ORGANUM – ELECTRONICS (CD by Siren Records) *
YIORGIS SAEKLLARIOU – NYMPHOLEPSY (CD by Noise Below) *
CATEHDRA – TIMES WAS AWAY 1992-1997 (2CD by Zoharum) *
LUNAR ABYSS DEUS ORGANUM – A SHERPA’S SLEEP IS MORE MILK MUSIC (CD by
Zoharum) *
STARGAZER’S ASSISTANT – MIRRORS & TIDES, SHIVERS & VOIDS (CD by Zoharum) *
ANGST 78 – 78 ANGST (CD by Zoharum) *
ANNA HÖSTMANN & CHERYL DUVALL – HARBOUR (CD by Redshift Records)
PHILIP ZOUBEK & IVANN CRUZ & MARCIN WITKOWSKI – RADIUM (CD by Circum Disc) *
KLAUS JANEK – PROSPECTING (LP by Almenrauschen)
KLAUS JANEK – RECIPROCUM (LP by Almenrauschen)
DAVE PHILLIPS – SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION (LP by Total Black) *
DIVIDED STATE – SPURIOUS EMISSIONS (CDR by Edgetone Records) *
TL0741 – REFRACTORY (CDR by HC3 Music) *
MICHAEL DUANE FERRELL – HEX (CDR by Glistening Examples) *
LUCA FORCUCCI – BODYSCAPE (CDR by Glistening Examples) *
TOPIAS TIHEÄSALO & NIKO-MATTI AHTI – FOUR LETTERS – LIFE (CDR by Glistening
Examples) *
ERELL LATIMIER – L’IMPATIENCE DIRECTE DES CORPS (CDR by Glistening Examples) *
CHLORINE – BLUME (cassette by Invisible Cities) *
NICHOLAS MALONEY – SOMBUSE (cassette by Invisible Cities) *
DUNNING & BROSAMER – GLOCKEN (cassette by Invisible Cities) *
ORGANUM – ELECTRONICS (CD by Siren Records)
David Jackman’s music, both as Organum and under his given name, is typically characterized
by repetition, brevity and a deadpan aloofness. He’s made plenty of extremely short (sometimes
one-sided) 7” singles, albums containing multiple slight variations on a single piece, and albums
of compositional (if not sonic) minimalism. It’s Jackman’s typical move to provide very little
information beyond a word, or sometimes an image. Lately, he’s been predisposed to not even
providing an image; just as few words as possible on a white background, nothing more.
Naturally, he does not seem to do interviews and has no web presence. As listeners, we’re left to
apprehend the music as itself. No guidance into his hermetic world. I find it refreshing. Whatever
your experience of an Organum album is, that’s all you get. Thankfully, each emission is thought-
provoking enough to get lost in and monolithic enough to encourage both passive and active
engagement.
In the case of the flatly titled “Electronics”, the music is as evocative and singular as anything
Jackman has produced. The three 15-minute untitled pieces are monoliths of surging drone
bathed in mammoth reverberation. The title says everything you need to know and nothing at all.
Same with the cover art, merely the title and name in a black print cross pattern on white
background. The design is nearly (or perhaps exactly?) identical to Jackman’s relatively more
active and mellow “Herbstsonne” album; is there an implied relationship between the two? I’ve
given both albums some deep listen and I cannot tell what the relationship could be. And so
again, the sound is all one gets. “Electronics” is dense and huge; a roiling swamp of electric din
that would appeal to fans of Jackman’s early collaborations with The New Blockaders (“Salute”
and “Wrack”), though this is more atmospheric than aggressive. It’s a slow boil of fierce control,
not a chaotic attack. Few actual events happen, and there isn’t much difference between the
three tracks… it’s almost as if Jackman set some sounds in motion, then stepped back and
allowed the pieces to generate themselves. It’s relentless and heavy, uniform in mood across all
45 minutes. No build-up, no denouement, just a steady mysterious churn to get lost inside of. (HS)
––– Address: sirenrec@ybb.ne.jp
YIORGIS SAEKLLARIOU – NYMPHOLEPSY (CD by Noise Below)
To start with the bad news; this CD is only twenty-three minutes long and that is a great pity.
