TOMAS JIRKU – IMMATERIAL (CD by Substractif)
SCOTT FIELDS ENSEMBLE – This That (Cd on ACCRETIONS)
ERIC GLICK RIEMAN – TEN TO THE GOOGOLPLEX (CD by Accretions)
XABEC – SEELENSCHIFF (CD by Hands Productions)
MUSLIMGAUZE – KASHMIRI QUEENS (CD by Staalplaat)
MIDWICH/KARINA ESP (split CDR by Trademark)
TRADEMARK TM – FIST (CDR by Trademark)
NIXXOS LEXXOS – REBUILDING THE COLLAPSE (CDR by Trademark)
BRANDON LABELLE – MUSIC ON A SHORT THIN WIRE (CD by Ground Fault)
SEBASTIAN BUCZEK – WABIENIE DZIEWIC (CDR by Mik)
JIM DENLEY & MARTIN NG – VERGENCY (CD by Grob)
SOLVENT – SOLVENT CITY (CD by Morr Music)
LALI PUNA – SCARY WORLD THEORY (CD by Morr Music)
JETONE – ULTRAMARIN (CD by Force inc.)
GEOFF WHITE – QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (CD by Force Inc.)
NIKO SKORPIO – CHAMBER MOOSICK (CDR by Some Place Else)
IBRAHIM TERZIC – FABRIKE JAJA (CDR by Some Place Else)
YUKIO FUJIMOTO – EARS OF THE ROOFTOP (miniCD by Omega Point)
PAUL WIRKUS & UWE SCHNEIDER – 3/5/1 (CDR by Mik Musik/A Musik)
PHONOGRAPHY.ORG 1 (CDR by Phonography)
THE NEW BLOCKADERS – HISTORY OF NOTHING (CD by Siren Records)
TOMAS JIRKU – IMMATERIAL (CD by Substractif)
In the aftermath of this year’s Mutek, I saw a gig in Casa Del Popolo by Tomas
Jirku amongst others, which surely beat out the shit of the most of
Mutek-goers. Driving on minimal techno blends, Jirku smartly incorporated some
early techno pieces in his set and thus added a nice dose of humor to techno.
The concert was a launch party for this CD, which reached me with delay. This
CD is a step forward for Jirku (having a previous CD on Alien8 (of which
Substractif is a sublabel) and Mille Plateaux) because he offers only four
tracks with the length of over an hour, giving each track more depth and more
development. Each track flows into the next, by which this forms maybe one long
track. Minimal dub inspired beats hold everything together, but below and
beyond, Jirku incorporates field recordings, static hiss and other undefinable
sounds. More then a pleasent CD, with only one problem: the humor found in his
live set is sadly missed here. (FdW)
Address: www.substractif.com
SCOTT FIELDS ENSEMBLE – This That (Cd on ACCRETIONS)
Accretions is not only an outlet for San Diego based musicians (Hans Fjellestad
a.o.). Scott Fields is from Madison (Winsconsin) and he recorded this cd in
Vancouver on march 5, 2000 at Blue Wave Studios.
Fields plays (electric guitar) together with Peggy Lee (cello) and Dylan van
der Schyff (drum kit). Three musicans, so not exactly what one calls an
ensemble. But mister Fields calls all his groups and line ups the Scott Fields
Ensemble, no matter how many musicians are involved. It is a hommage the Art
Ensemble of Chicago Fields explains. In his Ensemble following musicians – to
mention some of them – played: Marilyn Crispell (piano), Stephen Dembski
(conduction), Gerry Hemingway (percussion), Francois Houle (clarinet), Joseph
Jarman (saxophone), Michael Zerang (percussion), etc., etc.
Fields is a native of Chicago, where he had his guitar lessons both classical
and jazz. His earliest improvisations were influenced by the AACM. Over the
years Fields developped (and is still developping!) his own vision on the
relation between free improvisation on the one hand and structure and
composition on the other. The balance he found sounds very original to me.
