Week 31
ASMUS TIETCHENS & ALICE FRESHMOUTH – LUMIERES (CD by Klang Galerie) *
TAMING POWER – LONG SONG 11-12-22 (CD by Input Error) *
DRESSING – OLD TOWN (CD by Input Error) *
JOHN OLSON – OPEN CAVE MOUTH (CD by Input Error) *
SURFACE MUTANTS – THE TOTAL INSTITUTION (CD by Klang Galerie) *
GEINS’T NAÏT – FISHES (CD by Klang Galerie) *
NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS – TISSUES OF LIES DELUXE (2CD by Klang Galerie) *
CELER – THERE WERE MORE FAILURES THAN THIS (4CD by Two Acorns) *
MATT CHOBOTER – UNBURYING, FROM LIMINALS, EMERGING (CD by Ilk Music) *
STEPHANIE PAN & ENSEMBLE KLANG – THE ART OF DOING NOTHING: A FEMINIST MANIFESTO (CD by Ensemble Klang Records) *
JOHANNA ELINA SULKUNEN – COEXISTENCE (CD by Tila) *
REBEKAH HELLER – ONE (CD by Relative Pitch Records) *
+DOG+ – OUR BELOVED ….. (CDR by Love Earth Music) *
HOT TAG (CDR by Love Earth Music) *
RNL – THE LIVING THINGS (cassette by Cosmic Winnetou) *
FRATAR – TERRAIN (cassette by Cosmic Winnetou) *
HENNING PERTIET – THE WAYS OF MARTINUS & ELISIENNE (cassette by Cosmic Winnetou) *
TYSON J SWINDELL – BASE STATION DREAMS (cassette, private) *
MOINEAU ECARLATE – JUNKOPIA (cassette by Affadis Plein) *
PAUSE (book by No Log)
ASMUS TIETCHENS & ALICE FRESHMOUTH – LUMIERES (CD by Klang Galerie)
Let’s assume Asmus Tietchens needs no introduction; in about 1000 podcasts (yes, a small celebration coming up in Vital Weekly 1470), he appears 48 times. It’s also no secret I love his work very much. In recent years, Tietchens has worked with many people, mainly by exchanging sound files through the Internet. I am unsure if that’s also the case of Alice Freshmouth, which is an anagram of Tom Fleischhauer. I had not heard of him, but he’s a guitar and bass player and has worked as a producer, live sound engineer, booker, promoter, and composer. More importantly, he’s been friends with Asmus for 40 years, and they meet regularly at concerts. They believe their current work could have been more compatible, but a similar approach led to a spontaneous collaboration. Ideas were exchanged, and only a little later, there was an album. It could be like Tietchens’ approach to the studio-as-instrument that he could work with anybody. Yet, this album’s music also sounds a bit different from other recent Tietchens collaborations. The typical Tietchens sound he gets with the sort of processing he does is part of this, but unlike many other times, it’s embedded in whatever Fleischhauer brings. It is hard to say what that is, but the music sounds more musical or less abstract than what we usually hear from Tietchens (with or without guests). It is sometimes industrial or ambient, but always with that vague notion of a melody, or at least a trace. Also, there seems to be a greater diversity of sounds in the music here, with more field recordings, straightforward drone sounds, and vaguely industrial soundscapes. It is a vastly varied release, so it’s somewhat surprising. Indeed, this is the most different of his recent collaborations. Suppose what I suspect is accurate, and they recorded this together in the studio or sat together while working on the final mix. In that case, this might mean Tietchens should, perhaps, let more people in the studio and change his modus operandi, as these results are excellent.
