Week 33

ÉTANT DONNÉS – CINQ PORTES SOUDEES (CD by Klang Galerie) *
GEINS’T NAÏT – GET’S (CD by Klang Galerie) *
WET NURSE – MEDICAL TYRANNY (CD by Phage Tapes) *
ROTAT – STATIC ANTICS (CD by Aussaat) *
FLETINA – SERROF (CD by Unfathomless) *
CHRISTOPHER MCFALL – I THROW THE SWITCH ON THE MIDNIGHT SNAKE (CD by Unfathomless) *
VASCO TRILLA – THE BELL SLEPT LONG IN ITS TOWER (CD by Thanatosis Produktion) *
BARNACLES & VONNEUMANN – THE GRAVEDIGGER KID (CD by Klang Galerie) *
UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN (CD, private) *
RAPOON – MOKA 24 (CD by Klang Galerie) *
ROBERT RICH & LUCA FORMENTINI – CLOUD ORNAMENT (CD by Soundscape Productions) *
THE NEW BLOCKADERS, GRINDER-WITHOUT-ORGANS, THE THEATRICAL PANOPTICON – THE STAGE AS ANTIWORLD (CD by Cold Spring Records) *
STEPHEN FLINN & BRYAN EUBANKS (CD by Public Eyesore) *
TUNGU – SUCCESFUL UTILIZATION OF ELEMENTS (CD by Public Eyesore) *
DUSTSCEAWUNG (cassette by Eh?) *
ACIDETHER & DOC WÖR MIRRAN – PIERROT’S PARADE (CDR by Marginal Talent) *
CHURCH OF HATE/PKWST (split cassette by Grubenwehr Freiburg/Attenuation Circuit) *
LORI GOLDSTON AND STEFAN CHRISTOFF – A RADICAL HORIZON (cassette by Beacon Sound) *
HMOT – THE MOON TURNED INTO THE SUN (cassette by Beacon Sound) *

ÉTANT DONNÉS – CINQ PORTES SOUDEES (CD by Klang Galerie)
GEINS’T NAÏT – GET’S (CD by Klang Galerie)

Over the years I didn’t keep up with the re-issues of the French duo Étant Donnés, the Hurtado brothers. I know there’s a box set on Vinyl On Demand, and ‘Cing Portes Soudees’ was part of that. Initially, this was a double cassette on the Bain Total label, along with ‘Les Cent Jours Clairs’; I’m not sure why it was decided not to do this as a double CD. I remember seeing the original Bain Total cassettes for sale back then, at Staalplaat, for instance. Still, they came with a price beyond my wallet (although I had a few, such as works by Die Form/Fine Automatic and Krylon Hertz). At the time, 1984 or thereabouts, Étant Donnés was also present on a few compilations, and their rapid-fire cut-up work sounded great. It was only much later I realised that before the more musique concrète-styled cut-up, the group sounded quite different. Radical also, but massively different. In these old works, ‘real’ instruments play a significant role. Guitar and bass, but played not always very traditionally, in a no-wave, early post-punk fashion. This is quite interesting as, according to the cover, these recordings are from 1977 and 1978, and in those days, this kind of no-wave playing wasn’t worldwide spread. Along with this, the two brothers also use all sorts of objects as percussion, sometimes leaping off into a wild ramble of drumming. There are also early signs of using tape manipulation, loops and cut-ups, even when not as strong a presence as in the releases of the mid-1980s. As far as I know, these are the earliest (released) recordings by them, and they show an interesting take on their interest in radical music, which, in these early stages, is linked to influences from no wave to tape composition, all recorded very loud and very direct to tape, without overdubs or post-production. The title piece is a two-part work, each about 30 minutes, consisting of individual, shorter bits, which one can call songs. As a bonus, there’s a short extra piece, ‘Music From The Film Des Autres Terres Couples Part 4’, of which the cover has no information but sounds like it was recorded a bit later, with more loops and tape manipulation. It’s a great historical document!
It’s been only three weeks since reviewing ‘Fishes’ by Geins’t Naït, the group’s fifth album in the 1980s. Now Klang Galerie sends ‘Gets’, the third album, a cassette-only release for this trio, Thierry Merigout, Vincent Hachet and Laurent Petitgrand. I guess there is some explanation in there, for this is a much more experimental album than what they released on vinyl in those days. Electronics play a more significant role, perhaps not as much in the musique concrète way, but rather as a rough take on electronic pop music of the mid-1980s, melting it down, extracting loops and such. Some of these pieces remain a mere set of loops, with some rudimentary mixing, which made me think of some of these as ideas for further development. And, because this is released on a cassette, the semi-finished state isn’t essential and is a peek at working methods and how they develop their music. I wrote before I missed this band in the 1980s and early 1990s, and for me, all these re-issues are introductions, and I like what I hear. I am also a sucker for more experimental work, sketches and ideas (at one point collecting a lot of alternative takes of Beatles songs; I am over that now), work that sheds light on the main thing and as such, I also enjoyed ‘Get’s’, even with its at times unevenly unfinished ideas, so for me this is an excellent addition to the previous releases I heard. (FdW)
––– Address: https://klanggalerie.com/

