STEPHAN WITTWER – STREAMS (CD by Grob)
TERRE THAEMLITZ – OH, NO! IT’S RUBATO (CD by Mille Plateaux)
BIP HOP GENERATION V.4 (CD compilation by Bip Hop)
BOVINE LIFE – SOCIAL ELECTRICS (CD by Bip Hop)
WINDFAHNEAMT (CD by Horch)
1000+1 TILT #7 (CDR compilation by 1000+1 Tilt)
A DEATH WISH MANIFEST (CDR compilation by Tabula Rasa)
BLACK LEATHER JESUS – THE PARALYZED COLLECTOR (CDR by Tabula Rasa)
BY THE NEW TIME (CD compilation by Silverdoor)
SKYLINE – BARK (NOISEOTICA 2) (CD by HarshHouse)
KK NULL & DAMIAN CATERA – FREAKOUT MODULATION (CD by Harshhouse)
JAN VAN DEN DOBBELSTEEN – TRAINSONGS (7″ by Cosmic)
GAMERS IN EXILE/MY SELFISH DESIRE – SPLIT YOUR CEREBRUM (CD by
Unbearable Recordings)
MILKY CHU/MY SELFISH DESIRE/MAINPAL INV (7″ by Unbearable Recordings)
A BOX FULL OF GHOSTS (3×7″ and CD-Rom by Gentle Giant Records)
ULTRASOUND – DEATH COMES FROM THE LEFT/A FOOL LISTENS WITH HIS EYES
(7″ by Drone)
INVALID OBJECT SERIES (24x 3″CD by Fallt)
plus announcements
STEPHAN WITTWER – STREAMS (CD by Grob)
Although I have never heard the name Stephan Wittwer before, he seems
to be a main player on the improv scene for thirty or so years. This
is second solo CD, the first being released eleven years ago. That
record, ‘World Of Strings’, was a live recording and this new one
acts as a total opposite. He offers us eight tracks of guitar and
devices playing in a free mood, growing sometimes in a wall of
feedback, but the main difference is that it is not live. The guitar
sounds act here as sources. The sounds are layered into various
multi-tracks and are then processed, so that live becomes studio.
Stephan could have fooled me. The long psychedelic feedback walls of
‘Phlegma’ sound very live to me and it’s hard to realize it isn’t.
Stephan’s music is much noiser then, say, Fennesz (to mention another
guitarist) or any post rock rumble. But then on the other hand it’s
neither a boring blast off the noise wall, as in all those densely
layered sounds, small events, micro-tones and large walls happen –
often at the same time. Impressive stuff that requires a lot of
listening… (FdW)
Address: www.churchofgrob.com
TERRE THAEMLITZ – OH, NO! IT’S RUBATO (CD by Mille Plateaux)
“The Rubato series’ combination of “masculine” digital composition
processes with a “feminine” piano sound is not an attempt to invert,
nor subvert, the traditional Western gender paradigm.” This Terre’s
third installment in this series, after Kraftwerk and Gary Numan.
