KLAXON GUEULE – MUETS
DIANE LABROSSE – PETIT TRAITE DE SAGESSE PRATIQUE
JOANNE HETU – SEULE DANS LES CHANTS
(3 CDs on Ambiances Magnetiques)
FOEHN – HIDDEN CAMERA SOUNDTRACK (CD by Fat Cat)
MIKA VAINIO – KAJO (Glow/Shimmer) (CD by Touch)
LARS AKERLUND – RIVERS OF MERCURY/VIA STYX
BOP – AND SO IT ALL ENDED
LEIF ELGGREN & THOMAS LILJENBERG – THE PARTY
(all CD’s by Firework Edition)
EKKEHARD EHLERS – BETRIEB (CD by Mille Plateaux)
KLAXON GUEULE – MUETS
DIANE LABROSSE – PETIT TRAITE DE SAGESSE PRATIQUE
JOANNE HETU – SEULE DANS LES CHANTS
(3 CDs on Ambiances Magnetiques)
Three new releases from the Ambiances Magnetiques collective in Montreal,
Canada.
Klaxon Gueule is a trio: Michel F.C”t, (drums), Bernard Faliase (electric
guitar) and Alexandre St-Onge (bass). Considering the line-up, ‘Muets’ it
is not exactly what you expect to hear. The enclosed information
characterizes this trio as an ‘electroacustic chamber ensemble’. That may
put you in the right direction. The music is very abstract and introvert:
nomelody, rhythm, no traditional playing on guitar, bass and drums. To make
a comparison, this trio operates in the same territory as the Fred Frith
Guitar Quartet. They use conventional instruments, but they do not to play
them in a traditional within some rock or jazz format. They play a new kind
of music that is inspired on the improvisations of AMM, where noise,
texture and exploration of sound are what counts. Very interesting.
Diane Labrosse and Joanne Hetu also move away from the avant-rock they made
with the all- women group Wondeur Brass. There are many influences to trace
on the new cd by Diane Labrosse ‘Petit traite de sagesse pratique’ (= A
Short Treatise on Practical Wisdom). The title suggests an academic study
on (dear) prudence, but we have here a cd with 37 little miniature songs
and pieces on diverse virtues and other moral subjects. All treated with
lots of humor and irony of course. The music is inspired on baroque and
medieval music, folk, jazz, cointemporary music, blues, etc. Performed by 9
musicians: Jean Derome, Martin Tetreault among others.
The title of the new cd by Joanne Hetu describes exactly what it is: ‘Seule
dans les chants’. It is her first solo effort for voice and alto sax. The
recordings were made between 1997 and 1999. What we hear is the result of
an intese process of montage and mixing that followed after the recordings.
So although the music makes the impression of being improvised, it is in
fact composed in the studio. The music is poetic and intimate in character.
Hetu investigates the sounds she can make by
her mouth. Just singing is not her interest. To this she added her favorite
alto sax sounds: “I am a sax player and a singer, I am not a sax player or
a singer”. A very personal document
(DM).
FOEHN – HIDDEN CAMERA SOUNDTRACK (CD by Fat Cat)
Behind Foehn we find one Debbie Parsons, once member of Third Eye
Foundation. The previous CD from her I heard was ‘Silent Light’, combined a
strange sense of lo-key instrumentation with very short tracks. This CD,
lasting 55 or so minutes has again no less then 28 track. Apperentely all
recorded in her bedroom. I couldn’t figure out wether she is a master at
sampling or if she really played all of the instruments I heard – not that
it really matters. The title of this CD is well chosen, but the music is
only for a specific sort of cinematic use. Dark b-movie thrillers and film
noir would come closest in these atmopherical and fragmented piece of
music. It’s very hard to to classify this music, as it’s influences are
present (industrial, lo-fi guitar music), but at the same time it sorts of
never really one or the other. The shortness of the tracks is the biggest
problem to classify this, because it quickly steps out of one genre into
the next – some tracks last less then one minute! But for me that’s the
charm of Foehn – not every track is utterly brilliant, but it all makes
sense. It’s like going through your grand parents photobooks: all
black/white, some crystal clear and some shaky, but always with their own
personal touch.
This is the first release in Fat Cat’s splinter series, which are CD’s only
to slow down their split 12″ series, and it’s most certainly a good start.
