LULL/ORIGAMI ARKTIKA – BROOK (CD by Feardrop)
DONNACHA COSTELLO – TOGETHER IS THE NEW ALONE (CD by Mille Plateaux)
OUTERDRIVE – HALLUCINATIONS (CD by mar/Ino)
ONQ – THE SUPREME WEIGHT (CDR by Ouzel)
ASMUS TIETCHENS & DAVID LEE MYERS – FLUSSDICHTE (CD by Disco Bruit)
LAURENT DAILLEAU – SUPERSTERNAL NOTCH (CD by Sonoris)
MÙ – V ST NV RS (CD by Pom V)
JOSEPH SUCHY – CANOEING INSTRUCTIONAL (CD by Whatness)
OSTINATO – KAP ARKONA (CD by Disco Bruit)
ALEX KELLER – THE FOUR HUNDRED BOYS (CD by MCL)
MARCELO RADULOVICH – (CASE OF THE MISSING) THUMB (CD by Accretions)
STEPHAN MATHIEU & EKKEHARD EHLERS – BROMBRON 02: HEROIN (CD by STAALPLAAT)
5F_55 – 5F_55 (Cd by Hands Productions)
LULL/ORIGAMI ARKTIKA – BROOK (CD by Feardrop)
It has been quiet from the Lull areas – or at least that is my
perspective of things. Lull is the ambient sound project of Mick
Harris, who is otherwise known as Scorn and a whole lot of other
projects which I don’t know (because I don’t like drum & bass). Lull
is for me the most interesting one, but I was hoping that a new
release would see a new direction. Luckily it does. Lull offers two
tracks, almost 30 minutes in length, of a more electro-acoustic
nature. Kinda hard to tell what the nature is, because Mick uses a
great deal of granular synthesis and all the sounds have been
transformed beyond recognization. Gone are the long waven tapestries
of sounds, and hello to the short collage cut up like transformations.
The second half of this disc is filled by Origami Artika. This is a
huge collective of musicians and visual artists from Norway (and
beyond), but the nucleus is Tore H. Boe. The original recordings here
were made in Poland during two concerts, and then later processed.
Even when indexed into various tracks, I guess this is intended as a
continous piece. The backbone of the music are heavy laden dark
drones over which carefull sounds are added, tinkling bells, a flute
or some small percussion. Although not great stuff, quite interesting
as a background listen. Ok stuff so to speak. (FdW)
Address: <feardrop@wanadoo.fr>
DONNACHA COSTELLO – TOGETHER IS THE NEW ALONE (CD by Mille Plateaux)
Donnacha’s second CD after last years ‘Growing Up In Public’ and it’s
a bit step ahead. Whereas his debut was sort of relaxing private
dance music, this ‘Together Is The New Alone’ is a big step forward
in my opinion. Not that he moved to the public dance floor with this
new release, more like the contrary. It’s still music for the private
spaces. Intime music with a strong melancholic touch. It’s keyboard
lines remind me of some of the Morr releases, but the rhythms used by
Costello are most definetly borrowed from the ‘Clicks & Cuts’
movement: dry, sharp, sine wave oriented. The cold mechanic world
inhabited by so many of the click cutters sounded never so warm as
here. ‘In spite of everything’ exemplifies this very clear, and takes
matters further: just a drone like keyboard line underneath, dry
beats on top and a looped keyboard line playing the ‘melody’. At
times a pastoral atmosphere, which is added by some of the titles,
like ‘Your New God’, ‘And I got left behind’ and ‘That Empty
Feeling’. Something terrible must have happened in Costello’s life
between april 20th and july 2nd, the dates in between he recorded
this CD. Sadness doesn’t lead to great art per se, but Costello’s
lonelyness, sadness, grief or whatever, certainly did. (FdW)
Address: www.mille-plateaux.com
OUTERDRIVE – HALLUCINATIONS (CD by mar/Ino)
Mar/Ino is an off shoot label of Elise & Jack Recordings, in order to
release startling sounds in simple packages. Carton sleeves which
look by no means cheap and bi-color print on a bunch of semi
transparant sheets. Each release is limited to 250 copies, so maybe
we are talking ‘collectors item’ here? Outerdrive is a five piece
group, playing bass, guitar, drums and a guy named Geoff Walker who
plays fire, air and water. One track uses vocals and the rest is
instrumental. Outerdrive play psychedelic music. Long pieces of fuzzy
guitars, bass solo’s and drums that sound like a continious train.
Everything is improvised states the cover and I very much believe
this is true. You hear them grabbing for a key, moving to a next
moment, within tracks, which adds a nice element to the whole. The
element of something raw and unsmoothlyness. Outerdrive fits a great
US tradition of bands like this, like F/i, Vocokesh, Gravitar or
Subarachnoid Space. If these names mean anything to you, then
Outerdrive should be meaning something to you to. (FdW)
Address: www.elsieandjack.com/marino
ONQ – THE SUPREME WEIGHT (CDR by Ouzel)
Onq is from Italy and he has some releases before, but most likely in
some scene I don’t dig out, because it sound altogether very familiar
to me. It’s a two person group, playing guitars, synth, drums,
accordion, vocals and a guest clarinet on tracks two and eight.
