AL MARGOLIS – ICELESS, FACELESS (CD by Tribe Tapes) *
MAX JULIAN EASTMAN – MODEL OF MALEHOOD (CD by Tribe Tapes) *
EMITER – FIVE TRACKS FROM A SINGLE SOURCE (CD by Antenne Non Grata) *
GAWLAS & MAZUROWSKI – BINARY HORIZONS (CD by Antenne Non Grata) *
GRÜM – ZEROES ON THE LOOSE (CD by Antenne Non Grata) *
LOADBANG – QUIVER (CD by New Focus Recordings) 8
ACR0N – ANEMNIAN (CD by Liburia Records) *
SMALL CRUEL PARTY – DO YOU BELIEVE IN A PENCIL (CD by Ferns) *
BRUNO DUPLANT – ZONE HABITABLE (CD by Ferns) *
CHRIS PITSIOKOS – ART OF THE ALTO (CD by Relative Pitch Records) *
JON LIPSCOMB – CONSCIOUS WITHOUT FUNCTION (CD by Relative Pitch Records) *
R. PINHAS & MERZBOW – CODA (CD by Balam Records) *
FRAGMENT KING – ANGEL POSITION (CD by Nexialist)
FRAGMENT KING – RETREAT (cassette by Annihilvs)
CLAP. AN ANATOMY OF APPLAUSE (2LP by Unsounds)
GREY FREQUENCY – EMPYREAN/RITUAL (7″ by Haemoccult Recordings) *
THE DEAD MAURIACS – CEREMONIE (AVEC CARGO EN FLAMMES) (7″ by Haemoccult Recordings) *
HORIZON – THE DISC OF THE SUN/THE DISC OF THE MOON (2CDR by Esc Rec) *
PHILIPPE PETIT – A REASSURING ELSEWHERE, CHAPTER 1 (CDR by Oscillations)
MARTIJN COMES & NICOLETA CHATZOPOULOU – SARIRA (cassette by The Crystal Cabinet) *
MODELBAU – VANITY (cassette by Astipalea Records) *
MCCLURE & WHYTE – OUTBACK 3 (cassette by Coims)
AL MARGOLIS – ICELESS, FACELESS (CD by Tribe Tapes)
MAX JULIAN EASTMAN – MODEL OF MALEHOOD (CD by Tribe Tapes)
Decades of experience by now; that is Al Margolis. Long ago, he worked as If, Bwana and had a cassette label, Sound Of Pig. He has used his real name in recent years and ran another label, Pogus Productions. His music also changed over the years. From the more or less randomized tape experiments of the early years to minimalism (the excellent ‘R.ISMV.1’ CD springs to mind) and improvisation. As with many of the releases on Tribe Tapes, especially regarding people, we can call ‘veterans’; this is a historical release. ‘Iceless, Faceless’ was intended for release on Hal McGee’s Hal Tapes, but that didn’t happen as he was about to stop his label activities. This being in the early 90s. On the six pieces on this release, there is sound input from others, and two pieces are solo. The improvisational aspect of the music is there, especially in the collaborative pieces, but in all six, there are elements of that. Margolis plays tapes, electronics, piano, processing and an ARP 2600. Usually, not all at the same time. Yet, the music isn’t all that improvised sounding perse. Maybe Margolis’ tape processing adds a different shape and texture to the music. In ‘Jamming’, for instance, he plays vibe samples, while Danielle Reddick adds percussion and Paul Richard drums. It sounds as if the piece never starts and keeps stumbling around. This piece has a lo-fi quality, making me like it even more. There is also something similar with ‘Prelude To An Ongoing Conversation’, with a four-piece line-up, same percussionists but adding Brian Charles on didjeridu and Margolis on vocals, whistler and percussion. A curious, minimalist rockist agenda approach. Not all pieces have the lo-fi quality, but that studio-as-instrument approach to reshape improvisations lingers through all of these pieces. It’s music that isn’t easily captured as one thing or another (musique concrète, new music, improvisation), and indeed not easy to digest, but one that slowly unfolds its beauty.
