YEN POX – NEW DARK AGE (CD by Malignant Records)
REUTOFF – REGNO DI PIANTA (CD-R by Ewers Tonkunst)
BILL HORIST – SONGS FROM THE NERVE WHEEL (CD by Unit Circle Rekkids)
THILGES 3 – DR. KERN (3″ by Thilges)
JUST ABOUT NOW (compilation by V2 archief)
ARCANE DEVICE – THE FINAL CONCERT (3″ CD-R by Generatorsoundart))
CHOP SHOP – KAPUT (3″ CD-R by Generatorsoundart)
CONTRASTATE – EXTRACT NO. 10 (7″ by Outsider Records)
EUGENE CHADBOURNE & THOMAS LEHN – C INSIDE (CD by Grob)
HMMM (CD Compilation by Sprawl Imprint)
BIG CITY ORCHESTRA – ARC OF INFINITY
DICK SINNER – CUNT BLISTER
DON CAMPAU – GUARANTEED INJECTION COMFORT
LORD LITTER – LITTER’S REEL ALL ITTY
(all CD-Rs by Harsh Reality Music)
YEN POX – NEW DARK AGE (CD by Malignant Records)
It’s a long time ago that I wrote a review for Vital Weekly, but this album
really forces me to do so again. It leaves me rather speechless, and I have
problems to tell you anything objective about it, as it has impressed me so
much. It’s their second album after their fine “Blood Music”, that came out
nearly 5 years ago. Yen Pox, a duo (Steven Hall and Michael Hensley,
currently located in Indiana and Seattle), took their time to create a dark
ambient milestone that operates at the border of total darkness &
depression and beauty somehow. A monument, a monolith of sound that is
organic and vital inside, created with samplers surely, but in a way that
leads to deepest sensations & visions seemingly coming from the unconscious
(speaking now only for myself of course). Everything about this album is
perfect to me, every sound is arranged in the right way. Very emotional,
meditative, for lonely hours confronting yourself with your inner spheres.
I’m sorry about this most subjective phenomenological review, but for me
this the album of the year 2000, and maybe THE dark drone – album of all
times. [BAR]
Address: <malignant@malignantrecords.com>
REUTOFF – REGNO DI PIANTA (CD-R by Ewers Tonkunst)
Finally, this russian trio managed to put out their first CD-album – OK,
it’s a CD-R limited to only 100 copies, but hopefully this is just a start
for more. REUTOFF could be seen as one of the followers of a “real”
industrial-approach, aesthetically and soundwise, but without just copying
any of the old classics. As with previous cassette-only albums, this is a
surprise again, as they move mostly in ambient industrial fields (dark
synths, speech-samples, chorals, sound-effects), but sometimes they break
in with very experimental or noisy rhythmical tracks, to cover the whole
spectrum of industrial as we knew it. The overall atmosphere is again dark
& gloomy, sometimes even melancholic and yearnful. 10 tracks, for
industrial-lovers something to discover! [BAR]
Address: rekirill@cityline.ru
BILL HORIST – SONGS FROM THE NERVE WHEEL (CD by Unit Circle Rekkids)
If we have to mention one instrument that symbolizes decades and decades of
popular music of the 20th century, then we have to mention the guitar.
That’s evident. Blues, country, rock’n’ roll, hardrock, you name it, the
guitar was the key instrument. Since the seventies the guitar got more and
more competition. With Kraftwerk, disco, house,etc. electronics became more
and more important. Although this may be a correct picture when talking in
general, looking more closely we see other trends and developments as well.
One is of particular interest here. Guitar players like Derek Bailey, Fred
Frith, Eugene Chadbourne and many other guitarists from the obscure world
of free improvisation have inspired rockbands and artists (like Jim
O’Rourke) in expanding traditional ways of ‘playing’ the guitar, searching
for new capabillities.
Bill Horist is a recent example of this as he is obviously inspired by
these improvisers (and Robert Fripp!) as can be heard on his new solo cd.
No traditional guitarplaying here, the guitar is ‘treated’ in many ways.
Horist is from Seattle. He scored several soundtracks for television and
plays in numerous bands ranging from avant-rock to ambient, from
improvisation to industrial. He played with other guitarists like K.K.Null,
Luigi Archetti. He impressed with his first solo effort ‘Soylent Radio’.
