Week 37

PHIL MAGUIRE – FAINT RED/PENSIL LINES (CD by Far Point Recordings) *
BUILD BUILDINGS – ECOTONE (CD by Laaps) *
BRANDON TANI – THE ROAD WAS BENT FROM THE WAY WE TOOK IT (CD by Laaps) *
KEITH BERRY – TROPICAL MODERNISM (CD by VSM Theory) *
CONTROL – SURVEILLANCE THEORY (CD by Cloister Recordings) *
DIRK SERRIES & RODRIGO AMADO & ANDREW LISLE – THE INVISIBLE (CD by Klang Galerie) *
ROLAND DAHINDEN/GARETH DAVIS – THEATRE OF THE MIND (CD by Moving Furniture Records/Contemporary Series) *
ANDREA GIORDANO – ALEA (CD by Sofa Music) *
NURSE WITH WOUND – REVENANTES (miniCD by Lenka Lente) *
NAVEL – MEDITATING AMOEBAS (LP, private) *
CACTUS 12 (12 CDR set by Sono Sordo) part 2:
ST-ONGE CÔTE (+SHALABI FALAISE) – NUANCES DE LA FINITUDE ORDINAIRE *
L’OREILLE A VINCENT – VISITE AU MUSEE *
KLAXON GUEULE – ROBERT M *
MICHEL F CÔTE – HYDROPATHE A DEGRE *
TIARI KESE – ще се о​п​р​а​в​и з​а​д​н​и​к​а ми *
CÔTE LABROSSE MIGONE TETREAULT – HAUT NID VOLAILLE *
R_KKK – SAINT NOIZES (CDR by (K)anal Records)
A.DRIFT – A.LIVE TRANSMISSION (3″ CDR by Inner Demons Records) *
GÜNTER SCHLIENZ – KURPARK (cassette by Lighten Up Sounds) *
GÜNTER SCHLIENZ – WELTRAUMFAHRT HEUTE (cassette by Fluere Tapes) *
KLUIK – VERSTÖRUNG (cassette, private) *
■DAVID WALLRAF / GERALD FIEBIG – HURLEMENTS (cassette by Grubenwehr Freiburg)

PHIL MAGUIRE – FAINT RED/PENSIL LINES (CD by Far Point Recordings)

Absolute music is music without any meaning or any program. The best example is Francisco Lopez, who calls almost all of his pieces ‘Untitled’; you figure out a title, an idea, or a meaning is the message. Phil Maguire has a similar interest, yet the two pieces on his CD are named a painting by Agnes Martin, of whom I had not heard before and whose paintings are not on the cover. Maguire says the pieces are named partly after Martin’s paintings, but they are not about them: “They are not about anything”. The title refers to one aspect of a painting called ‘Morning’, but it’s not the title of the respective pieces. Maguire’s music has been reviewed before, and I am sure I only heard a smaller portion, and what I heard I liked for its extreme minimalism. In that sense, his new release is no different. The two pieces are for “synthesiser and computer-generated tones”. Maguire says these works have no start or end, which is only valid if you visit his studio and hear these pieces playing; otherwise, they are limited in time and place – this CD has a short fade in and a fade out. Much like Lopez leaves freedom to the listener to adjust the music to personal preferences, this is something Maguire also does. Feel free to fiddle with the volume, the frequency range, the speakers and the space you choose for playback, and you’re good to go. Absolute music and absolute freedom. I am not one to go off the track and rework my amplifier settings to get a different sound. They remain in very much the same setting as I review everything else. It’s laziness, not because I believe this is ‘fair’ – I never did that with the Lopez releases. Maybe it’s also because I think this is the pure form of Maguire, the way the mix went down; I can’t imagine him using something very different and then adjusting his frequencies in some random way to what they are on the release. It’s hard not to mention Eliane Radigue’s massive influence on Maguire’s music. The sheer minimalism of the music, with hardly any change or development, and it’s something I play at a relatively medium volume in my living room, so it gently fills up my space with humming tones. Occasionally, I move around in this space, noting slight changes in the sound, a different kind of receiving these frequencies, and all is good. This is my kind of music, the one love I have had for a long time now, and the endless variations of minimalist drone music become one significant work of minimalism in itself. Maguire delivers an essential part of that. (FdW)
––– Address: https://farpoint.bandcamp.com/

BUILD BUILDINGS – ECOTONE (CD by Laaps)
BRANDON TANI – THE ROAD WAS BENT FROM THE WAY WE TOOK IT (CD by Laaps)

