RLW – EARLY RLW TWO: NUR DIE TEIRE BLIEBEN UBRIG (LP by Swill Radio)
JOHN HUDAK – HELEN MARIE: REINTERPRETATIONS (Double CD by Alluvial Recordings)
V.A. – THE FREEST OF RADICALS (Double CD by No Type)
YANNIS KYRIAKIDES – A CONSPIRACY CANTATA (CD by Unsounds)
GRAND MAL – PERFECT FIT (CD by Unsounds)
ANDY MOOR & KAFFE MATTHEWS – LOCKS (CD by Unsounds)
THE HIGH IMPEDANCE – APARTMENT 206 (CDR by Bergerk)
CAR CRASH FACE – THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MISTAKE (CDR by Bergerk)
DAS RHYTHMISCHE ORNAMENT – VAKUROOM 3 (CDR by Nauze Musick)
TU M’P3 (available for download)
RAWLINGS/STELZER/TALBOT & GRIVAS/ZIOUTOS/MALEVITSIS (CDR by Absurd)
OPOPOP – JUICIO FINAL (3″ CDR by Alku)
TIN.RP – STARVING HUN_GER V2.6B (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
ROSY PARLANE – GETXO (CD by Sigma Editions)
TANGO 9 (CDR + Magazine)
RLW – EARLY RLW TWO: NUR DIE TEIRE BLIEBEN UBRIG (LP by Swill Radio)
A second collection of the very early works by Ralf Wehowsky (the first one was reviewed in Vital Weekly 178). I must admit I don’t understand how this works… it is credited here to RLW, but strictly speaking this was all music that was released (or at least recorded) as PD, a collective of musicians including Ralf Wehowsky, Joachim Stender, Joachim Pense, Ewald Weber, Gerd Poppe (of Non Toxique Lost, wonder when their album will be re-issued) and most curious to some also Achim Szepanski (headhoncho of Mille Plateaux, despite the fact that his name is wrongly spelled on the cover). Some of them on a few tracks though. For me this album, like its predecessor, is a feast, but I must admit I am old enough to know this music from when it was first time around. The political texts (‘Ayatollah Carter’ and ‘Mainzer Dom’, in which the pope kills himself) are of course putting a blush on Wehowsky’s cheeks every time he hears this youthful naivety, but the music makes up. Mostly ac!
ting as a real band, the music ranges from free form improvisation to the former mentioned political agit punk. It shows us today how popmusic quickly emerged into experimental music in the early 80s, with the use of the elements of a rock band, added with tapes. I had some reservations with the quality of the first recordings, but here the reservations are all gone. It sounds more then excellent. The remastering sounds fresh (technical help by Christoph Heeman, the cover says), so it’s a true gem to have. Except… who wants it? It doesn’t sound like anything you’ll find in the bins under RLW, so if you are after the more sampler/electronic work of his, ignore this. If you wish to expand the man’s musical history, then this can’t be ignored. (FdW)
Address: www.anti-naturals.org/swill
JOHN HUDAK – HELEN MARIE: REINTERPRETATIONS (Double CD by Alluvial Recordings)
This double album is actually a remix album, including remixed versions of one track by John Hudak: “don’t worry about anything; I’ll talk to you tomorrow”. This track was intended for earlier release, but Hudak decided against it in favour of having it reworked by other artists first. The artists are: Jason Lescalleet, M. Behrens, Sukora, Peter Duimelinks, Francisco Lopez, Eric Lanzillotta, Frans de Waard and Leif Elggren. And yes, that sounds like lot of minimalism. The first track is the original by Hudak, a silent piece of high tones, weaved intricately together, with some feedbacks here and there. A very mesmerizing track, that seems to be forever changing and still staying the same throughout. An amazing work of great strength. Jason Lescalleet picks up from there, with an even higher tone, oscillating through my room. sounds like a case of extreme filtering. Added later is a very gentle lower layer of sound that starts to play with the first layer. A very warm and icy!
piece, so that’s good stuff of course. M. Behrens seems to take a somewhat more deconstructive approach: sudden cuts are pretty frequent and the dynamic range is larger. And although the source material is still predominant, other sounds are inserted as well (but I presume they were all derived from the source material). Again this is a gentle track, but with a little more surprises, thanks to the composition of the material. Next up is Sukora, with one of the most quiet pieces I’ve ever heard by him. After pumping the volume way up, one can hear a sound that seems stretched or delayed and that stops every now and then. Putting the volume back to normal, the listenening experience becomes rather in the vein of Guenter or some of the works of Lopez: unless you’re in an anechoic chamber, environmental sounds start playing a seriously big role in the piece, at some points getting so obtrusive, that I’d like to skip to the next track……Not one of his best, I think. The last !
track on the first disc is by Peter Duimelinks. He sticks pretty close to the original, but the stereo spectrum is wider and more varied and at some point sounds seem to start cancelling each other out. Besides, some ultra low frequencies appear (watch you speakers with this track!), that fill the room up to the knees in a deep vibration. Pretty heavy!
