Week 12

THOMAS BEY WILLIAM BAILEY – LIMINALIA (LIVE FROM ONEIRIC SPACES III) (CD, private)
PRIMOŽ BONČINA & PHIL MAGUIRE – STONE AND WORSHIP (CD by Cloudchamber Recordings)
ALEX ZETHSON & NIKOS VELIOTIS – CRYO (CD by Thanatosis Produktion)
ERIK KLINGA – ELUSIVE SHIMMER (CD by Thanatosis Produktion)
JEROME NOETINGER – INTENSIOR CORDA SONUS (CD by Chocolate Monk)
BILLA ENSEMBLE – IN BROWNSWOOD (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
JONNIE PREY & JIMBO EASTER – SLEWN A GOUT (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
BUFFALOMCKEE – SIMPLE VERSION OF A DIFFICULT QUESTION (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
FUG GUM 6 (CDR compilation by Chocolate Monk)
PUCE MOMENT – SANS SOLEIL (CDR by Parenthèses Records)
MONOPASS – SOUNDS REAL (LP by Umland Records)
OONA KASTNER – MEMORIAL 6.0 (LP by Umland Records)
MEAT.KARAOKE.QUALITY.TIME. – PARADICE (7″ by Umland Records)
MURMUR & SICK DAYS (cassette by Vacancy Recs)
SLOW BLINK/STOMACHACHE (split cassette by Hectare)
MARSHA FISHER – POSTURES (cassette by Hectare)
END, RED DRESS – THE BRINK (cassette, private)
QUINTEN DIERICK – BEHEADINGS 4 (cassette by Kringloop Kassettes)
LICHT-UNG – MERZT (cassette by Kringloop Kassettes)
NYLAND – MODAL COLLAPSE (cassette by Kringloop Kassettes)
SARA MILAZZO / BARRETT E. LEDIARD (split cassette by Hyster Tapes)

THOMAS BEY WILLIAM BAILEY – LIMINALIA (LIVE FROM ONEIRIC SPACES III) (CD, private)

This CD comes with a book I didn’t receive, but according to the information, it is “a lovely hardcover journal with fluid designs from artist Paul Takahashi gracing its covers. Listeners are encouraged to play the album before sleeping and to record any dreamed impressions in the blank pages provided.” Is it a blank book? That’s, at least, what I understand. You can use it to note your dreams, as this is what prompted Bailey to do the music, finding old dream diaries and “noted an unusually large number of dream scenarios involving the performance of music at strange “hybrid” spaces, i.e. ones in which the experiences of waking life were supplemented by encounters with people/places/things of a totally alien nature.” He cites Organum, Asmus Tietchens, and Herbie Hancock, his ‘Sextant’ album, which I haven’t heard, unlike the previous two musicians whose works I know very well. I found it easier to recognise Tietchens in this music than Organum, especially in the first two pieces. That said, Bailey doesn’t follow Tietchens in taking a quiet approach to sound processing. Bailey’s work is fuller and more dynamic. I take the ‘Forest Of Masks 2’ or the percussive ending of ‘The Polyhedral Quadrille (Variations 1-3)’ to be influenced by Hancock. These pieces are a meet-up of techno-inspired synthesis and musique concrète, but nothing that will hit the dancefloor. Like in his previous work, Bailey likes his musique concrète techniques of collage, granulation and editing; with these, he delivers a diverse album. It’s not as heavy as some of his previous work, not as sonically demanding. Nevertheless, a lot is happening, and perhaps some of the album’s funnier moments aren’t Tietchens per se. At 63 minutes, this is quite a lengthy album and leaves the listener a bit knackered behind; me, at least. Nevertheless, this is a solid album, sonically charged, not always easy listening, and not out of place in his catalogue. (FdW)
––– Address: https://tbwb.bandcamp.com/

PRIMOŽ BONČINA & PHIL MAGUIRE – STONE AND WORSHIP (CD by Cloudchamber Recordings)

