ON PAPER (2CD compilation by Cronica Electronica)
QUIET AMERICAN – ROCKETS OF THE MEKONG (CDR by Grain Of Sound)
SAWAKO – COTOR (CDR by Grain Of Sound)
THEBLAMESHIFTER – I LUV ON YOUR GRAVE (3″CDR by Piehead Recordings)
OVUM (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
VANCE ORCHESTRA – SLOW AGE DECAY MUSICK (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
WALDCHENGARTEN – BEAUTY BOXER (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
D-503/HINYOUKI – SNOW WHITE (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
SOME ASIAN FEMALES BODYBUILDERS – NATALIA KIM (CDR by
Verato/Suggestion Records)
ELLENDE – KUT MET PEREN (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
KLOFT RETARDER – STOLPERFALLEN IM ZEREBRALEN SUBRAUM (CDR by
Verato/Suggestion Records)
I:WOUND (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
MUTANTUM – EXP (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
ALUMINUM NOISE – MANIPULATION (3CDRs by Verato/Suggestion Records)
KADEF – ES DREHT SICH EINEM DER KOPF UM (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
MAR.TIN’S TROMBONE ON THE MOON – DESERTS WILL BLOOM THROUGH ATOMIC
POWER (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
MOON – BACK TO THE STARS (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
CHIE MUKAI & RINJI FUKUOKA – L’ENERGIE DE L’EXISTENCE (CD by Turtle’s
Dream/A Bruit Secret)
400 LONELY THINGS (LP by Bronson Unlimited)
JOHN BUTCHER – INVISIBLE EAR (CD by Fringes)
WOODEN GUITAR (CD compilation by Locust Music)
REYNOLS – RAMPOTANZA RONIL REMPELENTE (CD by Met Life/Locust Music)
ERDEM HELVACIOGLU – A WALK THROUGH THE BAZAAR (CD by Met Life/Locust Music)
CHRIS DELAURENTI – THE NIGHT I MET MARIA C (CD by Met Life/Locust Music)
ANDREW LILES – AURAL ANAGRAM (CD by Macrophonies)
ROEL MEELKOP – 4 (PROPOSITIONS) (CD by Tariff Records)
GEROYCHE – BITPOP (12″ by Suburban Trash Industries)
ON PAPER (2CD compilation by Cronica Electronica)
Pedro Tudela, who CD was reviewed in Vital Weekly 362, was working on
a ‘piece about ‘collage-decollage’ and he collected various pieces of
posters from the city. “At the time I was interested in a matter with
an enormous load of informational pre-concept, lived and changed both
by human imposition as through the accidental will of nature” – so
why not send pieces of paper to musicians and ask them to create a
piece of music with it? Well, it was called ‘on glass’ or ‘on metal’
and I got the same music, I would believe it also straight away. The
kind of transformations that can be made by using the good ol’
computer and it’s possibilities allow any input to be transformed. On
this double CD we find a lot of Portugese composers, aswell as
Stephan Mathieu and Pure. I must say I have great difficulty with
almost all of the tracks. Some of them are nice, like Pure, Pal,
Paulo Raposo and Stephan Mathieu, but especially on the second CD I
couldn’t find much of interest. Tearing pieces of paper leading to
dance music, that sounds like Matthew Herbert (and I find his
concepts also extremely outdated) – so no applause there. I don’t
understand why some of these tracks have to be so long, and most of
the times so uninspiring. Well-throdden paths are to be found here. A
more keen selection and a stricter length could maybe have saved
it… (FdW)
Address: http://www.cronicaelectronica.org
QUIET AMERICAN – ROCKETS OF THE MEKONG (CDR by Grain Of Sound)
SAWAKO – COTOR (CDR by Grain Of Sound)
Two new releases by Grain Of Sound, a Portugese label that so far
releases only CDRs. The first one is by Quiet American, aka Aaron
Ximm. He doesn’t use instruments, but exclusively works with field
recordings. Some of the pieces are presented in the raw state and
some are built into compositions. His recent work is more about using
samples of the material. On ‘Rockets Of The Mekong’ we hear the
processed sounds of a field trip cum honeymoon to Laos. I must say I
wasn’t too pleased with the results. The unprocessed pieces worked
best for me, so don’t seem to focuss on single activities, but on a
larger picture. The rhythmic pieces are fragmented pieces of sound
that seem to be made with those ‘digital delay’ machines guitarists
sometimes use. Unfortunally the Quiet American makes very long
pieces, in which not much happens, and tension has disappeared
altogether. A pity since the idea is quite nice.
