ERIK BLENNOW CALÄLV & LISA ULLÉN & FINN LOXBO & RYAN PACKARD – BI, IN YO & IWATO (CD by Insub Records)
ED WILLIAMS – DECOMPOSITION STUDY (CD by Insub Records)
ERIK LEVANDER – KVAD (CD by Supple 9)
ERIK LEVANDER – JÖKEL (CD by Glacial Movements)
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ – 1987 (CD by Universaal Kunst)
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ – UNTITLED #400 (CD by I Dischi Di Angelica)
CHRISTINE ABDELNOUR & ANDY MOOR – UNPROTECTED SLEEP (CD by Unsounds)
SUNDAY SEXTET – LIH KADIM (CD on FMR Records)
MATTERHORN WELL – SKETCHES FOR FRANCIS (CD by Icarus Records/Consouling Sounds)
AHAD AKS ZSOLT SÖRÉS – NEMO POINT SOUNDMAP FOR TERRESTRIAL MELANOHELIOPHOBICS (2CD by Fourth Dimension Records/Hinge Thunder)
KATSURA YAMUCHI – MORI (CD by Jvtlandt)
YANN JOUSSEIN – KEEP THE BASTARDS HONEST (CD by Coax Records)
HERZ (CD by Coax Records)
PHILIPPE GLEIZES & ANTOINE VIARD – IMMERSION (CD by Coax Records)
THE ORPHANAGE COMMITTEE – A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE (LP by EE Tapes)
ALTARS – SPIRES (10″ lathe cut by Cloudchamber Recordings)
SEEMANN – HEMISPHÄRE (CDR, private)
HEAVY CLOUD – AERIAL (CDR by Heavy Cloud)
DUNNING & TAYLOR & THOMPSON – THE TAPE (cassette by A New Wave Of Jazz)
MATTHIEU FUENTES – ILY, ALMERIA (cassette by More Mars)
GRISHA SHAKHNES – THE HEAVER (cassette by More Mars)
ERIK BLENNOW CALÄLV & LISA ULLÉN & FINN LOXBO & RYAN PACKARD – BI, IN YO & IWATO (CD by Insub Records)
ED WILLIAMS – DECOMPOSITION STUDY (CD by Insub Records)
Like the Ftarri label last week, Swiss-based Insub Records releases are at the crossroads of modern classical and improvisation. I would think that the compositions performed by the musicians on their releases are indeed compositions, scored and all, but there is quite some freedom in how to perform them. The first release is by a quartet of players, and I am not sure if I have already heard of them; Erik Blennow Calälv on bass clarinet, and the composer here, Lisa Ullén on piano, Finn Loxbo on guitar and Ryan Packard on percussion and electronics. They are from Sweden and are active in jazz, free jazz and improvisation. The only thing we’re told about this release is that the three pieces are based on traditional Japanese scales. I’ll be honest: I have no idea about scales, not Japanese ones or Western ones or others. The three pieces sound very quiet and contemplative. I can see myself sitting in a Zen garden and people playing this kind of slow music. There is silence throughout, but it never becomes silent if you understand. There is always something to hear. The four musicians move around exquisitely but maybe also a bit shy. This is part of the music they play, requiring contemplation and silence. The instruments sound like they are supposed to sound, with the bass clarinet sometimes sounding like a droney sinewave, which adds a somewhat spooky undercurrent. Altogether this is a refined CD; slow music for a slow day.
