CRAWL UNIT – EVERYONE GETS WHAT THE DESERVE (CD by CIP)
VARIATIONS 3 (CD Compilation by Paradigm)
TAC – MICRO-SONIC (self-released CDR)
KELLEY, NAKATANI & NEWTON – FIELD RECORDINGS VOLUME ONE: THE BIRTHDAY (CD
by Intransitive)
NMPERIGN/JASON LESCALLEET – IN WHICH THE SILENT PARTNER… (CD by Intransitive)
HARANGUE I – compilation (CD on Earsay Productions)
JOHN KAMEVAAR – STARING IN THE DARK (CD by Visual Alchemy)
HEIMIR BJÖRGúLFSON – THE OPPOSITE (Mini CD by Fire Inc.)
GROENLAND ORCHESTER – TRIGGER HAPPINESS (CD by STAUBGOLD)
GUNTER ADLER – 15 ELECTRONIC PIECES (CD by STAUBGOLD)
CRAWL UNIT – EVERYONE GETS WHAT THE DESERVE (CD by CIP)
I have been following Crawl Unit for some time, and I think they keep on
growing with every new release. They (is it just he?) have captured their
own territory in sound, which altogether is not something utterly new, but
Crawl Unit built on a consistent repertoire. The six lengthy pieces on this
CD sort of built around drones. Not those of pressing keys down on a synth
or an e-bow on a guitar, but through sampling the everyday phenomena. Added
are rumblings, crackling of any kind. A squeeking door, the crackle of
broken electronic toys, the water running through the central heating
system. For those who still need any, the classification is still ambient
industrial. Ambient because of slow course this music takes and the nature
of it’s sound source (which are indeed more ambient=environmental then on
anything by The Orb), and industrial for it’s unsettling character and the
darkness involved. Very nice one again! (FdW)
Address: <vertonen@earthlink.net>
VARIATIONS 3 (CD Compilation by Paradigm)
Sad but true. This is Paradigm’s last introduction into a happy world of
improvising London. Paradigm states that ‘considering its size, London is
not well recognised as a centre for experimental and electronic music’. To
us, the outsider, this remains somewhat unbelievable. It seems so much is
happening in those areas… but then, gives the size of the city and the
dirt it brings, the grass might not be greener over there too.
Of the people involved here, I recognized just the names of Clive Graham
(for he’s not just an artist, but also entrepeneur behind Paradigm, so hail
hail), Phil Durrant (who delivered one of the strangest CD’s this year) and
Hastings Of Malawi. The latter was the third member of Nurse With Wound,
who left and did this one crazy LP (which was listed on the ‘file under
humor’ in the United Dairies list). A friend of mine had a copy and thought
it was brilliant until after one night of too much beer he tossed it out of
the window. He said that listening to the time announcer on the phone made
him happy.
Stylistically Variations 3 is all over the experimental place. There is
much improvisation, vocal/sound poetry stuff (by Bob Cobbing), sampling and
laptop variations (by one Syngen Brown, albeit too short and I wished it
would be longer and also Phil Durrant, whose Mego-inspired piece is great).
Odd ball is Andrew King with some folk singing and was, I guess, just not
made for me. Voltage sound like they have a rocky line up. hummm. Clive
Graham offer an interesting excursion into his old reel to reel tapes of
found sound, spliced together again. A fine piece of electro-acoustica. A
similar piece, but entirely different made is by Aquiles Pantaleao. Here
all the acoustics are beyond recognition sampled and stretched. This is
sort of stuff my Square Root Of Sub friend loves… Hastings Of Malawi
close of this CD, and I can only strongely suggest that the entire LP
should be re-issued on CD. (FdW)
Address: <paradigm@stalk.net>
TAC – MICRO-SONIC (self-released CDR)
TAC left behind the world of releasing cassettes and now went the way of
CDRs. He manages to cranck out crazy packages: this one comes in an
oversized plastic container. Unlike his previous release, TAC comes up with
longer pieces, only seven this time. It seems like every piece is like a
sound event in itself. Take for instance the opening piece: a stove in the
kitchen boiling water until it boils. Other tracks employ outdoor sounds,
such as donkey, rocks and crickets. It is one of those things that you
could hear entirely by just opening your ears. Since most people don’t, it
takes people like TAC, to point us to the beauty of every day sound. It’s a
private and intimate world. I loved playing this CDR at a low volume and
let my daily sounds interfere… (FdW)
Address: <tac@tricon.net>
KELLEY, NAKATANI & NEWTON – FIELD RECORDINGS VOLUME ONE: THE BIRTHDAY (CD
by Intransitive)
NMPERIGN/JASON LESCALLEET – IN WHICH THE SILENT PARTNER… (CD by Intransitive)
With these two releases Intransitive moves over to improvisational music,
after releasing the best of today’s “industrial” (ho-hum) music by Kapotte
Muziek, Brume, Richard Chartier, Howard Stelzer and Roel Meelkop. I am not
sure if this is a very wise move. I remember one improv musician that it’s
fun to do, but boring to listen afterwards. I am not sure if this is a very
wise move: I think improv music sells well for those have gained a name and
audience already (you fill in the names, and if you don’t you probably
didn’t like improv anyway, so you skipped this review already).