The last time I heard music by Ben Tweel was when I reviewed ‘A Generation Of Books’ in Vital Weekly 974. I mentioned a considerable gap in releasing new music (or receiving music to review), but this time has been the most significant gap. The information mentions a 2022 release for Audiobulb Records, so I’m sure I missed a few. I’ll be honest: I had to read my old reviews to refresh my memory of what Tweel’s music was about. Words popping up are ‘glitch’, ‘rhythmic’ and a steady reference to Oval and Fennesz. On ‘Ecotone’, this is no different, but his modus operandi may have changed. Armed with ‘real’ instruments such as acoustic guitars, lap harp, ukulele, mbira, and clarinet, he records sounds. He takes these to the iPad, particularly an app called Samplr, which is indeed a sampler, allowing the player to cut and change on the spot, with some satisfactory results. When I started to look into the musical possibilities of the iPad, I bought Samplr as well and didn’t use it a lot. I found it too linear; one couldn’t return to the original state of the sound, and the possibilities to mix volumes between the samples weren’t great either. At least, that’s what I remember. If you record your work and take it to a different audio environment, I’m sure the possibilities are fantastic. I can’t say if Tweel does that or uses Samplr as it is composing on the spot. I am no longer that much into this app. The stuttering Ovalesq sounds of the actual instruments, playing melodic phrases, cut up joyfully and pleasantly, lingers through all 13 pieces here. Sometimes, there may be a slightly more sombre organ sound or a bit of darkness, but that works towards the much-needed variation, as many of the pieces are also a bit samey, no matter what the sourced instruments are. It’s the lighter versus darker side that benefits the variation. Overall a fine CD, but nothing out of the ordinary (yes, I know, that isn’t easy anyway).
I don’t think I heard of Brandon Tani, a multidisciplinary artist based in San Diego. Before this album, he worked as Daily Rituals, which I also never heard. Other than that, he is “drawn to the varied intersections of the minimalist, concrète, and found, mixing narrative and abstraction, since 2022”. We learn nothing else, say, about the sound sources or instruments used. The music isn’t that informative, either. I think there is quite a bit of electronics at work here, the sort of crumpled-up reel-to-reel tape in heavy decay, objects being touched, rubbed and scratched. Occasionally, he drops in some dialogue, which is the narrative aspect of the music. Nothing of these conversations are long, so what these are about is a bit lost. The music does exactly what is promised: minimal, concrète, and found sounds combined into some dark atmospheric soundtrack/radiophonic drama. Bits played on the piano form the musical element of this album, free-floating in atmospheric drifts and clouds. The sounds extracted from objects are seemingely random and get a cut-up treatment, but it works well in the overall audio drama. It’s perhaps for Laaps a somewhat experimental album, even a bit noisy at times, and maybe more laptop-based than instrument-based, but I found these five pieces excellent. The refined combination of found sounds, cut-up/collage techniques, spooky electronics and grainy textures makes this a winning combination. An excellent release! (FdW)
––– Address: https://laaps.bandcamp.com/

KEITH BERRY – TROPICAL MODERNISM (CD by VSM Theory)

In recent years, I reviewed various albums by Keith Berry, which were all about “generative music systems, simple rules that can create complex music, the process being just as interesting as the product”. The results were quite ambient, in a sort of melodic Brian Eno kind of way. Last time (Vital Weekly 1406), I wrote, “not easy to find new words describing what he does.” I am convinced reviewers have little influence on the musicians they review, especially in the little Vital Weekly corner. Still, this new album is an exciting break in his catalogue. The cover looks like a piece of pp art, with a palm tree waving, pills and needles (the connection eludes me), but let’s take the word ‘tropical’ seriously. The music is now laid back and jazzy; think cocktail lounge music with exotic percussion. I have no idea if this music is also made with generative systems and simple rules. For all I know, this might have been made by one of those AI machines, and the prompt was ‘create Keith Berry’s music as if he was sipping a cocktail on a faraway beach’. It’s hard to say. I applaud any change and all developments, but there’s also a downside. Let’s say, if someone went from click n cuts to heavy metal, I welcome the change and don’t understand the music, and subsequently it’s not something I can easily review. That’s also the case here. I enjoy that Berry’s music sounds quite different than before, but it’s not music I feel any connection to. I seldom sip cocktails in bars at beaches or feel I need to bring some sunshine into my home with this kind of music. Topped with the fact that this album is nearly 80 minutes makes it even harder for me. I enjoyed it as long as I didn’t give it too much attention. The book I was reading was a page-turner, so the need to get up and concentrate on the music wasn’t there, fitting Eno’s ambient dictum ‘ignorable and beautiful at the same time’, but at one point, I felt I was done with it and moved on. (FdW)
––– Address: https://vsmtheory.bandcamp.com/

