ANUS PRESLEY – MUSIC TO LISTEN TO WHEN YOU’RE DEAD (CD by Jazzassin Records)
A. BERTHLING – 1000-1001 HZ (CD-R by Micrwave Recordings)
PHYSICS – 2.7.98 (cd on Gold Standard Laboratories)
DAY AND TAXI – Less And More (cd on Percaso)
B. FLEISCHMANN – POPLOOPS FOR BREAKFAST (LP)
B. FLEISCHMANN – SIDONIE EP (12″)
LALI PUNA – TRIDECODER (LP)ACCELERA DECK – HALO EP (12″)
PHONEM – PHONETIK (LP)
ISAN – SALAMANDER (CD, all by Morr Music)
310 – THE DIRTY RoPE (cd by Leaf)
GET CARTER – soundtrack (cd on Cinephile)
PEACE ORCHESTRA – Peace Orchestra (cd on G-Stone)
ANUS PRESLEY – MUSIC TO LISTEN TO WHEN YOU’RE DEAD (CD by Jazzassin Records)
This release features tracks from several tape releases from the mid
eighties to the early nineties from a band whose frontman, Sverre H.
Kristensen, is now dead. So the title is probably very much to the point
(if one believes in the hereafter). The cover drawings are also from the
dead man’s archive and share a fascination with the music for sex, drugs,
violence and death. The twelve tracks have been mixed together into one
long track. The sound quality is really bad and so is most of the music
(although there are very good moments as well). But somehow this is a very
nostalgic release. To quote from the cover: ‘…a time when nobody had any
money or talent. And if we, by some rare occasion, had some money, we
always used it on beer. Ah yes, those were the days.’ This nostalgia
somehow invites me to appreciate this disc more as a document than as a
serious musical production and in that sense I like it a lot. (MR)
Address: <lmarhaug@online.no>
A. BERTHLING – 1000-1001 HZ (CD-R by Micrwave Recordings)
So how does one describe this music that is very close to what has become
known as microwave, but doesn’t use pulses so much as sines and noises?
Maybe this is microscaping: using a certain musical language within a field
not directly associated with it: ambient/soundscaping. Interesting stuff to
say the least. Dense layers of sines and other sounds (a lot of radio?) on
pretty low volume levels create a true listening experience. Sometimes it
builds up to noisy parts, but only to be cut off and challenge the ear once
again. This is one single track of 36 minutes (but with 21 titles) and here
and there a pause. Sometimes attention fades a little, but in general this
is a strong piece. Well done!(MR)
Address: www.staalplaat.com
PHYSICS – 2.7.98 (cd on Gold Standard Laboratories)
Tones repeated on synthesizer and guitar and drums. How muchmindfulness is
involved in the trance state? What changes can be made within it that
involve stepping outside of the state ofmind? There is a rise and fall to
it all – gradual and insidious.Voices drift in and out of the recording –
knowing? And what is the criteria for ending a piece that travels in a
straight line? At low levels, it makes for very nice fuck music – but
whither goeth the “fuckbooks”? It reaches a slow exit, and moves softly
through the rushes ofvoices into the next piece…
…which percolates on synthesizer and guitar inTO something…drums
chasing guitar breathlessly as synthesizer glides overhead – cloudlike and
shadowing the action beneath and around it. Jabs to metal come as a
surprise; a curl of feedback swivels again and again behind the continued
momentum. If only I knew the notes to which I could anthropomorphosize!
Climax and slowing, climax and slowing…until the notes die off into the
embers of that night, that night…(DC)
Address: <BnekkGSL@aol.com>, <physics@theexperiment.com>
DAY AND TAXI – Less And More (cd on Percaso)
Saxophone, double bass and drums. Does the rise and fall in silence and
force in each respective instrument reflect three musicians working
together – or is it a mirror of each individual urge? How much interplay
occurs of itself, without ego or conniving? There is a tenderness in the
interplay here, a tentative courtship – or so it seems – because there is a
great gap between meaning and communication of meaning, q.v. It is the
music, however, of many late-night drives through the city, sodium lamps
reflective in windows as the spectacle of the skyline is taken in, taken
down…
And the pieces blend into each other, without harshness or grates, a long
alley of sound that hides from the sun passing overhead. There is a
casualness to it, as the tones shrug and turn away, being as they are, to
themselves. Day and taxi-ride? A late-night feel pervades, and as
there may be a thousand stories in the naked city (with or without John),
there are a thousand notes that make up this story – but what is it called?