Following a string of re-issues, this is an all-new work for Tietchens on the Klang Galerie label. (FdW)
––– Address: https://klanggalerie.com/
TAMING POWER – LONG SONG 11-12-22 (CD by Input Error)
DRESSING – OLD TOWN (CD by Input Error)
JOHN OLSON – OPEN CAVE MOUTH (CD by Input Error)
There is some confidence in the UK-based Input Error label in Askild Haugland, the man behind Taming Power. ‘Long Song 11-12-22’ is his second release on this label, following ‘Missa In Tempore Belli 2022’, his first actual CD and the first release outside Norway, following an extensive catalogue of private releases from 1998 to 2010. The only thing we know about this release is that it is a collage of 2006 recordings mixed into one long piece in 2022, almost fifty minutes long. Perhaps the label also has no idea as the only other thing they tell us the music is an “ambient piece incorporating tape manipulations, feedback and drone”. From his earlier work, I know Haugland uses guitars, percussion, glockenspiel, piano, and a lot of cassette and tape manipulations. On this long piece, this is the same. So far, Input Error may have profiled as a noise label; with this release, they show an interest in something much less noisy and much more atmospheric; even when feedback plays quite a role in the music, it never goes over the top. During these 50 minutes, the music swings back and forth with clearly looped passages, input picking up output and feeding it back to the mix, and instruments play a role, sure, but it isn’t easy to figure out what is what. I am sure we recognise some percussion instruments in the opening minutes, but they are part of massive drone clouds, which only become denser as the piece evolves. There are clear sections, and Taming Power uses crossfades to go from one to the next, and before you know it, you are in the middle of another dark cloud. At times, it reminded me of the current (or, perhaps, not so current lo-fi scene). Still, Taming Power uses hardly any heavily processed field recordings (as far as I can tell), so it’s merely dark and not the soundtrack to a post-nuclear holocaust. I heard many of Taming Power’s music over the years, and this new work is easily one of his best.
Kevin Kirwan is from Dublin, and he calls his project Dressing. I first heard his work when I reviewed the self-titled CD in Vital Weekly 1337. Other releases by him have yet to reach me. Dressing uses “noise using field recordings, found objects, feedback and tape manipulation”, at least last time, and there’s no reason to think it’s different now. On Bandcamp, there is only a poem to describe this, and I can only surmise this is recorded in Dublin’s old town (lovely and very tourist-like). I enjoyed the crumbled-up noise sounds of the previous release as it reminded me of my formative years exploring noise music and not having much money to purchase equipment. Broken records, old reels, and a battered microphone had to be the trick, and that’s the kind of trick I also hear with the seven pieces of Dressing’s new release. I mentioned in the previous review that I heard a few field recordings on that release, and maybe, again, not a lot here either, but I may have detected a few. Perhaps it’s a highly romantic notion from me. Still, I imagine Dressing sitting in his studio on the first floor, looking out over Dublin’s old town, spinning homemade loops, hand-cracking old vinyl slowly and a microphone picking up street sounds from below. It all goes into a few stomp boxes, producing excellent noise/not-noise music. Not noise in the sense of nothing being overtly loud or relying too much on the distortion, yet at the same time, sounds refinery brutal at times. At other times, it was almost ambient, such as the campfire loops and slowed-down orchestras of ‘Pisser Dignam’s Field’. At 35 minutes, it was a bit short for my taste; I would like some more because it wasn’t that noisy.