“I’ve been pretty well obsessed with structures for improvisation for some
time. And although I don’t like to make a big deal about it, when pressed I
refer to this music as ‘post_free’ jazz (although lately I’ve taken to using
the term ‘neo_revisionist improvisation’ because it is even less meaningful).
Over the last few years I have concentrated on providing a method through which
chamber ensembles can develop extended improvisations.”
The music has fast and loud passages with a rock feel and passages that are the
opposite of this. Sometimes it is very dynamic, like an explosion. Sometimes
very open and spacious. Always very sensitive music, often with rough edges.
Surely not academic.However complex the music is also very accessible and
enjoyable. Is it jazz, modern classical music, rock. It is all in all.
Nowadays there are so many cds out with improvised music or music that
experiments with improvisation and composed music, but only few stand out.
After repeated listenings to this one I’m absolutely sure this is one of them
(DM).
Address: www.accretions.com
ERIC GLICK RIEMAN – TEN TO THE GOOGOLPLEX (CD by Accretions)
Erick Glick Rieman hails from the bay area, and he plays on an extended Rhodes
piano: “I installed two extended sound boards which house vertical tuned zinc
rods. These can be played by bowing or striking. I also prepare the inside of
the Rhodes, which is left exposed so I can play the the tines and resonators”.
On this CD are four examples of how it sounds. ‘Whimbrel On White Linen’ this
results in a beautiful drone excursion, not unlike many things on Hypnos, to
mention one. The next piece, ‘Cooled Plumbobb’ operates as a total opposite.
Here we get scratches on the board, plucking and throbbing, nice but the
unnecessary use of reverb destroys the piece for me. Best of both worlds
(drones vs scratches that is) are offered in ‘Whigmalerian Duologue’ which has
vague hints of drones and likewise vague hints of scratches. ‘Planarian Egress’
is the longest piece, about half of the CD, and has remote drone like sounds
and an occassional ploink on the piano. Not neccessarily a great CD for me,
because I wished he would explore some of the possibilities more and offer us
more consistent kind of drone music. (FdW)
Address: www.accretions.com
XABEC – SEELENSCHIFF (CD by Hands Productions)
Similar to German label Ant-Zen Recordings compatriot label Hands Productions
specialises in technoid and rhythmic noise/power electronics-releases. In that
sense second release “Seelenschiff” from Xabec separates from the usual album
in the Hands-catalogue. Xabec already received much praise on the international
scene with the debut-LP “Schneegarten”. “Seelenschiff” continues the journey of
the debut with beautiful ambient soundscapes layered upon suppressed sounds of
scratching, glitchy and acoustic noise. The soundscapes varies from electronic
to acoustic expressions making the album nicely varied. Sometimes the distorted
noise rises from the sub-level and once in a while changes the album into a
harsher experience. But mostly “Seelenschiff” is calm and spacey with masses of
energetic noise boiling deeply in the underground. As said not the typical
release from Hands Productions but easily Xabec manage to stay on level with
the otherwise very high quality standard of the label. (NMP)
Address: www.handsproductions.com
MUSLIMGAUZE – KASHMIRI QUEENS (CD by Staalplaat)
Latest release in Staalplaat’s Muslimlim-series finds Muslimgauze in a much
more relaxed mood without any abruptions of noisy sound-loops or distorted
effects that has saturated some of his latest releases. Just as the abrasive
work of Bryn Jones in its powerfulness is a great listening experience, it is
equally a pleasure to explore an album like “Kashmiri queens” where the music
is much more continuous rather than cut-up-based in its expression.
Consequently the ten untitled tracks of “Kashmiri queens” seems more authentic
since the sounds of tablas, sitars and various ethnic wind instruments is
allowed to flourish openly without being cut-up. One track takes a step off the
path with its floating ambient-style that gives a clue of how a collaboration
between Muslimgauze and chill-out legend Mixmaster Morris a.k.a. Irresistible
Force would have sounded like. Otherwise the music is nicely percussive with
only a few vocals appearing throughout the tracks. Despite his slipping away
Muslimgauze still seems to be very well going. (NMP)
Address: www.staalplaat.com
MIDWICH/KARINA ESP (split CDR by Trademark)
TRADEMARK TM – FIST (CDR by Trademark)
NIXXOS LEXXOS – REBUILDING THE COLLAPSE (CDR by Trademark)
A new label for the release of CDRs. I don’t know if they operate in a certain
musical style, but at least their covers are nice, full colour computer print
outs.