CONTROL – SURVEILLANCE THEORY (CD by Cloister Recordings)

Last year, CONTROL played a festival in Austria, coinciding with the fantastic self-released CD “This Death”. That was eleven months ago, and well, not even one year later, there is yet another CONTROL album to review! The reason this time to release it? Another live activity from CONTROL in Europe is the ‘Dominion Of Flesh’ festival in Stockholm., celebrating ten years of Cloister Recordings on two locations with live performances of Lust Fist, XAL, Ochu, Survival Unit, Trerikröset, Beckahesten, African Imperial Wizard, Ex.Order, Trepaneringsritualen, Lille Roger, Blitzkrieg Baby, CONTROL, Inade, Alfarmania + Proiekt Hat and finally Anenzephalia. Yes, I was there, but where were you?
The show Thomas Garrison put up in Stockholm was obliterating. This guy is coming on stage, and he’s not that tall. Sorry, Thomas, but I’m at least a head taller than you are. Dressed in black, ears pierced and stretched, he looks into the audience while slowly building up his sounds… Oh my God, those sounds… Rumbling big fat analogue pulses and drones out of this world. They’re covering all the frequencies of the audible spectrum, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he secretly snuck in some stuff you can’t hear but can only feel. This man is a master! So much energy, aggression, and unedited emotion are pushed out of his modular … And then when the music has gotten to the point where it should be, vocals get added. The emotion and power, the combination of what this man is capable of, makes you feel so small. Suddenly, you fully understand why CONTROL is written in all capitals. Always. There are no small letters; they have a reason to be capitalized.
At the show in Stockholm, Thomas played a lot of this new material. I can’t tell you exactly which tracks, and there were probably also some tracks played from the previous one. What I can tell you is that “Surveillance Theory” is an album you will not play just once. On the inside, a quote by Michael Foucault is written: ‘Surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action.’
So much is happening in the sound design of this CD and, well, those haunting vocals. As well as the concept behind it. It’s proper stuff to give you nightmares. For a reason. Sleep tight. A+ (BW)
––– Address: https://cloisterrecordingsus.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://cloisterrecordingsus.bigcartel.com/

DIRK SERRIES & RODRIGO AMADO & ANDREW LISLE – THE INVISIBLE (CD by Klang Galerie)

Three experienced musicians: Dirk Serries, Rodrigo Amado on tenor sax and Andrew Lisle on drums. Series is a familiar name here at Vital Weekly as the label owner of A New Wave of Jazz and Sunny Side Inc. studio in Brussels. He’s a member of several ensembles: YODOK III, Fear Falls Burning and the Kodian trio. The latter has Andrew Lisle on drums. Dirk Serries and Andrew Lisle also played in larger ensembles and, most recently, were on stage with Martina Verhoeven (Serries’ spouse, by the way), as documented on Martina Invites. Serries and Amado played as a duo at Jazzblast in Neeritter in the south of the Netherlands.
That resulted in a limited cassette release on Raw Tonk, still available through the duo’s respective Bandcamp pages. Here, the duo is joined by Andrew Lisle. They recorded at least three pieces at Serries’ studio in Brussels after three public performances, one of which was at Jazzblast, Neeritter. Instead of two sets, we have three pieces in nearly an hour. Since there’s now double bass the lower strings of the guitar fill the lower spectrum, the lower register of the tenor sax and the two toms and the bass drum of the drum kit. It’s Manonfriendly music (my wife keeps surprising me with her musical tastes) in that it’s not cacophonous. Amado keeps coming up with melodic lines, sometimes meandering, sometimes short, sometimes long. Series treats the guitar sometimes as a percussive instrument, strumming away with abstract progressions or short successive notes. Lisle comes up with rapidly changing rhythms in conjunction with what he hears or the other two let him do the talking, or instead playing. It’s an advantageous release, which merits a closer look/listen at each piece rather than playing this from the beginning until the end. The trio presents different moods, textures and interplay (all possible duos with three musicians come along). (MDS)
––– Address: https://klanggalerie.com/

ROLAND DAHINDEN/GARETH DAVIS – THEATRE OF THE MIND (CD by Moving Furniture Records/Contemporary Series)

