JEFF GREINKE – WIDE VIEW (CD by Hypnos)
EA – ÷L (CDR by Mystery Sea)
DRAWING ROOM – THE GARDEN (CDR by Krkrkrk)
PLANET ÿ – SET THE CONTROLS TO GALAXY NONE (CDR by Harsh Reality Music)
GHISLAIN POIRIER – SOUS LE MANGUIER (CD by Intr_Version)
SARAH PEEBLES – INSECT GROOVE (CD by Cycling 74)
EKKEHARD EHLERS/SEBASTIAN MEISNER/THOMA WILEMS – MUSIC FOR WILLIAM
FORSYTHE (CD by Whatness)
THE EVOLUTION GARDEN – THE REHEARSAL SERIES: 240702 (CDR)
ALL TIME PRESENT – DISTANT MICROPHONES PICK UP BOTH DIRECT &
REFLECTED SOUND (CD by Evolving Ear)
THEO CALIS – IN OIL WE TRUST (CDR)
WILT – RADIO 140 (CD by Ad Noiseam)
PIEKOZ – NARRATIVESTRUCTUREZ (WHAT I SHOULD’VE DONE IN WHAT I THOUGHT
MARYLAND) (CD by Simplepleasurez)
TELEPHERIQUE & CONTAGIOUS ORGASM – CYOUWA (CD by SSSM)
SIGNALDRIFT/PULSE PROGRAMMING (12″ by Outward Music Company)
CNS ENGINEERING – ACTION POTENTIAL (12″ by Patterns Based Records)
SOLENOID – INGRID/BIKE (7″ by Audraglint Records)
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI – CONSCIOUSLY UNCONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUSLY CONSCIOUS
(3″ by Metamkine)
LIONEL MARCHETTI – TRAIN DE NUIT (NOORD 3-683) (3″ by Metamkine)
SNAWKLOR – RUSHES (CD by Marsupialsounds)
POPULOUS – QUIPO (CD by Morr Music)
OLAF RUPP – EINS ZO DREI VIER (7″ by Happy Zloty)
BLUMM & M÷BIUS – 20 LOCKGROOVES (7″ by Happy Zloty)
RE:SOURCE VS AUGUR – POWERHEAR (CDR by Re:Source)
JEFF GREINKE – WIDE VIEW (CD by Hypnos)
It may not seem so, but this is Jeff Greinke’s first ambient record
in nearly a decade. His recent releases were more percussive, in
groups or featured vocals. Much of his earlier (late eighties, early
nineties) work was re-issued to CD, so things never seemed quiet for
Greinke. Unlike many other Hypnos recordings, Greinke’s work is less
about ongoing drones, but more about soft tinkles. He plays them on
his keyboard with a soft touch, melancholical. Music for autumn.
Brown leaves fall of the tree, there is a cold breeze, but still with
sunlight, low at the horizon. Having said of this, I am also the
first to admit that it is thin cliche: the autumn references but
maybe also the music of Greinke. For sure it’s nice, but it’s not
daring, provoking or innovating the genre. Not always a necessary
thing, however after ten years, one could have hoped that Greinke
would incapsulate some of his other experiences. But: a nice record
for a lazy sunday afternoon. (FdW)
Address: www.hypnos.com
EA – ÷L (CDR by Mystery Sea)
With their releases, Mystery Sea begins to be one of the more
interesting CDR labels which focuss on releasing ambient/drone music,
mostly of a darker nature. Their fourth release is by EA, an one-man
band from Poland, who has released various works in his homeland, but
may be stop working as EA soon – for reasons that I don’t know. Here
EA devotes himself to playing prepared guitar and manipulated field
recordings. Deep, low end washes on the guitar, drenched, no doubt,
in a whole line of sound effects and the environmental recordings, of
whatever nature they are (I didn’t recognize them anymore) which
together create a whole scenary of images. The strongest was the
third, untitled (as all four are) piece, in which the guitar sound
like far away thunder storm, recorded next to sea and the birds
humming in the background. A piece that is not unlike Jim O’Rourke
circa Disengage, but EA adds enough of his own pallette to avoid the
trap of a copycat. Tense, intense ambient music.