How is it called? Another chapter in a long line of jazz legacy? Or
something unto itself? The taxi passes a fight, a street scene, a juggling
of times and incidences. The window is rolled down to catch these
instruments in the throes of a struggle that is barely heard as the
movement continues and the energy dopplers past…
There are moments threading through a trip that one might see in these
pieces. Waiting for flowers, getting out and stretching of the legs, the
curving grin of a sexual phantasy on moving, thinking of someone that the
door reminded you of. Musical cues are ever-present in daily life; one
tone from a half-heard piece – as it travels past in a taxi, say – can
trigger and whole slate and spate of emotions and words and scents and
gasoline. This is why every recording finds its audience. This is why
sounds live forever. (DC)
Address: http://www.elephantchateau.ch/percaso>
B. FLEISCHMANN – POPLOOPS FOR BREAKFAST (LP)
B. FLEISCHMANN – SIDONIE EP (12″)
LALI PUNA – TRIDECODER (LP)ACCELERA DECK – HALO EP (12″)
PHONEM – PHONETIK (LP)
ISAN – SALAMANDER (CD, all by Morr Music)
But of course we do like populair music. No sweat here. Certainly when it’s
cleverly made, home-made or electronic made. If my name was Thomas Morr, I
would also call my label Morr Music, because more music is what we want. So
far Morr Music has released a bunch of vinyl and a CD. What clearly stands
out for many other starters is the nice packaging, well designed and
printed. You feel it’s not his first steps into music biz.
Morr Music kicks off with a couple of vinyl releases, the first being by
the total unknown B. Fleischmann. Other then that he’s 24 years old and
played piano, drums and loud guitars in various bands, we’re not told
anything. He has chosen at least half a good title. As I’m not sure if they
are really good for breakfast (I’d like to state I never have breakfast,
but that is not true: I’m a morning kinda guy), they are for sure
‘poploops’. Hammering away on electronica and rhythmboxes he plays utter
joyful music. Very Chermannnn my fellow editor MP would say, but there is a
small difference: Fleischmann’s music doesn’t contain spoken word samples,
b-z movie quotes and isn’t directly inspired by Der Plan or Andreas Dorau.
For me three points plus over much of the fun inspired Cherrrrman music.
Very nice record. And the same can be said of the 5 track follow up EP,
which is partly more up (Autechre-) tempo with those bumpy beats and Aphex
Twin inspired tunes.
Lali Puna is the least attractive of the Morr gang, at least for me. Kinda
normal rock with just a very small dose of electronics. Too much inspired
by Seefeel or Stereolab but not enough worked out yet. Not bad, but I heard
better in these areas of drums, guitar and vocals.
A while I wrote about a very nice CD by September Plateau and how that was
a side project from Accelera Deck, which never heard of. On the six track
12″ by them, I find two originals and four remixes. This is indeed more
dance oriented then say September Plateau was, but maybe dance is not
really the right word. Accelera Deck borrows ideas from, again, Autechre
and Aphex Twin, clicky and scratchy beats with semi-joyful melodies on
synths. His second track is even more experimental. The first remix is by
one Compact Digital Audio and sounds, surprinsely with this name, rather
low resolution samples of sped up tapes. Arovane is, together with
Monolake, an escapist from the Chain Reaction posse and his first remix on
this record is a rather fast tempo piece, with a dark and aggresive
undertone. The second harks back to Chain Reaction, slower, dubbier but
taking life from the original. The last track is Volvo Spy vs Lo Coder Mix
and is a very weird, noisy mix with almost no beats (or at least very
crunchy ones)
Arovane’s frontman Uwe we get back on the Phonem record, which is a
collaboration between Uwe and a guy named Elliot. Four lenghty tracks which
are rather sparsely filled with continious beats and likewise sparse
melodies. This is again, it’s maybe be boring, influenced by the whole
Skam/Autechre and everythig beyond thing. But it’s both loosely played and
darkly toned, so it’s a little different then the rest. And with many
releases to come different labels, certainly a name to remember.
So far the only CD is by ISAN. I have been noticing them before on various
limited vinyl releases, and the impression was good: the sort of Aphex Twin
inspired child-like melodies, the nicer side of Autechre rhythms and the
overall relaxed music. Although they sound like children playing, ISAN are
children with melancholy. Every track has a darker touch, a deeper edge to
it like a dark cloud on an otherwise sunny day. They use mostly keyboards
and rhythm machine, but also occasionaly a bass guitar. The production is
very nice – forget the lo-fi thing about it! Very nice music.
Address: <morrmusic@01019freenet.de>
310 – THE DIRTY RoPE (cd by Leaf)
Violin strains to see the source of the shuffling steps and calling from
somewhere near. Another in a long string of small moments…written down
for which moments? A melody filters through the depths, watery in
consistency. Much vibration, and now that of a faint stringed strumming
does its thing, amidst the bongos and and brass and mumbling across a
playground slide. The hummingbird wings of the beat weave their ways under
and beneath – and are we yet at “beats per second” instead of “per minute”?
