MARC USHMI MEETS REVEREND GALLOWAY ON ERNST BUSCH (CD by Whatness)
LIMP – ORION (CD by Morr Music)
CRUELTY CAMPAIGN – DISTRESSED SIGNALS (Cd by Tesco Organisation)
TARANTEL – MORT AUX VACHES (Cd by Staalplaat)
KOJI ASANO – SPHERICAL MOSS FACTORY (CD by Solstice)
MOKIRA – PLEE (CD by Mille Plateaux)
ERIC LA CASA/SLAVEK KWI – FONDERIE PACCARD (CD by Collectif & Cie)
ERIC LA CASA – QUELQUE CHOSE DE CELA, LE DESERT PART 1-3 (miniCD by
Collection Memoires)
EBSK – EBSK (CDR by SK Disque)
PIMMON – SECRET SLEEPING BIRDS (CD by Sirr.ecords)
1 MILE NORTH – GLASS WARS (CD by Old Colony)
RIBBON EFFECT – EP98 (CDEP by False Walls)
TINY HAIRS – SUBTLE INVISIBLE BODIES (CD by False Walls)
TORE H. BOE – SOLVSTOY (7″ by Safe As Milk)
LASSE MARHAUG – ONE EYE AND WATCHING (7″ by Safe As Milk)
DUPLO – SLINGRINGSMONN (LP by Safe As Milk)
INITZ – INITZ (LP by Safe As Milk)
ANUS ANDREWS (CDR by Trademark Industries)
99.5 (CDR by Trademark Industries)
HIPPY PURPLE POKE (CDR by Trademark Industries)
PAUL DEVENS – DL LAIT RUSSE (CD by Niew)
MARC USHMI MEETS REVEREND GALLOWAY ON ERNST BUSCH (CD by Whatness)
Conceptualism at work here. Let’s suppose you don’t read the titles,
and don’t have the press release, and your native tongue is anything
but German, but you hear just the content of the CD then what would
you think? You get a bunch of house related tracks, that go from very
slick in the first to more experimental in the end (with an odd track
of no beat stuff on the sixth spot here), which all come with vague
voice samples which are kinda difficult to follow what they are
actually singing. But then reading the press text, things become
“clear”. In the 1928 Reichstag elections the German Social Democratic
Party gave out soap to potential voters, which humour was not enjoyed
by everyone. The then known singer Ernst Busch even did a ong about
it, the “Soap Song”. In 2000 Ekkehard Ehlers and Markus Weisbeck
asked the known (at least hopefully to some, not me) German singer
Stephen Galloway to sing some old workers revolutionary songs and
about six months later, Markus Schmickler compiled this based on
Galloway’s singing. Your point being? Maybe this humour eludes me
too…? At it’s best a nice housy CD which gets better towards the
end, but for the rest I don’t understand much about it. (FdW)
Address: <ehlers@whatness.de>
LIMP – ORION (CD by Morr Music)
Little by little the excellent Morr Music change their style, slowly
adding more rock elements in their various acts. Among the one man
bands, Limp is an exception. These are four boys from Odense in
Denmark, and I assume they have a standard rock line up: drums, bass,
guitar and somebody who handles the electronic parts of it. They
offer us six tracks of instrumental rock songs which are nicely
flavoured by electronica. Maybe not as complex as Tortoise, or as
dark as Mogwai, but with a nice open touch of their own, maybe at
times like the good old Kreidler. Pleasent music for sure, but at six
tracks in 30 minutes also enough. Even though it’s rather short, I
think it has the right length. (FdW)
Address: www.morrmusic.com
CRUELTY CAMPAIGN – DISTRESSED SIGNALS (Cd by Tesco Organisation)
Lots of roses were given to the “First Maneuvers : A semi-live
document”-demo as it were released by American duo Cruelty Campaign
back in 2000. Eventhough I never had the opportunity to give it a
listen, it is not difficult for me to believe the positive words, as
I listen to their debut-album titled “Distressed signals”. Not that
Cruelty Campaign separates in their harsh and cold mixture of
Industrial, Noise and power electronics. Especially the power
electronics-scene seems to be very fast growing these years thanks to
labels such as German Ant Zen Recordings and American Malignant
Records. So what makes this album somehow different from many other
