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VITAL WEEKLY
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number 713
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week 2
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Vital Weekly, the webcast: we offering a
weekly webcast, freely to download. This can be regarded as the
audio-supplement to Vital Weekly. Presented as a radioprogramm
with excerpts of just some of the CDs (no vinyl or MP3) reviewed.
It will remain on the site for a limited period (most likely 2-4
weeks). Download the file to your MP3 player and enjoy!
complete tracklist here: http://www.vitalweekly.net/podcast.html
before submitting material please read this
carefully: http://www.vitalweekly.net/fga.html
Submitting material means you read this and approve of this.
* noted are in this week's podcast. We finally have a feed again. 1000x times to Maximillian for his endless patience & help. Its here: http://www.vitalweekly.net/podcast.xml
ROBERT TURMAN & AARON DILLOWAY - BLIZZARD
(CD by Hanson Records) *
AARON DILLOWAY - HISS NAUSEA (CD by Hanson Records) *
CESAR BOLANOS - PERUVIAN ELECTROACOUSTIC AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
1964-1970 (2CD by Pogus Productions) *
S.E.T.I. - CORONA (CD by Loki) *
LAND:FIRE - SHORT WAVE TRANSMISSIONS (CD by Loki) *
CHRISTOPHER MCFALL & LUIGI TURRA - TACTILE.SURFACE (CD by
Unfathomless) *
NOMMO OGO - ACROSS TIME AND SPACE (CD by Record Label)
CORDAME - MIGRATION (CD by Malasartes Musiques)
AMY HORVEY - INTERVIEW (CD by Malasartes Musiques)
NOZEN - LIVE AU UPSTAIRS (CD by Malasartes Musiques)
PAUL DEVENS - INK SUMMIT (LP by Moab Records)
EVOL - TEN CANISTERS OF PRESSURIZED TETRAFLUOROETHANE OVER THREE
WEEKS (7" by Alku)
MARTIJN HOHMANN - EQUIVOCAL GENERATION (7" by Universaal
Kunst)
ERIC CHENAUX - WARM WEATHER/LE VIEUX FAVORI 4 (7" by Eat,
Sleep, Repeat)
ELEKTRIK UNDERGROUND 2009 (CDR by Motok) *
ROBERT HORTON & SINDRE BJERGA & CAREN OHLSON - BROKEN
WISDOM ON IT'S WILD LONE (CDR by Striate Cortex) *
THE GHOST BETWEEN THE STRINGS - DROWING TIME (CDR by Egocide)
*
LUSRUTA - TRANSPARENT OBSCURITY (CDR by Egocide) *
ULV - HYPNOOTTINEN (CDR by Egocide) *
ANASTASIA VRONSKI - THE DROWNER (CDR by Date With A Corpse) *
ZEBULON KOSTED - NOVAYA ZEMLYA (cassette by Haute Magie)
THE PATRIOTIC WINDOW KINGS - GUITARGUMENT (cassette by Speed Tapes)
*
ROBERT TURMAN & AARON DILLOWAY - BLIZZARD
(CD by Hanson Records)
AARON DILLOWAY - HISS NAUSEA (CD by Hanson Records)
Last year in January there was horrible snowstorm in Ohio. It
looked Aaron Dilloway (ex-Wolf Eyes, Hanson Records man) and one
Robert Turman (ex-Non, Z.O. Voider) in a room, with a bunch of
synthesizers, tapes and effects. If you can't do anything, then
do music (and if you can do something else, also make music).
Stuck together they recorded these four pieces of blizzard music.
Unlike a blizzard, this is music that doesn't move very fast.
Long stretched out sounds on the synthesizer, bending the music
down, down and more down, into a shaking rumble of sound. On top
tapes of highly obscured sounds move around in a bunch of sound
effects and the outcome is actually quite beautiful. The cruelty
of beauty that is. Vast and spacious in the first movement, earpiercing
in the second movement, rattling like snow and ice being crushed
in the third. The final track has a oscillating drone and some
nice vaguely vocal loop on top, making this the most 'musical'
outing of the four. Four excellent excursions that fit the snow
white world of the Vital headquarters perfectly. Released at exactly
the right time: winter music.
