Week 7

KUNRAD – KLEINE GELUIDEN (CD by Cronica Electronica)
ANS ELECTRONIC MUSIC (CD compilation by Cold Spring Records)
PHILIPPE PETIT – CLOSING OUR EYES (CD by Crónica)
THE NEUROMANCERS (CD compilation by Unexplained Sounds Group)
ØJERUM – LANGT FRA JORDEN (CD & book by Iikki Books)
THME – ANTI ATLAS (CD by Laaps)
RONAN COURTY – SYNESTHESIA (CD by Ormo Records)
THE ATTIC & EVE RISSER – LA GRANDE CRUE (CD by No Business)
BARAKA[H] – ILLUMINESCENCE (EXTENDED) (LP by La Faculté Records)
EVICSHEN: CISTERN SCREW/2RAW (10″ lathe cut by Ballast)
VERTONEN – CRAVERSSE (CDR by Ballast)
+DOG+ – THE LIGHT OF OUR LIVES (CDR by Love Earth Music)
ISOLATED COMMUNITY & THERE ARE NO BIRDS HERE – WE ARE THE WRECKAGE OF OUR FORMER SELVES (CDR by Inverted Grim-Mlll Recordings)
HALI PALOMBO – KUDDELMUDDEL (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
ZWAARVERTEERBAAR & TRUCK VAN RENTAL (CDR and businesscard CDR by Zwaarverteerbaar)
ZEBRA MU – FIDGET CRYSTAL (business card CDR by Quagga Curious Sounds)
RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – MICROTOPIA – ORIGINAL GAME SCORE (CDR by Machinefabriek)
JOHN MINGAY & ADAM SYKES – SHATTERED (CDR by Iris Light)
BARTOSZ DZIADOSZ – THEME (3″CDR by Dronarivm / Fonodroom)

KUNRAD – KLEINE GELUIDEN (CD by Cronica Electronica)

‘Kleine Geluiden’ is Dutch and means ‘small sounds, ‘ which leads me to think Kunrad might also be Dutch. Of course, it might not be accurate, but he is. He has a Bachelor of Music in Composition for Electronic Music at the University of the Arts Utrecht and a Master of Music at the Interfaculty ArtScience in The Hague, where he resides. While he is interested in small sounds, that doesn’t mean his music is tranquil. His website, http://kunrad.net/, shows many of his installation pieces, some of which are full of small sounds. It maximalist minimalism. On this CD are recordings from installations from the last six years, “from machines that transform rain and paper into the first Physical Audio Workstation, to contraptions that send 1,000 small brass tubes ringing and tumbling through the air. Performances where stones are thrown into the water with intent, or a human-powered carillon, spanning 50 meter long ropes, harnesses, and rubber hammers striking a bridge at the heart of a city.” To quote is sometimes better than to summarise. I admit the music had more impact after I studied his website. I first heard the CD, put it aside to return at a later point, then read and watched his website and finally played the CD again. While I find the music interesting, I think seeing the action makes the difference, especially since Kunrad takes quite some time to play his pieces, quickly between 11 and 17 minutes, which is quite long, as I certainly ‘got’ the idea halfway through. This longitude might work much better when sitting and taking it all in. ‘Brass & Sand’ and ‘Stones & Water’ are relatively quiet music pieces, the latter reminding me of Etant Donnes. The other four pieces, three of which deal with water and paper, are much noisier constructions, of which the last one, ‘Bridge & water’, has an interesting sparse character. Perhaps this is more a document of sound art than an album of independent music pieces. (FdW)
––– Address: https://cronica.bandcamp.com/

ANS ELECTRONIC MUSIC (CD compilation by Cold Spring Records)