Yiorgis Sakellariou hails from Greece, though now living in Coventry (I believe) and his homeland
is not far away. This new CD is about the “Ancient Messene,” which “is a local community of the
municipal unit Ithomi, of the municipality of Messini within the regional unit of Messenia in the
region of Peloponnese, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided”. The composition
is a “dialogue between the ethereal (sound) and the material (the ancient ruins)” and he uses
field recordings from the place along with the voice of Savina Yannatou. Sakellariou is one of the
remaining composers to work with laptop technology, who didn’t make the changeover to the
world of modular electronics (as far as I know). Quite rightly so, as he is nothing less than an
expert on manipulating recordings inside the world of ones and zeroes and he creates an
excellent collage of sound. It owes to the world of musique concrete, but Sakellariou is not one to
use easy granular synthesis to create his work. He creates a complex web of sounds, sometimes
very dry, sometimes beyond recognition, moving back and forth in a place and while highly
abstract, he paints a picture of the location. He does that with voice recordings that sound like
car horns, by sticking his microphone in the dirt and capturing human activities. Like a wind that
captures the sounds from thousands of years ago and dumps it into this piece of music. I ranked
his previous major work, ‘In Aulis’ to the best of his works (Vital Weekly 1121), but I’d like to add
this one as well to that list. However, I wouldn’t have minded this to go for some more time. I had
it on repeat for a couple of times and found something new in there every time. So maybe it is
long enough? (FdW)
––– Address: http://noise-below.bandcamp.com
CATEHDRA – TIMES WAS AWAY 1992-1997 (2CD by Zoharum)
LUNAR ABYSS DEUS ORGANUM – A SHERPA’S SLEEP IS MORE MILK MUSIC (CD by
Zoharum)
STARGAZER’S ASSISTANT – MIRRORS & TIDES, SHIVERS & VOIDS (CD by Zoharum)
ANGST 78 – 78 ANGST (CD by Zoharum)
While I was going to write: I only heard of Lunar Abyss Deus Organum, my eye caught the sheet
with information and I recognized the name Mark Crumby. Back in the day, I used to be in
contact with him, buying and trading music he released on his label Jara Discs. I sort of half-half
forgot he did his music, as Cathedra back in the ’90s and these days as Codex Empire and
antechamber. I am also informed he is one half of Konstruktivits, Mitra Mitra and Oppenheimer
MKII. I am sure I heard some of Catehdra’s music back in the day, but I didn’t remember any of it.
After studying all the information on these four new Zoharum releases, I decided Cathedra would
be the best place to start. The twenty-nine tracks on this release were recorded, as the title
already indicates, between 1992 and 1997 and released on cassette by Jara Discs, Ant-Zen,
Obuh, and on CDR and 7″ by Jara Discs. Crumby decided to go for a best-of disc and not for a
chronological overview, or a complete representation of his work. I am sure it would exceed two
compact discs. The cover has no information as to instruments used, so there is something to
guess about here. In the early nineties, technology become quickly better and cheaper and I
would think that Cathedra was a man of sampling; sampling whatever he heard and liked. Put
that on a four-track machine and add some effects in the mix for good measure. The pieces here
see Cathedra neatly bounce all over the place. It’s a mysterious place, full of moods. Sometimes
you believe to be in a church, then in the Kasbah (Crumby also released some music from
Muslimgauze and there is clearly some influence there) and up next, the rainforest. It is moody
and spacious, lengthy sustaining sounds upon synthesized tones, next to sparse (and not so
sparse) percussive sections. It moves through the whole bunch of different versions of what we
would have called back then ‘ambient industrial’. Sometimes a bit more ambient, or a bit more
industrial, even when the latter is not present a lot. The second disc seems to have a focus on a
more modern classical field, with lots of sampled violins, choirs and other orchestral bits; perhaps
for me a bit too gothic/dramatic. It all deals with mood and there is plenty of that going on. It’s over
two hours of wonderful music, excellently produced.
Lunar Abyss Deus Organum is no stranger to these pages. Many of their releases are on
Russian labels, where they hail from. I may not have heard all of their releases, but surely four or
five by now and they do whatever do and they continue to deliver some great mood music. There
is something ritualistic about this music. They use singing bowls, bells, synthesizers and tons of
sound effects, or at least, that what I like to think and create their ominous music. They also seem
to expand here on their sound; in ‘Kanikuly’ there is a strange loop that sounds like a bit of muzak,
that comes to us quietly humming; it is suddenly there in the middle of the piece and it stays there
until the end, along with some very gentle electronics. ‘Dadada’ takes the invocations of a newborn
into something of a dark bass thump. This all seems like an odd sound for them, given their usual
dark tones. Maybe they added a bunch of new sounds to the arsenal and slowly expand further
afield with their ambient music and that’s a great thing. They trot on new paths in their music and
that is, at least as how I see these sort of things, a good thing. There are probably as many
releases you can do of one thing (well, maybe on cassette on could do endlessly the same thing)
and then it’s time for one or two new elements in the music, and Lunar Abyss Deus Organum
manages to do that pretty well. It is an album with all the familiar signs, the lengthy, ominous
drones, the tribalistic percussive drums, the vague chanting, spiced up with strange new elements,
expanding the musical horizon. Die-hard fans won’t be scared off, I should think, as the changes
aren’t that big, so all in all, it is a clever move.