The shortest of the three recent releases is by John Olson. Despite whatever the man did in his musical life, his name doesn’t appear a lot in Vital Weekly. It also means I don’t know much about him, and his text on Bandcamp for this release reads a bit like it’s for insiders only. It’s about early music jams, an untuned, unbranded cheap soprano saxophone and recordings on “phone tape loop cassettes ten to thirty seconds long, so there was most likely another boombox recording the soprano sax and spitting it out to the other.” I understand these four pieces were previously released in tiny editions of 7 to 11 copies each, and they were very short tapes, five to 10 minutes each. In these pieces, Olson plays the saxophone and tape loops of found sounds. That’s the best way I can describe the pieces. There may be an element of free jazz and improvisation in his music, but I admit that didn’t diminish my interest in the music. There is an exciting aspect of minimalism in these pieces, colliding with noise music, so it becomes a brutal form of minimalism as If Terry Riley didn’t mind capturing some additional sounds on his repeated saxophone playing, especially in the first two (untitled) pieces. In the third piece, the saxophone disappears or is controlled by electronics. The fourth one is a relatively open, strange tape manipulation of saxophone sounds and electronics. Here comes the ignorant reviewer, the outsider and latecomer to Olson’s music, but are these four pieces all there is from these sessions? There is more than enough room on the disc to have some more! (FdW)
––– Address: https://input-error.bandcamp.com/
SURFACE MUTANTS – THE TOTAL INSTITUTION (CD by Klang Galerie)
GEINS’T NAÏT – FISHES (CD by Klang Galerie)
NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS – TISSUES OF LIES DELUXE (2CD by Klang Galerie)
Here’s a bundle of re-issues by Austria’s Klang Galerie label, each a fascinating window into the past. I started with the one I had not heard of Surface Mutants. While still shrinkwrapped, I noted the names of three members of Cabaret Voltaire and thought for a minute, ‘holy smokes, Klang Galerie unearthed some obscure Cabs side project,’ but it’s not. The Surface Mutants were a short-lived band from Sheffield, so I learned from the book about the Sheffield music scene, ‘Beats Working For A Living’. They formed in 1980 as a five-piece band, went through various saxophone players, and sometimes included CV drummer Nort on drums. In 1983 they changed their name and shortly after that faded away. They released multiple records, and all their releases and some previous unreleased pieces are included on this CD. I very much like these sorts of time capsules and the work carried out by labels such as Klang Galerie, unearthing this kind of thing that would otherwise have been a mere footnote in a book and, truth be told, I read that book a couple of times. Still, it never occurred to find out more about this particular band. Hearing their music for the first time, I immensely enjoy what I hear. It sounds very much a product of its time, influenced by post-punk and what other Sheffield bands were doing; Cabaret Voltaire is an obvious one, but with the group having a more traditional rock line-up, a band like Hula springs to mind. Angular funk music, which may not always be danceable, but it certainly gets me shaking along. The guitar and saxophone are in a free role, while the bass and drums form a solid fundament for the music. Not every track is a winner, because of their length or compositional weakness, such as ‘Somewhere Strange’; I am sure at the times they saw this as a tremendous psychedelic, dubby tune, but it’s not. Nevertheless, it is an excellent document of those vibrant music years.
Once Klang Galerie is committed to re-issuing music by a particular person, they continue their support. ‘Fishes’ is the third re-issue from the French trio Geins’t Naït: Thierry Merigout, Vincent Hachet and Laurent Petitgrand. Back then, ‘Fishes’ was their fifth album. The group was labelled as an industrial band, in the tradition of Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil or Test Dept, mainly on the back of their love for industrial rhythms; there is also something to say the French musique concrète tradition inspired them. The studio as a canvas, painting with sound. I couldn’t know if that’s what they had in mind back then. Still, within their extensive use of rhythms, there is also a lot of collaging of sound, adding other instruments, such as guitars, piano, and voices (both from mixed media sources and their own), and other instruments are less easily defined. And yes, harsh rhythms prevail, but the group uses rhythm machines, drums and metallic percussion, so in that sense, the palette is more extensive than, say, with Neubauten or Test Dept. Like Surface Mutants, this is a product of its time, albeit a slightly different time and another musical scene. It is very much the industrial music scene of their influences but with some distinct original sounds. The rhythms at the time sounded a bit dub-like, in ‘Rase Mottes – Lavabo Birthday’ for instance, and with quite a diverse approach to their music and, also importantly, with a bit of dark humour (‘Hi this is Elvis Presley’) and guests bringing something new to the table, such as Laurent’s brother Dominique (later a musician in his own right), Gerome Nox and Bidou. Great re-issue!
