Week 16

FREDERIK RASTEN – MURMURATION AND STASIS (CD by Moving Furniture Records)
JOHN AVERY – JESSICA IN THE ROOM OF LIGHTS (CD by Klanggalerie)
ALTERNATIVE TV – DIRECT ACTION SPECIAL EDTION (CD by Fourth Dimension)
ERIC LACASA – ZONES PORTUAIRES 2 (CD by Swarming)
RAYLENE CAMPBELL – SECRET POCKETS (CD by Honey Farm)
KAUNSEL – PIXEL GEOMETRY (LP by Honey Farm)
JACOB AUDREY TAVES – THE REMAINING FUNCTIONALITY OF ABANDONED STATES (LP by Honey Farm)
REAE/MATT MCKENZIE (split cassette by Honey Farm)
JACOB AUDREY TAVES – NON-BINARY CEO (DVD-R by Panospria)
CALEB DUVAL – VOL 21 (CD by F.I.M. Records)
ROMA AMOR – ESTEMPORANEA (CD by Klanggalerie)
GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO & RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – PAINTING A PICTURE / PICTURE A PAINTING (LP by Moving Furniture Records)
COSMIC DREAM CLUB – FUTURES OF A NONEXISTENT PAST (CDR by Cosmic Dream Records)
VERTONEN – ON COMPANY BUSINESS (CDR & 3” CDR by Ballast)
POPE JOANNA – HOLY FURNACE (CDR by Ballast)
LAST ACTION – ALIEN CHROME (CDR by Love Earth Music)
ABRASION ADDICT & ANIMAL MACHINE – SPLIT (CDR by Love Earth Music)
+DOG+ – THE LIGHT OF OUR LIVES (2CDR by Love Earth Music)
PETROGLIFI SOLUBILI – SCRITTE SUL RETRO (CDR, private)
SINDRE BJERGA – DECOY SOUND (CDR by Love Earth Music)
ALLAN ZANE & CARL KRUGER – MODEL COLLAPSE (CDR by Love Earth Music)
JUICE MACHINE – YACHATS (CDR by Love Earth Music)

FREDERIK RASTEN – MURMURATION AND STASIS (CD by Moving Furniture Records)

Over the (recent) years, I reviewed various releases by Berlin-based guitarist Frederik Rasten. Some of these are solo, and some with others. He’s a member of the Harmonic Space Orchestra and groups as Pip and Oker; I haven’t heard their music. I understand he recently “explored experimental approaches to Scottish and English traditional songs, in duo collaborations with Seamus Cater and Alasdair Roberts”, and his work was released by labels such as SOFA, Edition Wandelweiser, Ftarri and INSUB. This may be an indication of the kind of music he plays, verging on improvisation and modern composition. His latest solo CD, ‘Murmuration And Stasis’, has four pieces using six guitars played with Ebows. This is right up my alley.
Described as “subtly diverging sound facets of just intonation harmony”, which in my book is beautiful, minimalist drone music. It’s part of a series of works by ‘Svevning’ (Vital Weekly 1305) and ‘Six Moving Guitars (Vital Weekly 1183) are also part along with the not reviewed ‘Lineaments’ and ‘Strands of Lunar Light’. Each of the four pieces is around ten minutes. In it, Rasten explores his drones by gradually shifting sounds around, slow crescendos and descrescendos, but without dropping the volume entirely. The music subtly changes. Phill Niblock’s music might be a helpful reference, and I know he liked a massive volume. Still, at home, I enjoy this music at a moderate volume, letting it work the waves of my living room. I go slowly about in this space, and the sound moves with me through this space – different angels make different frequencies, and while that might be the brains playing tricks, I don’t mind being fooled. I love it. This is an excellent release! (FdW)
––– Address: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/

JOHN AVERY – JESSICA IN THE ROOM OF LIGHTS (CD by Klanggalerie)

Somehow, I was convinced I had reviewed John Avery’s music before, for instance, the re-issue of his debut LP, ‘Nighthawks’, originally from 1985, re-issued by Klanggalerie in 2017. And perhaps I saw him in 1986 opening up for O Yuki Conjugate when they played in my hometown. That was when he released his second album ‘Jessica In The Room Of Lights’. In my memory, he played the piano during his concert, but it’s been so long ago that I am probably wrong. Klanggalerie now re-issues that second LP. I admit I didn’t know both his albums when they were released, being young and penniless; I heard O Yuki Conjugate’s record from a friend, so I went to the concert. Avery’ was a member of Hula (something I learned today), but his solo music is different. It is more akin to the ambient music of O Yuki Conjugate but much more intimate, working with smaller sounds and eerie textures; lots of synthesised sounds, spacious delay and reverb, and in the opening track, ‘Do This To Another Human Being’, also lovingly lo-fi. This piece reminded me of the delayed electric piano and faint pulse of the lost treasure of A Tent. That piece is a bit of an oddball on this album, as other tracks are hazier and more spacious, spinning sounds around, sustaining more. There’s also the voice, humming and singing, creating an excellent distraction. The lo-fi aspect should be understood when working with a few keyboards, a home studio and outboard effects, adding a nice crudeness to the music, and the music isn’t too smooth. Still, it sounds reflective and ambient but playful and varied, not according to the ambient playbook, which is excellent. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.klanggalerie.com/

