MINIZZA – LE VOYAGE AU GROENLAND (CD by Brocoli) *
WASM – EEN (CD on Silken Tofu Records) *
FRANCOIS COUTURE – SPAM ME: SIMULACRA OF SONGS (CD by Cuchabata Records)
BY THE WATERHOLE – TWO (CD by Playdate)
SOLAR RETURN – 2RATS&4STARS (CD by Noizmutation) *
GENETIC TRANSMISSION (CD by Zoharum) *
GENETIC TRANSMISSION – CHRZASZCZ BRZMI W TRZCINIE (CD by Zoharum) *
MONOPIUM/K – NIGHTCLUBBING/DIE WÖLFE KOMMEN ZÜRUCK (CD by Zoharum)
CELER & DIRK SERRIES – BACKGROUND CURTAIN (CD by Zoharum) *
TEATRINO ELETTRICO – NO ES COSA PARA NINOS (LP by Musica Di un Certo Livello)
FREIBAND – CUBES (CDR by Reverse Alignment) *
BRUNO DUPLANT – LES TENEBRES VERTES DANS LES SOIRS HUMIDES DE LA BELLE SAISON
(CDR by Rhizome.s) *
A.F. JONES – LANGUOR YIELDS (CDR by Rhizome.s) *
FOSSILS – CAMELOT TOWERS (CDR by Kendra Steiner Editions/Middle James Co) *
TOM CREAN & MATT ROBIDOUX – BLANK SPACE (CDR by Kendra Steiner Editions) *
SMOKEY EMERY & VENISON WHIRLED – TURNING INTO (CDR by Kendra Steiner Editions) *
MINIZZA – LE VOYAGE AU GROENLAND (CD by Brocoli)
If I counted correctly than this the fourth album by Minizza, and they started ages ago with a
most lovely pop album, ‘Music For Girls’ (Vital Weekly 488), which was a fine album of pop tunes,
including contributions from Edward Ka-spel, Erlend Oye and Roel Meelkop. The two members of
Minizza, Franck Marguin and Geoffroy Montel, then produced two albums with more experimental
music, and both were soundtracks to films. Now they return with another soundtrack, to the film
of the same title by Sebastien Betbeder, which I haven’t seen and they return to the world of pop
music. The movie is called a tragi-comedy, and I just watched the trailer, and it seems to be about
two French brothers going to Greenland and who have a culture clash right there. It is probably
funny, but I had my own language clash there. It was fun though to hear the music I am now
reviewing being part of the trailer. That clicked right away. At eighteen tracks in thirty-eight
minutes one probably realizes that many of these pieces are relatively short and sketchy. That
is a pity. Minizza have an excellent feeling for melody, and if they go for two or three-minute songs
that melodic touch really well. It is naive, childlike and playful, joyous and it really works very well.
Think German new pop music from the 80s, think Aavikko, or Felix Kubin (but sweeter I guess), and
with a nice thump on the rhythm machine, a few synthesizer and some gorgeous bass lines. But if
these pieces are a bit shorter than it looses some of it’s magic. It becomes just a few lines, a short
melody, but don’t hold up very well by themselves. I have no idea how it really works with sound-
tracks and releases thereof, but here we have some of the great melodies from the movie and a
few of supporting soundscapes, which add indeed quite some variation to the album, but also take
away some of the speed of the other pieces. Throughout I think this is a most lovely album, but not
every track is a real winner, but the majority absolutely is great. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.brocoli.org
WASM – EEN (CD on Silken Tofu Records)
Never judge a book by its cover. Or so the saying goes. Tough luck. Because we do. We all do. In
The Netherlands book design is often quite a poor effort when compared to the elaborate jewels
USA and UK publishers produce. However, we do know how to produce a record cover. That is to
say: Roger Nbh does. The clever us of dashing greens contrasted with glistening white; hard curving
lines of the machine lettering accompanied by the green of leafs and the abigram for this duo’s
name… It all adds up to quite some anticipation even before the first sounds fill the room. So,
indeed judging from the cover we’re in for quite a treat.