WET NURSE – MEDICAL TYRANNY (CD by Phage Tapes)
ROTAT – STATIC ANTICS (CD by Aussaat)

The cover of this release is unreadable, wrong colour on the black background. Either it’s a design mistake or a misprint. I hoped Bandcamp would tell me more, but sadly not. From Discogs, I understand Wet Nurse (which is spelt as Wet Nurse. on there) is a duo of John Westerhof and Paul Kinasevych; the latter started the project in 2010, and the first joined in 2023. They are called a ‘despondent death industrial project’, and the music stems from industrial music and noise. As always, I am not well-versed on the particular avenues this music takes; what’s death industrial music? (Is there life industrial music?). They use minimalist synthesisers, with keys firmly glued down, working the oscillations in a minimalist manner, adding loops of (found?) voices or recordings of their voices, pushed away in the mix, drenched in reverb. In ‘Language Of Injury’, the voices are about medical procedures, as we perhaps should expect from such a band name. I can’t judge all the titles as medical, but in general there is that creepy dark atmosphere, ‘The Pulse Of Terror’ sums it up. There is also rhythm, or at least a sense of rhythm, via more loops or ultra-short repeating synth tones. It is when ‘Prayers Unanswered’ that some old-fashioned distortion is made part of the music. I leave it to you to decide if that’s good or bad; it depends on expectations. I had none of those, as this was my introduction to the music. Noise music, or power electronics as we labelled all noise in the 1980s, and I can safely put Wet Nurse in there, always had my interest, even when I no longer play it all day (if I ever did. I no longer recall). I immensely enjoy my occasional heavy slab of noise. Especially when there is a bit of variation and not just an endless festival of feedback. A bit of idea and thought behind the compositions is always good. That’s certainly something that was lacking in the good ol’ days.
Rotat is a music project from Finland, and that’s all I know. Discogs lists releases going back to 2015, going between CDs and cassettes. This, too, is noise, as you can imagine when lumped into a Wet Nurse’s music review. Now if Wet Nurse is about old school noise music, Rotat is a new school adapt. First, his (assuming here) music is much louder in recording and mastering and uses a singular approach to noise. Again assuming, I believe Rotat is the sort of musician to use crashing metallic plates and feeding those signals through sound effects, a bunch of connected guitar pedals (dubbed by Merzbow as Rainbow electronics), arriving at five lengthy excursions of minimalist noise. Not the HNW variety, a massive, endless blur of sound, but a constant colliding of sounds, bumping and crashing into each other. In ‘Attic Burn’, things veer towards more feedback, but in general, there is a balanced approach between distortion, collapse and feedback. At 52 minutes this album was too long because it lacked the kind of variation which made the Wet Nurse album much stronger. I may have had my noise fill for this week with Wet Nurse but that’s not the case. I quite enjoyed the first 35-40 minutes of this, but then fatigue set in, and I felt an urge to continue with something else. My maximum reached! (FdW)
––– Address: https://phagetapes.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: ernten@aol.com

FLETINA – SERROF (CD by Unfathomless)
CHRISTOPHER MCFALL – I THROW THE SWITCH ON THE MIDNIGHT SNAKE (CD by Unfathomless)