After the simply gorgeous sampler ‘Musical Offering, ‘ which Jo and Justin of Cold Spring released in July 2023, this is the second album about the ANS synthesiser. I can’t tell you much about the ANS other than the basics I’ve written back then, so as an introduction, I’ll simply copy and paste my own words. ‘The ANS is a Russian synthesiser designed over 20 years (between 1937 and 1957) by Evgeny Murzin, and there is only one. It works with drawings on glass plates and devices that transform light into voltages, and those voltages create sounds. The glass discs spin; Wiki / YouTube is your friend here. Many artists have worked with the ANS, including Coil, The Anti Group Communications.’
The advice to check out YouTube and Wiki to learn more about this machine still stands if you are interested. Or maybe check the particular releases of the projects that worked with it. Some additional technical data from the promo sheet already dives deeper. Inside the ANS are five rotating glass discs with 144 tones printed (by hand) on each one. Light is projected through the discs and onto the photovoltaic cell bank, which converts the light into electricity and sends signals to the ANS’s amplifiers and bandpass filters. The ANS can generate 720 tones this way and play them all simultaneously, unlike a human musician.
“Электронная Музыка АНС” is the original title because yes, this sampler is a rerelease from 1969 from Melodiya. And don’t tell me you have the original album; I simply don’t believe you! On this album, we can find compositions by Eduard Artemiev, Stanislav Kreitchi (with two pieces and a collaboration with Artemiev), Sándor Kallós, and Alexander Nemtin (twice). “Music For The Film Cosmos” by Artemiev & Kreitchi is a great soundtrack and fits the Russian cinema of the 60s. “Intermezzo” seems a bit carnevalesk; it reminds me of an organ player, but it would also fit an ice cream truck in a horror movie. Alexander Nemtin performs “Chorale Prelude In C Major” by Bach, and both of these tracks show that the ANS could also be used for ‘normal’ music.
The following “Tears” and “Northern Tale” show some of the more extreme sounds the ANS is capable of. Don’t forget we’re talking 720 voices that could be played simultaneously, so yes. This will rumble on a proper audio setup. The closing “A Voice Of The East” by Kreitchi is filled with weirdness again. No idea how or what, but it holds the midst between an experimental composition with a non-western scale and even has a bit of jazzy melody lines in there.
Closing statement: I love it. Many thanks to CSR for finding this gem. A must-have for people who like 60s experimentalism like White Noise (Vorhaus / Derbyshire), Wendy Carlos and/or Russian soundtracks and movies. Oh, and sound nerds and/or geeks. And if you fit more than one category, well… hint
––– Address: https://coldspring.co.uk/

PHILIPPE PETIT – CLOSING OUR EYES (CD by Crónica)

A new album by Philippe Petit, and they come by quite often these days. “Closing Our Eyes” is a 45-minute exploration of the boundaries between acoustic and electronic music, one of Philippe’s recurrent exercises. The promo sheet we always get with Crónica releases gives a little overview. He started with recontextualising Mahler’s first symphony, ‘Cordophony’, after which he kept the connection with acoustic instruments in his sound pallet. And admitted, this is well executed and produced, but there is a ‘but’ for me.
The big but for me is experimentalism to ‘just’ experiment. Don’t get me wrong, not a bad word about the separate tracks, but I miss the coherency between the tracks. There is no general modus, no story being told … The concept is the symbiosis between acoustic instrumentation, electronic sound and the manipulation of acoustics in the electronic domain. The separate tracks are exceptionally well executed, for example, in “Part 2”, where the marimba seems to have a lead role as well as cymbals, and a lot is being done with resonant frequencies creating an ever so lovely soundscape.
‘Part 4’ has a central role for a prepared piano, but having heard “A Reassuring Elsewhere” and “Passing Thru” not too long ago, I am left with a weird feeling here. If you’ve just released albums with all piano sounds, why wasn’t this on one of those albums? Because it’s a beautiful track! Here, the beauty of it is lost between all the experiments. Maybe it’s also because a lot of the experiments are shorter tracks. The two tracks I mentioned are 10-minute, so Parts 2+4 are almost half of the album. That’s what I meant with coherency earlier. The drone layer in the 2nd part of “Part 5”: beautiful! The closing “Part 11” opens incoherent but becomes very lovely too with again a lead role for the piano.
“Closing Our Eyes” will not become my favourite Petit album, but it might carry my favorite Petit moments. (BW)
––– Address: https://cronica.bandcamp.com/

THE NEUROMANCERS (CD compilation by Unexplained Sounds Group)