Address: http://home.planetinternet.be/~chalkdc
DRAWING ROOM – THE GARDEN (CDR by Krkrkrk)
A while ago I received ‘Evolving Sequence No.1’ by Drawing Room,
which I qualified as a nice release of ambient music. There is, or so
it seems now, another face of the same band and that is to be heard
on this release. The pieces on ‘The Garden’ were written from 1997 to
2001 and recorded until earlier this year. Piano, analogue synth,
percussion and voice are the main ingredients. I am sorry to say, but
I couldn’t stand one minute of it. Pathetic, gothic like voice,
likewise pathetic playing on the keys, dark overtones and bombastic
percussion. I am sure this was all made with the best intentions (and
dedicated to ‘Sharon with much love’), but it was not spend on me at
all. (FdW)
Address: http://go.to/krkrkrk
PLANET ÿ – SET THE CONTROLS TO GALAXY NONE (CDR by Harsh Reality Music)
More music from Chris Phinney (see also last issue of Vital Weekly).
Here in a true group form, with Chris Phinney (synths and noises),
Roger Moneymaker (‘geeters, live mix’), Robert Hinson (‘bass
geeters’), Richard McCracken (‘things that go boom’) and Carl Howard
(synthesizers, noises, ‘atrocia’). They are announced as ‘your flight
instructors’. Planet play space rock, so much we can safely say.
The drums roll on, guitars play solo’s on end and anything with keys
play either drones or small rifs. There is absolutely nothing new
under the sun here, but maybe the whole genre of space rock was
already old when it was around in the beginning? Maybe the whole
thing new in here is the rather funky bass lines, rather then a
straight forward one. But for the rest: nothing new. Did I like
this? Oh yes, I did. Absolute fun. But I like the works of Vocokesh
and Subarachnoid Space too – also space rockers with nothing new
under the sun. (FdW)
Address: <aliensix@bellsouth.net>
GHISLAIN POIRIER – SOUS LE MANGUIER (CD by Intr_Version)
A while ago I saw concert by this Ghislain Poirier, who presented his
work behind the laptop and produced mid-tempo techno/dub pieces,
which started to work best after 30 minutes, so let’s say roughly the
second half. But overall, the uniformness of the sound did put me off
a little bit. So I was curious what I would think of his next CD, and
I must say I am more pleased by this then by his concert. This is
second CD and Poirier goes further exploring the depths of dub music.
Using cleverly the echo plug ins on his machine and connect them to
the samples of various ethnic instruments, Poirier has a minimal
pallette of sounds, but still knows how to take the max out of it.
The whole techno element is removed, even when Poirier is still using
rhythmical elements (short loops, bass sounds). It’s all held back,
almost ambient like, but in a more uptempo mood and less the washy
digital synthesizers. Exotic music maybe, beach music. Sun music for
autumn leaves. I still don’t know wether this music should then be
played live, but at home it works well. (FdW)
Address: www.intr-version.com
SARAH PEEBLES – INSECT GROOVE (CD by Cycling 74)
The interests of Sarah Peebles lie within music and ecology. This CD
“is dedicated to the remaining forest of British Columbia, Canada,
which are rapidly converted into American suburbs (1.5 million new
homes each year)”. Sarah plays around with sampled sounds – mostly
environmental, including insects, but also the electric komungo
(played by Jin Hi Kim), the sho (a Japanese mouth organ, played by
herself and Ko Ishikawa), altered electric guitar, bommerang, whammy
(played by Nilan Perera) and spoken word by David Toop. Much of this
release was captured live. Since this is a release by Cycling 74, a
label devoted to people using Max software, all of her samples are
fed through computer patches and the result is a like a crossover
between ambient and musique concrete like play of sound. Ambient
because it hoovers around in the soft edge of music and musique
concrete for some of the processes she uses, and the presentation in
collage form. I must admit I am not blown away by her music. It
sounds well done for sure, but it also sounds like nothing special.