While being quite acquinted with both Kraftwerk and Numan, I must
admit, I skipped Devo in the early 80s. I don’t know why as new wave
was definetly my alley then. I think Devo didn’t appeal to me very
much. Also I didn’t know anyone being a devo-tee, so that didn’t
help. So this collection of piano interpretations of their original
songs is a bit beyond me. There is very little I can comment about. A
good hour worth of nice piano music that in no way is related for me,
to music by someone else. It could be anything. Do I like this? Yes,
I do. It rains outside, it’s dark and I am reading a book (instead of
the extensive liner notes to this CD). The background plays piano
music. It goes by without being overtly noted, but it’s pleasing to
hear. So what more do you want? (FdW)
Address: www.mille-plateaux.com
BIP HOP GENERATION V.4 (CD compilation by Bip Hop)
BOVINE LIFE – SOCIAL ELECTRICS (CD by Bip Hop)
Two weeks after the belated review of the third volume in this
series, I can now write about the fourth one. In case you don’t know,
the Bip Hop Generation series is a ‘document of today’s creative
forms of electronica’ and appears more or less quarterly on the Bip
Hop label. The CD kicks of with Mira Calix, the south african born
Italian in the UK. A sort of very dry bass drum with a tinkling piano
building very slowly to a crescendo. Si-Cut.db has two very nice
offerings in dub experiments of various kinds (woodwork noise for
instance). Twine is a band that is getting more and more attention
and their first track could be lift off any good Morr Music
compilation, so you can’t go wrong there, but the second one
collapses on the many chaotic plug ins. Datach’i is known for his
releases on Caipirinha, but his breakbeat styled pieces couldn’t
impress me very much. Vs_price stands for Vincent’s_Price is a new
player on the front, and his two tracks are both heavy beat laden
pieces, but they stay on the safe side of music and risks are
excluded. The CD closes with Cray, which is a newcomer on the scene
(he has a 3″ in the excellent Fallt series) and he offers one lengthy
piece. Cray offers the most daring piece, a collage of crackles,
synth lines and a vicious breakdown of sound. In all it’s modernism
(laptop, plug in, protools) a classical piece because it is linked to
anything by Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and the like. Nice piece,
and good to see it enclosed. Nice addition once again… and onto V.5
Bip Hop is not just busy releasing excellent compilations, but also
CD’s by one artist. One such is Bovine Life, aka Chris Dooks. He was
a filmmaker until a dibilatating disease ended that career in 1999.
His hobby of making electronic music was expanded and here is a whole
CD of his work, either solo (six tracks) or in collaboration through
the internet with others (fourteen tracks). Included are people like
Kohn, Smyglyssna, Janek Schaefer and Third EDye Foundation (denounced
with a ?, maybe to avoid legal problems?). As you can imagine with so
many tracks, they are fairly short (just over one minute to just
under five). Bovine Life’s music is a mixture of rhythm and samples,
occassionally backed with some lines on the keyboard. Not every track
is a diamond, as some are just plain doodlings around a rhythm and a
sample, but there are nice enough pieces included here to make a
worthwhile release, without being a total masterpiece.
Address: www.bip-hop.com
WINDFAHNEAMT (CD by Horch)
I don’t know how to translate Windfahneamt into English, but I can
tell you that they are with two persons from Hamburg, Germany and
their music is ‘an example of modern electro-acoustic creations from
the past century’. The offer seven extensive tracks in which they
sample and transform sounds from the environment but also lifted from
records, computers and theremin. At first they improvised on end, but
now they set a time frame in which things should happen. This, their
first release, waves together tapestries of sounds, sampled
jackhammer rhythms (without being a profound statement towards
industrial music), but also the sound of water, small clicks and all
sauced by many many delay boxes. Very relaxing aswell at times
disturbing ambient music, which if things become rhythmic reminded me
of Rapoon and if it was very ambient more like Zoviet*France.
Especially the latter seems to be the big inspiration behind
Windfahneamt, which makes them a bit of a copycat, but on the other
hand it delivers a very fine CD in an otherwise quiet Zoviet*France
time. (FdW)
Address: <horch@arsmacabre.de>
1000+1 TILT #7 (CDR compilation by 1000+1 Tilt)
1000+1 Tilt is a small label that still releases cassettes, but now
also CDRs and the package breaths the do it yourself atmosphere of
the 80s. This compilation contains eleven pieces of music.^C After the
fairly dark opening piece by Origami Replica, we get a plain rock
song in Joy Division style, but then much more raw sounding. This
sort of continues throughout the CD. More common rock like music is
mixed with noisy bits (Kummerlige Forhold), techno like music (Roger
Rotor, Tremor, Tool Of The Man), but everything remains on a low do
it yourself level. Primitive technology of any kind is used here.