What I thought would be a no-brainer turned out to be a surprise. A duo of drone meisters, with Primož Bončina on electric guitar and prophet synthesiser and Phil Maguire on Doepfer Modular Synthesizer. What can go wrong? Well, nothing, except the surprise is the first two tracks have guest vocals. I didn’t expect that. In ‘Dolorosa’ the vocals are by Golem Mécanique and in ‘(Vangelis) Acolyte’ by Dylan Desmond. I admit I am not the biggest fan of vocals in drone music, and the way Golem Mécanique is not my cup of tea. But the voice disappears at some point in this almost 20-minute piece, as by then, the music has become a heavy tour de force. Dylan Desmond sounds like a Byzantine choir in the other piece with vocals. Interestingly enough, Bončina and Maguire recorded the music in the cellar of a former Catholic seminary; it’s not one of those file transfer collaborations. They call it a work of “sustained tones, meditation and contemplation”, which it is undoubtedly also. There are four pieces here, from almost 15 minutes to nearly 21 minutes, and there is a lot of time to meditate and contemplate. The first two are the ‘worship’ part of the album, and the last are the ‘stone’ part. These last two pieces are the no-brainer part of the release and live up to the expectations. The always slightly distorted electric guitar, rumbling away like it’s on fire and Maguire deep drones which hardly seem to move. It’s Bončina’s guitar doing the variations in the music. It’s the quiet/loud thing that is the meditation aspect of the music, and I am talking about all four pieces here. You can play it loud and still contemplate in this massive wall of sound. While the piece with Golem Mécanique is partly not up my alley, I enjoy the album as a whole a lot. There is this religious aspect to it, the organ-like sound (best exemplified in the opening of ‘(Vangelis) Acolyte’), but for all I know, there’s a pagan aspect here. Lovely stuff throughout! (FdW)
––– Address: https://cloud-chamber.bandcamp.com/

ALEX ZETHSON & NIKOS VELIOTIS – CRYO (CD by Thanatosis Produktion)
ERIK KLINGA – ELUSIVE SHIMMER (CD by Thanatosis Produktion)

Thanatosis Produktion is a Swedish label run by pianist Alex Zethson and he plays on many albums from his label. Here’s a duet with Greek cellist Nikos Veliotis, whom I hadn’t heard in a while. The two met in Athens, where Zethson was for a concert, and the Veliotis was the opening act. The next day, they recorded the two pieces of ‘Cryo’, part one and part two. It’s a dark album, as Zethson only plays the lower region of the piano, and the cello is, by nature, already an instrument of lower and darker music. They keep their material together, with Zethson playing cluster-like tonal clouds and Veltiotis uninterrupted bowing. Together, the two pieces have a dark, menacing sound as they keep minimally exploring their material and don’t deviate from what they (no doubt) planned to do. There is something mechanical about all of this, like being inside a machine and hearing these clusterised tones, especially when I turn up the volume more than I am used to. It is a consistent record, two like-minded pieces and is around 20 minutes long enough.
I had not heard of Erik Klinga and seeing ‘Elusive Shimmer’ is his debut record, perhaps no surprise. He was born in 1991, plays in bands such as Simian Ghost, Light Vibes and Horse Show, and works as a drummer for Solen, Dolce and Mi von Ahn; none of this I have heard. He has a bachelor’s degree in electroacoustic composition and works with the Bucla 200 synthesiser, the Roland Juno 60, Elektron Analog Rytm MKI, Arvidsson Organ in Kirnberger III temperament, Abelton live and field recordings – some of what I just wrote is also a mystery to me. There’s a lengthy press text about rays of light, avian-inspired sound and a fascination with birdsong. I decided not to read anymore because, with such things as abstract electronic music, I am sure I think of some metaphors. We get eight pieces of music, and I expected something along modular synth lines, bleeps and oscillations, but surprisingly, it was not. Klinga’s music is more ambient and melodic than anticipated and even has a slightly cosmic approach in some tracks, or leaning towards dance music, in ‘Iridescence’. It happens once, but other tracks are also a one-off. One is more drone-like, one is very ambient-like, more melodic or more abstract. This makes this album quite varied, and these pieces, between five and eight minutes, have variation within and are ever too short or too long, and it’s an excellent, great album. (FdW)
––– Address: https://thanatosis.org/

JIM HOBBS AND TIMO SHANKO – THE DEPRESSION TAPES (CD by Relative Pitch Records)