WaSm are Frans de Waard and Jos Smolders. Wieman, THU20, IMCA… And now: WaSm, these
two men carry quite some history of decades together. One might say: stuff legend is made of.
Then again: past highs don’t guarantee present results of the same level. At least: not per se. With
Smolders and De Waard however; honed practice does make for pretty sure steps towards
perfections. At least: so this record shows.
The mood on ‘Een’ is one that might best be summarized with the word: concentrated. I.e.:
dense, pushed together, pressurized, and filled to the brim, forged, purified also and distilled. De
Waard and Smolders press out superfluous elements to focus on, bring out the essence. No
gimmicks. No rough edges with frills and thrills. No free form noodling. Concentration is palpable
in the controlled and composed nature of the tracks; boiling down inspirations gleaned from
electro-acoustic improvisation and musique concrète narration to a quintet of tracks that not only
demand, but also command the same said form of concentration from the listener. Then and there,
in focussed appraisal of the duo’s dense atmospheres, ‘Een’ opens up to reveal an aural diorama of
drones and rhythms, clicks, cuts and glitches, field recordings of nature and city life, the organic
and the machine-made, the sacred and the profane, the high brow serious and maybe even cutely
funny.
Like Roger’s artwork, all of this concentration is never strained or static. WaSm’s plotlines are
open; flow freely. To arrive at this flexible sound and at the same time remain firmly rooted in an
apparent mission to concentrate towards the essence might seem to be a contradictory premise,
but it’s down to exactly both men’s decades long experience WaSm manages to find the most
intense essentiality of their material exactly where musical freedom reigns most supreme.
WaSm; that’s it. Got it? Show’s over. Curtain falls. House lights on. Over and done with.
Pack the crates, wipe the floor. Go home. Ears glowing. That’s it. (SSK)
––– Address: http://silkentofu.bigcartel.com/product/wasm-een-cd
FRANCOIS COUTURE – SPAM ME: SIMULACRA OF SONGS (CD by Cuchabata Records)
You may know Quebec-based Francois Couture for his work as a reviewer of experimental music
for his blog Monsieur Delire. He stopped this blog in 2015. One of his last sentences on his blog:
“After 20 years of journalism, I finally felt ready to make music instead of writing and talking about
other people’s music”. And ends announcing his first musical statement ‘Spam Me’, “based on
comments published by spambots on this blog through the years”. Why wait so long I asked myself
after having a good time with this record which I found a very amusing and worthwhile trip. Yes
Couture is ready to make his own statement. The ‘songs’ are constructed from field recordings,
noisy textures and some added instruments, plus let’s not forget the voice of Couture. There is a
pleasant free anarchistic spirit at work here. Some of the stuff is hilarious, some of it deadly serious.
In each track Couture plays a variety of instruments and is helped out by one or more of his mates.
Most of the compositions are by Couture. The rest mentions other players as co-writers. Tracks like
‘Moncler Uomo’ start from a classical Canterbury-RIO aesthetic. Also the title track is evidently
inspired from this tradition. ‘Osady Sciekowe’ again sounds very European and brings Peter Hammill
to my mind. Other tracks like the opening piece ‘Payday Loans’ are a noisy collage, or of a very
different nature. ‘You Left Me and You Took All of My Hammill Records, Baby, Now I’m All Alone
with My VDGG Cold-Turkey Blues’ is the most abstract track on this record. A sound work of flutes,
voices and objects. To conclude, Couture takes some very directions on his debut album. Whatever
he is doing his music is organic, spirited and enjoying. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.cuchabatarecords.bandcamp.com/
BY THE WATERHOLE – TWO (CD by Playdate)
By the Waterhole (nice name!) is Eva Pfitzenmaier who is a musician, performer and composer
from the south of Germany. She studied singing at the conservatory in Amsterdam and has a
background in jazz and improvisation. She works mainly in the Netherlands and Norway. She has
her own (art rock) band Krachmacher and also a theatre ensemble. By the Waterhole is her solo-
project. The title of her new album suggests there is also a ‘One’. And yes her solo debut ‘One’