Something completely different is the music by David J. Smith, who goes by the name of
The Stargazer’s Assistant. This is a solo project for him, next to him being the leader and
drummer of “avant-garde rock group Guape”. This solo project he started in 2007 and grew into
what is now a trio, including David J. Knight, of whom is said here is connected to Danielle Dax
and Lydia Lunch but for me is one of the members of the long-forgotten (sadly not re-issued
either) Five Or Six and Michael J. York (Coil, Cyclobe, Teleplasmiste). That is a lot of ‘J’ for a
middle name, come to think of it. The music is sometimes used as a soundtrack. Utech Records
previously released this CD as a double 10” in 2013, when it was still mainly a solo project.
Smith plays the piano, synths, harmonium, acoustic guitar, percussion, tapes, samples, water
bowl, fridge, chain, front door, matchbox and voice and various people as guests on vocals,
keyboards, ‘bowed thunderboard’, violin and bassoon. While this is something that we could
easily file under ‘heavily alternative rock music’, I found it all pretty interesting music. There is
certainly a cinematographic element to the music here, and that’s not just because of several of
the sounds that he used, such as gunshots in ‘Night Soil’. With quite some effective use of reverb,
Smith paints a vast space that would do well on the big screen. It is melancholic, it is dramatic, it’s
spacious; it could serve many different types of movies I would think. The element of rock music
is kept to a minimum, which for me is fine; just occasionally the whole percussion kit and singer-
songwriter modus is put on (‘Shivers & Voids’), which actually for me breaks with the idea of a
soundtrack album, but I can imagine the artist thought of this in terms of bringing in variation.
Throughout a most excellent album.
Zoharum calls the Angst 78 album ‘a conceptual compilation’, but it’s a compilation in the
sense that it collects music by Patryk Gegniewicz (also known as Revisq; I may not have heard
of him before) and Lukasz Szalankiewicz (Zenial), which they composed between 2013 and 2019
in a variety of places. There are also three remixes here, by Fisherboyz, Ursus Sykot and Dawid
Chrapla). I had not heard Angst 78 before, but these thirteen tracks span the whole eighty
minutes of the disc, so there is plenty to dive into. The band name is inspired by the movie ‘Angst’
by Gerald Kargl and 78 is the year both composers were born. Rhythm is the all-important element
in the mix here; it is present in almost all of the pieces, save for a track such as ‘Children Of The
Corn’, which is an all-ambient outing. The rhythm is usually minimal and techno-based, with fine
washes synthesizers to help set the mood. Some of these pieces sound close to the work of
Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas (including titles that sound like Gas, such as ‘Frost’ and ‘Im Wald’), but when
the beats are tad more complicated and there is a few more complex synth moves it all becomes
a bit more interesting (not being a particularly big fan of the Gas works here). It all seems aimed at
the dance floor, which is, perhaps, an oddity for Zoharum, but the somewhat darker keys pressed
here make this also a rather fitting release for the label. (FdW)
––– Address: https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/
ANNA HÖSTMANN & CHERYL DUVALL – HARBOUR (CD by Redshift Records)
If I’m not mistaken, this is the first full-length CD with works by Anna Höstman. She is a Canadian
composer who did her studies at the University of Toronto (Gordon Mumma, Christopher
Butterfield, a.o.). She composes for large and small ensembles, solo compositions, vocal music
and music for installations. Her works have been performed in Europe, the US, China, etc. The
Canadian string quartet Quator Bozzini is just one of the ensemble she worked with (2011). Earlier
trumpeter Amy Horvey recorded a composition of her (‘Interview’, 2009). My knowledge and