artists of the electronic extremes? Cruelty Campaign manages to mix
the harsh sounds into a more sentimental ambient sphere, which is not
exactly a typical approach on the power electronics-scene. First
association occurring to me as I listen to “Distressed signals” is
the apocalyptic sounds of the classic “Inde$troy”-album from Saw
Throat released on Earache Records back in 1990. Thanks to its rather
unusual atmosphere, “Distressed signals” definitely blows a nice and
fresh breeze into the otherwise mercilessly harsh power
electronics-scene. Highly recommended! (NMP)
Address: www.morpharts.de/tesco-org.html
TARANTEL – MORT AUX VACHES (Cd by Staalplaat)
Since Staalplaat’s legendary Mort Aux Vaches-series first of all
focus on electronic music, it is only a smaller handful of the many
releases that actually takes their starting points in the guitarbased
musical area. But in retaliation to that, these few have been very
pleasant releases by such interesting acts such as Main, Flying
Saucer Attack, White Winged Moth and Piano Magic. Also this new-comer
in the guitar-based sound field is quite interesting: Tarantel is a
pretty young American band, that was established in 1997. What is
presented here on this four-track release is a spacious kind of
guitar music, that stylishly lies somewhere between ambient and
post-rock. The melancholic gentle guitar-strumming, first of all
characterizing the works of Tarantel, does remind of post-rock-acts
like Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor while the psychedelic
touch around the album most of all share grounds with
spacerock-Americans in Subarachnoid Space. Expressionally Tarantel is
quite emotional with the use of whining wind instruments and soft
hand-percussions that has a slight touch of Talk Talk as they sounded
in their “Spirit of Eden”-period. The lengthy pieces are first of all
characterized by a subtle tranquilizing style, making the listener
sit back doing nothing else but enjoy the 52 minutes long guitar
trip. Very nice!
(NMP)
KOJI ASANO – SPHERICAL MOSS FACTORY (CD by Solstice)
Does this man ever sleep? Or stop to eat? Number 26 in the Solstice
release schedule is yet again another surprising chapter in
sound-stretching by Koji Asano and another uniquely quaint title
for one of his musical works. The full title is actually ‘Spherical
Moss Factory for Violin and Contrabass’, a mammoth outing in two
movements (I 42:42 and II 29:25) performed by the Koji Asano Ensemble
– here Tomomi Tokunaga (v) and Kentaro Suzuki (c). But on this
release our most prolific of Japanese sound artists takes a huge leap
into the unknown, apparently abandoning the noise elements I’ve heard
before in his work for something altogether more unbelievable. To
say Spherical Moss Factory has more in common with Morton Feldman
than Masami Akita would be no understatement, for this CD is a work
of acutely observed, scored string arrangements that bleed together,
revolve and recirculate whilst maintaining a beautiful looseness that
belies the repetition underlying the music. That isn’t to say there
aren’t vicious moments here but they are played out in the dizzy
atmospheres of what these two versatile string instruments are
capable of. What’s more surprising, especially when viewed against
other noise-oriented works of his, the work is punctuated by
some lengthy, supremely melodic passages which remind me of nothing
more sublime than David Cross’s work in Larks’ Tongues’ era King
Crimson (this is a good thing…). The second movement starts with
an anxious jitter and proceeds down a route of pizzicato ricochets
and sawblade bowing, before settling on some further
near-conventional string treatments albeit at a more frenetic pace
than previously, before subsiding to a stately Feldman-esque pace.