was released in 2013 by the same Bergen-based label. Her new solo-CD counts seven songs. All
have the voice of Eva in the centre with minimal piano, keyboards and effects. Everything – music
and lyrics – is written, sung and played by her. Recorded at the Kakofon Studio in Bergen where she
lives nowadays. ‘Rollin’ and ‘I Want To’ are like archetypical blues songs. Multi-tracked voices
underlined with minimal rhythmical effects. Also the other tracks are built along the same reduced
approach touching jazz and pop idiom. No wonder I heard far echoes of Laurie Anderson and Jeff &
Jane Hudson. Pfitzenmaier sings with a clear, transparent voice her way through this collection of
poetic, gentle and comforting songs. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.playdaterecords.bandcamp.com/
SOLAR RETURN – 2RATS&4STARS (CD by Noizmutation)
Something that was noted before: Julien Ottavi is someone who loves a concept and I be damned if
I didn’t hear of Solar Return before. When I reviewed his ‘Electromagnetic Collective’ double CD (see
Vital Weekly 1020), I noticed it was a work with Jenny Pickett, with whom he now works under the
banner of Solar Return, but it seems more or less along similar lines. I read on the cover that Solar
Return started in 2009 “taking electromagnetic phenomena as a starting point for their audio
creations; they have produced various scores for dual audio synths/oscillators/DIY electronics etc.
… which reflect patterns and electromagnetic events such as solar flares and inner city mobile
masts, as well as the infathomable audio world of kitchen appliances”; as Electromagnetic Collective
they investigated ‘inaudible sounds’, through VLF devices and hydrophones but also to capture
electric currents. You might not be surprised if I say that their music is not easy to digest and that
it owes quite a bit to the world of noise music. But I say ‘quite a bit’ and that means ‘not
exclusively’. Solar Return may scan their environment, searching for electro magnetic phenomena’,
of which they find plenty around the house, and here’s what I think: they go ahead with ultrasound
devices, electro magnetic pick-ups and what have you, and tape these sounds onto whatever it is
they are using to record their music and then create the compositions you find on this disc. These
pieces are not so much a registration of sounds, but they are very much a collage of sounds, which
sometimes appear to be very loud and nasty, but as ‘ZoomInOpticalHair’ proofs can start with sheer
silence for four minutes, before entering some very high frequency and some very low frequency,
ripping your speakers almost apart; that is almost how all of these piece seem to work. Each of
them has an amount of tranquillity in there, near silence but when there is something to hear it
becomes very loud, and yet it’s not over the top. The frequencies Solar Return uses are just very
extreme, I guess. This is not music for the weak-hearted, I think; not some easy listening musique
concrete, but well-made, intelligent noise music. At fifty-one minutes quite a sit through, but it is
worth every bit of it. (FdW)
––– Address: http://fibrrrecords.net/doku.php
GENETIC TRANSMISSION (CD by Zoharum)
GENETIC TRANSMISSION – CHRZASZCZ BRZMI W TRZCINIE (CD by Zoharum)
MONOPIUM/K – NIGHTCLUBBING/DIE WÖLFE KOMMEN ZÜRUCK (CD by Zoharum)
CELER & DIRK SERRIES – BACKGROUND CURTAIN (CD by Zoharum)
While there is some temptation to start with the one release by two people whose work I am quite
familiar with, I started with the one I vaguely remembered, and well, partly because I was surprised
why Zoharum would do two CDs by Genetic Transmission at the same time. When I did review ‘Last’
in Vital Weekly 1009, I wrote that I had no idea how his music developed over the past twenty
years, but I discounted the fact that I reviewed the same project, by Tomasz Twardawa, in Vital
Weekly 405 and 676 (and yes, I know that is funny ‘oh he writes that he didn’t know xxx, but
already wrote twice about xxx before, he has no clue what is doing’, to keep with my own crippled
English. In twenty years I might have easily written over 10.000 reviews, conservative figure, but
that’s my defence). That release was the last ever release by Genetic Transmission, and the self-
titled release we have here is the very first, which came out in 1997 on a cassette by Obuh Records.