Clocking in at just under 30 minutes with 10 tracks you can imagine
that these are songs of pop-like length. Think of popmusic when you
hear this. Melancholic chords, rushed guitars and at times sombre
sounding vocals. I was reminded of new wave from the mid 80s,
especially some of the guitars and vocals reminded me of the more
poppy Five Or Six. This music may lie very far from what is usually
in these weekly’s, but I must say I like this. Yes, I am getting old
(though not wiser), so I from time to time I hark back to my youth to
play something like this. Hearing something like this, made in the
present day, is a nice day and will make me grab for any similar band
I know (Five Or Six, Neon, The Flue – does anyone what I mean?) (FdW)
Address: www.ouzel.3000.it
ASMUS TIETCHENS & DAVID LEE MYERS – FLUSSDICHTE (CD by Disco Bruit)
Asmus Tietchens is not just a busy person when it comes to his solo
recordings, he is also busy with collaborative recordings with
others, such as PBK, Vidna Obmana, Thomas Koner, SBOTHI/Achim
Wollscheid and Arcane Device. With the latter he recorded two CD’s,
the last one was completed just when Arcane Device announced his
retirement from the art scene (in 1995).^C Last year he returned to
music with an excellent CD as Ourobouros, again with feedback machine
music, which he now calls processor music. As Arcane Device he built
a machine in which feedback is transformed and processed to music,
now he works under his own name. It’s perfect music for somebody like
Asmus Tietchens. This CD sounds to me like the result of processing.
The first few tracks start out really slow, with just careful and a
handful of sounds on the palette, but as the CD evolves, the events
grow thicker and thicker and more happens. It culminates in the ninth
track in which everything seems to come together. Almost 14 minutes
in length of sizzling drones, which seem to be moving back and forth
in time. The nine tracks display very well the various possibilities
of feedback music, and also prove that feedback music can be done in
an intelligent way, removed from the noise scene. Most likely the
refined collaboration of the two until now. (FdW)
Address: www.disco-bruit.de
LAURENT DAILLEAU – SUPERSTERNAL NOTCH (CD by Sonoris)
Dailleau is a member of Triolid and Le Complexe de la Viande and
perfoms from time to time with Helmut Schafer and Atau Tanaka. I’m
unfamiliar with the bands but I know the two others as composers of
powerbook music, both in their very own style. This CD is a solo CD
recorded at various concerts, where he performed on theremin,
msp-propelled theremin, aks synth and computer. These eight pieces
can be best described as dense. Layered sounds with a drone like
character, which can grow into noise (but it never reaches the peak
of noise). Although some of the tracks remind me of laptop like
cracklings and even a rhythm, such as ‘Little Odyssey’, Dailleau
never gets out of control and structure of the music remains
important. The drone like character remains his important thing.
Therefore this is an utmost enjoyable CD if you like the work of
Asmus Tietchens, Troum but also Mego. Not the least names to be
compared with. Great stuff indeed. (FdW)
Address: www.sonoris.org
MÙ – V ST NV RS (CD by Pom V)
If I understand well MÙ is a three person group who toy around with
samples, concret noises, minidiscs and sinewaves. “A music composed
from the transformation of pre-existing sound materials” is how they
describe it. Obviously everything is processed in a way that you
can’t recognize any of the original sources (which I doubt were
played by MÙ themselves). In a hectic and frenzy mix of ideas, MÙ
move all over the place, and give the listener hardly any rest. MÙ
take their place in the world wide web of microsoundists and
powerbookers and even when this CD is quite alright, I don’t hear
them adding something new. Maybe the booklet says something about it,
but my knowledge of the French language is not very well these days.
Bear in mind that this not click and cuts stuff, because there are
not quantized beats around (if of course that is your interpretation
of clicks and cuts…) but finds itself more in improvised areas.