Midwich might be somewhat known for his releases on his own Fencing Flatworm
label, or the split CDR with Ayr Unit on Bake Records. Here he presents a 21
minute drone opus, under the title ‘Months Years’. A rather simple set of
keyboards recorded on multitracks, slightly out of phase, which are mixed. Not
special, but pleasent to hear. I never heard of Karina ESP, but apperentely
it’s one guy playing guitar, here also in one track only, ‘Lines, Circles And
Arcs’. Karina ESP uses a bunch of guitar effects and produced drone like music.
Although there is more happening here then in the Midwich piece, I couldn’t
enjoy it very music. Every small new detail is fed a bunch of echo and sticks
in there, until a new detail pops in.
I reviewed a Trademark (the band, now on the label with the same name) before
and here he continues to explore the use of samplers, electronics and
instruments. Most of the nine pieces have an extensive use of rhythm. It’s less
based on the ideas of techno here then before, but more a steady forward beat,
that is occassionally linked to industrial music (for instance in ‘Inorganic
Organism pt. 1′). ‘IDM circa 1995’ hoovers around a very nice, almost triphop
like, drum sample. Other tracks, like ‘Fresh Cuts’ (both parts) are a miss,
since they are without any structure… An album of mixed feelings.
Nixxos Lexxos is an unknown guy, despite his various appereances (mainly on the
Evelyn label). He offers us three lenghty pieces of drone music, that last in
total an hour or so. Apperentely the first piece includes a bass guitar (bowed
I presume). Highly static music that played a low volume is really nice, warm,
thick but also dark ambient-noise music. The distorted hums of radiowaves
topped with the lower region of synths and far away the higher end of the audio
spectrum, makes this into an intense, and noisy release.
Trademark makes a good start, not just by offering some nice music, but also
they dare to release the more experimental work plus they proof that CDR is the
cottage industry of our time. (FdW)
Address: <TM_industries@lycos.co.uk>
BRANDON LABELLE – MUSIC ON A SHORT THIN WIRE (CD by Ground Fault)
Brandon Labelle is the guy who takes a conceptual approach per release. Here he
choose the first eight releases on Ground Fault and played them in pairs, with
each his own channel. He then attached thin copperwire to the paper cones of
the speakers and at the end of the copperwire he attached a contactmicrophone.
By playing the CDs the wire vibrates and thus you hear the think copperwire.
The sounds remain throughout the same on these four tracks (assuming that the
first track, which is blank, is just a mastering mistake), but it’s hard to
describe what it sounds like. I have been thinking it sounds like something I
heard before, but I can’t remember where it was. It’s a kind of low end rumble
that slowly evolves per track, and which sounds in general unprocessed. Very
much as it was recorded, and knowing Labelle a bit that is of course the idea:
thinking of a concept and then executing it. A consistent, consequent release.