Sawako comes from Tokyo and has played all over the globe, solo and
in combination with people like Andrew Deutsch and Hypo. She uses
computer processing, field recordings, mixer feedback, small sounds
and silence. She has done various releases before, but this is the
first one that I hear. The seven tracks here all in a highly minimal
fashion. Drony bits, maybe time stretched feedback musings and filled
with sparse samples of piano playing and metallic percussion. Moving
gently in an icy atmosphere of sometimes sheer silence. In a very
nice way, very Japanese. Nice work indeed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.grainofsound.com
THEBLAMESHIFTER – I LUV ON YOUR GRAVE (3″CDR by Piehead Recordings)
So far the new series of 3″CDRs released by Piehead Recordings deal
with artists that at least I never heard of. Theblameshifter is no
different. Behind this name we find one Tasman Richardson from
Toronto, who, besides music, also is a videomaker and a graphic
designer. This might be, however, his first audio release. Six
tracks, all clocking in at a more or less defined three minute, it
indeed seems popmusic inspired, with drum & bass and breakbeat as the
principal sources if inspiration. Although the tracks are nicely
executed, I don’t think there is a number one hitsingle among them
(probably not necessary either). Nice and pleasent music, without
many pretentions. That’s ok too. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pieheadrecordings.com
OVUM (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
VANCE ORCHESTRA – SLOW AGE DECAY MUSICK (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
WALDCHENGARTEN – BEAUTY BOXER (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
D-503/HINYOUKI – SNOW WHITE (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
SOME ASIAN FEMALES BODYBUILDERS – NATALIA KIM (CDR by
Verato/Suggestion Records)
ELLENDE – KUT MET PEREN (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
KLOFT RETARDER – STOLPERFALLEN IM ZEREBRALEN SUBRAUM (CDR by
Verato/Suggestion Records)
I:WOUND (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
MUTANTUM – EXP (CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
ALUMINUM NOISE – MANIPULATION (3CDRs by Verato/Suggestion Records)
KADEF – ES DREHT SICH EINEM DER KOPF UM (3″CDR by Verato/Suggestion Records)
I was quite suprised to get a a whole bunch of releases of the Verato
Project. This is a side label from Suggestion Records, dealing with
CDR releases, in small editions and usually with handmade packages.
The musicians that are released here have strong ties to the
underground movement, by releasing their music on CDRs, tapes and
MP3s.
Ovum for instance. Hailing from Sweden, Karl Midholm, offers three
tracks. He plays the noise card here, including a cover of The
Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’. That piece is the longest here, but
also the most interesting one. Maybe parts of the original were
slowed down into a majestical drone with a distant howling voice. The
other two pieces start out in a very low volume mode, but are
gradually faded up into a big wall of noise. I think his noise comes
from rather a digital mode and not an analogue one. It’s quite
alright for noise, but not beyond that.
The Vance Orchestra are something different. They shouldn’t be
unknown to readers of Vital Weekly. They are a duo from close by the
Vital Weekly headquarters and exist since umteenth years. The Vance
Orchestra play music using old analogue synthesizers, samplers and
vinyl. Especially the use of vinyl gives the music a repetitive
character, which are embedded in swirling electronics of sounds being
fed through all sorts of sound processors. The Orchestra dwells
around in music that is obscure and dark, but at that, they are one
of the better players of that kind of music around.
Also releases by Danish Waldchengarten have been reviewed before
(Vital Weekly 265 and 338). Their music hoovers more in industrial
music areas with noisy feedback pieces and distortion all over. But
Waldchengarten can do more. ‘I Bled For Days… But Now I’m Ok’
starts out with a filmic intro – genre horror of course – and is a
spooky piece indeed. They extend the ideas of industrial music into
something that is still violent, aggressive and ugly, but at least
something is moving around here.
The cover of the release by D-503 and Hinyouki doesn’t look too
promising. Some pornographic images of Snow White… we are dealing
here with true industrial music – me thinks. The first tracks proofs
me right and makes me wonder wether I should continue. I did, and I
must say it got better. Hinyouki is a noise duo from Spain and D-503
is one Andrew Johnson. This release is a back-and forth remix of
eachothers work. Kinda hard to follow who’s remixing who here, but
it’s for a noise thing actually not bad. Both acts go about in
processing sounds in the digital domain, giving more depth to the
work. Hinyouki is overall the more noisy one, and D-503 the more
interesting one.
