 number 1005
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week 45 ---------------------
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DISTEL - ZAND (CD by Ant-Zen) * KLEISTWAHR - THE RETURN (CD by Fourth Dimension) * FRED LONBERG-HOLM & KEN VANDERMARK – RESISTANCE (CD by Bocian Records) LE POT – HERA (CD on Everest Records) HAUF/HEATHER/SIEWERT/WEBER - THE PEELED EYE (CD by Shameless) GERALDINE EGUILUZ & STEPHANIE DIAMANTAKIOU - PASO DOBLE (CD by Tourdebras) MURDER CORPORATION - NEKRO (CD by Menstrual Recordings) * MB - MECTPYO/BLUT (2CD by Menstrual Recordings) * MERZBOW - ECOBONDAGE (2LP + CD by Menstrual Recordings) * ADAM GOLEBIEWSKI - POOL NORTH (CD by Latarnia) * FRANK RIGGIO - PSYCHEXCESS II - FUTURISM (CD by Hymen) ORPHX - SONIC GROOVE RELEASES PT.2 (CD by Hymen) SYNAPSCAPE - RHYTHM AGE (CD by Ant-Zen) GJÖLL - THE BACKGROUND STATIC OF PERPETUAL DISCONTENT (CD by Ant-Zen) KOMMANDO - SKULL SNAKE (CD by Ant-Zen) SOL MORTUUS - EXTINCTION (CD by Zhelezobeton) * DMT - ULTIMATUM (CD by Zhelezobeton) * KSHATRIY - KSHATRIY AND MUSHROOMS (CDR by Zhelezobeton) * IDEA FIRE COMPANY - LOST AT SEA (LP by Recital) * PSST!… WANNA BUY A RECORD (LP, private) MICHAEL ESPOSITO & FRANS DE WAARD - PHANTOM PLASTIC (flexi by Korm Plastics) * LLARKS - VANGUARD GHOSTS/PRIEST (7" by Lathelight) * LLARKS - ATAVISTOV HEART (cassette by Kikimora Tapes) UNFOLLOW - ZERO LIKES (cassette by Kikimora Tapes) WINDBREAKER - HOSTAGE (cassette by Kikimora Tapes) DESTRUCTION DES ANIMAUX NUISIBLES #2 (CDR by Alteracion Records) UNSTABLE LANDS - ZERO (CDR by Care Not Care) * HAROLD SCHELLINX - STRING QUARTET WITH WINDOWS, OPEN (cassette by Transonic) DISTEL - ZAND (CD by Ant-Zen) Local heroes here, Distel… well, meaning Distel is a local band (as in local to our HQ) and maybe to some heroes (they are not yet on the same level as the other Nijmegen band whose name also starts out with the letter 'D'), certainly in areas where they love things dark and electronic. Distel's debut album 'Puur' is a classic downright (see Vital Weekly 883), which was released as a LP, CD and cassette and on three different labels by now, plus the LP also including a 7" at one point. Now they've signed to Ant-Zen, who release 'Zand' as a round- up of various loose ends, picking up assorted remixes, tributes and a couple of unreleased pieces. It is stuff that fits together very well. Distel employs a series of dark rhythms, dark synthesizers and unsettling moods to play something that perhaps strangely (or perversely) belongs to the world of pop music. The vocals are sometimes buried a bit in the mix, which make it sound cold, distant and remote, this is something that owes to the electronic pop of the 80s, but some of these synthesizer sounds are actually also from the world of techno/trance, as in 'Unfold'. Because a lot of these pieces are remixes, there are a variety of vocalists in these pieces and that adds to the diversity of the music. Perhaps sometimes one could think that the tick of the beat, the analogue synth process and reverb on the voice is a bit too much, but then there are all these voices adding a wider range to these pieces. The mastering is great here, with some mighty fine bass shaking from those speakers. This is an excellent album, forty- five minutes (so no doubt on LP one day) of bliss full angst loaded pop music, which nevertheless sounds highly captivating for a solo dance or two. Dim the lights and play Distel loud! (FdW) Address: http://www.ant-zen.com/ KLEISTWAHR - THE RETURN (CD by Fourth Dimension) When I reviewed 'This World Is Not My Home' by Kleistwahr in Vital Weekly 947 I already noted that the music Gary Mundy recorded as Kleistwahr was very much released before 1990, but that in 2009 he returned with a LP for Noiseville, and perhaps some of the success of 'This World Is Not My Home' made it possible that now the Noiseville LP is re-issued on CD, including two bonus pieces. Mundy's main project, ever since the early 80s, is of course Ramleh, whose history was already re-issued as 'Awake', a 8 CD set for Harbinger Sound, an excellent band in the field of power electronics (and still among the favourites here), but Mundy had various side projects in those busy 80s releasing cassettes on his own Broken Flag label (and like the previous CD, the cover is most fitting rework of the highly recognizable style of the label; more re-issues please!). Here we have another hour of solid noise music, with Mundy picking up the guitar and feeding it through many effects and maybe even synthesizers. Some time ago I wrote about people with guitars and doing noise, and how they all want to sound like Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music', and maybe Kleistwahr could be seen as one of those noise mongers too. But there is more than just another wall of noise being cemented here. Take the apparent random stab at an organ in 'The Loss', which is set against this wall of distortion. But it's exactly the addition of elements like that makes that the noise of Kleistwahr is so much more interesting than those current harsh noise wall types, who show no love for anything that is a bit softer, or don't care how to make the noise a bit more engaging, a tad more interesting and Kleistwahr just understands all too well how to do that. As such 'The Return' is both a return to the world of power electronics and looking up to a bright future! Hopefully with more to come, old or new. (FdW) Address: http://fourth-dimension.net/ FRED LONBERG-HOLM & KEN VANDERMARK – RESISTANCE (CD by Bocian Records) Vandermark and Lonberg-Holm each have numerous works out, in many different projects, etc. Their collaborations are uncountable. Both know each other already a long time, from again many different projects and collaborations. There is no need to