Tribe Tapes is the brainchild of Max Julian Eastman, and he released a few of his musical works on cassette. ‘Model Of Malehood’ is his first ‘real’ CD release. The works were remastered from DAT and VHS audio sources and recorded between 2015 and 2021. Eastman calls this a more romantic era of harsh noise’, compared to his more psychedelic noise from before (Vital Weekly 1331). On this new CD, he has ten pieces, of which the first and the last are fifteen minutes; the others are much shorter. The noise element is still something Eastman loves to present in his music. The ninth piece (‘untitled’, of which there are four; the other have titles) is such a fierce noise excursion., consisting of psychedelic layers of crashing noise waves. But in other pieces, he doesn’t lean as much on the use of electronics but also works with tape-manipulations, reel-to-reel loops and such, such as in ‘When Doves Cry #73’. Eastman uses slowed-down voices in some pieces, which may account for the romantic era. Throughout the music sounds as if it had been recorded in the 80s; a very retro ambient industrial sound, which connects these days to the wave of lo-fi noise makers. There is a delicate balance in this release between those slightly more reflective pieces of music (with ‘Untitled (7)’ being the quietest moment on this CD and some of the louder, psychedelic textures. One leaps from one to another, creating coherency within the release. I can imagine that too much of one or another would certainly be appreciated by noise heads or ambient spacers, but this combination of both ends worked best for me. I love both ends of the musical spectrum, and they are in a delicate balance. (FdW)
––– Address: https://tribetapes.bandcamp.com/
EMITER – FIVE TRACKS FROM A SINGLE SOURCE (CD by Antenne Non Grata)
GAWLAS & MAZUROWSKI – BINARY HORIZONS (CD by Antenne Non Grata)
GRÜM – ZEROES ON THE LOOSE (CD by Antenne Non Grata)
Here’s a long quote to start: “Some time ago I prepared a soundtrack for the works of Magdalena Franczak. Later, at the Zachęta Project Space in Warsaw, there was an exhibition of two artists – Yael Frank and Magdalena Franczak titled ,’Ice melts Mrs. Frankczak’. After a few years I was browsing through sound archives and found the piece from the exhibition, but also the separate tracks from which it was created. I started listening to them as separate tracks. It turned out to be a good start for further sonic journey. I thought of referring to the individual tracks and recording new music based on them. That’s how this album came to be.” I found that a bit cryptic, to be honest, as the rest of the information on Bandcamp is about Marcon Dymiter, the man behind Emiter. He’s been in electronic music, field recordings and improvised music for some time. Dymiter is also an author and conducts sound workshops. Previously I heard only one release from him a long time ago (Vital Weekly 922), which I thought to be an abstract ambient album. This new album is a bit different. It is a bit less ambient but still quite abstract. Because we are in the dark about what this is (the correct title of the installation seems to be ‘The Ice is melting Ms Frankczak’, a lengthy description can be found here: https://mfranczak.blogspot.com/2014/03/lod-topnieje-pani-frankczakthe-ice-is.html), which says that Emiter did the soundtrack (so what was he looking for?). Too confusing for my taste, or something got lost in translation. It is a relatively short CD, clocking in at just under thirty minutes, but the musical content is very nice. I can see a connection to the world of modular electronics here, with those buzzing and cracking sounds. The slow thud of rhythm reminds me of Pan Sonic (but not a full-on beat). All of this is minimally explored by Emiter in five sturdy studies of sound throughout dark and atmospheric, and simultaneously experimental enough. I’m not sure if it stands out too much in a crowded field of modular synth mongers, but maybe the album is too short to see what else would be possible?
The world of the Polish label Antenna Non Grata exists, we now know, of works from the world of sound art and experimental/electronic music, and improvised music. With the release of Krzystof Gawlas and Darius Mazurowski we enter the middle ground of both ends. The first plays a modular hybrid synthesizer, and the second play modular and hardwired analogue/hybrid synthesizers and effects. Each mixed their own bit, and the latter is responsible “for the final mix with effects”. I had not heard of either. Both have “a long list of critically acclaimed solo works”. Their music has no overdubs, and it’s all played live. There are five pieces on this CD, three of which are just over five minutes, seventeen, and one over twenty-three. The music is good, but not great. That is because it is, despite using “custom-built equipment, including modular synths”, also not full of surprises. So what does a duet between modular synth players sound like? Like this, I’d say. Things bubble, crackle, oscillate, bend, sustain and throughout, there is some fine interaction between both players. It’s never noisy, it’s never ambient, but indeed stays within the world of electro-acoustic and musique concrète, but from a slightly more improvised music perspective.
On the last new release by this label, we are definitely in the world of improvised music. Grüm is a quartet of Jacek Chmiel (electronics, zither), Lara Süss (voice, sampler), Thomas Rohrer (rabeca, saxophone, objects) and Christian Moser (cümbüs, electronics. From Süss we recently reviewed a solo release (Vital Weekly 1341). They recorded three lengthy works in Basel earlier this year. I assume there has been some editing and mixing, although none such is mentioned on the cover. The music is well-thought-out, as far as that is something one could say from improvised music. The instruments sound at times quite traditional, but there is also an electro-acoustic component in the music, a more object approach. Not only from Rohrer, credited with ‘objects’, but, I guess, from all players, using instruments as objects. I like this combination quite a bit, even when it’s not always the most original of approaches. At times it is too much free improvisation for my taste. Still, it is a thing this group does pretty well, with some great interaction between the players. (FdW)
––– Address: https://antennanongrata.bandcamp.com/
LOADBANG – QUIVER (CD by New Focus Recordings)
Loadbang is a wind instrument quartet. And they have been around for about 15 years, with their first recording logged for 2014 on Discogs. Over the last four years, they have released three CDs on New Focus, this being the third. ‘Quiver’ is a collection of 8 compositions, 4 of them by members of the quartet themselves. I would characterise them less ‘contemporary classic’ but more down the lines of ‘eclectic’ music, paths trodden by the likes of Henry Cow, Robert Wyatt, Faust, Cassiber, and more, working on the fringes of post-New Wave, Jazz, and classical ensemble music. With some Kronos Quartet thrown in, and, essentially, music, you would not be able to tell whether it is improvised or written out – or how much of it was written out and how much was left to the imagination of the performers. Composers featured include Heather Stebbins, Quinn Mason, ZongYun We, and Chaya Czernowin, some more, some less known.