In 2006 Dilloway released a double cassette in an edition of 30
copies, which now gets a re-edition of 200 copies, along with
fifteen minutes of music not on the previous release. Like the
title implies, Dilloway uses hiss, along with feedback and loads
of tape-delay. Now this would call cassette music. Five relatively
simple pieces, derived from one idea, exploited for seventy-five
minutes. Tucked away in my lazy chair with a book, I was thinking
of the 80s, when I loads of cassettes like this. I was studying
my books and play this kind of music on end. Based on loops, hiss,
feedback, some delay pedals, maybe the occasional synthesizer
in play. This afternoon I looked at my CD player and contemplated
a few things. One was that this isn't isn't the greatest CD ever
released, that is was quite long, but it was also a journey into
the past - the world of twenty-five years ago, me as a young man
falling in love with crazy music. Maybe out of those kind of sentimental
reasons (I'm not allowed to say, I know, but the age, the age)
I thought this was quite an enjoyable release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.hansonrecords.net
CESAR BOLANOS - PERUVIAN ELECTROACOUSTIC
AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC 1964-1970 (2CD by Pogus Productions)
Electronic music from Peru? Pogus boss Al Margolis goes with his
search for some of the exotic, unknown composers from the most
obscure parts of the world. Cesar Bolanos was born in Lima, Peru
in 1931, who also composed for piano and chamber orchestra. In
1963, while in Buenos Aires he was introduced to electronic music,
which he continued to compose until 1970. After 1973 he was back
in Peru, but without any further means to continue this line of
work and devoted the rest of his time investigating pre-Hispanic
instruments. Now for the first time his electronics appear on
compact disc. Only the first piece, 'Intensidad Y Altura' is pure
electronical piece; all the others combine electronics with other,
'real' instruments. About one hundred minutes here of what is
best called 'difficult' music - the germanic ernste music. I must
have written this before, but I am not the most right person to
do this music any justice. This is a highly serious mixture of
avant-garde classical music in combination with electronic sounds.
My favorite is 'Cancion Sin Palabras, ESEPCO II' for two piano's
and tape, which is intense at times, soft at times and has a great
touch to it, including some scarping and bending sounds. The other
pieces were not bad either, but not all the time worked for these
classically untrained ears. Definitely an interesting release,
but perhaps I wished for some more electronics. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pogus.com
S.E.T.I. - CORONA (CD by Loki)
LAND:FIRE - SHORT WAVE TRANSMISSIONS (CD by Loki)
Over the years I lost track of Andrew Lagowski, sometimes (such
as here) known as S.E.T.I. I have no idea why I lost track, but
perhaps he was busy playing concerts, or just not as active with
releasing music. I learn that 'Knowledge' from 1994 was his first
album (and perhaps I should add 'a classic') and 'Corona' is only
his fifth album as S.E.T.I. until now. Space is still the place
here. S.E.T.I.'s music is based on the cosmos, space, stars, and
everything else connected to that. It takes a look at that vast
empty space from within, but also from a distance. Lagowski uses
recordings from Nasa which he cuts into his heavy drone based
music. The novelty of that is long gone - 'Knowledge' is a classic
- as it is done by him and by others after him. That is perhaps,
after sixteen years the downside of this music. Its all a matter
of heard and seen it all. But with so few S.E.T.I. releases out
there, we may not mind about that little progress that has been
made. The music here is excellent. On a grey winter day with darkness
starting half way through the afternoon, this is just the perfect
ambient soundtrack for the cold season. Highly atmospheric, no
rhythm in sight, just slow evolving patterns played on a bunch
of analogue synthesizers, sound effects and some radio transmissions.
Ambient music may be a dead end street, but this is a damn beautiful
work.
With a title like 'Short Wave Transmissions', you could perhaps
easily think that the album of Land:Fire is along that of S.E.T.I.