repeat that all here. What makes this release remarkable is that both experienced players deliver their first duo-work with ‘Resistance’. It is a live recording from 21 September 2013, when they played in a gallery in Chicago at a benefit for the Malachi Ritscher collection. Vandermark playing reeds, Lonberg-Holm cello and electronics, which is no surprise. The surprises are the joyful dialogues they practice in their improvisations, full of fine interplay. Everything is to the point in these excursions that come you like in one uninterrupted flow. The spectrum is very full, especially when Lonberg-Holm electrifies his cello. Constantly a lot is happening. The recording is beautiful and well done, so that you can enjoy every detail of this very fruitful meeting. (DM) Address: http://www.bocianrecords.com/ LE POT – HERA (CD on Everest Records) ‘Hera’ is the second part of a trilogy that started with the album ‘She’, reviewed in Vital Weekly 968. Swiss combo Le Pot is Manuel Mengis (trumpet, Electronics), Hans- Peter Pfammatter (synths, piano), Manuel Troller (guitar) and Lionel Friedli (drums). Strange, undefinable things happen here. Unexpected changes of dynamics and colouring. Melodies and rhythms that evaporate mysteriously. Yes, they search for unusual ways of structuring a musical work. And they do hit at something, as I found myself completely fascinated throughout. For this album they started from fragments of music by Benjamin Britten: “a melody from ‘Requiem Aeternam’, themes from ‘The Beggars Opera’, a song from ‘A Midsummers Night’s Dream’”. Alas I’m not familiar with these works, so I can’t determine in what way these selections serve as starting points for their exuberant and rich improvisations. Like ‘She’ I experience their music as very spatial, like a jump into the great wide open. That is somehow connected with their interest for sound. But structure is equally important. The music feels very open, but at the same time one senses all their movements are rooted in clear musical concept. The improvisations were recorded during four days of playing in the church of St.Roman. The inevitable church bells we hear in the opening of track 9. Again a very strong statement from this combo. Can’t wait for the third part of this trilogy, if not only for understanding why these choose for the ‘trilogy’-format. (DM) Address: http://www.everestrecords.ch/ HAUF/HEATHER/SIEWERT/WEBER - THE PEELED EYE (CD by Shameless) A new release on Shameless, a label of Boris Hauf. Around 2001-2002 he released several of his projects on this label. And that was it. Not that Hauf turned away from music. Far from it. But Shameless no longer seemed a useful outlet. But now it is again, with an excellent first release by The Peeled Eye. The quartet consisting of Martin Siewert (guitar), Christian Weber (bass), Steve Heather (drums) and Boris Hauf (baritone sax, piano), make a powerful and convincing statement. They are a “noisecore doomjazzquartet” in the words of Hauf himself. They construct thick and noisy musical pieces. Seven in total. Sometimes all seem to follow their own individual path, resulting in a wonderful cacophonic whole, as in the opening track ‘Kind of”. Evidently free jazz is an ingredient in their music. Also the prominent sax playing by Hauf clearly comes from a jazz attitude. Like in ‘Heavy Quarters’ where his playing is embedded in a slow but brutal sounding rock environment. The intro and the outro of same piece illustrate their interest for pure sound textures. ‘Diiisko’ has Hauf and Siewert in a fine battle. In all pieces they sound very tight and together. Complexity and rock primitivism are in a perfect blend here. This is not just a hell of noise, but free rock at his best. (DM) Address: http://www.shamelessrecords.rocks/ GERALDINE EGUILUZ & STEPHANIE DIAMANTAKIOU - PASO DOBLE (CD by Tourdebras) A duo work of two improvisers. Eguiluz (voice) comes from originally from Mexico. Diamantakiou, playing upright bass, is originates from Marseille (France). They started their collaboration in 2012 in Montreal, where both have their base. Diamantakiou is also member of te ensemble Rubedo’ro , led by Eguiluz. As a duo they take themes from jazz standards as a starting point for their free improvised excursions. For their first release ‘Paso Doble’ they made recordings in February-March 2014 in the studio, using themes from Mingus, Ellington and Bach. Their improvisations breathe a delicate and fragile atmosphere. They are full of subtle movements and gestures. Beautifully sung by Eguiluz who has a characteristic and recognizable voice. Also the playing by Diamantakiou is fine. A rich and solid work. (DM) Address: http://www.tourdebras.com MURDER CORPORATION - NEKRO (CD by Menstrual Recordings) MB - MECTPYO/BLUT (2CD by Menstrual Recordings) MERZBOW - ECOBONDAGE (2LP + CD by Menstrual Recordings) It's not easy to decide what should be played first, but here's what I reasoned: I know, more or less, Ecobondage, being already re-issed before, and I am sure I heard MB's 'Mectpyo/Blut' before too (as a bootleg, download or otherwise), so why not start with the all new work released by Murder Corporation, which is the musical project of Moreno Daldosso, who started to play as Murder Corporation in 1992, 'nearly as a joke', after hearing heavy metal, punk, hardcore, EBM and then industrial music, and taking inspiration from Merzbow, Boyd Rice, William Bennett and Kevin Tomkin (and yes, I am not sure about that 'nearly as a joke' either). Murder Corporation uses tapes, noises, short waves and distorted voices, along a sampler Akai S01 and tone generator. Much of this is of the heavy, minimal variation type of noise, but that's not the case throughout. Murder Corporation can be stunningly silent, which is a great thing. 