PAUL WIRKUS – INTELETTO D’AMORE (CD by Quecksilber)
DELPHIUM – NOWHERE LEFT TO FALL (CDR by Hibou Records)
FROM_TO (CD compilation by A Bruit Secret)
KONRAD BAYER – DREAMS OF LEAVING (CD by Genesungswerk)
YELLOW UMBRELLA STUDIO – INDEFINITE MAN/THE LAST MODE (7″ by Genesungswerk)
[SIC] – …AND RABBITS NAMED FRIDAY (CD by Royk Records/Squirrelgirl Productions)
TIGRICS – DRADLAP (CD by Neon Music Hungary)
SUMUGAN SIVANESAN/DURAN VAZQUEZ – PRODUCT (CD by Cronica)
AUTODIGEST – A COMPRESSED HISTORY OF EVERYTHING EVER RECORDED, VOL. 1 (CD by Cronica)
VITAMINS FOR YOU – I’M SORRY FOR EVER AND FOR ALWAYS (CD by Intr_Version)
ILSA GOLD – REGRETTEN? RIEN! (2CD by Mego)
CHIB – MOCO (miniCD by Fat Cat)
SORA – RE.SORT (CD by Plop)
RAND AND HOLLAND – TOMORROW WILL BE LIKE TODAY (CD by Staubgold)
THE KAT COSM – KNIGHTBOAT (CD by Staubgold)
SLUTA LETA – SEMI PETERSON (CD by Mego)
XAVIER CHARLES – LA NEIGE ATTEN LA NEIGE (miniCD by A Bruit Secret)
CORDOUAN – LOVE (CDR by Mechanized Mind)
MARK WASTELL & GRAHAM HALLIWELL – FAKTURA (CDR by Absurd)
NOISEA – ALMOST LIVE (CDR by 1000+1 Tilt)
1000+1 Tilt #8 (CD by 1000+1 Tilt)
PAUL WIRKUS – INTELETTO D’AMORE (CD by Quecksilber)
The fact that Paul Wirkus started out as a jazz drummer and that he played in Polish bands like Karcer and Mapa is not really important, if you hear this recent, his third solo CD. In the new millenium Paul Wirkus operates as a ‘minimal electronic composer’. But the music on this CD is not the result of computer work, but rather a bunch of mini disc players and sound effects, with the sometimes hissy sound, but great loop function. Paul uses small loops of sound, which are mixed together in eight very nice miniature tracks – by which I don’t mean that they are very short, but very tight in structure and minimal in composition. One could think that this leads to boring, monotonous music, but that’s not the case. Each of the eight pieces has a distinct, own character and each is covered with a certain ‘warm’ sound, in which microscopic rhythms are soldered together with small melodies and in ‘Blask’ even the use of vocals, which treated in a similar way as the other ‘instrumental’ parts of the music. Warm and intimate music, that fits the tradition of microsound, lowercase and clicks and cuts in a nice way. It’s one of the better examples of this kind. (FdW)
Address: http://www.quecksilber-music.com
DELPHIUM – NOWHERE LEFT TO FALL (CDR by Hibou Records)
Since a couple of years Delphium is active on the front of forceful electronic rhythmical music – loud and aggressive but also dubby and ambient at times. For this new, the fifth release, Delphium does things a bit differentely. Instead of having a couple of seperate tracks, there is one lenghty track, sixty four minutes in total, but it’s divided in twenty five subsections – each with their own title – which are hard to tell apart. It seems to me that Delphium, aka Jonathan Forde from the UK, is in a more monotonous mood than before. Emphasis lies here for a great deal on the use of metallic percussion, which are fed through a bunch of synths and sound processors, occassionally filled up with pounding bass and/or a rhythm machine. This is Delphium in a more loud and aggressive mood and less in an ambient and/or dubby mood. At times a bit hasty put together, me thinks, but especially in the fewer softer moments quite a nice release. Massive blast… (FdW)
Address: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hibou-records
FROM_TO (CD compilation by A Bruit Secret)
Now here is an interesting work: eight French improvisers meet eight Japanese improvisers, but the meeting is entirely made via the postal system. This release is the fruit of no less then five labels! A lot of the sixteen players here are new to me: I only recognized the names Utah Kawasaki and Ami Yoshida. But most of these people play on laptops, electronics of ‘self-input mixing boards’, so there is a guaranteed number of experimental works to be found here. From the cracklings of the opening duet between Utah Kawasaki and Jean-Philippe Gross to the closing piece by Kazushige Kinoshita and Fabrice Eglin, there is a lot of microsounding experiments to be noted. The silent approach set forth by the Japanese players (these here, but also others) is taken over by the French ones: silence and hardly audible sounds play a role in many of these pieces. The trumpet of Masafumi Ezaki is hard to recognize in his piece with Hugo Roussel, which sinks away in the extensive use of cracks. Each of the eight pieces is well done, with the pieces by Kawasaki/Gross and Ami Yoshida and Alfredo Costa Monteiro as the outstanding ones. (FdW)
