IF, BWANA – THIRTY (3CD by Pogus) *
JARL – CASE 1959 – DYATLOV (2CD by Reverse Alignment) *
CONTROLLED BLEEDING & SPARKLE IN GREY – PERVERSIONS OF THE AGING SAVANT (CD by Old Bicycle Records and Off Records)
DEAD NEANDERTHALS – ENDLESS VOIDS (2CD by Alone Records) *
CHIHEI HATAKEYAMA & FEDERICO DURAND – MAGICAL IMAGINARY CHILD (CD by White Paddy Mountain) *
NEW MONUMENTS – LONG PIG (CD by Bocian Records) *
SLEAZE ART – INFRA (CD by Bocian Records) *
JESTERN – LE RETOUR DES OISEAUX (LP by Bowindo Records)
ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO – ASPIS (7″ lathe cut by Geräuschmanufaktur)
THE DEAD MAURIACS – UN CABINET DE CURIOSITES (cassette by Geräuschmanufaktur)
VOMIR & YOSHIHIRO KIKUCHI – COLLABORATION (cassette by Geraeuschmanufaktur)
HAMITIC MYTH – MERCILESS LOGIC (cassette by Under Platform)
CAALDRUUN – EXTRACTION (cassette by Fox Den)
NICK FORTE – OVERDOES IT (cassette by Obsolete Units)
ANLA COURTIS – EL RASPIARERO (cassette by Obsolete Units)
OSKAR MOBERG – GRA MATERIA (cassette by Lamour)
SYNTH BARD – GOLD BOX RENDITIONS (cassette by Ephem Aural)
IF, BWANA – THIRTY (3CD by Pogus)
Al Margolis, the man behind If, Bwana is these days involved with not just his own music and Pogus, his own label, but also works for Pauline Oliveros and Phill Niblock on the release schedules of their music, and it may seem that much of what he does is part and parcel of the world of modern classical music, but then we might forget his roots are in the world of independently released cassettes. That started thirty years ago, in 1984, hence the title of this release, which was originally released in 2014, as a triple CDR. Now it’s re-issued as three CDs with a print out cover that reminded me of the early days of cassettes. Not quite lavish, but it exactly fits this. Music wise If, Bwana went from the early musique concrete/reel-to-reel manipulations to something that is both in the world of drone music and something more modern classical. And sometimes these things overlap each other. Through his connections Margolis knows lots of instrumentalists, which he records when on the road. I am not sure to what extent he hands them instructions of any kind, and what happens on the spot and what is the treatment later on. In some of these pieces it’s clear that Margolis takes the principles of Phill Niblock, and layers blocks of instrumental sound, usually from one instrument, and places them together so that a large piece of drone music unfolds. The longest piece on this release is ‘Organ Life(less) and is probably using organ sounds (it’s one of the few pieces that actually doesn’t mention any instrument) and is the finest example of such drone treatment. In others he uses the bassoon a lot (no less than three pieces). All of these pieces, and they seem to be in majority here, make up some excellent music. I am less enamoured by the more traditional modern classical pieces, such as ‘Secular Totems’, ‘James (Leuven) Piece’ and ‘Lisa Fluteless’. No doubt there is some sort of treatment in these pieces too, but less drone-minded, chaotic, hectic (at times). However the pure voice drones of ‘Roe Girls 2’ was something I enjoyed very much. It made that the majority of the pieces were well received by me, and some pieces to a lesser extent, which is a great score for close to 200 minutes of music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pogus.com
JARL – CASE 1959 – DYATLOV (2CD by Reverse Alignment)
Behind Jarl is Erik Jarl from Sweden and he works since 1999 in the field of music. He has made a bunch of solo records (see for instance Vital Weekly 959 for his album with Envenomist and 860 for a solo record) and he is a member of IRM. His latest work is ‘Case 1959 – Dyatlov’, which is inspired by the ‘Dyatlov Pass Incident, which took place in northern Ural Mountains in Russia during winter 1959. It resulted in the deaths of nine ski-hikers and until today, although some sources claim they have the solution, the cause of the events remains an unsolved mystery’. That’s all Jarl mentions on the cover, but I’d say, look this up on wikipedia as it’s surely an interesting mystery, which leaves much room for speculation and conspiracy thinking. The pieces here are among Jarl longest pieces and in all of these plays the synthesizer the biggest role along with lots and lots of