VARIOUS DISKONO RELEASES:
– A COMPILATION 7″
– ANOTHER 7″
– SUETSU & UNDERWOOD – THE LOVE ALBUM
HALOGEN BALL (CD-R compilation by Negative Foundation)
NITE MARE SLO MOTION (CD compilation by Some Place Else)
THE INFANT CYCLE – OLD PLUS FOUR (CD-R by Austenite)
AKOS RÓZMANN – IMPULSIONI I, II, III & DE TVA, MED TRE INSTRUMENT (CD by
Fylkingen)
MATTHEW THOMAS – P3 (Mini CD by Dorobo Limited Editions)
VARIOUS DISKONO RELEASES:
– A COMPILATION 7″
– ANOTHER 7″
– SUETSU & UNDERWOOD – THE LOVE ALBUM
Diskono continue to demolish any logic sense behind music. Their releases
are sort of statements, mainly about the music business and the perverted
ways it functions. But maybe I’m wrong – it’s all so very conceptual that
even I have problems catching the stories. Take for instance a 7″ on blue
vinyl – title… let me see, get back to this – but with a clear list of
people whose music is featured. Brindle Spork is a hip hop cut up rap
thing, followed by the high tension noise of Nomex. Kid 606 is a naughty
boy saying naughty words about Luke Vibert and likes to sample jungle
records. Record is closed by RA – Party Talk #1, which is highly mysterious
to me. Andre Estermann listened carefully to Autechre and Boards Of Canada,
Lost In Translation found voices in the jungle, Asthray Navigations with
white hiss drones. Plus two more party cuts. So I spend 15 minutes trying
to figure out the title, but I can’t find it. But it’s a nice, vague
compilation 7″ that reminds me of the fresh old punk days, but with today’s
music.
Even more puzzling is an enveloppe with two 7″s. One is playable and has
far away guitar music, which fade over into techno drum loops (but very
arrythmic). The other side is a thick swirlng drone with a sort of Pan
Sonic ending. Artist is not mentioned. The second 7″ is probably the same,
but hand altered by Steven Sharpe. Full of scratches, it’s is no longer
subject to my turntable. If you are too young to own the infamous
anti-records by RRRecords from a decade ago, then you might be happy to
start collecting these. Very funny art prankers with a good sense of record
biz hate.
Suetsu & Underwoord have a CD with audio and visuals. Their ‘love album’ is
all about ‘love of significant other, lover, church, state, family,
ancestors and other healthy and/or unhealthy loves’. More puzzles. About
half of the tracks are excerpts of people telling how they met their lover.
The other half is music based on samples from the interviews and is very
lo-tech music, kinda rhythmic bubbles and noisy backdrops. Not particulary
great as just another CD but excellent DJ material if baking collages on
your college radio is yourself (and why not?).
All of these new releases are easily classified as odd, weird or peculiar.
This sets Diskono apart from the rest of the people releasing records. (FdW)
Address: <diskono@lineone.net>
HALOGEN BALL (CD-R compilation by Negative Foundation)
NITE MARE SLO MOTION (CD compilation by Some Place Else
Two compilations from Finland, one thematic and one without. Each has non
finnish band. ‘Halogen Ball’ has no theme, but lengthy tracks. The band
Alchemy Of The 20th Century (noted before for the excellent dark ambience)
provide a simple, yet effective dark track with drony edge and samples to
go about. Dieter Muh (from the UK, but with linear notes in finnish! – the
others are in english) open up like wise dark but over their 15 minutes
they evolve in quite noisy affair of layered drones. Mnen follow about the
same course, but their track is shorter. Grey Park (this and Mnen are
entirely new names for me) use a wide instrumentarium in a collage form.
Not bad but at this length a bit too long too hold ones attention. Not a
bad score.
The theme underlying ‘Nite Mare Slo Motion’ is of course nightmares. Tracks
are shorter but of the same kind of darkness. Bands here are Clop Neplat,
Augustus M, Niko Skorpio, A\H, Anaphergal, Janko and Lasse Marhaug. Overall
dark tracks and no particular bad ones or stand-outs. Solid as last night’s
sleep. (FdW)
Address: M. Joensuu – Tellervonk 18 alak – 40200 Jyvaskyla – Finland
Address: <someplaceelse@netti.fi>
THE INFANT CYCLE – OLD PLUS FOUR (CD-R by Austenite)
The Infant Cycle, being one J. DeJong from Canada, have produced a couple
of cassettes and now a full length CD-R of odd and bits, which were
originally intended for 7″s. The previous work I heard but don’t recall (Im
sorry!), which I regret now, because this is quite nicely put together
rough kinda like techno thing. Minimal and raw, not gentle or easy: true
inspired techno underground. Most of these tracks were intended for
‘single’ releases (maybe meaning as in 7″s?). Very nice. (FdW)
Address: <austenite_recordings@yahoo.com>
ÁKOS RÓZMANN – IMPULSIONI I, II, III & DE TVA, MED TRE INSTRUMENT (CD by
Fylkingen)
The two works featured on this CD differ in two ways mainly: the first was
composed in 1973-74 and uses only electronic sounds whereas the second was
composed in 1996-97 and only uses concrete sounds. Nevertheless there is a
distinct cohesion between the pieces: the works have a sort of dreamy
character, but remain very clear in their sound quality. In both works it’s
clear what the sound sources are (at least one can make an educated guess
or read the booklet); the material has obviously been manipulated, but not
to such an extent that would leave everyone guessing at what it is (so one
can listen to the music instead). The first three parts are quite short and
strong in atmosphere (in some parts it’s almost possible to hear Pan Sonic
or Noto ‘avant la lettre’). So that’s pretty nice! In the other 9 (!) parts
of the second piece everything centers around the zither, the organ and the
human voice. At times one can forget that this is electro-acoustic music,
because it actually sounds as if it is played live, on instruments, but
mixed pretyy heavily. At some point during the second piece I noticed my
attention fading, but that was corrected when voices set in (not that I
like voices or anything, it was just the right moment). But from there the
piece still lasts half an hour, which I thought was a little long, although
it does get quite rough in the end. All in all a little too ‘contemporary
composed music’ for me. (MR)
Adress: www.fylkingen.se
MATTHEW THOMAS – P3 (Mini CD by Dorobo Limited Editions)
This is the second release in what seems to become a series (at least I
hope so…). The first one had the same title (except for an arrow pointing
in the other direction), but was made by Darrin Verhagen . That one already
impressed me with subtle sounds and compositions with a very rich texture.
As far as I can tell the original sound material is derived from a film by
Soko Shakuhachi (?) and reworked for these releases. But I am not too sure
about this because the covers are not very clear. This doesn’t matter that
much anyway, because both mini’s are high up in my list of favourites.
Verhagen’s disc is brimming with sounds and very exciting. Thomas’s disc is
of a more quieter nature and it’s difficult to tell wether he used the same
sound sources as Verhagen or if this a remix of the first release (we will
probably never know). But again there is this warm, rich texture with very
deep basses and rumbles & hisses, put together with a lot of sensitivity
for the material and without getting dull for a moment. Sometimes the work
of Bernhard Günter springs to mind with this one, but Thomas has is own way
of doing things. Let’s hear more in this series! (MR)
Adress: <dorobo@werple.net.au>