‘Tissue Of Lies’, the Nocturnal Emissions debut album from early 1981, already proved to be a classic album as it has various re-issues, among one already on Klang Galerie in 2008 and an earlier re-issue on Dark Vinyl in 1990. Now, there is a deluxe edition with two CDs, the first being the original album and the second being all previously unreleased pieces. I wonder why they didn’t go to the version Dark Vinyl released, as that version also included some unreleased pieces. At the time, this wasn’t an album I had heard, as I was too young and penniless to buy everything I desired. My entry into the nocturnal world came later when I first heard them on various compilations, such as the legendary ‘The Elephant Table Album’. It’s perhaps why I always stuck with ‘Viral Shedding’ as my all-time favourite album. Everything from before that came later, primarily through CD versions. ‘Tissue Of Lies’, recorded in the second half of 1980, by the trio of Nigel Ayers (voice, guitar, violin, tape), Caroline K (voice, bass, synthesiser, rhythm) and Daniel Ayers (computer programme, synthesiser on two pieces). The computer programme sounds interesting, but perhaps it should be taken with a pinch of salt. One could say Nocturnal Emissions was a very early adapter of sounds pushed forward by Cabaret Voltaire and, more importantly, Throbbing Gristle. From the first, a love for rhythm and tape cut-up, and from the second, the occasional more rock-like noise, but both ends blend very well. The tape element, loops, and cut-ups play an essential role in this music and, at the same time, lean towards uncompromising splashes of punky noise. The last best exemplified on ‘Live At The Crypt’ on the second CD. Klang Galerie says that there’s “the dark humour of industrial music and the incomprehensible nonsense of various ultra-leftist political fractions were an essential part of the mix”, but both are a bit lost on me. Over the years, I heard this album a few times, never owing a copy, and for reasons I don’t know, I never hung on to it, maybe preferring some of the group’s later work. However, as a debut album, this is a bold and firm statement and something that made its immediate mark, no doubt helped by the fact that it’s an LP, which, at the time, was perhaps a rarity for such strange music. On the 50th anniversary edition! (FdW)
––– Address: https://klanggalerie.com/
CELER – THERE WERE MORE FAILURES THAN THIS (4CD by Two Acorns)
One can only guess why Celer loves to release 4CD box sets. If I am correct, this is the third one in a row. The four pieces, one per CD, could fit on two CDs, but putting one on a disc gives each piece certainly more weight. The pieces were recorded in 2021 and were originally only available in digital format. The shortest piece is 22 22, the longest 34:15. Will Long, the man behind Celer, calls this “a set of ensemble pieces made with tape loops and analogue instruments”, even when no specific instruments are mentioned anywhere on the cover nor becomes clear from listening to this. Each piece is a highly minimalist set of looped sounds, with little moving around. As with the previous one, only 11 weeks have been reviewed. I repeat from that one: “To the uninitiated, there may be no differences, but I believe there are” differences. ‘At Last’ is undoubtedly a quieter piece than ‘Like Art, Wandering’, with its heavy presence of dark orchestral sounds, a feature in every piece but with quite distinctive presences; in ‘Whatever I’m Doing, It’s Wrong’, there is the least of that, all in favour of more organ-like sounds. Similar sounds are found in ‘Oro Oro’ but are now more subdued. The compositional process might be identical in all four pieces. The difference lies in choosing sounds and how they relate to each other. Choices to be made are, for instance, in the dynamics of the pieces; do we want something loud and oppressive or perhaps more spacious and melancholic? The latter might be the most significant flow in Celer’s catalogue and is best known for such ambient music, but more and more, the music becomes darker and a tad noisier. I don’t know if something changed in Will Long’s surroundings that warrants this change or if his mood is darker thanks to the sorry state the world is in. Listening to ‘Oro Oro’ or ‘Like Art, Wandering’, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case. A world in decay deserves such a soundtrack. This was the best personal soundtrack I could wish for as a darker-minded person! (FdW)
––– Address: https://celer.bandcamp.com/
MATT CHOBOTER – UNBURYING, FROM LIMINALS, EMERGING (CD by Ilk Music)
Matt Choboter is a Canadian composer and musician based in Copenhagen whose microtonal-prepared piano forms the basis for this release. His compositions for this release are performed by himself and four others (who are also composers): Jan Kadereit (percussion), Calum Builder (alto saxophone), Miguel Crozzoli (tenor saxophone) and Michal Biel (|baritone saxophone). The reverb on the record was achieved by replaying and recording several layers in an abandoned spacious industrial hall or an oil can, for instance. It’s music with a meditative quality, not the New Age kind but the exciting kind, creating a slow groove. The microtonality might be off-putting for some, but don’t let that hold you back from listening to this beautiful release. It’s only half an hour long and begs for repeated listening. Choboter tries to forge a bond between Eastern and Western music, coming up with a gamelan-like construction of sounds within the piano because of how he prepared the strings and the repetitive figures of notes. One piece is called ‘Wayang Kulit’, the Indonesian shadow puppetry and is considered by UNESCO to be a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Anyway: this comes highly recommended. (MDS)