sound effects. It buzzes, rings, sings and oscillates: the music of Jarl is quite minimal and sometimes seems to go on for quite some time, but if you listen closely you hear on a micro level changes in the sound. There is long form, sustaining sounds, but also the rattling of percussion, such as in ‘Aftermath’, which fills up the entire second disc, lasting little over an hour. Jarl’s music, as before, is an excellent mixture of analogue machines and effects, creating something that are equal parts of ambient, industrial and drone, never needing to make up his mind what it is exactly. You cannot really chill out, but at the same time it’s also not some over the top noise that sets out to destroying your hearing. A heavy set of two discs, not easy to digest all at once, but surely an excellent work. Mysterious music for unsolved mysteries. (FdW)
Address: <jarlatem@hotmail.com>
CONTROLLED BLEEDING & SPARKLE IN GREY – PERVERSIONS OF THE AGING SAVANT (CD by Old Bicycle Records and Off Records)
A split CD by musicians from Italy and the USA released by two labels from Italy and Belgium, nothing can go wrong to get a nice combination of several musical worlds. Controlled Bleeding is active since the eighties and eclectic way of making music and discovering and playing lots of musical styles is their mission. The Italian band Sparkle in Grey combines several styles in their compositions. The friendship between Matteo Uggeri, member of Sparkle in Grey and Paul Lemos, founder of Controlled Bleeding leads to this interesting split album. Controlled Bleeding starts the album with six tracks and leads the listener to several musical worlds, from post-rock to improvised music, from industrial noise to ambient jazzy music. Although the styles are completely different, it is no problem to jump from quiet guitar melodies to harsh noisy experiments with guitar with a lot of harsh noise at the background. Sparkle in Grey combines classical chamber music, with post-rock elements, folk and electro acoustic music. The atmosphere is quiet and closed and slowly the music develops into more open fields with more rhythms and complex patterns. The music changes into more noisy and abstract sounds and their part of the split ends with an electronic based beat completed with reverbed guitar and a repeating piano melody, which leads to a drony abstractions. The album ends with two bonus tracks in which Sparkle in Grey combines free jazz elements with ambient drones. The album ends with an excerpt of a live recording of Controlled Bleeding in Brooklyn. A nice mix of ambient elements as well and an old school guitar solo. This split CD is a pearl in which the concept of several musical worlds melting together comes through. (JKH)
Address: http://oldbicyclerecords.blogspot.com
DEAD NEANDERTHALS – ENDLESS VOIDS (2CD by Alone Records)
Although it says Dead Neanderthals on the cover, it’s actually a meeting of many great musicians. The Nijmegen duo of Rene Aquarius (drums, percussion) and Otto Kokke (saxophone), responsible the ‘new wave of Dutch heavy jazz’ (attach a name to it, and you get noticed!) have been playing around with other people for some time and on the night of 21 September 2014 they met in Theaters Tilburg as part of the Incubate festival friends as Thomas Ekelund (of Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words and Trepaneringsritualen, voice, electronics), Peter Johan Nyland (of Distel, string percussion), Dirk Serries (of Vidna Obmana, Fears Falls Burning, guitar), Steven Vinkenoog (of Donne & Desiree, guitar), Colin Webster (saxophone, clarinet) and last but not least Rutger Zuydervelt (of Machinefabriek, electronics). A stage full of personnel and their gear and together they played a piece of music that lasted just over eighty minutes. If one knows the music by any of these people (for me is Webster the one I didn’t hear much of, but of the rest surely a lot of music), it’s a good sport trying to find out who does what here. I think it starts rather safe with Zuydervelt starting out, waiting for others to start up, but then slowly guitars and wind instruments start to mingle, and Ekelund, Nyland and Zuydervelt add clusters of electric and electronic drones to this. The piece moves clearly through a bunch of segments here, and the time passes, especially on the second disc (although it’s also available on vinyl, so I have no idea how these pieces are separated) the segments get longer and more coherent. There is a long bit here in which everybody plays along and it results in a fiery, massive block of sound, everybody playing on top of their power, resulting in an excellent vibrant drone piece. It is quite a sit through, this power piece, and throughout it’s all quite dark and sombre; you’d better listen to this at night, in a dark room with the volume all up and fully immerse yourself with this music. It’s generous that they used the whole concert, but just well they could opted to use just the fine bits and weed out some of the weaker bits, such as the too careful, searching opening part. But otherwise: an excellent work by this big band! Not really heavy jazz, nor new wave, but an excellent of all things dark and most things drone. (FdW)
Address: http://www.the-stone-circle.com/store/
CHIHEI HATAKEYAMA & FEDERICO DURAND – MAGICAL IMAGINARY CHILD (CD by White Paddy Mountain)
Big in Japan (no, not the song, nor the group) is Federico Durand, from Buenos Aires, who has released his music on Home Normal and Spekk and who records music with Tomoyoshi Date (from Opitope) as Melodia. Here he works with another Japanese musician, Chihei Hatakeyama, who is very active these releasing his own music and from others on his White Paddy Mountain. When Duran was on tour in Japan he visited Hatakeyama’s house and together they recorded the four pieces on this album. Durand uses cassette tape and Hatakeyama plays electric guitar. Fans of either of these know what to expect and won’t be disappointed. These four pieces flow as gentle as one would think good ambient flows, and the electric guitar and cassette tape(s) are certainly spiced with a lot effects, from maybe boxes on the floor played by stamping on them or perhaps through digital means on the computer. We don’t know, and quite frankly: I don’t care either. The music is great and comes without any changes to previous works we know from them. I know: one could say that music should develop over the course of time, and perhaps both these composers will eventually something else, and one could also argue that musicians like Durand and Hatakeyama release too much music, that there is certain lack of quality control. Just as well one could say musicians like Durand and Hatakeyama found their niche in playing beautiful, harmless, sustaining ambient music. On this particular nice summer’s day, I go for the latter. Sit back, lie down, pick a book and enjoy the flow of the music. (FdW)
Address: http://whitepaddymountain.tumblr.com
NEW MONUMENTS – LONG PIG (CD by Bocian Records)
SLEAZE ART – INFRA (CD by Bocian Records)
Two new works here of radical music on the Bocian label. One of these is a composed work, the other is purely improvised. I started with the latter. New Monuments is a trio of C. Spencer Yeh on violin and electronics, Ben Hall on trap set (looking at the cover I believe this to be drums) and Don Dietrich on saxophone and electronics. Hall is for me the unknown factor here and Yeh and Dietrich earned their wings in the world of improvisation, the latter through his alliance with Borbetomagus – for me the best group ever when it comes to noise and saxophones. The recordings here where made at Studio L in New York on May 8th 2012 and it’s what you expect this to be. If your expectations would have been some mild jazzy improvisation record, then you clearly don’t know the history of these men (although, thinking about it: it would be nice for a radical change of tune one day). This is very much along the lines of Borbetomagus, except it’s not two saxophones and a guitar, but drums, violin, saxophones and electronics. I expect a lot of electronics actually. It’s screaming with noise and distortion, especially on the violin and saxophone side, with the drum kit being splattered around like animal from the Muppet show. It’s forceful, it’s loud, and it’s wild even while it has a moment of quietness here and there. It’s not one blast from beginning to end, but rather well defined pieces with a beginning and an end. It sometimes even rocks, like good free rock should be when Hall plays more consecutive rhythms. Much mayhem, much excitement. Not something you haven’t heard before, but it sounds great.