Roland Dahinden is a Swiss trombone player. He played with Miles Davis at his last concert in Montreux in 1991. Apart from the fact that he’s a composer who studied and worked with Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton and shared his last name with famous Swiss architect Justus Dahinden, he’s also a doctor of Philosophy of Music. This piece is composed for Gareth Davis, an accomplished bass clarinet player and composer. The written score calls for field recordings and electric bass, played by Mikuláš Mrva. The piece was commissioned by Stichting Mousai, a Dutch foundation with a specific mission: “The mission is to make the invisible side of neurological progressive disorders such as Parkinson’s disease visible and address the ever-increasing prevalence of mental health difficulties.  By artistically expressing the patient’s invisible world of thoughts and feelings, we hope to create empathy and understanding in the outside world. As a patient suffering from a neurological disorder, as with so many people suffering from mental health difficulties, you are constantly challenged in dealing with change, flexibility, development and other setbacks. It helps if the patient’s immediate environment, a wider circle outside and society as a whole recognise this and deal with it appropriately. We aim to create a more inclusive society by getting this message out to a wider audience while at the same time creating spaces and environments that can actually not just allow understanding but give people direct ways of dealing with personal issues. We do this through art, and in particular, through music.  Art can depict the inner self and express change, emotion and feeling. Change and a different understanding can be beautiful and valuable in a world with more rigidity and false security.” So Theatre of the Mind is an auditive representation of the mind, specifically with a mental disorder in mind (sorry, not sorry for the pun). It’s a fantastic piece and not suited for people with a short attention span. Dahinden uses extended techniques, or rather extended techniques are requiered by the bass clarinet player, which is no problem for Davis. Multiphonics galore, clanking of keys, field recordings that come and go throughout the hour-long piece and glide over the stereo image. It’s a well-paced journey through one’s mind process. Listen to this in a quiet environment with little to no background noise, or even better, with headphones. And as always with modern music: repeated listening rounds will provide a better understanding of the music. This is release number ten in Moving Furniture Records’s ongoing Modern Contemporary series. (MDS)
––– Address: https://contemporaryseries.bandcamp.com/

ANDREA GIORDANO – ALEA (CD by Sofa Music)

Norway’s Sofa Music has a great catalogue of works, many combining minimalism in some form or another with other genres. On ‘Alea’, it combines minimalism, a small orchestra, modern music, and voice. Andrea Giordano is a young composer from Italy, and this new work is dedicated to her mentor, Alessandro Giachero, who died unexpectedly in 2020. A lament, if you will. She studied in Norway and recorded the nine pieces, or stanzas (“rooms”), separately and assembled them later. There are four parts of ‘Stansia’, and only the fourth is one part; the others have two or three. The lyrics are in the dialect of Piedmont, but the cover supplies translations; only two songs have lyrics. The ensemble uses flutes, soprano saxophone, cello, trumpet, accordion, guitar, harp, organ, double bass, and percussion, with the composer supplying voice and organetto. The title is wordplay, ‘to Allesandro’, but can also be read as short of aleatoric, randomness of his death, and “an epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, chosen to express Giachero’s wisdom reverberating through future generations – of which Alea is clear evidence”. I don’t know much about modern music for small ensembles (well, big orchestras or solo music), but occasionally, I hear something I like, and today, it happens to be this one. There is something about the atonal music here that I enjoy, and also its minimalist character. Sometimes, the music even has a musique concrète-like character and, in the two vocal pieces, also something that is folk-like or even religious. It was a delicate affair and quite dramatic at times. (FdW)
––– Address: https://sofamusic.bandcamp.com/

NURSE WITH WOUND – REVENANTES (miniCD by Lenka Lente)

Releases by the French publisher Lenka Lente usually come with a small booklet of ancient poetry or a surrealist story and a 3″CD with some music. Nurse With Wound is a regular contributor. The latest one is a bit of a mystery, arriving without a booklet. The mini CD comes in a small envelope with a piece of paper saying ‘NWW The Bloy Enigma’ and a bigger envelope mentioning “Editions Lenka Lenta Léon Bloy Nurse With Wound Revenantes”. So, what’s the title? I make it ‘Revenantes’, and looking at the image of dancers on the bigger envelope, I’d say this is music for some choreography by Léon Bloy. The label’s website doesn’t mention anything yet. So we’re in the dark, but I can say the same about the music, which may be in an odd place for the nurses. I don’t know who’s playing here, but let’s assume the core trio of Steven Stapleton, Colin Potter and Andrew Liles. The piece is very much orchestral, plucking and bowing from the whole sample pack of orchestral instruments, but mainly the strings, percussion, and a few wind instruments. These are played with a sampler, so I was also thinking, maybe this is an AI-generated piece of music, maybe various bits edited together, which has a film character, but also a bit dissonant, yet not spooky. Towards the end, there is more to be recognised regarding real instruments being played. There’s a bit of electronics, but also the scraping of violins, providing a more human element to the music, and towards the end, a more unsettling element; also human but creepy. It’s a collage as we know it from Nurse With Wound, but without the rapid cutting and everything moving around, the bigger picture of the piece. Just exactly what it’s all about remains a bit of a mystery, and who does what here is another one. I found this to be a work that I needed to play a couple of times before I could say something about it, let alone appreciate this sort of pastiche of orchestral sound. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.lenkalente.com/