That is only partly true. There is indeed a lot of talking on
this record, snippets from the radio, but the music is somewhat
different. Land:Fire is an alter-ego of Herbst9, and it has been
five years since he last released a record. This is all about
radiological warfare, nuclear fall out and other somewhat unpleasant
things in life. Here too we have some analogue synthesizers, computerized
effects but also rhythm machines, which create a cold clinical
and mechanical sound. That may seem like something negative, but
its not. The music is very dynamic, moving back and forth between
blocks of synthesized sound and soft spoken ambient textures,
all spiced up with radio talk. Its not easy to say wether the
music really reflects the radiological/nuclear holocaust theme
(would you be aware if it wasn't told?), but there is certainly
a spooky atmosphere surrounding this record. Excellent soundtrack
to an imaginary film about these kind of subjects. (FdW)
Address: http://www.loki-found.de
CHRISTOPHER MCFALL & LUIGI TURRA - TACTILE.SURFACE
(CD by Unfathomless)
The second CD on the Unfathomless imprint by Mystery Sea is a
collaborative work by Christopher McFall, whose work we came across
already a few times and the for me unknown Luigi Turra. In this
series the label is "trying to illustrate artists' personal
fascination for specific locations, either natural, human built,
or fictitious, as well as other pregnant related environmental
experiences impacting into memory and onto our senses." In
this duo work we have the living room and windows of Turra, as
recorded in Schion in the North of Italy and from McFall recordings
from Kansas, through the western lands of Kansas up to Colorado
(I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore). Turra also uses
bits of a shakuhachi flute here and there. I have no idea how
all of this was merged together by these two men, but they did.
And the results are surely quite nice. One piece, that lasts about
forty-two minutes and has quite a desolate feel to it: the empty
room, the window clapping, the vast open space of Kansas. Yet
this is not a work of total silence, as there is always something
happening. Sounds are heavily processed through the use of extensive
equalization, bringing out, mainly, the deeper end of the bass
spectrum and occasionally high pitched tones. Quite a nice work,
I'd say, but the problem is that the fact that this is cut as
one track, which leads us to think this is meant to be a single
composition, but unfortunately it doesn't work as one composition.
Its bumps into various places (excuse le mot), which are then
cross faded into another part, and then another one. Why not make
distinct endings to a piece and then start another one, I thought?
Even without too many changes in the actual piece, but just the
mere change into various pieces, with an occasional full stop
here and there would have made the whole into a much stronger
work. Otherwise I think this is a great work of microsound and
field recordings, all according to the big textbook of the genre.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.unfathomless.net
NOMMO OGO - ACROSS TIME AND SPACE (CD by
Record Label)
The title of the album gives a clue: This is indeed a very trippy
journey from the band with the strange name "Nommo Ogo".
The music is a blend of electronic music and acoustic psychedelia.
The style is always kept on a relaxed downbeat pace, both rhythmically
and with the overall instrumentation. The acoustic part of the
album draws associations towards early krautrock (Amon Düül
II, Faust, Can) though this is exclusively instrumental. Also
the acid-style of earliest Pink Floyd shines through as well as
newer approaches to psychedelia as from Legendary Pink Dots and
Subarachnoid Space. Consisting of nine pieces the length of the
intersections exceeds 8 minutes with the Esoterrorade sounding
like a mixture between early IDM of the Warp label but still with
the acoustic interference. Field recordings and spoken words also
are part of the expression on this very interesting album. (NM)
Address: http://www.recordlabelrecords.org/
CORDAME - MIGRATION (CD by Malasartes Musiques)
AMY HORVEY - INTERVIEW (CD by Malasartes Musiques)
NOZEN - LIVE AU UPSTAIRS (CD by Malasartes Musiques)
The continuity of interesting releases by Ambiances Magnetiques
is also the case for the sublabel Malasartes Musiques, that was
started by Damian Nisenson several years ago. This time Nisenson
presents his new group Nozen, a quartet by Pierre Tanguay (drums),
Jean Felix Mailloux (bass), Bernard Falaise (guitars) and Nisenson
himself on (alt and tenor sax). They interpret 12 compositions
by Argentina-born Nisenson that move between jazz, new music and
musical traditions of Jewish Eastern Europe. After the revival
of klezmer in the 90s, it was also embraced by jazz musicians.