'Horror Trip' sounds far away, like a motorway recorded from a great distance, the title track with the clicking of a camera and moaning like some recording of a porno production, but it's set against the monotony of 'Roleplay', which sounds like being trapped in a washing machine for thirteen minutes. The 'quiet' pieces (i.e. the ones without noise and distortion) are the ones I preferred: it is here were Murder Corporation shows his real talent in creating some truly unsettling music; odd, alien and downright scary music, like an excellent score to a horror movie. That would a career-path for him to follow! I really hope Maurizio Bianchi will live to be very old, and that he will produce many more records, but I also really hope that by the time he's left this planet, somebody will write a book about him; actually not that I care about his life that much, but a book that explores all of his releases in depth, and makes all the right connections between the various releases and re-releases there have been (something similar would be great for Conrad Schnitzler, but that's a different story), as I know I lost track. 'Mectpyo/Blut' came out in 1980 as a ninety-minute cassette and between that and this official double CD Banned Production and Bacteria Field released it on cassette, but also came out as a double LP by Marquis Records and a single LP in Japan on no particular label. This release marks the transition from using the name Sacher Pelz to M.B. and was his first official release as M.B. (or MB, whatever you prefer). Four pieces here, each about twenty-two minutes (hence this being a c90 when it came out, and most suitable for a 2LP re-issue - one day?), and in each of these pieces MB plays around with some low fidelity means, such as spinning records by hand and taping them to reel-to-reel machines, cutting them into crude loops and playing around with these. Each of these pieces could be divided into separate pieces of music itself - 'Musique Belzec' even contains a piece with 'sampled' rhythm loop. It's not as distorted as some of his later work, and also the use of effects, such as his much beloved delay pedal on his later records from his early days. The music is very atonal, devoid of much composition and sometimes way too long staying within a few limited sounds. Boring? Yes, perhaps indeed, but there is always something captivating I think about what MB does, and such subjective 'good' or 'bad' are somehow irrelevant; it either grabs you and you love it, or you stay stone cold and hate it. No prizes to win on which side I am. The artist himself on his ZSF Produkt label first released Merzbow’s ‘Ecobondage’ in 1987, and it is probably a very long album, clocking in at over an hour or so. I remember getting this record, trading with Merzbow directly (LP against Dutch smut magazines, which I always thought was a great deal) but not necessarily remember this as a bad pressing. Now it's re-issued as a double LP with no bonus material, so the new pressing has no doubt with more dynamics. Along with this comes a CD with the entire double LP as two long pieces (instead of three as was the first CD issue, released in 1995 on Distemper, it's sole release on this label actually). This is Merzbow in one of my favourite periods, this mid to late 80s period. He's not yet the noise artist he became later, either with all his guitar effects transforming acoustic sounds, or with his laptop, effectively reaching for the same noise, nor playing around with the EMS Synthi-A. In stead he plays percussion and records himself a couple of times, banging sheets of metal, adding tape-loops of a rather obscure nature, some hand spun records and the noise is very much of a different nature than on many of his later work. This is the great times of 'Enclosure' or 'Storage', where metal plays an important role, scraping and rubbing sheets together to create nasty patterns, or rather: non-patterns. A curious web of sounds that are not always related, even have an odd relationship but which work together actually quite well. Everything comes in what seems to be a never-ending stream of sounds, where sounds pop up for a while and then are moved to the background somewhere and something moves along. An excellent interplay of disparate sounds, conjuring flickering images of an equally unrelated kind. If you like Merzbow, but you think he's doing his overload noise a bit too much on repeat these days, then it's certainly a wise thing to invest in this true 80s beauty which was until now hard to get: but here it is again, in full beautiful glory! (FdW) Address: http://www.menstrualrecordings.org ADAM GOLEBIEWSKI - POOL NORTH (CD by Latarnia) Out of Poznan, Poland hails percussion player Adam Golebiewski, who has played with Mats Gustafsson, Fred Lonberg-holm, Ken Vandermark, Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore and many others and, as far as I can tell, this is first solo album. "In his work he focuses on the ultimate extension of the potential of the drum set and percussion instruments as to their anatomy, sound and expressiveness, which results in a direct and intense sound language", as it's described by the label. The recordings were made on a 'jazz drum kit with conventional microphone system' and it's a rather short album, thirty-four minutes, with rather short pieces, seven in total. The music is rather intense, with lots of stuff happening in each piece, and none of this is very rhythmical. One can hear this is a drum kit (jazz or otherwise), with toms and cymbals and such like, but it's played with objects on those drum elements, with bows, with stones, Styrofoam and all such like. In a sense this radical improvisation, and has very little to do with the world of free jazz (for instance) and everything with free improvisation, and