More theory (if you allow me to call that) comes from Ed Williams. I quote his information in full: “Decomposition Study is a collaborative process. The instrument featured here is an arciorgano, a special microtonal organo di legno with two manually operated bellows and 36-key octaves across two manuals, constructed according to Nicola Vicentino’s designs from 1555. The notes of the music, written according to the rules of canonic contrapunto alla mente, are passed between two organists while four other musicians disrupt and amplify the organ’s airflow, acting similarly to cellular enzymes in decaying organisms during the decompositional process called autolysis. The music is decomposed as it is played, re-composed as it is heard.” The music was recorded “on the arciorgano and amplified through a 6-faced “Cube” speaker”. Check Bandcamp and follow the links to YouTube, and you will get an idea. For me, it was illuminating, as based on playing the music, I wouldn’t have known this. The music sounds indeed organ-like, but unlike your typical organ-drone record, the music here shifts back and forth with an organ sound, and as I saw, this is due to the players adjusting the outcome from the pipes by hand and the two organists quickly changing tones and notes. Because this is an acoustic instrument, we also hear the mechanism, adding an interesting electro-acoustic texture to the music. There is (again?) some strangely orchestral music crossing with improvised music here, and it is (again!) some highly captivating music here. It is both quiet and unnerving, and this piece highly contemplative, even when it is never in the same place for a long time. (FdW)
––– Address: https://insub.bandcamp.com/
ERIK LEVANDER – KVAD (CD by Supple 9)
ERIK LEVANDER – JÖKEL (CD by Glacial Movements)
Except for his very first release, I believe I reviewed all releases by Berlin-based Erik Levander. Going back to Vital Weekly 455, when I reviewed his second release, ‘Tonad’, to 1204, when I discussed ‘Inat’. So there has been a considerable gap since then, and that’s because I missed out on ‘Jökel’, released in 2021. Being a completist, and because I got a copy, I will review that one too. Let’s start with the most recent one, ‘Kvad’, which means ‘Qud’ in English. The origin of this work is a recording he made in his home country Sweden, passing a church with a choir rehearsing. That was in 2001, and recently he rediscovered the recording. The music went into both software and guitar pedals and thus recorded a lot of variations, which then went into seven pieces now on this CD. In the second track, the choir is still quite audible, giving the music a slightly religious feeling, making me fear the worst, even when the opener was a substantial piece in the best Levander tradition. However, Levander returns to his modus of atmospheric drones and shoegazing pedal work. Levander goes from all gritty and saturated guitar music to more obscure and quieter drones, making the album quite varied. It is no surprise that the music is dark and atmospheric. It comes with the territory, I think. The music is, at times, a massive block, weighing tons upon the listener. It has images of dark clouds over likewise dark forests, and the occasional chant sounds like a gothic ritual is happening down these trees. I can see this music as part of the movie, with blood, ghosts and horror. Levander once again created some very powerful, varied and quality music.
His previous album, ‘Jökel’, which means ‘Glacier’, was aptly released by the Italian Glacial Movements label. Here we have five pieces of music, and the album is also fifty-four minutes long. The music is also electronic, but that’s where the similarities stop. Musically, Levander tied these pieces together, and I’d say ‘Jökel’ is more of a conceptual album. In these pieces, Levander depicts glacial movements with electronic means; this goes for many more releases on this label. At least, the ones I heard. There is no loudness here. Everything is subdued and quiet, with minimal development. Minimal, but there is development in each of these pieces. In that respect, the music works quite well. As much as I enjoyed the music, in all honesty, I must say that I also found the music not surprising. It’s good and well produced, but it doesn’t stand out from so many other drone records that work with similar synthesized field recording processes (which in this particular case might be snow and ice-based), depicting, etc. You get my drift (pun intended). But, as I know, some people don’t like music to change, and there can’t be enough of this for them, so there is a market to cater to. Don’t get me wrong on this cold and grey (snow-free, luckily) day; this is a perfect soundtrack for today. (FdW)
––– Address: http://supple9.com
––– Address: https://glacialmovements.bandcamp.com/
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ – 1987 (CD by Universaal Kunst)
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ – UNTITLED #400 (CD by I Dischi Di Angelica)
True story from last week: these two CDs arrived in the space of 1 day. Two new releases by Francisco López, both with Dutch involvement. The latter might not be all too odd, as Lopez has resided in The Hague for many years. However, there are also differences between these two releases. The first one contains music that is a rework of old sound material, hence the title, ‘1987’. This release is classic Lopez; no information whatsoever, no title to guide the listener. Nothing. As I was playing this, I thought when López appeared on my radar. I am not sure if I know the answer. Maybe I saw his name in the 1980s, but without actively hearing too much of his music, and only when there were CD releases I heard more from his music. Likewise, I am not sure what kind of sound sources he used back then; maybe he was already deeply immersed in field recordings. In that respect, ‘1987’ is something of a mystery. Both source-wise and treatment-wise, I have no clue. The work is exactly one hour long (on the dot), and following a six-minute fade-in, there is a loud part of what sounds like heavily treated wind recording, in which López uses some shifting in frequencies, going from bass to high end. After the thirty-minute break, the piece starts a disappearing act, getting soft and softer. The last fifteen minutes are good old fashioned López-styled quietness, ever decreasing until the ultimate zero. It’s not like some of López more recent releases of heavy computer treatments, bouncing all over the place, but one long piece with little abrupt changes. Very much lots of music to be played in the dark.