Here we have the third release from Scotland’s Fletina, at least the third I heard (see also Vital Weekly 1396 and 1416). Fletina (pronoun unknown) describes the works as “raw abstract audio collages using found objects, room sounds, environmental noises, household items, mechanical devices and various electronic manipulation techniques” and as such this new one is no different. Past summer (I assume 2023), Fletina worked as ”pool tester” for a swimming pool in the local area, which meant going twice a day into the boiler room, “working with various chemicals, testing the chlorine levels in the water and checking that all the pumps, tanks, gauges, valves and mechanical apparatus was all in good safe running order. Then, at the end of the night, I would be responsible for removing the mechanical cover for the swimming pool, inspecting the water, and eventually putting the cover back on…” For someone working with sound, this is undoubtedly a stimulating environment to work in, and Fletina liked the ambient quality of the machines. However, this is not a straightforward boiler room recording, as two sound recorders and a couple of contact microphones were used to capture both the boiler room and the swimming pool at a time when no one was around. As before the results are minimal, but if you dig deeper, you will find different resonances, things bubbling (literally) under the surface. It is a machine hum mixed with water sounds, some close by, some far away, and slow changes can be noted within the two pieces. Both have a very linear course; it starts and stops, and within it is the same level throughout, and in that respect, both pieces sound the same, which is a pity.
It’s been a long time since I last heard something from Christopher McFall; if I’m correct this was in Vital Weekly 886. Discogs lists no release between this new one and the one I reviewed, and I wonder why there is such a long silence. Maybe McFall found religion as he thanked the label boss and Jesus on the cover. The label doesn’t mention anything in the liner notes. McFall uses field recordings from train lines that “Kansas City East Bottoms, Missouri, USA” and mentions, “these particular locations are unique because some of the trains routed through these areas make temporary stops to change conductors and/or conduct maintenance operations. Others, however, pass by uninterrupted and continue down the rails at full speed.” Before I looked up information on this release, I had a vague notion he used water recordings on this release, and it reminded me that the Unfathomless once was a sub-label from the Mystery Sea label, but, for whatever reason, there haven’t been any new releases on that label. Maybe I was thinking of water because some of the sounds on this release are rather muffled as if recorded beneath a blanket or behind walls. More so than Fletina, McFall uses software treatments in his music and is part of the movement of composers who work with a laptop. If you know these are train sounds, then it’s easier to recognise, and one recognises the repeating bounce of a train carriage and the high-pitched sounds of a train coming to a halt. He also uses more abstract transformations of these sounds, deep drones and shorter sounds, loops and such in the second part. That’s the most out-there track of the release, the furthest transformation of field recordings, as in ‘you don’t hear this in natural surroundings’. Loops also appear in other tracks but to a different extent. Much time has passed since I last heard his work, so I can’t say this album is a return to form, but it’s a well-crafted album of fine field recordings backed with excellent processed sounds. (FdW)
––– Address: https://unfathomless.bandcamp.com/

VASCO TRILLA – THE BELL SLEPT LONG IN ITS TOWER (CD by Thanatosis Produktion)

On the few occasions, Vital Weekly wrote about Vasco Trilla, it was always about his work as a percussion player with other musicians, so ‘The Bell Slept Long In Its Tower’ is my first encounter with his solo work. I understand this is his seventh solo work. Bells play an essential role in the music here, all based “on the symbolic and historical use of bells in different regions and cultures around the world”. Trilla plays the timpani, flat-tuned bells, transducer speakers, snare drum and assorted percussions, and he recorded all pieces live, without overdubs. His work as an improviser plays a role, but the music isn’t all about improvisation, or at least not as much, so I believe. He approaches his instruments with bows and sticks and uses various surfaces to get specific vibrations. Once a bell is struck, it’s all about the decaying resonances. Sometimes, Trilla waits until the sustain dies out completely, but sometimes, he uses overlaps to get new vibrations in the way of already existing resonances. The music has an ambient character, quite meditative, but there’s also a sharp edge to the music when those frequencies go into the higher ranges. The music reminds me at times of older Organum, but also the work of Christian Wolfarth. It is challenging to think of this as something recorded without overdubs, but that may explain why some of these pieces are on the shorter side of things. That’s a pity, as when he plays them a bit longer, there is more tension, and one becomes aware of the minimalist changes in his playing. The most extended piece, ‘Enveloping Dome’, is such an example, and maybe at 11 minutes very long, but it has a palpable tension, with all these surfaces singing and ringing. Throughout a great album, which made me realise I need to hear more of his music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://thanatosis.bandcamp.com/artists

BARNACLES & VONNEUMANN – THE GRAVEDIGGER KID (CD by Klang Galerie)