while at times it is all quite heavy, such as the feedback like cymbal play in 'Half Blame', it also sounds conventional. Other drummers, like Christian Wolfarth or Michael Vorfeld do similar improvised music. This says nothing about the quality of what Golebiewski does here: these are seven excellent pieces of music, some of which is very radical in sound approach and sets a great calling card for Adam Golebiewski's work - watch out him: he might be going places. (FdW) Address: http://www.latarniarecords.pl FRANK RIGGIO - PSYCHEXCESS II - FUTURISM (CD by Hymen) ORPHX - SONIC GROOVE RELEASES PT.2 (CD by Hymen) On the second part in his Psychexcess series Riggio picks up the trail where the first part left off, which is, beyond doubt, a good thing. The extremely well designed aural landscapes are again breathtaking and the compositional diversity makes the album one captivating experience from beginning to end. Meandering between glitchy IDM, high-end industrial sub bass mechanisms, vocal driven repetitive structures and acoustic atmospheres without lingering for too long in any of those areas, Riggio clearly is master of his own realm and retains a versatile flow without allowing the album to succumb to wayward schizophrenia. And there really is an sense of proficiency underlying every single part of Futurism, to the extent that the album has rich moments in which it is pleasantly overwhelming, but remains quite disciplined at the same time. Still I believe I will have to give it a lot more spins before can honestly say I’ve taken it all in. Another second release in a series is «Sonic Groove Releases pt.2» by Orphx. I’ve been intrigued by Oddie’s work since I first heard Vita Mediativa and this disc is not going to change that. The album sets out into a somewhat subdued techno pulse, to be pervaded by post- industrial thrusts a few minutes in. However, the roughness throughout the album remains quite tempered, punchy & technoid. And whereas it certainly fortifies some of the tracks to an industrial extent, at no point does the noise and distortion saturate the dynamics completely, which makes it quite a easy listen, especially if compared to the already mentioned classic Vita Mediativa. Although this is mainly a compilation of previously released EPs on, no surprise, Sonic Groove, the eldest 12" dating back to 2012, the sound and style is quite homogenous and in that respect this might have simply been a new album and I would not have noticed. The unreleased track «Hungry Ghosts» is then a fitting conclusion to an already enthralling album. And then about its looks: I can’t pinpoint why exactly, but the artwork of both the previous and this part of the series is really amongst the most interesting and effective sleeve designs I’ve seen in years. This alone, I feel, is a reason to purchase both parts. (PJN) Address: http://www.ant-zen.com/ SYNAPSCAPE - RHYTHM AGE (CD by Ant-Zen) GJÖLL - THE BACKGROUND STATIC OF PERPETUAL DISCONTENT (CD by Ant-Zen) KOMMANDO - SKULL SNAKE (CD by Ant-Zen) While trying to find a proper sofa to sit down and write a couple of reviews, I found myself a perfect spot in the vast lobby of the remote Azorian hotel where I’m currently staying. Almost perfect, since all of a sudden the background music turned from a lull of ambient chords to loungy house beats accompanied by soulful vocal stabs. No better option than to drown it out with the new Synapscape album ‘rhythm age’. There are no surprises, nor would we want any different; Synapscape has their specific brand of rhythmic industrial that just bangs on track after track and sports the occasional vocal part and lashing breakbeat every once in a while. What struck me though is that compared to predecessor ‘Traits’ this album seems a just little bit mellower and the rhythmic parts sound less emphasized by distortion. Which is not to say that that they don’t have that typical Synapscape drive to them. Nor does the album lack the necessary tracks that do blow your sock off with sledgehammer pounding. Hang on, no, maybe it’s not even the distortion, but overall I felt sounded less evil and perhaps more ‘angry engineering meets future science’, if that makes any sense at all. Anyway, definitely more than a decent bang for your buck. «Ascending», the track that opens the sixth Gjöll album cracks on very promising with its modulating synth drone and ominously whispered Icelandic lyrics. I actually saw the two lads perform this track live at Maschinenfest 2k15 last week, which really had that low end come out just the way it should. After diving right into power electronics with powerful vocals on the second track, the album takes quite an unexpected turn on the third track. A rhythmic guitar riff seems to be setting the tone for some heavy duty machinery to take the stage, but the opposite happens and everything fades down to a very minimal electronic beat, some noise and, again, spoken Icelandic - which personally I find a fascinating language and had me play this specific track over and over. The riff then returns in a dubby way here and there. Strangely fascinating and quite a bold move I think. Then halfway through we’re treated to a collaboration track with 2kilos & More, featuring the booming voice of Black Sifichi, upon which we sink deep down into ecstatic noise/drone epos «Life as Randomness» and the violence of «In Defense». Especially these two tracks, I felt, conveyed an immense sense of power, a beguiling place where capability and compositional skill meet. Quite a diverse album and an interesting one at that. Daniel Hofmann = 50% Thorofon = Kommando, a project that actually predates Thorofon. I can make it quite simple for us all by saying simply: if you’re into Thorofon, or for instance early Haus Arafna, Subliminal or Genocide