overview of modern composed music are surely limited. But listening to Höstmann’s sober and
gentle piano compositions on ‘Harbour’, I was reminded of the work of Morton Feldmann from time
to time. Accessible music, and of a reflective and meditative nature. But in no way connected with
the overtly neo-classical piano music that is so dominant in the last few years. For this, her music is
too complex and modern. It is not about big changes in dynamics or contrasting movements, nor
striving towards culminating peaks. Far more her works move on forward in a more or less same
pace. Often dissonant movements and patterns are used but in a modest way. Integrating melodic
elements in an open less-is-more style. ‘Harbour’ is one of six compositions that are featured on
this disc, all composed between 2010 and 2019. This composition is the exception to what I
wrote above. Here she makes use different dynamics and in a sense, this work has more drama
than the other ones. For all compositions counts that they a strong and personal identity. Very
mature compositions that I started to like and more after repeated listening, also due to the
excellent performance by Cheryl Duvall, a Toronto-based pianist and a prominent performer of
contemporary music in Canada. (DM)
––– Address: https://redshiftrecords.org/
PHILIP ZOUBEK & IVANN CRUZ & MARCIN WITKOWSKI – RADIUM (CD by Circum Disc)
‘Radium’ is the debut release by a trio of Philip Zoubek (prepared piano, analogue synth), Ivann
Cruz (electric guitar, electronics) and Marcin Witkowski (prepared drums, electronics). A trio that
exists already for some years. A bit on their backgrounds: Austrian musician Zoubek worked with
Paul Lytton, Frank Gratkowski, Wilbert de Joode, Thomas Lehn, etc. Cruz and Witkowski worked
earlier in a Polish-French quartet with Peter Orins and Mateusz Rybicki that came about from the
‘Lille meets Wroclaw’ project. Percussionist and drummer Witkowski is mainly focused on
exploring new electro-acoustic possibilities and co-founder of ensembles like Jiva, Program,
Room on Moon. Cruz comes more from a jazz background and participated in many Lille-based
ensembles (La Pieuvre, le Grand Orchestre de Muzzix, Circum Grand Orchestra, Feldspath, TOC).
As a trio, they are engaged in a really exciting musical adventure. The album offers some very
radical improvised music, focused on integrating loud and harsh noise with jazz-inspired
improvisation. Resulting in what sounds like an intriguing electro-acoustic sound world. This
implies that the sounds of piano, guitar and drums are often deconstructed and changed beyond
recognition if not accompanied by electronic sound sources. Each improvisation is a richly
textured world on its own, originating from different ideas and angles. The lengthy improvisation
‘Tungsten’ may be the most extreme one. A very heavy treat of thick layers of noise. The dark and
moody soundscape ‘Silenium’ is at the other end of the spectrum. Ethereal sounds effectively
combined crackling noises ‘Astatine’ is the very captivating opening track with fine interactions
between the three. In ‘Thallium’ we hear a prepared piano in a very percussive role. ‘Xenon’ is a
very elegant and communicative piece, where they stay most close to their original instruments
of guitar, prepared piano and drums. Each of the nine improvisations underlines this was a fruitful
and inspired collaboration. A more than an excellent album of very exciting and suspenseful
music! (DM)
––– Address: https://www.circum-disc.com/
KLAUS JANEK – PROSPECTING (LP by Almenrauschen)
KLAUS JANEK – RECIPROCUM (LP by Almenrauschen)
In 2019 Klaus Janek, a Berlin-based composer, contrabassist and researcher released a set of 5
albums of his solo and collaborative work. First three albums (‘Caspar’, ‘Three Seasons’ and
‘Infinite Bang’) we reviewed here earlier. Now we are focusing on the two other albums that
complete this special edition called ‘Almenrauschen’, namely ‘Prospecting’ and ‘Reciprocum’.