Fans immediately spot the William Gibson reference in the title; even I did, and I never read any of his books. I know, you expect the music reviewer to be a polyglot, the know-it-all, throw him a CD compilation with music inspired by Stephen King, Adolf Wölfli, ACDC or early Gregorian chant, and the reviewer will pipe up with something along the lines, ‘read it all’, ‘found their early stuff best’ or ‘only his musical compositions’. I am no such homo universalis. Such is life. And while there is, seemingly, less on my desk to review, that doesn’t mean I went straight into ‘let’s read everything by William Gibson and while I’m at it, every film or documentary about cyberpunk’. What I know is relatively superficial and I hope enough to say something sensible about the music here. Is it a surprise to note every track deals with synthesisers and electronic sounds? Maybe it’s the instrument of science fiction? It’s an easy choice, but imagine a rock band playing cyberpunk? Well, perhaps that is possible, but not on the radar of the Unexplained Sounds Group. They say “It’s no coincidence that many of the artists featured here draw from electronic, industrial, and experimental music scenes—genres that have consistently pushed the boundaries of sound and technology.” What I found particularly interesting is that many of the music pieces here have a more or less ambient approach, with few allowing for a bit of rhythm or noise. Still, it is always part of the highly atmospheric and mostly dark music when it happens. Lots of names I had not heard of (cyberpunk being indeed an alternative universe?), such as NYORAI, Oubys, Tescon Pol, Wahn, Richard Begi and Andre Uhl. Others are musicians whose work I reviewed before, some only once, such as Adi Newton, Mario Lino Stancati, phoanøgramma, Dead Voices On Air, and Sigillum S (quite a surprise to hear something from them; I didn’t know they still existed). It’s a lovely soundtrack of dystopian music and something more I put on the to-do list: investigate Gibson more than I have done. (FdW)
––– Address: https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/

ØJERUM – LANGT FRA JORDEN (CD & book by Iikki Books)

This is the 26th book and CD/vinyl production by the French Iikki book house (related to Laaps; see elsewhere). Each publication is a dialogue between a visual artist, usually a photographer, and a musician. The visual artist this time is Irene Zottola, from Spain, who uses analogue photography and uses to “generate a world of dreamlike and poetic character, often accompanying her images with text.” She exhibited her work in various countries, and this new book, called ‘Lejos De La Tierra ‘, is her second book. This makes her book far from a traditional photobook and more like a book of collages. Poetic collages with photos, paint, pencil, and handwritten text look great. For each track by øjeRum, she has a few pages.
There are six tracks in total, and the hardcover book (“logo, slot and circle embossed on covers, gold hot stamping on front and back cover, visible seam”) has 80 pages, so figure that out.
øjeRum is a Danish composer, Paw Grabowski and no stranger to these pages, but his catalogue is much bigger, with releases on Room40, Line, Opal Tapes and Sound In Silence, besides many more. Laaps says, “he plucks and strums his treated acoustic instruments”, which is interesting because that’s not my first association with his music. Sure, guitars are used, but I would also think a fair amount of electronics, entirely playing on lengthy sustaining sounds, maybe some processed voices thrown in there too, for instance in ‘Poppeltræet Med Syv Grene’. Like many other releases on Iikki books (and the sister label Laaps), the music is atmospheric and fits the visual side very well. There is a shared interest in the grainy and obscured poetry of images and sounds. Slow, majestic drift of sounds, like the tides, with piano note, some rumbling there, a loop of a mouth organ and the slow tinkling of guitar chords; all of which are helped by firm dashes of reverb, maybe at times a bit too much. But such is the nature of this kind of music, and reverb helps to set the scene. All in all a wonderfully great collaboration. (FdW)
––– Address: https://iikki.bandcamp.com/

THME – ANTI ATLAS (CD by Laaps)

Laaps’ releases are season-based, and ‘Anti Atlas’ has the tag ‘winter’, quelle surprise as the composer Thme would probably say as he is the Paris-based musician Théo Martin. I don’t think I heard of him before, despite previous releases on such labels as “Seil Records, Vaagner, and Lontano Series, along with recent collaborations with artists Agyt and Lamasz”. This new release is his first solo work in two years, and I am told he works with magnetic tape. I am all ears when I hear those magic (magnetic?) words. No other instruments are mentioned, but my best guess is that Martin uses electronics and loops. Lots of both, and that doesn’t mean there is a lot of sound, as Martin’s music is relatively quiet and pensive. It is indeed music fitting the time of the year. There is, perhaps, coldness in the music, like a stale wind over a frozen lake, but I hear things differently here. It is like a quiet stove burning in a shed and irregularly humming away, with various small sounds buzzing around. It’s very drone-like, which is for Laaps, perhaps somewhat unusual, but in terms of darkness and atmospheres, it ticks the right boxes. It’s all a bit grainy, heavily on the textures, and I love it. It’s easily one of the best releases I heard from Laaps, but that’s because the music has all those ingredients I love. The grainy textures, the occasional melodic touch, the lo-fi approach, and the remote voices in one track. Precisely what the doctor ordered on a dark February evening. (FdW)
––– Address: https://laaps.bandcamp.com/