ALTERNATIVE TV – DIRECT ACTION SPECIAL EDTION (CD by Fourth Dimension)

Getting a promo of a CD already reviewed when it first appeared on vinyl is always a bit of a thing. The special edition, in this case, is a bonus track. Should I write a new review, re-run the old one, or refer to the link? This time, I went for the rerun, previously in Vital Weekly 1411: “When I reviewed the ‘Lost In Room’ book (Vital Weekly 1393) about Mark Perry’s early years with his band Alternative TV, it was summertime, perhaps a bit slower than usual, and as I mentioned, his music is something that I didn’t hear at the time of its release, I decided to download some and try to fill that knowledge gap. I listened to a few, but far from all, time is the one thing I don’t have enough of. I believe Fourth Dimension released more Alternative TV than they sent for review, but I can imagine why they thought this one would be a good one to mail. The six pieces on this record show a slightly noisier side to ATV than we are used to. ATV here is Perry and Dave Morgan, who plays on all six pieces, but guests Gareth Matthews, Ruth Tidmarsh and Cos Chapman. Instruments aren’t mentioned, but there are guitars, percussion, electronics, loops, and samples, and throughout the music plays with the noisy side of improvisation, along with repeating patterns of sound and electronics—an uneasy yet pleasant marriage. In ‘Saudade’, there is a high piercing sound and a whirlwind of voices (no words; nowhere on this record), looped and treated, creating a pleasing, menacing sound—minimalist music with a maximalist effect. In ‘Cornelius C’ (Cardew, I wonder), they bang on metal percussion, as Merzbow did in the mid-1980s. Still, he did so without the accompaniment of the drone ATV running in the background, while the title track is a bit of acoustic noise and freaky electronics on top. Freaking out is the primary motive of this record, and it made me very happy. It combines excellent noise (or rather what I think is incredible noise; my view might not be commonly accepted) with the best of improvisation, most of the time buried within the noise, and makes some satisfactory records. Once again, Alternative TV is not what it seems to be, and that’s the power of it all, at least from my limited knowledge of these matters. I could end with: I will try again to fill that gap, but I already know I will fail again.”
Following that review, I heard more from Alternative TV and even saw a concert, which was quite different from the material on this CD, and I still think this is an excellent release. Since I am more of a CD than a vinyl person, it’s great to have this on CD. (FdW)
––– Address: https://fourthdimensionrecords.bigcartel.com/

ERIC LACASA – ZONES PORTUAIRES 2 (CD by Swarming)

I admit I rarely think about commercial harbours; I may not have even been in many of those, and yet I heard many harbour sounds on the releases with field recordings. I learned from his new release by Eric LaCasa that in commercial parts, safety is paramount. It has to do with security and safety, helmets and footwear. At various times in the last eight years, LaCasa made recordings in ports in Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Porto, Istanbul and Sydney and even pointed out where he was, sometimes within the harbour, or a boat, or, what I assume, was a bit further away. The music here deals with that closed space that is the harbour, with much of the action being automated. The lifting of containers, the banging and clanging of objects, some water sounds and lorries driving around. You don’t need to have been in many places to recognise those sounds instantly. No doubt, movies play a significant role here as well. It’s quite a captivating release. Lots of machine-like sounds, rusty and mechanical, even industrial, but also, at times, surprisingly quiet; save for some voices in the short ‘Les Radiocommunications’, it seems devoid of any human interaction. I know they’re controlling the machines, but otherwise, this seems like a robot-controlled environment, full of dirty sounds: chains, ropes, an alarm going off in the distance. LaCasa tells a compelling tale of an environment most of us have no idea about, and maybe it’s an abstract story, but it indeed sounds excellent. This is another of those conceptual LaCasa releases that are both conceptual and enjoyable to hear. (FdW)
––– Address: https://swarming.bandcamp.com/

RAYLENE CAMPBELL – SECRET POCKETS (CD by Honey Farm)
KAUNSEL – PIXEL GEOMETRY (LP by Honey Farm)
JACOB AUDREY TAVES – THE REMAINING FUNCTIONALITY OF ABANDONED STATES (LP by Honey Farm)
REAE/MATT MCKENZIE (split cassette by Honey Farm)
JACOB AUDREY TAVES – NON-BINARY CEO (DVD-R by Panospria)