Jim Hobbs and Timo Shanko have played together for decades. But this is their first recording as a duo. They met at the Berklee College of Music. It was there that they started the Fully Celebrated Orchestra. Hobbs plays the saxophone. Alto but here with a tone or timbre in some pieces that resembles a tenor. Shanko plays the double bass but can play all saxes as well. Since 2009, he’s been the bass player in G. Love and Special Sauce. Nine pieces in just under an hour with engaging music with something for everyone. The Slow Ascent with its laidback bluesy licks, or my favourite for now: Trials and Temptations with its grooving bass line and sad melody. It’s also the most extended piece. The whole release oozes a joy, a joy for music, despite the title: the Depression Tapes. But maybe there’s a concept behind it. I don’t know, and I’m too distracted to contemplate. All I know is that these two gentlemen know how to play and play longer pieces, so the listener is obliged to listen. The interplay between the two is marvellous. This is no background music. And to me it can only mean one thing: play this one again. I hope there will be more to follow. (MDS)
––– Address: https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/

JEROME NOETINGER – INTENSIOR CORDA SONUS (CD by Chocolate Monk)
BILLA ENSEMBLE – IN BROWNSWOOD (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
JONNIE PREY & JIMBO EASTER – SLEWN A GOUT (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
BUFFALOMCKEE – SIMPLE VERSION OF A DIFFICULT QUESTION (CDR by Chocolate Monk)
FUG GUM 6 (CDR compilation by Chocolate Monk)