‘Untitled #400’ is one of those more recent works, even though it took about six years to create. It is a piece of music López composed with pianist Reinier van Houdt, who is also no stranger to the world of electro-acoustic music. Van Houdt plays the stringless piano, which “consist solely of the intact framed inner structure with keys, hammers and interconnecting mechanical parts, extracted from a standard piano, and used as a stand-alone performance unit. ‘Untitled #400’ has two movements; Van Houdt performs the first one (following a composition by López), and the recording of that is the source material for ‘Movement 2′, which is “created by evolutionary studio transformation of movement 1’. It is interesting to compare both movements. The stringless piano never sounds like a piano, obviously, but rather like a percussion instrument played very mechanically. Van Houdt has a very organic touch, and the instrument becomes tangible. No doubt, thanks to great microphones, every detail can be heard, and it is one fascinating listen. Compared to the second movement, I feel some remarkable similarities and differences. Even if one recognizes the original sounds quite well here, there is also an undercurrent in the music here that is undoubtedly electronic. It’s interesting to see that López chooses rather musical approaches that we don’t hear too often for me. There are breaks in this piece, following which López picks up again as one would do in a proper song structure. Also, I think he follows the same compositional pattern of the first movement, but now every part is extended much longer. Like other recent work from López, the music is very much alive and present, though never noisy (of course, depending on what you think is noise music). I very much enjoyed how the second movement threaded a well-known path, the first movement, and somehow sounded like something else, another way. Fascinating music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://universaalkunst.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://idischidiangelica.bandcamp.com/
CHRISTINE ABDELNOUR & ANDY MOOR – UNPROTECTED SLEEP (CD by Unsounds)
Christine Abdelnour is a French saxophone player of Lebanese descent. She has been recording music over the past decade, primarily working in duos with one other musician at a time. However, she is also a full member of Magda Mayas’ Filamental and Split Second groups. Andy Moor is … a guitarist, and yes …. he played with Dog Faced Hermans and, after having relocated from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, is a full-time member of The Ex, besides playing with the likes of Thurston Moore, Paal Nilssen Love, Mats Gustafson, Ken Vandermark etc.
So expect free improvisation, and you will not be disappointed. But then, there is also a slightly unusual note here. Not only in the shape of a telephone dial tone in the fourth track, adequately titled ‘Telephone’. Moor has extensive experience playing all kinds of music, from punk to free improv. The instruments circle each other, exploring the full bandwidth of sounds they can offer. The guitar playing, but also being plucked and used as a percussive source. The saxophone obviously moves between the sound of breath and the notorious squeal. Nevertheless, the whole mood is sombre and at the same time aloof, ‘Unprotected Sleep’ referring to hypnagogia, the state between waking and sleeping where the mind wanders and is disoriented.
Abdelnour and Moor recorded the first tracks of this CD in 2011 when they met at a festival in France. Not having enough material for a full release, the project was postponed but postponed longer than intended as families and life in general intervened. Only in 2022 they met again at the Ex Festival and record the second part of this release. It is not really possible to tell which parts were produced earlier or later, although the occasional abrupt ending might hint at early work. In any case, this is a release for anyone enjoying the surprisingly wide variety of sounds the two instruments can produce. There is also a humour warning here. And two musicians who manage to safely sleepwalk a tightrope. So to say. (RSW)
––– Address: https://unsounds.com/
SUNDAY SEXTET – LIH KADIM (CD on FMR Records)
Trying to search ‘Lih Kadim’ on the internet gave me a zillion hits of Linkedin items. Go figure. So I still do not know what that means, but it is the title of Slovenian improvising group Sunday Sextet. I am pretty sure it is Sunday Sextet for the band name and Lih Kadim for the release. Other people seem to think the contrary … so there – with Jaka Berger probably leading this outfit, you can expect a million uncertainties, guises and surprises.