Even when some of these tracks are not entirely my thing, I thought
of this as quite funny. A sort of time machine that brought me back
to my early days of listening to what was then new music. (FdW)
Address: <suckerpunch@mail.gr>
A DEATH WISH MANIFEST (CDR compilation by Tabula Rasa)
BLACK LEATHER JESUS – THE PARALYZED COLLECTOR (CDR by Tabula Rasa)
Tabula Rasa is a small Spanish label concentrating on industrial
music. In close collaboration with Slaughter Productions from Italy,
they released a compilation with some of the current players on this
scene. Packed in an A4 sized booklet of horrible pictures which
showcase all the cliche’s this music is about. Even when most of
these bands could be classified as noise bands, there are some
interesting ones, such as the more subdued Murder Corporation,
Subklinik or the almost noise rap of Diktat. Other bands include
Megaptera, Atrax Morgue, Moeder Machine, Disturbios and prize winner
in the category best parody: White Mouse.
By themselves Tabula Rasa released a CDR by Black Leather Jesus, a
not really unknown band from Texas. Four out of five tracks have been
previously released. Black Leather Jesus cranck up the recording
level to 10 and interplay with shortwave radio and synths and tons of
sound effects the far end sound spectrum. Monotonous sound drills
holes in your speakers. Essential listening stuff if you never heard
noise before. Otherwise it offers nothing new to what you heard
before in these areas. (FdW)
Address: www.ccapitalia.net/tabularasa
BY THE NEW TIME (CD compilation by Silverdoor)
More and more we hear of electronic music from Ireland. Roger Doyle
was our only man for years, but now we have Donnacha Costello doing
something entirely different, and the Fallt label is getting stronger
and stronger. The aforementioned Roger Doyle runs his own label,
Silverdoor (which he used to release his 5CD opus ‘Babel’ and
‘Fairlight Memories’), which now releases this compilation of
‘electro-acoustic music from Ireland’, represented by eleven
composers, including Royle himself. One CJC opens with a mysterious
piece of ambience and whispering vocals. Maybe mysterious but not a
cliche piece of Irish music. Caoimhe Dunn has a fairly chaotic piece
of all sorts of environmental sounds put into programms as Sounforge
and Rave E Jay. The underlying concept of Donnacha Dennehy is nice of
getting a piano to play at 140 BPM (common techno beat) and then
speed the tempi up and down, with a voice announcing at what BPM we
have arrived. Even nice in concept, but a bit too long. Entirely
different is Patrick Daly’s piece, which is too short! An organ plays
a repetitive minimal piece, to which a cut up drum loop is added and
Nyman-like brass. Too short, too short. Giles Packham’s doodles with
numbers and has a very intense opening sound, which is gradually
removed by an all too boring techno beat with orchestrations. Air
resonating from small boxes, jam jars etc are used by Michael Alcorn
in a strange piece of what seems to me undirected music, but which
has a strange atraction on me. The piano accordion is the sound
soruce of Jurgen Simpson and it starts freely played but which are
set against a wall of electronics, mainly stretched out sounds of
accordion. Not really a susprising piece, but not bad either. The
biographical notes on J. Bassetti are the shortest to be found here
(“involved in the experimental music underground since 1991” plus
some of the labels he worked for) and also he didn’t report much
about his track, but apperentely it shows that this compilation also
has underground artists. Various location recordings are melted
together into an unsettling piece. Roy Carroll samples metallic
rhythms with other plunderphonica, and is the least interesting piece
in this collection. Judith Ring, most likely the only female composer
herin, uses domestic appliances, machinery noises, printers and the
feeds them to the computer. Not a bad piece, but no more then just
ok. Of course the Godfather is at the end and senor Doyle doesn’t
give a clue about his music and what he has done here. This is mainly
a spoken word piece which was over before I knew what he was talking
about. All in all if Fallt or Costello roused your interest in Irish
music and you want to dig the serious side of things, this is the
best place to start.
(FdW)
Address: www.soundout.net/sounds.htm
SKYLINE – BARK (NOISEOTICA 2) (CD by HarshHouse)
KK NULL & DAMIAN CATERA – FREAKOUT MODULATION (CD by Harshhouse)
The second CD around guitarist Skyking, aka Damian Catera, with JB
(grooves and conductor), DJ-Z (turntable) and VO (low frequency
diva). They play lengthy excerises in guitar and rhythm walls. Guitar
is the most important instrument, since it howls it’s way in every
track along with the ever continous rhythmbox. Somewhere in the far
end of the music spectrum you hear voices, taped from radio, or maybe
played on a turntable. Hyper minimal in all it’s monotony, and hyper
psychedelic for it’s guitar trips, this music sucks you into a
blackhole. An infinite depth of airless space that will keep you
weightless for some time.