A bundle of new releases by UK’s CDR stronghold, Chocolate Monk, of which the first of these five is an actual CD, by French composer Jerome Noetinger, the master of reel-to-reel manipulation; a Revox B77 to be precise, usually armed with a loop and because it has four tracks, Noetinger adding sound on the fly. A concert in Chocolate Monk’s home town of Brighton led to an invitation to release a CD. For this CD, Noetinger decided to compose instead of improvise, which Noetinger usually does. In the best tradition of Pierre Schaeffer and musique concrète, to work with sound, composed, and organised. “The Latin title refers to the equivalence between the tension of a string and the elevation of the sound”, as Noetinger explains, and there are three pieces; ‘Les objets inaudibles’, ‘Erase My Head’ and ‘Eloge Des Ruines’, the first having four parts and the last five. They open the CD. Noetinger uses records from his collection in the purest musique concrète spirit (Schaeffer’s first pieces were also made with records) and uses many short fragments to create a very vibrant piece of music. These sounds are played from 0 to 78 rpm, and he also adds the sounds of tape spooling. It is these speed changes that add vibrant character. Each of these five pieces is short (two minutes) and to the point, resulting in massive editing and constant changing.
‘Erase My Head’ is a 30-minute piece consisting of one loop, 2.85 meters long and is a live-to-air piece, and the one that sounds more improvised than composed; maybe that’s why it is in the middle. With various inputs, using CD players, Walkman, and radio in a random mode, the music builds and breaks, shifting continuously. The music occasionally almost disappears with just a few crackles and hiss remaining. But Noetinger always returns in this blizzard of fragmented audio.
‘Les objets inaudible’ is a four-part suite of acoustic sounds, instrument abuse (piano), and sound effects such as gunshots, creating a compelling radiophonic drama, again very much in the original musique concrète. Noetinger doesn’t transform sounds extensively; he brutally kicks them about and establishes a dialogue with the results. As with many other of his pieces, this CD has a beautiful rough edge—the beauty of working with noise!
The other four are CDRs and all by musicians new to me, or perhaps in this configuration. First, there’s Billa Ensemble, which is a trio of Michiu (Electric guitars. the concept horse: No input feedback, bells, reel-to-reel tape machine, dictaphone), Turmeric Acid (Tapes, contact microphones, objects) and Marie Vermont (Electronic, tape, keys, contact microphones, mixer, mallets, cymbal). They started in 2023 when meeting Vienna and sharing a love for manipulating magnetic tape and adding several other sounds. “the bells, contact mics, mallets, feedback, analogue synths, guitars and even odd handheld electronic kitchen devices”. In June 2024, they played a concert at Cafe Oto and rehearsed (if that is the word they would use) in a small flat. I believe these recordings appear on ‘In Brownswood’, named after the road housing the flat. These three pieces have an interesting density between 11 and 14 minutes. Objects being rubbed, moved, and scratched along with a desolate guitar move, voices popping up, and, perhaps, a paradox, but there’s a strong feeling of ‘small music’ in the Cageian sense. The sound of combs and toothpicks, but a lot of everything, accounts for the massive sound approach. Also, they don’t avoid noise, another Cage-like thing; if things go ‘wrong’, they leave it in and use o to their benefit. This happens in the second piece at one point. Perhaps not, as John Cage-like is the somewhat lo-fi approach in their music, at times meandering about, like waiting for a place to go or something else that keeps them from a decision. It’s something that others would cover up with editing, but none of that here. If a loop stays in the same place for too long, they think it’s great to do so. The third (untitled, as they all are) piece has some vocal loops reminding me of Idea Fire Company. It’s quite a delicate release.
The label describes Jonnie Prey and Jimbo Easter as “Two of America’s FINEST performance art freaks hold hands, hug and salivate together all for YOUR pleasure.” That information conjures images here of performance artists running around naked, blood and excrement and all that. ” Listen to the ghost screams of two ungrown men, interpreted thru heavy petting sessions where they were forced to unexplored consciousness and speak in hymn”, more images there. It’s not the kind of thing I am particularly interested in, but curiously enough, the music doesn’t sound like the soundtrack for such a thing. I have no idea what they do on stage, music-wise, what kind of instruments they use, or if this is a live recording. There is some vocal stuff, a microphone up close in the mouth, some far-away field recordings, and some electronics, and the most surprising thing is that it all sounds relatively mellow. Indeed, this is some kind of ‘free’ music, free folk, free improvisation, but there is also a collage-like aspect to the music (which made me think it is less of a concert recording; maybe a collage of various live recordings) and there’s a beautiful ambient piece towards the end. Perhaps it all reminded me of last week’s Nilsen/Olson/Sigmarsson cassette, sharing a similar approach to musique concrète, but this time in more performative surroundings.
Buffalomckee may sound very American, but it’s a musical from Osaka, now based in Tokyo and inspired by the Los Angeles Free Music Society, or, in the words of the label, “free improvisation, noise music, avant-garde art, electronica, onkyo-psyche, and nazo-ongaku”. Sampling is the main instrument and he uses a lot of that. It’s hard to say what goes in the blender, as ‘everything’ sounds vague. In just 35 minutes, Buffalomckee offers 14 pieces of music, bouncing back and forth between spoken word, classical music, pop music, shards of noise, a bit of exotica and a bit of guitar soloing. Fourteen tracks melt into one track, as I perceived it. I wasn’t looking at my CD player, and sat back and left it all to come, big washes of chaotic music, not cut into ultra-short bits but never too long either. You could wonder what the LAFMS influence/inspiration is here, besides the word ‘free’, as this release has much freedom. No musical rules are accepted; anything goes, and it sounds good. But the label has much more free, good-sounding music, so does it stand out? I leave that open for now.
Lastly, there’s a compilation, The Young Person’s Guide to Chocolate Monk. Some of these were reviewed before, and some are new names, at least for me. Perhaps this compilation is a perfect example of what I just wrote about this label having more freely played and great-sounding music in their catalogue, and these 13 tracks are fine examples of that. We have music by Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory, Johana Beaussart & Èlg, Insect Factory, Alice Kemp, Diurnal Burdens, Fish El Fish, Forrest Friends, Xelís de Toro, Oishi, Ripped Spit, Movie Actor, Mark Groves and Alvarius B – and yes, some of these names are a joy by themselves, without a need to hear the music. While none of the four I reviewed are part of this, this is a great place to start a trip to the land of Chocolate Monk if you never heard of any of these musicians. It gives a perfect example of what to expect in the 500+ catalogue. (FdW)
––– Address: https://chocolatemonk.co.uk/Index.html

PUCE MOMENT – SANS SOLEIL (CDR by Parenthèses Records)