‘The Gravedigger Kid’ by Barnacles & Vonneumann is a masterful concept album that delves into the posthumous admiration of legendary musicians. This collaboration between Italian sound designer Barnacles and the experimental/post-rock band Vonneumann from Rome is innovative and deeply evocative. One of the standout tracks is “Pierre Boulez 5th of January 2016”. This piece is a tribute to the avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, capturing the essence of his groundbreaking work in contemporary classical music. The track is a sonic journey that mirrors Boulez’s own explorations in sound, blending intricate electronic elements with live instrumentation to create a rich, textured soundscape. The homage to Boulez is not just in name but in the very fabric of the music, which echoes his pioneering spirit and relentless pursuit of new musical frontiers. Barnacles is the moniker of Matteo Uggeri, an Italian visual designer and composer from Milan. Uggeri is known for his sound poetry, incorporating everyday life recordings, plunderphonics, and meticulously arranged melodic compositions. He is a member of several musical projects, including Starlight Assembly and Sparkle in Grey, and has collaborated with numerous artists across various genres. Vonneumann is an experimental/post-rock band from Rome, Italy, formed in 1999. Named after the mathematician John von Neumann, the band is known for its free-form compositions that defy typical songwriting conventions. Radical improvisation, complex written riffs, and heavy use of electronics and processing characterize Vonneumann’s music. The band’s approach is ironic and innovative, often pushing the boundaries of conventional music. Together, Barnacles and Vonneumann have created an album that not only pays tribute to musical legends but also challenges listeners to rethink their relationship with the legacies of these artists. “The Gravedigger Kid” is a compelling listen for anyone interested in the intersection of experimental music and cultural commentary. The artists used, not exploited, but used as a means to an end are David Bowie, Keith Emerson, George Martin, Maurice White, Prince, Pierre Boulez, Lemmy (of Motörhead fame), Tony Conrad, Primo Brown and Zagor Camillas. This is complex music; for some, this may be too cerebral. It took a while for me to grasp the overall idea. There’s another version with even more tracks: ‘The Gravedigger Kid / More Freshly Baked Corpses For The Kid’ with the assistance of Geins’t Naït & Philip Sanderson. The edits are made as one continuous piece with several chapters. George Martin has a sample of Number 9 (taken from the Beatles’ Revolution 9, but apparently not George Martin’s voice but a test engineer’s). Anyway, if you want to be surprised, listen to the gravedigger kid. You might dig it. (MDS)
––– Address: https://klanggalerie.com/

UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN (CD, private)
RAPOON – MOKA 24 (CD by Klang Galerie)