Just think of John Zorn's Massada or Burton Greene's Klezmokum.
Nozen is also exponent of this development as Nisenson also strives
above all for a combination of jazz and klezmer. He does so very
successfully. Their playing is modest and inspired. The music
often starts very calm but gradually effervescent passages takes
over and climaxes are reached. Very satisfying are the few tracks
where guitarist Falaise impresses with fine solo work and dissonant,
like in the opening track and in the fantastic "Spread the
News". They counterbalance perfectly with the pieces that
pass by relatively unnoticed because they are built around klezmer-like
themes that sound to common and therefore insignificant. Like
the closing track "No Milk No Sugar". However after
the short silence a new piece begins that is added as a ghost
track. This is by far the most experimental track and was probably
produced in the studio.
Mailloux is ready for his second record by his group Cordame (Marie
Neige Lavigne - violin, Julie-Odile - violincelle, Remi Giguer
- guitares, Ziya Tabassian - percussion, vibraphone, Pierre Tanguay
-drums). "Migration" draws inspiration from Persian,
Indian and Armenian music, and modal and improvised music. In
this respect it is a similar project as Nozen, as both integrate
eastern musical traditions in a western context. In contrast with
Nozen Mailloux moves further east, not only geographically but
also in the music he composes. Jazz-influences, as well as other
western idioms are less obvious then in the case of Nozen. Mailloux
is not interested in opposing or confronting these influences
with western traditions. He brings an ode to eastern musical traditions,
leaving behind all the ornaments that characterize this music
often in its original form.
Of course one can hear immediately that the music is played by
western players, who - that is also very evident - are very dedicated
to this music. It is evident that Mailloux is very fond of eastern
music. However the compositions are not always satisfying or engaging
from beginning to end. A bit too spun out from time to time. The
music often moves along in the same slow - walk like a egyptian
- pace. If you can surrender yourself to this it is a very pleasant
slow journey. Very organic and pleasing chamber music. Constantly
in the same relaxing mood but played very spirited.
With "Interview" something else is going on. This is
the fist solo effort by the young trumpeter Amy Horvey. She works
mainly as a contemporary, orchestral and Baroque trumpeter and
appeared as a soloist with numerous ensembles and orchestras.
On her first solo-album she interprets works from very different
composers. The CD opens with "Quatrro pezzi per tromba sola",
a beautiful composition by Scelsi. It is followed by pieces from
unknown contemporary composers: "Musica Invisible" (Cecilia
Arditto), "Interview" (Anna Hostman). In "Apparatus
Inconcinnus" (Ryan Purchase) a story of the Russian writer
Charms is read by Horvey, interrupted by instrumental parts. "Overture
to The Queen of the Music Boxes" features Jeff Morton on
music boxes, toy instruments and electronics. It sounds like an
improvisation, but I can be wrong. To conclude I can say that
Horvey made the right decision in including a wide variety of
compositions, showing that she feels at home as a trumpeter in
very different musical worlds. (DM)
Address: http://www.actuellecd.com/
PAUL DEVENS - INK SUMMIT (LP by Moab Records)
So far I thought of Paul Devens as someone who was mainly interested
in noise music. Loud noise music based on computerized transformations
of whatever field recordings. But over the last few he toned down
and let the field recordings speak and keep whatever process down.
His latest work, I believe his first LP release, was presented
at Experimental Intermedia in December last year. It has eight
pieces, all based upon field recordings, from air ventilation
systems, branches, heating furnace. All of them are fed through
digital processing and modular sound synthesis. No longer the
pure noise is at the forefront, but whatever process is applied
in the computer its there to serve the sound. The original field
recordings seem to be main point of focus. Mechanical humming
versus irregular sound events are spiced up with bits of computer
work. They add an extra layer to the music, and not take it over.
The result is a very vibrant record of musique concrete, based
on electro-acoustic events with bits of electronic processing.
