RONNIE SUNDIN – STANDARDS (3″ CD-R by Kissy Records)
MIKE SHIFLET – THE LACE MERCHANTS (3″ CD-R by Kissy Records)
SHIFTS – VERTONEN 10 (CD-R by Verato Project)
ARM – OPEN REMINDER (CD by Melektronikk)
ASSOCIACIO D’ARTISTES SUBURBANS (CDR by Hazard Records)
BREUSS ARRIZABALAGA QUINTET – CONCERT FOR KOWALD (CDR by Hazard Records)
NEVER UNDERSTIMATE HUMAN STUPIDITY (2CDR compilation by Hazard Records)
DALE LLOYD – AIONIOS THE FUNDAMENT (CDR by Mystery Sea)
SCOTT TAYLOR – LEAVING EDEN (CDR by Sijis Records)
SLUGGO – PHASES (CDR by Sijis Records)
RADU MALFATTI & MATTIN – WHITENOISE (CD by W.M.O/R)
USA/USB (2CDR compilation by The Shadow Puppet Recording Company)
PAOLO VENEZIANI – THE PUDDLE EP (CDR by Tib Prod)
PAOLO VENEZIANI – THE FIRST FLOOR (CDR by Tib Prod)
MARGRAVE RUEDIGER VS. TROMBONE – TWO BROKEN TEETH AND A CRACKED RIB (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
BIG CITY ORCHESTRA – HI-FI STEREO TEST RECORD FOR PETS (8″ by Dhyana Records)
RUMPELN – I CAN LIVE WITHOUT MUSIC (8″ by Dhyana Records)
9-16 SPLIT SERIES (CD compilation by Fat Cat)
AIDAN BAKER – DREAMMARES (CDR by Mechanoise Labs)
GHOSTHUNT – CRUSH SEA DOME SPIRIT (CDR by Binkcrsh)
RONNIE SUNDIN – STANDARDS (3″ CD-R by Kissy Records)
MIKE SHIFLET – THE LACE MERCHANTS (3″ CD-R by Kissy Records)
Ronnie Sundin must be known among Vital readers by now for his subtle electro-acoustic works. This mini-CD-R is no exception to his standard. The first four minutes are virtually silent, and only the listener with keen interest is rewarded, because what comes next is almost inaudible, but very much up to standard. Subtle crackles, stretched samples, soft hisses, all appearing and disappearing in a very slow tempo. This is basically a soundscape without compositional attitudes and therefore it works vey well. It dwells in the perimeter of hearing, even when listening intensely to it. Except for one surprise attack, one could forget the disc was playing at all. And in this case that’s meant as a compliment.
Mike Shiflet takes a different approach entirely. His track is harsher and more direct. The build up sounds like the piece was done in one go, and saved to disc without a lot of editing. The sound is pretty high, like feedback and with an element of rythmic distortion. Every now and then there are some very subtle low frequency sounds in the track as well, almost as if by accident.
Also quite subtle are the variations in rythm and texture. However, in the long run this track misses what the piece by Sundin has so much of: silence or soft parts. This makes the whole track less dynamic and makes my mind wander away from the piece instead of towards it. Which is a shame because Shiflet shows enough potential to captivate the listener with his sounds. (MR)
Address: http://www.kissyrecords.com
SHIFTS – VERTONEN 10 (CD-R by Verato Project)
Exquisitely packed comes this new work by Frans de Waard’s string based project Shifts. And the question that immediately rises upon listening is: where are the strings? But as said before, Shifts is based on strings, so one may assume that the origins of these wide, drony and shimmering sounds are indeed strings. This short rant is meant only to mark a shift in Shift’s appraoch to sound: this is definitely digitalised material, whereas his earlier works were obviously analog. OK, having said that, the work on this disc is an almost one hour piece of drony arctic sound, with small rattlesnakes moving about in the snow. I know this doesn’t make sense but that’s exactly the point: these sounds have the same incongruity and don’t seem to belong together, but they go together very well. Further into the piece we are taken away from the desert snowfields and seem to be hovering at some height above them. And at a certain altitude the winds are taking over the sound scenery, adding resonance to the original drones. This is basically how the piece develops. A classic ambient drone piece that makes the mind go on its own trip and makes time seem to originate from another universe. (MR)
Address: http://www.verato-project.de
ARM – OPEN REMINDER (CD by Melektronikk)
Some years ago I saw a band of three persons, who played a real computer, not a laptop, but looking at small video screens. They played only for a short period, as I recall, but they also played short songs. After song they stopped and waited for some applause, which was/is kind of unusual for this kind of concert. I though their music was brilliant. Using musique concrete in a very playful manner, they really seemed to me doing something different. They were called Arm, and, besides a track on a compilation CD, I never heard of them again. But this is to change: Melektronikk have released the debut CD and it will followed by a limited edition LP and a forthcoming European tour. The music captured on their debut CD uses concert recordings from the previous tour, so I was quite curious to see if some of the magic of before was there. It is still. They play twelve tracks in forty minutes, that almost popmusic length. Arm (a trio of Alexander Rishaug, Are Mokkelbost and Arne Borgan) doesn’t disappoint me, but what I didn’t recall was that is sounded so much more improvised as in my memory it sounded rather composed. Guestplayers like John Hegre (guitar) and Hakon Kornstad (saxophone, flute) add a suiteable amount of improvised sounds to an otherwise already improvised computer playing. If a name comes to mind to compare Arm with, I’d say it comes close to Farmers Manual. The same wit, the same seriousness and the same great music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.melektronikk.com
ASSOCIACIO D’ARTISTES SUBURBANS (CDR by Hazard Records)
BREUSS ARRIZABALAGA QUINTET – CONCERT FOR KOWALD (CDR by Hazard Records)
NEVER UNDERSTIMATE HUMAN STUPIDITY (2CDR compilation by Hazard Records)
It has been a while since we last heard from Hazard Records, but here they return with a handful of new releases. The first one is a new project by X.Marx, who has had a few releases before on Hazard Records. He send a whole bunch of voice recordings to artists with the request to rework those voice samples into basic rhythmic tracks. In the final editing process X.Marx added some new sounds to the proceedings. It may sound a bit chaotic this concept, but the end result is quite nice. Although indexed with twenty-three tracks, this is, as far as I’m concerned one long piece. Sounds return in various tracks and in various combinations. Strange, loosely improvised music, which sound quite alright at times, but also at times a bit tedious.