Behind Puce Moment we find Nicolas Devos and Pénélope Michel, combining visual arts and music. In 2005, they founded the experimental electronic group Cercueil parallel to this Puce Moment, which they describe as “a platform for sound research and interdisciplinary experimentation”. To that end, they use electronic and electroacoustic arrangements, merging traditional instruments with “innovative interpretations”. As an example of these instruments, they mention “limonary organs or Japanese Gagaku”; I couldn’t find the first (maybe something got lost in translation), and Gagaku we find on this CD. Puce Moment went to Tenri, a suburb of Nara, Japan’s former capital and recorded the musicians of the Gagaku Music Society of Tenri. The result is on this CD and also used by Vania Vanneau for choreography. This duo plays “sh101, M20, Jen SX1000, modular synthesisers, theremin and vocals and Gagaku instruments, which can be wind and string instruments and drums. I am no expert on the traditions of Gagaku, not even a shred of knowledge, but I played the CD with great interest. I admit, at times, I didn’t think about Gagaku. Only in the last track do we hear some stringed instruments and percussion; in the opening piece, percussion is dominant. In other pieces electronics seem to be a domineering thing. I don’t know if they processed the Gagaku instruments; I doubt they did, but perhaps they used it in looped form here and there. Because of the electronics, it sounds different than expected, perhaps more up my alley than anticipated, which is excellent. There’s a strong, atmospheric undercurrent in the music. Maybe also something of a ritual to be detected here, with some solitary percussive bangs effectively placed, along with flute and dark drone synthetic drone sounds. It’s a great album! Quite a surprise! (FdW)
––– Address: https://parenthesesrecords.bandcamp.com/

MONOPASS – SOUNDS REAL (LP by Umland Records)
OONA KASTNER – MEMORIAL 6.0 (LP by Umland Records)
MEAT.KARAOKE.QUALITY.TIME. – PARADICE (7″ by Umland Records)

I leave this lot’s most apparent free jazz/improvisation release to my esteemed colleague MDS for a future review while I inspect the other releases, all on vinyl and all by people new to me. I started with a quartet, Monopass; four musicians on a synthesiser and one doing live processing. They are Oxana Omelchuk, Luís Antunes Pena(also Live Processing), Mark Polscher, and Florian Zwißler. They recorded their album in Cologne, so maybe they are from that beautiful German city. The only information is “oscillating between analogue and digital logics, four positions of electronic music focus on a common point.” There are two sidelong pieces of music, just over 32 minutes. While the improvisation aspect is apparent, I wonder about something else, and perhaps my lack of knowledge about modular synthesisers: is four more than one? Couldn’t this be achieved by one musician or two, and what would it sound like if there were ten? We can never know it, as we know there are four. In terms of music, which is the only thing that counts, it bounces back and forth between somewhat radical peeps and scratches and more introspective drone work, oscillating, bubbling, and the interaction (there you go) between the sounds (and thus the players) works very well. I wonder how much editing there has been in the music and how much they recorded. Is this the product of endless refining, or can this be done in a relatively short time frame, depending on how well the chemistry is? I enjoyed the record and felt something left to be fulfilled, but I don’t know what it is.
‘memorial 6.0’, the official spelling of Oona Kastner’s debut album, sees her playing keyboards, laptop, and singing, with Hartmut Kracht on baritone guitar and Marvin Blamberg on drums and electronics. This is, sorry for my lack of understanding and refined definition, a rock record, “a ritual, a black mass, as the composition refers to the ordinarium missae, the parts of liturgy that will never change. A transconfessional prayer. A hymn to nature and its swan song at the same time, ” says the label. There are lots of heavy guitar parts, furious drums, and lots of heartfelt singing, very musical, very rock-like, all quite dark and obscure, so yeah, it is a black mass or ritual indeed, but also something that went way over my head. Only a drum and guitar-free ‘Part 4’ (why no titles if something is so text heavy?), all about some mysteriously delivered introspective, almost a capella piece, but that was the exception on this record. I am sure this is great, but far outside our field of reference.
The best release, I thought, was the 7″, at least one that I may understand best. I understand Meat.Karaoke.Quality.Time is the trio of Florian Walter, Jan Klare (EWI, Live Processing & Moog Synthesizers), and Karl-F. Degenhardt (Sensory Percussion & SPD-X). It all deals with some instrument they created, allowing them to do some on-the-spot remixing and processing, resulting in two hyperactive pieces of music. It’s as if they throw the history of recorded music into a blender, put the machine on ‘maximum blending’ and record the output. If you can imagine such a thing, it’s like musique concrète on steroids—a sort of plunderphonics on speed. I understand this 7″ is the teaser for a soon-to-be-released album, and I am curious about that. Will it all be this style, and isn’t that going to be too much? We’ll see! (FdW)
––– Address: https://umlandrecords.bandcamp.com/artists