NAVEL – MEDITATING AMOEBAS (LP, private)

Look for a pink cover, with one big image on the back and front and the band name and title only on the spine. All information is otherwise on the label, but that isn’t much either. Navel is the German duo of Gage & Floyd, and they have been around for a long time and have been in hibernation for many years. One of the members we also (better) know as Günter Schlienz, of whom I reviewed a lot of music. He’s a modular synth man, and maybe wrongly, I assume that’s what he takes to the Navel table as well. As I wrote before (Vital Weekly 1410), I always assumed Navel was a post-rock guitar duo. This new album, recorded in 2023 in Villa Nix, doesn’t shed much different light. On the long ‘Wir Machen Einen Spiegel’, there is much room for piano sounds, played relatively freely, along with oscillating synthesiser sounds and field recordings of people talking. Voices play a role anyway, even when, most of the time, very subdued. I can safely say from all the records this week that this is the one I played the most. Every time I was ready to write the review something happened. New mail arrived, something else attracted my attention, I fell asleep while playing this record, or I simply didn’t get around writing. Which meant I returned to it, another time, the same day, the next day, and started fresh. I always liked what I heard, but where are the words to describe the music? Maybe the somewhat loose music had that effect on me. I could be distracted, or fall asleep or drift off, and let the music go on, in its time and place, becoming this twinkle of sound, these few notes, some random stabs at the piano, or some spacious guitar work, along with some even more spacious drones and synthesisers. This is very much an incense-burning hippy record, rug and all. There is no incense at the VW HQ, never, or a rug. Still, this music explains the pink cover and the surrealist artwork, and the record becomes a time machine, transporting us forty or fifty years ago, two guys with guitars and machines, strumming and droning away. Is there any development in the music of Navel? I don’t think I returned to their earliest work when rediscovering them, and maybe I should. If only I had more time on my hands. (FdW)
––– Address: https://navel-music.bandcamp.com/

CACTUS 12 (12 CDR set by Sono Sordo) part 2:

ST-ONGE CÔTE (+SHALABI FALAISE) – NUANCES DE LA FINITUDE ORDINAIRE
L’OREILLE A VINCENT – VISITE AU MUSEE
KLAXON GUEULE – ROBERT M
MICHEL F CÔTE – HYDROPATHE A DEGRE
TIARI KESE – ще се о​п​р​а​в​и з​а​д​н​и​к​а ми
CÔTE LABROSSE MIGONE TETREAULT – HAUT NID VOLAILLE

