MONO NO AWARE – KITANAL YATSU (CD by Hands Productions)
CM VON HAUSWOLFF – OPERATIONS OF SPIRIT COMMUNICATION (LP by Die Stadt)
HAUSWOLFF/DUNCAN/EULER-DONNERSPERG (7″ by Die Stadt) DAVID JACKMAN –
EISEN (10″ by Die Stadt) STEVE RODEN – FOUR POSSIBLE LANDSCAPES (CD by
Trente Oiseaux) KYMATIK – DAR-AS-SULH VOL.1 (CD by Paradigm) MIGUEL A
RUIZ – TESTICULAR PRAWN (CDR by Toracic) KAK – 30 MINUTES (CDR by
Bergerk! Sound Gallery) CAT HOPE – FETISH (CDR by Bergerk! Sound
Gallery)
MONO NO AWARE – KITANAL YATSU (CD by Hands Productions)
After the gentle tones of trance-inducing ambient, Mono No Aware’s
excellent debut-album suddenly changes disguise and turns into a
breathtaking joyride of rhythmic extremity. “Kitanal Yatsu” released on
Hands Productions, is a strange two-headed monster of beauty and
ugliness. Distorted beats circulate around spheres of heavy bass-lines
and crushing power electronics. In the best Atari Teenage Riot-likely
sense, the harsh noise-expression on “Kitanal Yatsu” is further nailed
down by the manifesting vocals of Sina H, occuring once in a while
throughout the 65 minute long adrenaline rush. The atmospheric
trance-scapes drifting behind the violent expression both function as
fascinatingly extreme contrasts to the violent sound picture meanwhile
lay the final bricks to fulfill Mono No Aware’s superb debut of
devastating pleasure. (NMP)
Address: www.handsproductions.com
CM VON HAUSWOLFF – OPERATIONS OF SPIRIT COMMUNICATION (LP by Die Stadt)
HAUSWOLFF/DUNCAN/EULER-DONNERSPERG (7″ by Die Stadt) Hauswolff shouldn’t
be a new name for you. Recentely popping up in Oscid (see a few weeks
back), but his recording career started already two decades ago. He
played with Phauss, as himself, as part of The Hafler Trio and above all
his is a visual artist, creating mostly, I believe, conceptual art. His
solo music is of concept and minimalism too. It has taken the form of
minimalist beats (but then just one short sound being repeated, rather
then anything close to a rhythm machine) on his CD’s for Table Of The
Elements and Fire Inc. Here it takes the form of drones. Knowning a
little bit how these things work, it looks like Hauswolff takes the
Alvin Lucier concept of processing sounds (in his ‘I”m Sitting In A
Room’) for a set of tape-loops of voices (from beyond the living?) or
static sounds by tone generator. By playing them in a space, recording
them, and then playing them back into the space, the sounds erode and
transform. There is a certain ‘live’ character to the sounds enclosed on
this record (and not just by looking at the cover and the various places
it was recorded in), which sounds like recorded with a microphone. There
is a sense of continuaty in the various spaces this record inhabits, but
it certainly moves around. Not just in your room or head, depending on
your speakers or headphones, but it’s divided in smaller tracks, which
seem various generations of the sounds. Highly delicate sounds, which
are nice if not beautiful. But but but vinyl? Crackles around when
played for the third time… why not a CD? Or maybe it’s part of the
concept….? Great stuff in either way. More Hauswolff can be found on a
7″ (or 2 if you are lucky) which was made for a concert in Germany last
year, organised by Die Stadt. His pieces are in similar vein as the LP,
but then compressed to 7″ length. Also included are 6 lockgrooves by
John Duncan, which aren’t cut properly (when that isn’t the intention at
least) and a piece by Euler-Donnersperg, who shuts his mouth now and
plays electronic music like a child would do. Or did, who knows?
(FdW)
Address: <jschwarz@diestadtmusik.de>
DAVID JACKMAN – EISEN (10″ by Die Stadt)
Ha more Jackman madness. The machine guns are silent now, and the
orchestra’s play. Two side long pieces of orchestral loops which are
only marginally different from eachother. The title is German and means
iron. So me think these loops come from the Mosolov piece on the iron
works (I forgot the title, but it’s one of the very few known pieces by
Mosolov) – a poem for the factoryworkers in early days of commy russia.
Think Laibach without vocals, or Le Syndicat without noise, that’s where
Jackman comes in. World War 1 is over for Jackman, the workers march.