Compared with the earlier reviewed albums from this edition, these albums show Janek not so
much as an accomplished double bass player, but far more his activity in the field of electro-
acoustic music. The album ‘Prospecting’ contains duo works by Janek with Milena Kipfmüller as
Sounding Situations. Kipfmüller is a sound artist, producer, theatre dramaturge, interested in
developing new forms of ‘performative and live radio play’. ‘Violeiros Revisitados’ is built from
recordings of traditional Brazilian vocal music by the Violeiros, dating from the 70s and looped
sounds. Janek adds nice solo lines on contrabass. Through processing, this is finished in a
warm sound work of deep sounds. Similar for ‘Recorded Recorders’ that starts with a fine solo
by Janek, accompanied with deep and low sounds that evolve along with cyclic procedures. The
work develops along with a deep echoing cadence, centred around a hypnotizing pattern. Again
the sound material is of imaginative quality. Both are very intensive and moving works. On the B-
side, we find ‘Echolot-Montreal/Sao Paolo’. Echolot is a performance installation by Kipfmüller
and Janek, presented in Montreal (2016) and Sao Paolo (2017). Non-musical material of spoken
word (French and German) is the main ingredient in this work that can be situated between audio
play and music. Again a truly absorbing sound work where they successfully investigate into the
musical qualities of the spoken word. The album ‘Reciprocum’ contains one giant work in two
parts. The first part is based on recording sessions by Janek with Heiner Reinhard, Willi Kellers,
Andy Graydon, Nils Ostendorf, Biliana Voutchkova, Mark Weaver and Christian Pincock that are
reworked and assembled by Janek into one work. The second part is based on recordings
sessions of Janek and Nicolas Wiese, William Bilwa Costa, Luca Marini, among others, processed
by Milena Kipfmüller. Both Janek and Kipfmüller manage to integrate these recordings into one
organic (meta-)musical work. Sometimes the original recordings are treated beyond recognition,
sometimes not. Also, the length of the outtakes is very different. There is a very long one with
fantastic violin playing by Voutchkova. It is impressive how Janek and Kipfmüller take up these
improvised sections in a new musical context. For sure we are dealing here with multi-layered
and multidimensional works by two artists who have a strong musical vision of what they aiming
at. Music that fascinates from start to finish! (DM)
––– Address: http://www.klaus-janek.de/
DAVE PHILLIPS – SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION (LP by Total Black)
The work of Dave Phillips is never about the music itself, as the man has a message for the world.
He’s, by all means, an activist, fighting some good causes, such as caring about the environment.
Although I am pretty sure I didn’t see all of his releases, I would think this is the first time there is
an extensive text delivered with this release, addressing the way we humans treated the earth, the
extinction of insects, for instance, and the fact that we are very careless with earth, so life itself
might be extinct in the future. There is so much text here that one isn’t able to read it while playing
the LP. This is the most ‘punk’ record by Phillips so far, in terms of explaining a point. Some of this
is written by Professor Jem Bendell, but also from newspapers, encyclopaedia and online sources.
The music on this LP contains two sidelong pieces of music. On the first side we find ‘Things
Falling Apart’, a stereophonic piece that was originally a six-channel piece played over three PA’s
and on the second side there is the studio version of ‘Radical Hope’, “triggered by a broken heart,
it’s a critical analysis of subjective behaviourisms, self-reflections, self-criticisms and conclusions
thereof. the subsequent translation of derived intentions into ritualised actions include purging,
activating learning and healing processes, self-betterment, empowerment and hair-burning. has
since morphed into a piece about the relationship of the human as a species with planet earth as
a cherished entity, such as a loved one, a friend, a partner, a companion, a parent or a family
member, a home or an origin.”
Both of these pieces are tour de forces for Phillips. He has a very distinct sound. It is a
highly personal approach to, for the lack of better, ‘noise’ music. Phillips plays loud music but
seems not to be interested in loads and loads of distortion, but everything is recorded very loud
and it never distorts. That is already an interesting achievement. On the input side there are
acoustic sounds, dogs barking and air escaping balloons for instance, along with Phillips’ voice,
screaming/shouting but only very occasionally. There might also be some form of electronics,
providing ‘drones’, airy and nothing ‘fat’, for the sake of playing some ‘nice; drones; I am sure
playing ‘nice drones’ doesn’t appear in his vocabulary. And there are very short punctures of
sound. A crack, a balloon burst, the slamming of doors, the breaking of wood, a bang on metal.