An excellent record, in a beautiful fold out poster cover. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pauldevens.nl
EVOL - TEN CANISTERS OF PRESSURIZED TETRAFLUOROETHANE
OVER THREE WEEKS (7" by Alku)
The title of 'Ten canisters of pressurized tetrafluoroethane over
three weeks' describes the record's contents astutely, believe
it or not. You see, the titular chemical happens to be the high-pressure
substance contained within gas horns, and it is the blaring of
these very horns which comprises the entire unprocessed duration
of this crimson disc. EVOL's Roc Jiménez de Cisneros has
been using these canned noise-makers in his live performances
for years, but this recording -- the ninth in Cisneros' 'Punani'
series -- is the first to employ them to the exclusion of any
other sounds. As can be imagined, the resulting performance is
a challenging one to behold at times, but it also proves to be
an interesting study of the parameters of sound native to an unconventional
instrument. Since gas horns emit a tone oscillating around 440
Hz, the apertures of several canisters were partly clogged with
epoxy to produce a wider scope of sounds. The recording, as a
result, sounds sort of like an ineptly mistuned brass section
warming up -- Cisneros' blaring canisters trumpet along discordantly,
producing a curious range of textures, from a wheezy gasp to a
last-breath sputter to a full-out bellow. It is definitely musical
but freely improvised, and largely about concept and spectacle.
Played loudÐ -- the horns themselves scream out at nearly
120 dB on their own) -- 'Ten canisters' makes for a cacophonous
little
confrontation; it's a brief record that catches the listener off
guard with its pseudo-musical, unpredictable nature. Beyond that,
it's likely to be the lone gas horn single in any discriminating
record collector's library. (MT)
Address: http://alkualkualkualkualkualkualkualkualkualku.org/
MARTIJN HOHMANN - EQUIVOCAL GENERATION (7"
by Universaal Kunst)
2009 was not only the year of Charles Darwin and his evolution
theory, its been also forty years since Alvin Lucier composed
'I Am Sitting In A Room'. That piece of music is also about evolution.
Lucier speaks a short text and then records the sound of him speaking
in the room, feeds it back to the room, records that and repeats
that process for about twenty or so times. If you ever need a
simple process to transform any sound, then this is the way to
do it. Perhaps Martijn Hohmann did this? The record is pressed
as a lathe cut and comes in two edition: one standard in an edition
of 50 and one in a red linen box as a picture disc (which in lathe
cut terms means they are glued together). It looks great, a small
art object. There is only one side to this record, oddly enough.
Hard to tell what it is... some sort of scraping sound, perhaps
a church bell? But also there are insect sounds in there, which
ties this to the world of Darwin. The lathe cut is a perfect medium
for a record on evolutional processes of music: unlike real vinyl,
the decaying process is quicker and one can almost get a new piece
of the evolution every time one plays this record. A pity that
its all a bit short, this evolution.
Address: http://www.universaal.nl
ERIC CHENAUX - WARM WEATHER/LE VIEUX FAVORI
4 (7" by Eat, Sleep, Repeat)
Strictly speaking there is no a or b side to this record. Which
of course seems to me the right thing to do. None of these two
tracks is more important than the other. on 'Warm Weather', Chenaux
(of whom I never heard) plays a nylon guitar and sings. Multiple
channels of guitar playing, although I don't think more than two
or three. I must admit I am not a coinnaseur of this kind of singer
songwriting, but it seems to me damn close to Nick Drake, this
piece. Intimate, up close, and very personal. On 'Le Vieux Favori
4' we have electric guitar, melodica and 'spinning speakers creating
a classical cinematic sound' and no vocals. There is a nice drone
layered element to this piece of music, with an odd rotating sound,
like multiple violins (which I guess there aren't any) shimmering
away. An entirely different piece, but it has a similar not too
outspoken quality to it. Nicely private music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eatsleeprepeat.com
ELEKTRIK UNDERGROUND 2009 (CDR by Motok)
Originally this was planned to be a lathe cut record, but somehow
turned out to be a CDR. It comes from the world of Nico Selen,
who is best known, for many years, as O.R.D.U.C., but who also
works as E.M.M. and Nonotes (as well as many other names), each
within a specific niche of electronic music. On this short compilation
(twenty-four minutes) Selen appears three times under his own,
and then once as O.R.D.U.C., E.M.M. and Nonotes. His three pieces
as Nico Selen are more like tunes, as the are all quite short.