Organ for that matter, it’s ridiculously safe to assume you will probably like this too. It has the angsty vibrato synths wailing away, wonky and guttural pulsating rhythms and those typical modulated vocals. To me it’s the impetus of those slow mechanical thrusts that pleasantly reminded me of the reason why I started listening to (post-) industrial in the first place many years ago. After slowly melting your mind with the first 8 moderately paced tracks of the album, «Crosses» floors it and just stomps away as if there’s no tomorrow. I had not heard anything from the hands of mr. Kommando before listening to this album actually, but now I feel commonsensically obliged to check out the rest of his catalogue. (PJN) Address: http://www.ant-zen.com/ SOL MORTUUS - EXTINCTION (CD by Zhelezobeton) DMT - ULTIMATUM (CD by Zhelezobeton) KSHATRIY - KSHATRIY AND MUSHROOMS (CDR by Zhelezobeton) Three new releases by Zhelezobeton from St. Petersburg, whose interest lies very much in all things dark and atmospheric, and who always surprise me with another bunch of new Russian discoveries. For instance Kein, from Yekaterinenburg, who was in the 90s in the 'atmospheric black metal band' Thy Repenetance, and later on had such projects as Scratching Soil, Carved ImageOf Emptiness, Church Of Howling Dog, as well as being a member of Prognostic Zero and Zinc Room (and yes, I think some of these names are a bit silly). Sol Mortuus is his latest solo project and this time around, on 'Extinction' it is all about 'life in decay, under a dying sun' and to that end Kein uses a variety of instruments, such as cello, mandolin, blockflute (which proper name is actually recorder), kaluka, vargan, buben (I have no idea what these three are, but the latter two might be a Jew harp and a small drum) and percussion. Somehow the music Sol Mortuus created sounds very Russian: there is the ominous big drones, created through the extensive use of reverb on acoustic instruments, and throughout he also uses cleaner versions of these instruments to play along, especially when he starts his more tribal drum patterns. Topped with something that one could perhaps call 'overtone singing'; it calls for the darkness of the Russian soul, long winter nights, endlessly cold plains, and perhaps even some kind of ancient form of tribalism, shamanism or some such. While not entirely well spend on me, I played this with some interest and actually enjoyed it quite a bit. From the Russian desolate landscape we land in social realist industrial workforce with DMT, whose 'Ultimatum' is the second release in a series called 'Die Zeichen' (the signs), which is, if I'm correctly informed, to 'publish the archival works of Russian post-industrial projects' (and done along with kultFRONT) and this time it's the music of Dmitry Tolmatskiy, who died in 2009. In the 90s he was very active as a journalist, but privately occupied himself with electronic music. This compilation spans sixteen of these pieces from 1999 to 2008, including a live piece with Alexei Borisov. This is quite a mixed bunch of pieces. Rhythms play an important part in this music, hard and vicious like a solid industrial dark wave act, but then also at times, rhythms are shut down and there is more room for electronics and experiments. The balance however is in favour of the loud rhythmic pieces, which remind me at times of Esplendor Geometrico, but some of these pieces are perhaps a little bit disorganized: once a rhythm is set in motion, add some sounds while this goes, but that in itself doesn't bring a great piece of music, necessarily. At close to seventy-five minutes and some of these pieces being a bit overlong, it is quite a stretch, but it surely has it's moments. In Vital Weekly 933 I reviewed a re-issue of the first release by Sergey Uak-Kib, or rather the one he recorded as Kshatriy. I had reviewed some of his more recent releases, but never his second release, which is 'Kshatriy And Mushrooms', which was given away in very small quantities back then. Much of his music is very drone based, very electronic and most likely originates in gathering field recordings being transformed extensively. In his more recent works this seems to be very much in a dronal meltdown that leads to very dark pictures of sound, much bass end, very little light and high-end, but in the pieces on this release, dealing with mushrooms (in all it's forms present in the title: growing, flying, curious, crying, angry psychoactive, walking, magic and dying) there is much more light allowed. Picture hazy sunlight coming through these trees, close to each other, and you picking mushrooms in the early hours of the day. That kind of light is what this music has, hazy but light, and at times the shadows brings in a bit of darkness. There is quite some cosmic delight in this music, not of the nicely arpeggio variety, but experimental, moody and still delightful. A special mushroom indeed. It's great to see this in print again. (FdW) Address: http://zhb.radionoise.ru IDEA FIRE COMPANY - LOST AT SEA (LP by Recital) Last week or so I had a private discussion about a musician whose music was hardly if at all reviewed in these pages although he could have been; he's grown into more mainstream music circles these days, but his music, we both agreed upon, was just very lame cosmic, third rate Tangerine Dream drivel. Perhaps these days it helps to water down your style, and have a quasi- interesting hook ('look: all modular synthesizers'), be an imitation of something else, from way down the line. Anyway, not so interesting, this story, but that unnamed artist is not on par with say with Idea Fire Company: that's something we both agreed upon. I told this before and since I am never tired of repeating myself: why isn't the Idea Fire Company on the