(FdW)
Address: www.fat-cat.co.uk
MIKA VAINIO – KAJO (Glow/Shimmer) (CD by Touch)
This is Mika Vainio’s second solo CD; the first ‘Onko’, also on Touch,
crept into my body like unobserved liquid, and this latest has the same
effect. It’s a swirl. A hiss. A sigh. A whine. A roar. It’s all the fine
detail you would normally only notice in a film after staring at each
frozen frame individually. Visual as fuck. Delicate as angel hair. As quiet
as a nightforest when there’s nobody around to hear it. Spacetoads yurp,
stones slither, the wind plays strange tricks on the trees. Minerals crawl
and cluster, assuming shapes of things they saw in past lives, then slowly
deteriorate, making new chemical alliances. Rainpings pong with curt
reverb, dancing like flocculet trapped for a moment in an eye of a storm.
One hand claps. Cables snap like twigs. Distant trains blur across the
tundra. Fridgehum bellows. Electronic yedakis crack and cackle. If
circuitry could speak this might be the secret backfeed language it would
use to mutter and whisper operational commands. Bask in this sea of new
sound, never too loud, and fresh and glinting in the silver light. (MP)
Address: www.touch.demon.co.uk
LARS AKERLUND – RIVERS OF MERCURY/VIA STYX
BOP – AND SO IT ALL ENDED
LEIF ELGGREN & THOMAS LILJENBERG – THE PARTY
(all CD’s by Firework Edition)
The Swedish extra vaganza Firework Edition keep surprising with their
releases, which seem to come as trios now. This time the releases come with
even less info on the composers and performers.
Lars Akerlund is a composer of two long works. He himself is responsible
for the live electronics (even when the cover doesn’t mention this, I
assume for both pieces). The first piece includes also percussion and more
live electronics. It’s a most startling pieces with a very dynamic range,
deep bass end sounds and tinkling hi-hat and bells sounds. A moving piece.
The ‘Via Styx’ is a piece that runs twice as a long and has just live
electronics. Much slower the sounds take shape, move a long and disappear.
This goes as deep and high as the ‘Rivers’ piece, but is slower. Yet there
are great movements to be discovered, such as around 21 minutes, were a
bass drum and radio interceptions wake up the piece and starts to breath
again.
BOP are duo, Paul Pignon on various wind-instruments and Thomas Bjelkeborn
on modified midi-guitar and computer stuff. Compared to the usual Firework
releases, this is an “easy” work of six lenghty improvised musics. Not bad,
but unfocussed for my taste. One of the lesser Firework editions.
And of course there is a new CD by Leif Elggren and Thomas Liljenberg. A
spoken intro about what could be changed to make this world more beautiful
for everybody living on it, the sound of Elggren and Liljenberg shaving and
dressing for the election day (or at least: this is what is sounds like,
they might be engaged in a totally different action) takes up the rest of
the 55 minutes. Drony, distorted rumblings on some kind, some static or
changing the crackles: there is not much difference between this CD and
others by the two (or solo). The concept changed, that is radically
important here. The CD booklet gives us the party programm, which flipping
through read like the best of existing ideologies combined with the usual
Elggren/Liljenberg topics, such as getting paid for sleeping.
Address: http://www.algonet.se/~tankred/fer.html
EKKEHARD EHLERS – BETRIEB (CD by Mille Plateaux)
As far as I understand Ekkehard Ehlers = Autopoieses (and also Auch) and
his CD ‘Betrieb’ is a comment on minimal music. On the cover he writes that
minimal music not really succeeded in making the world a better place (I am
rather simplifyng his words here). In today’s music, whatever we call it,
minimalism plays an important role, and the problems lie in making an
interesting piece with soft and hardware. Bold statements by Ehlers, but
that’s ok. With a CD in your hand, you can see if Ehlers does it ‘better’
then the others.
What exactely does he do? He takes samples of ‘turn of the century
compositions’ by Schonberg and Ives for instance, and staples them in no
doubt his digital multi-track programm. These samples are rather short and
recognizable violins, orchestras et al. These are played in and out of
phase for a short period; within 55 minutes you get 17 pieces, so count
your blessings. Ehlers does his trick quite alright, but half way through I
thought: and now something different. Every composition starts at a certain
volume, finds it groove and is followed by a fade out. As said: it’s a
trick that is nicely executed, but should be have been 35 minutes to be
good. Now we are left with mixed feelings and it doesn’t life up to it’s
quite pretentious liner notes. (FdW)
Address: www.mille.plateaux.com
to last week’s Vital:
From: Chris Phinney <chris.phinney@gte.net>
Sorry about that: “http://www.homemademusic.com/”