Having said this is a wind quartet, you are in for a surprise. The first track, ‘Aging’, starts with some sombre trombone and bass clarinet (really a distinguished sound!) lines. And then… a tenor VOICE cuts in. Oke, a true ‘wind pipe’ instrument …. 🙂 I find the voice poorly placed in this piece, and the combination of vocal and instrument sound textures does not work too well. The next piece, ‘Quiver’ is better integrated. Here the instruments (adding trumpet) set single ‘dots’ of sound as in a pointillistic fabric, and the voice blends better as it varies between percussive noises and shout-outs.
The following pieces tackle the issue of balance between voice and wind instruments far better. As they grow increasingly dissonant, the voice has more options to blend in and offer performance on par with the instruments. Only a trained vocal line is strewn in from time to time, but always to the best effect. As the composers realise that a voice is not only helpful in vocalising but also singing lines, some quite amusing lines pop up, such as a recurring cut-up version of a text repeating, ‘You see hm hm how circumstances hm are to blame hm hm. I am not really hm hm an art person hm.’ (in ‘To keep my loneliness war’ by Chaya Czernowin). The two pieces written by Jeffrey Gavett, the tenor vocalist, surprisingly are not the ones that sport more vocals but rather lay the emphasis on brass harmonies, the voice blending in perfectly, though in ‘Proverbial’ the opera-style singing returns.
The last piece, ‘IRRATIONAL’ creates a bit of a digeridoo-drone, phasing out into a staccato of voice and instrument, very effectually staged. Again, coming back to the first piece and thinking about why it did not work for me – I think it was the kind of Christmas carol brass quartet feel coupled with an overly ‘operatic’ vocal line that unfortunately took over the first brass harmonies. But then, which release will manage to create an equal quality across all tracks? Very few do. (RSW)
––– Address: https://www.newfocusrecordings.com/
ACR0N – ANEMNIAN (CD by Liburia Records)
There was a CD by Dario Capasso and Andrea Laudante called ‘Acr0n’. Now they made that the band name. I reviewed that album in Vital Weekly 1254. On this new CD, the duo receives help from Andrea Albanese (“syncret”), Valentina Ciniglio (sax), Marco Balestrieri (mandola), Alessandra Bossa and Stefano Mattozzi (voices). At the core of the music lies improvisation, so I assume this is followed by extensive editing. Capasso plays electronica and processing, Laudante piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Mellotron, and added synth. This duo has some wacky results; the music isn’t described in a single term, except perhaps ‘curiosity’. More so than before, Acr0n bounces all over the musical spectrum. There are rhythmic bits, chaos, reflective moments, and techno music flirtations. Overall, the music is very electronic, emphasising the melodic aspect, but Acr0n isn’t afraid to do some radical cutting of their material, so it never becomes too polished or organised. The guest players lent their uneasy contributions and sometimes came across as a random approach to composition (but that might account for improvisation, of course). Taking apart the rhythm, creating glitches and using these, but also cooking a techno hybrid in ‘Syncrn’, with some odd string sounds thrown in. Much of this isn’t very abstract, but it is sufficiently weird music, also. As if Acr0n couldn’t make up their mind, they decided to throw all their ideas into the blender and come up with the wildest dish. (FdW)
––– Address: https://liburiarecords.bandcamp.com/
SMALL CRUEL PARTY – DO YOU BELIEVE IN A PENCIL (CD by Ferns)
BRUNO DUPLANT – ZONE HABITABLE (CD by Ferns)
My introduction to Small Cruel Party was in the spring of 1991. I reviewed two debut releases simultaneously, ‘Urgent Tube’, a 10″ record and ‘Do You Believe In A Pencil’, a CD. The artist released both, and I said they were very conceptual, like so many other things from Seattle; Yeast Culture sprang to mind. The review appeared in a fanzine, Vital, the precursor of Vital Weekly (shameless self-promotion: at the bottom of every weekly an advertisement for some practical history lesson). Shortly after, in issue 26, I interviewed with Small Cruel Party, which made me none the wiser. After a flurry of releases and some short tours, Small Cruel Party found domicile in France and became a chef. In recent years he’s back with music, and there have been several re-issues. I am sure more will follow. I must admit that, no matter how exciting I found the music, I didn’t return to it very often after a point; that happens when you hear too much music. It’s been a while since I heard ‘Do You Believe In A Pencil’; it’s easily ten or fifteen years. The music has two parts, one flowing into the next. Thirty-one years ago, I wrote that the first part is the most electronic. Spacey tone waves throughout the first piece, and the next piece is also electronic but of a more experimental nature. It seems to me a process of some sort is recorded, which is all very conceptual. Obviously, I had no idea I would write about this again in three decades. I don’t think we used the word ‘field recordings’ back then, but in the second half, I could believe this is all to do with field recordings of some kind from around the house. It’s obscure, it’s vague, it’s minimal, and it’s great. For me, it was the start of quite a long time of listening to Small Cruel Party and, after a hiatus, listening to it again. With much the same enthusiasm! And again, just like the first time, there is a nice handmade cover!