Quite a strange name for a band: Some Asian Females (sic)
Bodybuilders who are from Spain. The experiment with ultra-loud
processed high pitched tones. Not in similar clean states as Ryoji
Ikeda, but a bit more dirty. Although I don’t mind pure sine wave
music, I found this not so attractive. The compositions are not so
strong and they all sound a bit the same to me. The CD, lasting
almost an hour, is simply a bit too much.
I have reviewed Ellende (Dutch for misery) before. The title is also
Dutch and not easy to translate, so I skip that. I believe the guy
behind Ellende is Dutch, but not living in The Netherlands. Somehow
with such a bandname and title, I expected some noise trip along the
lines of the infamous Odal (if that’s a reference to anyone – if not,
don’t worry), but actually it turned out to be a very nice work of
drones and processed field recordings, obviously on the darker side
of matters, but certainly not noisy. I detected some heavily
processed instruments also on board on this. The one piece is built
with quite some tension building up. A fine work indeed.
Kloft Retarder sounds like something I would expect on Suggestion
Records: Noise rock along the lines of English inspirators such as
Ramleh or Headbutt. Some rock/metal riff, some metallic rumbling and
doodlings with feedback. It’s not great stuff, but it’s alright. But
I must admit that the genre is not really my thing either…
Ah I:Wound, our beloved world traveller and politically inspired guy.
On September 11th, 2001 he didn’t sat around watching the news with
mouth wide open, he started taping all the news bits and two days he
mixed those newsbits into a very long soundscape. Suppose this would
be in 2000 years time being the only account of the events that
happened, I doubt wether anybody could figure out what had happened.
Spoken word bits swirl in and out of the mix, occassionally we hear
CNN, Dubya and some are french and german, but it doesn’t make any
sense what they say. It’s a nice soundscape for sure, but it could
actually be any event and doesn’t say much about September 11th, 2001.
EXP can stand for experimental, experience, expression, explosion,
expansion but here it is the title for a release by Mutantum, a
project of Mikko Muranen. I know nothing about him. He presents nine,
pretty long pieces of deep and dark ambient music. It seems that most
of this material originated with natural sounds and other field
recordings, but things have been reworked to quite some extent, so
that long drones were created in the sampler. It’s nice material
along the lines of the old releases on Side Effects, Lustmord,
Lagowski and James Bernard. Quite strong material at that.
The final thing are three CDRs by Aluminium Noise, who changed their
name after this release to something I wasn’t told. I never heard of
them before. “Play Loud or fucking don’t”, the cover says. I fucking
decide myself, thank you very much. I don’t understand why they put
that on the cover, because it made me think the music is all about
noise, which isn’t quite so. The first two discs contain dark ambient
music, which seems to me be recorded in a rather low fashion and that
might be the result of the more ambient sounds. Processed instruments
via all sort of effect pedals, creating long drony patterns. The
second disc I found was more concentrated and more coherent. The
third disc is a live recording. It’s basically a similar sound,
recording and music wise. Nice stuff altogether, but maybe, just
maybe three discs is a bit too much.
Last and also least is Kadef. Years and years ago he made a 10″ with
Merzbow and that’s about all I know. Here he presents a nineteen
minute of lo-fi electronics, shortwave sounds and a rather simplistic
drum machine. I couldn’t discover much joy or life in this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.suggestion-records.de
MAR.TIN’S TROMBONE ON THE MOON – DESERTS WILL BLOOM THROUGH ATOMIC
POWER (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
MOON – BACK TO THE STARS (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
Although one can’t be sure about the validness of the title, the
release ‘Deserts Will Bloom Through Atomic Power’ is a joint release
by Margrave Ruediger, Tin R.P and The Guy Who Invented Fire. It’s a
short release, just over 21 minutes (but burned on a big CDR) and has
a more or less thematic approach about space travelling and atomic
thingies. I think these people love their old, analogue synthesizers
very much as they present a some nice, quirky electronic music with
small nice melodies, up tempo rhythms and voices. Much more poppy
then I would expect from this otherwise underground techno and noise
label. It’s still in a raw state, but it’s a distinct breakaway from
their previous releases and is certainly one very nice release.