This band played three consecutive sets at the Cultural Centre Bistrica
in February 2021 and has fittingly now published excerpts of these concerts titled Saturday, Friday, and Sunday. Friday is by far the longest (35 minutes), maybe because the energy was still fresh or the audience had not had enough. Sunday is the shortest (at 5 minutes only), maybe because the audience had had enough ….
But joking aside, this is a free improvisation jazz sextet of violin, double bass, electric guitar, reeds, drums, and Berger on synths and live electronic processing. The latter is not too prominent, it seems, although Berger is less of an acoustic musician. The three tracks, though of very different lengths, are similar in structure and approach. The instruments create a plane of sound, at times quite chaotic and noisy but very far away from total mayhem. The individual lines circle around each other, intertwine and create a surprisingly homogenous whole that sounds like a free jazz raga. The third piece is different because it creates less of a continuum and relies more on single sound droplets produced by the other instruments. Overall a little more cautious in approach. Interestingly, the release leaves you in a slightly pensive mood. Unusual for a free jazz record. (RSW)
––– Address: https://www.fmr-records.com/
MATTERHORN WELL – SKETCHES FOR FRANCIS (CD by Icarus Records/Consouling Sounds)
For some, January is the bleakest and most depressing months of the year; I think that’s what we are told so we hit the shops to buy more consumer goods to make us feel happy. But, alright, on this average Tuesday afternoon in Jaunuary in the beautiful city of Nijmegen, The Netherlands (Holland is not a country), I look outside and see a very grey day. In fact, because I was outside earlier today, I also know it is a very cold day. It is not difficult to understand why people think this is a depressing month. Because I like to look at things differently, I’d say ‘play some music that fits the mood, the day, the weather, the month’. In other words, play some atmospheric music. I had not heard of Matterhorn Well, a duo of Imre De Cauter (cello) and Matthias Dewilde (Fender Rhodes), plus a bunch of pedals. Seeing this is a release by Consouling Records along with Icarus Records, I know that we are in fine world of all things atmospheric and all thing very alternative rock related. Here we have four pieces of free floating improvised music that plays the sustaining music card. A bow across the cello, along with pedal work, delivers a sound that lingers on. The Fender Rhodes gets a similar treatment, so everything is on a constant drift, and yet it never becomes static. I was thinking of early Organum, right after he took a tunr left, leaving ‘In Extremis’ behind and came with ‘Hori’ and ‘Vacant Lights’. There is a similar approach in the four pieces here. Music that is dark, atmospheric, perhaps not too demanding but also with an excellent touch of experimentalism or even free improvisation. The latter in ‘Sketch II’, when the Rhodes slips out of the mood-lines. On an average Tuesday afternoon, grey and cold, in January, this massive piece of atmospherics works wonder for my mood. Not down at all, but rather uplifting, odd as that may seem. It is the elegantness of a dark night that guides the lone soul away from all too dark thoughts; music as medication. (FdW)
––– Address: https://icarusrecords.bandcamp.com/
AHAD AKS ZSOLT SÖRÉS – NEMO POINT SOUNDMAP FOR TERRESTRIAL MELANOHELIOPHOBICS (2CD by Fourth Dimension Records/Hinge Thunder)
Reviews of music by Zsolt Sörés, who goes by the name of Ahad aka Zsolt Sores, go back to Vital Weekly 741 when I first reviewed a work he did with Quentin Rollet and Toth Pal. Reading my old reviews, as I sometimes do when preparing a new review, taught me that I don’t always know where to place his work. Sörés’ primary instrument is the violin, but he uses much more, such as voice, bass, grand piano, mellotron, “cymbal on the top of the viola”, percussion, “mole-rat electromagnetic field explorer”, and such like. Not everything all the time, as some of these instruments appear only in one or two pieces. There are seven pieces in total across these two discs, spanning some 150 minutes of music. If there is such a thing as an axis where to place the music, improvisation would be on one line and electronic on another. Sometimes the balance veers towards improvisation, especially when the violin takes the upper hand, which happens within a few pieces (but not stretching out