––– Address: https://ilkmusiccph.bandcamp.com/album/unburying-from-liminals-emerging
STEPHANIE PAN & ENSEMBLE KLANG – THE ART OF DOING NOTHING: A FEMINIST MANIFESTO (CD by Ensemble Klang Records)
Stephanie Pan is a voice artist, composer, interdisciplinary maker and performer in The Hague. She created a musical manifesto performed with her and Ensemble Klang earlier this year at the Musical Utopias festival in January in the Korzo venue, also located in The Hague. She calls for a better way of living in eleven pieces, some short, some a bit longer. Not in the moment and not with a plan, which is quite contradictory, as contradictory as life itself can be. Impulsiveness and reflection are key. Again, contradictory terms. As for the music as a whole, it’s an exquisite mix of theatrics (Pan has a powerful voice with which she can do anything) and a bed of music on which she can do anything. The bed changes size in the blink of an eye or is thudding with a polyrhythmic thudding to the wall. It makes sense because it was time for a complex calibration of beliefs and past experiences with a lot of wailing, weeping and screaming. Anyway, I’m lost for words. This is quite the musical experience with hints of opera, musical & pop music. And the lush use of reverb is justified here. The stakes are high here, as the reverb is deep in some pieces. It is highly recommended. (MDS)
––– Address: https://ensembleklangartist.bandcamp.com/
JOHANNA ELINA SULKUNEN – COEXISTENCE (CD by Tila)
Finnish composer, vocalist and improviser Johanna Elina Sulkunen, based in Copenhagen, began a trilogy of records, starting with KOAN, continuing with TERRA and ending with Coexistence. All pieces are numbered using Roman numerals; this last part of the triptych has eleven pieces. It’s also the most vocal entry of the three, at least in the first few tracks. Besides snippets and manipulated soundbites, the pieces contain monologues in different languages, with or without manipulation. It all makes for a heady listening experience in which the monologues are coupled with and transformed into trippy melodies, chord progressions and, ultimately, a dense sound field. It’s only 43 minutes long, but it feels much longer. I consider all eleven pieces chapters, with each chapter containing enough material for contemplation. In other words: music that requires (and deserves) your most attention. And I can’t really say if I like it or not. The pieces are beautifully crafted and are in line with the previous two releases. But something is missing, and I can’t figure out what it is. It might have to do with the density of the music. More likely, my current state of mind doesn’t allow much room for this kind of music. Anyway, that shouldn’t let you keep you from seeking out this music. As I said, it’s beautiful, and the pieces have a steady flow. And that might be it: instead of several pieces to me, it’s one long piece with different paragraphs. (MDS)
––– Address: https://johannaelinasulkunen.bandcamp.com/album/coexistence-2
REBEKAH HELLER – ONE (CD by Relative Pitch Records)
Seventeen minutes of blissful bassoon and voice on some tracks and overdubbing, also on some tracks. Audible circular breathing creates a continuous sound. Oh, and multiphonics! I only know of two other musicians who improvise using the bassoon: Karen Borca and Jan Willem van der Ham (and he doubles on sax). So, Rebekah Heller is a new name. And from what I hear on this EP, it’s a name to be reckoned with. She performs with several symphonic orchestras worldwide: the New York Philharmonic and the Nagoya Philharmonic, to name a few. Her mission is to expand the modern repertoire of the bassoon. In this EP, she uses a plethora of extended techniques. The tracks with vocals add a nice layer with the last track: ‘Ode to Joy’, a wonderful melody that transforms from a kind of lullaby to an angelic choir. Very nice! I, for one, will be keeping tabs on her. I’m eager to hear more from her. (MDS)
––– Address: https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/
+DOG+ – OUR BELOVED ….. (CDR by Love Earth Music)
Damnit! It’s already been two months since I reviewed the most recent +DOG+ album, “Peace”, so it was about time for a new one! Although that previous “Peace” one was one of my favourite +DOG+ ones, it still gets played a lot. This new one, “Our Beloved…..” is again something completely different and shows yet another side of Steve Davis’ capacity as a musician. This album is short: Three 10-minute tracks, all title tracks differentiated in Parts 1 to 3. The artwork doesn’t give away too much about the conceptual approach, but we’ve learned that it’s more of a Bauke thing than a Steve thing.