Along similar lines, but a little bit different of course is the
collaboration between Damian Catera and KK Null. Damien, formerly of
Con Demek and now of Skyline, stretches his guitar sounds through the
use of a computer based machine improvisation system. Null is known
from Zeni Geva, aswell of course is vast solo output. As both are
talented improvisers, so the fact that they team up is no surprise.
In recent years Null’s solo music became more and more rhytmical,
that is short, repetive sounds and not rhythmboxes or anything. This
Null new style is also apparent on this work. Many of the eight
lenghty tracks are built around small loops of sound, set in full
repetitive mode and appear in all sorts of modified forms in the mix.
A new element added, and I don’t know by who, is the fact that rhythm
machinary is used, another step forward. Every track sets it’s own
atmosphere and each has enough variation and changes to make it an
interesting CD. Just ‘4.FOM’ is a bit of a miss, with seems to be
unfocussed and all over the place. Otherwise a very good CD. (FdW)
Address: www.harshhouse.com
JAN VAN DEN DOBBELSTEEN – TRAINSONGS (7″ by Cosmic)
Jan van den Dobbelsteen has released a great number of the most
weirdest music around. Usually each release deals with one theme, say
China, say Caravans, or say Trains. Kinda hard to grasp from just the
record or CD, as this is usually the documentation part. Here the
subject are trainsounds, a micro soundsystem and toys and on side A a
reggae sound system (played by Jan? I can’t imagine). I can match the
sounds, but not the reggae. Being surrounded by children every once
in a while, I know those little toys very well, so it’s a cozy sound.
The B-side is actually more of the same: reggae toaster, small
sounds. I even had the idea listening to the same thing again, but I
am almost sure I’m wrong. Strange little item that fits well with
stuff on Diskono or V/VM. (FdW)
Address: www.iae.nl/users/jada
GAMERS IN EXILE/MY SELFISH DESIRE – SPLIT YOUR CEREBRUM (CD by
Unbearable Recordings)
MILKY CHU/MY SELFISH DESIRE/MAINPAL INV (7″ by Unbearable Recordings)
Two Italians in Exile in London run a small label, Unbearable
Recordings. Right now they released a CD with two bands: Gamers In
Exile and My Selfish Desire (the latter are the labelowners). The
idea behind this CD is not a new one: in the left channel we hear
Gamers In Exile and in the right channel My Selfish Desire. With a
total playing time on the CD of 23 minutes it is good to know you get
three projects crammed together, because you can play first the left
channel, the then right one and then both. Still a good hour worth of
music. Upon hearing this, I think both bands shared sound files
because it sounds so coherent. I even must admit that I never watch
at covers, read press texts the first time I play something new, to
get a fresh impression, and I must say that I didn’t notice the whole
split channel thing. Childish melodies on keyboards, worldless
child-like vocals, even a good ol’ casio VL-tone 1 is heard, Felix
Kubin like techno: it all swirls in front of you. For me this CD
could have been twice as long as it’s well succeeded.
My Selfish Desire are also on a three band 7″ with a nice creeping
laptop beast of slowly evolving sounds, high tech ambience. Nice
stuff. Mainpal Inv. samples his way around in ethnic sound files but
splices them up, so that’s not really a continous thing anymore. He
replaces it by structure of himself and it’s a damm fine piece. The
flip has Milky Chu from Japan and doodle around the ideas of
popmusic. A minimalist tinkling on the piano, childish repetative
voices. Minimal music for 13 minors? Or maybe just a perfect mixture
of minimal music with popmusic. A very nice side. (FdW)
Address: <i@unbearablerecordings.co.uk>
A BOX FULL OF GHOSTS (3×7″ and CD-Rom by Gentle Giant Records)
I am not sure if Gentle Giant Records still exists, because I haven’t
seen much of them lately, but this box of 7″s and CD-Rom collects
some of the more early phases of this label through repressings of
three 7″s and a new CD-Rom contains films. The first 7″ is by TV Pow
and Liminal, both bands rank Micheal Hartman, the labelowner of
Gentle Giant Records in their ranks. TV Pow is an underrated band, me
thinks, of laptoppers who form for us an interesting tapestry of
sounds, densely woven. A light side of density is one the other side
by Laminal, which, seeing this band’s line up of six persons, is
surprisingely austerely recorded. Almost ambient in approach.