Both movements end on drawn-out passages of harmonic instrumental
interplay which convince me that everything returns, ultimately, to
melody. Who knows where Koji Asano will venture next but it’s
certain to be a shock, whichever way you view it. (BL)
Address: www.solstice-europe.com
MOKIRA – PLEE (CD by Mille Plateaux)
Behind Mokira you’ll find Andreas Tilliander, who has released a CD
as Mokira on Raster Noton and a CD under his own name on Mille
Plateaux. I don’t understand when he uses the Mokira monniker and
when his own name… But so these things are, I guess. Here as
Mokira, Andreas explores further the click ‘n cut ‘n hop style. It’s
curious music that often doesn’t seem to run in a straight beats, but
has off beat sounds that makes this into a more daring CD of
electronic music then the more common minimalist take on things which
are common in this genre. Mokira seems interested in taking things a
little bit further, which is a good thing, because much of this music
is only based on very limited ideas and unfortunally there is a lot
of repeating small ideas without finding new ways. Small
progressions, but essential ones. (FdW)
Address: www.mille-plateaux.com
ERIC LA CASA/SLAVEK KWI – FONDERIE PACCARD (CD by Collectif & Cie)
ERIC LA CASA – QUELQUE CHOSE DE CELA, LE DESERT PART 1-3 (miniCD by
Collection Memoires)
It’s always nice to get a promo CD, and it’s even more nice to get a
piece of paper with some extra information, but if this information
is all in French, then it’s a bit problematic for my mediocre high
school French. So don’t get me wrong, but here is what I think this
CD is all about: Eric La Casa recorded the sound of bells at a place
were they make them in Sevrier and Annecy in France) and then set
himself to compose a few sound pieces with those sounds. After that
he passed on the sounds to Slavek Kwi (whom we know as Artificial
Memory Trace, but in the world of labels releasing CDs like this,
it’s more serious to go by your own name), who composed some more
music with these sounds, culminating in a collaborative sound piece
by the two. Eric La Casa produces in a very strict soundscaping
field. It’s very hard to detect any sort of sound processing in his
pieces. He seems to be layering just sounds over each other and mixes
them. It’s very filmic and open muisc he does. Great recordings that
picture for you what it is. You can see all these machines, means of
production, labor before you. A soundtrack. Slavek Kwi of course is
different. He uses much more sounds in small portions and builts
less of a linear sound collage, but is more abrupt in his changes and
adds tiny bits of electronic sound processing, almost always were
needed; otherwise he leaves them out. The collaborative piece between
the two is nice, and shows these two different approaches. Nice but
the point was already made.
The other CD, just by Eric La casa, is a short one and contains two
chapters for the silent opera “Pour Cylope” by Rene Quinon. Here the
sound sources include water sounds, wind, electric waves, metal and
sand sounds. It has the very typical La Casa sound treatments, which
can get particulary noisy (in the first part), with metallic objects
falling all over the place. Although these were good pieces, I though
them to be a little bit less attractive then the pieces on the other
CD. It all sounded a bit superficial and maybe even hastenly put
together to me. But still sort of alright.
Address: www.collectifetcie.fr.fm
EBSK – EBSK (CDR by SK Disque)
EBSK is a group of two people. Eric Bruns on clarinet and bass guitar
and John rickman on drums and casio SK 5. The latter machine is one
of the older, primitive sampling devices with just a very short
memory, with some patience and effort it can be used as a nice little
machine. The eight tracks the offer sort move between rock and
experiment. There are fair portions with drums and clarinets in a
free rock mode which didn’t do much for me really. Things work best
when they arrive at a strange kind of ambient music – such as in
‘Remain With Your Vehicle’ or ‘Lunar Stereo’. It makes that this as a
whole limps on two legs and can not be enjoyed as a whole, me humbly
thinks. I think EBSK should choose to go into one direction and
explore that further. (FdW)
Address: http://ebsk.alkem.org
PIMMON – SECRET SLEEPING BIRDS (CD by Sirr.ecords)
After some vinyl and short CD’s, here is a proper full length of
Pimmon, the Australian guy Paul Gough. His is well equipped with both
analogue and digital gear in order to produce his eleven well crafted
tunes. Tunes, because I think they are tunes. Pimmon plays around
with notions of popmusic but with an entirely attitude then say the
artists on Morr Music. Densely layered rhythm particles are the
backbone of many of his pieces and on top he layers some wacky sort
of melody. Fairly abstract stuff one could say, but it’s truely
captivating stuff. A track like ‘Bird Cage Circus’ is great – it
reminds me of Mathieu/Ehlers’ Brombron project: warm, glitchy music
with a very nice structure. It’s most likely that this will never be
on MTV, and we can only regret that: popmusic would look so much
better if this was embraced by the millions. Each track is a true
gemm. Pimmon’s output may be scattered (that is something to regret!)