In this early work he uses quite a bit electronics, harsh electronics that is, and metallic sounds; it’s
not always clear if these metallic sounds come from real metal or out of a box. Much of these are
cut into loops and played with a bit of distortion and as such one could say that Genetic
Transmission in the early days was playing industrial music in the classic sense of the word. It is a
bit like Throbbing Gristle and SPK are meeting up with the power electronic posse. At times it all
sounded quite primitive and without much control, which even in 1997 was not always necessary,
but it was made without computers and such, so maybe that is easy explained. I thought this was
quite enjoyable, but not remarkable; a fine reminder of the good ol’ days of industrial music. In
Poland the work of Twardawa counts as highly influential, so perhaps 1998 was a bit late at that
to discover noise music?
The second release in the Genetic Transmissions Series Archive is a tongue twister, even in
Polish apparently, and it means ‘A Beetle Buzzes In The Reed’. Tochnit Aleph as a very limited CDR
release released this in 2006 and there have been releases in between these two (I am not sure
what decides what becomes part of this re-issue program from Zoharum) but one easily can hear
the development. The music is less primitive, even when I read that it is ‘a recording of the session
based on the most primal sound sources which are only arranged in a suitable structures so that
they form a concise material; however, they remained unchanged and no post-production was
applied to them”, which is perhaps slightly more cryptic than one would hope it would be. There is
still the presence of metallic sounds and the electronics but no longer it deals with the industrial
side of such things, but rather with the musique concrete aspect of sound transformation. If this
was made entirely in an analogue fashion or perhaps some computer techniques were applied, I have
no idea; based on what I hear I would say the latter is certainly an option. I can very envisage some
kind of session being played here, although one man is perhaps not enough to get all of this sound
going, but there also seems to be some sort of manipulation of reel-to-reel sounds going on here,
which reminded in all it’s rawness of P16.D4 or Brume. Maybe this was all taped on a multi-track,
recording every channel separate and then it was all mixed together, with some speed-alternation
going on. As said, I have no idea but it all sounds great. Was the first one merely interesting for me
from a historical perspective, this one sounded absolutely great, a very much ‘now’ sort of release.
An excellent primitive stab at the ideas of musique concrete, very much along the lines of the point
of reference mentioned, and one could as easily throw in early THu20 or Nurse With Wound. If the
rest of Genetic Transmission’s catalogue is along similar lines, I can easily see why Zoharum wants
to devote a whole series to this.
From Monopium I reviewed ‘The Goat And The Dead Horses’ Circus’ quite some time ago, Vital
Weekly 868 and never heard of K, of which otherwise no information is given. I wasn’t blown away
by Monopium’s release back then; it used a lot of rhythm, and so does this new one, along with
electronics, field recordings (a riot? children crying?) and electronics, and is perhaps less of a
hotchpotch than the previous release; I was mostly reminded of early Cabaret Voltaire here, with a
similar approach to the use of the rhythm machines, extended use of delay and reverb and
mumbling vocals, as well as the vague film soundtrack approach of ‘The Other’. I enjoyed this a lot,
actually. K. has three pieces here in which rhythm also plays a big role, but it’s more complex and
Monopium, and sounds less as an ancient rhythm machine ticking away. In fact everything about K.
sounds a bit modern, better equipment at use and the music is a bit trip hop like, but alike
Monopium also seems to hark back to the days of psychedelic music, Germany and krautrock (the
latter even being a title for one of Monopium’s pieces). K. has better equipment but I am not sure
if the music becomes better, per se. Not worse either, so perhaps it is a tie here; I enjoyed both.