Is there a label that Bruno Duplant didn’t use for his music? I don’t know the answer to that slightly rhetorical question. The man has a lot of releases; that much is sure. On this new CD, he plays the organ and electronic devices, and there is the help of Pedro Chambel, who plays “some sax and electronics”. I think the title means ‘living area’. The music is one long piece, forty-eight minutes long. Chambel’s contribution seems to be mainly in the piece’s first half, with the saxophone being stuck in a loop, recurring at odd intervals and close to feedback; however, that might also be the organ. The latter provides a darker tone of intertwining organ drones. The whole end section seems to be a solo organ following a passage in which the sound goes down a bit. Here, Duplant uses various layers of recordings of an organ, close by and far away. Now he can play around with the idea of space, and some strange sounds slip into the mix. As if someone is hauling big boxes over the concrete floor of the church in which the organ plays. Slowly the mechanics of action take over the organ playing, and it all comes to a rather noisy ending. Dark and mysterious, like so many other works by Duplant. Another first-class work! (FdW)
––– Address: https://fernsrecordings.bandcamp.com/
CHRIS PITSIOKOS – ART OF THE ALTO (CD by Relative Pitch Records)
JON LIPSCOMB – CONSCIOUS WITHOUT FUNCTION (CD by Relative Pitch Records)
Here we have two impressive albums by two very inventive improvisers. Both are pushing the limits towards new languages and possibilities. They present themselves here with compelling solo works. Let’s start with ‘Art of the Alto’ by Pitsiokos, a composer and saxophonist from Brooklyn but also with a base in Berlin. He combines influences of jazz, rock, noise and modern composed music in his music. He released several albums with his trio and quartet, as well as with his CP Unit. Among the musicians he has worked with so far are Brandon Lopez, Joe Morris, Nate Wooley, Otomo Yoshihide, Tim Dahl, Weasel Walter, etc. Also, he works as a solo performer. ‘Speak In Tongues’ (2020) was his first solo effort for Relative Pitch Records, which is a live recording from a concert in New Haven. Each improvisation is dedicated to one of his favourites (C.Parker, A.Braxton, R.Mitchell, O.Coleman, E.Dolphy and J.Zorn). For his new album, he chooses specific stones as the name for his improvisations. ‘Dolomite’ is the opening one. Starting with harsh and raw sounds, later accompanied by high-pitched sharp sounds. Pitsiokos builds intriguing movements and patterns, and his performance is very expressive. Spanning some 14 minutes, this improvisation is the longest on this disc. ‘Basalt’ is built from trembling and vibrating sounds, as if one is listening to a crying child and evoking a strong presence. ‘Feldspar’ has melodic elements, played at high speed. ‘Obsidian’ combines melodic lines with noisy sounds. Pitsiokos offers a varied palette of improvisations, each exploring different and specific ideas. Pitsiokos proves to be a very virtuoso and technically skilled performer. Operating very disciplined and with a strong and clear focus. He has diverse extended techniques at his disposal that are used in the function of the story he wants to communicate. Technique and expression go hand in hand. Truly stunning! This is a very relevant and awe-inspiring statement. He will do a European solo tour in November, by the way…!