(FdW)
Address: <otic@earthlink.net>
SEBASTIAN BUCZEK – WABIENIE DZIEWIC (CDR by Mik)
Buczek is a painter, visual artist, filmmaker and also works as DJ Beekeeper
(not to be confused with the other DJ who called himself Beekeeper some years
ago) and as DJ Beekeeper he spin old beeswax and shellac recordings. He
doesn’t play the music as such on those sound carriers, but takes the crackles,
hisses and noises of the surface which are looped and put together. In general
gentle in approach, but with occassional louder and noiser parts. Quite a nice
CD in it’s direct and minimal approach and can be usefull for those DJs who
play CDs only but want to add a nice bit of vinyl sound to it. Alternatively,
they could release it on vinyl… (FdW)
Address: <wojt3k@artcom.pl>
JIM DENLEY & MARTIN NG – VERGENCY (CD by Grob)
Two artists from a land downunder present their collaborations here on their CD
on Grob. They have been working together for some time, since some of the
recordings are from 1999 up to 2000, on various locations, both studio and
concert. Jim Denley, mostly known from his work in the duo Machines For Making
Sense, plays windinstruments (alto sax, flute and ‘flute deconstructions) teams
up with Martin Ng, whom I knew for his excellent work with Oren Amabarchi, who
plays turntables and CD player. Apart from the occassional scratch sounds and
drum fills, it’s hard to tell what else Martin has on his turntables, but it’s
not neccesary to know. Denley’s flute and saxophone parts are presented here
most of the time in a recognizable form. In general the two play a wild form of
free music, with many sounds arriving to us in a cut up form, due to Ng’s
excellent capabilities to use cut up sound, which gives this release a lively
form. Intense stuff here. (FdW)
Address: www.churchofgrob.com
SOLVENT – SOLVENT CITY (CD by Morr Music)
Solvent plays robot music, and is proud to do so. Funny enough they call it
warm music, but that sounds like a contradiction with robots… Solvent uses
mainly ‘warm’ analogue equipment and not ‘cold’ digital ones. Each of the nine
tracks, of which two are remixes by Skanform and lowfish, have indeed a warm
atmosphere, with nice little melodies, the good old drummachine hammering away
and arpeggio’s synths in the background. Music for the life in Solvent City,
about supermarkets and monorails. The future of today as seen from twenty years
ago. Of course Solvent is retro as hell of course. This sounds like a Depeche
Mode demo from twenty years ago, but who cares? I don’t, as I think Solvent is
great. Nice songs, nice harmonies, warm indeed (without saying that
digital=cold, mind you). Music for life in the big city, a city of human
robots. Great popmusic. (FdW)
Address: www.morrmusic.com
LALI PUNA – SCARY WORLD THEORY (CD by Morr Music)
Lali Puna is the band around German vocalist Valerie Trebeljahr, whose previous
attracted attention of Radiohead and Andrew Weatherall (should this be of any
importance). Lali Puna plays fragile, electronic music. A beat, melancholic
keys and the voice singing. Valerie sings held back, a bit shy maybe but it’s
the power of Lali Puna. In general down tempo music, which succeeds to create
an atmosphere per track. And even when these atmospheres are a bit dark, they
are still different. One track is less sad, which is the ’50 Faces Of’, which
has a strong house beat to it. That track was a favourite, aswell as ‘Lowdown’,
which is an instant humm along classic. Although I think this is a very nice
release, I had the urge to play some cheesy and funny after it… (FdW)
Address: www.morrmusic.com
JETONE – ULTRAMARIN (CD by Force inc.)
GEOFF WHITE – QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (CD by Force Inc.)
Two examples of Clickhouse. Jetone (is it Jet One or Je Tone?, I wouldn’t know)
is one Tim Hecker from Montreal, who offers twelve minimal slabs of techno,
mostly held together by a driving bass, intercepted by strange samples,
occassional clicks and hums. More Cologne then Berlin, I’d say in his approach,
but some of these pieces have echoes and dubs that are borrowed from Chain
Reaction (like in ‘Thousand Oaks’). Not necessarily bringing you the next
revolution in dance music, but with a big enough dose of experimentalism to
make it worthwhile and not release number 1000…
Geoff White is even less known to me. The website link on the cover didn’t tell
me much. His ten pieces are all techno pieces, with less excitement towards
adding something of his own. Pretty straightforward stuff, that isn’t
unpleasent to hear, but that’s about it. Maybe this is release number 1000…
(FdW)
Address: www.force-inc.com
NIKO SKORPIO – CHAMBER MOOSICK (CDR by Some Place Else)
IBRAHIM TERZIC – FABRIKE JAJA (CDR by Some Place Else)
Niko Skorpio has some releases before all on the same label as this new one.
Here he offers three works (with a total length of just over 23 minutes).
‘Teeth Of Eris’ is an uptempo piece of sampled rhythms, and samples quotes from
other music, and fits the old Illbient description. In ‘Limbo In C Major’,
things go more dark and there is spooky atmosphere. Quite a coherent piece. The
third track is the longest and is mainly stretched synthesizer tones with a far
away mumble. Nice pieces, a bit short release.
