AUTODIDACT – THE BLOOMING OF ONE HUNDRED SHOTGUNS (CDR by Public Eyeshore)
JACK WRIGHT – Places to go (CD on Spring Garden Music)
JACK WRIGHT & BHOB RAINEY & MATT INGALLS & TOM DJLL – Signs of Life
(CD on Spring Garden Music)
JACK WRIGHT & BHOB RAINEY & FRED LONBERG-HOLM & BOB MARSH – Double
Double (CD on Spring Garden Music)
FORMATT – FRAGMENTS (CDR)
HAT – DSP HOLIDAY (CD by Otodisc)
THIS CO. COMPILATION (CD compilation by This.co)
INSIGNIA (CDR by Public Eyeshore)
KIM CASCONE – LAYERAL INTERSECT #1: TERRAIN (miniCD by Dead Tech)
KIM CASCONE – LAYERAL INTERSECT #2: PSEUDOSPHERE (miniCD by Dead Tech)
KIM CASCONE – LAYERAL INTERSECT #3: ORTHOGONAL(miniCD by Dead Tech)
TU M’P3 FEBRUARY 2002 (available for download)
TU M’P3 MARCH 2002 (available for download)
INSTITUT FUER FEINMOTORIK – PENETRANS (CD by Staubgold)
EP2 MOTION RE(E)LEASES SERIES (compilation CD by Spark)
AUTODIDACT – THE BLOOMING OF ONE HUNDRED SHOTGUNS (CDR by Public Eyeshore)
Behind Autodidact we find one RFK on guitars, effects, loops and
editing and The Ice Queen Esmeralda on beat ‘n bass. Although the
cover lists nine tracks, I only found five on the CD, but the CD is
entirely filled with music. Autodidact loves walls of sound. Lotsa
guitars and lotsa drums fill up so much of the space on this release
that it is hard to breath. Musicwise Autodidact find themselves
somewhere along the lines the lines of My Bloody Valentine. Lengthy
pieces here of a heavy spacious character, but with not always enough
variation in the pieces themselves or as a whole (the pieces sound
all kinda similar) that it’s hard to enough it throughout. Maybe RFK
should have done some more editing… But I’m sure it will finds it’s
way to heavy space heads around… (FdW)
Address: www.sinkhole.net/pehome
JACK WRIGHT – Places to go (CD on Spring Garden Music)
JACK WRIGHT & BHOB RAINEY & MATT INGALLS & TOM DJLL – Signs of Life
(CD on Spring Garden Music)
JACK WRIGHT & BHOB RAINEY & FRED LONBERG-HOLM & BOB MARSH – Double
Double (CD on Spring Garden Music)
Spring Garden Music is the outlet of Jack Wright. He started the
label in 1982 with the release of his first solo record ‘Free Life,
Singing’. He plays sax and piano and duo with ex_bebop drummer, Marv
Frank. ‘Thaw’ (1992) has Wright solo and with friends, in different
groupings.
‘Places to go’ is his first album were he is playing completely on his own.
Wright is a true pioneer of improvised music, worked on extended
techniques like overblowing, tongue clicks, multiphonics and
microtones assembled in spontaneous compositions. Many of them can be
heard on ‘Places to go’.
Wright started playing in 1952 listening to the jazz music of that
time. He considers jazz as ‘a path without visible limit.’ His new cd
is evidence of the fact that Wright operates beyong all conventions
of jazz. He plays a very radical kind of improvised music. Although
it may sound abstract it is very emotional and expressive music. This
does not mean that playing is means for expressing emotions as Wright
indicates: “For long, however, I subordinated atypical sounds of the
instrument to the task of emphasizing the strongest, gut feelings,
within a linear context; the story of previously withheld, deepest
feelings. Now I am hearing more of the delicacy of sound, the huge
differences in the details, the exactness of each pause and phrase.
This is independent of me as a person, yet in no way separate from
consciousness. I am not blanking out when I play solo, or blurting
out something hidden. My emotional needs have changed, what I bring
to the playing; I am exploring the universe rather than myself.”
For this cd Wright selected 11 pieces most of them were recorded in
his kitchen. The others in Boston and Baltimore on tour. He plays
alto, tenor and soprano saxophone. All pieces give a very personal
look at het musical universe of Wright and together they form a very
rich album.
Jack plays a lot throughout the States and played with many, many
musicians. Some of these cooperations got a regular base. This is the
case for the quartet that we hear on ‘Double Double’. It has a
quartet of two sax players (Bhob Rainey and Jack Wright) and two
cello players (Fred Lonberg-Holm and Bob Marsh. This combination
started in 1999 and recorded their first one for the CIMP label.