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com
KONRAD BAYER – DREAMS OF LEAVING (CD by Genesungswerk)
YELLOW UMBRELLA STUDIO – INDEFINITE MAN/THE LAST MODE (7″ by Genesungswerk)
Two new releases on one of my more favorite German labels. Young Konrad Bayer had a track before on the label sampler ‘Ich Glaube Ich Hoere Genesungswerk’, and here offers his first full length release. Bayer is a boy armed with a laptop, feeding field recordings and samples of classical music to the machine, leaves it boiling for some time and serves twelve tracks of winter music. It’s cold outside, but inside Bayer’s music is like a warm fire. In each of the twelve tracks, Bayer displays a love for ambient, a very tiny bit of techno music and just a little bit more of clicks and cuts. Occassionally a small melody leaks through the rain of software synthesizers, like in ‘Aspertam’, which even has a sampled guitar or the christmas like tune ‘It Was When’. This is not the sort of music that goes for the trophee of ‘musical innovation 2003’, but nevertheless a nice winter’s journey in music.
On a different format, the Yello Umbrella Studio release their work. They are a duo from Sweden, consisting of Robert Bergqvist (acoustic and synthetic drums and percussion) and Jan Vertsberg (composing, engineering, instruments and voice-sounds), who have been around since 1997 and who released their debut in 2000 on Frank Mark Arts. ‘Indefinite Man’ starts out with a repeated fragment, but soon the xylophone takes over and then a rhythmmachine that is like speeding up train. On ‘The Last Mode’ they also use vocals and we have the same up-tempo speedy rhythm here, where the vocals remind me vaguely of Alan Vega but the instrumental part of Groenland Orchestra on cocaine. Nice and happy popmusic – but with a strange twist all around. (FdW)
Address: http://www.genesungswerk.de
[SIC] – …AND RABBITS NAMED FRIDAY (CD by Royk Records/Squirrelgirl Productions)
Space age love songs, indeed! This is analogue heaven so to speak – an aural chamber that is immediately seductive and a little bit corny. [Sic] is Montreal’s Jen Morris who crafts a dissonant miniature landscape from tinny percussive beats. There are moments of perhaps Snoop Dogg meets Ladytron without any annoying vocals – icy steel cold blend of upright harmony and micro-electronic sounds. Shlink-plonk, ba-ba-ba-boom. Morris builds an alien language-scape that vacates itself from the needless day-to-day chitter chatter. This is chock-full of weird atonality with a warmer funky side. As a rabbit test, here, anything is seemingly possible in her concoction of tracks like the gray matter “Royk” and “Highway Gully” with its merry synth twang. Closing with the hysterically titled “Ouch, My Innards” you might be expecting a slapstick song and dance – but this might be part of a reinterpretation of some real pain. The drone is above sea level, the winds are steady, there is almost a chant-like quality to the way this piece propels itself. It’s a beautiful, whispy and startling conclusion. (TJN)
Address: http://www.squirrelgirl.net
TIGRICS – DRADLAP (CD by Neon Music Hungary)
Hungarian label Neon makes a pass at the world of finer electronics with its release by Tigrics (aka Robert Bereznyei) formerly of the band Rianas. And “Dradlap” is certainly a branch off the tree for him. The upbeat din of “High Accuracies” is a dark ambient lullaby of sorts, with just the right amount of breath and crunchy statica. Like releases from E*Rock and Xela and other recent offerings Tigrics keeps things pretty bubbly. He shapes with a childlike anticipation, making this a fresh listen. I am sure that being from the Budapest area may make the emergence of his infectious sound a bit more time consuming to reach a general public still feeding off the Chemical Brothers, though this is the intimate sounds that most late night hipsters would crave after a