MURMUR & SICK DAYS (cassette by Vacancy Recs)

Before starting this review, I had this brain wave to check my facts. To me, Murmer is a musical project by Patrick McGinley, who lives in Estonia. I was surprised to see him team up with SICK DAYS, Jeffrey Sinibaldi’s musical project. The fact-checking was triggered by what I read in the email: “Trans-LakeOntario collaboration btw Toronto-based Murmur and Niagara-based SICK DAYS.” Maybe Ginley moved? But it turns out this is someone else whose Bandcamp page is called Murmur Noise. I found the music to be not very much McGinley-like; maybe that was a give away too. The music gets the following description; “Tape hiss transmissions of the barely audible + the clunk-thud-&-klang of highway traffic, winds, radios, voices, etc.” that’s very much what I hear. There is lots of hiss and white noise, but these two musicians fiddle with the equalisation, finding the low-end frequency range and giving that a boost. This is especially true in the side-long first track. Some of SICK DAYS trademark rumbling of acoustic objects happens in the three other (and shorter) tracks on the other side. There is that microphone dragging across the pavement idea, along with the highly amplified electrical charges of the environment. The music is very obscure, working with what I think people would call unwanted sounds, especially on the first side, the side-long ‘1nd place’. There is more sound and less hiss in the other three pieces. Sometimes, like ‘4rd Quarter’, it sounds like a tape recorder doing field recordings (a harbour, perhaps) inside a metal box, so it all becomes muffled and hushed. The second side is less conceptual and more musical; well, as John Cage said, ‘you don’t need to call it music if the term shocks you’. I enjoyed that approach more than the somewhat static approach of the first side, but throughout, it’s a very consistent release. (FdW)
––– Address: https://vacancyniagara.bandcamp.com/

SLOW BLINK/STOMACHACHE (split cassette by Hectare)
MARSHA FISHER – POSTURES (cassette by Hectare)

In Vital Weekly 1412 I reviewed a split cassette by two USA-based projects, Slow Blink (no other names known) and Stomachache, probably the work of Grant Richardson, also responsible for the mastering. I didn’t list a label, but now I understand these to be by a Hectare label. On side A, we find Slow Blink, Amanda Haswell’s musical project, and she continues to work with loops, maybe created on old reels, maybe digital, and feeds these through effects, panning them left and right, and keeps shifting these back and forth as the piece evolves. Sometimes, other sounds come to the foreground; sometimes, they return, but seemingly more crumbled and decaying. That’s what Slow Blink does; she does a great job at it. The music is a pleasant, louder-than-usual form of ambient music; think William Basinski, but with a bit more force, a bit more on the old-school industrial music side of things. Last time, I mentioned early zoviet*france, and that still goes.
As said, I think Grant Richardson is behind Stomachache, and all we know is Stomachache is responsible for “all sounds recorded and mixed”. Here, too, we find a similar approach of using tape-loops, again old reels or digital, but Stomachache is even louder than Slow Blink, more industrial than ambient. Unlike the previous cassette, the music stays loud throughout in two parts that I think this piece has. Subtle shifts within the music guarantee variety, and while minimal, it never remains too long in the same place.
On ‘Postures’, we find four compositions by Marsha Fisher, another new name. She also goes by names such as Crustaceanation, Sea Hearse, Wicked Piss, and something indicated by the two dads/two sons emoji. Otherwise, I know nothing, and that’s a pity. These four pieces, about five minutes each, are interesting and challenging to define. Think electro-acoustic music, but what the acoustic part is, I don’t know. Objects or percussive bits. Think musique concrète mixed with improvisation, so it seems there’s not a lot of electronic processing, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. ‘Clock’ is one piece where she might use electronics or even software processing. These sounds are subtly direct as if a microphone hangs over a table covered with objects, which Fisher rubs and shakes about. There might also be a turntable; I think I heard this in ‘Knots’ and ‘Spine’. While not particularly quiet music, subtle is the word to describe, and directness is the key word here. It’s a pity this cassette is only 22 minutes long. Too short for the curious mind who wants to know more. (FdW)
––– Address: https://hectare.bigcartel.com/

END, RED DRESS – THE BRINK (cassette, private)