Honey Farm is a new label from Edmonton, Canada. These are the first four releases. I recognise only one name; the rest are new names. Sadly, the label’s Bandcamp isn’t forthcoming with information about these musicians, which is a pity.
I started with Raylene Campbell’s ‘Secrets Pockets’. From the artist’s website, I understand Campbell is a certified Deep Listening Instructor and active in the Deep Listening community, studying in New York and Montreal. “Her practice relies entirely on sound samples collected specifically for each piece, with recent projects exploring sexuality and gender; environment, acoustic ecology, and spiritual belief systems; and abandoned, traditional instrumental practices […] incorporating accordion drones and improvisations to intense, noisy, beat-driven machine sounds collected from sex toys and other found objects. The accordion plays a role in the ‘November Drone VIP Mix’, the opening track here. This is the album’s purest drone piece and maybe the one in the best Pauline Oliveros tradition. I must be careful here as I am only partially familiar with her work. It’s an excellent, expansive music piece with a warm sound, slowly meandering about and not too static. In ‘Slipping Through The Veil’ and ‘basin’ (no capital needed there), the music is also drone-like, but it comes with a looped rhythm, a sample of some hard-to-define acoustic kind, which in the latter close becomes close to being a dance rhythm in the best Alva Noto tradition. Between those two is the longest piece of the album, ‘Rumble rumble’, which is also the most experimental piece. I am unsure, but I would like to think Campbell uses the accordion as a big sounding board played with motorised objects (maybe sex toys?), and the drones in this piece are pretty abstract and very dense; also not as musical as in the other three pieces. Still, it manages to sound excellent for the entire 18 minutes. Great release!
Behind Kaunsel is one Parker Thiessen, and there were two previous releases, both cassettes, in 2017 and 2018. I know nothing about the instruments used, inspiration, or such things. His website wasn’t too specific about these things. The music is electronic and laptop-based but uses samples of guitars and drums. Disclaimer: I think. There’s a long side piece, ‘Chromatic Apparition’, on side A and three six-minute tracks on the other. I enjoyed that long piece with its drifting and repeating patterns, shifting and moving about, and on top, Kaunsel plays occasional, individual notes. This has quite a hypnotic feel! Sadly, the same hypnosis isn’t what I found in the three shorter pieces. Here, Kaunsel uses a similar approach of shifting patterns, with different sounds, more percussive, for instance, in ‘Grain Hopper’, or a guitar in ‘Music For Error Messages’, which is the weakest link on this record, with its plonky guitar sound. I miss the tension in these pieces, only faintly present in ‘Cosmic Fool’. Maybe I miss some context here? As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed the first side.
Jacob Audrey Taves is the name I recognised, albeit long ago. The last time I reviewed his music was in Vital Weekly 1124, but that was an extensive gap, too; before that, it was in Vital Weekly 974, a work he did with EMERGE. Back then, he worked as Holzkopf. Taves’ music is all over the place, dwelling heavily on samples. Sometimes, it goes towards drum ‘n bass (or whatever sub-genre thereof) but leans towards noise and a bit of ambient. Everything goes into that blender we call the sampler, and with some firm push of the button, everything grinds, collapses, meshes and messes up. The outcome is a steady flow of unpredictable music. There’s no specific genre name for Taves’ music; it defies description. One moment, it’s crazy dance-like music, then minimalist electronic soundscapes with flickers of noise, such as in the closing piece, ‘Red Zone Application Process’, and then stuttering, fragmented and glitching. None of the dance beats are aimed at the dancefloor (at least, I don’t think so), but it’s a plunderphonic mesh-up of dance music. As said, this music has a minimalist thread, even with all the buzzing chaos. Because some pieces are longer, you recognise and follow the patterns of a piece. This record is a wild ride, which left me somewhat exhausted.
Last but not least is the split cassette between REAE and Matt McKenzie—the first recorded ‘harhangarengare’ in 2023, using field recordings, live coding and electronics, while the other recorded ‘A slow walk through’ in 2024-2025, using live coding and synthesis using Supercollider. Sadly (spoiler!) a short cassette, only 17 minutes long, meaning two pieces of just over eight minutes. The REAE piece is the slow builder of what hears like rumbling on an empty factory floor, rubbing metal upon metal, with some obscure electronic colouring of the result – maybe that is what live coding means? McKenzie’s piece starts with some quiet keyboard tinkling, with some gaps, gradually becoming less peaceful. After about three minutes, the piece changes completely, becoming a mighty drone piece. Is this the result of Supercollider going wild over the opening tones? Or maybe it’s something completely different. The mighty buzz dies out over an extended fade out.
The package with these four promos was mailed from The Netherlands, where Taves recently played a few concerts. He also included a DVD-R of his work merging music with visuals. His video work is very abstract, as is to be expected and consists of images being heavily treated and saturated. Does it fit the music? I am no expert here. The music follows very much what I heard the other day on LP – it seemed wise to give it a rest! There are various parts (40 minutes of continuous music!), some quieter and introspective, shifting the balance radically, more than on the LP, I think. It is a nice little bonus and I guess, something that
shows what Taves does in concert. (FdW)
––– Address: https://honeyfarm.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://jacobaudreytaves.bandcamp.com/