over many small releases, but if you want to get something of his
drift, get this. (FdW)
Address: www.sirr-ecords.com
1 MILE NORTH – GLASS WARS (CD by Old Colony)
1 Mile North are a duo of Jon Hills on ‘mostly guitar’ and Mark Bajuk
on ‘mainly keyboards’. I dare taking the risk, but they both operate
from what some people call post rock, or is that by now post post
rock? I dare taking the risk, as 1 Mile North stand out from what I
usually hear from that scene. The emphasis here lie mainly on the
guitar, which sounds really clean – no over the top effect pedals,
just where needed a small dose of reverb and echo, but mainly a
plinky plonk away style. The analogue circuits of Mark form the far
away back bone of the pieces. In ‘Parents Arrive’ they add the
playground/school yard environment sounds, which make a nice
addition. The use of extra sounds is not always present and mainly
it’s a very stripped down, dare I say (again?) a minimalist approach.
Needles to say this is all very atmospheric music, but rather then
filled and layered (the usual ingredients of this kind of music),
very bright and open. Imagine Tarentel less the drums and the overtly
rock element. I thought this to be a very fresh view of a genre that
is almost dead – but with those few exceptions that make can make an
innovation. 1 Mile North are definetly one. (FdW)
Address: www.ocronline.com
RIBBON EFFECT – EP98 (CDEP by False Walls)
TINY HAIRS – SUBTLE INVISIBLE BODIES (CD by False Walls)
More post rock, this time from Chicago. Ribbon Effect are a trio
(David Malkoff, Jacob Ross and Bill Talsma) who have a full length CD
‘Slip’ out on Roomtone, but I haven’t heard that one. This CD EP (28
minutes) pre-dates that CD. The three operate out of improvisations,
but seem to have found a niche of their own. In the four pieces on
this CD you will find anything from Steve Reich to Krautrock, and
from John Fahey to sonic experiments (such as in ‘Cast Away’). As a
whole it surely fits the idea of post rock with it’s drums, guitars,
bass and the additions of electronics. To compare them with Tortoise
is of course unavoidable, but to me it seems Ribbon Effect are more
straight forward and less complex. If these recordings are from 1998,
I wonder what they sound like now.
Tiny Hairs are also from Chicago and are a sextet. The instruments
include guitars, double bass, shortwave, signal processing,
turntable, drums and violin. All of their pieces are from
improvisations (six times studio, one time live) from 2001 and this
CD is their debut. Their sound is quite full, as you can imagine with
such a line up. This isn’t unfortunally very helpful with the
results. It’s quite full material, but with much clarity as to what
is what. Also the tunes are rather simple, but in general don’t quite
stick in the mind. It’s a bit of everything (post rock, modern
classic, electronics) but it never gets a face of its own. Pleasent
music this is, that goes by without too much noting. Once it’s over,
you couldn’t humm a tune. But as said, it’s nice music to pass your
time with. (FdW)
Address: <fwalls@xsite.net>
TORE H. BOE – SOLVSTOY (7″ by Safe As Milk)
LASSE MARHAUG – ONE EYE AND WATCHING (7″ by Safe As Milk)
DUPLO – SLINGRINGSMONN (LP by Safe As Milk)
INITZ – INITZ (LP by Safe As Milk)
Safe As Milk is a young label from Norway, who care about the more
experimental side of things (don’t we all?). They’ve send four of
their releases. The first two form parts of a series, which include
these 7″ releases and concerts. Tore Boe, who has been active on the
Norwegian scene since 1990 as part of the Origami Republika art
collective, recorded two versions of his piece Solvstoy during two
concerts. Tore plays on an amplified stage with eggshells, silver
cutlery and as a playback sounds from Alexander Rishaug, which are
the sounds of neon lights. A crackling release with recognizable
sounds, because the sounds are all crystal clear. Surprisingely both
sides sound very similar… very nice musique concrete.