Sleaze Art is a quartet of bass players: Eryck Abecassis, Frederick Galiay, Jb Hanak and Kasper T. Toeplitz, the latter also being listed as the composer of the piece. His compositions are usually, as far as I know, along the graphical side of things, and rather giving instructions than specific notes to play. Toeplitz is a man with a background in modern classical music but with penchant for all things quite loud. Loud and bass-heavy of course, as the bass is his primary instrument. Whereas the New Monuments is noisy and loud, the Sleaze Art release is causing serious damage to my speakers, because of the bassiness of the music (and I have to seriously consider my relationship with neighbours all around here: the bass sound is more penetrating that the high end sound to surrounding areas; good to know if one of them has a loud party which I would want to end). At seventy minutes this is also quite a long work and not one that one easily digests. Heavy bass drones, loud bass noise, sounding almost like the sound of plane engine from time to time, the work takes quite some time to develop. Perhaps a bit too much time I would think. Here and there, especially in the first half, there are moments where Toeplitz could have asked his mates to keep things a bit tighter. The massive impact of the sound gets a bit lost in here, I think. A blast works better when the impact is short and heavy; otherwise your interest might wane. But in all fairness I hasten to add that I may have turned the volume down a bit, for reasons explained, and maybe there is more in here that I haven’t found out about. I am not sure which place that should be, but no doubt seeing and hearing this in concert would be the right place. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bocianrecords.com
JESTERN – LE RETOUR DES OISEAUX (LP by Bowindo Records)
For this I was also offered the multi-track version – quadraphonic to be precise (there is actually also a 5.1 version). But as I have no options to play a quadrophonic version, I opted for the more traditional stereo version, released on LP. JesterN, also known as Alberto Novello worked on this piece in Den Haag, The Netherlands, at the famous (I should hope) Institute For Sonology, and partly paid for by Dutch institutions. The record is inspired and dedicated to Oliver Messiaen, French composer and bird lover, hence the title. Novello recorded this record with Flavio Zanuttini, who gets credit for composition also and plays the flugelhorn. Novello himself gets credit for composition as well as handling the real-time electronic sound manipulation. The music we can see as a mixture between improvised parts on the flugelhorn and electronic manipulations there of, making this is a very refined work of electro-acoustic music. Most of the times the flugelhorn just disappears and electronic sounds take over; on side B there is even a bit in which JesterN goes all rhythmic and it almost sounds like he’s influenced by the likes of Autechre. I must admit I like those bits best actually, as the bits in which the flugelhorn plays the lead do not overtly blow me away. That sounded in a way too much like serious modern classical music to me, but also a bit naff. When electronics prevailed it worked best, and while the a-side is probably the more varied one of the two (including a few bird-like sounds), it’s the B-side I liked better. The crude, chopped techno version of musique concrete just worked better on this one for me, ending a strange collage of electronic drone sounds, that has a nasty feel to it, and makes the perfect coda for this. The other side also had its great moments, mind you, but then also a bit that a bit less than great. So it goes. Maybe seeing this performed live, in a multi-channel set-up works better to appreciate the whole thing, I thought. (FdW)
Address: http://bowindorecordings.net
ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO – ASPIS (7″ lathe cut by Geräuschmanufaktur)
THE DEAD MAURIACS – UN CABINET DE CURIOSITES (cassette by Geräuschmanufaktur)
VOMIR & YOSHIHIRO KIKUCHI – COLLABORATION (cassette by Geraeuschmanufaktur)
One could easily say that Geräuschmanufaktur is a noise label, with a love for the harsher end of things. They release mainly cassettes but here’s a lathe disc by Alfredo Costa Monteiro. Usually lathe cuts are hard plastic but this one is flexible, like a flexi disc but than of more substantial weight. It comes with six cards of visual poetry (three of each of the two poems) and this poetry thing is a side of Alfredo Costa Monteiro, which I didn’t hear before; obviously we know him from playing the accordion, solo and with others in an improvised music fashion, but him picking up the microphone and reciting poetry is new to me. These poems are in Portuguese, French, Spanish and sometimes English. It’s noisy sound poetry with Monteiro’s voice half speaking, half whispering (think Etant Donnes circa ‘Blue’), layered and cut along with some white noise blasts, which in turn reminded me of Henri Chopin. While both pieces, ‘Ecotone’ (from 2009) and ‘Biotope’ (2013) sound quite similar – the latter more layered, the previous more noise based – they both act as ‘songs’. While I am not too sure if I would like to hear a whole album of this, I must say that these are great pieces of poetry, even when I am totally clueless what these pieces are about, but I do know they sound great. A rather excellent surprise from someone I held in much respect already, and this beauty gains even more respect for him. Fifty copies only, so I’d say: don’t wait too long.