The name of Fred Lonberg-Holm probably sounds familiar for Vital as
he played with people like Jaap Blonk, Jim O’Rourke, Sten Sandell and
many others. Bob Marsh performs regularly on violin, cello, piano,
vibraphone, flute, and uses extended vocal techniques. He is the
founder of the Quintessentials, the Emergency String Quartet and the
Emergency Piano Quintet.
Bhob Rainey has performed with John Zorn, Joe McPhee, Pauline
Oliveros, Michael Zerang, etc. Also he is a performer of composed
music (John Cage).
The music of the quartet is a very intimate kind of improvised music.
The music is silent. There are no loud outbursts. You have to crawl
into it in order to taste and appreciate it.
‘Sings of Life’ is by another quartet of musicians namely Jack Wright
(saxes), Bhob Rainey (soprano sax), Matt Ingalls (clarinet) and Tom
Djll (trumpet and whatever). All pieces are for trio and one is a duo
piece between Jack and Bhob. Touring the West Coast in March 2000 it
was recorded. Also on this one we can enjoy the great interplay of
musicians.
All in all I can say it is good to have these 3 cds available,
because as far as I know there is not much available of this great
improvisor (DM).
Address: <http://www.sprionggardenmusic.com/>
FORMATT – FRAGMENTS (CDR)
Pretty much a self-released CDR but with a printed cover. Formatt is
one Peter Smeekens, of whom I know not much, other then he has some
tracks on compilations and a CDR release in Portugal on the Grain Of
Sound label (which I didn’t hear). He started his recording career a
year ago and “Fragments” is pretty much his first release. He
presents eight tracks, which are all of popmusic length (two to five
minutes). Firmly inside the whole laptop movement, Formatt hoovers
his pieces around clean digital sounds which can be described as
cold, and fuzzy, drone based patterns which add a soft warm blanket
to the sound. Not every track is great, but it’s a nice start. Too
abstract for the more techno heads among you, I guess, but if you
soaked in much of the work on Ritornell then this is something to
check out for you. And don’t let the title put you off: it’s less
fragmentaric then suggested. (FdW)
Address: <formatt@mac.com>
HAT – DSP HOLIDAY (CD by Otodisc)
This is what we would call in the seventies a rockchestra: three, in
this case, well known names team up for a joint work. Everybody’s
displaying his style in an audio masturbatorium. Let’s see if this is
also the case for the laptop generation of the zero’s. HAT stands for
Haruomi Hosono (of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame), Atom Heart (of Senor
Coconut fame, or was it the other way round?) and Tetsu Inoue (of his
own fame). This work was recorded in Santiago (in Chili were Atom
Heart lives) in 1997 and released a year later on Hosono’s own
Daisyworld label, but apperentely didn’t get out of Japan. Now,
thanks to Otodisc, a new label by Inoue and Sean Cooper, we can enjoy
it too. The three work in the work of computers, hard discs, and
analogue synths, but they try to make a sunny record, a DSP one for
the holidays. Me think they succeeded well. Lazy rhythms, hinting at
jazz, reggea and other exotica which I can’t name, fill up the seven
pieces on this CD and give us a sunny atmosphere through a whole
bunch of sampled instruments, crazy sounds and not a lot of
seriousness eyebrowing. Of course it’s not really a record to make a
lot of friends in your favourite beach club, but then still one that
has not much pretentions, other then presenting some nice music. And
with the sun shining today and the cool spring wind air comming over
the balcony, Hat succeed well in their mission. (FdW)
Address: <info@otodisc.com>
THIS CO. COMPILATION (CD compilation by This.co)
Pretty much the first half of this compilation is filled with dance
oriented music, but made by people who hail previously from different
kinds of music. People like Column One, Mimetic Mute and Delphium are
all tied to former industrial beat music, but over the years their
music has become more accessible and more dance oriented. Nice stuff,
these first six tracks, but not great. But then we get Matt Howden,
who offers us a string quartet like piece (I didn’t count all the
strings). Bourbonese Qualk, back on track since their last CD ‘On
Uncertainity’, with a long ambient piece collage cum their usual
guitar touch (which after 20 years has become a trademark sound).
Also we find our ambient industrial friends Troum around here with a
more then usual noisy piece and Rasal A’sad with a very ambient
piece. Two more rhythmical pieces are also amongst here. As a
compilation it’s an ok release, which could serve as an introduction
to names you see around, but maybe never heard the music of. If most
of these names already mean something to you, then this is merely
something to add to your collection.
>From Rasal A’sad there is also a full length CD on the same label,
and here we can see that the compilation indeed introduced us a name.