Anyway the trio that didn’t ring a bell here use trumpet and percussion.
They play in a rather ‘free’ mood. The trumpet rings, coughs and does other
thing, probably not intended by the inventor of the trumpet. The percussive
part is a drumkit and metallic objects. To the uninitated these boys play
without listening to eachother, with occasional stops. To those who are
experienced, it might be another fine release. It sort of left me with
mixed feelings. Although not bad, it didn’t do much either…
The other new one was kinda puzzling, but I think I figured it out. There
are two bands/persons here. They play together on one track (the first
one), then there are 4 by one, and 1 by the other. NMperign (in which we
find the above Greg Kelley) is a duo of trumpet and soprano saxophone and
Jason Lescalleet plays tape-loops (on the collaborative piece) and computer
on his solo piece. In the collaborative piece all sounds seem to fit
together. I thought maybe Jason spliced some tape-loops together of
saxophone blows. Quite an intense and strange piece. The four short pieces
by Nmperign are great. Not really over the top improv, but slowly building
crescendo’s and sound well thought. Some goes for Jason’s solo piece, which
like an odd-ball compared to the other tracks. Lopezian drones and
occasional bangs, sampled stretched sounds is not what I expected to close
this CD, but I guess it makes kinda sense. (FdW)
Address: <intransitive@visionload.com>
HARANGUE I – compilation (CD on Earsay Productions)
Yes, I’m also a little dabbling in the so called ‘world music’ in search
for music that affects me or sounds interesting to me for some reason. I
just like music and so it is a pleasure to discover what kinds of music
have been developed within different cultural contexts. Why should I limit
myself to western music? Mostly the term ‘world music’ refers to
traditional forms of music. Music that reflects and expresses a specific
cultural identity. What has this introduction to do with the cd ‘Harangue
1′? Well contributors to this cd come from very different parts of the
world: Canada (Hildegard Westerkamp), Argentina (Damian Keller, who likes
to listen to tango), New Zealand (Susan Frykberg), Italy (Giorgio
Magnanensi), Canada (Andrew Czink & John Oliver).
So it came to my mind if it makes any sense to think of ‘world music’ when
we consider electroacustic music. Is electro-acustic music product of one
(western) culture or is electroacustic music – the way it is produced –
more of a musical instrument that can be used within different cultural
contexts. Is there a typical european, american of latin-american kind of
electro-acustic music? I don’t know. Or is electro-acustic music a sort of
meta-cultural platform where influences of different cultures are at work?
To end this series of questions I must say that I like the piece by
Hildegard Westerkamp most. It is a piece where environmental sounds (lots
of rain: nature not culture!) are transformed and manipulated into a very
enjoyable piece. It reminded me of the films of Tarkovsky, who made a very
careful use of sound and music in his films. Rain plays here a big role.
Westerkamp and the other contributors were more or less unknown to me.
Czink and Oliver are also both co-director of Earsay Productions. “The
label showcases composers whose work shares a concern for rich, carefully
crafted sound and a gutsy, intense sensibility. The music ranges from pure
acoustic to the sonic explorations of electroacoustics and soundscape
works.” Most pieces on this cd are intense and dramatic. Few dull moments.
All by all a very diverse overview of current electro-acustic music (DM).
Address: www.earsay.com
JOHN KAMEVAAR – STARING IN THE DARK (CD by Visual Alchemy)
This cd features the soundtracks (or parts of them) of four films by Carl
Brown, made in the period of the last twelve years. So who can blame me if
I’m surprised by the first track right away? Not obviously a piece that one
would expect to accompany a film. OK, so Kamevaar acknowledges the fact
that the original soundtracks of the 16mm films were hardly up to the
standards of the cd format and therefore had to be edited in a suitable way
for the new medium. This editing process has been most successful, it
seems, for I cannot but wonder what kind of films have been made by Mr.