RONAN COURTY – SYNESTHESIA (CD by Ormo Records)

Sometimes, I read these press texts and wonder what I read. “By mixing an acoustic side, recorded in one take in a highly reverberant chapel, with an electronic side, composed and produced as a remix in the multiverse”. It’s the start of a text about the record by me, unknown Ronan Courty. “Ronan Courty offers two points of view of the same image, two different words for the same colour: synesthesia/ideasthesia”. I did understand one side is for a solo double bass and the other side (the record is also available on vinyl; this side thing doesn’t work for a CD, which is what I have) Courty combines the bass with synthesisers, mustard glasses and tuning forks. He uses the space as a separate instrument, with sounds filling up that chapel like a mass celebration of sound. Sometimes a bit too dense, but the work becomes lighter and easier to follow when he plays the higher region. Courty uses a similar technique on the second piece, short attacks, but with the additional instruments, there is more happening on various levels. Maybe the chapel element is lost a bit here, but I prefer this piece over the sometimes one-direction of the title piece. All in all an interesting release on the verge of composition and improvisation. (FdW)
––– Address: https://ormorecords.bandcamp.com/

THE ATTIC & EVE RISSER – LA GRANDE CRUE (CD by No Business)

The Attic began as a trio with Rodrigo Amado, Portuguese tenor sax player; Gonçalo Almeida, Portuguese-born and Rotterdam-based double bass player; and Marco Franco, Portuguese drummer and percussionist. They released a record called The Attic 2017 from a recorded session in 2015. Somewhere along the line, Onno Govaert replaced Marco Franco. It might have to do with the availability or lack thereof of Marco Franco, but I do not know that for sure. Then, the trio played at the Summer Bummer festival in Antwerp in 2018. That concert was released with the appropriate title, Summer Bummer. And now we have another record: La Grande Crue, recorded in 2023 and released in October of last year. The trio has been augmented with Eve Risser, a French pianist. The title refers (I think) to the great flood of Paris in 1910. But again, I can’t be sure of that. It’s certainly not to be confused with grand cru, a label for an astonishing quality of that year’s grapes. Anyway. Four pieces on this record, all with French titles: Corps, peau, phrase and pierre, which means body, skin, sentence and stone. All words are taken from a poem by Nuno Júdice, a famous Portuguese poet who died last year. This is the last sentence of this poem :

ANGLE

A luminous reflection dies on the waters
of summer. Algae proliferate on their
texture, drinking the window’s last
glare. The room encloses me in a white
architecture. I breathe a cadence of drowned
sheets. An inner voice spells oval
metres, which I repeat along the verse’s
monotonous flow. This light, however,
hangs on melancholy bones. Her eyes harbour
a wing beat’s sob. Her mouth imprisons the nocturnal
scream of sundown-wounded animals. I take
her fingers and draw her to the sun: an angel
that grows pale under the day’s fire! I feel
her short-lived glow and then leave behind that
evening-enshrouded corpse, trading
its skin of moss for the marble of the sentence,
the tactile coldness of stone.

And what about the music? All these players are seasoned, well-versed in free jazz, improvisation and playing in groups, large or small. An intensity throughout the record transfers quite well to the listener, at least this one. It’s captivating music and no cocktail jazz, although you could sip one if you are so inclined. This is moody and brooding music, with Eve Risser imitating the plucked strings of Almeida or vice versa. She definitely adds a new dimension to the group. It’s also heady music: with a lot of details happening simultaneously, all of them deserve the listener’s attention. Just let this music wash over you like a great flood would. And then do it again. It’s that strong of a record. (MDS)
––– Address: https://nobusinessrecords.bandcamp.com/

BARAKA[H] – ILLUMINESCENCE (EXTENDED) (LP by La Faculté Records)