The four pieces on his full length (although the cover only lists
three) are in similar vein as the compilation track. Lush long synth
washes, providing the perfect soundtrack for some stargazing or cloud
watching. Music that is best enjoyed lying on your back and devoting
your time to anything else but listening, dreaming and sleeping your
day away. Nice stuff, along the lines of labels as Hypnos or The
Foundry, but nothing that is an earth shocking new view on ambient
music. Not necessary too, I believe. (FdW)
Address: www.thisco.net
INSIGNIA (CDR by Public Eyeshore)
Insignia goes down with the free jazzers. One Ben Hall on percussion,
Mike Khoury on violin and Jason Shearor on saxophone and clarinet
offer us nine of their selections, all captured in concert. Hectic
music as one can expect. Plucking their strings, with free percussion
and the saxophone blowing all over the place. Occassionally the
hectic drops and the boys are in a melancholical mood, such as the
opening of ‘International’. I can imagine that this might be too free
for some of you, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. It’s not the kind
of music I’d like to fill my days with, but every once in a while I’d
like to put this kind of music on. (FdW)
Address: www.sinkhole.net/pehome
KIM CASCONE – LAYERAL INTERSECT #1: TERRAIN (miniCD by Dead Tech)
KIM CASCONE – LAYERAL INTERSECT #2: PSEUDOSPHERE (miniCD by Dead Tech)
KIM CASCONE – LAYERAL INTERSECT #3: ORTHOGONAL(miniCD by Dead Tech)
Let me first share my objections to these releases. Packed as a
normal CD in a regular CD case, all of these could have been easily
released as a 3″ release, or even be put together on one disc. But
for some conceptual reasons (“take the cept out and you have con”,
John Lennon once said) it is not. Kim Cascone uses on each of these
releases sounds from four different composers and plays around with
them to make his own piece (one piece per CD). I think, but hey,
maybe I am fooled, that it’s possible to recognize some of the input
(and that’s of course just the case if you know these people’s own
work). On “Terrain” it’s Leif Brush, Kaffe Matthews, Toshimaru
Nakamura and Andreas Berthling and the one I thought to be
recognizing was Kaffe’s feedback computer crackles. Overal it’s a
pretty dense mix of drones, acoustic sounds (Berthling’s input), with
small sounds jumping in and out of the mix. It hints back to Kim’s
earlier days of ambient industrial music (when are we going to see
some of the lovely PGR vinyl on CD?)
On “Pseudosphere”, the input is by Brent Gutzeit (of TV Pow fame),
*0, Duul_DRV and Richard Chartier. Here the procedures go an entire
different way. Here it’s less easy to recognize any of the individual
sources, but it’s more the general that Kim shares here. All of these
people have an interest in minimal soundwork, with stretched out
tones, cracks and short bleeps. In the middle part of this piece,
things become hectic and full, but overal it’s an austere release
with deep bass end rumbles and high end peeps. Very much like the
work by the people who contributed sound material.
The last one so far, “Orthogonal”, it’s Marcus Schmickler, Christophe
Charles, Carl Stone and Stephan Mathieu. Here too one gets the overal
drift of the ‘others’ input, but if you are familiar with any of
their work (and I see no reason why you shouldn’t!) you can hear a
beautiful drone piece incorporating all of these different drone
elements, building into one large piece. It has the denseness of
“Terrain” and the emptiness of “Pseudosphere”, but is more present in
volume that the latter. Again, Kim seems to go back to his ancient
PGR days with what he what would have called ‘Field Extraction” or
“Imbrication” back then. The third one is the best for me so far. And
these are just the first three. Seven more to follow. (FdW)
Address: www.deadtech.net
TU M’P3 FEBRUARY 2002 (available for download)
TU M’P3 MARCH 2002 (available for download)
Two new monthly releases, available for free download on
www.tu-m.com. All of these pieces are soundtracks for images and
flash movies designed by Italian laptopcrackers Tu M’. I haven’t seen
any, since I don’t have the latest plug in required. Oh well, I am
more ear then eye minded. Slowly these releases begin to read like an
encyclopedia of who’s who in eperimental music. It must be appealling
to some to compose a little soundtrack of a few minutes (most tracks
are under three minutes). From my own experience the images are quite
small and minimal. I think that however uses software of these
musicians, most of them will use software that translates image to
sound. Many of the musics deal with one sound that is explored
throughout the piece.