Lipscomb is a guitarist, improviser and audio engineer from Baltimore based for several years in Malmö, Sweden. He is a very radical and experimental guitarist, inspired by free improvisation, rock and noise and free jazz. No surprise he works mainly with Swedish musicians. As a member of The Swedish Fix with Ola Rubin (trombone), Johannes Nästesjö (double bass) and drummer Anders Uddeskog he released an album in 2017. With Dan Peter Sundland (bass) and Ole Mofjell (drums), he released an album in 2019 as Loplop. But solo work is also an essential part of his art. With ‘ Conscious without Function’ he released his first solo album, recorded by himself at Moriska Paviljongen, Malmö Sweden. At first, the title of this album gave me some thinking. What could be meant by the expression ‘Conscious Without Function’, and how does it point to the music or improviser? Does being conscious have no function as such? Well, I ended up with variations on this question that are not very helpful here. With what I know from other older guitar improvisers like Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, Eugene Chadbourne, Lipscomb maybe most close to the approach and madness of someone like Eugene Chadbourne. But for sure, Lipscomb created his world and style. Although one sometimes hears far echoes of jazz and blues, he creates very non-idiomatic improvisation using a lot of noise and distortion. He never stays long to explore a certain sound or pattern but constantly changes direction, moving forward, making contrasting movements, etc. The opening track ‘Parallel Event Streams’ starts with strange percussive sounds and dripping distorted licks. Looped patterns follow and end abruptly. A noisy and freaky improvisation follows. All his improvisations here have this characteristic and unfold in a very manoeuvrable and viable way, which makes his music nervous and restless. Combined with his often maniacal and playful performance, he keeps your attention from start to finish. How inspiring it is to have musicians like these two gentlemen around, not afraid of crossing borders, and to have a record label, like Relative Pitch, releasing this music. And they all do have a function! (DM)
––– Address: https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/
R. PINHAS & MERZBOW – CODA (CD by Balam Records)
Faking knowledge is not something I do, and I don’t mind being ignorant. I know Richard Pinhas from Heldon, but I never heard much of this band or the man. I wrote this confession before. Now he teams up with Masami Akita, also known as Merzbow, a man whose work I know very well. Between 2019 and 2021, they exchanged sound material, resulting in two pieces of music, ‘CODA’ and ‘PostCODA’. Some guest players, such as Oren Ambarchi, played something that had my interest, ‘Motor Guitar’, Florian Tatard on accordion and Senza Testa on synthesizers. This collaboration is very interesting. It has that instantly recognizable Merzbow noise touch of distortion and feedback, but it shines Pinhas’ spacious electronics. A wall of droning, phasing and shifting sounds. That gives the noise music an entirely different dimension of its own and enriches the music of Merzbow a lot. This happens more on ‘CODA’ than on ‘PostCODA”, in which Pinhas does something similar, but it is a bit further away. There is no evidence for this, but maybe ‘CODA’ is mixed by Pinhas, and Merzbow did ‘PostCODA’. I might be wrong, but it’s a thought I had. Years ago, I stopped getting every new Merzbow release (I had no house to re-mortgage), but I enjoy every new one I hear, even when it is not easy to distinguish between them. With this release, I certainly can, and that’s what makes this a special one. It’s noise, there is no mistake here, but with a psychedelic component to this music that makes it very exciting. Noise is also psychedelic music, one could argue, but maybe a more one-dimensional one and this one is brighter, more colourful and multi-dimensional. (FdW)
––– Address: http://bambalam.com
FRAGMENT KING – ANGEL POSITION (CD by Nexialist)
FRAGMENT KING – RETREAT (cassette by Annihilvs)
In 2014 there was the MHz label run by Maurizio and Boris from Klangstabil, and one of the final releases was “Angel Position” by Fragment King. Hearing this album now, there are two questions that come to mind: 1) Isn’t this too harsh to be on MHz, knowing Maurizio and Boris a bit? The answer is no. Because Klangstabil can do pure noise and the song-structured stuff they’ve become ‘famous’ with. As with Klangstabil, it’s about crossing borders, incorporating different styles, and getting something out that shouldn’t stay locked inside.
Fragment King is Mark Kammerbauer, and this is his main project regarding music. He did things in the past with Leech from Navicon Torture Technologies and a collaboration with Z’ev. Listening to this CD, I have flashbacks from older Godflesh: And in a good way. While Klangstabil incorporated Electronic music with maybe some ‘poppy’ (read accessible) influences while maintaining a solid, highly experimental base, Fragment King might be called ‘ROCK’ in iTunes. Still, it should be considered an accessible version of Sludge / Drone Metal, Power Electronics, Industrial and a layer of Noise. So yes, it fits many different stickers/labels.
This release seems exactly the same as the MHz one. The graphic design by Liis Roden follows the original tightly (or did she also do the original?). Nine tracks between roughly 6 and 10 minutes. The first seven all fit this earlier description. Track nine is a remix by Berlin-based Drum n Bass artist Bazooka who also mastered it, which leaves us track eight, “Kingdom”. That would probably be my favourite; painful feedback combined with an orchestral score in the background and massive abuse of a bass guitar (I think) with at moments triggers the whole stasis of chaos. A great and, as said, painful piece. And that 2nd question that came to mind in the beginning, I really can’t remember. Probably nothing essential, or I got sucked into the music that much.
The cassette ‘Retreat’, sent to us in the same package, was released in august 2021 an Annihilvs Power Electronix; The label is from Lee (Leech / Theologian / Navicon Torture Technologies / etc.). A nicely packaged 5-track cassette with material Fragment King created between 2019 and 2021. The ‘Recorded in Munich’ reveals some extra info about Mark and why I read somewhere, he’s a Bavarian American, which might explain the MHz connection.
