JUSTIN BENNETT – MAGNETIC CITY (CD by Spore)
GEN KEN MONTGOMERY – THE ICEBREAKER (3″cd by Staalplaat)
CHAOS AS SHELTER – MIDNIGHT PRAYER/ILLUSION (Cd by Crowded Control Activities)
MICHEAL PRIME – ELEMENTS 1 (CD by Mycophile)
O’ROURKE/PRIME/PREVOST – ALPHA LEMUR ECHO TWO (CD by Mycophile)
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI & XOPHER DAVIDSON – FUNCTION GENERATOR (CD by Sirr Records)
BRIAN LAVELLE – I CAN GLIMPSE ALREADY (CDR by Ethernity)
GREG HEADLEY – A TABLE OF OPPOSITES (CDR by 28 Angles)
OLIVIA BLOCK – MOBIUS FUSE (CD by Sedimental)
JAMES COLEMAN – ZUIHITSU (CD by Sedimental)
MARTIN TETREAULT & XAVIERCHARLES – MXCT (CD by Vand’Oeuvre)
F.S.BLUMM – MONDKUCHEN (CD by Morr Music)
STILLUPPSTEYPA & TV POW – WE ARE EVERYONE IN THE ROOM (CD by Erstwhile)
WERNER DAFELDECKER & BORIS D HEGENBART – EIS 9 (CD by Grob)
JUSTIN BENNETT – MAGNETIC CITY (CD by Spore)
Justin Bennett is a busy bee. A member of BMB con, member of Mimeo
and also a visual artist and solo musician. On his latest CD you’ll
find one piece that was recorded and presented in Barcelona. Most
likely, knowing Bennett’s work a bit, all of the sounds gathered here
on the streets of Barcelona. Not that we hear is anything like the
streets of Barcelona (or maybe any other city), as Bennett’s
presenting a very abstract collage of sounds, mainly drone like
scapes with an occassional churchbell, a shirping bird or people on
the streets. Most of the times it’s more abstract, like he recorded a
bunch of airco or a car that doesn’t want to leave it’s place. It’s
all effectively put together into a very nice sounding piece. My main
problem is that it can be any city and not necessarily reflects
particularities about Barcelona (even when I have been there, I
couldn’t tell what they are either). What remains is a very nice
soundscape CD. (FdW)
Address: <spore@bmbcon.demon.nl>
GEN KEN MONTGOMERY – THE ICEBREAKER (3″cd by Staalplaat)
Gen Ken Montgomery has been an active part of the sound art-scene in
New York since the late 70’s. He has mostly been concentrating on
soundtracks to art performances around the New York-scene. Inspired
by Conrad Schnitzler, Gen Ken Montgomery back in 1985, started
specialising in total darkness-concerts. Concerts, where the listener
were surrounded by eight speakers in a totally darkened room. “The
icebreaker” was originally the soundtrack for some of these events.
Important source to the 20-minute long work on the cd is the sound of
an ice-crushing machine operating in full power. The work opens with
a cine camera-sort of sound, which, I guess, is the sound of the
machine accelerating into full speed. After that the work turns
rather more complex with subtle machinery buzz drones whirring in a
sound space also containing screeching noises, industrial sounds,
dripping water and loads of microsopic sounds. A short but very
intense listening experience. (NMP)
Address: www.staalplaat.com
CHAOS AS SHELTER – MIDNIGHT PRAYER/ILLUSION (Cd by Crowded Control Activities)
The Russian-born Vadim Gusis, now living in Israel, has received much
praise for his two first albums under the name “Chaos As Shelter”. On
his third release Vadim Gusis continues his journey back into the
ancient Israeli mythology. The result is a double-cd of capturing
dark ambient full of ethnic influence. Even though the album has the
gloomy approach to ambient-sound typical to the genre, “Chaos As
Shelter” separates from the main path of the dark ambient-scene in
his more melodic and melancholic style built around ethnic wind
instruments and percussive noises. “Chaos As Shelter” does not apply
the black ambient-kind of evil expression characterising names like
Inade, Yen Pox and Kerovnian. More like the atmosphere is gothic with
some hints back to earlier releases of Lustmord. Nineteen tracks with
a playing time close to two hours give the adventurous listener of
dark ambient plenty
of joyful moments. (NMP)
Address: www.ezlink.com/~crowded/
MICHEAL PRIME – ELEMENTS 1 (CD by Mycophile)
O’ROURKE/PRIME/PREVOST – ALPHA LEMUR ECHO TWO (CD by Mycophile)
Micheal Prime is both known as member of Morphogenesis (the beautiful
improvising group from London) and collaborator with people like
Organum and Jim O’Rourke but also as a solo artist, using his
qualities on sounding funghi, plants and water. On his latest solo CD
he presents two pieces. The first uses various water recordings on
his water machine which were captured in a live situation. Once
locked in the studio, these recordings start to flow. At one point
sounding like the dwells of the ocean, then like the underwater
rumbling when you sit in your bath and your ears are under, and it
ends like a thunderous, tropical rain. In ‘Salamander’ Prime just
uses the various sounds of fire. The sounds are filtered, changed in
speed and fed through all sorts of synthesis, thus forming a
beautiful sound collage. I believe that it’s not really important to
know the source, since apart from some occassional crackling, it is
hard to recognize any resemblance to fire anyway. Prime paints us an
acoustic painting on burn paper. Hauntingely beautiful.