I cannot compare ‘Songs from the Nerve Wheel’ with earlier work because
this cd is my introduction to his music. The cd sheds light on only one
aspect of his work containing 11 solo improvisations. Abstract sound
collages, difficult to describe. Noisescapes sometimes with a percussive
feel or rhythmic structure. Solos within repetitive structures. (DM)
Address: http://www.unitcircle.com/
THILGES 3 – DR. KERN (3″ by Thilges)
Thilges 3 was the result of three electronic experimentalists´ spontaneous
live performance back in 1996. Since its birth this Austrian commune has
been responsible for two cd’s with the common denominator of being based on
live shows. The same goes with this third launch of Thilges 3, entitled
“Dr. Kern”. Taking its starting point in clicks and bits of small
electronic pulses, the album slowly develops into a haunting minimal work
of thick noisy buzz drones. Strange beat-textures slowly sneaks into the
lowest layers of the electronic turbulence, only to sneak further into the
music and penetrate the footlights. The sonic world of Dr. Kern also expose
the listener to samples of something sounding like deepwater sonar
equipment. Those who enjoy the cold sounds of canadian
ambient-industrialist Vromb will appreciate the 21 minutes long album. To
everyone else: Dr. Kern is definitely worth a friendship. (NMP)
JUST ABOUT NOW (compilation by V2 archief)
Roel Meelkop, one of the busiest of audio people I know, now has co curated
for the second time an exhibition that concentrates on sound. Sound art is
time based but the contributing installations somehow try to stop a
fragment of time and loop it somehow. It is all about the NOW, well, JUST
about now.
So, how was the exhibition? The exhibition was excellent, and should be
presented in other places in the world also. The collection of sound
installations that Meelkop and his companion Shinichi Yanai brought
together all fitted perfectly. There was only one dissonant: the huge and
loud work of Edwin van der Heide. Van der Heide’s piece was very strong but
it at times it cast a loud and dark shadow over the other, mostly quite
subtle, sound works.
This cd is a companion to the exhibition. It is definitely not intended as
a record of what was at the exhibition. It presents almost all of the
artists present at the exhibition but most of them have other work on the
disc than the stuff at the exhibition. Logically: the exhibited works are
almost impossible to translate from the large environment of the exhibition
space to your sitting room.
Yet the cd catches the intention of the exhibition. It presents sound in
time, caught, transformed and looped, for a new period of time. The
extensive booklet explains the motives of the artists (Japanese and Dutch).
Interestingly, in general the Dutch works harbour emotion and
socio-environmental aspects, whereas the Japanese works are really
straightforward technological, some even scientific projects. And yet the
mixture of these artists blends very well.
Address: <peterd@v2.nl>
ARCANE DEVICE – THE FINAL CONCERT (3″ CD-R by Generatorsoundart))
CHOP SHOP – KAPUT (3″ CD-R by Generatorsoundart)
About a decade ago I was a big lover of noise, and one of my heroes was
Arcane Device, the ‘group’ by David Myers. David built his own feedback
machines, delays linked to eachother, cables going back in mixing boards.
No other sound input then the feedback sounds of the machines itself. In
the course of his career as Arcane Device, he progressed to beautiful
ambient pieces on one hand and rhythmpieces on the other hand. In 1992 he
decided to cease his career as an artist, because, if I recall well, he
realized ‘art couldn’t chance the world, and the bottomline was all about
money’. On the recentely re-launced Generator label (in other guises and in
other times, a label, a shop, a concertspace), a recording of the final
concert by Arcane Device becomes available as a 3″ CD. All of the pieces
released by Arcane Device were live recordings, so this isn’t anything odd.
Styllistically Arcane Device is in common grounds of ‘Diabolis Ex Machine’,
his 1992 CD release. Harsh rhythms over fierce fields of feedback. It still
sounds surprisingely fresh in my ears, I’d say. It’s like a time machine, a
warp back in time, with still the same roughedged sharpness of ten years
ago. Defintely not the weak of heart.
Also not really for the weakhearted is the 3″ CD-R by Chop Shop. Packed
with broken glass (which is either intended or the bloody postman again),
Chop Shop, aka Scott Konzelmann, produces his fine blend of distorted
electronica, cracked speaker humm and loops of, I guess, broken sounds
(‘Kaput’ is German for ‘broken’). Chop Shop’s music is a collage of various
treated sound-sources (or maybe even one sound during different stages of
processing and most likely analogue stuff) that are swirled into thick
layers, which you hear for a couple of seconds upto 1 minute or so. If you
leave it at one volume setting, some passages occur very soft, and others
extremely loud, all of course intended. In the vast body of Chop Shop work,
a solid addition. (FdW)
Address: www.generatorsoundart.org
CONTRASTATE – EXTRACT NO. 10 (7″ by Outsider Records)
Contrastate are no more. This 7″ is announced to be their ‘final release’,
but maybe there is a much coming as Maeror Tri? Contrastate started for me
as an interesting mixture of ambient music with environmental sounds and
bits of industrial music. Some where a long the line of history I lost my
interest. Vocals and lyrics came in, and they were … humm… think….