The Dead Mauriacs have been regular guests for Geräuschmanufaktur, and now the band’s line-up is reduced to the core member Olivier Prieur (field recordings, piano, indian banjo, walkman, paper didgeridoo, computer and 78rpm records), while the second member is Jan Warnke, who is also the label boss here, playing field recordings, synthesizer, drones, noise and tape machines. Recordings were made in both Le Havre and Osnabruck, so perhaps this a collaborative effort using the exchange of sound files through the Internet. It is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s secret passion for natural sciences and it’s one long piece of music, thirty-four minutes in total (well, I learned that bit from the bandcamp page of the label; I couldn’t tell from the actual tape). Over the years I liked the music of The Dead Mauriacs more and more, and this one is quite a beauty as well. More and more they belong to the school of Nurse With Wound (and perhaps also Andrew Liles, even when I didn’t keep up with the entire output of both and of course Liles and NWW are tangled together), with an excellent combination of sounds, put together in a clever collage form. A bit of drumming, a bit of humming the voices, bits lifted from old records, some reverb to enhance the spooky atmosphere and drones being never far away. Acoustic sounds play an important role in this music and it adds to the excellent quality of the music. Somewhere between a radiophonic drama (sans words actually), ambient and musique concrete, it moves easily from one to other, without interrupting the flow of the music; distinctly there are various segments/portions/parts to be detected in here, but it’s whole that makes perfect sense. Perhaps their best release so far.
Back in the 60s when Dylan famously performed electric folk and was dubbed ‘Judas’ for such an act some might think Vomir with Beats is a likewise betrayal of something pure and perfect, no less than Jesus as The Messiah. However the argument over folk is of little interest to me, save the passing remark that at one point songs about dying coal miners from Newcastle on Tyne could only properly – it was reported- be sung by dying coal miners from Newcastle on Tyne, is an eventually self defeating and extinction bound ideology. Noise, harsh noise and harsh noise wall: not only does it rotate in a vortex around total meaningless oblivion, it has to avoid entering the centre of this singularity if it is not to disappear altogether – unless as some might say it had already done so! And with chaos there must be somewhere some order, but the order of formal music would be never be accidental enough unless produced by some fluke in a few trillion years time. Reality – even without humans – has beats. Stockhausen famously honed in on this in his seven days (Aus den sieben Tagen). Abstractness can have rhythm, many maybe have forgotten the patterns of such mathematics as the Mandelbrot set. The anti correlationist argument against certain musics – such as ‘I want to hold your hand’ is just that, its about something, and something very specific, the human response to existence. And there is nothing wrong with that. But Abstract art and for example Vomir, even in collaboration with Yoshihiro Kikuchi can entertain no such correlation such as they do here. Not particularly to ‘entertain us’ but to create, explore – expose. sound qua sound. And this pulsating “music” – (listen yourself https://geraeuschmanufaktur.bandcamp.com/album/collaboration) – two cassette works a tad each under 20 minutes – like much other noise ‘music’ can be at times undetectable in its lack of signification from that of non signifieds found in the “Great Outdoors”, in this case broken machinery or better Pulsars, which once were designated by the initials LGM and a number- LGM = Little Green Men – were (sadly for some) not signals from some intelligence but the rotation of a stellar object which is not ‘communicating’ in anything like an intelligent way – there are no (in this case at least) LGMs who want to hold our hand. And if you want to dance and shake to ‘Collaboration by Vomir & Yoshihiro Kikuchi’ its fine by me – or you might try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0P6x_xDEU etc. (FdW) (Jliat)
Address: http://geraeuschmanufaktur.bandcamp.com
CEMENTIMENTAL – NO CURRENT PREDICTIONS (cassette by Seagrave)
Tim Drage AKA Cementimental makes noise from various devices including circuit bending and spaghetti which can be seen here – http://www.cementimental.com/ – surreal eclectic objects which make the sort of noise you could imagine coming from such stuff. Mostly electronic music toys found objects such as broken guitars and other sonic rubbish. This makes description even more difficult, and pointless as you can go to the link and listen for yourself. On this cassette release of 9 pieces ranging in time from about 2 to 12 minutes – some with delicate pre or post ambles.. and wonderfully evocative names such as ‘Those Two Words Swaps and the Rabbit is Gone’, ‘q-azsssnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn’ and ‘I Lick the Blood of the Monster Floor’ the scene should already be set. If you haven’t heard of circuit bending, or have and are interested then it would be worth the effort to do so. If all this is strange to you I can honseltly say that Cementimental is probably the greatest noise act in the UK today – save perhaps those idiots from Burslem. Though Tim’s products are well recorded and polished pieces, turds being not amenable to such