There is no new idea in here and it all seems done within the
standard rules for this kind of music. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d
rate this with a 6. (FdW)
Address: www.cycling74.com/c74
EKKEHARD EHLERS/SEBASTIAN MEISNER/THOMA WILEMS – MUSIC FOR WILLIAM
FORSYTHE (CD by Whatness)
Dance music, or rather music for dance. In this case for the Ballet
Frankfurt, ‘aurgubly the world’s best ballet company’ says the press
release. I understand that there is no strict choreography for this,
but the dancers move rather freely. The music here is for four
different dances. The first one is by Sebastian Meisner and Ekkehard
Ehlers – together they were Autoposeises. This piece dates from 1999.
A minimalist waltz is presented, centered around some loops of piano
tinkling, with an occassional uplifting in sound. Deceivingely
minimal, it’s not a loop but a clever building around various,
slightly different loops. The next two pieces are by Ekkehard Ehlers
solo. ‘Woolf Phrase’ is the longest piece and works similar to the
first piece, except that the loops are generated from drone like
orchestral sounds. But it’s the same interplay of slightly different
loops. Decipte it’s length, it’s similar to Ehlers much acclaimed
‘Betrieb’ CD (in which the tracks were much shorter). Even more
darker is ‘Scattered Crowd’, which is densely layered around loops,
and recalls some Ehlers’ works in his ‘Plays’ series, in particular
‘Plays John Cassavetes’. The last piece is recorded live, and is by
Thom Willems. It’s quite a different piece of soft, time stretched
sounds. It’s much softer then the other three pieces, but works quite
intense in all it’s minimalism. Not much seems to be happening and
the dancers on stage can be hard going round. It would have been nice
to see the ballet in action for this. Great CD. (FdW)
Address: www.whatness.de
THE EVOLUTION GARDEN – THE REHEARSAL SERIES: 240702 (CDR)
More from the rehearsal tapes of The Evolution Garden. Three guys
living down south in The Netherlands, jamming in their rehearsal
room. It’s all work culminating in a bigger release, which is to be
called ‘Memeto’. They play their music on guitars, backing sounds and
bass. Drenched in sometimes a too big bath of reverb, which is sad,
because their ambient related sound is quite nice, but is
occassionally swamped away in the sound effects. Eno-like music,
circa ‘Apollo’, of spacey guitars, occassional percussion and,
surprisingely, no synthesizers. Free floating music of weightless
space. Curious to hear what ‘Memento’ will be like. (FdW)
Address: <sounddesigner@zonnet.nl>
ALL TIME PRESENT – DISTANT MICROPHONES PICK UP BOTH DIRECT &
REFLECTED SOUND (CD by Evolving Ear)
All Time Present is an ensemble around guitarist Chris Forsyth, which
includes two percussionists and three guitarists, all with a wide
history in improvisation music. Their disc was recorded during an
improvised meeting and the title of the CD tells us all about how it
was recorded. Small audience noise, laughter and the crackling of a
chair are left in, to enhance the idea of listening to a real live
concert. The guitars play rather unprocessed, save for some
distortion pedal. The drummer/percussionist however play their
instruments using various objects. The resultant music is an all
improvised affair, in a rather rocky, wild mood. Mostly uptempo, all
over the place and resulting in a vibrant atmosphere. (FdW)
Address: www.evolvingear.com
THEO CALIS – IN OIL WE TRUST (CDR)
A rather short release, nine minutes and two seconds of two pieces of
music. His previous release was discussed in Vital Weekly 334. There
is not much we know about these two pieces, except that, I think they
belong together. ‘In Oil We Trust’ and ‘Drumming The Oil’ – maybe
Theo Calis is protesting against a possible war against Iraq? The
first, longer piece, has a kind of Muslimgauze rhythm, a marching
song, in which shortwave sounds leak through, the voice of Iraq? The
second is more melodical until the bangs on oil drums kick in. Two ok
pieces, but the reason to release these so seperately eludes me. (FdW)
Address: www.xs4all.nl/~klankvaa/
WILT – RADIO 140 (CD by Ad Noiseam)
Considering the fairly short history of Wilt, the productivity rate
has been quite impressive during these first four years of existence.