Already in 2012 Will Long, also known as Celer, and Dirk Serries, also known as Vidna Obmana
and Fear Falls Burning (to name a few of his projects) started exchanging some sound material,
but it took a full year before Long even had an idea what to do with Serries’ guitar sounds. Long
explains this on the press text, but me no understand what he did: “Using the original track that I
sent Dirk at the very beginning as a sound source, I shaped it exactly like Dirk’s responding source
file – the musical colour and frequencies were the same, but the effects and enveloping was
triggered by the waves of Dirk’s track.[…] It may be hard to hear the two sides, but it’s really built
by the background curtain, and even if you can’t hear it’s place, it’s definitely there. Where does
one thing begin and another end? Maybe you can hear it?” It may explain the title of the release
though. Both of these two pieces work with Serries long sustaining guitar drones sounds, with
slowly envelop, overlaid, I guess, with Celer’s own drones, perhaps created by a transformation or
two of the original Serries input, but then more stretched out, adding more variations of the same
colour to the whole. ‘Above/Below’ is the darker side of the moon here, while the second piece, not
surprisingly called ‘Below/Above’, represents the lighter side of the coin. This is music that absolute
weightless space stuff, transporting the listener through an endless black universe and the notes of
Serries, especially on ‘Below/Above’ are like little stars at the firmament. Maybe I just wrote that
because of the impending Christmas season? I have no idea; it is one of those beautiful shiny winter
days and Celer and Dirk Serries provide the perfect soundtrack for such a day, in which everything
seems to slow down. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.zoharum.com
TEATRINO ELETTRICO – NO ES COSA PARA NINOS (LP by Musica Di un Certo Livello)
The references made here talk about “echoes of Einsturzende Neubauten and T. raumschmiere
meet the restless phantom of Societas Raffaello Sanzio”, although I have no clue who the latter
is. Actually, I also have no idea who Teatrino Elettrico are or is. The album is mixed by Disciplinatha
frontman Cristiano Santini. It’s like unlocking a door and a bunch of new names pop up; so while I
know not a lot about much of this, although the first two echoes are groups/persons I know of. It
is not like the metal banging of the Neubauten what I hear on this record, although something
brutal is indeed part of this. “Readymade objects turn into robot sound embryos, assembled and
orchestrated in their compulsion to repeat, amplified by contact microphones and manipulated in
real-time|”, the label says about the methods employed by this duo, and I can imagine a lot with
that, especially in relation with the actual seven pieces, carved into vinyl. A form of one kind or
another of circuit bending perhaps, and once it sounds like healthy dose of noise, Teatrino Elettrico
try to maintain position, as to create loops of industrialized rhythm. Think Esplendor Geometrico in
their early days, but even more minimalist. When I first heard this I though this was a band who fully
lived the dream of having a couple of monotrons and have them play all at the same time, in a kind
of orgy of lo-fi synth noise, but perhaps there is more that. At times the music is pretty chaotic
and out of control, with beats per minute going up and down, as to follow the hand-cranked dials
on those chemical infested machinery of the two players. This is some good ol’ fashioned noise
record; I am not sure if in thirty years this will be re-issued as a classic along the lines of ‘EG 1’,
Esplendor’s collection of first LP, first cassette and first 7″, but the days of late 2016 are as
actually grim as those of 1981, I’d say and perhaps this is the perfect soundtrack to the new
dark days? Time will tell, if we survive! (FdW)
––– Address: http://musicadiuncertolivello.com/
FREIBAND – CUBES (CDR by Reverse Alignment)
On ‘Cubes’ Freiband goes for the long haul. That is to say: the picture in cinema scope wide screen
glory. Saturation in the tinniest of grains giving way to a full screen sound image that captures the
imagination on a vast scale. The minimalist surface tensions opened widely to interpretation and
contemplation; to diving in, hovering above or walking through. ‘Cubes’ is almost installation-like;
a white (duh) cube gallery space, sparsely filled with threads akin to Fred Sanback’s sculptures – as
much there as evanescent, absent: presence suggested as much as realized.
Frans de Waard composed the work from original sound sources provided by Dao de Noize fom
Ukraine. In the process he used his “action composing method”. Therewith De Waard processed
large blocks of sound. With these a mix was created, without hyper focus on the single sounds.
One can hear this method of working on various Freiband-releases, but the modus operandi only
recently was named, identified as A.C.M.