Despite some overlap in sonic structure between parts 1 and 2, the three parts are completely different in composition/style/atmosphere. Part 1 is a track where Steve looks around for sounds and particular elements. The composition is, therefore, open with lots of negative space regarding the intrusiveness of the actual sounds. It’s intrusive, but there is still some headspace left to see what the sounds’ functions are in the composition. The second part is where the first part’s more expressive moments and sound generators are put into another perspective and where a beautiful, thick, drone-like structure with harsh influences is built. It is absolutely mesmerizing and hypnotizing despite being forced into your skull through your ears. Like a building, it has floors between the floors of an elevator or stairwell. And then there is that third part, which is as if you’re only trying to get to another level, but you’re stuck in a stairwell, all doors to all floors are closed, and you’re stuck. And you’re looking for a way out, but there’s not even a window to look through, so the only way is up … or down, but you have to keep moving to get somewhere. Constant movement in a static environment. You all know this is how I like my nose, so again, it’s a welcome addition to my collection of doggies. (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/
––– Address: https://dognoise.bandcamp.com/
HOT TAG (CDR by Love Earth Music)
‘Google is your friend’ they say. Hell I know I’ve written it more then once when it comes to completely unknown acts and when I want to find out a bit about them. Google, Discogs, Bandcamp, stuff like that … All places where you should be able to find out stuff, FFS (the meaning of that acronym can be found on Google BTW). So here I have a project of which I can’t find anything other than: Hot Tag, Massachusetts, https://hottag.bandcamp.com as well as genre: Experimental and tags: noise, jazz and improvised music, plunderphonics, experimental. Very possibly it’s a duo named Josh and Cam. But don’t you dare to sue me if I’m wrong!
With the tags you just read you already have a strong indication where to place this release. In six tracks over 37 minutes you are served with music consisting of cut-up techniques plunder phonics with layers of improvisation with guitars as well as noisemakers (pedals?). No lyrics but plenty of words. No music yet plenty of musical parts. No solos or riffs yet plenty of guitar. This is not really my kind of music but after listening to it a few times I think I am starting to understand why this is a (sub)genre in experimental music. After all, working with ‘samples’ in all their variety is something that has been done for ages. Visually we have – only as example – Herzfeld / Heartfield who made some great statements and the whole hip-hop and electronic scene is built on sampling and resampling stuff; from that one Amen break unto DJ Shadow, Fat Boy Slim and the Prodigy. Y’all know it better than I do.