CALEB DUVAL – VOL 21 (CD by F.I.M. Records)

Caleb Duval is a bass player hailing from Connecticut. He founded FIM Recordings together with Luke Rovinsky. Both have been featured here on Vital Weekly. The previous volumes of Caleb Duval doing his thing were all digital releases on another label: first name, last name, with vol. 15, 17 and 18 missing from their Bandcamp page. What happened there, ‘Caleb Volume 21’ is filled to the brim with sound explorations, added samples of songs (Pink Floyd, trash metal, rap) with, in the case of Pink Floyd, an added solo layer by Caleb with a gnarly result. His addition/reaction clashes heavily with the cover of the Pink Floyd song. Several songs have titles of musicians he plays with: the aforementioned Luke Rovinsky, but also Michael Larocca, a drummer and Laurel Marsh, a singer/bass player with the thrash metal band Suicide Dream from Connecticut, who also has some adorable solo stuff out. There’s more to be said about the titles Duval chose. For example, Alse Young was the first woman to be hanged for witchcraft in the US. The proceedings took place in Connecticut in 1647. Anyway, that’s enough googling for now. 70 minutes of bass improvisation on electric bass and double bass. And I have to say: never a dull moment on this release. Duval has excellent skills on both instruments and takes the listener (including himself) on an adventurous journey. Shorter bursts all over the fretboard are interspersed with sensitive bowing and everything in between, with or without pedals. It’s quite a ride. My advice? Listen to this with open ears and no distractions. The music on this CD (and Duval) deserves your utmost attention. (MDS)
––– Address: https://fimimprovisation.bandcamp.com/

ROMA AMOR – ESTEMPORANEA (CD by Klanggalerie)

I think Klanggalerie is an excellent label with a diverse interest in music. I love their re-issues of classic works from the 1980s cassette underground, plus new works by those musicians. Their improvised music releases do not always enamour me, but I see how they fit the re-issue works. And there is pop music. Roma Amor is an example of that, and here’s where Klanggalerie loses Vital Weekly’s interest. It’s not that I don’t like pop music; it’s not something I know about, and I have no frame of reference and therefore think we shouldn’t write about it. This is not something I thought of today, but I wrote this on multiple occasions before. Let me quote some of the information about this group. “Roma Amor is a neofolk / dark cabaret band from Italy. Their music is located somewhere between the melodic folk-inflected charm of the 1960s Italian songwriters and the cabaret swoon of French chansonniers, Roma Amor’s music is instinctively romantic and sophisticated, and can be described as chanson noir or folk cabaret.” It’s easy to see why nothing of this is about something I know or heard before. They had some releases on Old Europa Cafe, with “‘On The Wire’ released on Klanggalerie, extending the group’s line-up by inviting guest musicians to perform and extending the sound to a more sophisticated pop-orientated music. […] Now, in 2025 we are proud to present you Estemporanea, an album recorded live in the studio with brand new and very different versions of songs spanning the group’s whole career. For this event, the band consisted of Candela on guitar and accordion, Euski on vocals, drums, acoustic guitar and kazoo, Matteo Cardio on electric guitar and Renzo Famiglietti on saxophone.” With songs in Italian, there is also something lost on those who don’t understand the language.
I know this isn’t a review of any kind. This CD could do well, as it sounds very smooth and accessible. But this promo would have been better off in a big pop magazine and given the band the attention they needed. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.klanggalerie.com/

GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO & RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – PAINTING A PICTURE / PICTURE A PAINTING (LP by Moving Furniture Records)