hesitate… albeit a bit too gothic. So I didn’t keep up, and therefore I
am a bit surprised at this 7″, as it harks back, for me to the first LP’s:
ambient electronics with mildy repetitive sounds and voices luckily held
back in the mix. Voices that add more the darker atmosphere of the record,
then playing a leading role. So, it’s a loss to music then anyway. (FdW)
Address: Outsider – 12 Carlton Street – Lincoln, LN1 3HX – UK
EUGENE CHADBOURNE & THOMAS LEHN – C INSIDE (CD by Grob)
Chadbourne is one of the nicest people I know, and also one of the
funniest. I remember seeing him live on a sunday afternoon red wine soaked
concert at the local student club with the right attitude where he played
the rake. Also his appearance with Jon Rose on my radioprogram brings back
a smile on my face. I still see Chadbourne many times a year when he tries
to sell me his self-burned CD-R and real CD’s. A body of work which meets
easily that of Merzbow. Recorded on the same night as the G7 summit, so
Chadbourne raves in the liner notes (which are more or less standard
features on the Grob releases – bravo!) how he hates that, and proclaim
total freedom. Total freedom is also what he and Thomas Lehn are about when
playing music. Lehn plays the EMS A Synthi and Chadbourne on a series of
instruments with strings with various objects and his voice. Highlight here
is the cover ‘Hickory Wind’ (original by Gram Parsons), played and sung in
a very free manner by Chadbourne and a reduced Lehn participation. Before
and after that wild improvs, but this song is kinda traditional but still
weird enough. It shows to people: “hey we do improv, but we can do a good
tune too, you know”. Excellent stuff. (FdW)
Address: <grobcologne@hotmail.com>
HMMM (CD Compilation by Sprawl Imprint)
A collection around the theme of Sacred Songs – theme compilations are
always fun. The sacredness is a wide territory here, as it goes from
‘Morning Has Broken’ to ‘Deutschland’. To recognize the originals is not
very easy – especially if you are not familiar with all these tunes, which
are roughly said from the UK, the USA and Germany plus an odd exception.
Maybe it’s not intended to recognize the originals, who knows. In the
digital world everything sounds a little bit different of course. One of
the exceptions, is Benge with a recognizable ‘Kum By Yah’ (and not a dubby
‘Kum By Jah’). Just as in religion, there are no big surprises here, just a
steady flow of good, listenable electronic music. Oh yes, some of the names
of our servants: Kreidler, Vladislav Delay, Carl Stone, Farben, David Toop,
Kit Clayton, Kaffe Matthews, Matrix, Freeform – and more; the whole posse.
(FdW)
Address: www.dfuse.com/sprawl/
BIG CITY ORCHESTRA – ARC OF INFINITY
DICK SINNER – CUNT BLISTER
DON CAMPAU – GUARANTEED INJECTION COMFORT
LORD LITTER – LITTER’S REEL ALL ITTY
(all CD-Rs by Harsh Reality Music)
If you think that there is way too much music out there on CD’s and vinyl
and that CDR is another stab in the back of the music industry, then I give
this consideration: if everybody who has been releasing audiocassettes in
the 80 and 90s clean those tapes and re-issue them as a CDR, then you ain’t
seen nothing yet. Harsh Reality Music was a leading label in that scene,
with hundreds of releases – there you go. Here are some.
Big City Orchestra (with how many tapes in the catalogue? yes, thank you)
released a tape with HR in 1987 – sixty minute was their average length.
Arc Of Infinity has six lenghty pieces of loops, samples and synthdrones.
The minimalistic changes here and the hiss on some tracks betray the
eightiesness of this. However it’s still a nice piece of work in which
enough is happening to make it a worthwhile release.
A Whitehouse… their coupling of flanger pedals, the intense screaming
through a microphone… it brings back a lot of good, therapeutic things
about noise. Often me and my friends talked about doing a translation of
their lyrics in dutch and re-record the songs. I’m sure many lovers (aswell
as haters) of Whitehouse thought the same thing but maybe never did it.
Dick Skinner, a supposedely two man group, did it their parody. In nine
tracks they show their brutality in noise, screaming vocals and sexy
lyrics. Musicwise this sounded more into the Ramleh areas then Whitehouse,
but that’s just a minor detail.
I have no idea who Don Campau is, but he manages to come up with a very
full length CDR releases. Using many found speech samples along side with
electronica, rhythmboxes, the resultant is mostly naive playing and only
very occassionally going somewhere.
Lord Litter’s release falls in somewhere similar category, but with the
difference that this is much older (from 1989-1990) and has much more
variation in what he is doing. A certain amount of that German crazyness is
also part of his routine. Also one that has it’s good moments, along with
some tedious ones. (FdW)
Address: <chris.phinney@gte.net>