PITA – GET OUT (CD by Mego)
PAUL WILLIAMS – SANTA POD (CD on Ash International [R.I.P.]
STEVE RODEN/IN BETWEEN NOISE – THE RADIO (CD by Sonoris)
ILLUSION OF SAFETY – MORT AUX VACHES (CD by Staalplaat)
FENNESZ – PLUS FORTY SEVEN DEGREES 56’37” MINUS SIXTEEN DEGREES 51’08” ( CD
by Touch)
ROEL MEELKOP & PETER DUIMELINKS & RALF WEHOWSKY – VERKLARTE TAGE (CD by
Sonoris)
SOLVENT – SOLVENTLY ONE LISTENS (CD by Suction)
PITA – GET OUT (CD by Mego)
Things could have gone two ways: either Pita would be releasing his
zillionth CD or he would go the slow course. Pita, aka Peter Rehberg, aka
the harddisc twister, aka Mego chef, aka improviser with many others,
decided to take the slow course. After his first CD on Mego (which lasted
three minutes shorter then this 38 minutes) he played every (un-) serious
festival, and has become a household name, well at least for those who care
about the laptop generation. Less then ‘Seven Tons For Free’, Rehberg uses
more crashed sounds from/on a harddisc, then his high pitched tones on the
first. At times ‘Get Out’ gets very noisy, very loud and very dirty but
it’s anything but industrial music, hardcore noise or Merzbowian. It owes
more to the ‘serious’ academic fields, but Rehberg shows his sense of
humor. The third track, no titles of course, is a long looped run of
guitars. Funny, but due to its length too flat, too much of a cliche. That
track could have used a cut. But the other tracks are mostly short,
accurate and there is an enormous variety among them. This means that your
38 minutes are well-spend and that the CD is long enough. More would have
been maybe too long. (FdW)
Address: www.mego.at
PAUL WILLIAMS – SANTA POD (CD on Ash International [R.I.P.]
No, not that Paul Williams, silly, but it is a variation on an old fashion
love song, you can be sure. This audio documentary of Drag Racing was
recorded over a period of two days at Santa Pod race track in England.
Santa Pod, no stranger to the smell of burnt fuel and cacophony – it was
once an American airbase – is a place of ritual, an oil-stained patch of
dirt devoted to the worship of technology. To beer, hotdogs, ugly T-shirts
worn by fat blokes and waffles disguised as commentators, who sound like
the two old guys in the Muppet Show after they’ve had their irony glands
removed.
Me? I like car racing. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a toss who wins.
It’s all about finding the centre of the track, sitting there and listening
to the way the sound of the speeding cars slowly smears around the track.
It starts off as a brittle clump of pissed hornet-noise and over the course
of the race, spreads out like butter melting slowly in a pan. Drag Racing
is something different. All the noise happens to one side of you, and it
only moves from left to right. The purpose is to accelerate as quickly as
possible and then stop. Not really difficult. None of those nasty bends to
contend with. Ash Int. is dedicated to releasing recordings that you are
free to call music if you like; they don’t categorise their material
themselves, and have consistently maintained a high standard of supreme
audio weirdness. I could run through the usual list and exhaust my stock of
adjectives, but my editor recently flung brevity at me, so even this
diversion may be expunged. I’ve played Santa Pod several times now, and
then turned my telly onto the sports channel, blanking out the screen.
There was a golf championship in progress…aaah! The crack of the wood,
the squeal of the tee, the gouging of turf, the kiss of the putt, the
burbling crowd hushed and hard-buttocked for a critical shot, the
commentator, his knowledge of the game pouring from his mouth like the
combined effluence of the state of New Jersey. The chirp of the fucking
birds. Still, it all sounded so flat and muted, so I pressed on my Dolby
knob…and there it was…simulated binaural reality smote the scales from
my ears, and I was suddenly enthralled, captivated, spellbound, aghast,
overwhe… (OK, that’s enough – Ed). I’d litter the CD booklet with bad
(mis)quotes and polysyllables. I’d write the text as if I was describing my
first shag. I’d tell everyone to listen loud, preferably on headphones. My
God ! What a game is golf!
These recordings are left standing, sucking on the dust of the 7″ Hi Octane
Orgasm, released on Meeuw Muzak about 4 or 5 months ago. Two short moments
of high octane insanity were carefully selected from hours of material
recorded with a fan-fucking-tastic ‘you-are-there-right-now’ microphone in
San Diego some years back. Audio koans with full-range vinyl dynamics.