Let’s assume Rutger Zuydervelt needs no introduction. His work, either under his Christian name or as Machinefabriek, has been reviewed many times since 2006, easily more than 100 times. He recorded much of his work with others, even though that seems to have become much less in recent years. For this LP, he works with Giovanni di Domenico, born in Rome in 1977 and living in Brussels. According to the information “he shares with many of the musicians he has crossed paths with recently, of which we could enumerate Nate Wooley, Chris Corsano, Arve Henriksen, Jim O’Rourke, Akira Sakata, Alexandra Grimal, Tetuzi Akiyama, Manuel Mota, David Maranha, Norberto Lobo, Helena Espvall, Okkuyng Lee or Toshimaru Nakamura.” (bit of an odd sentence, I think). He plays the piano and Fender Rhodes and sent Zuydervelt some of his recordings. They know each other from a short live improvisation they did in 2019 and Di Domenico joining the Hydra Ensemble (of which Zuydervelt is a part) in 2022. With the recordings came the note that Di Domenico thinks there is a similar approach to creating music, and would Zuydervelt be interested in working with these sounds? Zuydervelt was and also reversed the roles, with Di Domenico receiving some sounds. Hence, the title, ‘Painting a Picture / Picture a painting’, is a mirror. This release has two long pieces, one by each composer, but it’s unclear who did what. In ‘Painting A Picture’, the piano has a central position and electronic shimmer in the best Brian Eno/Harold Budd tradition. Zuydervelt works sparsely with electronics, only later on bowing strings on his guitar. On ‘Picture A Painting’, the balance is more fifty-fifty, the piano taking a slightly sparser role, and the electronics being more on par. Overall, this is also a more abstract piece, with piano notes played sparsely, while on the other more repeating and melodic. It’s pretty different pieces, excellently completing each other. From the stylish ambient music on the first side to the more modern composition approach on the second. This is an excellent album. (FdW)
––– Address: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/

COSMIC DREAM CLUB – FUTURES OF A NONEXISTENT PAST (CDR by Cosmic Dream Records)

Our local ambient meister Yashar, also known as Cosmic Dream Club, returns with a new album, and it’s pretty surprising. In his earlier work, he played ambient music according to the Silent Records and Fax/Namlook trademark rhythmic, ambient house music, giving it a personal swing. Then he did a cassette for Kringloop Kassettes, which was not rhythmic, but grainy lo-fi ambient music. The six pieces on ‘Futures Of A Nonexistent Past’ see Cosmic Dream Club heading in another direction: classic music. With the orchestral sample pack open, there are a lot of string sounds, brass, and piano. All of this is covered with a mist of hazy layers of electronics. None of this is your standard modern classical music. Cosmic Dream Club don’t follow any rules when composing their orchestral music. At least, as far as I know, I admit not to be too knowledgeable about these sorts of things. It’s all meandering about, with sometimes those instruments being upfront, sometimes the electronics, and sometimes it’s all in a perfect balance. What is there is the cloud-like presence of the music, high above in space, moving without direction or purpose. It’s there, and that’s how this release works. Film music, you may ask? I don’t know. It would be a daring director to pick this as a soundtrack for a space-themed flick, but it could work I think. I see long shots of rusty spaceships docking gently on faraway planets, like a ballet in a Kubrick movie, but in grainy shots, I see 1970s-coloured space nebulae far beyond our solar system, and I see… well, quite the metamorphs; you get my cosmic drift. This is a most surprising release, and one that took some time to get my head around, but it works very well. (FdW)
––– Address: https://cosmicdreamclub.bandcamp.com/

VERTONEN – ON COMPANY BUSINESS (CDR & 3” CDR by Ballast)
POPE JOANNA – HOLY FURNACE (CDR by Ballast)