'Faces' by E.M.M. is a minimalist synth piece of wailing bass
notes from a digital synth. 'Do' by O.R.D.U.C. takes out the triangle
of the original and leaves out the synthesizers, which create
a strange atmosphere of almost emptiness. NoNotes 'Tumultus (Aqua
Mix)' is with eleven minutes the longest piece here and I must
say its a bit overlong, as I think things could have been edited
a bit down. Not as short as 'Guttae', by Selen, in which he uses
some elements from 'Tumultus', but that's actually a nice jingle
piece. It seems to me that Selen wanted to create a compilation
here of music that is slightly more experimental than on say the
average O.R.D.U.C. recording. It doesn't always succeed - see
the NoNotes piece - but in the other pieces works quite well.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.motok.org
ROBERT HORTON & SINDRE BJERGA &
CAREN OHLSON - BROKEN WISDOM ON IT'S WILD LONE (CDR by Striate
Cortex)
More music by Sindre Bjerga on Striate Cortex. Here he teams up
with Robert Horton (gong, boot, computer, filters, and gong microphone)
and Caren Ohlson on voice. I am not sure if this the same Horton
as the one I knew many years ago, but perhaps it is. Bjerga himself
gets credit for korg poly 61, tape player and filters. The music
was recorded in Stavanger, Norway (where Bjerga lives) and El
Cerrito, California (where Horton lives, I presume), between 2007
and 2009. I don't think Bjerga or Horton traveled back and forth
to record a highly limited CDR release, so its more likely that
this is the result of some sort of music through mail collaboration.
I have no idea where Caren Ohlson fits into this, as its hard
for me to hear any voice, unless of course (and no doubt that
is the case), this voice has been highly manipulated. The work
is a thirty eight minute thing (sort of the usual Bjerga length),
of slowly changing drone music, built around the heavy filtering
of gong sounds. It makes a nice drone based soundscape, of the
more darker kind. It has that trade mark lo-fi kind that is marks
many of the works by Bjerga. Not really grainy or hissy, but also
not the most top notch recording. A bit of rough on the edges.
Quite a nice, solid piece of moving drone music, nothing great
or out of the ordinary in Bjerga's vast catalogue, but surely
a fine one. (FdW)
Address: <arborntolose@msn.com>
THE GHOST BETWEEN THE STRINGS - DROWING
TIME (CDR by Egocide)
LUSRUTA - TRANSPARENT OBSCURITY (CDR by Egocide)
ULV - HYPNOOTTINEN (CDR by Egocide)
The Egocide label has nice covers, which however do not reveal
a lot of information. The Ghost Between The Strings just note
on their (his?) cover: "e-bowed guitar. recorded april 24,
2009, mixed april-may 2009'. Then there is just the music. In
some forty plus minutes things unfold about as exact and precise
as these things should sound like. Dark, atmospheric, isolationist.
The rumble doesn't go too deep below the earth surface but stays
on the surface, scanning the topography of a some what hilly terrain.
It moves a bit up and down (result of some sound effects applied
in real time, while recording this), and makes throughout a nice
listen. Nothing much new for the lovers of dark ambience, but
its not bad. Not top class either, but all in all quite alright.
Dark and atmospheric are also the words that apply to the work
of Lusruta, of which we likewise know nothing. Instead of guitars
and ebows, I think its the extended use of synthesizers and sound
effects (of course I might be entirely wrong). Eight tracks at
work here, which last almost seventy minutes. That seems a bit
much to me for the amount of variation it has to offer. The dark
textures are being played alongside the use of sometimes crude,
distorted effects, which makes this at least a bit more angular.
The twenty-four minute 'Endymion' could have been easily skipped
and it would have made the release much stronger. Think Lustmord
of Controlled Bleeding's 'Golgotha' and you get an idea about
Lusruta. Again, not bad, not great, quite alright (although not
my cup of tea, instead of The Ghost Between The Strings).