The reason to lump these two together is the use of voices, vocals and lyrics. And looking at these names, I’m sure that will be a surprise. If you have followed my words about music for some time now, you may know I am not the world’s biggest lover of voices, vocals and lyrics (or a combination thereof). It’s because I’m too much of a music man, and I have trouble understanding words, as much as I don’t ‘get’ poetry (or as easily lost in a novel). In the case of Unaussprechlichen Kulten, a duo from Sweden, the problem of language arises; I don’t understand Swedish. The band name is German and means “unspeakable cults”, and that’s “a fictional book of arcane literature in the Cthulhu Mythos. The book first appeared in Robert E. Howard’s 1931 short stories “The Children of the Night” and “The Black Stone” as Nameless Cults. Like the Necronomicon, it was later mentioned in several stories by H. P. Lovecraft.”
They are a duo of Püär Thörn (poetry, voice loops, field recordings, samples, synthesisers and computers and Jean Fatal (tape recorders, synthesisers, percussion, guitars, captions, voices). I have no idea what xaphoons are. In the ten pieces on their CD, the voice isn’t always the domineering element, which is a good thing because when it does, it is very present and not to be understood (although ‘A Monstrous Carbuncle’ is in English). The music is dark and atmospheric, with traces of industrial music, which, occasionally, heavily leans on using bass guitar, so it all sounds rather old-school industrial at times. There is also a more improvised element in the music, where the objects create looped sounds. As you can imagine, I enjoy the instrumental to some extent, even if it is not always great, but it has a neat old-school vibe to it, whereas the spoken words aren’t my thing.
I reviewed very few releases by Rapoon over the years. I believe Robin Storey may have taken offence when I mentioned a lot of his releases may sound the same. To a musician, each release is a dear thing, and perhaps each is very much a different thing, but reviewing is also about perceiving things and, at the time, that’s how I perceived it. It ended my Rapoon reviewing career. I recently reviewed his autobiography (Vital Weekly 1437), and maybe that’s the reason for receiving ‘Moka 24’. The most striking thing is that it’s very much different from what I know to be Rapoon’s music. Maybe I am way behind what he does, and is this path he’s been walking for a while? Klang Galerie’s website certainly seems to suggest this to be the case. This new album is named after Moka Efti, “the fictional name of a nightclub in the series ‘Babylon Berlin’. Set in the decadence and turmoil of the 1920s, the series incorporates real historical events into an imaginary narrative.” I wholeheartedly recommend that series; it’s great. Rapoon sets the music in 2024, another time of decline. If I said Rapoon never changes, then I was most certainly wrong. On ‘Mika 24’, we find Storey singing, mostly in a soft-spoken manner, almost like ballads, complete with piano sounds. I’ve seen ‘Babylon Berlin’, and I don’t remember much of the soundtrack (other than some of the jazz pieces sounded quite alright, said the non-jazz man), but I don’t remember many ballads. Of course, there are also pieces with rhythm, and here too Rapoon doesn’t like his usual self, but with rhythm machines and electronics reminding me of the best of Pan American, which is always a good thing. There is certainly some kind of desolation in the music, the spacious piano sounds, the gloomy voice (and as always, I have nothing to say about the lyrics), but also in pieces with rhythm (of which ‘Night Train To Europe’ is the most classical Rapoon piece), all say something about the dour times we live in. While not all of this is my cup of tea (vocals, lyrics), I found the whole change of musical scenery a fascinating one. (FdW)
––– Address: https://unaussprechlichenkulten.bandcamp.com/

ROBERT RICH & LUCA FORMENTINI – CLOUD ORNAMENT (CD by Soundscape Productions)

While I acknowledge Robert Rich to be one of the masters of ambient music, I realise at the same time he’s not part of Vital Weekly a lot. I am unsure why this, other than not receiving promos. Maybe he isn’t as active with releases. Also, Luca Formentini, we don’t see a lot in these pages, but that’s because he’s younger and only has a few releases (see also Vital Weekly 590 and 1336). he’s a guitar player, using acoustic and electric guitar and sometimes a lot of processing, electronics and what is described as ‘homemade instruments’, and he worked with Holger Czukay, Alvin Curran and Markus Stockhausen, among others. Robert Rich’s music is a finely woven tapestry of sounds, endlessly sustaining and minimally changing, with much room for piano and flute sounds. These are present in this collaborative work, so I interpret the liner notes as a work recorded via the internet. Rich also uses a “Haken Continuum, Sequential Synths, gliss guitar”, while in Italy, Formentini plays “acoustic, electric, fretless and Moog guitars, and Monome Norns”. Rich did the final mix. While the music is heavily (and heavenly) atmospheric and undoubtedly a bit dark, it’s not your usual dark ambient, ominous drone beast. The soft tinkling of pianos and flutes adds a powerful melodic element to the music, something a lot of dark ambients never do. Those pianos and flutes never seem to appear in one piece together, but they are permanently embedded in massively constructed spacious sounds, which are relatively light and weightless; it’s not easy to tell their provenance. It all has a very spacious character, which shows in some of the titles, ‘Tapestry Sky’ and ‘Tincture of Luminance’, but also some that indicate the music, ‘Lamplight Chime’ or ‘Migration Of Octaves’. It’s music for either the start or the end of the day, twilight music. As I mentioned before, I don’t mind getting up and playing some ambient music to start the day with, usually not something for review, but in this case, I made the exception. I already heard the music earlier in the week, but I decided to ‘test’ this as an early riser, which worked very well. The perfect way to start a new day, with these spacious drifts and late summer sun slowly beaming in; it’s almost like a trip. (FdW)
––– Address: https://robertrich.bandcamp.com/

THE NEW BLOCKADERS, GRINDER-WITHOUT-ORGANS, THE THEATRICAL PANOPTICON – THE STAGE AS ANTIWORLD (CD by Cold Spring Records)