The long blocks stacked, reconfigured, moved around, spread out, brought into juxtaposition
with each other work like chapters in a novel or stories in a well-tuned collection. The thematic
narrative stretch is one of static to slowly evolving ambient like noisy dronescapes. Lines drawn
thinly – nothing massive, no big gestures or bold statements. In the visual arts: think much more
Agnes Martin, much less Franz Kline. It’s the positioning and tweaking, the processing and
treatment in which Freiband exerts a form of aural freehand; a gestural movement, a splashing and
dashing where angular cubist minimalist formalism clashes full frontally with controlled yet lively
and organic Pollock-like animated tactile engagement with the materials.
For the duration of 37 minutes De Waard manages to pull the listener deep into an aural
picture, moving into near inaudible places, pulling focus and shifting gears around a shimmering
and veiled construct of hiss, noise and subtle shifts of colour and texture. Chunky movements
indeed; looking left, turning right like vapour trails across a warm ionosphere. (SSK)
Address: https://reversealignment.bandcamp.com/album/cubes
BRUNO DUPLANT – LES TENEBRES VERTES DANS LES SOIRS HUMIDES DE LA BELLE SAISON
(CDR by Rhizome.s)
A.F. JONES – LANGUOR YIELDS (CDR by Rhizome.s)
Although the first release lists Duplant on the front cover, it also says just below, in smaller font,
‘avec A.F. Jones’, who plays ‘analogue electronics’, as it says on the backside. However Duplant is
the man, who composed this piece, plays piano and treatments. Normally releases by Rhizome.s
tend to be on the quiet side, not unlike pieces from the Wandelweiser group, but in this case there
is actually music to be heard throughout. The composition works like this: there is some sonorous
rumble being played, I assume by Jones, which lasts a few minutes and ends on a somewhat quieter
tone at which point a piano plays a few notes. However none of this seems to be restricted to any
specific time frame. Both the electronic part and the piano part can be longer or shorter; as long as
they seem to like at any point. Sometimes there is an overlap in electronics and piano playing, but
when the latter is heard it is usually a lot sparser, and even when it plays ‘solo’ it is quite sparse.
The electronic part of this piece sounds very lo-fi, with a set of densely layered and highly obscured
sounds. These could be radio waves, sound effects or amplified hiss from cassettes, and it sounds
really good; quite intense and full of suspense. Add to the isolated piano sounds and it sounds like
a horror soundtrack, although perhaps of a B-movie. Excellent release!
The other release contains two compositions by A.F. Jones. The first is called ‘Apparatchiks’,
and Jones himself supplies voices, as in plural, so I would think this is layered from a bunch of
recordings , and it doesn’t make it easy, nay impossible, to say what this piece is about, well,
‘apparatchiks’ apparently. Christian Weber plays the music on contrabass and electric bass along
with a percussion trio called Meridian, which consists of Tim Feeney, Sarah Hennies and Greg Stuart.
In exactly twenty minutes a nervous piece of many voices unfolds, with a heavy accompaniment of
bass and strings, and the deep end rumble of the percussion. As the piece progresses the voice
becomes less layered and then dies out. A fine piece, if not a bit too long. The other piece is
‘Tinctures: 6.34” and Jones is now on percussion, along with Cristian Alvear on guitar, Tyler J.
Borden on cello and Nick Lesley on percussion. This piece contains field recordings made in San
Diego. Here it is hard to say what these field recordings are, and what the instruments do, which
is quite all right; it all becomes quite blurry with the rattling of objects, and the sustained notes
on both string instruments, all of which seem to sink away in a vast, empty landscape; and then I
realized it might have been recorded in a field out there somewhere. That also might not be the
case but all I’m saying is that it might have been possible. This is quite a refined release, perhaps
a bit more mysterious than the Duplant one, but in terms of musical pleasure I gained more pleasure
out of Duplant, which was on repeat for a couple of times this afternoon, than Jones. (FdW)
––– Address: http://rhizome-s.blogspot.com
FOSSILS – CAMELOT TOWERS (CDR by Kendra Steiner Editions/Middle James Co)
TOM CREAN & MATT ROBIDOUX – BLANK SPACE (CDR by Kendra Steiner Editions)
SMOKEY EMERY & VENISON WHIRLED – TURNING INTO (CDR by Kendra Steiner Editions)
There are strong ties between Fossils and Kendra Steiner Editions; it is almost like one could say,
taking cues from the real record industry that Fossils have a recording contract with them, but
with the notion of just 48 copies available, one realizes this is perhaps a bit silly thinking. This
new one is also co-released by the group’s own Middel James Co. label. Fossils are, as always, Daniel
Farr and David Payne, ever since I first heard of them (see Vital Weekly 532) when they were a trio.