Sadly, Santa Pod disproves that ancient adage: ‘Too much is better than not
enough’, and for a brief, tiny, shining moment I have to agree with my
editor – there’s strength in truncation.
(Is this too long?) (LW)
Address: <ashrip@touch.demon.co.uk>
STEVE RODEN/IN BETWEEN NOISE – THE RADIO (CD by Sonoris)
A short release in full package, this one. The track (just under 19 min.)
was concieved as a radio play and makes use of sounds either recorded from
radio transmissions or from the object radio itself. After reading the text
on the inside of the digipack, I didn’t expect such a full and melodic
sound; only short samples are used, but the result is a very warm and
gentle piece of droning and repetitive sounds with a lot of space in the
soundscape. The piece starts with a loop of voices and several crackling
sounds that create a strong organic atmosphere. After about 7 minutes the
voices fade out and are replaced by one single voice. In the end there are
some voice cut ups with static. The total sound is very clear and yet it’s
full of all kinds of ‘small’ sounds. This is very good stuff for a quiet
sunday morning.(MR)
Adress: Sonoris, 28, Rue du Parlement Ste-Catherine, 33000, Bordeaux, France.
ILLUSION OF SAFETY – MORT AUX VACHES (CD by Staalplaat)
This is the second Mort aux Vaches release by IOS and as far as I’m
concerned they may release a lot more. The first one was an excellent
record and so is this one. This one sounds more ‘electronic’ than the first
one, which used a lot of ‘raw’ environmental recordings. The CD features 6
tracks of varying lengths, but all strong. The first track is built up by
low drones and high bleeps and is especially interesting because of
everything that happens in the background. High tension! And then, after a
sudden break, we’re in the swamps somewhere, electronic frogs singing. The
second track takes us on a train ride to the centre of a windy concert
hall, where a lonely person plays the cello. (I’m sorry if I’m getting a
little poetic here, but that’s the music, not me.) Track three is just a
startcode, because it fades into track two. Someone is playing with a heavy
metal object on the floor and doesn’t seem to be aware of the drone in the
background, that increases very slowly. Ah, we change our focus to another
drone, changing from low to high frequency. And we’re out of the hall in
electronic space, were there is only sound, except for something scratching
at the virtual door. And yes, the door opens very slowly and we slide into
a small room, where we find the something messing around in gravel. Again
the track fades into the next one. What comes next pretty much defies
description; are these pigs gone berserk on tape? It’s hard to tell and you
should probably find out for yourself. A cut and we’re off again into an
industrial abyss, machines droning. The machines stop and there is nothing
but a toy harp and some other stuff left, softly accompanied on a very old
piano and later by a loop band. A very exciting CD of live recordings by
one of the best. (MR)
Adress: www.staalplaat.com
FENNESZ – PLUS FORTY SEVEN DEGREES 56’37” MINUS SIXTEEN DEGREES 51’08” ( CD
by Touch)
Herr Fennesz released his first solo album ‘Hotel Paral.lel’ on Mego.
