ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE: VOL.7: RITMAX ASIMETRA (CD by Cream Gardens)
SHIFTS – MECHANICA (CD by (K-RAA-K)3 Records)
TELEVISION POWER ELECTRIC (CD by Gentle Giant Records)
EVAN PARKER & THE GHOST IN HET MACHINE – NEW EXCURSIONS
THE WILD MANS BAND – THREE ROCKS ANDS A PINE
(CD’s on NINTH WORLD MUSIC)
ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE: VOL.7: RITMAX ASIMETRA (CD by Cream Gardens)
After Jos Smolders, mr. Kwi has also thrown himself on drums & beats for
this new CD, with the exception that AMT uses other sound sources as well.
I know some of AMT’s other work and have a high regard for it, so I was
naturally pleased with this new release. However, these drums are not what
I had prepared for. They do create another layer in the rich world of AMT,
but they also distract from the underlying ones, which is a pity, to be
honest. Not all the tracks use drums however (about half of the 39), so
there is plenty of room to enjoy the rest. Still, this disc seems to lack
something that I found on his others and I cannot really tell what it is.
This annoys me probably as much as it annoys you, but I cannot help it….
It simply doesn’t have the tension I had expected (ah, living up to
expectations), although this is not true for all tracks. Well, as you can
see I have mixed feelings about this one. Which is not necessarily
bad…….(MR)
Adress: jdkprod@xs4all.nl
SHIFTS – MECHANICA (CD by (K-RAA-K)3 Records)
Eight new tracks from Mr. de Waard, torturing his guitar collection.
Starting off with an almost industrial sounding track, all in the mid and
high frequencies, and slowly building up tension and then fading out, it
seems as if Shifts is going back to the roots of early experiments with
layering and its overtone qualities. But track two proves me wrong: dark
drones, more ambient, with slow filtering; quite a surprise. Track three
combines features of the first two tracks: low and high, with a melancholic
twist. Number four sounds more like some machine than a guitar and has the
same dark tension and is pretty quiet in nature. Track five is constructed
almost exclusively from overtones and has a slightly ethereal quality. Six
is a psychedelic one, making me wonder what is up and vice versa. Track
seven is the guitar piece: we can hear the chords being struck gently by
one of those little torture machines. The last track is a very low volume
piece and a good finish of the CD. Not really new, but probably one of my
Shifts favourites. (MR)
Adress: www.kraak.net
TELEVISION POWER ELECTRIC (CD by Gentle Giant Records)
Television Power Electric (or TV Pow) is a collective from Chicago,
equipped with a lot of electronics and yes: laptops. This new generation of
(noise) musicians travels lightly, that’s for sure. The use of this
equipment seems to have consequences for the music: lots of pops and
crackles and don’t forget the sines and noises of different colours.
However, TPE are not your average laptop noisists; their music is pretty
quiet and can be placed somewhere between Richard Chartier and releases
from the Sigma label. There is a certain warmth and a sense of humour in
his music, which I like very much. At the same time it’s chaotic and
nervous. There is one weak point: the tracks lack a little in composition,
which tends to lessen my concentration. On this disc there is also a video.
(MR)
Adress: www.gentlegiantrecords.com
EVAN PARKER & THE GHOST IN HET MACHINE – NEW EXCURSIONS
THE WILD MANS BAND – THREE ROCKS ANDS A PINE
(CD’s on NINTH WORLD MUSIC)
Two releases from the danish Ninth World Music label, a label specialised
in improvised and new music. Here we have two cds’s with two famous
European improvisers (Evan Parker and Peter Brotzmann) integrated in groups
of danish improvisors probably of a younger generation.
Both Evan Parker and Peter Brotzmann need no further introduction. They
belong to the first generation of European musicians that gave birth to a
European style of free improvised music at the end of the sixties. Both are
still going strong as these two releases show. As this kind of music
strongly depends on the musical vocabular and other possibilities of the
artist, one of the things that makes this music still interesting after 30
years is the playing in different combinations of musicians.
With these two releases we have two relatively new groups. The Ghost in the
Machine & Evan Parker released their fist on Leolab in 1996. Now they
release a live cd, covering a live performance on june 15th 1998 at The
Copenhagen International Experimental Festival. We hear Christer Irgens
Moller on keyboards, Peter Friis Nielsen on electric bass and guitar,
P.O.Jorgens on drums and percussion, Martin Klapper plays toys, tapes and
amplified objects, and Evan Parker on soprano and alto sax. All seven
pieces – varying from 2 to 14 minutes – are ‘compositions’ by the group.
The music is much about playing with sound and texture. The result is a
concentrated, intense and flexible kind of music. P.O.Jorgens and Peter
Friis Nielsen also play in the The Wild Mans Band. This quartet is
completed by the swedish saxplayer Mats Gustafsson (tenor and baritone) and
the german saxplayer Peter Brotzman (taragot, clarinet, alto- and
tenorsax). This quartet started in 1990 and present herewith their second
release. A studiorecording. Compared with The Ghost in the Machine this one
goes more in the direction of free jazz. Much enery is generated on this
wild ride. (DM)