Hold on! Didn’t I review this before? If I ignore the word ‘extended’, then yes, I did, in Vital Weekly 1264. Let’s repeat that before extending the review (if Baraka[h] can do, why can’t I? always a great moment to clean up some language and spelling issues).
The Taalem label specialises in 3″CDR releases, and I am sure I reviewed a bunch of these 130+ releases. I must have compared the label with Drone Records, who released between 1993 and 2010 100 7″ records. Taalem skipped catalogue number ‘alm 100’ and reserved that for a unique project, this release by Baraka[h], who we know as the man behind Drone Records (still an active force with LP compilations and Drone Records, a fine mail-order outlet) and one half of Troum, formerly one-third of Maeror Tri. Oddly enough, he never had a solo release. I have no idea why that is. This is a pro-pressed mini-CD with a transparent outer ring, so a 5-inch disc (you don’t see many more) has four pieces of music, about twenty minutes long. The cover says Baraka[h] worked on these songs from 2007 to 2019, so he’s quite the perfectionist (or lazy? Probably not!), and in this solo CD, he expands further on the music he produces with Troum. I am not sure if I think that is a pity or not. It would have been fun to see him play acoustic guitar or heavy dub music, something out of the ordinary for him, but on the other hand, these are four significant pieces of drone-based music, in which the guitar plays a bit role. Guitar and electronics, I should think, and there is some vast space that is played out here. These pieces often use reverb, but Baraka[h] keeps it all within reason. He strums the guitar, gentle and firm, chords spacing about. Maybe clarity here sets it aside from the Troum mothership, which is generally multi-layered and maxi-coloured, whereas Baraka[h] keeps it minimal. The sound is sometimes full, but the focus is on a single instrument. This is a lovely release, and let’s hope Baraka[h] will do a few more, not with intervals of thirteen years.
That was Vital Weekly 1264, which was late 2020, so we didn’t have to wait 13 years, but five years, to get the same four pieces on side A but in a different order and four new ones on the second. According to the new cover, Baraka[h] plays acoustic and electric guitars, field recordings, and gusli. The wiki says: “The gusli is the oldest East Slavic multi-string plucked instrument, belonging to the zither family, due to its strings being parallel to its resonance board.” As I am playing this record, and enjoying the music, I am, again, thinking about Troum, and the similarities between the group and one of the individuals from the group doing the music (and maybe I’m contemplating why I haven’t heard much from Troum in recent times, but that’s for another day). The primary significance is within the atmospheric quality of the music, but Baraka[h] keeps things a bit more sparse and open. His guitar meanders about, springs along the reverb into a big space, but the music isn’t as dense as Troum’s. Some approaches towards composition are the same, starting with a few sounds on stringed instruments, opening effects, and creating space, but Baraka[h] keeps things within reasonable length. Nothing feels rushed or too long, which shows Baraka[h]’s skilled approach, following years of honing his craft. Excellent stuff, and with the sparseness of Trium’s output these days, maybe something Baraka[h] should consider doing more. (FdW)
––– Address: https://lafaculte.bandcamp.com/album/illuminescence-extended

EVICSHEN: CISTERN SCREW/2RAW (10″ lathe cut by Ballast)
VERTONEN – CRAVERSSE (CDR by Ballast)

Behind Evicshen, we find Victoria Shen, and I don’t know much about her music. Her website says, “Shen’s sound practice concerns the spatiality/physicality of sound and its relationship to the human body. Her music features analog modular synthesisers, vinyl/resin records, and self-built electronics. Eschewing conventions in harmony and rhythm in favor of extreme textures and gestural tones, Shen uses what she calls “chaotic sound” to oppose signal and information, eluding traditionally embedded meaning.” I thought she was part of the noise world, but that’s partly true. Here she has a limited, 25 copies only one-sided 10″ with two pieces. The first is a sort of trumpet in the staircase-type of thing, with lots of distant reverb. The other piece is an example of her noise work, in which she plays around with short bursts of noise in a slightly chaotic yet organised manner. It’s fierce without being all too distorted. Now, I wrote one-sided, but that’s not entirely true. Both tracks were cut onto a flexi disc. Ballast made a few, cut them up, rearranged them in a 7″ form, and glued them to the back of the 10″. In my press pack were some recordings of possible results and, as expected, more lovely noise shredding away. It’s a great package.
On CDR, we find the hyperactive Blake Edwards and his Vertonen project; he’s also the label boss. I am a fan of his work, so any review is biased, as is any review that repeats bits from previous reviews. One such repetition is that Vertonen works with drones, and how these drones are generated is never too clear. I believe, and I might very well be wrong, that Edwards doesn’t favour any particular instrument or technology, and it’s whatever rocks his boat. Analogue or digital, modular synthesisers, electronic effects- it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, he uses one technique on an album, some a mix. For this one w it’s hard to say what it is, but my best guess would be it’s a mixture. Field recordings are essential in these 11 pieces, wind around the house type of thing, leaky pipes and such. He adds his usual brand of drones, cracked electronics (though not a lot of noise; that’s something in the past now) and a bit of shortwave. Sometimes, the drone rises naturally out of the swampy field recordings, and sometimes, the field recordings drain all drones down under. Things bubble and blur here, as it all sounds pretty mysterious. Occasionally, I am reminded of the early work of The Hafler Trio, one of Vertonen’s main influences, but otherwise, it is an excellent work. Now, one of the other things I often say is that Vertonen may be a drone project, but it also needs to be said that Vertonen’s drones possess a lot of variation. It’s never the same approach, as Vertonen always looks for new combinations, techniques, and dimensions. This album is no different; another beauty. (FdW)
––– Address: https://ballastnvp.blogspot.com/