Two examples of Prime’s improvising skills can be found on a new CD
with historical recordings. Two pieces of which the first is by those
who get the full credit as artists on this CD. The second piece is by
Jim O’Rourke, Prime, Adam Bohman and Andy Hammond. The first piece is
a live recording from 1994 and has Prime on his usual stuff, O’Rourke
on guitar and electronics and Eddie Prevost on drums. It’s a lengthy
piece (35 minutes) in which the drums play a major part. The parts
that are by the other two are not always audible, just towards the
end of the piece they seem to be getting their share. A nice piece
but maybe I would have preffered something in which they would all
have an equal share. The second piece is only half the length and
from 1990, but is far more interesting. Jim O’Rourke’s early
doodlings in drone music mixed with the improvising capacities of
Morphogenesis. Slowly evolving sound blocks of guitar sounds, softly
played with a bow, intercepting water like sounds, culminating in
beautiful drone music that gets threatingely loud towards the end.
Well worth buying the CD for this piece alone. (FdW)
Address: <mikep@myco.demon.co.uk>
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI & XOPHER DAVIDSON – FUNCTION GENERATOR (CD by Sirr Records)
Yet another collaborative work by the ever energetic Zbigniew
Karkowski (who seems to try and break Merzbow’s output), this time
with Xopher Davidson, who is otherwise known as Antimatter and doing
production work for We and Phonecia. The duo emphasize here on
extreme low frequencies of which apperentely 100hz is the loudest. In
one long piece (50 minutes) the two explore vibrations and pulses and
moves by like a giant beast on its toes. To slag this down to ambient
music doesn’t exactely justify the music, even when it has slow
changes and the volume drops to an inaudible level at times. It might
be ambient to those who play this at a low volume (like I usually
do), but at a louder volume, this becomes much more violent then of
the power electronica stuff that is around since many years (or at
least damages your speakers if you are not carefull enough).
Karkowski once again proofs his quality as a violent musician, but
this time from a really surprising angle. Power stuff. (FdW)
Address: www.geocities.com/sirr.pt
BRIAN LAVELLE – I CAN GLIMPSE ALREADY (CDR by Ethernity)
Brian Lavelle might be known for his work in the UK improvising
scene, in which we also find Richard Youngs (with whom he
collaborates), Neil Campbell and others. But unlike many of those,
Brian moved into more digital areas of music, which I shall
unelegantely call powerbook stuff. He has a CDR of this kind of stuff
on Microwave Recordings (the sadly disbanded label) last year, and
now comes up with CDREP in an edition of 100 on his own label. The
four pieces found here contain processed sounds, in which I could
recognize only a guitar in the first piece. This stuff is highly
based on loops, but unlike many clicks and cuts, Lavelle doesn’t set
his loops in the form of quantized beats but he built small collages
with them, displaying the particular character of each loop, giving
it’s own space and place in the spectrum. Even when some of the
sounds are rather simple, Lavelle knows how to built an interesting
sounding piece. It’s about time some label would pick up on him…
(FdW)
Address: www.brianlavelle.com
GREG HEADLEY – A TABLE OF OPPOSITES (CDR by 28 Angles)
28 Angles is the label set up by Greg Headley, primarily to release
his own work. “A Table of Opposites” is Headley’s second CDR release
after ‘Adhesives’ on Bake Records (after playing in various unnamed
rock bands), and like on that one, Headley once again explores the
possibilities of the guitar. In eight pieces he shows his skills in
preparing the guitar as a sound source and then goes in the studio to
work with loops of these sounds. I don’t know exactely what it is
that he does, but it’s rather raw in nature. More analogue then
powerbook, I’d say. This is not to judge the work, but a mere fact.
