VIDNA OBMANA & SERGE DEVADDER – THE SHAPE OF SOLITUDE – SUITE FOR ELECTRIC
GUITAR, ATMOSPHERES AND RECYLING (CD by Multimood)
KA – TERRARIUM (double 7″ by Jazzassin)
ELEKTRONENGEHIRN (CD by Block4)
CHRISTIAN MARCLAY & OTOMO YOSHIHIDE – MOVING PARTS (CD by Asphodel)
TRADEMARK – ANGEL (CDR by Evelyn Records)
WOJT3K – SUPERRITYN.SES (CDR by Mik Musik)
BHREUS KORMO (CD compilation by CIP)
ANDREA NEUMANN/ANNETTE KREBS – ROTOPHORMEN (CD by Charhizma)
LARS AKERLUND – RIVERS OF MERCURY / VIA STYX (cd by Firework Edition)
VIDNA OBMANA & SERGE DEVADDER – THE SHAPE OF SOLITUDE – SUITE FOR ELECTRIC
GUITAR, ATMOSPHERES AND RECYLING (CD by Multimood)
Ah, how Swede…erm…suite it is…
Sound that often appears on the “Hearts of Space” broadcast (recently
sacked from Los Angeles airwaves in favour of something called “classical
music”) manifests itself now. But what atmospheres do they mean? The
sweatsoaked haze deceding carnal explosives? A dreamstated journey down a
warm corridor of gold eaten by worms? A session of sexual exploration seen
through eyes leaking ejaculate? That’s right, folks – more fuck music.
The sound sparkles like sunset through abandoned mansion windows. Guitar
bows and pigeon coos and where is the lowest level of fondness and longing
and sorrow in a house? How deeply steeped are the timbers in living time
– in human time? What’s the true shape of solitude when there’s no one
around the shape it?
These are the things you cannot tell your loved ones – encapsulated in
these lows that shiver and shimmer – the tightness of the chest and
stopping of the throat. A spiral of solitude that is absolute and
unappreciated – and it takes so long to fade out… (DC)
Address: <info@multimood.com>
KA – TERRARIUM (double 7″ by Jazzassin)
The exquisite paper, smelling of the tire it represents on the cover –
“Superior 2000”. Confidence. The vinyl is clear – the speed at which it
is to be played is not. So, this re view comes at you from 33 rpm.
It is as if one is standing at the roadside – the drone and grinding
dopplers past. And now the earsplitting taxis on some runway somewhere,
from the heart of twilight to another heart, somewhere else. Now taking
off side one and now side two takes off.
The organist saves the church from burning by driving up and sneaking
inside. Some voices now. Spectral items tumble in and out like
snowflakes, no two quite the same but comforting in their familiarity.
A focussed rhythm fucks a buzzing upon its entry into the room. It climaxes
and fades amongst luminescent bells in the bed of memory. The queasy squeal
wheels into view and no one ever answered: IS suicide a solution? The
reply comes scrambled, dangled, dandered in sound – all bits of it from the
hospital floors. The midnight sun grumbles and whistles down the corridor,
but what does it rise on, if not the horizon? A revolution per minute?
(DC)
Address: <lmarhaug@online.no>
ELEKTRONENGEHIRN (CD by Block4)
Behind Elektronengehirn is one Malte Steiner, one of those long standing
names in the German electronica scene. He played before as Das Kombinat and
Notstandkomitee and released cassettes with music. If I do recall
correctely his music was made with a whole bunch of analogue synth stuff
and drumkomputers, but sounded loud and abrassive. With his new project
Elektronengehirn, Malte moves into more abstract territories and thus more
into areas that appeal to me. In 14 pieces, lasting from just over 2
minutes to just over 8 minutes, he depicts bleak industrial landscapes, but
less the banging rhythm. Sometimes these are pure tone experiments and
sometimes plain noise, such as in ‘Hamburg grusst Tokio’. Both the music
aswell as the design of the cover, reminded me of the work of Conrad
Schnitzler. Pieces of ‘non keyboard’ electronics that sometimes works
wonderfull, and sometimes pitch only at nasty frequencies. Even when this
musical no radical step forward in the history of music, I think it’s a
step forward in the personal development of Malte Steiner. (FdW)
Address: http://www.elektronengehirn.de/
CHRISTIAN MARCLAY & OTOMO YOSHIHIDE – MOVING PARTS (CD by Asphodel)
The crackling joins a cross-section of string sections – and the ticking of
a watch meets brother sound in winding of a toy. Is a mark of the modern
age, this new concentration on sound collage – a shortened attention span,
irreverence married with love of the past, a turning back the clock while
ever-prognosticating. A measured beat now, plunged from the gullet of the
record you’d never heard.
Mordant chittering is transmitted and what do the records look like after
they are through being collated and collaged – collagen? There is the sense
(beyond marimbas, beyond mbiras) that catalcylsm and apocalypse have been
sneaked in, surreptitiously repetitious and subliminal in excelsis. Piano
mixes piannissimo with my dripping tap and why wasn’t I thanked in the
liner notes? It is faintly easy to divine which sounds are from Mr.
Marclay and which sounds are from Mr. Yoshihide – but is identification the
crux of a problem here again? Is the desire – overriding, overwhelming –
to concentrate on the parts, and not the movement thereof?