Earlier this year his CD Single of covers of the Rolling Stones and the
Beach Boys came out on Moikai, and he’s been busy contributing tracks to
compilations and performing as one of the laptop gang. [He won a prize at
Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria this year, which I discovered in the press
release, he promptly broke in protest ‘of the festival organiser’s bias
towards sponsor politics’. A man of danger, obviously. Still this sort of
petulant behaviour has to happen at least once during the lifetime of any
festival, I suppose. Personally I think that if he’d slowly squatted down
on it until it completely disappeared, he – and it – would have made a more
lasting impression. I mean, even Marlon Brando can bite the face off an
Oscar, for God’s sake. Never mind, I just wish this sort of redundant
behaviour wasn’t used to advertise to what marvellous and subtle heights
human expression can rise.] Rather leave it to the things we manifest to
display our brilliance, for these are infinitely more refined than we can
ever hope to be. This new CD by Christian Fennesz is just such a beauty
spot on the face of Pulchritude. Basic material was apparently recorded in
his back garden – you can find out where he lives by using the map
coordinates which are the title – using a Powerbook and a small mixing
table. I’m not sure if the sounds themselve are all manipulations of
natural sound events – doesn’t really matter actually – this CD is a
recording of a garden somewhere. A strange one, for sure, as some small
creepy thing might hear it – resplendent, with microaudible made
macroaudible, where sprinklers roar and scuffed gravel becomes an
avalanche. The creaking arc of blades of grass straining towards the light,
the soft hiss of dew chasing the sun. The murmurs of dirt, the stretching
of stone and falling leaves crash like a gun. A terse 38’00 of shimmering,
swirling electronic sound. A perfect length as it has to be played again
immediately. Mysterious and pure. (MP)
Address: <touch@touch.demon.co.uk>
ROEL MEELKOP & PETER DUIMELINKS & RALF WEHOWSKY – VERKLARTE TAGE (CD by
Sonoris)
Roughly a decade ago, you have groups of people doing music, and you had
individuals doing music, but having a group name. The collective spirit
must have had an appeal. Ralf Wehowsky was then founding member, and most
important conspirator in P16D4. This flexible German group uses everyday
sounds and rather primitive (if I’m alllowed to call analogue – primitive)
studio technology to manipulate these recordings. Their flexibility allowed
to recycle (that we’d call now remix) their own aswell other people’s sound
material into new results. Peter Duimelinks and Roel Meelkop were then
members of THU20, which was less flexible with regard to membership and
less conceptual towards recycling sounds but shared a common interest in
sound manipulation.
Now these people work under their own names. The 4 track machines gather
dust in a corner, and the harddisc and sampler is there to do the work.
Allowing them quicker access to their sounds and possibilities to
manipulate them, they focuss more on composition and structure. I am not
sure how this collaboration came about, but I understand it took quite some
time. In their six pieces, they hand us one-liners saying what is done: “RM
using source material by RLW”. In two tracks they go back to previous
released matrial (Roel Meelkop 3″ CD, a Peter Duimelinks track on a 3″ by
V2 Archief and Ralf’s ‘Revu Et Corrigee CD) – the historical link between
the good ol’ recycling days and today.
The description of the first track is most puzzling: ‘each one ‘open’ track
by PD, RM, RLW layed over each other’. I gather they said: hey we’ll record
each our 10 minute track and staple them together on the harddisc.
Amazingely silent piece. Kinda like Bernhard Guenther… The second piece
by Roel using Ralf sounds, is a typical witty and sharp Meelkopian piece.
Without entering the silence border, Meelkop builts from just a few sounds
his own soundworld. Ralf’s useage of various released recordings by Meelkop
and Duimelinks is a nice enterprise, in which some of the originals can
still be recognized. The man with the smallest recorded history of this
trio, Peter Duimelinks, produces the shortest track, and probably the
obscurest. For the major part it remains inaudible, except for some ticks
towards the end. ‘9 into 3’ is a very joyous excursion into the three
frequency regions (high, middle and low), quite a funny piece. In the last
piece Duimelinks and Meelkop remix a piece from the RLW CD ‘Revu Et
Corrigee” (which in itself was a remix of 3/4 of the 2LP ‘Nichts Niemand
Nirgends Nie’) and is a solid remix – totally filled with sound, sudden
breaks and those well known SBOTHI and P16.D4 sound elements from all those
years ago.
Needles to say that at least I think this is a well made CD, that is witty
and serious, and should be part of your record collection if you care about
this sort of music. (FdW)
Address: Sonoris – 28 Rue Du Parlement ste Catherine – 33000 Bordeaux – France
SOLVENT – SOLVENTLY ONE LISTENS (CD by Suction)
If you are regular guest to the world of hip dance music, then you must
have noticed the return of electro music. Once brought to you by Depeche
Mode, Human League and Yazoo, now the territory of labels like Bunker and
Suction. The latter brings us the second full length by Solvent, the quick
rising star and parttime owner of Suction. His thirteen pieces breath the
atmosphere of the the above early 80s groups, but always less the vocals.
The part with the beats have been firmly updated to today’s standard, but
the synths are surely old, dirty and above all analogue. They arpeggiate,
buzz and humm. It’s about time, that bands like Solvent (and label mates
Lowfish) get a singer (male or female) and start singing about industrial
wastelands, waitresses and only you. Then, aha then they will be on MTV,
signed to a major and no more promo’s for me. But now, before they move
along they deliver a very fine electro album. (FdW)
Address: <suction@interlog.com>