NULL – INORGANIC ORGASM (CD by Manifold)
STILLUPPSTEYPA – HAS (OR HAS NOT) HAPPENED (CD by Meme)
SANDOZ – IN DUB: CHANT TO JAH (CD by Touch)
S.E.T.I. – ABOUT BLACK (CD by ASH (R.I.P.))
SCALA – COMPASS HEART (CD on TOUCH)
DUB ZAP™ – 1.0 Standard Edition (2xCD Audio and ROM by Staalplaat)
DUB ZAP™ – Pro (CD by Staalplaat)
NULL – INORGANIC ORGASM (CD by Manifold)
The Japanese guitarist KK Null is still one of the more interesting guitar
playerrs in the world, although I must admit I am strictly speaking of his
solo work here. Much of this solo work is noisy indeed, but usually played
with much more skill, maybe I could use the word ‘control’ here, then
average “I blow your pants with feedback’ noisists. One this new CD
(limited to 500 copies with very handsome cover) you’ll find seven tracks
of these controlled and concentrated pieces. Apprenetly recorded with
‘guitar & nullsonic’, Null produces loud and high pitched drones, but all
with a certain low end, and enough variation to hold ones attention.
Address: <manifold@manifoldrecords.com>
STILLUPPSTEYPA – HAS (OR HAS NOT) HAPPENED (CD by Meme)
Earlier this year three Icelandics in exile travelled from Den Haag to
Stockholm to play a live concert at Fylkingen and for everybody who missed
that Meme from Japan now offers a CD recording of it. The career of
Stilluppsteypa takes strange shapes, both musically as well as other
aspects that deal with the making of it. This year they played support acts
to Truman’s Water and Sonic Youth, but they are not like these bands. They
were usually compared to The Hafler Trio, with a touch of Stock, Hausen &
Walkman or People Like Us, but they are not like that anymore. The long
stretched drones are still there, but the boys have added minimalist
bleeps, which are sometimes mistaken for dance music beats. They are now
entering a new tradition, that of the music that has no name yet. It’s that
unusual combination between techno, ambient and industrial, having
trademarks of everything, but is never the real thing (and in some cases
it’s good to not have these trademarks). So we have a beautiful 55 minutes
of drones, bleeps, laidback but with tension: trademarks of good music (FdW)
Address: <meme-@msh.biglobe.ne.jp>
SANDOZ – IN DUB: CHANT TO JAH (CD by Touch)
Are you one of those listeners who can still cherishh older CD’s that were
once hip, but according to today’s standards maybe outdated or mediocre?
Well, I am one of those, so I still like old Orb, the Tox Uthat compilation
or Sandoz’ Digital Lifeforms. Whn that album was released everything seemed
to be making sense: dashes of ambient and techno and ethno chanting. After
all these years I can still humm these tunes. Later Sandoz CD’s, or Richard
H. Kirk works under other names, never had the same impact. Not that they
were bad, but just wasn’t the same. On this new Sandoz, Kirk experiments
extensively with reggae and dub rhythms, which form the backbone of each
track, and added a voices, horns and the recognizable Kirk keyboard sounds.
Again not bad, actually enjoyable, but still somewhere in the shadow of
“Digital Lifeforms”. (FdW)
Address: <touch@touch.demon.co.uk>
S.E.T.I. – ABOUT BLACK (CD by ASH (R.I.P.))
Well, here’s one that soared into my Top Ten list for ’98 within seconds of
it starting to vibrate the air molecules at home. It’s a most definite
successor to the CD ‘Knowledge’ (1995) also by Mr Lagowski, which was a
joint release with Soleilmoon. ‘Knowledge’ was constructed from recordings
made with all sorts of exotic space and domestic monitoring and
surveillance devices and included what I guess is the declaration of the
S.E.T.I. (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) organisation as liner
notes. Every time I play any of the tracks off ‘Knowledge’ on the radio,
somebody calls to enquire what the title of this amazingly powerful music
is. It will surely endure the test of time – much like this new CD, which I
cannot help but consider as true ‘classical’ music of our times.
The concept behid this music is closer to home, and much, much more
threatening because of this. Outlanders roam our planet with the apparent
consent of National Security Agencies and military authorities, who are
actively assisting these entities with their nefarious abduction and human
monitoring programmes for reasons we can only imagine. Of course most
scenarios depict mass-control, or a culling of the human species in an
attempt to save this planet, probably so that THEY can move in and reap the
crops we have yet to sow. Anybody familiar with the X-Files (to name just
the top of the heap) will be aware of this proliferation of paranoid
speculation, which is ladled out by so many people and organisations all
hoping to get their share of the pie before the fan stops working all
together. There’s money in fear, y’know. (Just ask the Christians !)