As always, Vertonen knows to surprise me. He always varies what he does, always with different results. Ten years ago, Blake Edwards received the optical device from Eric Lunde. “For those unfamiliar, think of a device that accelerates the duplication process, exemplified by Alvin Lucier’s “I am sitting in a room.” If you know Lunde’s work, you know his signature sound; it’s that simple. Veronen applies this to his sounds and takes another leaf out of Lunde’s work, using a lot of voice material, cassette players and feedback. The sound sources were lifted from the 1980 documentary ‘On Company Business’. It sounds more like Eric Lunde than Vertonen, but still, elements of Vertonen’s drone work can be heard here, and this time is part of a bigger thing: the voice manipulations. We must see this in a sort of William Burroughs cut-up way, words receiving new meaning, or perhaps more of a scrambled transmission. The nine pieces are short (two to five minutes), very Lunde-like, and very unlike Vertonen, but they sound great. It’s maybe more musical than your usual Eric Lunde material, less conceptual, and these distorted transmissions work very well. The 3″CDR contains one piece, ‘Activation Sequence String’, exploring ” one of the outgrowths of “mind control” projects of the CIA’s MKULTRA project”, whatever that means (knowing what MKUltra is!), and is an all-electronic piece, of nervously shifting short tones, no doubt hypnotic, to gain control to the brain; or, also likely, to enjoy this is a computer-driven tribute to Steve Reich and phase shifting techniques.
There’s noise music on Ballast but not a lot of power electronics. Pope Joanna is named after the only female pope, perhaps a fictional tale. It’s also the name of a musical project by Clarisse Ducasse, acquianted with Blake Edwards, the label boss here (and Vertonen) for some 25 years. They toured together back then, and Ducasse put her project on a hiatus to pursue an academic career and now returns with a final release as Pope Joanna. I don’t think I had heard her work before, but I love some good old-fashioned power electronics from time to time (and more so in recent years than I had for a long time after growing up, as they say); these days, power electronics, for all their misanthropic content, is a reminder of pleasant days cutting and pasting cassette covers. “The lyrics, as Clarisse states, “are almost all based on the hypocrisy of religion, cloaked in the tropes of religious texts: sermons, prayers, etc.” but the thing about lyrics embedded deeply with the hissing and buzzing of a wall of synthesised noise, you can hardly ever understand what these are about, and Pope Joanna is no different. Let’s safely say she’s not a fan of conventional religion. Ducasse does what power electronics artists do best: play loud noise, keys glued down, know twiddling and all effects open. And she does a great job, with the final piece, ‘First Sermon Complete’, as the best piece. The first six minutes are a synthesised organ lament, quite musical at times, with a creepy undercurrent that explodes in some harsh, minimal noise, full-on screaming and agony. Excellent ending! (FdW)
––– Address: http://ballastnvp.blogspot.com/
––– Address: https://vertonen.bandcamp.com/music

LAST ACTION – ALIEN CHROME (CDR by Love Earth Music)

Starting the new stash, which was sent to us by Steve Davis from Love Earth Music, is Last Action. The man behind the project is Carlo Steegen, who has been active for quite some time. As I had not heard of him before (sorry, Carlo), I looked him up on the almighty interweb, and he was the man behind the Audiobot label. And sadly, no, I had never heard of that label either. But my oh my, Any label that will release Sickboy, Government Alpha, and Wilt is a hero in my book. Discogs’ first words on Carlo are ‘noise and Hip-Hop artist’. Well, this explains how the roster of Audiobot ended up the way it did, but it is entirely unrelated to what we hear in this release.
One of his many projects is called Last Action & Friends, and the ‘friends’ on there was just one, Radek Kopel, who we have met before on – for example – the releases he did for Inner Demons Records as RDKPL. But let’s get into it. Five tracks with a total playing time of almost 24 minutes. Relentless harsh noise of the best kind. All the tracks have a lot of dynamics; what strikes me is the production. Even though they’re fully filled – hardly any breathing space – all the layers are distinguishable.
So, to be honest, I’m a bit let down by the fact that it’s only 23 minutes. I could have many more of this. So, how did I solve that problem? There is a repeat function, and I clicked it. It had been playing the whole afternoon while I was doing stuff, and I needed something else than silence. The chaotic patterns brought peace and rest to my chaotic thinking, and I got lots of stuff done. Great stuff. (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

ABRASION ADDICT & ANIMAL MACHINE – SPLIT (CDR by Love Earth Music)

A little over two years ago, I reviewed Abrasion Addict’s “Brutalist Detritus, ” also released on Love Earth Music. Then I described the sound as ‘a crossover between harsh noise and industrial and experimental influences’. The extremes in the three tracks by Abrasion Addict (of whom I still don’t know anything) are still there. The first track, “Malcontent”, still fits that first description. “Malfeasance” is more an exercise in scrap metal noise and looking for the perfect balance between composition and output, at least, that’s the first part of the track. Ultimately, it erupts incredibly violently – even with some analogue synths in the back and some human voice. Holy fuck. The final A.A. track, “Misconduct”, is with its 7 minutes the shortest, but in variation, the most is happening. There are many moments of change, not really cut up, but varied. The sound palette is quite extensive, from synths to contacts, a bit of voice, I believe and shitloads of feedback. A well spent 27 minutes in the mind of whoever Abrasion Addict is (though there is a slight chance he might be Joe Fowler, according to the liner notes).
The second half – and yes, it’s another 27 minutes – is for Animal Machine. A live set recorded in Brighton, UK, in the year 2017. That’s fucking 8 years ago when I was still under 50! But never mind, My mind is going places while listening because the sound is going everywhere. Animal Machine (even less info on him/her/it than on Abrasion Addict) has been active since 2006, and as with so many noisy acts, this is the first time I heard the music. There is just so much happening in the noise scene(s) worldwide. And there are so many different types of noise music.
I can’t really tell what the concept is about or what is happening. If this was all a live show and I attended it, I wouldn’t have known where to look and what to hear. Harsh cut-up, sudden movements, silence, mono, stereo, everything, everywhere, all at once. Yes, I know it’s the title of a 2022 movie, but it could have been the name of this track, too. It’s like a travel through a multiverse in 27 minutes. And if I’m honest, this one is better. (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

