The Powers that Have Always Been” and “Someone Give Me My Shot!”). Put together, it makes for a tidy HNW artifact with a conceptual spin. I’m eager to see what is next in store from the Killick chronicles, which have also brought us a few Carrie Underwood distortions under the simple guise ‘Carrie.’ I’ll recommend a few future targets: Pitbull, the working man’s pop star; Taylor Swift, who seems like an inevitable Killick victim; and the Greg Kihn Band. (MT)
Address: http://worthlessrecordings.blogspot.com
PLAINS DRUID – SUPER REAL ISLANDS (cassette by Blue Tapes)
TASHI DORJI (cassette by Blue Tapes)
Back in the day, a c90 cassette was long and anything over that was hardly touched upon. It was said that the tape was slightly thinner for c120 tapes and could break more easily. A while ago I had some problems playing a c100 tape, and, so I fear for this c125 tape – that is two hours and five minutes of music. Ten pieces (says the label) which are long and spacy. I never heard of Plains Druid, but he’s (she?) is the person to create on a modular synth set up this long space jams. If you go for it, go for it. Take up the maximum. There are a couple of loop things on Youtube that take 10 hours, if ever Plains Druid is up for it. But there is more than just modular synth doodling; there is also guitar (and looper pedals) occasionally. As a method of falling asleep this might be a good one. Not because it’s boring, but the development is not one that comes quickly, but in an awake state are also quite entertaining, or function well as a backdrop for whatever you are doing. In the space of these two hours I cleaned up a bit, did the dishes, read a bit, gazed out of the window, made a phone call and along this kept playing – come to think of it, a two hour walk with this only my headphones would have been the better option for these excellent weather conditions. Nice stuff for sure, whatever your plans are.
American guitarist Tashi Dorji is a new name for me and seems a bit out of place here on Blue Tapes, whose releases so far seemed to me a bit more electronical. Apparently he has a bunch of cassette and download releases, and apparently (again) this is his first release using an electric guitar. He plays this in an improvised manner, but it’s surely recognizable as a guitar, and not the body with a few strings making sounds. His playing reminded me of Bill Orcutt, but seemed a little bit less intense. Unlike say Manual Mota – reviewed last week – Dorji plays many notes, and leaves no room for much silence. But perhaps this is just another form of blues music, I was thinking (and considering I am hardly the expert on that subject either). It’s nothing really carefully played, but quite expressionist and without the addition of any sound effects a most pure and direct release. Straight in your face, but without being a very noise based release. Great release! Surely this is something worth checking out. (FdW)
Address: http://bluetapes.co.uk/
WIND ROSE – LAMENTATIONS (cassette by Amusements Banales)
Behind Wind Rose is one Gary James Joynes who plays here ‘minimoog, frostwave, analog delay, mixer’ and his sixty-minute has four pieces, each around fifteen minutes. It’s dedicated in loving memory to Dennis Joynes, so maybe we have to keep the title in mind, as this isn’t surely music that aims to please or entertain, I would think. Wind Rose presses down a few keys and changes the colour of the sound with the EQ and the analog delay. All of the keys pressed down are in the lower region. It’s too gritty to be called ambient, and not too noisy to be classified as real noise. It’s somewhere in between, the grey area of ambient industrial – literally grey area. I am not sure what to think. It’s indeed very minimal, too minimal I think, and it all doesn’t sound very engaging. It’s not bad, but very much a homework that I don’t think was in need to heard outside the home. But perhaps I am missing out on a bigger picture. (FdW)
Address: http://www.amusementsbanales.com
:SUCH: – THE TRUTH ABOUT MIKHAIL BAKOUNINE (cassette by Staaltape)
You could wonder if it’s really necessary to review a tape that is released in an edition of 12 copies; you run the risk of reviewing something nobody can buy. :Such: is from Paris and works with four cassette players and a mixer, and nothing much else. If I understand right, :Such: recorded sixty minutes of music and as Staaltape only 12 thirty minutes in stock, it was decided to have each a variety of tracks. So there is an overlap. Each tape is ‘the truth’ about someone connected to Paris, and funnily enough I have Mikhail Bakounine, whose work I read when I was teenager and calling myself an anarchist – I should read those books again. :Such: tries to capture the spirit of Paris, according to Staaltape, but I don’t know. Maybe I should visit Paris more. On his tapes :Such: storages field recordings – no doubt from the city of Paris – along with the skipping of vinyl and builds a very nice sound collage of this. It’s quite moody and atmospheric, and displays the sonic qualities of people living in cities, but at the same time is obscure enough. Maybe he slows his sounds down in some way (pitch cassette players perhaps), but the end result is quite fascinating. Highly electro-acoustic, highly atmospheric and beyond regular shaped sounds. May I offer a suggestion of getting the complete sixty minutes re-issued by a label that has more than twelve sixty minute tapes in stock? You can send me a copy again. I’d be more than interested to hear the whole album. (FdW)
Address: http://staaltape.wordpress.com/