In some pieces Headley seems to work on the drone nature of the music
(for instance in “Brings Ether Harmonies’ and ‘Tourbillion’), and in
others it’s more a collage of various sounds, like ‘Torsion’. The
result is a pretty varied release, which doesn’t rely on one idea,
but explores several, and which are executed well. Nice one. (FdW)
Address: <greg@gregheadley.com>
OLIVIA BLOCK – MOBIUS FUSE (CD by Sedimental)
JAMES COLEMAN – ZUIHITSU (CD by Sedimental)
Two years passed since Olivia Block released her first CD, and again
she comes with a short one (32 minutes) and explores further the use
field recordings in combination with people playing oboe, trombone,
trumpet and sax. The field recordings are a combination of rain,
insects and fireworks. For the most part it seems that Block puts the
two seperate elements, field recordings versus instruments, next to
eachother. They only seem to meet in the end of the second part of
Mobius Fuse, when all the wind indstruments play against a setting of
fireworks. There is however a great similarity between the field
recordings and instruments, namely that they seem to dwell on
stretched out sounds. They operate a blocks of sound in the total
spectrum and are in their way a form of drone music. Again, it seems
to me, a form of desolation speaks from this music, with an audible
emptiness reflecting some US landscapes.
James Coleman is a Boston based improviser who is part of Saturnalia
and the Undr Quartet. On his first own CD, he plays theremin and a
host of musician guide him on drums, cello, voice and saxophone.
Zuihitsu is a particular school of traditional and classical Japanese
literature in the form of short paragraphs wandering from subject to
subject. Coleman’s music act a bit like this too. The music is highly
improvised and seems to be skipping from musical subject to musical
subject. They take a small form^C and move on to the next, from just
sheer silence to relatively noisy bits. The flow comes natural when
moving between these two opposites. A beautiful, yet not easy CD.
(FdW)
Address: <Doss5@aol.com>
MARTIN TETREAULT & XAVIERCHARLES – MXCT (CD by Vand’Oeuvre)
The people of the Vand’Oeuvre label cannot be accused of being
narrow-minded. In their small catalogue built up over the years, it
is obvious that their tastes go in many directions (Annick Nozati,
Dominique Grimaud, Camel Zekri, etc). Few months ago I wrote about
their latest release: an album by Guigou Chenevier (Etron Fou,
Volapuk, etc.) and Nick Didkovsky (Dr.Nerve). This one is now
followed up by another duo work. A work of Martin TÈtreault and
Xavier Charles. TÈtreault from Canada needs no further introduction
for Vital readers. He can be heard on many cds. Just consider his
output on the Ambiances MagnÈtiques label.
Xavier Charles is not very well-known. He is clarinet player from
Verdun, playing improvised music. He is also engaged in
electro-acustic music. He worked with The Ex, John Butcher, Chris
Cutler, Pierre Berthet, Michel Doneda and Kristoff K Roll, a.o.
On ‘MXCT’ he plays no clarinet but he uses ‘surfaces vibrantes, cd
prÈparÈs & tourne-disques’. TÈtreault signes for ‘Èlectrophones’ and
‘surfaces prÈparÈes’.
The cd contains 7 pieces that were recorded during two days in march
2000 at Studio CCAM.. Because of the sort of ‘instruments’ used it is
impossible (for me) to tell what Xavier is doing and what TÈtreault.
So I can’t say anything on the interplay between both musicians. Also
I do not know whether the pieces are the result of spontaneous
improvisation of otherwise composed. For me as a listener the music
presents itself as one stream of sound that has to be taken for what
it is.