The New Blockaders have been beyond their ‘final’ phase and ‘just’ produce new work for some time now. There is also more work now with other music such as the for me unknown Grinder-without-Organs, who are a kind of ‘anti-theatre’. The first CD has a studio collaboration between the two groups. In contrast, the second contains two live recordings, one from Grinder-without-Organs at Cafe Oto in London and one from The Theatrical Panopticon at the Audio Foundation in Auckland. Pairing these in one package may be odd, but there is undoubtedly reasoning there.
I don’t belong to the group of people who claim the first New Blockaders LP to be the first ever proper noise record, partly because it’s not a competition. What does it ‘proof’? I couldn’t say. I found ‘Changez Les Blockeurs’ when I first heard it, the Urthona CD version from 1996, an exciting noise record that I would not return to a lot over the years to come. By then, I had heard a lot of noise music, and if I had heard it at its original release (1982), I might have felt differently—no shareable quotes here for the next press package. What I find more important is the here and now, can we do something with the genre of noise that is, perhaps, different? The piece the two groups laid down in the studio, ‘Ein Glücklicher Unfall Genau Zu Lang’, meaning “a happier accident exactly too long”, and one that comes as quite a surprise. With three members of the Blockaders and four for Grinder-without-Organs, one could expect a hell of a racket, and at times, it indeed is, but at the same time, there are also quite some details. We hear lots of spoken words, layered thickly, the scrapings of a violin (and possibly other instruments), field recordings and especially in the opening section, surprisingly, only some electronics. Everything played simultaneously, like an orchestra tuning up, slowly adding electronics, and many of them at one point, yet it never becomes a full-blown noise explosion. The last 15 minutes are for a low drone and occasional cheering, a perhaps somewhat dull ending to an exciting 45 minutes.
Moving on to the second CD, we have Grinder-without-Organs at Cafe Oto, “showcasing a singer who has no voice, musicians who have no instruments, and a bandleader who has no direction”. There is a very banging and trashing of drums, a few wind instruments and a voice reciting some text. It is very much free rock improvisation, quite wild and very loud, but also the kind of thing that works best when you witness the action. This might also be said about The Theatrical Panopticon, performing “A stage play performed inside a void and infected with accidental somniloquies”. It’s interesting to hear people talk on a stage, and shuffle about, but it may help if we saw the action. I know it’s anti-theatre (whatever that might be; I am not a theatre critic or possess any knowledge about the theatre), but seeing would mean understanding. (FdW)
––– Address: https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/

STEPHEN FLINN & BRYAN EUBANKS (CD by Public Eyesore)
TUNGU – SUCCESFUL UTILIZATION OF ELEMENTS (CD by Public Eyesore)
DUSTSCEAWUNG (cassette by Eh?)