Having released several works on labels like Ad Noiseam, Annihilvs
and Self Abuse Records, “Radio 140” is the fourth widely distributed
full-length album. It also happens to be the album where Wilt (aka
James Keeler) decided to move into new territories somewhere in the
borderlands between ambient and noise. Radio 140 contains 19 pieces
of intense and truly mesmerizing dark ambient/dark noise. Despite the
fact that every single track has been created as individual pieces
the flow throughout the double disc’s 120 minutes of playing time is
simply great. No samples being utilised, Radio 140 is exclusively
built on instrumental expressions. Expressions that are overall based
on ambient sounds, subdued noise drones, acoustic experimentation and
cut-up collages developed through wide spectres of musique concrete
and electro-acoustic techniques. Focusing on discreet noise sounds,
the album never gets really harsh. The noise always cripples into the
ambient-sphere as subdued power electronics. Radio 140 first of all
separates from earlier Wilt-releases in its focus on atmosphere.
Despite the fact that the album mostly is based on dark drones and
suppressed noise, there is also some kind of melody around the album.
A good example is the alluring track on Cd 1 titled “Pale skin
memoirs”, that in its beautiful and dark, almost claustrophobic
expression lead the thoughts back to collaboration projects by
ambient composers Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana such as “Well of
souls” (1995) and “Cavern of sirens” (1997). The balance between the
distorted noise and the floating ambient-scapes seems so well on
“Radio 140”. In that sense it does not matter whether your
referential approach is ambient or noise: You might appreciate this,
I would say, best work from Wilt to date. (NMP)
Address: www.adnoiseam.net
PIEKOZ – NARRATIVESTRUCTUREZ (WHAT I SHOULD’VE DONE IN WHAT I THOUGHT
MARYLAND) (CD by Simplepleasurez)
“What I should’ve done in what I thought Maryland” – the strange
subtitle gives the feeling that this album could be an inspired film
soundtrack or something similar. As far as I know the album doesn’t
directly relate to any movie. If it had I would be the first to go
see it! Dave Piekoz is a Boston-based electronic musician who began
his career under the name “Piekoz” with the release of his “Girl Ep”
last year. “Narrativestructurez” is his first full length-album.
Quite a debut, I must say! Released on Dave Piekoz’ own label
Simplepleasurez, the album probably shouldn’t have any trouble
finding some bigger label company interested in releasing it. A
combination of slow hip hop grooves, film score ambience, processed
and unprocessed vocal-samples create a pretty cool atmosphere. The
style seems like a fusion between groovy dance floor music and jazzy
chill-out. IDM, I guess they call it. The rhythms are downtempo
meanwhile the overall expression seems lurid and quite cinematic.
Imagine a futuristic gangster movie set in the darkest areas of the
Chicago underground. “Narrativestructurez” is the perfect soundtrack
whether you sit in an armchair on a rainy autumn night or in some
spooky city club, dancing the night away. (NMP)
Address: www.simpleasurez.com
TELEPHERIQUE & CONTAGIOUS ORGASM – CYOUWA (CD by SSSM)
These two bands have been around for a long time, but much of their
work is unknown to me. I understand that this particular CD was
recorded between 10:08pm and 11:33pm on October 27th 2001 in
Altenhann, Germany by the three members of Telepherique and the
Japanese Contagious Orgasm. It’s largely a work of improvised
electronics, which dwells extensively on analogue synths and samples.
Stylewise they move around between Chain Reaction like techno waves
and industrial music. The closing piece ‘Justierschraube’ is one such
industrial piece. With a banging rhythm, obnoxious sounds and darker
undercurrents. What a contrast to the opening piece ‘Regierraum’ and
the even more darker ambience of ‘Regelschalter’, which is Chain
Reaction, dub like techno with wavering analogue synths, but less the
beats. Musicwise I must admit I like more this sound then the
slightly worn out industrial music.
Address: http://plaza26.mbn.or,jp/~sssm
SIGNALDRIFT/PULSE PROGRAMMING (12″ by Outward Music Company)
CNS ENGINEERING – ACTION POTENTIAL (12″ by Patterns Based Records)
SOLENOID – INGRID/BIKE (7″ by Audraglint Records)
Three closely related records. On the Outward Music Company label we
find a split 12″ by Signaldrift and Pulse Programming. The latter is
known somehow through their releases on Aesthetics. They (he? it?)
play a strange crossover between techno, experimental music and rock.