to an entire piece of music), but when Sörés starts to layer various instruments and creates a dialogue with them, this becomes more interesting for me. When Sörés uses a voice more, the music gets a more ritualistic approach, such as in ‘Ahad Anthem’. Also, the metallic sounds of ‘Something About The Great Filter’ have a ritualistic aspect. Especially in the three tracks that are over thirty minutes (one is even forty-five), I feel that Sörés loses track a bit and that things could have been a bit tighter. Sometimes things meander a bit too much without a point of focus. There are some mighty fine moments of massive instrumental drones, of electronics running amok, which culminate all in the title track, which is the final piece and also the longest, which, perhaps oddly given what I just said, is my favourite piece of this set. Loud, aggressive, drone-like, direct and without too many overt elements of improvised music. While not every second was engaging, I enjoyed this a lot throughout. It’s just not something to take in all at once. (FdW)
––– Address: https://fourthdimensionrecords.bigcartel.com/
KATSURA YAMUCHI – MORI (CD by Jvtlandt)
This is the first time I hear a release with pieces for a sopranino solo. I haven’t heard the name Katsura Yamauchi. Apparently, he’s been playing the sax since the seventies and has been active as an organizer of concerts in Japan. Even better, he played with Derek Bailey, Han Bennink and the who’s who of the Japanese impro scene, Toshinori Kondo, for example. The aesthetics of this release is one of simplicity and confidence. The sopranino is especially hard to play in tune, even harder than the soprano sax. The pieces depict nature made into sound. Salmo (Salmon in Japanese) is the most technologically advanced piece here, with cascading waterfall runs, the type preferred by salmon to go up against in mating season. Apart from this one, the pieces are not that technically challenging, keeping the notes in tune is a different story, of course. Irrawaddy is named after the river running through Myanmar. The melody consists of long notes with faster runs in between, with silences between them. Silence is essential throughout as many melodic lines are repeated many times but with each a very slightly different length. That’s the minimalistic approach of Yamauchi. Some might find this boring. To me, it’s a mesmerizing and relaxing way of listening to music. The last piece Uzo (named after the Greek alcoholic drink, I think), is almost folklike in its simplicity and, therefore, quite an earworm. As stated earlier, this isn’t pyrotechnics on sopranino but lovely music that is a refreshing take on minimalism with ma, a Japanese concept of meaningful silence between the notes. Now, where did I put my soprano sax? Also, this isn’t his first solo album. The last one was recorded 15 years ago. I might track that one down as well. (MDS)
––– Address: https://www.jvtlandt.com/
YANN JOUSSEIN – KEEP THE BASTARDS HONEST (CD by Coax Records)
HERZ (CD by Coax Records)
PHILIPPE GLEIZES & ANTOINE VIARD – IMMERSION (CD by Coax Records)
Improvised music from French musicians I hadn’t heard of before, on a, for me, new label. I started with the only solo release by Yann Joussein. He plays drums and electronics, and we’re told he explores many musical styles, from free jazz to nouse, from minimalist music to free rock. There is no mention of playing with other people. On the three pieces on this album, he plays the drums, an analogue synthesizer and a sampler. I have no idea how this setup works, but it works great. There is a certain forcefulness in Joussein’s playing here. Samples of drum sounds form a backdrop of minimalism in these pieces. These go into the synthesizers, creating bold oscillations, and on top, Joussein hits the cans loud and clear. His playing is also minimal but never monotonous. He plays figures, motifs and patterns that are pretty wild. Think kraut rock mixed with world music. There is a noisy and industrial aspect to the music. Man meets machines, and they are equal partners. In ‘You Can Do It’, there is a raga-like drone at the core of the piece, going on and on, and Joussein’s playing is the music at his wildest. In ‘Free The Music’, the drone is more industrialized grinding, and the drums are in their freest mode of operation. ‘Why Do People Always Want More’ also starts with loops, but then the motorik beats set in. I like all three pieces, in all their furious attacks, and each one gets better, with the third being my favourite.