Five pieces that “… draw from digital beats and sounds, treated vocals and site-specific bass guitar feedback and drone sounds …” Damn, that sort of describes my favourite track from the “Angel Position” album. The “Torch Song” has quite an aggressive approach and is in sync with the stuff on the CD. The other four tracks are more ambient/experimental. They are completely different yet ‘in sync’ with each other. The digital version comes with an extra Fragment King track and two remixes by 2W and SnowBeasts. And that 2W ‘Labrat’ remix … Fuck, that’s heavy. (BW)
––– Address: https://nexialist.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://annihilvspowerelectronix.bandcamp.com/album/retreat
––– Address: http://www.nexialist.com/
CLAP. AN ANATOMY OF APPLAUSE (2LP by Unsounds)
Anything to get things going? That somewhat cynical remark went through my head when I read about this 2LP. The subtitle explains it all. The works on this compilation deal with the anatomy of applause. Each contributor has a story to share about applause, kickstarting their music. There is the NASA crew clapping for the Perseverance Mars landing, the applause for Malala Yousafzai when receiving the Nobel Peace Price, the applause in the ancient theatre in Epidaurus, Greece and various dealing with applause following classical music, such as the Maria Callas farewell performance. It is not that I would have thought about any of this when playing the music. A lot of the time, applause (without shouts of cheer) sounds like water running. I wonder what a blind test would offer. Play a piece of this record, anyone, to be honest, and ask the uninformed listener about the sound source. I doubt many would say, ‘oh, that’s applause’, let alone say, ‘oh, that is surely the applause from the funeral of Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975, nice’. Having said that, the results are pretty excellent. There is a fine mixture of electronic processes, modern/new music manipulation, and even ambient noise. For the Unsounds label, perhaps a somewhat unusual line-up with Maurizio Bianchi, Robin Rimbaud or Eraldo Bernocchi, sitting next to people you’d expect such as Andy Moor, Fani Konstantinidou, or Yanis Kyriakides. Other names were new to me, such as Ji Youn Kang, Moor Mother, Terence Hannum, Barbara Ellison and Massimo Pupillo. Some pieces delve into rhythms, such as Moor, Bernocchi and Rimbaud. The result is a most diverse competition, with some great pieces and none that stay behind. It is, no doubt, a bit tedious to say: ‘give it a big applause’, but it is a deserved applause. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.unsounds.com/
GREY FREQUENCY – EMPYREAN/RITUAL (7″ by Haemoccult Recordings)
THE DEAD MAURIACS – CEREMONIE (AVEC CARGO EN FLAMMES) (7″ by Haemoccult Recordings)
Haemoccult Recordings is and isn’t a new label by Dieter Müh’s Steve Cammack. In 2008 he released an LP on the imprint, and in 2015 a lathe 5″. But two releases in seven years isn’t much of a label, also because it is followed by seven years of silence. Now Cammack relaunches the label for real, with two 7″s by other artists. First, there is Grey Frequency, the music project of Gavin Marrow. I don’t think I heard of him before, despite having a bunch of releases since 2012. He uses electronics, field recordings and found sounds, exploring “themes of memory, modern mythology, and the world of audio disintegration”. To me, that spells out ‘long pieces of music, and you can wonder if the format of 7″ is the right one. Both pieces are four minutes and thirty seconds, and in both, Grey Frequency cleverly makes it sound like a rounded piece of music and not sounding like excerpts of a longer thing. Electronics play an important role in ‘Empyrean’, both droning and melodic, which might be an odd thing for the more lo-fi music scene he’s in. It adds a fine ambient texture to the music. On ‘Ritual’, there is a more mechanical rhythm at work, working with field recordings of water and bell-like sounds. Maybe a tad too loop-based, but both pieces made me curious to hear more about this music project. There are 100 copies of this 7″.
Twenty more copies than that exist of the 7″ by The Dead Mauriacs, the music project of Olivier Prieur; sometimes solo and sometimes with others. It has been a while since I last heard something new from him, and looking at his releases on Discogs, I missed many of them. The title translates as ‘Ceremony (with a burning cargo ship)’ and comes with a text that somehow eludes me (I was thinking of some of The Hafler Trio’s texts). The Dead Mauriacs use the form of sound collage, layering various elements, piano, humming voices, and percussion into small and gentle constructions of sound. It has a great modern music feeling and a radio drama/performance. Like a ceremonial, but without having an idea what this ceremony is about. Each side is distinctly broken up into shorter segments, and one doesn’t have the idea of excerpts from longer pieces, but all the same, I can imagine longer versions with more segments possible. The second side has a slightly more improvised feeling than the first side, but both sides also deal with the idea of cutting sounds, re-combining and creating new contexts. At one point, I scribbled down Nurse With Wound, with whom I could see a musical relation. An excellent record as well.