+DOG+ – THE LIGHT OF OUR LIVES (CDR by Love Earth Music)

It’s become increasingly difficult to write about Steve Davis of +DOG+ (and several other projects) each time. Not because of the music and noise he’s putting out, but because that is very much to my liking and taste. Also, not because of who he is, but because I’ve gotten to know him a bit, and he seems to be really a great person. But to write something original each time I write a new review because he is productive as hell these days. I’ve written about him no less then 18 times and to give a little indication – Vital Weekly is all voluntary work and I get to keep the promo’s I want. And with the +DOG+ releases, I never felt it should not be in my permanent collection. Hence, my IKEA Billy has more than a full backspace of Doggies, which will be #19.
“The Light Of Our Lives” is a bit weird, as it focuses on the experiment a bit more than on full compositions. The length of the tracks is between 90 seconds and 15 minutes, but even with the many shorter tracks – there are 20 tracks in total – it’s not as if the shorter tracks are just to investigate a particular setup or specific sound or structure. Within their shortness, there is still a story to be found. Hmm, maybe something like micro compositions would be more fitting than experiments. But let’s just go through the whole album.
There is a slightly more significant role for rhythm/drums. Several tracks have a drum track, either real drums or a drum computer. For example, ” Preemptive Love, “There Is No Goodbye, Only Love, ” and “The Light” even remind me of fragments of the Peace & Love releases on Love Earth Music. And then there are also tracks where guitars are added to the sound spectrum (“The First Day In This World”). I’m trying to remember if I heard those before with +DOG+’s music, but I can’t. And I’m not going through all of the 18 releases to double-check; it seems to be something new for the ever-evolving artist that is Steve Davis.
But on that same album, it’s not all drums and noise; take, for example, the carefully arranged “The Silence Of Sound”, “Once There Were Woods There”, “Crows Around”, and “This One Life”. And I must add that final one reminded me even a bit of Atrax Morgue. And of course, harsh noise action, relentless in your face/ear action like “Sunflowers 2” can also be found on this one. The digital download gets you an extra 10 minutes in the form of “DeRevolution 1” which no longer fits the CDr.
Final words? Nice doggy. He doesn’t bite but makes a lot of noise. (BW)
––– Address: https://dognoise.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

ISOLATED COMMUNITY & THERE ARE NO BIRDS HERE – WE ARE THE WRECKAGE OF OUR FORMER SELVES (CDR by Inverted Grim-Mlll Recordings)

Richard Dunn and Rachael Talbot Dunn, the husband and wife of Isolated Community, released a string of CDR releases, and I loved them all. It is an excellent combination of electronic music, instruments, experiments and melody. Here’s a new release, which sees them teaming up with Matt Shenton, who works as There Are No Birds Here. He’s from Ipswich, exploring the rural landscape and exploring “how conceived notions of the pastoral landscape inform and influence ideas of national identity”.He uses field recordings, homemade instruments, musique concrète and modified electronics. The field recordings on this new release were made in two abandoned World War 2 gun batteries around the UK. This trio recorded seven tracks, and it’s a bit of a different album for Isolated Community. I don’t know their input or Shenton’s, but the music seems a tad more abstract than before and didn’t lose its melodic feeling. From what I hear, I think they use samples of field recordings next to real-time recordings of scratching metal upon metal in this room with much reverb. They layer this with other recordings and sound effects, creating a dark atmosphere, and it all works very well. Tracks are more extended than we used from Isolated Community, but none of this seems to be overlong; within a standard time frame of five to eight minutes, nothing happens that overstays its welcome. Less than before, I was thinking about Idea Fire Company while the influence of Zoviet France remained. Another damn fine album! (FdW)
––– Address: https://invertedgrim-millrecordings.bandcamp.com/