Ambient is not exactely the keyword for the second 7″ with Japanese
trouble noisemakers Incapacitants and Kazumoto Endo. Feedback noise,
extensively, both sides. Nuf said.
The last 7″ is a split by Christian Marclay and Otomo Yoshide.
Christian does what he is good at: mixing strange sounds from vinyl
in a short piece. Otomo’s sounds are more abrasshive and abstract,
sine waves form the spine and crackles and other noises the sauce on
this cake.
The CD-rom features live segments by Otomo Yoshide, Melt Banana and
Xome and home produced films by Flexible Products, Liminal and TV
Pow. Some of these look like tourist shot pictures. Needles to say
they all have music underneath. So in case you have the 7″s from the
first pressing around, you still may wanna dig this out too. (FdW)
Address: www.gentlegiantrecords.com
ULTRASOUND – DEATH COMES FROM THE LEFT/A FOOL LISTENS WITH HIS EYES
(7″ by Drone)
Ultrasound, a Texan in The Netherlands and soon heading for a small
tour with Troum in the northern parts of Europe, have released a 7″
on Drone Records, not coincidentally the label run the people behind
Troum. Small world. Side A is an outtake from the previously released
CDR Hamesh (at least that’s what the info says, since I don’t see it
in their discography and I am not sure what it is to do with the
later released real CD Hamesh…) for the Euro tour of 1998 and is a
haunting piece of flowing guitar ambience. Weightless head space
music. Ultrasound displaying their best sound of the older phase. The
flip includes also Kirk Laktas of Stars Of the Lid and drummer Tiana
Lux and guitarist Natalie Hill. More a slow beast of instruments
being carefully strummed, slowly creating overtones from the various
guitars and maybe cymbals (as I don’t hear much other percussion).
It’s a pity that these are relatively old tracks (1998 and 1996
resp.), so maybe not as representative for the newer sound of
Ultrasound, but still in a small catalogue of releases a welcome
addition. (FdW)
Address: www.dronerecords.de
INVALID OBJECT SERIES (24x 3″CD by Fallt)
Twentyfour 3″ CDs, each lasting 15 minutes. That makes six hours of
music… having not even gone half way through the Merzbox, when on
earth am I going to hear this? Let alone scribble some nice words on
the whole thing. Maybe this series can be regarded as the ultimate
catalogue of microsound as sounded at the dawn of a new millenium?
Maybe. It mixes nicely the arrived artists (Pita, Scanner, Kim
Cascone) and newcomers (Junior Varsity KM, Warmdesk, Later Days) and
a large group in between of people and bands who have had the
releases out before (like Goem, Steve Roden, Massimo). In telegramme
style an overview (between brackets the title of the CD):
Pita (‘Break’) offers in his 15 minutes a catalogue of his work
ranging from almost ambient like music to downright noise stuff we
know him for. Scanner’s (‘Case’) work is much more coherent, with
fifteen tracks of processed field recordings, which are nicely
abstract (and is the area’s in which I like to see Scanner…). Cray
(‘Comment’) is a new name to me, and his work deals with keyboards (a
dictionary description of a keyboard is printed on the cover. All of
these sounds seems processed from old computers and keyboards. The
result is not entirely convincing.