All of these elements are combined and put together in one long frightening collage. Or two, of
course, such as on this LP. ‘Radical Hope’ provides a more continuous sound but here too
elements fly in and out of the mix, growing in power and strength until it cuts out and the final
minutes are reserved for a slow bang on a gong and whispering. ‘Things Falling Apart’ is more a
collage piece, with rapid changes of sceneries, via bangs and thumbs, like opening doors to new
realities all the time, and the voice of Phillips as a guide, even if we don’t understand him all the
time. This is powerful stuff, all around; the sort of thing that made you think and it’s about time. (FdW)
––– Address: https://dave-phillips.bandcamp.com/
DIVIDED STATE – SPURIOUS EMISSIONS (CDR by Edgetone Records)
Usually releases by the US label Edgetone Records go to Dolf Mulder, due to the improvised
nature of the music, but after checking this one out I thought this to be more up my street. Divided
State is a duo of André Custodio (manipulated sampling, synthesizers, percussion) and Leroy
Clark (field recording, synthesizers, sampling, mixing). I had not heard of either man. The cover
tells us that the music is made of ‘spontaneous improvised textural atmospheres realized with
field recordings, manipulated samples and synthetic magnification of the unknowable”. That
works out to six pieces of music, spanning sixty-five minutes of music; long tracks, all-around ten
to thirteen minutes and all of them in a rather drone/atmosphere approach. None of this is
presented as a collage of sound but in a pretty straightforward, linear fashion. Every piece starts
with a few sounds and from thereon there is an exploration of these sounds in combination with
each other, in combination with effects and throughout with the addition of other sounds. Field
recordings are no longer recognizable, heavily changed as they are through the extensive re-
sampling and, percussion also seems sparse, and a lot of it deals with synthesizer sounds,
sizzling and droning away; all of this rather in an abstract and ambient way, without being in
any cosmic or melodic. This is all quite solid music, I should think and something that could
appeal to all those in favour of some of those lo-fi drone explorations that are around a lot.
Divided State is along similar lines with their grainy, droney, greyish sound paintings; they do a
great job here, arriving from a somewhat surprising corner of the musical world. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.edgetonerecords.bandcamp.com
TL0741 – REFRACTORY (CDR by HC3 Music)
The intervals used by Pat Gillis, also known as TL0741, to release music are quite extended.
The last time we heard something from was two CDR releases, reviewed in Vital Weekly 964.
As before Gillis is credited with “synths, effects, mixing and editing” and come to think of it, I
would think that he’s an early adapter of what we know called ‘modular synth’ music. When I
saw him play in 2007 (I think), it might have been one of the first times I saw a modular set-up
being played. I have no idea what Gillis working methods are. I can imagine this being all
recorded live (at home), at the moment; finding the right sounds and then hit ‘record’ and do an
improvisation over a set of sounds. Likewise, I can also imagine that Gillis records a lot of stuff in
real-time and then sits down does multi-tracked version, by mixing various parts. Listening to
‘Refractory’, I could think it can go either way. Some of this, such as the title piece, is surely a
more improvised piece of music, but for others, I am not always sure. As before (also), TL0741
uses quite some force in his music, but throughout it is quite heavy at times. TL0741 covers a
vast field of dynamics; powerful meets the introspective and that’s a great thing here. There is in
these nine pieces quite some variation to be noted. Even a bit of rhythm is not far, such as in
‘Raise Your Glass’. As before in all of these pieces there is some fine sense of psychedelic music
to be noted; the rough end of cosmic music if you will. Yet it is never too long and outstaying it’s
welcome. These pieces are like cosmic explosions, coming and going rather quickly. If you play
this all a bit quieter than a more subdued ambient mood comes from this and in a louder realm, it
becomes immersive. Take your pick there, I’d say, or try it in various ways. For me, either way,
worked quite well. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.hc3music.com
MICHAEL DUANE FERRELL – HEX (CDR by Glistening Examples)
LUCA FORCUCCI – BODYSCAPE (CDR by Glistening Examples)
TOPIAS TIHEÄSALO & NIKO-MATTI AHTI – FOUR LETTERS – LIFE (CDR by Glistening
Examples)
ERELL LATIMIER – L’IMPATIENCE DIRECTE DES CORPS (CDR by Glistening Examples)
Four new releases by Jason Lescalleet’s Glistening Examples label, proving you can still do a
great looking release and have it on CDR. As such this label is one of the better houses for this.
Also, Lescalleet has a great talent for spotting interesting new artists; I have not heard of most of
these.
For Michael Duane Ferrell I could find any information; not on the label’s Bandcamp or
anywhere else. I was wondering if the title of his release is inspired by the Dutch novel of the
same name, and liked by Stephen King, about a witch surviving for hundreds of years and
terrorizing a small village (the original village very close to the Vital hometown; the US version of
the book is set in the US); or perhaps any other sort of hexes. The titles don’t give away much in
that respect, but it all sounds a bit grim; ‘Human Thirst For Meaning’, ‘Bring Him Back’, ‘Fearful
Light’ and so on. Perhaps the music sets me off in a dark place as well. I have no idea what Ferrell
uses to create music. I am not even able to guess it. It could be modular synthesizers, it could be
laptop music, and it could heavily processed guitar music or field recordings. It could be a
combination of any of this. Whatever. It all sounds pretty decent and ticks all the right boxes; it’s
minimal, it’s moody, it’s dark, it’s lo-fi, it’s noisy and it’s quiet. In each of the ten pieces, Ferrell
explores a certain theme and works it all out, chops it down and when it’s all said and done he
moves on. Usually, that happens between three and seven minutes; none of this is either too
short or too long. Likewise, it is never too loud or too quiet, but maintaining a fine balance between
both ends. There is a subtle variation in all of this, which makes up for a rock-solid fine album. I
was reminded of Richard Francis, but just as well, anyone could fill in a name like that. That’s
perhaps somewhat of a downside to it; it may not stand out too much of what one already heard
before in this musical field.