Brown. They must be pretty heavy, I guess. Because the first track on this
cd is pretty heavy as well. Lots of loops of what seem to be sampled bits
of Nirvana (or their Offspring) constitute a pulsing and energetic track
with a high level of frenzy. The second one is somewhat more ambient with
radio sounds and several drones fading in and out and some kind of train
sound topping it off. Same energy as the first one. The third one
concentrates more on loops again, starting with a piano sample (or is it
actually a real piano being played here?) and several clicks and stuff. The
tempo is upbeat and pushes on. And gets worse and worse (which is good!),
but is then faded out. Pity, the end could have been stronger. The next
track uses a lot of pretty much unidentifiable sounds (looped again, for
the most part) and lacks a really strong composition, but is nevertheless
pretty haunting. The fifth track, with metal percussion and feedback
guitar, reminds me very strongly of one of those old bands of which I have
forgotten the name. So this is not my favourite. But beware, track six
makes up for that with a very strong soundscape including a voice. The next
piece is a percussion thing with feedback and too much reverb. So we move
on to the next one, which is very quiet in comparison with the others: a
soft drone (stretched voice) is covered with whispered words by (wo)men.
Gentle and effective. The ninth track seems to function as an intermezzo,
kind of a time filler. The last track starts with a looped voice and slowly
builds up the tension by adding more loops and diffusing them, leaving a
noisy drone. In general this is a good cd and it does make me curious about
the films that these tracks were originally intended for. (MR)
Address: no adress on the cover, but try: newpower@mail.interlog.com
HEIMIR BJÖRGúLFSON – THE OPPOSITE (Mini CD by Fire Inc.)
Some music defies real description and the title above is one of them.
Clear yet mysterious, full yet transparent, hermetic yet open. And I could
go on for a while. This is a true gem, made with utmost concentration, very
well produced, with great respect for time and silence. This is absolutely
a must for anyone into contemporary electronic music. So I’ll keep it
short: one of the best of the last year. (MR)
Adress: www.staalplaat.com
GROENLAND ORCHESTER – TRIGGER HAPPINESS (CD by STAUBGOLD)
GUNTER ADLER – 15 ELECTRONIC PIECES (CD by STAUBGOLD)
As I mentioned two weeks ago in my review of Oleg Kostrow’s recent CD on
Stora, something odd is happening in Chermanny. (Not that this is anything
new of course, but I am specifically referring to some of the music that is
oozing out from underneath it’s borders.) One of the most innovative
‘bands’ I have heard of late are called Groenland Orchester, and as I far
as I can work out this is their debut CD. It was preceded by a 12″ earlier
this year; some (if not all) of the tracks from this dainty vinyl foretaste
are included here. Das Orchester consists of two blokes, one of which is
the strange yet unusual Reznicek who has been with us a while, emitting all
manner of strange sounds on a variety of carriers. His partner is a certain
Herr Hall, who I have not found anything else about. (And I know the
cunning and cocky amongst you will refer me to their website, which can be
found at http://www.stora.de/go.html . So off you go then…)
While I was not raised on the Residents, it did not take me long to explore
a considerable portion of their extensive catalogue, and much of this odd
music from Chermanny is a perfect example of history repeating itself.
Perhaps it really is because no-one listened the first time. Or perhaps
it’s because it’s thirty years later and it’s now time for a new generation
to be exposed to these sort of sounds. One of the things about ‘Trigger
Happiness’ is that, despite listening to it more than several times, I
still cannot remember what’s going to happen next. Always a good thing, I
think. It starts majestically enough with a boisterous fanfare and then we
enter a maze of odd rhythms and strange, (occasionally almost flatulent)
sounds which leap with elfish glee in bright spaces that have no corners.
The track ‘Haudura’ is the only composition which bears any semblance to
normality and it lurks dangerously close to a twistable hit, although there
are those (myself included) who do maintain that you can dance to anything.
I’m just a little uncertain as to who might be able to contort themselves
adequately enough to do justice to the music here though. Dance music for
the usual, run-of-the-mill Hieronymous Bosch crowd, perhaps? This is an
adventurous, unusual and humourous foray into sound, perfect for chilling
after those long, teeth-gnashing, jaw-crunching, eye-popping nights at
Digital Hardcore parties. I look forward to more of their clever musical
secretions.
The CD ’15 Electronic Pieces’ by Gunter Adler (really Herr Hall from
Groenland Orchester) is a somewhat more serious affair, albeit an equally
individual musical statement. I detect considerably fewer of the witticisms
that flow through the Groenlander CD. Hall’s solo work is far more
cinematic in places though, even (dare I say it) a little broody, like some
of Eno’s stuff. Eccentric chord intervals and digital processing add to the
instability and this is also music that sounds fresh each time I hear it.
However a lot of the sounds used do not particularly lend themselves to the
more complicated structure of the music, and I feel too much unnecessary
space in the compositions. Also absent from this production is the input
from Felix Kubin, who was quite involved with ‘Trigger Happy’. Felix is not
a well man, and he’s proud of this. However he does have a particularly
perverted sense of sound (one which I quite like), and perhaps it was
having his fingers aid them while they opened their joint filters and
twisted their collective knobs that make the Reznicek/Hall duo’s release
the better of this pair.