same level as some of those post cosmic, ambient, industrial acts? Is the band old hat, or just old? Too underground? Or Scott Foust too eccentric? The latter would certainly be a main attraction, I'd say. Over the past 25+ years the duo of Karla Borecky and Scott Foust plus assorted guest players have released some 12 albums and a plethora of cassettes, a 7" and some CDRs, and when time allows, I'd like to play them all in a row, not in any particular order actually. In recent years the focus, certainly on LPs, shifted from the use of synthesizers, sound effects and radio towards the extended use of piano (played by Borecky, who did a fine solo piano LP, see Vital Weekly 963) and Foust on synthesizer (here on one piece), trumpet and radio (twice). The music now has a much more acoustic character, especially when trumpet and piano are the only instruments. Of course Foust is not really a trumpet player (or rather: he is the perfect non-musician in the best Brian Eno sense of the word), but it's Borecky's piano playing that creates the foundation for Foust to let himself go with his curious playing of instruments. The way it's recorded, it sounds like a microphone is stuck up next to the piano and it records the piano very well; Foust is hovering about with his trumpet and produces his synth/radio sounds from the backside of the room. It gives those elements a remote quality. This is all very much in the world of low fidelity and in the past I may have remarked that there is a world to gain for the Idea Fire Company in a studio with great microphones and a Bösendorfer grand piano (the Rolls Royce of piano's as Palestine would say), but these days I am inclined to think something may get lost (at sea?) if they would do that. Much of their music gains so much more this deliberate lo-fi quality. It remains intimate, personal and partly obscured. I am biased of course; a long-term fan-boy if you want, and I don't care. I know you don't care either: I am merely preaching to the converted here, those 'in the know'; the big bad world doesn’t care about Idea Fire Company. Screw the big bad world. (FdW) Address: http://www.recitalprogram.com/ PSST!… WANNA BUY A RECORD (LP, private) A few years I was quite fanatical when it came to searching online for all of those old and obscure cassette releases that I once owned, but was too lazy to put in an mp3 form on my iPod. Along the way I bumped into a few that I knew but never actually heard as well as various tapes and labels that were entirely new to me. It filled up a hard drive full of music, which I am still trying to wade through, if time allows me. And even at that there is still tons of stuff from those lively 80s that I never heard of and which all of a sudden pop up, out of nothing. 'Psst… Wanna Buy A Tape?' was such a tape, released by El Frenzy Productions, the label run by Bing Selfish, who is described by The Wire as "Essential for anyone who thinks that rock, politics and humour can't occupy the same mental and aesthetic space", and which came back then with an underground comic, also called El Frenzy. This LP is abridged version of that cassette and you could think: oh damn, incomplete product, surely some musicians will be disappointed to have been left out? That is, until you realize that much of the music is the work of Bing Selfish anyway, and some of these with his close friends such as Amos, sometimes known as L. Voag, the Homosexuals or Xentos, and that he is one of the more difficult people to pin in the world of underground music. One of the reasons this release may not have been on my radar before is that it operates in the world of lo-fi rock music, post-punk improvisation and downright weirdness. Nothing so much about electronics, home-taping and such notions (the ones I was all into back then), but all about squats, small studio's and alternative strategies into the world of rock music; people who believed something else, different, out of the ordinary (and even punk was something ordinary by then) was possible, past such things as 'musician hero' or 'fan', in which all of that would merge together. This is the world of free jazz, improvisation, odd rock, outsider art, This Heat, The Homosexuals, Die Trip Computer Die, Recommended Records and if you dig into this world, a whole alternative universe opens up; if you dug into this world before and you missed out on say this excellent outsider rock tape compilation then I'm sure this is your thing. Playing music, doing writing,drawing comics and everybody is an artist - not because you want to acquire fame for 15 minutes like everybody seems to want these days, but because you have something of importance to share. No comic book this time, but a lovely 16 page stencilled booklet (in very few colours) in which Kosten Koper interviews Big Selfish in a most unusual manner, but which offers lots of insight in those crazy times, which, sad as I think it is, will not return. This particular version of the 80s: how much I miss them! (FdW) Address: http://psstwannabuyarecord.wordpress.com/ MICHAEL ESPOSITO & FRANS DE WAARD - PHANTOM PLASTIC (flexi by Korm Plastics) The fact that there is a cheeky flexi frolicking on my record player does not lessen any of the captivating eeriness of this single-tracked spectre. The text «Dreams of the Incorruptibles» I reckon an excerpt of which one can find printed as liner notes on the sleeve, is the eighth part in a series of essays about Electronic Voice Phenomena and elaborately considers the possibility of part of the soul being trapped in a dreaming state inside the body, in case the deceased who are deemed ‘incorruptible’ - i.e. the dearly departed whose dead bodies seem to be subject to little or no decomposition. Science is still out on that one, but it is a mysterious