I am told that this re-start of the label is serious and more releases should follow shortly. I can’t wait! (FdW)
––– Address: <muhmur.radio@gmail.com>
HORIZON – THE DISC OF THE SUN/THE DISC OF THE MOON (2CDR by Esc Rec)
There are many ways to listen to music. I am not saying anything you didn’t know, of course. When starting an album, I listen to it a bit and then decide the right moment to hear it properly, depending on the mood, time, and, eventually, other things I’m doing. Never listen to anything that requires a lot of attention when you can’t give it the attention it needs. Behind Horizon, we find Ries van Schie, who plays string instruments and percussion in bands such as There, Kid Risdim, Gat In De Lucht and Bushman’s Holiday; I had never heard of any of these. Solo also creates soundscapes with Oersiep and works with music for dance and storytelling. The two discs here are very long, eighty minutes and seventy-eight minutes. The two CDs are in plastic bags attached to an old 7″ record and in a vintage old record sleeve. Esc Rec has a reputation for doing weird packages and rarely ever disappoints. On the inside, we see a picture of what I assume is Horizon’s instruments. Guitars, small percussions (drums, xylophone, cymbal and tiny objects), and small electronics and records. The latter uses sound effects and spoken words, of which he uses many samples in his music. The music is very laidback on both discs. Of course, ‘The Disc of The Moon’ is even more relaxed than ‘The Disc Of The Sun’, where things are a bit more uptempo. Perfect music to engage in some activity; it’s never demanding, it’s never noisy or strange. Horizon plays his guitars, gentle strumming and plucking, highly melodic. Maybe a bit folk or rock-like in his approach to the guitar, but with all the spoken word samples, it rarely turns into a real song. When it does, such as in ‘Kalungu’, with its sampled chant, this turns out to be great. These songs, cut with some of the album’s more soundscaping bits, make for a wonderfully varied album. I did my household chores, drank tea, did nothing for a while other than listening, and enjoyed this almost two-and-a-half-hour musical journey. The rhythms never came to the foreground and served humbly in the background. The music moved inside and outside the spheres of the Weekly, with its hip-hop-like scratching, and rocky and folky tunes, but you can also see this as a form of plunderphonics of a variety you don’t hear a lot. Less emphasizing the voice material and embedded strongly within a musical environment. Lovely stuff. (FdW)
––– Address: https://escrec.bandcamp.com/
PHILIPPE PETIT – A REASSURING ELSEWHERE, CHAPTER 1 (CDR by Oscillations)
These days French composer Philippe Petit is a modular synthesizer activist with many releases and collaborations. This new release is the start of a trilogy, which he calls an exercise in retro-futurism. He has some great gear at his disposal, the Buchla 200, EMS synthi A Pulsar 23, a Theremin and the inside of a piano. I thought that the retro-futurism aspect of the music might also relate to the original musique concrète. The inside of the piano being plucked, stomped, played with various objects and so on, being the start of electro-acoustic compositions. The signal feeds into the synthesizers, transforming the sounds and bubbling, oscillating, bursting, and it all clearly demonstrates those ideas from the musique concrète. In that respect is Petit’s music a homage to that and building on a long tradition. The way we once saw the future is also the way of looking at the way we saw the future of music back then. Perhaps not as electronic as the original soundtrack for ‘Planet Of The Apes’, with the piano playing a domineering role in some of these pieces. The piano’s playing gives the music a vibrant touch, as Petit isn’t all too careful in playing this grand piano from the national conservatory, and a slightly improvisational touch. I have no idea how much editing there was in constructing the six pieces on this disc (maybe they were all recorded in one take?), but there is a good direct feeling in the music here. There seems to be little room for silence in Petit’s sound world. That means that for me, at leats, the album is sometimes too much, as it also requires some attention to take in all the details, but it’s a damn fine album altogether. (FdW)
––– Address: https://philippepetitamusicaltravel-agent.bandcamp.com/
MARTIJN COMES & NICOLETA CHATZOPOULOU – SARIRA (cassette by The Crystal Cabinet)
When Martijn Comes to Nijmegen, home of Vital Weekly amongst many other delights, for his piece ‘Radiance’ performance, I wasn’t in town. There is a carillon in the tower of the Stevenskerk (to use the Dutch name), and Comes was commissioned to compose a piece of music for this instrument. Malgosia Fiebig, City Carillonneur of Nijmegen, performed the piece. Along with a piece for processed carillon sounds by Comes, called ‘Time’, they both deal with the concept of time, how we perceive time, how time is chronological, and the time we need for losing loved ones and meaning. Where else does one do that than in church? A rhetorical question, as the answer, is ‘wherever one can find peace of mind’, but churches as a place of contemplation is a long tradition. In the ten-minute piece ‘Radiance’, the carillon sounds wonderfully clear, going at some find mid-tempo and almost a time connection. I blame the instrument, which sounds like an ancient one, and hard not to hear the religious aspect. Still, this is a delightful piece of music. ‘Time’ is based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (“To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven”) and here Comes stretches out the tones until contemplative drones occur. After the in-depth (as in low-end) introduction, there is a second movement in which the carillon becomes more apparent. Towards the end, Comes seems set on destroying time with a sharpish finale.