A lineup of drums and electronics is also what Herz uses. They are Simon Hénocq (electronics) and Philippe Foch (percussion/electronics). The first is the man behind the Coax Records label, and both have a broad appreciation of music. Yet again, no other collaborators are mentioned. Herz’s music is not like that of Joussein. No wild, motorik playing, no world music inspiration but music that owes more to the world of free improvisation. Especially on the electronic side, this cracks and burst, drone and sustain and hiss and squeak. It’s the part of the drums that draw it a bit in the world of free jazz. On my first round of listening, I found the music perhaps a bit laidback, but upon closer inspection, this isn’t the case. The music turns out to be a pretty intense listening affair in which a lot is happening—ranging from free and wild to calm and reflective, covering a variety of moods. The two players are well-connected and keep winding each other up to do stranger things. At times chaotic, sure, but there is structure to the madness, I think. Maybe it’s the occasional rhythm they leap into (‘Grens’, for instance) or the repetition of electronic parts, but it all works very well. A thirty-two minutes and six pieces this all rather concise, but with this intensity, I am sure also enough.
The longest release is by Philippe Gleizes (drums) and Antoine Viard (saxophone). Nine pieces of free jazz improvisation in fifty minutes. Viard started such groups as Pipeline and Hippie Diktaat and has a solo project, Tumulus. Gleizes also plays with groups/projects, such as Ank, GleizKrew, Mother and Christian Vander in Offering. Now that Vital Weekly suffers from our long-term collaborator in all things free music missing in action for the time being, it will be harder to find a place for this kind of free jazz and free improvised music. As far as I can judge, having sniffed a bit around this music, so I’m far from being an expert (or lover), I’d say this duo do a reasonably traditional job with the music. Both instruments sound as they are supposed to, and they all bounces and leap around. There is some excellent interaction between the two, but I miss the sort of abstraction, and mystery of weirdness I hope to find in new music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://collectifcoax.bandcamp.com/
THE ORPHANAGE COMMITTEE – A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE (LP by EE Tapes)
Don’t be confused if I say this is the debut LP by Belgium The Orphanage Committee. You saw the name before, in Vital Weekly 1319, when I reviewed his ‘Continuities’ CD. So, debut? ‘A Significant Change’ was supposed to be his debut LP back in 2020, but, you know, Covid was a thing and pressing plants somewhat no longer served unknown musicians, only wanting 200 copies and instead serving Adele, Taylor Swift and Abba and their demand for vinyl no one will ever play (oh, I had this rant in the previous review too; always good to stick to and repeat ones believes). Behind The Orphanage Committee, we find Orphan S.C. Wallace, who delivers something different from the previous release with this LP. Whereas that one seemed all about ambient and atmospherics, with a dash of rhythm, the latter plays a significant role in this LP. Ambient, this release certainly isn’t. Quite the surprise, or, rather, a significant change. Sequencers and drum machines play an essential role in this music, along with sampled voices and chants. The beats used are dark and straightforward, so the music is more industrial than a 4/4 dance floor material. When the rhythm machines are shut off, the mood is dark and atmospheric, but here too, in a more industrial than ambient way. There is, however, also a melodic aspect to the music, with melodies lingering above and below the surface of the beats. All of this brings some interesting variations to the music. From proto-techno to industrial to atmospherics, and yet what ties it all together is that slightly late 80s electro sound, music that EE Tapes loves, either from those days or newly made (sometimes by others from the old days). This LP is quite different from the previous CD, which made me curious about where the Committee is heading next; I can’t wait. By the way, there is an insert explaining each piece, sometimes pretty straightforward and also cryptic. More dualism there, I should think. (FdW)
––– Address: https://eetapes.bandcamp.com/
ALTARS – SPIRES (10″ lathe cut by Cloudchamber Recordings)