+DOG+ – THE LIGHT OF OUR LIVES (2CDR by Love Earth Music)

And here we have Steve Davis from Love Earth Music himself. His +DOG+ project has not really managed to no surprise or dissatisfy me, so I’m diving in right away. Volume is set to a proper lever, I have a little Text Editor open on my computer, and the first disc is in the player. The first track on “The Light Of Our Lives” is called “Painter Of Paintings”, and it’s already great. What a nice balance of sounds and layers here. The second track, “Preemptive Love”, seems to be the noise of Steve and someone drumming. It’s not unlike the Peace & Love project on LEM, and well, I’m less fond of improvised drums, but I have nothing to complain about as the noise makes up for it.
Tracks 3, 4 and 5 are all reserved for Steve doing Steve things. Various ways of sound creation and composition can be heard, as well as multiple styles of noise because you know +DOG+ doesn’t stick to just one genre or output. The variety of things makes it an interesting project and why I keep returning to positive words and descriptions. The following two tracks are again based on drums and noise, but then there is “The First Day In This World”, a 16-minute epic composition with almost everything you can imagine. Starting with some guitar riffs in the background, slowly, a layer of post-apocalyptic sounds gets pushed toward the front. And as layers of subtle rattling noises develop … Wait … More guitar … Harmonics … Some intense bass rumbling. Is it over? Was that 16 minutes?
I’m left puzzled, and it’s always good if music does that. I mean, these are not silly pop songs we’re listening to. There is no structure in chaos (mostly) and it’s all about atmospheres. The 40 minutes of CD1 passed but we’re not sad. There are another 35 minutes on disc 2. It’s all just too much to put on one disc, so best to make it into a nice package.
Disc 2 is another exercise in different ways to make music. Some harsher tracks, some tracks with drums again, some almost minimal ambient drone noise (“Crows Around”), harsh cup-up (“Sunflowers 2”) and of course, some extreme experimentations in minimalism (“Once There Were Woods There” and “The Silence Of Sound”). Many songs remain under or just on the 3-minute mark, and that’s a pity. Only the somewhat hypnotic cut-up analogue experiment “The End Of Hopelessness” got the time to develop itself before it ended after seven minutes and 1 second.
“The Light Of Our Lives”, I think, is what makes Steve Steve. He loves to experiment and look beyond the horizon. He is not afraid to do things and experiment and learn from it. And put his learnings into the next album because he releases quite a lot, as you might know. Maybe it’s time for another one in the X-Series where a few of these experiments can develop more. I would be curious how, for example, “This One Life” would develop if it got more time than the three minutes it has now. Oh, and the Bandcamp download for the Homo Universalis Digitalis gets a bonus track, “DeRevolution 1,” which is a tribute to the glory that is feedback. Great one, Steve! (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

PETROGLIFI SOLUBILI – SCRITTE SUL RETRO (CDR, private)

This is the third time within a year that Loris Zecchin from Trieste, Italy, made it into the Vital. Frans reviewed his first two releases in VW 1445 and 1468, and now it’s my turn. I don’t know anything other than what was written in the Vital, so I’m just gonna play the music and share a secret with you without trying to find out more. Because I’ve had the tracks already for two weeks here, and I have listened to them more than once. Yes. But I didn’t write about it yet and you know why? Because there is a complexity here, I don’t know what to do with it.
If I keep it simple, There are three tracks, totalling under 40 minutes, and it’s an Italian artist making experimental music. But that wouldn’t be fair to Loris and you. So … Let’s try.
Petroglifi Solubili is a relatively new project, and from what I understood from the previous reviews in VW, the main instrument is a Roland 404 sampler, which is just about maxed out on all possible levels. There is a lot of cut ‘n paste techniques being used and sudden movements in the compositions. But this wasn’t created just over night. A lot (and I mean a LOT) of thinking and preparation time has been put into these tracks. Sound generation and samples have been carefully matched so the frequencies don’t collide too much and there is enough pressure on all bands. The balance between the chaos and subtle melody / recurrent themes is also well chosen, and when you think you lost track of the composition, there is a small reminder of how you got there. And we’re still only talking about the first track, “Bibelots”.
“Occhi bistrati” is more relaxed and knows a few pads/string sounds. I wouldn’t call it rhythm, but plenty of staccato sounds could have been recorded in a kitchen or on a farm. The excursion has a friendly soundscape-like surreal character, and if you’ve ever been described, a sound clash: Just before the track becomes more creepy and guitar-like sounds enter the composition, it’s like field recordings at a farm being mixed with sounds recorded at the beach. Really nice. The final track, “Trasduzione (per Roger Caillois)”, is with its 08:02, the shortest and, in its composition, the most coherent. A minimal play of frequencies with a constant drone in the back and delay and high-pitched sounds. And while reading on Roger Caillois – even if it’s only a Wiki page – I am thankful for what I learn through art. This third track is my absolute favourite of this album. (BW)
––– Address: https://petroglifisolubili.bandcamp.com/

