IMMEDIA – REPEAT PLAY (CD-R on Microwave Recordings)
JONATHAN COLECLOUGH – WINDLASS (CD on Korm Plastics Introductionary Paperbacks)
OLIVIER TOULEMONDE – ECLATS DE MEMOIRE (CD on Collectif & Cie)
TEAR CEREMONY – EMULSION (CD by Simulacra)
THOMAS DIMUZIO & CHRIS CUTLER – QUAKE (CD by ReR Megacorp)
CRAWL UNIT/VERTONEN (7″ by Crippled Intellect)
AUTONOTEXT VOLUME ONE (7″ by Crippled Intellect)
IMMEDIA – REPEAT PLAY (CD-R on Microwave Recordings)
Ok, did you ever think about the possibility of Bernhard Guenter remixing Ryoji Ikeda? If not, get this CD and find out how it could sound. This is the most minimal form of microwave I can imagine. Very high frequencies with real minimal repetitive clicks, all recorded very softly, almost on the level of inaudibility. I guess the first track states it all: a 10 second loop is repeated for 65 times, each time a little lower in the frequency range. I haven’t tried to measure the steps, but I’m pretty sure that it is mathematically and conceptually correct. Does this sound boring? Yes it does, but actually the piece is not! I suspect that the other tracks have a similar structure, but it is more difficult to hear this. Some of them are even more minimal, and some of them have what could be called breaks. All together there are 8 tracks on this CD and they’re all of the same nature. This work is very much a statement about this kind of music (and maybe about all music) and it makes one think that minimalism has still got a great future.(MR)
Adress: www.staalplaat.com
JONATHAN COLECLOUGH – WINDLASS (CD on Korm Plastics Introductionary Paperbacks)
The KIP series has introduced many fine artists to us and I would have to say that it is doing so again. This work by Coleclough is one long track (just over 40 min.), that spins itself slowly out into the world, before drawing back again. Long tones and ambient sounds are layered to create a soundscape of dreamy, but strong beauty. The dynamics are amazing and so are some of the sound recordings. Everything fits very tightly together, creating a relaxed tension, that never fails to attract (my) attention. What more can I say? It’s a beautiful record!(MR)
Adress: www.staaplaat.com
OLIVIER TOULEMONDE – ECLATS DE MEMOIRE (CD on Collectif & Cie)
From this young French composer comes a work with historical
references to the French resistance in the Second World War. This one track just under 30 minutes features a lot of (mainly French) voices, which is probably a problem if your French is as good (which it is not) as mine. The piece traces some people, active in the resistance in the Haute-Savoie district. Mixed with their stories are historical recordings from WW 2 and different sounds. Everything is put together with great care and amazing spatial qualities (especially on headphones). I would say that this work has a firm root in French electracoustic music and is almost exemplary for it. However, since my French is not as good as it probably ought to be, I have a strong feeling that I am missing out here. Why do certain sounds start when they start? Why are some voices more in the background than others? I am pretty certain that Toulemonde has good reasons for doing things the way he does them, and that they are probably related to the text. Still, even when I don’t understand the words, I have the feeling that Toulemonde has put too much emphasis on the content in this work. I miss a certain atmosphere and maybe also some kind of empathy with his subject. It’s all a little too clean, in a way.(MR)
Adress: <collecie@wanadoo.fr>
TEAR CEREMONY – EMULSION (CD by Simulacra)
Over the past few years Tear Ceremony delivered a nice set of music, on their self-released CD’s. On their most recent CD, Emulsion, they continue to explore the areas of ambient music, but less through synths and more through samples. This results in a more haunting, a more dark sound and at the same time a more continous sound. Repeating and looping get a bigger part in the Tear Ceremony sound. The big charm of Tear Ceremony is that they manage to keep the stuff concise and to the point. Their eleven tracks are all around 4 to 5 minutes and sound distinctively different. If we’d give ratings from 1 to 10, I’d give this a 7. (FdW)
Address: www.simulacrarecords.com
THOMAS DIMUZIO & CHRIS CUTLER – QUAKE (CD by ReR Megacorp)
I read about this collaboration in some ND magazine a while ago (I always go back to old magazines for probably sentimental reasons) – and I probably thought the same thing again: how on earth did these 2 get hooked up? I know Cutler’s vaguely, as I am too young to like Henry Cow. But I do know he is (well or was) not very impressed by people using samplers et all. Dimuzio’s work seems to run entirely on digitalia and samplers. But hey, since ReR (Cutler’s label) re-issued Dumizio’s Headlock LP, something must be good. Although the interview was old, I think this is the first time something of their collaboration surfaces. In total 18 tracks in 45 minutes, of 34 are captured in one concert and 10 in another. Small amplified percussion next a drumkit, objects and a CD player are the ingredients put forward by Cutler and Dimuzio takes his samples from that and builts further. The result is a very nice mixture of improvisation and places the silent bits next to all the noisy bits, which seem inherent to such a release. At times I was reminded of the Illusion Of Safety live sound, but maybe it’s because I saw many IOS concerts. Even when indexed with so many starting points, the whole CD comes like one long flow. A nice flow indeed. (FdW)
Address: www.megacorp.u-net.com
CRAWL UNIT/VERTONEN (7″ by Crippled Intellect)
AUTONOTEXT VOLUME ONE (7″ by Crippled Intellect)
Two 7″s on the label from the one-man band Vertonen. The first is one is split by said Vertonen and Crawl Unit. Both work with location recordings. Crawl Unit records watery sounds – the first piece is called ‘phase for south river’, so it has the river and rain – which gradually go over into some more high pitched sound (which I never heard outside), which turns out to be a looped which goes out of phase (hello Steve Reich!) and the river continus it’s stream. Very nice, very direct and very naive (and I mean this positively) Hafler Trio. Vertonen’s ‘Ward Island Circulation’ doesn’t tell the story of what sort of location it uses, which is, indeed, some island. It could have been some sort of industrial area, wth hugh turbines and other rotating sound. Both pieces are very fine examples of what location recordings can do and they both sound very nice.
More work from Vertonen can be found on a 7″ by Autonotext. Vertonen does the sound here, which is a remote thing far away. The main portion consists of various layers of simultanous voices. The music is some sort of tape-loop. I’d like to say ‘sounds like a softer edge of Eric Lunde’, but who remembers Eric Lunde? The other side is called ‘Haarlem Nocturne, Supervielle, pasiphae’ – probably we’re talking three pieces here – and has more processed voices, through echo chambers and reverb units. The last track has a sort of heartbeat throb. This side was moe blackhumour meets The Hafler Trio. Completed with a booklet of more poetry and library card, this is well-done product. (FdW)
Address: <vertonen@earthlink.net>