I reviewed the first cassette by End, Red Dress in Vital Weekly 1430. I enjoyed that cassette from this otherwise unknown Dutch musician. Today, a new cassette arrived, again in a frame for a painting, and it’s 30 minutes long. Let’s start with a spoiler alert: way too short! There’s an update on his Bandcamp, and it now reads: “consonant drones, dodgy electronics, field recordings, broken loops, grim melodies, hints of feedback, and background noises. One or more or none of the above yet always an abyss”. Perfect description, and a review could end here. I hear a guitar, some crudely cut, very vaguely recognisable as percussion loops, lots of hiss and lots of spacious droning, and that’s just the first track, ‘just a little farther than eyes could see’. These four pieces are deliciously lo-fi and grainy. Broken, rusty, fading, all those words apply to the music here. I believe the previous cassette was a bit more conceptual. Musically speaking, these four pieces are diverse and more musical, not with an overall thematic approach, and I admit I enjoy this new approach more. It’s musical yet abstract and ambient with a neat, rough edge. Great. What more could I possibly add? Oh, it’s 30 minutes, and that’s not enough. Double that, please! Of course, very limited, but there’s a pay-what-you-want download on Bandcamp. (FdW)
––– Address: https://endreddress.bandcamp.com/

QUINTEN DIERICK – BEHEADINGS 4 (cassette by Kringloop Kassettes)

A few weeks ago was the official release of the latest batch of Kringloop Kassettes. And slowly I’m going through all of them, but here I have a problem. A release on which I get stuck because I haven’t the faintest clue what to do with it. My head is making over hours on what I’m hearing; I’m trying to comprehend everything I’m hearing and connect the dots. If you listen to the release, you might understand what I mean.
I had never heard of Quinten before this release. The international database of information, better known as the World Wide Web, tells me he is an artist with mostly abstract output in visual and auditive aspects. As a sonic artist – probably better than a musician – he is also active in Belch and e.m.i.r.s projects. But those are also unfamiliar to me. So, everything I hear and read is new. I have been looking for other ‘Beheadings’ as this release is titled “Beheadings 4”, but no such luck. One can only think and fantasise here.
The 90-minute tape has two long tracks named “untitled”, but the two sides of the cassette are entirely different. Side A is highly diverse with sounds. Maybe eclectic is the term to use, but I’m a bit hesitant to use exactly that term. It’s experimental, weird, incoherent at moments, sometimes harsh, and quite ‘arty’ at other moments. In some moments, it’s almost like a Pollock painting where all kinds of sounds are thrown onto a canvas; at different moments, it’s more like Kiefer’s techniques: They could be anything as long as they do the trick. The resulting composition, however, lacks a bit of coherency. It’s like a ‘study for sound on canvas’; yes, there are many beautiful moments and experiments. But … But …
And then there is that other side of the release. Here it’s the sonic painting you were looking for on the first side. Like a Plinko pyramid, everything falls into its place. It’s almost magic. What you first thought wouldn’t combine suddenly combines. Looks, drones, noises … Everything. Except maybe for those last few minutes, I forgive Quinten. That’s a composition, too, just not ‘mine’. In a museum and knowing what would be in that final room, I’d skip it. I would leave the museum inspired and mesmerised. (BW)
––– Address: https://kringloopkassettes.bandcamp.com/

LICHT-UNG – MERZT (cassette by Kringloop Kassettes)

licht-ung is Johannes Garbe, and this release is, without a doubt, a beauty in his portfolio. Sure we all have heard stuff by him under his many monikers or listened to releases on his licht-ung or spalt-ung label, but this release is exceptional. The release title is “MerzT”, and I’ve written it like this to emphasise the Merz. The ‘T’ probably means it’s a tape, but everything here relates to the original Merzbau, not to Akita Masami or his brainchild Merzbow.
Marzbau was a project by Kurt Schwitters, who, between 1923 and 1937, worked on an ever-evolving room with art. Each aspect in the room was art as a particle of a more significant piece of art. I will probably be a bit off, but if it interests you, please explore because the internet is your friend. Become more then who you were before by learning and reading. Or, in this case, something becomes more art because it evolves like Merzbau. But as I said, that’s my interpretation of this release.
The origin was recorded on 2017/07/22, and Johannes reworked it on 2025/02/24 with two 35-minute tracks, “Merci” and “Bbau”. The source of these recordings is a minimalist piano recording, which is treated increasingly heavily as time passes. Musically, it differs between minimal and experimental noise, and it’s simply something that you play, and you just let it evolve. Which effects all have been used, I can’t tell you. Some reverse reverb techniques can be heard. I suspect some granular treating, but it’s great to have the minimalist theme evolve into chaotic patterns and then hear the harmonics of different themes create a whole different piece, which is still the same in some way. And that is still only the first side of the tape. The reverse side emphasises the treatment more than the original piano sounds, although they are still recognisable. Electroacoustic noise? I haven’t got the faintest clue. But it’s massive and triggers your mind whether you like it or not. (BW)
––– Address: https://kringloopkassettes.bandcamp.com/