(FdW)
Address: <jschwarz@diestadtmusik.de>
STEVE RODEN – FOUR POSSIBLE LANDSCAPES (CD by Trente Oiseaux) The
landscapes Roden refers to here, are not real ones, but related to his
work with performances, the specificity of the location. Inspired by a
bench in the Centre Pompidou which may or may not be the same as Roden
sat upon, as did his labelboss Bernhard Gunther, watching a painting by
Georges Mathieu. Three pieces of music on this CD were made by using
Gunther’s Details Agrandis CD. Roden takes samples of the tracks and
creates his own, audible, space with them (although if I remember
correctly that Gunther CD was his most loud album, I believe he called
it his popalbum). Roden is also at the point of pop here: simple
repeating loops with organ like drones gurggling underneath… simple,
naive music which nevertheless breaths the minimalism of Gunther’s own
work, but of a much lighter nature. The fourth piece on this CD were
made of ‘some recordings of a very beautiful sounding light switch in a
cabin’. The outline of this piece is no different then the other three.
The cover recommends to play this at a relatively low level. Your room
will be filled with ambience, this music will be present, but doesn’t
ask your entire attention. It’s music that can best be described as
ambient. Music as an environment. Well shaped environment that is. (FdW)
Address: www.trenteoiseaux.com
KYMATIK – DAR-AS-SULH VOL.1 (CD by Paradigm)
Kymatik is derived from the Greek word ‘Kyma’, meaning ‘a great wave’,
and was used by Swiss physicist Hans Jenny to describe the effects of
amplified tones to manipulate/create patterns in fluids and powders.
When I read this, I was reminded of the booklet that came with ‘The Sea
Org’ 10″ by The Hafler Trio (a decade or so ago), in which you’ll find
reprints of sonic
painting: tones that influence paint on canvas. Now The Hafler Trio
simply wrote their own novel on sound that was so real that is was
almost real, but what about Kymatik? Who are they/she/he? There is a lot
of info on the cover, but as to the basic who, we are in the dark.
Kymatik uses environmental recordings and treats those in the studio
into his own compositions. Two pieces are about pure tones of which
‘Lorenz Attractor’ works best. The tones fill your space and if you move
through the room, or if you are lazy just your head, these tones keep
changing. The other piece is a transposition of a painting by Kandinsky
works the same but the sound wasn’t appealing to me. Then there two
pieces in which sampling and more over, looping plays a big role. Loaded
with sounds and effects, these are rhythmic affairs and humm… quite
psychedelic. Finally the three shortest pieces are ‘just’ recordings
from nature, a ship leaving harbour, crickets in the wind and bees.
These pieces form counterpoints in the overal CD, for they are moments
of tranquility. If you have a UHJ decoder, whatever that may be (I am
not a gear freak), than the psychoacoustic effect can be further
enhanced. Well, I thought it was already beautiful enough. (FdW)
Address: www.stalk.net/paradigm
MIGUEL A RUIZ – TESTICULAR PRAWN (CDR by Toracic)
With this CDR Miguel A. Ruiz cleans his archives. In the 80s and early
90s he released cassette albums on his own Toracic Tapes, aswell as Iep
Tapes and a LP for a label that never released anything else, run by
Asmus Tietchens. On this CDR you’ll find a selection of music, recorded
from 1987 to 1991. Ruiz’ works falls apart in two categories: bleak
synthesizer scapes and musique concrete/tape collages. Much of his work
is drowned by reverb (and thus bleak) and the overall atmosphere in all
his pieces can easily be described as dark. Yet he manages to gain a
quality that I wasn’t aware of when I first heard this on cassette. The
music is much deeper and richer then I remembered. Ruiz’ influences are
that of Maurizio Bianchi and Asmus Tietchens. He paints a dark world
with titles as ‘Botulismus Terrier’, ‘Sinister Life’ or the cynical
‘Post-Mortem Risotto’. Another find from the archives of industrial
music. (FdW) No address given
KAK – 30 MINUTES (CDR by Bergerk! Sound Gallery)
CAT HOPE – FETISH (CDR by Bergerk! Sound Gallery)
The Bergerk! Sound Gallery hails from down under and promotes
experimental music from thereof. Their first release is by KAK, a three
piece noise group, and the CDR is filled with a live recording from
august last year. The title is what it is. Thirty minutes of furious
noise, with distorted guitars, synth, computer games and recorded spoken
words. Not exactely stuff that blew me away because it steps on known
grounds. I wonder what they would sound like inside the studio and when
they are putting more thought in a track. Cat Hope is female and has a
track on the Extreme Music From Women compilation (on Whitehouse’s
Susan Lawly label) and she has played shows around the world, supporting
that CD. Her solo CDR is entirely filled with short tracks played on the
bass. An ambient instrument, but Cat Hope knows her way around to
produce big time noise. Partly these selections were recorded live,
either in concert or in the four track studio. With 21 selections under
50 minutes, this is a lively affair, jumping around ideas, atmospheres
and textures. (FdW)
Address: www.bergerk.one.net.au