Taylor Deupree (‘Continue’) also works on a very specific subject:
the sound of braille. Here it works well, with all those dots
translated to music, a skill that Taylor has help develloping over
the years. I don’t understand how he came to 15 letters, instead of
26… Rsundin (‘Default’) has no theme and sticks to fifteen sectors
of one piece of very minimal electronics and field recordings,
arriving at sheer silence thoughout. Intense listening stuff. Kim
Cascone’s (‘Delete’) work are ‘fifteen recombinat studies’, which are
no doubt from one source, but he manages to make it sound like one
long track, with nice little changes.
Later Days (‘Do’) writes on his own software, sometimes as needed per
new composition. He too knows how to get his fifteen tracks to sound
like one in a more traditional, academic way. Another total unknown
is Junior Varsity KM (‘Export’), whose fifteen very basic pieces
didn’t do much for me. Quite static in approach, with rhythms and
drones, but none of which seem to evolve in any way. Steve Roden
(‘For’) deals with motion, since his work is for Eadweard Muybridge,
the famous photographer. Roden uses contact microphones, which he
rubbed along the arm, tapped with fingers, rubbed with feet etc.
These recordings seem processed afterwards. Folder (“Else”) is I
think not really a band, but an one-off project. It deals with four
recordings of four different locations at the same time, which we
then mixed and chopped up. Nice recordings may be, but of all the
cut’s up made, an incoherent release, with a fairly dubious concept.
Warmdesk (‘Function’) is, I gather, from Australia and starts out in
a serious mood, with sounds falling over eachother in a modern
classical composed, but after track eight or so, beats kick in, an
occassional synth line and arrives in latter day music styles. Quite
a nice release actually. V/VM (‘if’) is a noisy thing with all tracks
dwelling around samples and harsh, abrassive sound effects.
eM (‘import’) decided to make one long track, starting with field
recordings, modifying them and later adding other sounds of a more
digital nature. This is a blend of ambient acoustics and electronics
with a strong atmosphere. Stephan Mathieu (‘in’) seems to focus on
piano and drums, although that is not very clear from the beginning.
He put the 15 individual in such an order that it can be considered a
long piece with silences. Digitized sounds of very different natures
and very well done. *0 (‘label’) uses only sine waves under 20Hz and
above 20KHz, so one can imagine what this does to speakers if not
warned. The listening experience is somewhat difficult because of
this, but certainly worth the trouble, due to the interferences that
occur. Electric Company (‘new’) used two old Macs to create bits and
pieces of sounds that always seem to be starting and never end.
Always new and very nice messed up sound indeed. Eloy Anzola
(‘return’) chooses to rework four themes, thereby creating four
tracks basically. Within the one minute parts there are subtle, but
clear differences. Sort of glitch ambient and pretty nice stuff. Goem
(‘switch’) present 15 mini Goem tracks, beats and some synths, pretty
minimal as usual. Ekkehard Ehlers (‘this’) continues the work done on
his release “Betrieb”, layering sounds into a complex and closed
system, creating very different results with the same sound material.
Not unlike Mathieu’s working process and with a result just as
pleasing. Richard Chartier (‘typeof’) uses a lot of (near) silence,
thereby avoiding the one minute restriction and creating one piece
that requires intensive listening to gain the respect it deserves.
Massimo (‘var’) is defenitely not the silent type, but manages more
or less the same effect as Chartier by cutting his sounds up so much,
that a new track can start just about anywhere. Noisy intervals and
sometimes heavy pulses keep the^C listener on guard for what comes
next. Surprising as ever. Odd one out in this series (as far as
design is concerned) is Akira Rabelais (‘void’). All covers are
silver, black and white, but the Rabelais one is black and very dark
grey (which looks very good within this framework). His work is
one^Clong drony piece with very light sounds sliding over the basic
layer. A^C very quiet and gentle piece, with a lot of atmosphere.
Pimmon (‘while’) presents fifteen cuts of material that I would have
loved to hear longer. Atmospheric, intense, crazy and mesmerizing.
Last one in the series is Andreas Berthling (‘with’) with a
collection of electronic sounds, starting gently, almost caressing
the ear, then getting more excited and playful and then mixed. A
perfect CD to close the whole series. (1-12: FdW, 13-24: RM)
Address: www.fallt.com