‘Silence Et C+n’ moves around sampled cymbal sounds and cracks for
instance. This could have been a release on Grob or Mego. But it
isn’t. It’s from France, a country not yet really known for this kind
of stuff, so it’s always good to see these things spreading
geographically. (FdW)
Address: <pomvmo@hotmail.com>
JOSEPH SUCHY – CANOEING INSTRUCTIONAL (CD by Whatness)
“”Harfe” is a wooden canoe that has been transformed into a string
instrument by artist Kirsten Pieroth.” It says on the cover. This
canoe is played by guitarist Joseph Suchy, aka mastermind behind
Grob. But this release is on Ekkehard Ehlers’ label Whatness (and
Ehlers himself has a firm interest in improvisation music – bla bla
small world). The first piece sounds like a acoustic guitar in a free
improvising way with two hands all over the place, to which slowly
echo is added (and some more sound effects towards the very end of
the piece). The second piece also sounds like a guitar, but it plays
in loopmode with beneath samples running a long. Gradually the
samples take over. They are in complete control in the third track in
which the guitar-like sounds slowly disappear in favor of processed
sounds and a densely layered field of sound (or should that be a
densely layered ocean of sound) occurs. It seems to me a logical
built up here, from the plain sounds to whatever is possible through
the use of studio techniques. Excellent packaging, excellent, but
sadly too short, CD. (FdW)
Address: www.whatness.de or <ehlers@whatness.de>
OSTINATO – KAP ARKONA (CD by Disco Bruit)
Ostinato is the project of one Christian Mevs and that’s about all I
know about it (his website was still in progress). He is helped by
Cecile Felix on vocals and texts. The main part of his music exists
of beats, sometimes techno like, sometimes drum & bass like,
sometimes a bit lounge like. Much is sauced by funny little sounds,
but they don’t seem to be a turning point in making this a very
exciting release. It tries to be exciting, but it adds at the same
time too much mediocre rhythms that makes the whole thing look
alright but not great, sort of standard ok. If I was to rank it from
1 to 10, I give it a 6. (FdW)
Address: www.disco-bruit.de
ALEX KELLER – THE FOUR HUNDRED BOYS (CD by MCL)
Alex Keller lives in Seattle, and releases his first solo CD. Besides
he is a member of Rebreather, an improvisational unit with
Christopher DeLaurenti. Not that I ever heard their music…
Improvisation is not something Alex is doing on his solo CD. Each
track is described on the sleeve in terms of intention and what he
has done to create it. One piece just uses guitar sounds, in order to
create a serieus piece of electronic music, another uses piano sounds
(the title piece, which unfortunally is not a great piece, as it’s
dabbling too much in the academic world but with lesser power) or
field recordings. Keller’s music work best if he works with stretched
out, drone like sounds, with small events happening under the
surface, such as in ‘Landscape: Still Life With Bug’ or ‘Cosmetic’.
They too are the result of sturdy processing and examining the ideas
of the serious avant-garde, but at the same time result in a music
that will appeal to the underground. Overall a very fine CD. (FdW)
Address: www.alexkeller.net
MARCELO RADULOVICH – (CASE OF THE MISSING) THUMB (CD by Accretions)
Marcelo Radulovich is somebody from San Diego and has four solo CD’s
to his name, which I never heard. This CD uses field recordings made
in San Diego, Mexico, Big Sur, Hong Kong, Santiago and San Francisco
in addition to synthetic sounds. Water sounds are the main thing, but
Radulovich feeds them an array of sound effects, which makes the
water sound like a guitar in track four (no titles, I assume this is
one long piece divided in six parts) and synths sound like insects
and people talking sound like people talking. Almost filmic in
character, despite some of the outbursts that occur from time to
time. But these sonic outbursts only happen from time to time and in
general the music floats by nicely. A sonic journey that is depicted
in an aurally nice way. (FdW)
Address: www.accretions.com
STEPHAN MATHIEU & EKKEHARD EHLERS – BROMBRON 02: HEROIN (CD by STAALPLAAT)
Brombron is a project established by Extrapool and Staalplaat, where
artists meet in a residence for a certain amount of time to
collaborate in a desired musical project. First album released in the
series comes out of a joint venture between Stephan Mathieu and
Ekkehard Ehlers. Opening track on “Brombron 2: Heroin”, titled “New
year’s eve”, begins with some distant fireworks that shortly after
are joined by the sound of a Hammond organ. Following track Rose
continues the bizarre musical structure with a looped
Harmonica-sample moving backwards in a NEU!-sounding style, that uses
some of the alluring sound washes typical to the classic German
Krautrock-band. In such way “Heroin” continues mixing processed
acoustic samples into a sphere dominated by electronic treatments and
manipulations and thus ending out with an ambient sort of expression
using both noise of acoustic and electronic sources. Even though the
two artists have common ground in the Glitch-style, the album opens
into a much wider perspective than the simple use of micro-sounds and
glitches. Closing the album with another “New years eve”-track the
album ends out being an excellent debut both for Stephan
Mathieu/Ekkehard Ehlers-collaboration and for the Brombron-project.
Highly recommended! (NMP)
Address: www.staalplaat.com
5F_55 – 5F_55 (Cd by Hands Productions)
It is hard to explain the meaning of an artist-name like the one
chosen by this German newcomer of the rhythmic noise-scene. Similarly
the tracks are titled as codes consisting of letters and numbers.
Most of the thirteen tracks on the album use distorted noisy rhythms
moving in mid-tempo speed. Built around punctual beats, the tracks
are filled with lots of noises, loops and samples. Musically 5f_55
has his own sort of style that uses elements of Darkside, Big
Beat-rhythm patterns, old school Industrial-sounds, Ambient and
ethnic influences reminiscent of a brutally distorted version of
Muslimgauze. In the background thick walls of power electronics make
sure that the album keeps a heavy grinding sound throughout the 66
minutes playing time. A good hard-hitting album without being
overwhelmingly innovative. (NMP)
Address: www.handsproductions.com