They play improvised music and seem to be using whatever they can lay their hand on, which on
‘Camelot Towers’ sees the presence of guitar and piano as the two principal instruments to be
played, along with their usual feedback, small synth/lo-fi electronics, a bit of percussion (less than
before it seems) and Dictaphones. Feedback is something that should not be taken in terms of
loud noise per se, as the thirteen pieces here are very modest affairs actually, almost like chamber
music. Rather than a studio recording, I had the impression here that they are in a small club, with
an upright piano, a microphone in the middle of room and do an all free-improvisation on the main
instruments. For a while I thought Fossils would go the way of P16.D4 and that they would take
their improvisations to another level, and play around with them in a more musique concrete kind
of way. Some of their previous releases hinted that way, but they never really went for it, which I
personally think is a pity. While I enjoyed this release quite a bit, like I usually do with their music, I
think a leap forward might not be a bad idea. However if you like your improvisations to be raw and
untamed and you think along the lines of Corpus Hermeticum, then Fossils are still safely in the
place they are now.
Improvisation is also the game for Tom Crean and Matt Robidoux, both which seem to be new
names for me. The first plays 7-string guitar, banjo and engineering while the other plays acoustic/
electric guitar, banjo, bass, gong and sounds. Here an air friendliness is shared with the listener;
maybe recorded in the same club after Fossils left (that of course is not the case), but here too
the listener is treated on some highly free music, not unlike Fossils, but one could also say that
this duo is perhaps a bit more traditional in their approach to free music. The differences are in the
details however. The way Crean and Robidoux play their instruments is how one could approach the
instruments, and they sound very much like they are supposed to sound, the banjo remains the
banjo and so on, and also there is not much in terms of little, weird sounds that Fossils use off
and on in their music, however to the background on the one I just heard. It might be the presence
of the banjo perhaps but it adds a folk-like character to the music. The music is all introspective
and quiet, with very few moments of unrest and it sounds quite good.
Of a really different nature than these two is the recording made by Daniel Hipolito, also
known as Smokey Emery and Lisa Cameron, who goes by the name of Venison Whirled. The first
plays electronics and tapes while the other plays amplified percussion. Recordings were made in
December from last year and like we know Cameron (better than we know Smokey Emery I guess),
this is a pretty noise based affair. In the five pieces here they explore the outer end of percussion
music, by using percussion but without actually playing it, so it seems. Everything seems to be
working towards making sound that causes percussion surfaces or skins to resonate. It makes
this a very ‘live’ recording, with all the noise captured in a room, rather then being picked up with
a bunch of lines and mixers. Actually come to think of it, I might be entirely wrong of course
describing the way they work, like I just did. Maybe Cameron plays some kind of percussion set
up with a few sticks and is there amplification right next to it, while on Hipolito has another
amplifier for his set up with of old tape recorders with rusty loops and some electronic device?
And that the agreement between the two of them is to keep things at a minimal level? That also
is very well possible. All of this comes with quite some force and rumbles very neatly at the lower
end especially when played loud this works pretty well. A very consistent approach to a single idea
I’d say. It’s not a very long release, but just long enough I guess. (FdW)
––– Address: http://kendrasteinereditions.wordpress.com/
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1. meeuw <meeuw@meeuw.net>
Meeuw Muzak’s Grand Christmas Gala
Dennis Tyfus
Dark Brown Feeling
Wendy Gondeln (with Luke Calzonetti)
Rezzett (Trilogy Tapes)
Dennis Tyfus will present his new xmas 45.
Saturday 17 December
les ateliers claus
Rue Crickx 15
1060 Brussels
20H30 / 8 euros
http://lesateliersclaus.com/
http://meeuwmuzak.net/
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