Our trip continues with the duo of Alexandre St-Onge (electric bass and laptop) and Michel F. Côte (drums and drums feedback). There are electric guitars on three of the six pieces, played by Sam Shalabi and Bernard Falaise. They play on the same three pieces, recorded in 2015 at La Vitrola in Montreal. Two pieces were recorded at La Plante, in the same city. Now we are talking about noise and improvisation, instruments in combination with electronics. It’s not a harsh noise wall, but there is some excellent force within these pieces, and feedback isn’t covered or hidden; it shines in all its gory glory. And that is not just when the guitarists appear; the noisiest one is a duo piece called ‘Trouble De Se Croire Epie’. ‘Le Melange’, the opening piece, starts with some intense electronic sound, and for a moment, I thought this would be very different. Still, once the bass and drums kick in, I realised this is a variation of Côte’s interest in playing improvised music. The six pieces are heavy-weight blocks of sound, and they are lengthy. There is no escape possible; sit down, shut up and listen. When they operate as a quartet, the shift is obviously towards the guitar, and the music sounds quite different. The guitars dominate in these pieces, perhaps cordial towards the guests. Still, the music is quite your rock-oriented noise thing, and it varies the music quite a bit, not for the weak of the heart, and recommended at higher volume.
L’Oreille a Vincent (which is, of course, about Vincent van Gogh’s ear) is a group with Michel F Côté (electronics, microphones, small speakers, percussion), Jean-Pierre Gauthier (invented instruments), Diane Labrosse (sampler, laptop), Christof Migone (tape recorder, electronics, microphones, Omnichord) and Martin Tétreault (turntables) plus the electronics of Mirko Sabatini on two pieces. As with many releases in this box set, the recordings are pretty old, from 2007, a concert recorded in Montreal. It’s interesting to see Côté doing something else than working with drums, and the whole disc is filled with a different kind of improvisation. It’s all about electronics and that’s something at the heart of Vital Weekly. These seven pieces are at times noisy in a sort of barbaric musique concrète/electro-acoustic approach, but there is also quite a lot of dynamics going around here; it’s not always a rough tumble ‘n noise play, but there’s also enough room for something quiet and thoughtful. There is, thanks to the turntable also rhythm in the music. It’s interesting to hear some of these musicians doing something unusual, most importantly Côté. This whirring and sound buzzing reminded me of groups like Voice Crack or Kapotte Muziek in their noisier days. The use of field recordings from construction sites works quite well! While very much out of the ordinary, but something quite close to the heart of Vital Weekly.
Klaxon Gueule is the only group to have two discs in this set. This time, the trio has a recording from 1996, and the guest player is Robert Marcel Lepage, who plays the clarinet. The cover mentions they only did a rough mix at the end of the day and never any more work or publication. Like the one I heard last week, this is a festival of free music, improvised and jazz alike. It has a similar density as the 2010 recording from last week, and perhaps it’s because I don’t know much about this kind of music. Still, I don’t see much difference, except the clarinet having a distinct sound, piping up all over the place—quite a wild affair, and as such a most enjoyable one.
Michel F Côté also has a second solo disc containing nine pieces recorded in two days, 20 years apart. The first day was January 3, 2002, and the second exactly 20 years later. The first day to record improvisations, the second day for overdubs and arrrangements of the initial recording. Côté uses an MC 909, piano, pocket synth, lap steel, voice, microphones, speakers, home-made field recording and percussion. Putting on my Vital Weekly cap, I say, this is the sort of thing we live for. Sure, it has elements of improvisation, but through editing and cutting, the music becomes instead a musique concrète-kind of thing. Côté does that very playfully, and each of the nine tracks is a well-rounded composition. There are many small electronic sounds, some big moves and some beautiful intensities. Each piece is an audio collage/montage, in which Côté uses some prolonged sounds versus shorter chops of sound. Minimalism lingers through these pieces, in which only a few sounds are used significantly, such as in the opening piece, ‘Pratique Variable du Long Lent’. There is some enjoyable noise music, some tremendous ambient electro-acoustics and L’Oreille a Vincent the highlight of this box.
The title of the release by Tiari Kese is in Bulgarian and means ‘my ass will be fine’, who plays a whole bunch of keyboard instruments and guests as Côté (I assume on all tracks), St-Onge, Marie Claire Forté and Magali Still, all on the opening piece. The music is a somewhat mixed bag of interests, styles and genres. The opening piece is a great, intense piece of drone music with a fine spatial quality and a most promising start, but the second piece is an instead loosely played organ piece. This is in the line of the whole release. A bit of freestyling, improvised lounge music, some intense drone music, some electro-acoustic improvisation and so on. The tracks I like are outstanding, and the tracks that I found less appealing, well, I had a more challenging time with. Maybe the idea was to have an album out of balance, and as such, they succeeded pretty well.
The last release is a quartet recording from 2002 by Michel F Côté (electronics, microphones, small speakers, percussion), Diane Labrosse (sampler, laptop), Christof Migone (tape recorder, electronics, microphones), and Martin Tétreault (record players without discs, fx). The eight pieces on this disc are along the lines of L’Oreille a Vincent and the second solo disc of Côté in this box: electro-acoustic improvisations. This time, though, it seems less harsh, less cut-up and more in linear, flowing form. It leans more towards improvisation, with everybody doing one thing or another, part of the greater good. It’s a conversation, and it’s a chaotic talk. The use of non traditional instruments as part of this is something I enjoy very much, as the result is surprisingly musical. Third runner-up for me. (FdW)
––– Address: https://michelfct.bandcamp.com/

R_KKK – SAINT NOIZES (CDR by (K)anal Records)

