MASSTISHADDHU – Shekinah – cd by Psychedelic Pig
BEN VIDA – MPLS (CD by Boxmedia)
UNDO – UN SPERME QUI MEURT DE FROID EN AGITANT FAIBLEMENT SA PETITE QUEUE
DANS LES DRAPS DÍUN GAMIN (CD by Squint Fucker Press)
ERRORCYCLE (compilation CD by Throat)
MASSIMO – MINIMO (CD-EP by Staalplaat)
ZIPPER SPY – LIVING IN A FREE WORLD (12″ by Mixer)
JEAN BACH – VIJFDE MIXER (12″ by Mixer)
ILIOS – DANCE CLASSICS (CD by Antifrost)
MIMEO – ELECTRIC CHAIR &TABLE (2CD by Grob)
TORE HONORE BOE – SIESTA (CD by Jazzassin)
MASSTISHADDHU – Shekinah – cd by Psychedelic Pig
Stringed drone and measured organ pulsebeat. Much chanting, and the rhythm
wends like the devouring dog on the cover. Circular and passionate and
WAIT STOP THE POETRY! This came out 12 years ago? On United Dairies?
That’s just great, wonderful, fine – WELL, HELLO MISTER FANCY PANTS. This
quite frankly is an intensely beautiful recording but hey Stapleton! Can
we mellow out with this limited edition crap? If you (and Dick Rupenus from
The New Blockaders, who purportedly is behind Masstishaddu) think this is
such hot shit, how come we have to go through TWO limited editions to hear
it? Blink and it’s gone. I know “fair” is a fool’s notion, but can we just
lighten up a little and let more people hear what’s lovin’ in yr oven?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m checking my ripcord before I skydive but this
rocks socks. These sounds are down like a DC-fuckin’-9. (DC)
Address: <Psychedelic Pig – jaslmb@erols.com>
BEN VIDA – MPLS (CD by Boxmedia)
I have no clue who Ben Vida is, or if he is from Minneapolis. What I do
know is that his CD is short (stuttering at 35:35 minutes), and that is was
entirely made with an acoustic guitar, and one track with the addition of a
bass. But in this short time span we are confronted with distinct solo
acoustic improv pieces. Very nicely recorded, very calm, never hectic, with
great pace. If you wouldn’t know it’s Ben Vida, you’d say ‘ah Gastr Del Sol
has returned but were’s the singing?’. What can I say? Just a simple, yet
beautiful album. Very harmonic, very relaxing, like a fairytale on a
summernight. This is, after the first Town & Country CD, the second
sensation on Boxmedia. (FdW)
Address: www.boxmedia.com
UNDO – UN SPERME QUI MEURT DE FROID EN AGITANT FAIBLEMENT SA PETITE QUEUE
DANS LES DRAPS DÍUN GAMIN (CD by Squint Fucker Press)
Read the fine print before you continue… I’d love to tell you all that is
printed on the cover, but the very fine silkscreen is beyond reading. I’m
sorry. What I use in the header is what I found in the letter that came
with the CD. Alexandre St.Onge we remember from his more then fine CD on
Namskeio and his more noisy outings on Alien8. Christof Migone has had
likewise nice CD’s, which are a little more unknown or rarely seen. Since I
can’t read the fine print, I am a bit in the dark about what these boys are
up to here. Upon hearing we are confronted with a fine blend of dynamic
sound processing of environmental sounds, cracked electronics and
microscopic dabblings in the bass end. Sometimes there is just a small
static sound, with crackling of a broken pick-up microphone on top.
Sometimes these elements form maybe a rhythm, borrowed from microwave areas
(as in the sixth track). I’d file this under “improvisational music from
the new millenium”: laptop boys with a taste of their own.
Address: www.squintfuckerpress.com
ERRORCYCLE (compilation CD by Throat)
“Win/Mac Datatrack” – or so it is written. And inside such a lovely
transparent wallet! The shortcomings of the cdR can sometimes be
overlooked due to really nice packaging. Memo to myself… cdt sends a
sam:o:gram. It melts into the next piece, by Svstriate. Prepared in
shivers and sizzles, in anticipation of the time when sounds last for days
and days instead of mere compilative moments. Wipeout. It is as if the
sounds of the crash are being experienced in slow flowmotion – faraway, so
close? Iot whips the speakers into the airline frenzy, testing the
tweeters in such a way as to hide the source but dazzle with crackles and
thrum. What may be even more surprising than the sounds used – are the
intervals of time in which they EXIST.
Wolfgang Rottger’s “burnt out carousel” pulses, reflections in the mirrors
directly beside the show-ponies. Speeding, slowing, telling the story of
the title in a very peripheral way. How deeply do memories inform
soundworks, even so solitary as these? Musical Nature pulls its sounds and
voices (?) slowly from some other point in time – and it seems that the
focus of these minimalist works is not necessarily “less”, but “more”.
Their durations. How long does it “last”? A rhythm piece knits the sounds
from that time – together, but in what direction? “Static Conditioning”?
Rather.
C.M. de Giere breathes that fire of circular motion. Apparently there are
four ways to describe sounds but may motion be the fifth? I’ll take it, in
any case. ABF vs. IST OP conduct a rhythm study, which dissolves into a
match between this timbre and that bloo. What cycle of erorr moves in
here? It solemns into the onward crackle of Drizdial; perhaps this is all
one elaborate peacock waving of styles? Of one person? It is unclear –
mysterious as the “htirdadcekn” that winds everything up…or down…
Remarkably remarkable, et cetera. (DC)
Address: <not present>
MASSIMO – MINIMO (CD-EP by Staalplaat)
Yet another release in Staalplaat’s fine ‘material series’, by the Sicilian
with a sense of humor, as the title so well indicates. The twenty tracks on
this release force me to review it as a whole, rather than go through them
one by one. As you may know, Massimo is regarded as one of the new stars in
the world of clicks ‘n cuts and not without reason. His works combine a
high level of intelligence with that of humor and make them a joy to listen
to. Using uptodate software on his notebook, Massimo spits out his tracks
into the world with a relentless vigour, leaving the listener somewhat
astonished at times. But some parts have a more coherent structure and give
us time to catch our breath, although never for long, I’m happy to say.