Also not a very loud techno thing is the release by Moon, whoever he
may be. Also his (her?) CDR is inspired by space travel and flying
sources, but the music is a bit different. Moon is more a laptop
kinda guy (girl?), sampling guitars, rhythms and small cute melodies.
Again this is much more raw and less refined then say Fennesz or
somesuch similar, but it turned out to be a rather nice CD, in which
only the final track ‘2 More Steps 2 A Dead Planet’, wasn’t really
spend on me. Too lenghty and lightweight noisy for me. Otherwise
quite pleased this.
Address: http://www.burningemptiness.fr.st
CHIE MUKAI & RINJI FUKUOKA – L’ENERGIE DE L’EXISTENCE (CD by Turtle’s
Dream/A Bruit Secret)
Japan is known for it’s radical and consistent musicians. Noise, or
sheer silence and psychedelic music, they are all executed with great
by musicians. Turtle’s Dream, a side dish for A Bruit Secret,
specializes in Japanese psychedelic music. This new CD is by two
people: Chie Mukai on voice, kokyu and drums and Rinji Fukuoka on
cello, piano and drums. Mukai has played with legendary people such
as Masayoshi Urabe, Tori Kudo, Fumio Kosakaï, Seiichi Yamamoto, Keiji
Haino, Kengo Iuchi, after studing with Takeshisa Kosugi. Her works
were releasedon the PSF label. Fukuoka played in bands like Overhang
Party, Magical Garden and Tangerine Dream Syndicate and ran his own
label Pataphysique.
The recording captured on this CD was made in Tokyo in September last
year. It’s hard to imagine that two people play this music on such a
wide variety of instruments. We hear drums rolling, bangs on the
piano, eerie melodies on the cello. Going from wild to moody, but in
a stream, a flow that never stops. Waves and waves of sound roll by.
Silence seems to be prohibited here. It may be soft, but not silent.
Quite a nice CD, me thinks, even when I am not known as the lover of
psychedelic music or the use of mood enhancers to enjoy it even
better. But a small dose every now and then is alright. (FdW)
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com
400 LONELY THINGS (LP by Bronson Unlimited)
Here’s some mystery. 400 Lonely Things are a band about which we are
not to know that much – for reasons of course which are unclear.
According to the label, the material on this LP was recorded
privately over the past 15 years, in a ‘variety of situations and
locations’. They also state cleverly ‘they are probably American and
the instrumention used is pretty much up to the listener’, so
probably I will receive an e-mail upon this review with necessary
corrections of an artist with the urge to correct things. After from
a track called ‘400 Lonely Seconds’ (which is a lockgroove), just
before the last track, I noticed this is quite a long LP. There are
18 tracks, including that lockgroove thing, all of which last
somewhere between one and half minute and just over five minutes.
It’s hard to tell what these people, this person is using instrument
wise anyway. My guess there are guitars, synths and samplers. The
music is best qualified as nice, almost ambient music, with postrock
influences, such as in ‘Flutterby’. The music has a nice drift, but
also goes by without noting too much, without being a very strict
audio carpet as in strict ambient music. There hasn’t been much about
the production of this LP, it all sounds rather on the same level,
and doesn’t create much depth. Maybe it’s because these recordings
are supposed to be old? Maybe. Again it’s nice, not bad, not great,
passtime music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bronsonunlimited.com
JOHN BUTCHER – INVISIBLE EAR (CD by Fringes)
First of all I need to correct something on John Butcher: in Vital
Weekly 374 a CD was reviewed by John Butcher, Thomas Lehn and Andy
Moor, and it said that John Butcher “is associated with musicians
such as Fred Frith, Misha Mengelberg, and Derek Bailey.” That is not
true, Butcher worked with Phil Minton, Derek Bailey and Gerry
Hemingway. Butcher plays soprano and tenor saxophone. In general I am
not particulary fond of saxophones, and always say that Borbetomagus
is the only saxophone I can stand. I’d like to add Butcher’s CD. He
uses close miking and feedback in addition to his saxophone playing
that makes it hardly possible to recognize any of it. Of the twelve
pieces, only three are multi-tracks, the rest is recorded in one go.