long night of hard partying. A perfect blend of frosty beats and creative loops. The cryptically fringe “”Why Release Records? (Fülke MX)” asks the pertinent question for the MP3 generation whose sound collection is ultimately deleteable after a single listen. Music is free – music should be free – the debate goes on and on. Hi fidelity aside – I’d say the question will be on the chopping block for some time to come. Just hope it doesn’t discourage acts from Hungary, Poland and other unexpected gemstone countries from continuing to feed our ears – look at what happened to Iceland. The genuinely wet sounding “Gdynia (Baltic Sea in December)” is quiet and somber, a bit of a faded drone. Overall this is a refreshing look at the future of sounds of the future. (TJN)
Address: http://www.neonmusic.hu
SUMUGAN SIVANESAN/DURAN VAZQUEZ – PRODUCT (CD by Cronica)
AUTODIGEST – A COMPRESSED HISTORY OF EVERYTHING EVER RECORDED, VOL. 1 (CD by Cronica)
Two new releases on the Portugese outlet for microsounding music. The first is what is called in the world of vinyl a split release, but there is not an appropiate term for it yet for the CD version. One person is first, the other second. So it goes. First here is one Sumugan Sivanesan from Sydney, Australia. Before turning his laptop on, he played in various rock bands. His soundinput is field recordings, feedback and his output are eight tracks of quite regular, a bit noisy most of the time, due the more extensive use of feedback related sounds then through his use of field recordings. Regular microsound here, I’d say. A bit off balance in a fine play of loud versus soft, but quite interesting throughout. Duran Vazquez sounds Portugese enough to me, and he has seven tracks to offer. He is a self-thaught musician who picked up working in music some six years ago. I believe this is first release. It seems to me that Vazquez uses field recordings to some extent – at least more so than his partner in crime on this CD – which he processes inside the computer. It’s an overall ambient sound of a more disturbing nature. Like Sivanesan, this is not bad either, but also a bit without any real surprise.
The title of the Autodigest CD really sets me off: wouldn’t it be great to have all music ever recorded on one CD? “Autodigest is a simulation of processes of cultural implosion. As such, it has no birth date nor does it have particular geographical references”. So who is it? We are not told. Some of the tracks sound a bit as expected: speed up sound, trying to get as much music in just a few seconds. Music is there, but it’s highly filtered and sounds like a far away cry of what was once music. But there are also tracks which sound entirely different: low hum, almost contemplative, maybe also without any bearing to music, but seemingely also not derived from music. Which makes this into quite a strange CD. At times of course the music is quite noise oriented, but that is hardly any surprise, with all the sped up musics, but it’s quite a captivating release. It’s impossible to see this without the title in mind and this makes it into a conceptual almost poetic release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cronicaelectronica.org
VITAMINS FOR YOU – I’M SORRY FOR EVER AND FOR ALWAYS (CD by Intr_Version)
Slowly Intr-Version grows from a strict techno label into a more pop/guitar oriented direction. Vitamins For You is a Canadian outfit – “from the prairies” – who offers a strong poppy debut album, with an overall melancholic sound. Twelve tracks in total of electronica mixed with guitars, field recordings, drums and vocals. These vocals remind me of some of Thom Yorke’s vocals on Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ – the more experimental ones of course. To compare it with something else, I’d be thinking of The Books: the same fuzzy sound, samples being thrown in, cooking up a warm bed of sound and lyrics. Downtempo and contemplative, this is certainly strong mood music, certainly if your mood is on the downside too. Essential wintertime music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.intr-version.com
ILSA GOLD – REGRETTEN? RIEN! (2CD by Mego)