So from that perspective plunderphonics as performed by Hot Tag is a different approach to creating art from other art. And they’re doing a good thing! Fun to listen to, though not the world changing quality like for example Negativeland or previously mentioned DJ Shadow. But since Hot Tag doesn’t pretend to be it’s all ok in my book. The first three tracks are for me personally to get into it a bit and with track 4 (“Extreme Jazz in America”) being the one to connect those forst track to the final two tracks, those final two, “D.E.N.T.” and “Maury” are really very good. With “Maury” being the highlight of this album. Fun times! (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/
––– Address: https://hottag.bandcamp.com/
RNL – THE LIVING THINGS (cassette by Cosmic Winnetou)
FRATAR – TERRAIN (cassette by Cosmic Winnetou)
HENNING PERTIET – THE WAYS OF MARTINUS & ELISIENNE (cassette by Cosmic Winnetou)
In the latest batch offering from Cosmic Winnetou, I encountered RNL, also known as Jesse Farber, of whom I had previously reviewed ‘Conquering King Kong’ (Vital Weekly 1211). In his music project, Farber uses field recordings and tape manipulation. The field recordings are from his (I assume) extensive archive, as the ones used in these new pieces were made between 1990 and 2023 in Boston, Istanbul, Estoi, Herculaneum, Brandenburg, New York, and Berlin. In good old Queen and Brume fashion, he mentions, “No synthesisers were used”. Also noteworthy is that RNL had more members in the past, going by colourful names such as fleawig, nøsferatu, and ms. anthropy, un-d.t., loopis, rusty pipewater, and mr. a/b, “at least one of whom is Jesse Farber.” Usually, mentioning “no synthesisers used” means we don’t hear any of these, but in this case, there are more than a few occasions in which I thought this is a synthesiser. Following years of listening to ‘weird’ music, I know any acoustic sound can be treated to make it sound like a synthesiser. And, also important, does it matter if no synthesisers are used (and the same I always thought with the music of Queen and Brume)? Whatever tape manipulation techniques Farber mastered (or favours), he does the job very well. I have no idea if these techniques are analogue digital or a mix, and I will not even guess. The field recordings in all ten pieces are altered to such an extent that it’s tough (impossible) to know the origins. Here, too, I won’t guess. The music is quite dark and has that lo-fi ambient quality, the kind of post-apocalyptic, leaky nuclear reactor feeling, such as the pumping sounds in ‘Bruise Yellow’. It is a beautiful yet nightmarish trip.
The other two new releases on this label are from people I may not have heard before. First, there is Fratar, the moniker of Frank Prager. Recorded during the lockdown, so already a somewhat older recording, “from winter till late fall on the back of a cursed year after a period of personal turmoil and after I moved to the countryside. I wished to be in a better place literally and so to speak mentally”. He says he got his inspiration from early 1070s electronic music, in particular, Cluster and Harmonia, and he uses an analogue Eurorack system, some synthesiser and a few very early Casio and Yamaha keyboards “shoved into a granular processor that made the circuits rain for days”. Yet, it doesn’t sound as sad as it could have sounded. The influences shine brighter; one could easily mistake this for a Cluster album from the mid-1970s. It could be that the countryside surroundings were responsible for the somewhat melancholic approach of the music – Cluster, too, which was recorded in the countryside at that time. There is that breezy feeling, the quiet afternoon, wind through trees and over a lake, a summer’s day but too hot, not all energy draining. The music is uplifting at times, bouncing away, and it’s the soundtrack for a holiday in the countryside, with a cool beer at hand, a book and a good time.
I ignore the German words on henning parties (“aka titre”) on Bandcamp because they appear with no context, so what does it mean? Of more interest is the list of instruments “buchla 200e, piano, soma cosmos, native instruments komplete, elektron octatrack, voice.” Now, this isn’t the soundtrack for a breezy summer’s day. The opening piece is “Tanz mit dem engelschor”, the dance of the angel choir, and sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie, ‘The Shining, ‘ springs to mind, but basically, anyone will do it. The voices sing various lines, the violins screech high-pitched, and there is a creepy low-end rumble. This continues in the other three pieces; the electronics are of the horror variety—music for dark and cold evenings. Henning Pertiet uses a relatively loose touch in his compositions as if he controls a bunch of samples on a keyboard and plays along with what happens on the screen – to stick with the analogy of a movie soundtrack. This release was alright; nothing too complicated or new, and perhaps a bit too dramatic for my taste, and maybe not something I quickly return to. (FdW)
––– Address: https://cosmicwinnetou.bandcamp.com/
TYSON J SWINDELL – BASE STATION DREAMS (cassette, private)