Somewhere, somehow you may recognize the wind sounds but can you in
‘The Importance Of Gossip’? Vague rumbling, almost percussive with
some beeps going on. Nothing like a saxophone. Blowing sounds can be
recognized in some of the solo pieces, but here too it’s hard. Taking
the common playing of a saxophone a bit further is of course
something that is much welcomed by me. The most regular saxophone
piece here is ‘atelier’ and this nice short piece is actually quite
alright. Maybe for the more regular lovers a relief after the crazy
experimentation, maybe the die-hard improv lovers will see
confirmation that this guy can really play, but for me it’s just a
nice addition to a great CD. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fringesrecordings.com
WOODEN GUITAR (CD compilation by Locust Music)
Maybe you are like me: whenever I see an acoustic or spanish guitar,
I pick it up and make sound with it. I never learned any chords, so I
can’t play it properly, much to the annoyance of the owner of the
guitar. I doubt I will be on a compilation called ‘Wooden Guitar’.
Four guitarists play each a long, unaccompanied piece of acoustic
guitar music. The CD is opened by Jack Rose (guitarist of the band
Pelt), who plays a twelve string guitar, in finger picking mood. He
creates a fine pattern of overtones that hum along nicely in his
minimal piece. That is one great opening! It almost cross fades in
the first piece by Steffen Basho-Junghans (he’s the only that has two
tracks), but unfortunally it’s a little bit less then Jack Rose’s
piece. Recentely I saw Tetuzi Akiyama play a solo concert and I was
thrilled by his playing. Completely detuned acoustic guitar on which
he didn’t seem to be playing real chords, but just tones, and
sometimes with a metallic slide. Something similar is done on his
track for this compilation, fascinating otherworldly music. The
Basho-Junghans again, with his second, the shortest on the CD. It’s a
much nicer piece then the other one, with quite some fast finger
picking going on. The final piece on the compilation is by Sir
Richard Bishop, one third of the Sun City Girls. He plays a slightly
arabic melody on the Spanish guitar, and is almost like a soundtrack
for a desolated road movie, not a motorbike, but on a horse through
the desert, with cadavres alongside the trail. Five pieces, of which
two sound alike, making four great pieces of playing acoustic guitars
in an unusual fashion. Great stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.locustmusic.com
REYNOLS – RAMPOTANZA RONIL REMPELENTE (CD by Met Life/Locust Music)
ERDEM HELVACIOGLU – A WALK THROUGH THE BAZAAR (CD by Met Life/Locust Music)
CHRIS DELAURENTI – THE NIGHT I MET MARIA C (CD by Met Life/Locust Music)
Three more volumes in Locust Music’s Met Life series. The idea is to
present on a CD a piece of raw untreated environmental recording of
any kind and one ‘remix’, ‘treatment’ by the artist who made the
recording. The third one in the series is by Reynols. They recorded
street workers in Buenos Aires, drilling holes in the street. Not a
recording to work with, I’d say, but alright. Just at the beginning
of their rework we can hear some of the rework, but it goes into some
wild, psychedelic music with drums, horns and some guitar. Here the
original street sounds seem to have disappeared. I never understood
much of Reynols’ music, which I think is just a clever idea of trying
to sell an ‘interesting’ concept via their trisome singer Tomasin and
I am afraid, this release didn’t help very much to understand them.
The fourth volume is by the for me unknown Turkish composer Erdem
Helvaciouglu who takes us the bazaar in Istanbul. I’ve never been to
Istanbul, but the bazaar sounds exactely I would imagine. People
trying to sell things, crowdyness, kids and phones and some distant
music. Some of the voices repeat texts. In his reworking it’s hard to
recognize any of the tones, but one can sense it’s based on the
material. A huge chorus like sound of sound processings take place,
with occassional metallic sounds. A very electronic and dense piece
of music, but at the same time most curiously also very ambient.
Halfway through the piece a technoid rhythm kicks in and we are in
ambient house movements of 1994 again. Quite a nice piece, even when
it sounds a bit outdated.
The last one so far is by one Chris DeLaurenti, who is from Seattle
and his raw material was recorded at a waste dump and at a transfer
station – waste and recycling is what this is about. Quite some
mechanical sounds in his raw recordings of garbage bags being picked
up and cars bringing new ones. His response to the source material is
a rather strange one. He went out with his recording machine and
microphone again and recorded responses to him asking “what on earth
are we all doing?” – he’s talking with people, quite common day stuff
that doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s always fascinating to hear
such private things, so I was captivated to play it all through.
Definetly the strangest release in the Met Life series so far. (FdW)
Address: http://www.locustmusic.com
ANDREW LILES – AURAL ANAGRAM (CD by Macrophonies)
As seen on a recent tour through the USA: performing is Andrew Liles
– for the lovers of Coil, The Hafler Trio and Nurse With Wound.