Would I mind review some old school techno, I was asked? No of course I don’t mind, certainly when it comes from the house of Mego. This double pack tells us the story of Ilsa Gold. A duo of Christopher Just and Peter Votava (aka DJ Pure). In a short time they were the lovers of big time raves with their own unique sound: harcore techno (at times based on gabber) with those wacky samples thrown that sound like sped up vocals adding a strong wacky sense of humor to the bowl. Their appearances at raves were hilarious: they put a DAT machine on stage and spent the time playing back their hits with the aid of a yoghurt machine. Not of course that anyone liked this, certainly not the ravers. In 1996 Christopher and Peter parted ways and now in 2003 a double CD, in an gold DVD box sums up their history. This sort of gabber like music is something I would indeed not spin quite often, but served in such a large dose of 140 minutes, I must say I quite enjoyed the rawness of the music. Much unlike most other techno music that is in the overground, this is fresh, raw and distinctely underground. Quotation run via the Four Non Blonds (here ‘For Blond Nuns) to ‘Alles Naar De Klote’ in the remix of the Non Blondes track and ‘James Brown Is Dead’, but with a piss-take on Jorg Haider. If you missed out this particular piece of history, so can get the remains thereof now. How nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mego.at
CHIB – MOCO (miniCD by Fat Cat)
SORA – RE.SORT (CD by Plop)
Behind Chib is one Yukiko Chiba, a woman from Tokyo, who first came to Fat Cat on the ‘No Watches, No Maps’ compilation. This release, a mini CD, just under thirty minutes, is her debut. She goes out with a microphone, to restaurants, friends, parks etc and records sounds, which are in return sampled and treated in a studio (me thinks: at home on a computer). Eight tracks of loops, an odd pulse here and there, bleeps and tones, but most of the time it’s hard to recognize any sound. There is a distant piano, a guitar, voices, but in general it’s too wrapped inside consumer friendly electronica. Each track stays on a friendly side, which is nice, but also maybe a bit too friendly. An outburst here and there, however small, would maybe be a desirable thing. In general a nice and sweet set of music here, but it could have a little bit of extra.
Pretty much along similar lines is a release by Sora, this time a guy from Tokyo, Takeshi Kurosawa. He learned to play the piano but turned digital in the nineties. Back then it was ‘intellegent techno’ and had some tracks on General Productions. As Sora he has his first full length CD out. A bit more glitchy in approach this Sora, but with vague hints to sampled bossa nova and jazz records but his samples also include field recordings and cut-ups. A pretty warm digital approach in the ten tracks offered. Like Chib this is sweet music, but this one is a little bit more edgy, a little bit more sharp, but even at forty some minutes a bit long. This at the length of Chib’s CD would have been perfect. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fat-cat.co.uk
Address: http://www.inpartmaint.com/plop
RAND AND HOLLAND – TOMORROW WILL BE LIKE TODAY (CD by Staubgold)
THE KAT COSM – KNIGHTBOAT (CD by Staubgold)
More and more Staubgold presents popmusic, leaving the experimental releases to their newly found Quecksilber label. Recentely the Sun CD struck me as a big surprise, and from the same circles we are now offered Rand And Holland. This seems to be the vehicle of Brett Thompson who works, just like Sun and Scott Horscroft (who released a CD on Quecksilber earlier this year), in the Bigjesusburger studios in Sydney. Just like the Brunnen 8″ last week, this is singer songwriter stuff, of course on a totally different production level (big and better), but with the same warm intimate vocals, but with guitars, bass and drums. The instrumentation is kept sparse, thus placing the emphasis on the vocals. The press blurb says that this recalls the moods of Mercury Rev, Yo La Tengo and Smog, but hey, I left popmusic after the Beatles split up, so I wouldn’t know. Sometimes hauntingely beautiful, like in ‘Run Faye Run’, with it’s minimal bass line, sparse guitar and reverby vocals. Melancholical is the key-word here. Maybe never so my thing, this sort of guitar music, but every once in a while a CD like this, is quite alright.