Now back to the orchestra, clicks and cracks downing and drowning the
singers, a.o.. And the chime of the clock bell after all that – very
funny. The running theme seems to be time itself – exploring the records
of the past (classically so) and the million-dollar subconscious question
to all this may be “Will I be remembered and what for?” Now comes the
scent of water and the start of motors. It would be interesting to try
these pieces out on children, just to get a different perspective on the
distortion. Horns traipse through the radio waves, tripping over each
other on their way to see what the next piece of the cavalcade will bring.
A voice from the past slyphs past – profound and slowly sinking into a
sea of parts, from ignorance to bliss… (DC)
Address: <http://www.asphodel.com>
TRADEMARK – ANGEL (CDR by Evelyn Records)
Trademark is a band, maybe with one member, maybe more… the package is
not very clear about it. The release is by Evelyn Records, who has some
experience in releasing music on cassette from the ambient/post rock and
noise areas. The CDR contains twelve tracks of lo-fi synth music that could
go for techno music, but it’s never sophisticated. The whole album is of
very rudimentary beats and synth melodies. The overall sound is blurry here
and there and with some tracks I had great trouble, like ‘Sanction’ which
bubbles around a drum pattern and a sample for too long. Other pieces were
alright, but overall it couldn’t convince me very much. (FdW)
Address: 1 Bainton Gardens – Bainton – Nr Stamford – Lincs PE9 3AW
WOJT3K – SUPERRITYN.SES (CDR by Mik Musik)
Wojt3k belongs to the people behind the Polish band Moir Drammaz (who have
a couple of releases on Open Circuit) and works as a visual artist and runs
the Mik Musik label. However this is his first solo release. Even when some
people out there think that Poland is still a remote area, Wojt3k proofs
he’s been catching up with the latest stuff on electronica, more
particulary microwave and click music. He presents us very clinical pieces,
pieces that enter a groove, a mode and continue inside that mode. Clicks
remain clicks, and rhythms never become danceable. Unclear wether these
clicks are derived from digital sources or from good old analogue synths.
Wojt3k manages to keep his pieces short and despite some repetition, his
release is varied enough to hold ones attention throughout. And some of
these sounds are inspiring enough (or should that be “empty enough”?) to
attempt remixing or reworking? Maybe Mik Musik could start a series of
likewise releases. Arty package too, blue transparant box and small
edition, 55 copies only…
Address: <wojt3k@artcom.pl>
BHREUS KORMO (CD compilation by CIP)
As far as I know this is the second compilation CD about breast cancer. The
first was to commenorate the death of Abigail Lavine, the girlfriend of
Scot Konzelman, aka Chop Shop. The profits made on this new CD will go to
research of breast cancer. The players on this CD seem all male to me,
which is kinda odd. They all seem to approach noise music from their own
angle. Skin Crime take the known route to noise, but someone like Negative
Entropy (a new group with Micheal Prime, Geert Feytons (of Noise Makers
Fifes) and Daisuke Suzuki) take field recordings and create their own
atmospheres. Highlights for me were the laptop doodlings of Coeurl, the
Nurse With Wound inspired tape madness of Irr.app.ext, the organic
minimalism of Vertonen (from labelboss Blake Edwards), the pure sine waves
of Seafoam and the dark ambience of John Wiese. Negative Entropy didn’t
come across as a very exiting piece, so I wonder what their future will
bring. Most other tracks range from ok to could be ok. But this serves a
good cause, so if noise is your thing, I’d recommend supporting it. (FdW)
Address: <vertonen@earthlink.net>
ANDREA NEUMANN/ANNETTE KREBS – ROTOPHORMEN (CD by Charhizma)
Two unknown females to me. Annette Krebs plays guitar and Andrea Neumann
plays ‘inside piano’, now whatever that is. As far as I am informed this
is their first release after playing many concerts (also in my area only
very recent but I sadly missed it). The release is on Charhizma, the well
established label from Austria, bringing you fine improvised music. This
release is no different. I must admit I find it hard to seperate the guitar
elements from the inside piano elements, and I am fairly clueless to what
these women do. It sounds far more processed by sampling/laptop, then
playing the instruments. But there is no mention of that, so I must assume
they play their instruments. They present a lively collage of sound, very
open, with surprises throughout, but never going towards a crescendo. A
fascinating journey and a surprising fresh approach to these instruments.
Damm I missed that concert. (FdW)
Address: www.charhizma.com
LARS AKERLUND – RIVERS OF MERCURY / VIA STYX (cd by Firework Edition)
The rumble and quake of one tone leads to a ringing bell and voices out of
a sea of confusion. Many different kind of bells speak to each other in
misunderstood introspection. Do tones have secret lives of their own? A
more measured cadence bridges backward voice to backwards voice – it’s easy
to see where this could be rampantly applied in modern dance. Tones vault,
frightened flocks of birds in the seas of unease and the rumble and shine
reverberates (which incidentally is the longest word one can type using
solely the left hand). Mass acceleration hits like a bell that was struck
and beats wash effulgently across the speakers and what’s being called out
by the ringing tone? The end?
Drone emerges against the wind and the heavy engine incarnates, pulsing
with its own secret heart. Telegraph signals wave in its path and it
grows, planet on the prowl. The living thing – the recording that can be
turned on, just below the level of hearing, increasing a certain amount of
emotion or tension – moves onward, second by inexorable second. How long
can the manta ray live? No one knows, not even the sudden voice that
appears, gesticulating urgently. A gentle test tone inculcates. A
sweeping wave of the sound from hands drinks in the remaining waters from
Styx, possibly moving on to Lethe… (DC)
Address: <larsakerlund@spray.se>