I reviewed some works before from the music project behind the label Primož Bončina’s Altars (see Vital Weekly 1295); there is now a new release, a limited (thirty copies) lathe cut vinyl. Although not mentioned, I think that Altars still use what he calls “guitars, synthesizers, electronics, and machinations”. The previous release was about the jaws of time, and the new one “explores its vision in the forward vector, a future mantra, a Spire whose trajectory is embedded in its momentum”. Musicwise it connects with the previous release as this, too, has that wall of sound approach. There is a two-note organ stab, and the guitar wails around that big time. Six strings, but who knows how much distortion and amplification? With that soaring organ tone, the piece has something of an ethereal tone. Maybe it’s the massiveness of the sound? I am not sure. Maybe the word ‘spire’ made me think of a church. This 10″ record has two variations of the piece. On side A, there is ‘Spire A (S ee r)’, which is the more ripping version of the two, while in ‘The Burning House’ version, it all sounds a bit more closed off, but at the same time there is also more air in this piece. The organ notes now fully function as a melodic bit, slow and hovering in the background. The guitar disappears, and the organ slowly flies away to pastures unknown. Two times ten minutes and two times way too short. Doubling the length for both pieces would also have made for a strong LP. Now it is a strong yet brief 10″. (FdW)
––– Address: https://cloud-chamber.bandcamp.com/
SEEMANN – HEMISPHÄRE (CDR, private)
Some time ago (Vital Weekly 1338), I had the pleasure of writing about TBC_CZEPOKS, a project of which Kai Seemann is a member. He included an older release for us to check out am. I was pleasantly surprised by the ritualistic character and cinematic isolationist atmosphere there. So, of course, I said yes when I was asked to review another release by Kai. The album “Hemisphäre” is a self-released CDR by Seemann and contains one 40-minute composition, which can roughly be divided into three parts.
The first part is about 20 minutes long and is a massive drone with heavily manipulated sounds. It has a bleak, almost translucent approach to its sound design, so don’t expect big basses or rumbling – it’s a minimalist well-designed drone that lures you right into a hypnotic state. Halfway through the composition, rhythmic structures (note from the reviewer: there is a big difference between ‘rhythmic structures’ and ‘rhythm’) are added to the composition, but the entry point and speed of addition are chosen carefully. So it’s not after a few minutes you experience a rushed, uneasy feeling – I think ‘paranoid’ came to mind the first listen.
The final ten minutes of the track are filled with creepy manipulated voices and not-so-heavily processed harmonium sounds. As the CDR mentions the use of the harmonium, piano and samples, I can’t help wondering and thinking about the amount of harmonium sounds I missed before this point, or better said, in what way the harmonium was used as a primary sound source, for example, the first part of the composition. And as the composition ends, a piano melody can be heard, emphasising the uneasy feeling… Powerful. (BW)
––– Address: https://seemann1.bandcamp.com/
HEAVY CLOUD – AERIAL (CDR by Heavy Cloud)
The last time I reviewed something by Heavy Cloud, I thought it was a private release (Vital Weekly 1352), but Heavy Cloud is also the label’s name; I reviewed something else from them, so I now learned. This new release by the other mysterious Heavy Cloud deals with ‘flight’, “to explore ideas of creative freedom, experiences of inner turbulence and overcoming self-doubt”, and is structured in three movements, take off, flight and rest. Each of the tracks comes with various related interests to these pieces, from Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’, Sylvia Plath, evolutionary anachronism, Keith Row, J Langer, and St Ives (place). Plus, much more; while listening, you can spend some time on Wikipedia looking at all these references. As before, there is a lot of plundering going on. Scratchy records, radio, TV, and other forms of found sound are used in these pieces, along with improvised guitar bits and very obscure field recordings. The group (if it is a group) cites tape noise, musique concrète and plunderphonics, all of which are very clear, with plunderphonics taking the lead. As before, I didn’t notice the voices too much; never my forte. Sometimes they are looped, occasionally linear, but permanently firmly embedded within whatever else happens. I admit that the three movements eluded me. There are twelve pieces, but I couldn’t say which part belonged where. Throughout, however, I enjoyed the music a lot. Unlike last time, the pieces are relatively short, three to five minutes, some a bit shorter, and there is quite some variation. At thirty-eight minutes, a not very long release, sadly, but it arrives in an A4 plastic bag with a single sheet the same size, and some smaller, full-colour printed cards. That tops off a great release, and this is a first-class example how to release music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://heavycloud.bandcamp.com/
DUNNING & TAYLOR & THOMPSON – THE TAPE (cassette by A New Wave Of Jazz)