A crowd and Dixieland administer their greetings as their sounds are
interwoven with the other shreds of a city’s life. Yeah yeah yeah o yeah
and so on. In rhythm, I mean – not to cast aspersions! And is “yes” truly
the essence of popular music? Wow. “Trailing by three points…” and the
rest of the piece winnows its way below the quotation marks. There is a
palpable sense of expectation in this music – not that of an eternal “now”
but that of an eternal “next.” Intercepted commentary edges quietly behind
the melody lingering like the changing of a radio dial, and leaves just as
quietly. And up pops drumming from its nap – awakened by a dripping tap.
Can I get a “Hey now!”? There is a timidity in the sounds – dipping of
toes in a pool and acclimation by repetition – that does not suggest a lack
of force but instead a lack of forcefulness.
A half-heard welter of words escapes to perhaps form a freeflowing stream
of watery reverberations and crackling. There is further another sense –
that of pulling something from unquiet spaces. Sculpting with the sweat of
the clay instead of the clay itself, as it were. The beats come in again,
and quite rightly, so does a heavy breathing. Labouring? It is unclear.
The aural Rohrschach test of echoed words plays behind the tapestry – as is
“meaning” such an underrated commodity still? “Queens, Brooklyn,
Manhattan…” And then – silence, as though there is something left to
work with from a quiet space. (DC)
Address: <jade@310.org>
GET CARTER – soundtrack (cd on Cinephile)
The haunting synthesizer soundtrack – ultra-miniscule in its outlay of
notes – echoes and echoes for days after the film is seen. Yet this is not
what’s being re viewed – or, is it? The dialogue cues on this bring back
those scenes in bas-relief. And what else is a review but a re-VIEWing of
several elements of the film? There are few songs with vocals on this
recording – and, for all the talk about the film’s violence, it is the
sadness of the events therein is what resonates. Emotion crackles –
emitting, spitting that hiss of tension entirely evident in the film – of
which there is a reproduction of the poster that comes with the cd. It
could be that a similar packaging accompanies the vinyl version.
An interesting effect of 1970s cinema is that the outcomes were placed in
doubt in films for nearly 20 years afterwards. The audience was suddenly
unsure whether good or evil would triumph – indeed, if there were sometimes
differences between the two. Hero, anti-hero and all that. So, too, were
the expectations of what a thematic score could be – tension lives in the
spaces between the notes of particular film-scores of the time.
The fevered arguments, the exhaustive violence, the red-eyed grief, the
cool and inevitable strains of the theme(s), the view into one corner of
1970s England – all here, in stark and dread hues, following nearby even
after the last moments of the recording travel outward,
away, and beyond… (DC)
Address: Castle Communications PLC, A29 Barwell Business Park,
Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey, KT9 2NY
PEACE ORCHESTRA – Peace Orchestra (cd on G-Stone)
Very icebox, this. The sine non que of fuck music, at least in this
particular point in the reasonably near present tense… The pastoral
scene of the love-in gazing raptly from the flesh-coloured insert does
nothing to dispel this notion. Flesh-coloured band-aid with “Peace
Orchestra” printed across it only adds to the entirety of the full-body
flush. The music moves with the fluid surety of a speed seduction – drums,
gentle strings, psychoacoustic bass. Oh, and wah, wah, wah. And yet there
may be something about it that riles and orneries the cats? Not those
hipsters – that little black Burmese variety who’s currently playing Elm
Street Freddy with my drapes…
A softly oscillating tone is married with morsecode tapping. Prelude to
more beats, which in turn shall engender more tiny tones and tapping.
Later on? Or now, where I am not hearing it? They – beats – emerge with a
bit more structure as time passes. Here a stutter, there in clutters – but
again, it’s as if something is coming. Unless you were looking for a
quickie, that is. But, several tracks into the recording, the flow has not
been broken and the thrust has not been blunted. A smoky voice, then a
sonorous one. Repetition from both make the plants grow…a low volume of
low volume. A final flourish of air…and dot dot dot (DC)
Address: <radiodisturbance@earthlink.net>
CORRECTION:
HAUSKAA JOULUA (&” on Meeuw Muzak)
The name of this new 7″ record on Meeuw Muzak was completely misspelt in
last week’s review. Nothing at all to do with the unreadable Gregorian
font on the sleeve, of course – more to do with me not reading the fine
print on the back of the sleeve. The title as it appears above is the
correct title, and it means Merry Christmas, in Finnish. Thought you’d
like to know…
Appy Polly Loggies. (MP)
ANOTHER CORRECTION:
RADIANTSLAB (see last week’s Vital) is not run by Dan Armstrong, but by
Jeff Carey. Sorry about this mistake boys.