Along similar lines, perhaps only acoustically, I found the release by Luca Forcucci. He’s
the one person I heard about, and who had a CD on Sub Rosa (Vital Weekly 883) and a cassette
on Cronica Electronica (Vital Weekly 971). His work is rooted in the world of digital processing;
Forcucci studied at GRM in Paris. On ‘Bodyscape’ he uses the body of a dancer as a sound
source.” The information is taken via biosensors and microphones, which record movements
and events generated by the body. In this ecosystem, the dancer produces sounds, mainly
inaudible, which are then amplified and send back to the performance space, where the dancer
interact with them as biofeedback”. To this, he added field recordings made at the “border of
Botswana and South Africa. L’épidemie virale en Afrique du Sud, a text from the Swiss writer
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, informed the journey. The text describes a virus transforming white
persons into black persons. A text about privileges.” I am not sure what the relationship is
between the two unless the dance is also inspired by the text? Forcucci takes credit for live
electronics, the dance is Crystal Sepúlveda and Cheryl E. Leonard plays “natural object
instruments”. I say it is acoustically connected to the music of Ferrell in that it is all rather
mysterious and despite the live-electronics, it sounds rather natural. Maybe these are the field
recordings, even in a looped form, or perhaps the physical shaping of the actual music. It is
also minimal but now in longer pieces; three here in total and all together thirty-seven minutes.
Forcucci takes his time to explore the sounds he is working with and does that in a great way. It
is all quite drone-based, but one can hear the granulations working overtime here also. It’s
mysterious and very immersive. There is a great sense of movement here within in the music;
this is a great release!
Then we move to Finland and meet Tiheäsalo & Ahti, also known as Topias Tiheäsalo and
Niko-Matti Ahti from Turku. They are known from bands they played in, such as Jooklo Quartet,
Avarus, Kemialliset Ystävät. Together this is their first album, and the “work touches on the very
basic issues of the human condition, life and death, and the preparedness for something
impossible to be prepared for.” There is Finnish dialogue on the CD and translation into English
on the cover. Ahti plays objects, field recordings and feedback and Tiheäsalo guitar, harmonium
and field recordings. I am not sure who is responsible for the voice, nor if this some accidental
taping or something intended. It could be one of the musicians taping his grandparents
somewhere in a remote area. There is a great sense of tranquillity here. The instruments used
do not play a big part of the music; or at least they seem on an equal footing with the field
recordings, walking around the countryside and bumping into people in a cold climate who
recount about that. It is like a documentary in audio-only; the crackling of leaves on an icy road,
some talking and a no doubt grey sky. There is not a lot of difference when I look out my window
on one of the early days of the New Year. Grey sky and cold (no ice, luckily). Sometimes they are
inside and there is a bit of music; harmonious guitar doodling (in ‘Part III’) or some faraway drones
in ‘Part I’. It is all rather intriguing music and mysterious.
And then we move back to the area of musique concrete with a work by one Erell Latimier
from France. This is her debut CD, I believe. She uses texts she wrote and she recites them along
Camille Belohradsky and Will Guthrie. These texts are parts of a thing that is called ‘La Béatitude
des Hordes’, which translates as ‘The Beatitude of the Hordes’. There are also “brut sounds,
saturated melodies, drones”, all of this in collage form that is in the best musique concrete
tradition. This is poetic, hard to understand and personal. What it all means is hard to say, even
when it would have been in English (you know me and text, I hope). The voices are close by,
especially (I assume) the one of Latimier, and it reminded of Cortex (the old Insane Music
project) and Dominique Petitgand. Especially with the latter, she shares a similar approach of
text/voice that sound it is recorded in the living room and with household recordings but Latmier
also takes them from further afield. Not sure where, but from a bigger space, perhaps an old
factory. It has that cavernous quality. Like Tiheäsalo & Ahti release this is all quite intriguing and
mysterious, but whereas that one is more like a radio documentary, this is rather more like a poetic
trip through the outside; through a forest in the title piece and then ending up in a big empty
building. All of the concrete sounds support this trip, sparse as they are most of the times. This is
also a rather fine disc; most delicate, just like the one by Tiheäsalo & Ahti. (FdW)
––– Address: https://glisteningexamples.bandcamp.com/
CHLORINE – BLUME (cassette by Invisible Cities)
NICHOLAS MALONEY – SOMBUSE (cassette by Invisible Cities)
DUNNING & BROSAMER – GLOCKEN (cassette by Invisible Cities)
Behind Chlorine is one Graeme; no last name required. I am not sure if the translation of ‘Blume’
would be ‘flowers’ as it would in German. Do not expect some hippie-dippie peace music here.