Disc two starts with another track by John Hudak, sounding from far away, dreamy and almost absentminded, but closing in slowly at times. Again a wonderful track. Francisco Lopez’ track is a fierce and powerful version of the the original, not in volume, but in density. Many layers of soft sounds intertwine and slowly build up to a crescendo in the mid frequencies and then it’s cut off and there seems to be nothing anymore for a long time (which is not the case of course). A good piece once more. Eric Lanzillotta is actually the first one to really take a big step away from the original sound: a low drone with some flutters and a hiss are all that’s left of the clear and crisp sound of Hudak. Almost as if one is listening to it under a thick wool blanket. Dark but strong. Frans de Waard has made several loops from the original material; his track slowly fades from loop to loop in a very sober and subdued way. Nothing fancy, but in a strange way very close in effect to Hudak’!
s original. Well done indeed. The last track is by Swedish enigma Leif Elggren, who succeeds in creating a gentle noise piece with as dense a layering as Lopez and as tense a sound as Duimelinks. In origin close to Hudak’s material, but in effect far removed from it. But again a good track! So there you go: minimalism is still very much alive and kicking and what’s more, it’s very differentiated as well. An excellent release. (MR)
Address: alluvial@hotmail.com
V.A. – THE FREEST OF RADICALS (Double CD by No Type)
No Type are obviously best known for their MP3 label, but after more than three years of online publishing they have decided to release the first hard copy. And more are to follow. This sampler features no less than 36 tracks, thus giving a broad overview of the material released on the website. With some exceptions, most of the tracks can be seen as clicks ‘n cuts ine the widest sense: from more mainstream techno to austere glitches. The odd ones out can be placed in noise, post-rock and even pop. As with many compilations (especially double ones), there are good tracks, bad tracks and those somewhere inbetween. In general the quality is pretty good and the compilation is put together well. There is enough differentiation between tracks, which keeps ttention at a good level and more importantly, some very strange and intriguing tracks are included. For all of us with a prehisorical internet connection, this is an excellent chance to get to know No Type and the artists they!
represent (and these artists being…: Le Chien Borgne, James Schidlowsky, Tomas Jirku, Speech.fake, Julie Rousse, Eucci, Viratone Ballad, Magali Babin, Camp, Claudia Bonarelli, Ja Dijiste, Napalm Jazz, Backstreet Noise, N.kra & Em, Jon Vaughn, 833-45, Kanovanik, Idmonster, V.V., Kalx, Oeuf Korreckt, Sluts On Tape, Octopus Inc, Alphacat, Books On Tape, Morceaux de Machines, Martindx, Dick Richards, Chris Degiere, Headphone Science, Gimp Gadget, Themoonstealingproject, Diablatomica, Infoslut) (MR)
Adress: www.notype.com
YANNIS KYRIAKIDES – A CONSPIRACY CANTATA (CD by Unsounds)
GRAND MAL – PERFECT FIT (CD by Unsounds)
ANDY MOOR & KAFFE MATTHEWS – LOCKS (CD by Unsounds)
Unsounds is a new label from The Netherlands which moves between composed and improvised music. The first three releases show this clearly.
Yannis Kyriakides hails from Cyprus but lives in Amsterdam for a while now. He studied with Louis Andriessen and worked with Dick Raaijmakers. In 2000 he won the Gaudeamus International Composition Prize with his ‘A Conspiracy Cantata’ which is also the main piece on his first CD. In this piece he links two forms of cryptic message communication together: that of number stations (shortwave sounds used by secret services in the cold war era) and the puzzling texts of the oracle of Delphi. The piece is for two voices, piano and electronic sounds. As a lover of electronic music I must say that from the six parts of this piece I liked those best in which the electronic sounds play an important role. This music works best, at least for me, when it’s all very close: the singing, the electronics and the occassional strum on the piano. When it gets too academic and the sound jumps all over the place, then I am off. The other two pieces on this CD are ‘Hydratorizon’ and ‘Tettix’. The!
first one is for piano and sine waves. A very subdued piece, maybe a bit like Ikeda (circa ‘Matrix for rooms’) but in combination with the piano it sounds very nice. A very subtle piece. ‘Tettix’ is for voice, insect sounds and drum machine. This piece was not well spend on me, especially the voice part annoyed me… But that’s only 1/5th of an otherwise nice CD…
Grand Mal is a group from The Hague (The Netherlands) of which Justin Bennett (also from BMB con and his solo work) is possibly the most known one. He plays here drums, percussion and zither. The other members are Anne Wellmer who plays synthi, arp, drum machine and powerbook and Stephie Buttrich who plays voice and objects. Grand Mal play fairly traditional improvised music. It scrapes, bangs and it hits in all sorts of directions, voice mutters and speakings. At times annoying, at times beautiful, it’s fascinating for sure.