NYLAND – MODAL COLLAPSE (cassette by Kringloop Kassettes)

Peter Johan Nijland is not ‘just’ another musician; he is a Musician with a capital M. He might even be part of projects you never thought of as a kind of silent partner, but let’s see. Solo, he is also known as Æter, Mr. Pure, nOh v°v and The Antler Man, and further as a member of Blitzkrieg Baby, Distel, Dynasti, Hadewych, Huttenkloas, Norn, O Saala Sakraal, Skymme, Syntax Pony, Trepaneringsritualen and the legendary Volksweerbaarheid. Yes, it’s THAT Peter. And how do musicians become good musicians like him? They experiment, and they learn. And on “Modal Collapse”, Peter shows us how he experiments, resulting in a 50-minute release with his explorations.
Early this month, he made a post on his FaceBook profile, and I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting from that post. He had the chance to use the granular synth created by Dutch firm Tasty Chips Electronics, a massive monster. Just point your search engine towards “GR-Mega Granular Workstation” if you’re interested in that kind of stuff. Peter aimed to explore what my creativity could look like if the balance of my early fascinations with sound and exposure to influences had shifted in various ways.’ Sounds interesting, right? ‘[The] process was to intuitively start each track with a sound from my library that had remained unused for reasons of not fitting within my current creative paradigms.’
The result of this is an album that’s not an album but that will sound like an album to those open to experiments. Despite the conceptual approach, the tracks definitely have a beautiful coherence. Here and there are small moments of imperfection with resonance, for example, but it doesn’t break the atmosphere. It only adds to the lo-fi atmosphere of the release being on cassette. Peter says about the release as a whole, ‘Normally I would keep this kind of escapades to myself, but in the spirit of recycling and the onset of spring, it felt like a proper thing to put them out in the sun for a change.’ And you know, he’s right. More artists should do things like that. Listen to “Used To Mean Something” or “Gnosis Conduit”. Imagine that no one would have a chance to listen to those tracks! That would be horrible! (BW)
––– Address: https://kringloopkassettes.bandcamp.com/

SARA MILAZZO / BARRETT E. LEDIARD (split cassette by Hyster Tapes)

Just like Vacancy Recs reviewed earlier, Hyster Tapes from Finland deals with recycled cassettes, and they are connected to a world of unknown musicians. They usually please us with some excellent music, and this new cassette is no different. I don’t know anything about these musicians and the instruments they use. Like many others in the catalogue of Hyster Tapes, there’s a typical free and lo-fi approach to music production, and that’s not saying the approaches are the same, as I learned.
On side A, there’s music by Sara Milazzo, working with a synthesiser, an old and analogue one, plus primitive samples, mainly voices and percussion, plus whatever mish-mash of machines she could find. There’s a side-long piece of music, shifting back and forth between the samples and the synth, and it has a wonderfully rusty approach and somehow, somewhere, sounds quite like the 1980s cassette releases. Nothing is too strictly organised on this cassette, yet not too loose.
The other side also contains a side-long piece of music. Barrett E. Lediard has a guitar and recorded this on various cassettes and plays these simultaneously, adding some electronics to the melee, creating a minimally shifting chaos. Unlike Milazzo, who mucks and shifts about, going through various stages and shifts, Lediard stays in one place throughout and sprinkles his muddy darkness throughout this tape. Cut to length says the label, but it appears complete as far as I can see. Lovely stuff! (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.pcuf.fi/~plaa/hyster.html