The other 7″ in this series is by that other leading man from the
Norway scene: Lasse Marhaug. He’s a an artist with some 100 releases,
either solo aswell as with Jazzkammer (his electronic band) and with
Del (his improv rock band). Slowly his sound became more silent and
better worked out. This 7″ seems to be, at least to me, his laptop
7″. By cutting and pasting his sounds (electronic and environmental)
he creates fine crafted sound piece which builds up slowly before
reaching it’s climax. The b-side is a like Janus composition – from
the start, a total cut up, to the end, total silence, a two faced
person. Very nice.
More experiments we find on the two LP’s, which are not part of the
series, but go by themselves. Düplo are a trio using broken
synthesizers, an antique sampler, found objects, theremin and tape
recorders. The results are quite lo-fi, densely layered electronics
which has a certain sense of naivety. Whereas they get noisy at
times, they don’t let things go out of control – there is a fine
balance in noise and the more quiet moments. It’s a kind of nostalgic
work because it seems to predate the use of computers and goes back
to the days of sturdy experimentalism, using analogue techniques.
Totally different are the free outings by Initz. Also a trio with Tom
Aadland on guitars, Arvid Gangso on violin and mandolin and Thorolf
Thuestad on synthesizers. The improvisations that make up this record
were recorded in 1998 but are only now released. Over the course of
two sides of the LP they improvise their way on their instruments.
Despite the use of synthesizer a more acoustic record (it seems to me
recorded with some microphones in a space, rather then played on
multi-track and mixed afterwards), with scratchings and pluckings on
their instruments and occassional outbursts on a synth. Quite intense
playing going on, raging from almost silent to pleasent noise. (FdW)
Address: www.safe-as-milk.org
ANUS ANDREWS (CDR by Trademark Industries)
99.5 (CDR by Trademark Industries)
HIPPY PURPLE POKE (CDR by Trademark Industries)
Three new releases on CDR from the Trademark label. Again the young
and untamed musicians doing their thing. Anus Andrews (what a name!)
plays five pieces of rhythmic industrial music and adds walls of
feedback to it. Very bleak music, which reminded me to the very old
Esplendor Geometrico days, but it’s nowhere near their debut
cassette. This boy likes rhythm and noise. Best title he has to offer
is ‘Power Mac and Fries (We Are The Vegan Death Squad)”. That track
is the longest around here. Definetly not my sort of thing anymore…
Artists unknown at the 99.5 compilation. It’s virtual locked groove
CDR of 99 tracks which can be played in loop mode. Each lasts thirty
seconds, but it also seems that each track by itself is a bunch of
loops, some with a small progression, and some not. It’s a pity of
course that a CD player can’t loop very well, but nevertheless it’s a
nice DJ tool. Soundwise this is all in the noise areas. Maybe
Trademark should release a remix version of this…?
The last one is a best of of three different releases by Hippy Purpe
Poke. A total opposite of the other two really. He/she plays very
lo-fi guitar music, sometimes just vocals and guitar, sometimes with
addition of drums. The texts are hard to understand, as the singer
doesn’t like to open his mouth while singing. The recordings sounds
done with a cheap microphone. Can’t say I really think this is a
great release, but it’s quite a curious thing. More a sort of
personal thing, maybe a therapy of sorts? Who knows? All of these
three CDrs show that this is right media to present music that is to
weird for any commercial outing, but still needs to be heard. (FdW)
Address: www.tm-industries.cjb.net
PAUL DEVENS – DL LAIT RUSSE (CD by Niew)
A more then complete production from Paul Devens, a Dutch guy who has
been around since many in the fields of music and visual arts. A
complete CD, because it includes 50 minutes of audio pieces, a 50
minute MP3 piece, a four minute quicktime movie and an interactive
music programm to create your own music. For this CD he took his
inspiration from the Russian music underground of the 80s where
people created new music without traditional instruments, but tried
to create that by using old tape recorders. The results from Paul are
quite noisy. At times he plays like Merzbow. Apperentely he uses
outdoor sounds which are are heavily treated and sampled. Sometimes
he uses elements from plunderphonics as in ‘Didn’t You Call?’. If you
then switch on to the Mp3 piece on this CD, you’ll get a 50 minute
techno piece, or rather a collage of techno pieces. I must admit I
didn’t hear much new stuff here, but the best thing around is the
interactive audio software which has nice sounds and is easy to play
around with. (FdW)
Address: www.niew.nl/pauldevens