Public Eyesore Records and its cassette offshoot Eh? Records present a series of releases on the fringes of electro-acoustic improvisation and modern music, as they, perhaps, always do. The first is by Stephen Flinn (percussion and gons) and Bryan Eubanks (saxophone, electronics). It’s been a while since I last heard something from either. Their CD contains a 31-minute recording from a concert they did at the Petersburg Art Space in Berlin in 2023 and is described by the label as “spontaneous improvisation”. Both musicians have a background in this kind of music, which works well. I have no idea what this performance space looks like and if the reverb I hear is from the space or artificially created, but it gives the music a sharp edge. There is great tension between both players and their respective approaches to their instruments. There is a lot of scraping with a bow over metallic percussion pieces, to which Eubanks responds with similar sharpish saxophone playing. Sometimes the music is very close by, sometimes very distant. This is created by moving the recorder through this space, or the players move around or using various techniques—that contradiction of far away and close by fuels the tension even further. The tension between the players is from the way they respond to each other or do not respond, of course, and their interaction with the performance space. The result is some intense music, captivating for the full 31 minutes.
Behind Tungu is Sergey Senchuk, who plays voice, acoustic bass, field recording and sampling. His first album, he calls “abstract ambient”, followed by two rhythmic albums and then he invited Aya Ogawa for a collaborative track, which was much to his liking, so he asked others to send a bit of music and create improvised music even when not in the same room. Ogawa isn’t on this CD, but with find (among others, I am mentioning names I recognised, Renne Lussier, Fred Lonberg-Holm, DJ Sniff, Xavier Charles, Phillippe Petit, Sainkho Namtchylak, Giuseppe Verticchio, Jaap Blook, Guillaume Garguad and others, 19 in total. How does one approach such a release? Cover in hand, looking at names and instruments? There is a variety of them here: turntables, bass, voice, sampling, clarinet, electric guitar, violin and so on. Because Tungu plays various himself, figuring out who’s doing what here is always challenging. Tracks are typically between three and five minutes, which means there is entirely some speed and variation in this album, but one also gets easily lost in the melee. Many of these pieces are traditional improvised affairs, with some exceptions, adding to further confusion. It’s, however, also a most enjoyable album, with the duet with Jaap Blonk my favourite one, with voice, guitar and cello merging into almost a pop song. It’s only sometimes my cup of tea, but indeed an excellent, highly varied album.
Lastly, on cassette is the trio Dustceawung (or, rather, dustsceawung). They are Miri Karraker (viola), Noah Ophoven-Baldwin (cornet) and Mitch Stahlmann (flute). They started in Minneapolis in 2017 with a shared interest in lowercase music, small sounds, and “questions around instrument proficiency”. They played a few concerts in 2017 and 2018 but drifted apart for various reasons and reconvened in 2022 via Zoom. If I understand this, they used Zoom to create music, play together, listen, adding sounds. On this cassette is a recording of that, found on the B side, while on the A side, there is a recording from 2018. Their love for small sounds is evident, as they keep their volume down and their sounds small. One only sometimes recognises the instruments played by scraping, rubbing, touching and so forth their instruments. In their 2018 piece, they like to keep things together, and small plus small equals something not very big. There is, perhaps, only sometimes a lot of ‘definition’ in their playing, but I assume that’s how they like these things. On their 2022 recording, there is a bit more on the definition side, but at the same time, the fondness to keep things small and very much together is still strong. As such, both sides have little difference, even when the 2018 recording starts with something that uses electronics, which didn’t seem part of the 2022 recording. I slightly preferred the 2018 recording, mainly because of the apparent presence of electronics, expanding their music a bit beyond the sometimes too-intimate part. (FdW)
––– Address: https://publiceyesore.bandcamp.com/

ACIDETHER & DOC WÖR MIRRAN – PIERROT’S PARADE (CDR by Marginal Talent)

In Vital Weekly 1347, I reviewed the first collaboration between Nürnberg’s Doc Wör Mirran and St. Petersburg Acidether. Like then, both groups recorded their parts in their studios, with DWM member Adrian Gormley recording his saxophone in Berlin. Acidether is one person, Ilya Tsarev, and the Docs are Gormley, Michael Wurzer, Joseph B. Raimond, Stefan Schweiger and Michael Asch – more or less their standard line-up these days. While I have no idea who’s doing what here (no instruments are mentioned on the cover), and maybe the Mirran pick up their usual instruments (electronics, guitar, drums), the seven pieces on this album are distinctly different from much of the group’s output. Maybe it’s Acidether pushing them into doing something different, but overall there is more of an experimental feel with the music here. At various times, I am reminded of Nurse With Wound, in the mid-80s. There are many loops, voices with reverb, a bit of wacky turntablism, some rock-inspired improvisations on the instruments and some surrealist sound collages. But the two groups take a more wonderous stroll here, creating spacious pieces, taking their time and sometimes a bit long, such as the feedback exercise that turns out to be ‘Fish Extraction’. That’s an exception, as I enjoyed the other six pieces quite a bit. It’s an exciting move to see Doc Wör Mirran not as jazzy or as krauty as some of their recent work but take a more full-on experimental approach, taking a leaf out of the big book of studio manipulations and coming up with something that sounds very retro, very 1985, but, if you think of it, not the sort of thing that has been imitated a lot. Despite that one piece I didn’t favour very much, an overall strong release. (FdW)
––– Address: https://docwoermirran.bandcamp.com/

CHURCH OF HATE/PKWST (split cassette by Grubenwehr Freiburg/Attenuation Circuit)