background story that colours the experience of the piece of sound art imprinted on this floppy plastic square. The track launches into a collage of noise and click loops scattered across the channels with sudden intermezzos of lo fi-recorded voices, whose merit I imagine must be their phantasmal origin or at least something EVP related. The different phases of the track each have a pleasant way of filling up the audio spectrum with a decent amount of low-end gush that has layers of respiring noise stacked on top of it. Check it out, preferably after dark. (PJN) Address: http://www.discogs.com/artist/1214261-Michael-Esposito LLARKS - VANGUARD GHOSTS/PRIEST (7" by Lathelight) LLARKS - ATAVISTOV HEART (cassette by Kikimora Tapes) UNFOLLOW - ZERO LIKES (cassette by Kikimora Tapes) WINDBREAKER - HOSTAGE (cassette by Kikimora Tapes) More music by LLarks, the latest of incarnations by Chris Jeely (formerly known as Accelera Deck, September Plateau and a plethora of other names), who's two lathe cut 7" records were reviewed in Vital Weekly 982. Jeely is someone who likes to play the guitar (as we will see), but on the lathe cut 7" there is less evidence of that. No titles on the actual piece of plastic, so I am not sure which side is what, but maybe the piece with the more or less organ-like drone sounds is the piece called 'Priest' and then the other side must be 'Vanguard Ghosts'. That one sounds like a bunch of low-resolution guitar loops being played together, with tons of laptop processing. A highly minimal piece of music, with shifting loops, going back and forth at the same time. 'Priest' too sounds processed, with some highly fuzzy drum sounds and hazy organ chords, both of which are drenched with the same minimalist approach towards composition as the piece on the other side. Shoegazing bytes the processing, senses working overtime? Highly atmospheric, and both are gorgeous computer pieces. The download contains two extra pieces of fuzzier guitar drones. Something may be lost in the world of lathe cuts however. Also by Llarks, but then on a cassette is 'Atavistic Heart', and the Canadian label Kikomora calls this for 'fans of Flaying Saucer Attack, Sunn O))), Ride, Mark McGuire' and probably all of those shoegazing, psychedelic guitar slingers. And indeed the role of the guitar in these eight pieces is omnipresent. Jeely strums it, plays solo's, derives drones from them; it cries, whispers, howls, bursts and rings. There are (as far as I can tell) no other instruments involved, and Jeely knows how to create a wall of sound with just six strings and no doubt a whole bunch of boxes on the floor. Oddly enough do these pieces sound like something else, hardly like the 7", save perhaps for 'Echo Entaglment', but here too there is always that bit of guitar. But as said something may be lost in getting it transferred to lathe cut vinyl and here on tape sounds in glorious shining analogue fuzz. Quite an excellent album of heavy and moody guitar music. Certainly a must have for those who miss out on new releases of Jeely's earlier incarnations. Maybe if you call yourself 'Unfollow' and your release 'Zero Likes', you deliver some kind of comment on the nature of social media? Behind Unfollow we have Tony Boggs, who, as Joshua Treble, was once one half of Desormais, along with Mitchell Akiyama. With him he also worked as Letters Letters. Unfollow is the new solo vehicle and the label says about this debut that it "was recorded as Tony's brother spent his last days in Hospice; sampled life support machines and nurse's whispers inter-splice hazy drones and jaded lo-fi beats. Unfollow zooms in, giving us a dimly lit skeleton; dizzying motorik beats and paranoid textures undulate freely beneath the steady pulse". I must admit that's not how I heard it, especially that thing about life support machines and whisper's and such like. Had I not known all of this I would believe Boggs' intention would have been to create some more experimental form of dance music, yet all of this still being on the danceable side of things. There is maybe the odd hiss here and there, but otherwise it's indeed all about straightforward dance rhythms and synthesizer sounds. A bit dub inspired something, as in 'Play The Wall', otherwise straightforward floor material of a more minimalist nature. Maybe it's all a bit heavy, topic wise, but without that context I thought this was a highly enjoyable release! Windbreaker from Chicago (West Side to be precise) is the nom de plume for Nick Read, who was once a member of Thrill Jockey's Lazer Crystal, and 'Hostage' is also a debut. I never heard of Lazer Crystal before, so I have no idea how this fits in. It kicks off with 'Robert's Cup' and with a great acid 303 sound, but also some synthesizers being played on top. Here too we have dance music, inspired by the world of acid, disco, electro and techno, with a fair bit of cosmic synthesizers on top. The music of Windbreaker is less minimal than that of Unfollow, and adds a bunch of melodic touches to the music. Here too I thought this was highly entertaining music. Certainly, and that goes for Unfollow as well, stuff you can put on reverse a couple of times, while doing chores around the house. There is both room for the accessible beats and the some what more experimental sounds, sometimes buried a bit below in the mix, and which one can pick up if the volume is up a bit more. 