HALI PALOMBO – KUDDELMUDDEL (CDR by Chocolate Monk)

I reviewed some of Hali Palombo’s work before, but without knowing too much about her or her work, other than she loves field recordings and manipulating these. I am told that the ten compositions were made from ” Hurdy-Gurdy recordings taken at the Bristol Renaissance Festival in Wisconsin, bagpipes, shortwave radio recordings, wax cylinder recordings of Native American chants, field recordings taken in a chocolate factory in Oakland in 2018, and BBC sound-library sourced recordings of Morse code transmitters and office buildings”, which is a neat, eclectic bunch of sources. Some of these aren’t easy to recognise and others very easy. Funny to see Palombo mentioning the inspiration of The Hafler Trio and Joseph Haydn’s ‘Surprise Symphony’. I sense the first and fail to hear the latter, but who knows? Palombo takes a cross-section of the Hafler Trio’s work, from a collage-like approach to drones and back. The trio never liked the reference to musique concrète, and that’s very much something Palombo does here. Combining seemingly unrelated sound events into one captivating piece of music, times ten. There are sustaining sound events sitting next to pieces with abrupt changes, voices from other dimensions, quirky electronics and majestic long form sounds, all part of one piece. Palombo’s music is never too quiet or slow and meandering; something is always happening, and usually not what you expect. This is one of the best things about this release—the radiophonic, dramatic component of this cinema for ears only. She takes her time in some of these pieces, but it’s never too long, and she has the right pacing and spacing in her music, which is best enjoyed as an album of one piece in ten parts rather than ten individual parts. Sit back and enjoy! (FdW)
––– Address: https://chocolatemonk.co.uk/Index.html

ZWAARVERTEERBAAR & TRUCK VAN RENTAL (CDR and businesscard CDR by Zwaarverteerbaar)
ZEBRA MU – FIDGET CRYSTAL (business card CDR by Quagga Curious Sounds)

I reviewed the Undocumented Aliens’ release from this label (see Vital Weekly 1461). Now, it’s by artists of the same name as the label, in collaboration with Truck van Rental, one of the various vehicles of Marc van Elburg. He also works as De Hondenkoekjesfabriek, De Kanker, Hogswetter, Jack-Jack En De Wandelende Feedback, Mayoman, Monobrain, and O.C.O. I had him down as a man of noise, so I checked volume levels before I started the play button. The CDR has six pieces, lasting only 20 minutes, and the musicians love their noise and rhythm. In the three pieces that extend more than four minutes, it’s a bit too easy and lacks variation. What sources are used, I don’t know; skipping records, electronics, and effects would be my best guess. It’s a pretty effective little noise release, just long enough.
It’s great to see a business card CDR again. I dug out my old CD player to play it, but it seems empty. Maybe that’s the idea? Overall, the packaging is nice, a bit comic book-like, and it combines well with recycled wallpaper.
Lo and behold, two days later, another business card CDR. A bit early to mention the ‘resurrection of a forgotten format, ‘ but fun it is. Zebra Mu is Michael Ridge, and we reviewed his previous releases. About ‘Fidget Crysta’, he says, “Just under five minutes of sonic demolition and hardware malfunctions, recorded in one take with no edits or treatments”, but not if this is in concert or at home. It’s one long howl of chaotic noise, going strong for the entire four minutes and 48 seconds. It is much louder and noisier than the Zwaarverteeerbaar release, but it fits to lump these together. It is as much as a stand-alone piece of music, documentation of malfunctioning apparatus, and a conceptual art object. More of this wouldn’t make it better, as it would become too much of repeating action. Now, the action is concise and to the point. If you like it that much, stick it on repeat for an undefined amount of time until you are bonkers or when it’s time to move on. Lovely format! (FdW)
––– Address: https://zwaarverteerbaar.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://mridge.bandcamp.com/album/fidget-crystal

RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – MICROTOPIA – ORIGINAL GAME SCORE (CDR by Machinefabriek)

Much like other functional music, i.e., music composed for a purpose (movie, theatre, choreograph), writing about music for games isn’t easy. I watch movies, sometimes see a theatre play and rarely a ballet, computer games do not belong to my interest sphere, never did and probably never will. I love to do so many other things; reading books and listening to music are two primary pastimes, and investing time in computer games never crosses my mind. My bad, no doubt, even though I also don’t see the necessity to defend myself. How to approach a release with such functional music? Probably very much the same as I do with movie soundtracks, of flicks I didn’t see (I rarely review a soundtrack of which I saw the movie); as a selection (most likely) of standalone pieces, somehow part of a computer game. As there’s a game trailer on Machinefabriek’s website, I learned it’s about robot ants, and you have to build cities and logistics. It looks good, yet no immediate urge to play it, which has a slightly busier soundtrack than the individual pieces here, which tend towards a more spacious ambient sound. ‘Toxic Wasteland’ sounds dirty, and the rhythms kick in with ‘Credits. ‘ The trailer music plays no role in these pieces, it seems—mostly gentle music, and as such, it works pretty well as standalone pieces. For all the unassuming listener knows, these are musical pieces to be enjoyed on a cold Sunday afternoon in January to bring warmth and joy to your life. It is the kind of music which goes very well if you read a book, for instance. (FdW)
––– Address: https://machinefabriek.nu/news/microtopia_trailer

JOHN MINGAY & ADAM SYKES – SHATTERED (CDR by Iris Light)

It is a surprise to see a new release on Iris Light, which ceased being a physical label a long time ago, in 2007. This latest release is mainly digital, but there are also physical copies, as in 30 copies in card wallets. Former label Iris Light boss Adam Sykes, a musician and poet, teamed up with “acclaimed poet and publisher” John Mingay, whom I had not heard before. Sykes started with recording sounds, which John “collapsed and broke these sounds down” and back at Adam’s reworked with “drones, sounds, noises and industrial elements” into the 12 pieces on ‘Shattered’. None of this becomes very specific, so what these sounds are, we’re not told. Maybe it’s within the nature of the various processes applied by these two musicians that anything and everything is altered to such an extent that we no longer recognise the origins. There are many deep rumbles, the dark ambient, isolationist cave sound, and eerie high-pitched tones (windchimes, temple bells? That’s where my thinking went). They take their time to explore their material fully, turning it inside out and upside down, reversing and slowing down, with creating lengthy sustaining material as the primary goal. It all buzzes and drones, and there’s an occasional drum beat (more like a slowed down timpani) to alternate some of the material. Dark, ominous and atmospheric- all the keywords once applied to the Iris Light catalogue- also apply to this one. The most extended tracks may be too long, but overall, the length works pretty well in setting the scene. Perfect seasonal soundtrack. (FdW)
––– Address: https://irislightmusic.bandcamp.com/

BARTOSZ DZIADOSZ – THEME (3″CDR by Dronarivm / Fonodroom)

You can debate the format to present music, why techno is best suited on vinyl and ambient on a CD, etc. In that respect, Bartosz Dziadosz’s music being on a CDR is a solid choice, but ambient music within 20 minutes on a 3″CDR? I know more people are guilty of that (me too!), but once you are comfortably sitting back, enjoying the music, it’s over, and the only option is to start again. I had not heard of Bartosz Dziadosz before, nor do I know much about him. I hear a cello, field recordings and, possibly, electronics and the overall mood is mellow and dark. It is the kind of thing Dronarivm is known for. Dziadosz plays a touch more melodic stuff, laced with orchestral sounds (cello, piano, strings), and there is an occasional dash of rhythm and a bit of keyboard work. I am told these works are composed for theatre and “in response to the themes of melancholy and pathos—states that are now often undesirable, outdated, or even off-putting” (I don’t know why these states are now seen like that). That melancholy aspect is undoubtedly part of the music, yet it never becomes a boring cliche. I don’t know much about the theatre the music was composed for, but these five pieces work as standalone pieces. But 20 minutes and all that is all a bit too short. I don’t mind repeat playing, but I enjoy more pieces in a similar style a bit more. (FdW)
––– Address: https://dronarivm.bandcamp.com/