Ibrahim Terzic comes from Bosnia, but now lives in Finland and this is his
first release. In his eight untitled pieces he explores the crossover between
noise and glitch. I assume it was entirely put together on a laptop. An entire
digital release without any beats or rhythms, just explorations of stretched
and processed noises. Sometimes going in a heavy industrial mode, but all in
all a very nice release. (FdW)
Address: www.someplaceelse.net
YUKIO FUJIMOTO – EARS OF THE ROOFTOP (miniCD by Omega Point)
Yukio Fujimoto is apperentely a well-known Japanese artist of visual sorts,
maybe a photographer if I look at this nicely packed gem (cardboard sleeve with
harmonica fold out with pictures and text). In some gallery he recorded the
soundtrack which is delivered on a 3″ CD. Quite short, clocking in a 12 minutes
and 11 seconds. The sound itself is mainly a drone like sound, the vibrating
air flying around the gallery in which this was recorded. Quite an arty release
with a nice short soundtrack, but I fail to see the relation between images,
text and music. (FdW)
Address: <HQJ06123@nifty.ne.jp>
PAUL WIRKUS & UWE SCHNEIDER – 3/5/1 (CDR by Mik Musik/A Musik)
Paul Wirkus has various solo releases out in which he displays his love of
minimal and electronic music but here he teams up as drummer, together with
bass player Uwe Schneider. Drum & Bass… yes, maybe they play drum & bass, but
not in a very traditional sense (lucky for me). They improvised this recording
in may this year and it lasts 43 minutes and 50 seconds. Entirely live, without
overdubs or postproduction, they work their set through beautiful, laidback
atmospheres, from somewhere10 to 18 minutes in this release, to even almost
inaudible silence parts there after to wild rocking free stuff, which kicks in
after 34 minutes to the end. Especially the softer parts strongely appealed to
me, because it was intense playing, crafting small sounds together in a very
thoughful way. Packed in a nicely handprinted cover, it’s no surprise that
A-Musik picked it up for worldwide distribution. (FdW)
Address: <mail@a-musik.com>
PHONOGRAPHY.ORG 1 (CDR by Phonography)
“Phonography.org is a site dedicated to the art of phonography (or field
recording).” On this site you will find the unaltered environmental recordings
by international artists. It’s now also possible, if you are like me and hate
downloading MP3s, to obtain this wonderful collection of fourteen pieces of
samples of this kind of music. So we get a wide variety of birds, cars, trains,
microphone in refrigerator, cleaner and tree creatures. What I especially like
about most of these pieces that the sound source is so openly mentioned. A
microphone is fridge is nothing else then a microphone in fridge. It’s not
ambience per se, as proven by Brekekekexkoaxkoax, who has some recording of
computer components in a shed. The CDR lacks any information on these
recordings, which is a pity but if you go to the website, you will find all the
details you need (including types of microphones if you want to do some
soundhunt yourself, as new contributions are happily accepted). Great stuff if
you dig this, I know I do. (FdW)
Address: www.phonography.org
THE NEW BLOCKADERS – HISTORY OF NOTHING (CD by Siren Records)
How many more final last, utterlast recordings we will get by The New
Bloackders, I have no idea. This band by now released more then when they were
still active. At least this is a full length CD… ‘History In Nothing’ sort of
collects various bits and pieces from compilations and other obscurities. The
New Blockaders play anti-music as opposed to industrial music. The lo-fi rumble
of metal being crashed, tape-loops of bangs, added with a firm dose of sound
effects. The New Blockaders have a raw and primitive sound, which given the
time this was recorded is not very strange (1982 up to 1994). If you are
unfamiliar with them, this might be a good introduction, because in eleven
tracks you get a good picture of what they were about. If you heard them
before, this brings no news, other of course then the odd track you didn’t had
before. (FdW)
Address: Siren – 4-37-9 Saginomiya, Nakano-Ku, Tokyo 165-0032 – Japan