Exceptions to this are the rhythm piece by Eraldo Bernocchi, or the
guitar improvisations by Manual Moto and another up tempo piece by
Wang Inc (all on February installment) or the horn improvisation by
Masahiko Kono on the March installment. Otherwise very much the a
minimal affair of computer doodlings by people like 87 Central, Dan
Armstrong, John Hudak, Roel Meelkop, Jean Marc Montera, KK Null,
Voice Crack, Ultra Milkmaids, Illusion Of Safety,David Maranha, Akira
Rabelais, Sogar and many more. And it’s all free for download. (FdW)
Address: www.tu-m.com
INSTITUT FUER FEINMOTORIK – PENETRANS (CD by Staubgold)
It took no less then three years before we could see a new work by
Instutut Fuer Feinmotorik (meaning the Insititute for precision
motoricity). Just in case you forgot: they make music using eight
turntables with no records on them, but all sorts of objects (metal,
rubber, wood). These are played in a repeating way (the needle keeps
skipping on the same elements, until moved further). A very simple
concept that probably finds it’s most refined moment here. In five
years, this is only their seventh release (including a remix
project). Quite rhythmic pieces that move in a rather minimal way,
with sounds slowly, playing a counter ‘melody’ (hardly because it’s
usually a variation in rhythm). Although it takes it’s inspiration
from techno music and that it’s very rhythmical music, it’s not all
danceable. Like other minimalist concepts (like Goem, like Pan Sonic
in a way), it’s not something that has a lot variation in this given
set of possibilities, but like said, there is a certain refinement in
their sound. Let’s see where they moved to in three years. (FdW)
Address: www.staubgold.com
EP2 MOTION RE(E)LEASES SERIES (compilation CD by Spark)
Spark is a small label that have just released the second volume of
the Motion Re(e)leases Series, an assembly of artists, textures and
rhythms of this contemporary world. These artists share the same idea
of “cadence, emotivity and movement”. It’s an ep with six artists, of
which some are more known then others. Jonathan Hughes for instance
is not so known, and his ambiento piece opens the CD, with dark
synths and a slowly added slow drum sound and a tinkling bell sound.
Tennis, aka Douglas Benford and Ben Edwards, have a tribute to Sade.
Never found out whether that’s the marquis or the singer, I assume
the latter, hearing this sunny track of insect sounds and jumpy dubby
rhythm. Artificial Duck Flavour might also be somewhat known through
their releases on Lux Nigra or their collaboration with Arovane.
Their ‘Streets In Neon’ has a cold and clinical beat and reflect the
desolate streets at night. Since Spark seems to be a label from
Barcelona, there is also a track from Memorabilia (Soft Cell fans?)
with an uptempo beat piece and much slower keyboards. Especially the
fullness and the voice samples make this into the least attractive
piece in this collection. Somewhat more known is Mitchell Akiyama
from Canada, with a very minimal techno piece in Basic Chain style.
Simple yet effective. The last one is another new name, Phluidbox,
who deconstructs hip hop beats and having a spoken word/rap text. A
nice piece, even for me, the non-lover of hip hop. A pretty varied
collection of dance music. (FdW)
Address: www.sparkreleases.com
1. John Watermann 19.2.1935 – 2.4.2002
It’s with great sadness that we have to announce the death of John
Watermann. He died @ 5:50pm Brisbane time, 2.4.2002, Ward 4B Royal
Brisbane Hospital. He died from infection associated with myeloma.
John Watermann was one of the truely underground sound and visual
artists. In the late eighties his name surfaced out of knowhere, when
a double CD was released by Walter Ulbricht in Germany . Starting out
in Berlin, Germany, where he was born, as a filmmaker and
photographer, he found out that he needed soundtracks for his films.
He started composing music in the mid sixties and moved to Australia
in the early seventies. Although he was collecting sound equipment,
his first releases do not surface until the late 80s. In the nineties
his music was released on CD’s by ND, Dark Vinyl, Walter Ulbricht and
Raum 312. He also recorded a collaborative work with Merzbow. One of
his last big projects was a CDRom “A Rose Is A Rose”, which he
released himself and has his visual work and music.
Much of his work incorporated field recordings, which were heavily
treated by electronics, resulting in highly rhythmic music, through
the extensive use of cut ups. Although in the later part of the
nineties he was less actively involved in producing music (mainly due
to his illness), his output will not be forgotten.
Mid 2000 he wrote me that he was terminally ill, but that he would
love to do a sound project with me in the remaining time. We
exchanged environmental recordings and exchanged e-mails over the
practical nature of composing our works. Only a few weeks ago, he
wrote me that he was still working on it, despite all the treatments
he was getting. In exchanging these e-mails he came forward as a very
practical person, with clear ideas as to what he wanted. I will
continue to work my part of this work in order to keep his memory
alive.
– Frans de Waard, 03-04-2002