A PRODUCE – SMILE ON THE VOID (CD by Hypnos)
DELPHIUM – DARKFLOOR (7″ by The Ceiling)
TAUSENDSCHOEN – YONMADE (CDR by Dachstuhl)
MIRROR – ISLANDS (2LP + 7″ by Die Stadt)
BRUME & ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE – 1ST ENCOUNTER (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
RICHARD BONE – TALES FROM THE INCANTINA (CD by Indium)
MUSLIMGAUZE – <UNTITLED> (CD by Staalplaat)
KLUNK – SYNAESTHESIE (CDR by Ooze Bap)
TESENDALO – EINKLANG (CDR by Dachstuhl)
A PRODUCE – SMILE ON THE VOID (CD by Hypnos)
A Produce has been quiet for some time, save for a collaboration with M.
Griffin (hypnos honcho), and this is his first album since 1996. And since
that was some time ago and much water has passed under the bridge, I don’t
seem to remember what I wrote back then. To me it seems A Produce has
progressed a little further, incorporating various percussion instruments,
like the djembe. Music that is ambient with the big A, and A Produce is
like ambient with the big A, dwells on enormous washes of synth sounds,
that come in slow waves from the speakers. The seven new pieces are no
different then before or then others, but the occassional percussive parts
give this just a little bit extra. Good, solid and at times dark ambient
music. (FdW)
Address: www.hypnos.com
DELPHIUM – DARKFLOOR (7″ by The Ceiling)
And Delphium, well Delphium just goes on, with his usual dark break-beats
and rough licks on the keyboards. ‘Bleep 27’ is a superfast track, like a
high speed train that almost goes out of track. In ‘Kill All Scooter
Riders’ the blasto’s played on the synth, sound like gunshots hunting those
riders and has a likewise aggressive character. ‘Green Lane With Delphium’
is somewhat slower in tempo but bears that same aggressive keyboard
patterns. Life is still grim at same ends of the world. (FdW)
Address: <jdejong@nas.net>
TAUSENDSCHOEN – YONMADE (CDR by Dachstuhl)
As some may remember Maeror Tri were three young man, and after their
split, two of them continued as Troum. Whatever happened to the third one
you may have wondered. The answer is here: Helge Siehl started his solo
outfit Tausendschoen. Apart from producing music, he is also a graphical
artist. Of course it’s interesting to see what he comes up with, since that
might be the reason for the split. I always thought of Maeror Tri as an
extreme version of Zoviet*France: extended tapestries of hypnotic sound,
densely layeredguitar sections. Raw spirit stuff. With Tausendschoen, Helge
moves into the territory of rhythm. Not those of dance beats, techno, drum
& bass, but that of highly hypnotic tabla’s and a pounding bass. Layered on
top with densely woven tapestries (again) of samples. Unmistakenly we hear
the inspiration drawn from Rapoon, and that is ex-Zoviet*France. What a
funny small world we live in. But it doesn’t justify Helge to pin him down
as a mere copycat of Rapoon, even the latter has a distinct sound of his
own and Helge comes close. There is certainly enough of his own. At least I
thought this was a highly enjoyable disc… (FdW)
Address: <tarkatak@nwn.de>
MIRROR – ISLANDS (2LP + 7″ by Die Stadt)
Mirror are a collectors nightmare. So many releases, all highly limited and
the prices are not really moderate. But, it’s great stuff to collect,
simply because it’s great music. Mirror started out as a collaboration
between Christoph Heemann and Andrew Chalk, but Andreas Martin (just as
Heemann from Germany’s Aachen and former member of HNAS) seems a permanent
third member. At a recent concert in Chicago, Jim O’Rourke played also
organ (and will no doubt be released one day). ‘Island’ is their magnum
opusso far. Four LP sides and a 7″ (although that’s part of a limited
sub-edition), of which one LP is recorded live in Austin, Texas. According
to the cover, the three men play guitar. This is the first time, the cover
says something about the instruments being used.
The first LP has four parts of ‘Islands’, all beautiful drone pieces of
stretched out tones, with occassional hums from organs and guitars with
e-bows and electronical processing which wave the whole thing together into
a fine woven tapestry of sound. Towards the end of part four rain falls
while you leave the islands.
The live LP consists of two side long drone pieces which subtle evolve
along the sound of flutes on side three and ringing sounds (violin bow
across the guitar probably) on side four and they build up slowly. It must
have been a mesmeric concert.