Cuts and breaks are interrupted by short and funky melody lines (or is it
the other way around?) and those again are interrupted by strange samples
and other unnerving sounds. Definitely not for weakhearted. (MR)
Adress: www.staalplaat.com
ZIPPER SPY – LIVING IN A FREE WORLD (12″ by Mixer)
JEAN BACH – VIJFDE MIXER (12″ by Mixer)
One of the few female partners of the scene of experimental music is Zipper
Spy. Slowly she gains more attention and more releases. This twelve inch
with six tracks is a perfect showcase for her talent, which is doing rhythm
oriented stuff against tapestries of noise. She’s a much rooted in
industrial rhythms (but without any of the black overtones often found
there) as in techno, drum & bass or even gabber (her fourth track is a
heavy stomper). For lovers of both genres, but willing to taste something
new, it’s definetely a very good cross-over.
Jean Bach is a musician when not driving trains, his day occupation. Being
German, he belongs to the more crazy blokes, with that typical German sense
of humour. His 12″ with nine tracks is devoted to trains, four tracks use
sounds recorded in a train, against a backdrop of saxophone sounds, samples
and other dubious sound material. These are quite nice. His other pieces
sound like fast trains with much noise, but are generated from driving
rhythm machines/sequences with white noise added. I am very much reminded
of the very old Esplendor Geometrico here, which is ok, but not great. An
entire record with just his trainscapes would be something more up my
alley. (FdW)
Address: <mixer@staalplaat.com>
ILIOS – DANCE CLASSICS (CD by Antifrost)
Ilios is unknown to me, but this CD seems to be a very nice introduction
(although the press release states that it’s Ilios’ policy to come up with
something new every CD, so who knows what is in store for the future). So
this CD contains dance hits for the years to come, they say. Well, I’m not
so sure about the future development of dance music, but I can probably
state with a good amount of certainty, that these tracks will not become
the hits Ilios is hoping for. And probably that’s not exactly what Ilios
intends with this title anyway. What I can say with a good amount of
certainty, is that the distorted electronic cuts of Ilios are pretty
interesting and defenitely an addition to the growing microwave scene.
Except for some weirder explorations, this disc contains mostly looped,
distorted, edited and atmospheric sounds of varying origins. Some of the
tracks are based on a clear rythm section (either acoustic or electronic)
with loops and samples layered on them, others seem to be based on rythmic
tracks, but distorted and edited and layered with additional sounds. There
are some funny things going on here and there, which seems to take things
to the light side. At some times it sounds as if the whole CD consists of
several minor projects put together. And the last is actually by Thurston
Moore, doing a remix of track 14 of the CD. And it defenitely not the best
one on the CD. (MR)
Adress: antifrost@siteilios.gr
MIMEO – ELECTRIC CHAIR &TABLE (2CD by Grob)
Mimeo stands for Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra and is an improv
big band featuring all your lovers boys from traditional improv to the
laptop generation: Phil Durrant, Fennesz, Cor Fuhler, Thomas Lehn, Kaffe
Matthews, Jerome Noetinger, Gert-Jan Prins, Peter Rehberg, Keith Rowe,
Marcus Schmickler, Rafael Toral and Markus Wettstein. The two CD’s here
contain again live recordings, but rather then the best cuts from a
concert, the recordings have been edited in the studio. ‘Chair’ by Marcus
Schmickler and ‘Table’ by Rafael Toral. Toral mixed the parts he liked best
into one 69 minute piece, and dwells more into an organic flow which shifts
nicely along softer and noisier paths. Schmickler seems to have cut an
entire part out of the whole thing for the specific quality it had. His
five selections can be classified as ‘soft’, ‘noisy’ or ‘open’. Now
particulary this last classification is a difficult one. With such a large
group of troublemakers, the sound is at times anything but open. Blurred
elements cover up the beauty some sounds have. This could have been avoided
if one would multi-track the whole thing and make a mixdown (no doubt this
would lead to logistic problems). Have a look at the pictures of the mess
these boys make of their toys, and you see the problems of doing a
multi-track session. I preferred the Schmickler selection over the Toral
selection, but nevertheless it’s an overall document. Hopefully there will
be a likewise document of the 24 hour concert Mimeo held a while back…
can’t wait to hear that. (FdW)
Address: <grobcologne@hotmail.com>
TORE HONORE BOE – SIESTA (CD by Jazzassin)
Tore Boe is a busy bee. Besides being a proffesional father, he’s also at
the core of Origami, in all it’s facets. His latest CD has one problem:
it’s way to short for the beauty it contains. Apperentely it uses
environment recordings from Africa, which could have been for me also
Norway (home country of Boe). These recordings are sampled and looped in a
very direct way, but mixed together with original, unprocessed sources.
It’s hard to identify the sources, maybe it’s the rattle of fire, the
running of water or crackling of leaves – whatever, but Boe’s simple and
effective way of presenting this audio collage is great. It’s intense, but
at the same time a great pleasure to hear. The only problem, as said, its a
short CD, clocking at 34 minutes, but I wish this bath of sounds to be
double length. (FdW)
Address: <lmarhaug@online.no>