Along slightly similar lines is Kat Cosm, a Berlin duo of Jana Plewa and Sebastian Skalei. Like Rand And Holland they have a slightly folky sound, but are also at the same time more electronic. Added are two remixes of Leafcutter John, TenEcke (Calla) and Mondomarc, but they are incorporated in the rest of the tracks and fit just perfectely. The songs are sketched out on piano and guitar and then worked out on the computer. Spacious and open music, a tad bit melancholical, held back and warm. Their influences run into the entire catalogue of popmusic of the last thirty years, taken the best bits and rework that into a strict personal music. Great popmusic. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staubgold.com
SLUTA LETA – SEMI PETERSON (CD by Mego)
Originally Sluta Leta were a Swedish trio who released 12″s on Mego, Uptight, Cheap and Chocolate Industries, but over the course of years the three members left and now three other people are Sluta Leta: Andi Pieper, Ramon Bauer and Gerhard Potuznik. So we might say an Austrian take-over. And these three produced the first full length album. I must admit I didn’t know the previous 12″s that well, but the album is a true pleasure to hear. Short but powerful rock inspired sampled pieces, with vocals, lush keyboards lines, sampled guitars. A bit broken beat, but with an overall more rock then techno sound. Groovy stuff indeed here. The album is named after Sem Peterson, ‘the smartest swedish racing driver, the so called “King Of Drift”. King of drift… that might be appropiate for this CD too. There is a great drift on this CD – it’s a fine race in music going on here. Hats off. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mego.at
XAVIER CHARLES – LA NEIGE ATTEN LA NEIGE (miniCD by A Bruit Secret)
Apperentely Xavier Charles is well-known on the French improvisation scene, having played duets with Axel Dorner, John Butcher, Otomo Yoshihide, Martin Tetreault, KK Roll and more and he is also the founder of the Densites Festival. Here is it at work as a composer, in a strange piece of vibrating surfaces. “Various objects that have been chosen for their resonance capacity are arranged, added to or subtracted from the vibrations of the loudspeakers” – I am not sure how that looks but I now know how it sounds: if anyone out there still remembers Chop Shop, it’s that kind of sound. Thickly layered sound of rumbling objects, processed static and minimal in approach. Rich in execution I might add. It’s a fine work, right in length, chopped up into various pieces, each with a distinct own style and own approach. If anyone would like coin a new term, I’d say ‘Intelligent Industrial Music’ would be most appropiate. (FdW)
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com
CORDOUAN – LOVE (CDR by Mechanized Mind)
One Axel from Sweden is behind Cordouan and his previous releases were to be found as MP3 releases on Subsource and Garmonbozia Records, which I haven’t heard of course. This recording is dedicated to his brother Par (1972-2003), so one can safely assume this is mood music of a more melancholic nature. Five tracks in total, just over thirty two minutes of ambient music with a strong (and healthy) dose of guitar playing. Chords in key-minor here of course, with swollen synth lines in ‘As If It All Stops And All I Can Focus On Is You’. Guitar like post rock lines, are most apperent in the first piece ‘MMN-ALS’, and here the influence of Tarentel is quite clear (well, the older Tarentel, I suppose), and in the other piece it’s more ambient on an electronic nature. Suitable for any grey day. (FdW)
Address: http://music.mechanizedmind.com
MARK WASTELL & GRAHAM HALLIWELL – FAKTURA (CDR by Absurd)
Wastell might be a little bit known from his various releases with improvisation masters Taku Sugimoto, Toshimaru Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama (see Vital Weekly 358), but here he teams up with one Graham Halliwell. He plays ‘feedback saxophone’, and Wastell is responsible for ‘amplified textures’. Together they play four tracks of highly controlled music, in which feedback plays a certain role, but it’s all under control: there is no sudden outburst of noise. Beneath we hear the scraping of various amplified textures (I reckon’ these be carpets, cloths and other hard to amplify objects), which only become audible if you turn up the volume (in which case you also amplify the feedback more). A nicely put forward microscopic atmosphere hoovers in these pieces. Controlled and good. (FdW)
Address: <absurd@otenet.gr>
NOISEA – ALMOST LIVE (CDR by 1000+1 Tilt)
1000+1 Tilt #8 (CD by 1000+1 Tilt)
Two new releases on the 1000+1 Tilt label. The first is by a band called Noisea, which is quite a funny name of course. Originally the music was intended for a live show, but it was ‘shit’. Then they went back home and recorded a proper version in their studio. Three tracks of pulsating rhythmical but also industrial music. There are influences from the very old school (Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire), especially when they use taped media voices and the new school of minimal techno, such as Goem or Pan Sonic. Noisea is less about noise, and more about very minimal techno related pulse music. Quite alright stuff.
On the same label also a compilation with a bunch of new names, at least for me, but also some I came across in the underground world of home made electronics before, like Nex, Clayfigure (nice piece here of guitars and environmental sounds, machines and conveyerbelts), Arc and Cities In Desolation. Especially at the beginning of this lenghty compilation techno influences are apperent But in general this compilation contains more noisy and experimental works from around the world, by such people T-Drik, Nex, Tool Of The Man, Drog-A-Tek, Echo Chamber and these are some of the better pieces here. Almost 78 minutes in length, so fully packed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.geocities.com/tiltrecordings