'Statt' is one such piece and Windbreaker at it's most 'experimental' (this to be taken lightly of course). These are the first three releases by Kikimora Tapes and offer an excellent showcase of alternative pop tunes. That's how I like these best! (FdW) Address: http://lathelight.org/lathelight.html Address: http://kikimora-tapes.bandcamp.com DESTRUCTION DES ANIMAUX NUISIBLES #2 (CDR by Alteracion Records) The Spanish (or do I had to write Basque??) label Alteracion Records the album “Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles #1” in 2012. The second edition is released three years later. The trio Miguel A. Garcia, Enrique Zaccagnini on electronics and noise and Marta Sainz on voice and effects create a lot of noise. The album consists of 15 tracks, called Destruction 3 – 17 in 37 minutes. The album is a real kaleidoscope of noisy music. The alternation between violent harsh noise and noise with more space because of the mix with a lot of reverb make this album to an interesting entire album. The tracks with white noise completed with some edited musique concrete sounds are really fresh. “Destruction 15” is different than most of the other tracks, because the singing aka chanting refers to Eastern or meditative sounds. The album “Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles #2” is an intense album to walk around in different noisy worlds. (JKH) Address: http://alteracion-records.blogspot.com UNSTABLE LANDS - ZERO (CDR by Care Not Care) Music by P_Lab has been reviewed before, in Vital Weekly 911 and an earlier work with Z and Kasper T. Toeplitz in Vital Weekly 863 and this time around the two members that make up the core of P_Lab, Paul Collins (synthesizers, effects) and Adrien Lefebvre (synthesizers, laptop, field recording) team up with Egmont Labadie, from the Mainstream Ensemble, on electric guitar and effects and 'Zero' is their first release, recorded earlier this year in Paris. Unstable Lands describe their music as 'electric/electronic improvised music in the abstract-ambient modal mode', which I guess makes sort of sense. In each of the five pieces the mood is dark and gloomy, especially due to the guitar playing more or less ambient passages, in the best Robert Frippertronic tradition: slow, cascading, tumbling, rising and decaying. The other two members embed these guitar sounds in a bed of more drone like sounds, the oscillators of the synthesizers, the stretched out sounds from manipulated field recordings; that kind of thing. Developments are quite slow, but I guess that's the whole idea behind this. Minimalist yet significant changes over the course over a longer piece, and then creates something that is also interesting to hear for the unsuspecting listener. Unstable Lands succeed quite well at that, I must say. Their pieces have a sufficient amount of variation that makes that one keeps listening until the very end of this. Perhaps all of this is not something that is highly 'new' per se, but it is surely something that is well made. (FdW) Address: http://unstablelands.bandcamp.com/releases HAROLD SCHELLINX - STRING QUARTET WITH WINDOWS, OPEN (cassette by Transonic) In the last thirty-five or so years, Harold Schellinx has been someone whose music and writing I enjoyed, even when there is a long gap somewhere in the middle. In the early to mid-80s he wrote for Vinyl, a Dutch magazine on 'new' music, and it was usually about the people I'd like to read about (Cabaret Voltaire, Stockhausen, Gilbert & Lewis) in a very intelligent way, as well as being a musician himself, first with The Young Lions and later on solo for Amphibious Records. Then he was 'gone' for a long stretch, but re- surfaced in 2011 when the Ultra movement was re-vitalized, and Schellinx wrote an extended book about that Dutch musical movement. Since then I also come across some of his music again, now more immersed in improvisational and conceptual projects. Cassettes play an important role, him being closely connected to Rinus van Alebeek. 'String Quartet With Windows, Open' is one of his more conceptual pieces, in which he uses "four independent but closely related voices, each of which is generated and visualized on a laptop computer by an HTML5 script acting on a composed set of 1024 violin phrases, that in turn were created from a library of violin samples played and made available by a musician that I only know by his moniker: ldk1609" as he writes on the cover. This string quartet lasts for twenty-four hours, to be played in a room with open windows, so that the environmental changes become a very important feature in the music. The piece got it's premiere in Brussels this summer, below the tracks 'Belgian railways leading to & fro the Brussel-Kappellekerk/ Bruxelles-Chapelle railway station', and has additional violin sounds by others, but also other guests joined in on sopranino sax, 'outside spray can', little Korg organ and other instruments. The piece itself is something Schellinx edited at home, and played back in the space. This cassette is an hour long, edited from various bits of the entire performance. That seems a good thing: no matter how interesting this all sounds, I can't imagine in these busy times someone having time to hear all of the performance. These edited highlights (?) give you enough idea of how the entire thing sounded. What we have here is a highly Fluxus like piece of music. Seemingly random violin bits merge with outdoor sounds, cars, trains, people and all such like, while other players add little bits of their own. Exactly like the package promises actually. But that doesn't justify what I just heard, which is something with development, with consideration for the composition; to follow the course of a day and edit the highlights into a logical, ordered piece. From just a bunch of violin sounds (at night I presume), adding more and more instruments as time lapses, until there is the busy Brussel nightlife. It ends there oddly enough, but maybe the suggestion is that this should be on repeat for a long time, thus emulating the twenty-four hour cycle every hour? An excellent release, all around, and on repeat. (FdW) Address: http://transonic-records.bandcamp.com/ |