Despite my cynicism, I cannot make up my mind about this topic at all. I am
more convinced than not though, probably due to some strange unearthly
encounters I have had myself. (Mystery is a good thing – if we knew all the
answers, we’d stop looking and probably revert into into four-finned
bottom-feeders.)
Of course this is not the first time the subject has been used as a concept
for a composition (despite separate track titles and indexing, this is one
‘symphonic’ piece to me), and I cannot claim to have heard anything but a
drop in this vast ocean. My body tells me that this composition is spot-on,
though. Somehow my meat knows these frequencies, my cells respond with
harmonic resonances of their own, my skin soaks them up. I feel this music
more than I hear it.
Crackles zip through simmering, stretched voices which curl out of
satellite space like sinister fog. Arctic winds twist through desolate and
forgotten steel girders. Sound in static. Static in space. A key to a door
in dreams. Innerdimensional. Not for the uninitiated or faint of heart. (MP)
SCALA – COMPASS HEART (CD on TOUCH)
Here’s another dainty item that I also found quite seductive. Scala are an
amalgam of Mark Van Hoen (aka Locust and maybe Brilliant Trees?), Daren
Seymour (ex-Seefeel, or maybe still?) and Sarah Peacock. I was not taken by
their first collaboration (‘Beauty Nowhere’ also on Touch), but I now have
a feeling it’s because I heard it at the wrong time (so I’ll obviously have
to check it out again). This music and lyrics teeter on the edge of a
precipice. Grinding, gritty ambience slithers over persistent rhythms which
hammer the intimate and penetrating lyrics deeper and deeper into skinbone
& brain. All the right questions. No answers. Cold desire and steaming
indifference. Not for children these words of hers. An uncomfortably
familiar taste of the human experience of the human. Voice like skin. Words
like hooks.
The feeling caught and held captive within ‘Space’ is so true it makes my
spine shift each time I hear it. The premonitions in ‘Words and Thoughts’,
while sung sweet and soft, warn of danger and despair. The price that love
demands we pay. Instrumental interludes do little to cushion the blows. Key
changes are a relief in themselves. Somebody send this to David Lynch,
please. (MP)
DUB ZAP™ – 1.0 Standard Edition (2xCD Audio and ROM by Staalplaat)
DUB ZAP™ – Pro (CD by Staalplaat)
Not quite like any regular CD release, as stated this is a new adventure
for the listener and a new challenge for the composer. The Standard Edition
CD has audio only done with the program Cool Edit on a PC computer by Ios
Smolders, the man behind this release. And the idea is that you can use the
audio to make your own composition with the programs that come on the CD,
Cool Edit and Hammerhead for PC users and D-SoundPro for Mac users. This
idea is interesting, especially for the audio is very varied on the
Standard Edition. Loads of short tracks, sometimes grooves but never for
long, you mostly hear processed samples appearing and disappearing. This is
not exactly a party CD unless you want everyone out of the house, but very
good for the patient listener and a very useful soundsource as well. Not to
mention a brilliant concept!
So naturally on the Pro CD there are selected artists setting an example
of Dub Zap™ to the world, and unlike Standard Edition this is party music.
We step straight on to a nice dancefloor with Self Transforming Machine
Elves, after that we get an even more dancy example from Starfish Pool
giving your feet no rest at all. Then LøSD give us pounding beats as an
example, and the 4th example is nicely twisted by Dummy Run, very good.
Then it is time to get down to earth and clean out your ears with a minimal
very noisy rhythmic example from Radboud Mens, and speaking about minimalsm
Captain Black is in for it too, fast pulses and very minimal indeed.
Example 7 is by Twilight Circus Grub Sound System, grooves with noisy bits
that doesn’t leave anything much behind.
Now the CD takes a totally different direction with The Square Root Of Sub,
magnificent landscape of processed sounds, excellent example indeed. The
same goes for RLW, very nicely built up into a great start/stop end. After
that it is time for some digital terrorism by Rehberg & Bauer, completely
digitally fucked up example, and completely brilliant. We end the journey
with a very long, and very good example from Muslimgauze, hearing it you
can’t help but thinking “does this ever stop”, but when it does you wish it
didn’t. (HB)
Address: <mailorder@staalplaat.com>