Andrew is from Brighton, UK and might not the most known player on
the music scene there, but he sure is someone to keep an eye open
for. ‘Aural Anagram’ is his second ‘real’ CD, after many CDR releases
and some vinyl. Despite being divided in nine tracks, I think it’s
really just one piece. The whole thing deals with painter Hans
Bellmer, whom I must admit never heard off, who depicted bizarre
images involving female nudes. His drawings, etchings and visual
anagrams inspired this CD. So can we say that Liles sound like the
aforementioned three? I think it’s hard to see Coil and The Hafler
Trio, but yes, Nurse With Wound, I can second that. Female voices
play an important on this CD. Although I find it hard to understand
what they are saying (why do I just understand ‘sexual organs’ at one
point?, maybe that’s the idea), the way they speak their texts and
the way Liles processes them reminds me very much of the first couple
of Nurse With Wound, ‘Homotopy To Marie’, ‘Insect’ and ‘Ostranenie’.
But whereas with good ol’ Nurse With Wound they were embedded in a
more industrial kind of thing, Liles takes out some of his keyboards
and waves together a lush pattern of ambient sounds. Occassionally
adding some highly processed ‘other’ sounds (water, people having
sexual intercourse), the overall sound is mostly ambient. One might
object that the line (old-) Nurse With Wound and Andrew Liles is
short, or that Liles pulls a lot of effect tricks on his music, it’s
a very nice CD that is certainly worth getting. Compared to ‘An Un
World’ not a step forward – but sideward. ‘An Un World’ is a
collection of nice tracks, ‘Aural Anagram’ is a nice concept album.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.macrophonies.co.uk or http://www.andrewliles.com
ROEL MEELKOP – 4 (PROPOSITIONS) (CD by Tariff Records)
The cover says that this CD was released in 2002, but only very
recentely copies showed up at the doorstep of the composer. He gladly
gave me one to review. Roel Meelkop wasn’t very lucky with two of his
releases which were recorded between 1998 and 2000 taking so many
extra years before they were released. Two CDs ending up with two
labels who couldn’t come up with the commitment to release it in due
time, so Meelkop took back the works and found a new home for them.
But even with two new homes it takes umteenth years to get them out.
That is a pity because more recent works have been released, so it’s
harder to follow his development if one hears this now. ‘4
(Propositions)’ is one of the two, with music recorded between 1998
and 2000. I use often the name of Meelkop as a reference to other
music. But exactely is it that he does? Roel Meelkop records sound,
on a DATs, puts them on a computer and then starts treating them with
all the means available. Mostly actually quite simple he finds what
he needs in using changes of the sound colour. Then after he is done
with his work (the second stage), the third stage enters: here he
puts everything together and builts a composition from that. His
music is sometimes at the threshold of audibility and only few times
quite loud. Using the stereo spectrum quite cleverly, his music is
also quite spatial. On this new (?) CD four pieces, of which one was
used for modern dance (I don’t know which one, as Meelkop isn’t the
sort of person to puts loads of information on the cover). It’s hard
to tell what Roel records from just hearing it, but take my word for
it: it’s usually sounds and events around the house. Not spectacular,
but once put in the computer, it becomes something exciting. This CD
is the logical extension of his then previous CDs on Trente Oiseaux
and Staalplaat. Cut up sounds, sometimes causing a shock for the
listener and sometimes inaudible patterns. Even when it is releases
three years to late, it’s still a work not to be missed. (FdW). I
rather not support faul labels, so I’d recommend getting copies
directly from:
Address: <meelkop@wxs.nl>
GEROYCHE – BITPOP (12″ by Suburban Trash Industries)
Geroyche is a young artists from former East Germany, Chemnitz to be
accurate. He released a 12″ on the Suburban Trash Industries label,
both artist and label were new to me. It seems to me that Geroyche is
inspired by hip hop. ‘Headache’, the opening piece didn’t do much for
me, but the other tracks were quite alright. The hip hop elements is
clear in his use of rhythms, but he also finds his inspiration from
minimal techno and intelligent dance music (especially in ‘Pantone’).
Nice little melodies, with piano sounds, with sampled cracks from
vinyl. Most definetly a nice mixture of various influences to get
something of his own. Not excessively new, but still alright. (FdW)
Address: http://geroyche.c8.com