treatment. So from the delights of Harsh Noise, Wall, space feedback, music hall knockabout barking mad nonsense, computer high scores- r2-d2 monologues and masterpieces of sonic landscapes. you cant go far wrong by purchasing such a product. The sales might pay for a hair cut, though maybe Tim is the Samson of English Noise.. So now I need to pad out this review with some more nonsense. Cementimental is – if you like – or not – a Derridaian bricolage in which sonorous nomadic lines of flight move at infinite speeds across planes of consistency. actualizing virtualities in non repetitious Nietzschean multiplicities. Obviously rhizomic rather than arboreal reterritorializations of sound, noological events but not in the sense of Badiou, more materialist than even that old Maoist sod. Definitely planes of immanence, a semiotics of the socius and of the mapping of abstract machines, stratified yet strangely smooth, not in anyway the striated sounds of Mr. Turd, the other great colossus of English noise art. (jliat)
Address http://seagrave.bandcamp.com/album/no-current-predictionshttp://www.cementimental.com
HAMITIC MYTH – MERCILESS LOGIC (cassette by Under Platform)
This is the second release I hear from Hamitic Myth, the duo of Pol Vanlaer and Giel Bils, following their rather short ‘Divided History’ (see Vital Weekly 927). This time round the release is a bit longer, thirty minutes, but with five pieces, unlike four in the previous sixteen minutes. Like before the group plays some fine electronic music with a bunch of minimalist beats and some melancholic dark synthesizer playing likewise dark melodies. It’s not really music for dance floors, too slow I would think, but in the circles of dark wave I assume this could be quite big. I have no idea; I don’t think A&R is my job. I surely would think a label with guts and a keen interest in dark wave, should listen in on this and see if they can bring Hamitic Myth to a wider audience. The dark, moody synthesizers, the ambient patterns, the minimal steady ticking of the rhythm machine, it all works pretty well, and sadly this is on a cassette; I know, format is important and all that, but I should think it sounds way better on CD or vinyl and with an edition of only this twenty copies this might slip away quietly, which would be a pity. Just check the bandcamp in any case! (FdW)
Address: http://www.under-label.be
CAALDRUUN – EXTRACTION (cassette by Fox Den)
Eric Faustus Kessel, who goes by the name of Caaldruun, and whose music we reviewed before (see Vital Weekly 818 and 870) releases this work, which was already recorded in 2014. In total this is his fifth release. He writes me that he uses field recordings, wired Piezo box, oscillators, static disruption and theremins. His music is to be found in that curious meeting point that says on one hand ‘ambient’ and on the other it says ‘industrial’. On this particular release however it seems that he finds more interest in producing industrial music that leans towards noise than ambient, but it always noise that is interesting to hear. Caaldruun knows what he is doing with his sounds and machines. He extracts (to word play on the title) some fierce sounds from these and put them in some violent textures, especially in a piece like ‘Black Urchin’. It’s noise that I like, even when the aforementioned piece is a bit long. More and more Caaldruun works towards something that tends towards harsh noise, and I am not entirely convinced he should takes matters all that way. Keep the balance more between ambient and industrial; in that respect this new release might not be the well-balanced affair, so the next one a bit more towards ambient then? (FdW)
Address: http://www.tothefoxden.com
NICK FORTE – OVERDOES IT (cassette by Obsolete Units)
ANLA COURTIS – EL RASPIARERO (cassette by Obsolete Units)
I am not sure if I heard of Nick Forté before, but according to Obsolete Units he is a mainstay for them. He was part of Hells Hills, a drone/noise ensemble, and of hardcore group Rorschach and is these days a member of black metal/punk group Raspberry Hills. He recently also released a solo LP called ‘Primordial Forms’, which I didn’t hear. The subtitle of this cassette is ‘Tape Experiments 2009-2014’ and Obsolete Units refer to Pierre Henry, Steve Stapleton and Christina Kubisch; couldn’t really relate to the latter, but I can see where the others fit in. When I played this tape for the second time, I was looking at the cover and only then noticed there are actually separate pieces on this cassette. I wrongly assumed each side was one piece. So it is a bit hard to distinguish between one piece and other. Much of this seems to involve a reel-to-reel machine, a pair of scissors to cut tape (demagnetized of course, as I learned many years ago from a master in this area), and as for sound sources it’s a bit harder to guess. Voices surely, maybe field recordings, a synthesizer and/or guitar. Not every moment is particularly strong, I must admit, as Forté seems sometimes a lo-fi version of Henry and Stapleton. What makes their music strong is what Forté lacks and that is a refined sense of dynamics. Everything seems to be in one place rather than moving around in the sound spectrum. Maybe the medium lacks the depth and does it sound digitally much better? On the other hand, Forté plays nicely with sounds he captured, slowing them down, altering them, looping them, and speeding them up. There is great potential in these pieces, which may not always come out enough, but it’s without doubt there.