You’ve heard of Radek Kopel more often if you read the Vital Weekly letter by Letter. I’ve reviewed a few of his 3″s on Inner Demons Records before, so when I say he’s very productive, he’s been a member of Eine Stunde Merzbauten and Napalmed or the guy behind the now defunct Napalmed label. It’s all no surprise. He is telling you he has a new label called (K)anal Records to put out his sounds as well as the sounds of others; well, that won’t surprise you either. But the fact that he has over 300 releases on his name might. Because, as I wrote, this guy is productive as hell. R_KKK is just one of his many synonyms under which he releases, but because of him being active on Inner Demons with their strict policy, the ‘KKK’ in the name doesn’t bother me too much. R_K from Radek, K from Kopel and an extra K to draw attention. All good with me.
This CDR was released some years ago, so it’s already sold out. You can, however, look it up at Bandcamp and see if it fits your taste. In six tracks, around ten minutes each, he blurs out harsh analogue noises for the masses. But not for all the masses at once! That would be too easy. This album has: “Noiz For Girls”, “Noiz For Boyz”, “Noiz For Hmyz”, “Noizdra Z Pouzdra”, “Noize Pre-Pauze” and of course “Noiztromos For Alienz”. So, noise for the masses, but not all at once. And I must say, listening to the whole CD in one take is quite a lot to handle indeed. The kind of noise on this one and the harshness with which it’s recorded is an actual attack on your perception. I believe (but this is an educated guess) that he works with a dedicated setup for each recording. So over the whole line, there is a certain minimalism in the choice of sounds, but the wiggling of the knobs (read: dynamics of the colour palette) and intrusiveness of the sound make up for that.
I don’t have to say that Radek earns his position in the noise scene because that is something he has done way way way earlier already. But with releases like this, he reaffirms that position without doubt. (BW)
––– Address: https://kanalrecords.bandcamp.com/

A.DRIFT – A.LIVE TRANSMISSION (3″ CDR by Inner Demons Records)

A.Drift is Brendan Place, and he played a live show at the Warehouse Salon in Boston on the 30th of March of this year. And this is the recording of that show. Wouldn’t it be easy if I kept it by this simple description? Yes, it would, but I won’t do that. As a reviewer, I will try to give you the information you need – or didn’t know you needed – to make you curious enough to click these links or look for the sounds I just wrote about in the review. And honestly, I listened to this review a few times before writing about it. Because there are a few things that intrigue me.
This is a live recording, and a lot happens in the 20 minutes on this CDR. The set opens with drone sounds that slowly grow towards a rumbling, noisy atmosphere with some rhythmic patterns thrown in. But this is not dance music. Slowly, the patterns are shifting, and yes, there are rhythms – our structures, as I tend to call them – but it’s all so hectic, and there is such constant pushing noise in the mix that the rhythms should be considered the ‘melodic layer’. And then it gets worse and noisier until suddenly you realize what the title was all about. A few sounds appear in the mix, and a bass guitar is played. I don’t know if it’s Brendan, but the added vocals make this ending a bizarre cover version by Joy Division. “A.Live Transmission”, so we can close the circle.
A final remark is that this is the very first time a sneeze from the audience got its own line in the credits. The devil is in the details. (BW)
––– Address: https://www.innerdemonsrecords.com/
––– Address: https://innerdemonsrecords.bandcamp.com/

GÜNTER SCHLIENZ – KURPARK (cassette by Lighten Up Sounds)
GÜNTER SCHLIENZ – WELTRAUMFAHRT HEUTE (cassette by Fluere Tapes)

If you follow my words closely, you may be aware I aam a big fan of Günter Schlienz’ music. It’s only recently I found out he’s one half of Navel (see elsewhere), so I am aware of his music for about 25 years. As a solo artist I hear his music for about eigth years now. He’s one of those modular synthesiser guys, armed with a small, mobile set§-up allowing him to record everywhere. By now there’s a substantial body of work, and surely not all heard by me, but whereever and whenever, I am ready for something new. It’s also a trip into the world of cassette label. I reviewed releases by Lighten Up Sounds before, but Fluere Tapes from Sweden is a new name. Judging by the cassette used, this might be another label working with recycled tapes, and I am a big fan of those labels. Schlienz’ music is a bit different from most other modular synthesists. He’s not into bleeps and blops, collage approaches and such, but into highly melodic ambient music, with mild tendency veering towards new age music. The music very quiet and thoughtful. On ‘Kurpark’ we find a piece called ‘Pme’, in which a female voice talks about something in German, and even understanding German quite well, I didn’t pay attention. It just made a fine backdrop to what I was doing (the pesky quarter accounts as it happens); the dialogue seems about relaxing or meditation anyway. There are more pieces with this kind of soft spoken voices, which works very well. I can’t remember these kind of voices from his previous releases, but it’s a most welcome addition. Sometimes his pieces use field recordings, and I have this romantic notion of Schlienz setting up his equipment in a forest, and playing his music for the birds. ‘Besinnungspfad’ is such a piece. Schlienz’s music has at times a cosmic touch, not of the rolling arpegio variety, but weightless and spacious touches of the melodic variety, occassionally varied with a darker atmosphere such as in ‘Körper, Seele, Geist’ on ‘Weltraumfahrt Heute’, which is overall a tad darker than ‘Kurpark’, but otherwise it’s all clearly his music and tracks could be changing on releases. Both great, but as a fan boy you would expect me to say this. (FdW)
––– Address: https://lightenupsounds.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://flueretapes.bandcamp.com/