The 7″ works from the same angles as the LPs but here developments take a
much quicker course, without destroying the subtle characteristics of the
music. Small pieces of large drone music. Add to this the beautiful cover
and you have a small art piece at home. (FdW)
Address: <jschwarz@diestadtmusik.de>
BRUME & ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE – 1ST ENCOUNTER (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
Brume and Artificial Memory Trace collaborate here on this CD for the first
time and it’s a small wonder why this happens now. There are many links
between the sounds of the two. One of them being the ‘no silence’ approach,
by which I mean that their sound collages are filled with sounds throughout
and seldom with silences. A highly dynamic approach, with sudden changes
and surprising moods. Fairly anarchistic too, with no specific concept
other then pure treatment of sound. Both Brume aswell as AMT uses common
objects, amplify them and present them in a mix that is very vivid. The
main objection however might be that it sounds exactely what you would
expect of these two. If you heard some of their music, and especially in
Brume’s case, that is a lot, the objection might be that it sound always
quite similar. All of their works range from good to excellent, but it
would the time to progress into a new approach. Nonetheless this
collaboration is a fruitful one, and as the title indicates not their last.
(FdW)
Address: www.alien8recordings.com
RICHARD BONE – TALES FROM THE INCANTINA (CD by Indium)
Richard Bone is one of those guys in ambient who presents a CD every once
in a while but for some reason never seems to impress me very much. This
new work is ‘inspired by the spiritual philosophies of the ancient Toltec
people’ and is ‘a musical imression of those mystic people in quiet
communion with their imperious gods’. Synth lines roll over, but seem to be
standard preset sounds from the world of digitalia. Quiet and peaceful for
sure, but for me to much of a cliche, too kitchy. I pass on. (FdW)
Address: <quirkwork@aol.com>
MUSLIMGAUZE – <UNTITLED> (CD by Staalplaat)
Despite his slipping away in the earliest days of 1999, Bryn Jones still
remains as one of the important profiles on the experimental scene. The
stream of exciting ethno-electronics from Muslimgauze seems endless, thanks
to Staalplaat and Soleilmoon. Mostly built around tabla-drumming, the album
is quite percussive with plenty of processed vocal samples and atmospheric
wind instruments. The compositions are saturated by noisy occurrences that
make the album as a whole belong to some of the harsher expressions of
Muslimgauze. First of all because of the suppressed white noise that hides
underneath the main part of the sound picture. But also the distorted
outbursts that sometimes penetrate the music. Everyone who appreciated some
of the harsher moments from the “Box of silk and dogs” might enjoy this
album too. Despite the lack of title, the album could well easily end up as
a remarkable footprint in the giant catalogue of Muslimgauze. (NMP)
Address: www.staalplaat.com
KLUNK – SYNAESTHESIE (CDR by Ooze Bap)
Klunk are one Gilmore, Martin and Clough and they recorded their
‘Synaesthesie’ in Leeds late january during a concert there. Although it
doesn’t say, I imagine three boys their laptops, fiddling about with their
plug ins, sound modules and what have you. The 24 minute improvised concert
is nicely filled with small cracks, bleeps and processed, feedbacklike
sounds. It doesn’t get any close to harshness or over the top distortion,
but it remains on a pleasent, listenable side of things. Nice music,
nothing more. (FdW)
Address: www.eduardprunera.com/oozebap.htm
TESENDALO – EINKLANG (CDR by Dachstuhl)
Tesendalo is one of the old boys on the scene of electronic music. Peter
Schuster runs the Prion label, was once a member of Doc Wor Mirran and
fills since many years cassettes, LP’s and CD(R-)s with his electronic
music. Long pieces, played on a bunch of analogue synths and maybe guitars
(although those sounds are not easy to recognize). His sounds are quite
static, but that is the main power of Tesendalo. His music moves far away
from the ambience created on such labels as Hypnos, but is in a way more
inspired by a clash of seventies cosmic music with the industrial
landscapes of the eighties. Sounds are played in circles of a varying
length. Sometimes it is just a few keys pressed down, sometimes, as in
‘Einklang III’, it’s the repeating pattern on a piano. These static,
monochrome pieces have a hypnotic character and never leaps into boredom. A
handpainted black jewel case completes this rough diamant. (FdW)
Address: <tarkatak@nwn.de>