Only the title track is something that could be labelled as ‘quieter’, with looped feedback slowed
down and some percussion. There are also some field recordings to be detected here. I
understand from the usual short description on Bandcamp there are field recordings on all of five
pieces. That is not something that one can easily hear. The title track is the final track of the album,
and the four preceding pieces are what the label classifies as “daily meandering in the red”. The
level of transformations applied here are to such an extent that none of the field recordings can be
recognized. It’s distorted to an extreme level. In ‘Exhume’ and ‘Fortune’ going towards power
electronics, in ‘Consume’ to a more subdued level and we might recognize the sound of a train,
which, come to think of it, might be the source for some of the other pieces as well. This is one
heavy set of music, an ear-cleansing experience. You’ll never be safe on a train again.
Also, a new name for me is Nicolas Maloney, from Jackson, Mississippi and who works in
the “areas of drone, ambient, musique concrète, and electroacoustic music […] He is interested in
the interaction among texture, sound, and space”. He has had some releases out on Warm Milk
Recordings (his label), Green Field Recordings, Somewherecold Records and Humanhood
Recordings. He also works as Blanket Swimming and Sleep Silver Lightning, and as a “guitarist/
vocalist for experimental/post-rock band, The Empty Handed Painters as well as the guitarist/
vocalist for experimental/lo-fi/garage-rock/noise rock trio, The Villetown Mountain Army Brigade”.
The work he releases under his name deals with field recordings, found sounds and the
manipulation of both. Following the blast just delivered by Chlorine, this is a wealth of calm
sounds. Much of it deals with a very quiet approach and things can be near-silent for a longer
time. Here one has no idea what the field recordings originally sounded like, such as the level of
processing here as well. But unlike Chlorine things aren’t blown out of proportions, but it also
sounds very subdued. Like it has been covered with a blanket, muffled away and occasionally
this blanket is so thick there is hardly any sound. In ‘Persune’ Maloney uses the form of start/stop
collage to produce this before going into a droney field. “Balline’ and ‘Solast’ are straightforward
pieces of drone music, slowly fading in and out, sounding like a massive storm approaching and
leaving. In ‘Quiete’ the wind blows also but in quicker curves. I very much enjoyed the subdued
character of all of this and Maloney’s daring move to include quite a bit of silence.
I could repeat what I say elsewhere about turntablist, but I won’t, as I think Graham
Dunning does wonderful stuff with turntables, creating constructions that actually work as an
instrument. Here is a duo recording with one Sascha Brosamer, of whom I never heard. Together
they use “gramophone, turntable, modified records, cast 78s, retextured disks by Lisa Schlenker,
mobile devices using Grainfield by CoSiMa / IRCAM, synths and FX”, and the six pieces were
recorded between 9 and 17 June 2019 in Switzerland. This time Dunning is doing a bit more
traditional moves on the turntable, creating loops of found sound, looped scratches but cobbled
together with the electronic sounds from Brosamer it becomes something that is altogether most
enjoyable. The element of repetition is never far away (my main objection, I guess, against
turntablism) and sometimes is to plain of an element in the music here, but when it is embedded
deeper within the electronic sounds, perhaps real-time transformations the same turntable such
as ‘S’cool Boy (Live with Lisa Schlenkler)’, it becomes a brooding song, mysterious and exciting.
The title piece is also of similar quality, even with the more obvious scratches. ‘Metronome’ is a
fine drone inspired collage of sounds. Altogether this was quite good, though perhaps not as
exciting as some of Dunning’s solo work in this field. (FdW)
––– Address: https://invisiblecityrecords.bandcamp.com/