The third release is a duet by Kaffe Matthews and Andy Moor. The first one is surely known among the Vital Weekly readers. She performs solo and group works in which she processes the sounds given by the environment (when performing solo) or the instruments of the others (groupworks). Andy Moore was once the guitarist of Dog Faced Hermans, but is now for some time the guitarist of my favourite punkband The Ex. Besides that he is also an improviser who plays with others. The seven pieces on this CD are divided so that you get a total of sixteen. Kaffe samples the guitar of Andy and together it becomes a great work. Sometimes the raw and untamed energy of Moor’s guitar reveals some of his punk roots (like in the second half of ‘Builder Bloomsberg’), but through sampling many subtle layers of the same sounds are added. My favourite piece is ‘Here Is Your Coat’ which has lots of subtle guitar notes and small sounds. All in all a pretty strong CD. (FdW)
Address: www.unsounds.com
THE HIGH IMPEDANCE – APARTMENT 206 (CDR by Bergerk)
CAR CRASH FACE – THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MISTAKE (CDR by Bergerk)
Behind The High Impedance we find one Steve Matzkov, who hails from Perth, Australia. He plays guitar and feeds the sounds through a whole series of effect units. Nine lengthy tracks is the result. Clearly inspired by a whole range of like minded (Flying Saucer Attack, Windy & Carl and loads of other drone people on guitars), he crafts his stuff together well. Although the music ranges from soft and ambient like to the more louder guitar wall of sound type of thing, I think it works best in the softer moments, like the opening piece ‘Noise Two’ in which the guitar sounds like a violin. Spacious music for spacious minds.
Car Crash Face is more a band, with members who were previously in Magick Trousers. From what I understand a pretty heavy affair. Car Crash Face have four members who operate on a line of casio, toys, pc loops, guitar, moog. Their CDR release is full of weirdness playing, which however didn’t make a consistent sound to me. Crazyness at it’s best, but it never made any impression on me. (FdW)
Address: http://bergerk.cjb.net
DAS RHYTHMISCHE ORNAMENT – VAKUROOM 3 (CDR by Nauze Musick)
Das Rhythmische Ornament are one HenryC who is responsible for the rhythm and one marCus who plays the ornaments… So me thinks upon hearing that Henry is the drummer and operator the rhythm machines and Marcus the droney guitarist cum synthesizer player. Together they play long spaced out pieces, which comes off to me as an even rawer version of F/i and Vocokesh (in case you wonder wether that is possible: yes apperentely so). The recording quality is at times rehearsal room like, especially in the opening piece, which is a bit annoying. The other tracks are better in sound quality and the music benefits from that, ie all the tracks after the first one sound better. More spacious music for spacious minds… (FdW)
Address: http://www.nauzemuzick.net
TU M’P3 (available for download)
A new website devoted to MP3s is currentely curated by the members of Tu M’. They invite musicians to create sound pieces to visuals they have created with their webcam. Every month they will put new stuff online. Now the first run is available, no less then 15 different artists. All of these pieces are relatively short (under 4 minutes) and many of these are minimal pieces, but everybody uses their own approach. From the ambient pieces from Stephan Mathieu or Guenther Muller to the high end peeps of Z.e.l.l.e or the drone guitar noise of Oren Ambarchi and the down right noise of Zbigniew Karkowski. It seems to me that everyone is exploring a small idea in a limited time frame. Price winning tracks are the aforementioned Stephan Mathieu (‘Walk On By’, must be another pun), Alvin Curran’s piano minimalism, Vert with a Steve Reich like piece and Scanner with a surprising deep end piece. Erik Friedlander has the least interesting piece and sounds almost new agey. Others in this!
first bulk are Kim Cascone, Hugh Hopper, Jason Kahn, Carl Stone, TV Pow and Stephen Vitiello. Nice collection of known and lesser known names. And it’s for free too…
Address: www.tu-m.com
RAWLINGS/STELZER/TALBOT & GRIVAS/ZIOUTOS/MALEVITSIS (CDR by Absurd)
CDR releases are of course an excellent medium to document live events, especially if they are one-off occassions. On this document we find two trio’s, which don’t relate to eachother (other then being a trio). The first one is with Vic Rawlings (Cello, Circuit-bent electronics), Howard Stelzer (tapes) and Jason Talbot (turntables). Their four live improvisations are kinda noisy affairs of tape scratches, feedback noise and hand crancked records. Although this results in a noisy affair at times, the three spread the noise moments well and offer a dynamic affair. Improvisation music of the higher speed and energy. The second trio featured here are Anastasis Grivas (prepared bowed guitar), Theodore Zioutos (live electronics) and Nicolas Malevitsis (amplified objects). This recording is the their first meeting as a trio. Kinda hard to tell whether they held back or whether it is planned like this, but their piece (25 minutes) moves slower and more careful. Maybe it was intended!