KLUIK – VERSTÖRUNG (cassette, private)

For a moment, I thought I was dealing with a new release by the Finnish Hyster label, the same plastic bag and Xerox quality cover, but this is a private release by someone calling themselves Kluik. Finland is indeed the country of origin. The title is the German for ‘disturbance’. The various sources in the music were recorded over a six-year timespan. That’s also about the only information we have. Kluik says the music contains noise, ambient and psychedelica. Fine! I love all these genres, especially when mixed into one composition or two, such as on this cassette, well, four, on Bandcamp. Or nine? As indicated on the insert? It doesn’t matter; stick the cassette in a machine, lie back, and enjoy. I didn’t lie down, as daytime is never for lying down, and much of my music consumption is sitting in an easy chair, sipping coffee (morning) or tea (afternoon). Kluik fits the kind of music I like; it’s grainy, it’s ambient with a firm dash of noise, it’s noisy yet never over the top, it’s psychedelic, but not in an all too easygoing manner, and it has a fine collage form. Sounds get stripped away, there’s a sudden move and we’re in a different land. Instruments aren’t easily defined; there may be guitars, violins, effects, a couple of tiny synths, field recordings, sound processing, and Walkman/Dictaphone abuse. I might be wrong here, but that’s how I hear this music. It’s quietly disturbing and unsettling calm. Maybe it’s not a surprise I was thinking of Hyster; it could have fitted that label perfectly well (they will handle distribution, so there is a connection). I love it. Kluik ticks every box for me and I hope there will be more from them soon. (FdW)
––– Address: https://kluik.bandcamp.com/album/verst-rung

■DAVID WALLRAF / GERALD FIEBIG – HURLEMENTS (cassette by Grubenwehr Freiburg)

It’s rare to see a press text this long for a cassette, and Bandcamp has a shorter version; “Guy Debord’s 1952 film Hurlements en faveur de Sade is a radical work with no images and minimal sound, challenging the very definition of cinema. Its purpose was to create a “situation” in which the audience’s expectations were subverted, marking a potential endpoint for film as an artistic medium. Debord’s film, with its rejection of spectacle, resonates with the concept of noise as it obliterates signal, while the sad voices hint at early Situationist ideas. Artists Gerald Fiebig and David Wallraf pay tribute by translating the film’s themes into sound, using noise and collage to explore its oppositional nature.” In the movie, there are no images, only spoken words; when that happens, the screen is white; when there’s no text, the screen turns black. It’s on YouTube if you want to know what it looks like. Let’s start with the second side of the cassette, the piece by Gerald Fiebig. He follows the “score” of the movie and uses white noise for the black parts and pink noise for the white parts of the movie, scaled to 20 minutes, the length of one side of the cassette. It’s a conceptual approach, and as such, it works well. Would you play it a lot? I don’t know. Would you rewatch Debord’s movie a lot?
■david wallraf is the preferred spelling here, and he uses original spoken word from the movie and recordings from places of commerce and passage, inspired by other works by Debord, especially ‘Fin de Copenhague’, which is “a biting satire of consumerism by collaging advertisements from stolen newspapers”. As a piece of music, this is much more enjoyable. We hear talking in French, which, if one doesn’t understand the language (I am one), becomes more a kind of poetry, along with sounds from shopping malls, stores and such, which adds an engaging narrative to the music. It doesn’t go anywhere and seemingly has very little musical development, but I found it all compelling. It has an excellent radiophonic quality – very French! (FdW)
––– Address: https://grubenwehrfreiburg.bandcamp.com/