On the other side, we find ‘Bicameral Mind’, which Comes recorded with viola da gamba player Nicoleta Chatzopoulou. Comes plays the guitar and is, no doubt, responsible for the electronic side of the piece. The violin and the guitar are certainly recognizable through the unprocessed ways and some of the treated signals. Unlike much of Comes other work, this is a piece that one could easily put under the denomer of new/modern music, with a slightly more electronic setting in which these instruments let their notes, tones and gestures hear. There is, at times, also some voice material to be heard, low humming in the mix, adding to the overall serenity of the music. The end of the piece is a bit too abrupt for me. (FdW)
––– Address: https://thecrystalcabinet.bandcamp.com
MODELBAU – VANITY (cassette by Astipalea Records)
Now there’s a label I promise you I have never heard of before. Well hidden on the other side of this flat disc called earth, from Nelson, New Zealand, it’s called Astipalea Records. “Hubert Heathertoes and his Astipalea project explore subterrains of aural osmosis and linguistic dexterity of nautical devices dating back to hyperborean absurdity.” For me, a woolly description with lots of complex words (being a non-native English speaker) meaning nothing serious. The art of a few releases is cut ‘n paste art; others are very beautiful nature pictures. I feel like I’m being fed a nice cup of powerful sounds with a touch of dada (forgive me if I’m wrong – I love it, though ;-). Let’s see how Modelbau’s “Vanity” cassette fits in there. This is an overdue release as it was supposed to come out in 2017, so a slightly older Modelbau sound ahead.
First, we listen to the sounds. Because with Modelbau it’s drone/ambience/ field/tapes/noises/stuff. The six tracks on this cassette are all around the 10-minute mark, and the titles all start with ‘V’ though the release title is not one of them. “Very” is a track where it seems the tape noise is pushed forward, and together with sonically manipulated water dripping, a drone is created. In the same setting, “View” combines tape-hiss, music boxes and voices. The used delay creates patterns or structures. If I should describe it with one word: eerie or maybe unheimlich. “Variety” is a cacophonic experiment where a siren-like oscillator is fed in a delay, and a stable drone in the back is slowly moved forwards. Very nicely done! Me likey.
Side B opens with “Variable”; Massive down-pitched broken radio sounds fighting with tape-saturation. Oof… Talk about knowing one’s medium – Modelbau knows how tapes work. “Variant” is more in that same vein, but the ‘broken radio sounds’ have been replaced by erratic noises and maybe a sound-generating device. The final track of the cassette is called “Vacui” and is alone worth buying this cassette. A gorgeous drone zooming in and out of different layers, generating interference patterns when played loudly enough. Minimalist sound design with maximum output. The feedback that just touches in there and the rumble that remains.
Wiki: “Vanitas means ‘vanity’ and ’emptiness’. In art, this is depicted with – for example – skulls, extinguished candles, withered flowers, soap bubbles, decayed books, musical instruments, clocks or fallen glasses. They visualize the vanity, temporality and meaninglessness of the earthly.” I think Modelbau could never have chosen a better title for their music (10/10) (BW)
––– Address: https://astipalearecords.bandcamp.com/
MCCLURE & WHYTE – OUTBACK 3 (cassette by Coims)
UK-based cassette label Coims released Outback 3 in a limited run of 40 copies. It is recorded in two bedrooms in two different cities, D’Oliver Whyte in one playing the guitar, and Wm. B McClure in the other one reading the stories or prose poems. I presume the music was there first. As the title suggests, the stories are set in the outback, number 3. Kangaroos, thylacines, bush tucker and kookaburras are mentioned, so I would presume the outback of Australia is implied. Does anyone remember the Mad Max movies, especially the first one? That’s the setting I get from these stories, maybe with a hint of American settlers thrown in. There’s a police force, a gold mine and many bars where men drink lots of alcohol. The music consists mainly of slow Western steel guitar playing, with or without bottleneck. It all works very well. The images whipped up by the stories sink in, and make for a mental movie with the eerie and bleak picking, heavy on the reverb, of the guitar. The last song (Theme) is an instrumental with added accordion, heavily treated sonically. The same goes for the guitar. It’s an excellent closer for a release that will stay in my mind for a while. Included is a text sheet with all the stories and fitting drawings made by D’Oliver Whyte, as they resemble the art of the Aboriginals. (MDS)
––– Address: https://coims.bandcamp.com/merch