Of course you remember Courtis as the man behind outsider rock band Reynols from Argentina, but that has been a long time ago. Since long he travels the world as a solo artist, playing his guitar and effects, along with sounds on cassettes, captured along on the road. Or you see him playing improvised music with others. On this new cassette he plays solo and surely there is guitar, effects and who knows what else. That might include also tape-recorders as there is slowed down aspect to the music, the rough quality of magnetic tape shines through the two sidelong pieces of music. In much of his solo work, Courtis plays with the notion of long form pieces that always seems to have a psychedelic element. Lots and lots of sound is placed next to each other, and then in the mix elements are brought up or down in an ever changing degree of variations. That’s what he does here as well, and along with graininess in the recording, there is much to enjoy. Unlike Forté the dynamic level of Courtis’ music is quite fine: it moves along from the low to the high end and though these pieces are quite minimal, it moves around a lot and never stays too much in place. Solid music, as we would expect from Courtis in his solo music. Excellent tape. (FdW)
Address: http://www.obsoleteunits.com
OSKAR MOBERG – GRA MATERIA (cassette by Lamour)
On the ‘a’ of ‘Gra’ there should be a small circle – those funny swedes with their language. I can tell you the title means ‘Grey Matter’, and it is a work by one Oskar Moberg. He lives in Gävle, Sweden, and is involved in alternative rock bands as well as noise bands, and sometimes works as Ultra El!, playing rhythmic electronic soundscapes. Here on ‘Gra Materia’ however he does something entirely different: armed with two tape recorders ‘mounted with handmade tape loops, cut and tapes together with old leftover/forgotten. Unused tapes from the self-recorded archive and a few random found sounds from used tapes. The result is a warm, pulsating, vibrant and static slab of sound, in constant repetition and transformation at once’. I normally won’t quote such lines as the last, but I did, mainly to express that I hear something else. The music is not really warm and vibrant, and yes, perhaps a bit pulsating. It sounds like skipping vinyl, or loops of unidentified voices and sounds, which give all of this a slightly industrial feel to it. Loops fade in and fade out all time, and never stay long in the same place. It all happens in quite a slow pace, so that one could call this ambient, but it’s not really, in my humble opinion. It’s a bunch of loops of mild, distorted sounds, mixed together. It’s one idea that goes on for the entire tape, even when the cover indicates I heard five separate pieces. It’s not bad I guess, but I am not sure if I would easily play this again. (FdW)
Address: http://www.lamour.se
SYNTH BARD – GOLD BOX RENDITIONS (cassette by Ephem Aural)
The cover is pleasantly confusing: a mash-up of covers, taken from ‘Dungeons & Dragons’, but as shown, but with new words inserted, mixed with old images. So superficially it may look like an official product but it isn’t. According to the cover there are nine songs, all by Synth Bard, but lists for most tracks different writers. I learned that these pieces are themes from ‘Gold Box’, “name for a series of role-playing video games produced by SSI”, and that Synth Bard plays these themes on old analogue synthesizers – hence the reworked official cover for this. I am known, at least privately, to stay away from computer games as far as possible, so I have no idea if these analogue synthesizer renditions are any good: I don’t know the originals. Maybe there is something out there I could learn, but perhaps I am just a bit lazy as well? Or maybe I was enjoying this synth doodling so much that I didn’t need the original anyway. There is a great lo-fi quality about this music, which sounded great. Armed with a Korg MS-20, Waldorf rocket, DSI mopho, a bag of guitar pedals and 1 gallon of ale, Synth Bard plays these tunes with a lot of humour (I should think), sadness and style. Think BBC radiophonic workshop, think science fiction movies, think all of that but then like a puppet theatre or a naive cartoon: this would be then the perfect soundtrack for that. Highly enjoyable pop tones. This is the sort of stuff I would expect on Static Caravan and the cassette is the perfect medium for this analogue message. (FdW)
Address: http://www.ephem-aural.com/MainpageFS.html