One piece has a lenght of 20 minutes. The other vary from 1 to 8
minutes. Most pieces pieces are characterized by repetitive
structures. They give the impression of being inside a gigantic
machine. Other pieces or fragments evoke two very basic elements of
existence, namely water and fire. The titles of the pieces give way
to other associations (Les nerfs, La dynamo, Le muscle, Le cerveau,
L’atome, La particule, L’oeil).
The pieces are built from little noises and sounds. Music taken from
cds or records is sometimes used, but transformed beyond recognition.
I think this music is tremendously fascinating and rewarding if you
give it a good listening.
The qualities that reside in this music draw me attention to the
sounds of daily life. A quality that I appreciate very much in films
is a carefully made soundtrack. With soundtrack I do not mean the
music only but also – or even most of all – all other sounds that are
used. But most often the use of music and sound in films does not
have the artistic attention they deserve and do not fit with what I
expect from it. This cd directs my attention to the ‘soundtrack’ of
my own life. Many actions that we do in dailey life are not produced
for the sounds or noise they produce. We give no attention to them.
But listening to this cd I feel more focused to the sounds in my
environment. To put it simply, the music on this cd askes you for an
intense exercise in the act of listening and invite you not to stop
with this when the cd has ended (DM)
Address: <http://www.centremalraux.com/>http://www.centremalraux.com
F.S.BLUMM – MONDKUCHEN (CD by Morr Music)
F.S. Blumm I know from his various collaborative works with Harald
Sack Ziegler and now he presents his own work in full glory on the
ever excellent Morr Music. At first it’s kinda strange to see this CD
on this label, because Blumm is not playing anysort of melancholic
beat stuff on laptops with beats underneath, but instead he seems
specialized in playing a whole array of children’s keyboards, african
thumb piano’s and inviting a host of people in the studio to play
piano and bass for him. Blumm offers fourteen tracks on his music,
which are usually in an uptempo and joyful mood, like on a happy warm
day with the children playing outside. And like on those days, there
can a cloud in the sky, or one of the children feeling sad. All of
these feelings are reflected in Blumm’s music. These are not big
feelings but rather naive ones (without the negative connotation,
mind you). Music for a nice day. It’s great to see this released on a
label like Morr Music, who are gradually expanding their terrain.
(FdW)
Address: www.morrmusic.com
STILLUPPSTEYPA & TV POW – WE ARE EVERYONE IN THE ROOM (CD by Erstwhile)
Last year Icelandic loverboys Stillupsteypa toured the USA a bit,
with their US counterparts TV Pow. Both are laptop trio’s now and on
various concerts they did jamsessions together. I hope for them that
the title doesn’t reflect the audience turn up however. These are now
released in an edited form by Erstwhile, who has brought us more
interesting improvisational duets by artists. Five bits from four
nights of not very accessible music. The musicians drift from droning
parts to crackles, humms and hiss. It’s the kind of improvised music
that requires tons of attention and concentrated listening. For me
this collaboration worked best when the six people work collectively
on drone like sound material, with small changes and occassional
cracklings, such as in the powerful ‘International Starving Artists’
or the more subdued ‘This Place Looks Like Flint Or Double Ass Shot’.
The parts in which they just present a crackle, don’t seem to work
very well for me. It comes across like they are searching for a
groove but don’t seem to find one. However these are cleverly edited
out for the most part, so that an overal intense CD is what we get.
(FdW)
Address: www.erstwhilerecords.com
WERNER DAFELDECKER & BORIS D HEGENBART – EIS 9 (CD by Grob)
Werner Dafeldecker rapidely becomes an important player on the
European improv scene with his own voice on the contrabass aswll as
guitar, percussion, found objects and powerbook. Here he teams up
with Boris Hegenbart, who took us by surprise in 1998 with his
excellent “Hikuito” CD, that was slightly in similar areas of Carl
Stone and Oval. Together they made a fresh summer record, packed in
summer like yellow cover. They improvise their way on guitar (which
can be heard as such at times), sampler, objects and percussion. The
seven pieces of modest length, between two and nine minutes, are all
open, placing careful attention on silence and small details of
sound. It turns out that this is a very intimate release of delight;
no harshness, no extreme’s, just thoughtful playing. Quiet, carefull.
Indeed a record for the summer. (FdW)
Address: www.churchofgrob.com