Let’s start by stating that it is a pity that the recording on the cassette is cut in two. On Bandcamp, it is presented as one piece and quite rightly so, as this is a live recording. I assume mixing (as mentioned on the cover) means creating a balance between the various instruments, but otherwise, it is presented as it was captured on February 8, 2020, during a festival the label organized in London. I assume many of the label’s musicians played in all sorts of configurations, and here we have a trio of Graham Dunning (turntable, dubplates, spring reverb), Benedict Taylor (viola) and Daniel Thompson (acoustic guitar). All three play on earlier releases. This is exciting work, I think. Thompson and Taylor provide a more traditional part of the improvised music here, bringing in a lot of nervous and hectic sound, and their instruments sound like a viola and acoustic guitar. Both players don’t seem to extend to playing their instruments as objects. Dunning’s contribution is of an entirely different order. His records are scratchy, the spring reverb off and on leans towards feedback, and his contribution is the opposite of the other two. Electrified, at times sustaining, he delivers a tapestry of sounds in which the others find each other. Sometimes, it seems, Dunning is entirely silent, and we hear only the other two, but then Dunning drops another record and scratches his way back in. However, the music remains a conversation between the three of them. I can safely say I am no expert in this field of music, but I think this combination of instruments is quite surprising and is quite rightly released, even when chopped in two. Sadly it is only just thirty minutes. I wouldn’t have minded this being a bit longer. (FdW)
––– Address: https://newwaveofjazz.bandcamp.com/
MATTHIEU FUENTES – ILY, ALMERIA (cassette by More Mars)
GRISHA SHAKHNES – THE HEAVER (cassette by More Mars)
First, we have an introduction, for me, that is, with the music by French composer Matthieu Fuentes. I missed his LP for Penultimate Press, but ‘Ily, Almeria’ is only his second release. The five pieces on this cassette deal with field recordings, sound art and electro-acoustic music and are in the best tradition of musique concrète. To that end, Fuentes uses a Revox B77 reel-to-reel recorder and a computer to alter sources and re-arrange them into new something he calls “a polysemic perception of space, sometimes with the help of synthetic trickery”. Sometimes he uses a voice (maybe of the composer), along with those fine treatments that I think only analogue treatments can give. Speeding up sound, slowing these down, worn-out electronics and going through cupboards in the kitchen; anything that produces a sound is a game for this music. I had a discussion some time ago about ‘what is musique concrète’, and I said for me, it is a container term in which I threw a lot of things. Still, if I were pressed for a precise definition and an example of this, I’d say the music of Fuentes fits the meaning very well. There are concrete sounds cut from the real world, objects as sound sources, and electronic sounds, and all of these ingredients are stuck together in such a way it tells a poetic story. Music that meets something careful and precise but also goes in an opposite direction and is wild and energetic. Solid music and one that perhaps does not hold that many surprises.
Music from Grisha Shakhnes, from tel Aviv, made it to these pages a couple of times (Vital Weekly 1208, 985, 939, 880), but already some time ago. I am unsure why it took some time to have a new release, but maybe I missed out on some. His music is usually quite conceptual, even when the concept isn’t always that clear. There is quite a bit at work regarding field recording but without much action. Shakhness captures a situation and maybe adds a wee bit of processing, and that’s it. In ‘About To Collapse’, the recorder sits in a car, and it rains, so the window scrapers are on. Maybe a delay pedal rides along? ‘Street Life’ does that, capturing street life. At night, I think, with minimal action going (or maybe Shakhness lives in a tranquil area). In ‘Winding Down’, the tap leaks, and there is some highly obscured indoor action; again, we have no idea about the source. In that respect, is the title piece the winner here; I have no idea what’s going on there. We have four pieces here, four situations, if you will, or four textures. Each of these textures is mysterious and vague in equal portions. But, perhaps, strangely enough, I found all these highly fascinating music pieces. Is there development or even change? That question I found hard to answer. There are points in all of these pieces in which something changes but is that the result of Shakhness intervening (or composing with sounds), or simply because there is a shift in the sound. Scientists are still thinking about this answer. For me, the answer is not as interesting as the question. (FdW)
––– Address: https://moremars.bandcamp.com/