The elements from techno music are clearly to be recognized, the
others via the form of sampling and powerbook trickery. Nice and
sweet music, but nothing shocking. The other side has signaldrift, a
band I never heard of. The music is more conventional. Downtempo,
triphop inspired, melancholical music, that is likewise nice but not
earth shattering.
On an Outward Music sublabel, Pattern Based Records (specializing in
house and techhouse), we find a 12″ by CNS Engineering. They had
releases before on Outward Music, Starbass and Endpoint. CNS
Engineering play funky house music, complete with female voice
samples. To me most of this music sound like commercial MTV music, so
I don’t know with what to compare it, since I never watch MTV or have
any interest in music like this. It’s a nice record for what it is,
and no doubt will do good on the dance floor, but is not really spend
on me.
Music from Solenoid was reviewed before (Vital Weekly 271) and they
have 7″ out, which is an uncommon format in the world of dance music.
But it seems that they made a musical change, fit to format. ‘Ingrid’
on the a-side is their own song and harks back to the eighties, with
an uptempo sequencer and a totally reverbed guitar and a voice that
is on suicide course. The other side is ‘Bike’ a Syd Barret song from
his Pink Floyd days. I don’t know the original (because I just don’t
like Pink Floyd, ok?), but this is a nice mad sung song which ends in
an amalgaam of sounds. Very psychedelic, sort of. (FdW)
Address: www.outwardmusic.com
Address: www.audraglint.com
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI – CONSCIOUSLY UNCONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUSLY CONSCIOUS
(3″ by Metamkine)
LIONEL MARCHETTI – TRAIN DE NUIT (NOORD 3-683) (3″ by Metamkine)
It’s good to see that this series has new life, after the two recent
ones, here are two more issues, in what is now a 30 some mini CD’s of
electro-acoustic and musique concrete. Zbigniew Karkowski is of
course well-known, at least in these virtual pages. His music is
violent, loud and harsh, and is already released on many labels
around the world. This piece, on the cover noted as musique concrete,
is mostly a long, low range frequency piece. Musique concrete…
what’s the concrete part of it? Hard to recognize the original,
concrete source here, as it seems to me that Karkowski is working
with sine waves that have been treated in the studio. But this aside,
it’s a nice piece of low end hum that has a strong presence in the
space you’re in. The walls vibrate and seem to collapse under this
set of sounds. It’s harshness for sure, but one that is different
from the usual harshness. Zen like austerity is what we are dealing
with here.
The other new 3″ is by Lionel Marchetti, his second one in the
series. Recentely Marchetti released a whole bunch of works on
various labels, such as ground fault and Erewhon. This work is
dedicated to Pierre Schaeffer, the grandfather/inventor of concrete
music. His first piece delt with train sounds, so Marchetti by return
goes back to train sounds too. It’s a piece for one loudspeaker, thus
glorifying the early days of musique concrete. Sounds from trains
aswell as sounds from journeys and travelling make up this piece.