I didn’t review the previous release by Swindell, but I reviewed earlier ones (Vital Weekly 1244 and 1117), and the only thing I can safely say is that they are all different. His latest release is quite a conceptual one, as it all “made by hand on a vintage cassette 4 track and features an audio recording of my grandfather brokering some deal with a radio company in the 1980s that I found after he died. He was a radio engineer in the Korean War who later got into the pager game in our home town before cell phones were a thing. I also used a no-input mixer as a synthesiser and sound collaged with some guitar stuff and various samples all made by me.” These 45 minutes are similar and could be enjoyed as a long piece. Grandfather’s voice is throughout this piece, and even when it’s impossible to understand a word he says, it seems to be in English. The no-input mixer is a synthesiser and provides an exciting layer of mildly distorted drone sounds, with some loosely played sounds on top, assuming these are the samples. One can perceive this as a highly abstract radio play of the abstract variety and not one to understand the spoken word fully. You could also see this as a work of industrial music: some random stabs on electronics, some voices mixed in and an MB-like bed of drones. This release is quite the throwback to the 1980s when I received this kind of music on cassette every week. It is very much the experiment/concept that fits best on a cassette, significantly when as consistently performed as Swindell does here. (FdW)
––– Address: https://tysonswindell.bandcamp.com/
MOINEAU ECARLATE – JUNKOPIA (cassette by Affadis Plein)
PAUSE (book by No Log)
Behind Moineau Ecarlate, we find Kevin Orliange, from France, who released a bundle of cassettes in 2016. He creates his music using “stereo-8 Loops, cassettes, synthesiser”, and the other thing it says about this tape is that it is “recorded on December 23 At the office in La Villedieu; completed on December 27 at the time of the 13th moon, so maybe there is a significant meaning in that moon thing? Orliange didn’t attach titles to his eleven pieces, making the music more absolute than programmatic so that the moon reference could be more transparent. The tape element is also a bit lost unless the synthesisers are stuck to crudely cut loops, adding a mildly industrial touch to the music. The whole thing leans heavily on synthesiser sounds, many of which are brutal; Moineau Ecarlate doesn’t fit the lo-fi ambient sound wranglers pattern but is more akin to the world of industrial music and some tape manipulation. It is distinctly minimal in approach, making most of the tracks too long for their net worth, but that is very much what this kind of music comes with. It also means this is a very consistent music release. Stabs on a synthesiser, loud and clear and even when the tape manipulation side could have played a more significant role, in, for instance, transforming the synthesisers a bit more and maybe creating a bit more variety, it is also something that is very much it’s own thing, which is a great thing.
Orliange might (!) also be (co-) responsible for a book called ‘Pause’. There is no introduction or colophon, so we need to guess here about the background and ideas behind this publication. It consists of about 350 pages of interviews with people who run labels, releasing not exclusively cassettes but those that form the central part. It’s a homage to the world of DIY, and it includes a lot of printing techniques. Some of these you might know from Vital Weekly (sadly not listed as a source), such as Senufo Editions, Falt Records, Hanson Records, Chocolate Monk, Lal Lal Lal, RRRecords, Notice Recordings or Ultra Eczema. There are many others, Tanzprocesz, Zad Kokar, Zamzamrec, Rrrecords, Agraf’prod, Maître Selecto, Hästen & Korset, Zoomin’night, Tomaturj, Social Harmony, Third Type Tapes, Altered States Tapes, Animal Biscuit, Copy Pasta, Los Emes Del Oso, Scum Yr Earth, Fougère, Silo, Manoï, Papier Crash Test, Herberg Rustiek, and Peace & Noise. Each chapter shows a variety of cassette covers, and when they are in colour, the print is also in colour, and then there’s the interview. These cassette covers don’t necessarily relate to the label discussed. I have reviewed a few of these titles in the past few years and have never heard of many of them. Interestingly, this is not a book about the 1980s halcyon days of cassettes but a tribute to what is going on in more recent times. It’s interesting to read about the different motivations to start (and stop!) labels, their considerations, and so on. Essential stuff if you are into this sort of thing – I know, I am. On the downside, the interviews are in French in the main body of the text, and the translations are in the back. Some of these translations are a bit weird; John Olson appears as such in the French text, but he becomes John Wilson in translation. So, non-French speakers have to go back and forth in the book and are also in a different order. Those are the downsides of this otherwise fine book. (FdW)
––– Address: https://affadisplein.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://stoo.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/09/nouvelle-sortie-pause/