The fifth split cassette by the Attenuation Circuit and Grubenwehr Freiburg labels contains music by two musical projects, and for both, it’s my first encounter. On the first CD, we find Church Of Hate, or, rather, church of hate (as is the preferred spelling), from Tbilisi, Georgia (the country, not the state). I don’t know if church of hate is one person or a group, and playing the music makes me none the wiser. It could be either. The labels refer to kraut rock and Throbbing Gristle and while the latter is a bit complicated to hear, I understand the first reference much better. Not because there are a lot of motorik rhythms, but rather the freefall of electronics used here. The 45-minute piece was recorded in concert in November of last year. They may be of the modular variety or some machines from the lo-fi department (thinking about Monotrons here, but various others might do as well), along with stomp effects and a few percussive elements scattered about. There may also be some field recordings here, and it all works well. At times, it has that grainy, lo-fi atmospheric quality I love so much, but there’s also that heavy synth tone, indicating things aren’t all lo-fi.
On the other side, there’s the music of PKWST, which may stand for Parker Weston, from Phoenix, Arizona, who also goes by such names as Butoh Sonics, Dummy RIfle, The Ɔrinkles, THE IDE OF EARTH, Schadenhaus, Wretch and Reel, and Sugar Pills Bone, all listed on the insert. He has two pieces; one is about ten minutes, and the other thirty. I thought of this as roles reversed now. This, too, may have the improvised electronic side of krautrock, but now it all sounds louder, noisier, and perhaps, as such, more an industrialized version of krautrock music. Maybe more Throbbing Gristle, without any vocals or bass stomps. Also, more than the church of hate, the music stays on the same dynamic level throughout, which gets a bit boring when loops towards the end of ‘The Privilege of Rites and Wrongs’ go on a bit too long. I slightly prefer going to the church, but both are lovely new names in the world of cassettes. (FdW)
––– Address: https://emerge.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://grubenwehrfreiburg.bandcamp.com/

LORI GOLDSTON AND STEFAN CHRISTOFF – A RADICAL HORIZON (cassette by Beacon Sound)
HMOT – THE MOON TURNED INTO THE SUN (cassette by Beacon Sound)

Portland, Oregon-based Beacon Sound label has a catalogue of 80 titles, yet I think I had not heard of them before. The first release is by pianist Stefan Christoff, of whom I reviewed two solo tapes in Vital Weekly 1443. Also, from cellist Lori Goldstein, I reviewed work before but don’t know when and what that was. One fall afternoon, they went to the Scholes Street Studio in Brooklyn and recorded 11 pieces of music. The pieces show both their backgrounds in improvised and composed music. Each piece is a conversation between equals, not a call-and-response thing, but an ongoing one. As it all sounds very much composed, I have no idea how this kind of thing works. Do the musicians have some agreement before they hit the record button? Like what mood the next one will be, or in which key. Is there a rehearsal, or do they make things up in an excellent improvising spirit as they go along? I’m playing this cassette, and I don’t know. The music is somewhere in between chamber classic music and improvisation. It is reflective playing between the two, which is also a point of criticism. It’s all quite atmospheric, and at some point, it all gets blurry, beautiful as it all is. My frame of reference doesn’t cover this kind of music. Maybe it’s too much a classical thing, and I am not well-versed.
The other release is by Stas Shärifulla, who works as HMOT. He is “an artist & researcher from Central Siberia working with sound & decoloniality, drawing upon his Bashqort roots to envision new liberational futures and methodologies”. How that works, I don’t know. According to the information, he plays synthesisers, resonators, and quray, and, again, the latter is new to me. [wiki] “The quray (Bashkir ҡурай, Tatar quray, [quˈrɑɪ]) is a long open end-blown flute with two to seven fingerholes, and is the national instrument of the Bashkirs and Tatars. The instrument is a type of Choor. On March 1, 2018, Kurai was registered as a territorial brand of Bashkortostan, and a patent was received from the Federal Service for Intellectual Property of the Russian Federation.” The four pieces on this cassette (in total 24 minutes) were recorded in Basel, Switzerland, “as a part of ‘Shapeshifter’ project curated by Ana Jikia and Gerome Gadient”. Listening to the music, I am not entirely sure how it works with the synthesiser and the quray, but the resonators play an essential role, bending and reshaping tones. On one hand, it has a vaguely non-Western feeling, but with those resonators working overtime, it is also something quite industrial and drone-like. In ‘Ay Qoyaşqa Äylände (Lä)’, at nine minutes, also the longest of the four, boredom sets in; I can imagine in concert, this length could work quite well. It’s also the loudest piece, and when HMOT brings the volume down, the details shine a brighter one. Improvisation is the working method and is sometimes a bit messy. Altogether not bad, but not my cupper. (FdW)
––– Address: https://beaconsound.bandcamp.com/