There is even a short sample of the ‘Etude Aux Chemin De Fer’ from
Schaeffer to be heard. The resultant piece, in two parts, is a fine
collage of train sounds, most of the times to be recognized by their
flute signals and people talking, music from walkmans etc – all of
those daily sounds that are so connected by going on trains. Great,
imaginative work. (FdW)
Address: <info@metamkine.com>
SNAWKLOR – RUSHES (CD by Marsupialsounds)
Snawklor – what does it mean? I don’t know. However it’s a duo of
multi media artists Nathan Gray and Dylan Krazevac, who hail from
Australia and played live at various festivals in their native
country. ‘Rushes’ is their debut CD and they call it ‘electroacoustic
space meets an aesthetic coloured by an obvious love for the
traditional music of Southeast Asia and musique concrete’. The
opening piece is therefore the programm of the CD. The computer
processed sounds of gamelan, with occassional processed concrete
sounds fade over in a 4/4 beat of just bass drums. This is also the
most clear manifestation on this CD of their crossover sounds,
because in most of the other pieces, they choose to use laptop
trickery in a more abstract, cut up collage vein. It seems to me that
the most of these pieces were generated during improvisational
sessions, so occassionally it’s a bit of hit and miss. But in general
it is a nice work of experimental music that fits a very long line of
improvised music generated by and from laptops. (FdW)
Address: Marsupialsounds@yahoo.com.au
POPULOUS – QUIPO (CD by Morr Music)
After Guitar we now get Populous on Morr Music, who plays ‘hiss &
crackles on PC’. Behind is Andrea Mangia, a 22 year old guy from
Italy with some classic Morr Music. It cracks and it hisses, but the
downbeat rhythms and melancholical synths in combination with cut up
rhythms make up the better kind of Morr Music sound. The samples are
simple guitar loops in combination with more obscure loops of various
other kinds of instrumentation. Although this is an altogether fine
listen for the nine tracks and thirty eight some minutes, I have a
feeling that I heard it all, seen it all. I think Morr Music should
stay alert on this, and not let too many faceless acts get a release
on this excellent label. With Populous I fear they got somebody who
listened carefully to the previous releases and decided to give it a
try of his own on the sounds and music he heard on the label. Not
that I mind copycats, but here it’s quite clear and it’s a pity that
it’s all so faceless… (FdW)
Address: www.morrmusic.com
OLAF RUPP – EINS ZO DREI VIER (7″ by Happy Zloty)
BLUMM & M÷BIUS – 20 LOCKGROOVES (7″ by Happy Zloty)
Two nice 7″s with silkscreened covers on a label that I never heard,
but who released material by Diazo, Ilse Lau, Volker Hormann and a
compilation 7″. Olaf Rupp’s second solo CD was reviewed only
recentely (Vital Weekly 341) and here he continues with improvising
on the acoustic guitar. Hard to believe that it’s just one man, one
guitar and two hands. Some of the improvisations, like ‘zwo’ or
‘drei’, are very complex sounding pieces, that’s almost an ensemble
playing. ‘Vier’, which fills up the entire b-side of this record,
finds Rupp behind the laptop and processes his guitar sounds through
the various Max/Msp process methods. Funny, or should that be
surprisingely, it sounds very much like a Rupp remix by Stephan
Mathieu, with whom he once formed an improvisation duo, Stol. A big
surprise this 7″.
FS Blumm might be known from his CD on Morr Music (Vital Weekly 285)
or his various releases with Harald “Sack” Ziegler (Vital Weekly 241,
183, 187). Here he teams up with Mbius, of whom I know nothing.
Title is programm here. Twenty locked grooves of childish piano
melodies, toy instruments but also semi drone pieces. Excellent DJ
stuff of course, like all lock groove records, but at the same time
you can wonder what you can do with this at home. Maybe it calls for
a remix project…? (FdW)
Address: www.happyzloty.de
RE:SOURCE VS AUGUR – POWERHEAR (CDR by Re:Source)
As far as I understand this release, it’s a collaboration between
ReSource (aka Thad Biggerstaff) and Augur (aka S. Brand). The latter
I know for his various releases with Birds Of Tin. So the concept
behind this was a live concert by these two guys and the recordings
were processed by Thad Biggerstaff at home. He chopped it up into a
lot of short pieces, of which I don’t understand much. Childish
rhythms played on those cheap keyboards we give to our children, some
put through a distortion pedal, which at the very best reminded me of
some badly recorded Esplendor Geometrico. As you can see, I had a
hard time with this. I thought the music was very unimaginative and
uncreative, and old in every sense. (FdW)
Address: <dhat73@yahoo.com>
Correction:
From: “R.R.Habarc” <r.r.habarc@matavnet.hu>
I know that from the cover it is not entirely clear, but the 3″ cd-r
titled Op. 20302 (Vital Weekly 343) is a work of P·l TÛth aka ·n
(self or me in hungarian). May I ask you to make a correction in the
next Vital Weekly. Thank you.
R.R.Habarc