like this… This trio offers a more ongoing sound with scratches and scrapings of all kind. They reminded me of Morphogenesis or Kapotte Muziek. And as a first result, not bad at all… (FdW)
Address: <absurd@otenet.gr>
OPOPOP – JUICIO FINAL (3″ CDR by Alku)
A short release, just over 10 minutes, divided into 16 pieces. Opopop from Spain released before on labels as Alku and Mego (as Evol). The press release mentions that they use gas horns… followed by some rambling on the use of trumpets in the bible – all of which is beyond me really. Opopop has a highly digital glitch sound, which is layered ad infinitum. Everything moves in here, with sounds popping in and out. Not pleasently played, but rather harsh and noisy. Although not so my thing, I was fascinated by it’s sound. So many things happening, all these small events getting a life… a hectic, chaotic, strange but also nice release. And probably with the right length too. (FdW)
Address: http://personal.ilimit.es/principio
TIN.RP – STARVING HUN_GER V2.6B (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
>From the ever active French underground another new release by Tin.RP. It seems to me that this new release sees them moving into a new direction. The music is still rhythmic of course, but most of the times in a slower tempo. This means here that the techno element is replaced by a more minimal approach. Continous simple rhythm blocks to which they add synth sounds. Kinda like what people like Pan Sonic or Goem do. Although I could be wrong, I think Tin.RP love the analogue equipment over the digitalia. The sixteen tracks are quite short (the whole release is about 33 minutes) and there is enough variation to hold ones attention. I think this is their best work to date. (FdW)
Address: www.tinrp.fr.st
ROSY PARLANE – GETXO (CD by Sigma Editions)
Rosy Parlane from New Zealand has been around since releasing his first CD on Sigma, some four years ago. Touring and staying in Europe certainly had impact on his music. His first CD was a rather lo-fi affair which involved loops building sound blocks for infinity. Parlane does the very same thing on his new CD, but through the use better equipment (read: laptop) he can add more delicate moments into his music. The six pieces on this CD are best be described as minimal glitch music. From the smallest sound particles, Parlane builts repetitive sound worlds which act as living organism. They seems to be growing and expanding all the time. I am told that the tracks on this CD are in pairs (1-6, 2-5 and 3-4) that use eachothers source material, structure and method. If I didn’t knew this, I wouldn’t have noticed, since they all sound different. Despite the fact that this is a laptop album, it has warmth. Warm ambient like music. I am reminded of Stephan Mathieu’s recent work, !
but Parlane takes more time per track to tell his story. It’s however never that he leaps into boredom and he can hold, throughout, the attention of the listener. Great album. (FdW)
Address: www.sigmaeditions.com
TANGO 9 (CDR + Magazine)
Tango is a magazine from Lithunia that has been going strong for a couple of years now. Off and on I get to see copy, which looks nice. Of course I can’t really comment on the content since it’s all in a language I haven’t fully mastered yet. The latest issue comes with a CD-R, filled with musicians from Lithunia.
Rolandas Cikanavicius opens up the CD with a kind of outdated ambient industrial lo-fi sampling affair, which unfortunally drags on too much to. Darius Ciuta produces small crackles and humms which starts out with sparse crackles but eventually grows more and more. A very microsound affair here.
The industrial noise of Raimundas Eimontas with distorted radio voices and ditto short waves, fed through a whole bunch of analog synths. Again a bit outdated, and again taking too much time. From the same guy we get something that is announced as an improvised piece and maybe it is. It’s for carrilion and electronica and builts nicely up in tension with addition of frippian like guitars. Very nice piece and total contrast of the prvious.
Antanas Jasenka distorts vocals over hip hop rhythms. A short piece but it couldn’t hold my attention very much. The other two tracks by the same guy also deal with sampled pop music (the pieces are called ‘Pop Song’, ‘Nirvana’ and ‘Waits’) and couldn’t really do much for me.
So in all we get two very nice pieces (that last however 28 minutes of the total CD – mind you) and the rest has maybe nice moments, but is throughout nothing special and in some case outdated. However it is to be hoped that forthcoming issues will have CDs with new music from this country too.
Address: <tangotakas.lt>