SINDRE BJERGA – DECOY SOUND (CDR by Love Earth Music)
ALLAN ZANE & CARL KRUGER – MODEL COLLAPSE (CDR by Love Earth Music)
JUICE MACHINE – YACHATS (CDR by Love Earth Music)

It’s been a long since I last heard Sindre Bjerga’s music. I listened to much of his music and saw him perform many times because we did more than a handful of concerts—all of this pre-COVID. I wouldn’t expect him to change his tunes, nor the fact that his releases are documents of live concerts. Here, he has two: one from 2024 in Kristiansand, Norway, and one from Vienna, Austria, in 2023. Bjerga uses a minimal set-up of one or two Walkmans, some electronic toys, a cheap microphone and a tube to transform any of these sounds. Sometimes, he uses small cymbals, which he tosses into the concert space. His music works best in a small club or art gallery. Bjerja’s music contains the same elements: some cassettes speeding, some voices from tape, some of Bjerga’s voice, and some drones from (maybe) a small synthesiser. Think of something thoroughly lo-fi and personal. I always think of his music as sound poetry, very private and intimate. But also by using the same elements in many different configurations, Bjerga’s work becomes this considerable minimalist work. Every concert is an element of the enormous work; he has tried to do this for a long time and manages to make minor changes; it is, obviously, never the same thing. The Vienna concert seems a bit louder and noisier than the more reflective recording from Kristiansand. But all of this is relative, of course. Kristiansand has noisy bits, and Vienna has introspective elements. It’s great to hear some news from the old master!
Here’s a lovely starting point from Allan Zane and Carl Kruger. Their ‘Model Collapse’ is what they call “Roland Kayn inspired wet ambient music”, which is “inspired by Roland Kayn, featuring fluid textures and evolving soundscapes that pay homage to the German composer and electronic music pioneer innovative approach to ambient composition, here in an immersive auditory experience of deep-water, subtle transitory and aqueous sound.” I heard quite a bit by Roland Kayn ever since he walked into the store where I worked to sell his new CDs and old LP box sets, because he worked around the corner. That’s not to say I heard all his music, far from it, or that I like everything he composed. What I like about such releases by Zane and Kruger is that they probably have their private take on what Kayn does, which may not necessarily be the same as what I think (I never discussed with Kayn his compositional techniques). They recorded two pieces, both just over 30 minutes long and judging from what I hear, they are working with software and laptops rather than modular synthesisers (and, as always, I might be wrong). Does it sound like Roland Kayn? I don’t know if that is the correct question. It’s in his spirit and what Zane and Kruger think that spirit is. There are a lot of collage-like sounds flying in and out, lots of sounds on the input side, and we have no clue what these sounds are – lots of granulations going on to transform these sounds radically. Much like some of the Kayn pieces, these two are pretty long and could have been a bit shorter and these two have a free approach to playing around with these sounds. I preferred the second piece over the first, as it had an adorable, prolonged ambient ending, so the material moves away from rusty, collage-like music into something different. If this were 40 instead of 60 minutes, it would have made the album much more substantial, but it’s nevertheless a great one.
My esteemed college BW discussed three previous releases by Juice Machine, the duo of Roger H. Smith (a.k.a. Chefkirk) and Heather Chessman. The latter passed away on 16 February 2024. The recordings occurred in November 2021 (four pieces) and May 2023 (three). I know Smith primarily from his Chefkirk project, but with Juice Machine, he does something that is less pure noise and works with slightly more experimental sounds. It could be called musique concrète meets noise music or plunderphonics meets circuit bending. It uses rudimentary lo-fi equipment: low-resolution sampling, stomp boxes and sound collages in real-time. Maybe there are some vocals, maybe ripped from some media source, maybe from the members. The music has a spikey, punky punch, lots of energy and is elegantly noisy. That means never too loud, never too mean, and never too much distortion, but none of this is far away. All of that lurks around the corner but never comes in full view. I greatly enjoy this, as the music ticks the right boxes. It’s noisy but not over the top; it’s playful, energetic, and not thought out too much but not put together on a whim. This sort of experimental underground is very much the world of Vital Weekly! (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/