The final release is by one Ulv. It's almost an hour long track
of some highly alien sounds that have no direction. Its hard to
say what kind of sounds they are, maybe something slowed down,
maybe with some sound effects, maybe without. Again the atmospheric
card is played here, but of the three releases its the least interesting
one. The sound moves sort of without any idea up and about, down
and out, but the real hypnotic ambience is not reached. Maybe
if it was half the length, and with some more dynamics, or something
of a composition, things could have been saved, but in its current
form it just doesn't work. (FdW)
Address: http://egocide.wordpress.com
ANASTASIA VRONSKI - THE DROWNER (CDR by
Date With A Corpse)
Alright, I am going to guess here. I think this is Anastasia's
second release, and perhaps its also released by Date With A Corpse,
just like 'The Spell' (see Vital Weekly 686), but its not on the
cover or the information. There is nowhere an address or website
to be found either. I am not sure how Vronski wants to get rid
of her CDs this way. 'The Drowner' is what she calls her musique
concrete record, using sounds from the kitchen sink, closing doors
and her noisy apartment. It starts with the dripping of water,
and slowly moves over into a territory where we find tapeloops
of some 'dirty' kind of noise, feeding off into some delay pedal.
It takes a bit too much time to develop, whereas they could have
easily be concise to half the time. Just the same problem as with
'The Spell'. Not much of musique concrete I'd say, but a bit better
than 'The Spell'. May I ask for some better presentation next
time?
Address: none given
ZEBULON KOSTED - NOVAYA ZEMLYA (cassette
by Haute Magie)
The core of Side A's lone track, "Novaya," features
Rachid Abdel Ghafour's deadpan recitation of some line about God
and suffering -- it's an emotionally bereft performance, somehow
sounding like one of Conet Project's numbers station recordings
-- fittingly matched with an endless procession of rapidly transforming
and re-calibrating noise layers which shift abruptly from level
to level. These roaming segments skip from grating harsh noise
to gentle ambience to the tiny thrush of a rainstorm, all in mere
seconds. According to the track
listing, Ghafour's noise is produced solely through samples and
electronic manipulation; at times it seems as if the recordings
were collected by throwing a tape recorder into a host of different
conditions -- under a highway overpass, next to a train, into
the heart of a prairie duststorm... But it's hard to decipher
each noise's origins - partly because Ghafour moves so impulsively
from one to
another, allowing limited room for reflection. Still, it's pretty
solid stuff; owing to the shifting layers of sound, this A-side
turns out to be more spastic and interesting than lots of sheet-noise
efforts, and the deadpan vocal line adds an esoteric and alienated
sensation to the recording. Curiously, side B's "Zemlya"
is an abrupt departure from its predecessor. What formerly was
a vocal sample and diverse quantities of noise is now a continuous,
hollow, metallic timbre which pulses and cycles over the entire
side's duration. This track is significantly less enrapturing
than "Novaya," although it has a curious sense of emergency
to it, almost like a distant, marred air raid siren blaring forth.
Over the course of the track, the original, repeated cycle becomes
gradually modified and changed. Taken as a beast of two disparate
sides, 'Novaya Zemlya' is an intriguing little nugget worth inspection
by free-wheeling ears. The first side, however, is ultimately
the more intoxicating of the two. (MT)
Address: http://www.heofthehouse.com
THE PATRIOTIC WINDOW KINGS - GUITARGUMENT
(cassette by Speed Tapes)
Those kind people of Speed Tapes, supplied me with a cassette
of their release by The Patriotic Window Kings, as well as a CDR
of the material, always handy for putting some in the podcast.
"Guitargument" its called and it deals, quite naturally
with the guitar. Not much information otherwise to go by here.
So I 'think' this all to deal with an electric guitar and a few
stomp boxes. The Patriotic Window King is, again assuming here,
one guy, who improvises on the guitar in a rather lo-fi manner.
String torture which only occasionally leads to interesting results
I think. When its on the fringe on drone and improvisation its
pretty good, but when its a random play of strings than I don't
think its particularly good and sometimes down right tedious.
Typical music for a cassette release this music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/speedtapes