The Breuss Arrizabalaga Quintet is led by Swiss-born but Spanish resident Markus Breuss (trumpet, flugelhorn, shanka, percussion) and Sapnish born but Swiss resident Pelayo Arrizabalaga (alto sax and bass clarinet). Furthermore we find Tsukiko Amakawa on piano, Miguel Rodriganez on string bass and Javier Carmona on drums and percussion. In 2002 they played at the Experimentaclub 02 festival, replacing the late Peter Kowald, who was on the bill orginally. The quintet with jazz music with the big J. One piece, but according to the cover they play pieces by Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler plus a whole of their compositions. I will not repeat the words of Frank Z about jazz, but it’s a kind of music that is never made for me. I can hear the skills in playing, I can even tap along with my foot for a nice tune or rhythm, and so even enjoy it, but in the end, I will take out the CD and forget all about it. C’est la vie.
Stupid music? Whatever that is, may be your defintion of stupid, I think. Hazard Records offers a double CDR compilation of what various people think is stupid music, either in terms of the big music history or just stupid tracks left over by some of the artists. The result is mainly ‘stupid’ music thrown into the blender/sampler and edited together to make it sound even more ‘stupid’ – by which my defintion bells sound ‘plunderphonics’. But luckily it breaks away from the usual posse of plunderphonica and instead we get a whole bunch of names that might be new and unknown, like Anton Ignorant, Etea, Steve Forster, Demo, Christina Casanova and Raymon Aymerich. Some of these pieces will put a smile on your face and some will raise your eye-brow and some will be dismissed as ‘really stupid’, and that is probably the biggest compliment one could make about this collection. The second disc is one long mix of various sounds from radio and TV, or maybe those lifted from the first CD, I mean who knows, and there is a lot of swearing going. If you are open to this sort of thing then you might be able to enjoy it more than I do.
Address: http://www.hazardrecords.org
DALE LLOYD – AIONIOS THE FUNDAMENT (CDR by Mystery Sea)
Dale Lloyd shouldn’t be too unknown by now. He has various releases out, mostly on CDR, but also as MP3 on the internet, and his interest lies mostly in using field recordings. On the ever so nice Mystery Sea label he has a release with five tracks using treated field recordings from 2002-2003. Upon hearing this music, it’s hard to tell what the nature of these field recordings are, as Lloyd gives them a lot of sound treatment. All of the sounds are treated beyond recognition and all warped up they form a mystery of their own. Lloyd keeps clearly in mind for which label he is working, as the whole thing sounds very much in spirit of the previous ambient related works on Mystery Sea. My best guess is that Lloyd treats a lot of different water recordings, from rain to the kettle boiling and beyond. Five pieces of carefully treated stuff, that bares a lot of tension underneath (such as the windlike sounds in ‘A Degree Less Corporeal Than Water’ which is like a big storm coming), which makes this into a very powerful and one of the best Mystery Sea and Dale Lloyd releases so far. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
SCOTT TAYLOR – LEAVING EDEN (CDR by Sijis Records)
SLUGGO – PHASES (CDR by Sijis Records)
Two new full length releases on Sijis Records, out of London. Scott Taylor presents the follow up to his ‘Postcards’ release, see also Vital Weekly 387. More so than on ‘Postcards’ he is working in the areas of field recordings, taking recordings on a ‘sunday afternoon mass in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris and in and around the old Cathedral of Barcelona’. Certainly in the opening piece ‘Leaving Eden’, this leads to a somewhat sacred sound, of treated voices, whispering their psalms. The second piece, ‘Plumes Of Static And Smoke’ has a more collage like approach, but at the same time it’s a more open piece, employing various sounds, like doors opening and abrupt changes.
Also for Sluggo a full length, following a CDREP which was reviewed in Vital Weekly 395. Here too, somebody goes into one direction only, using a much more coherent sound than before. Two lengthy tracks (one over twenty-one minutes and one just over fourteen minutes) of computer processed feedback that ‘continually alter the phase in an uncontrollable way’. It seems that it was somehow mixed and not some outtake of a bigger whole. Quite a droney thing going on here, which in ‘Shekinah’ works quite nice towards a big crescendo at the end. ‘Henge’ remains on a quite side and seems to be hardly moving and stays through out on the same level, which works then well as an ambient drone piece. Like the Taylor release, a big step forward from the previous release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sijis.com
RADU MALFATTI & MATTIN – WHITENOISE (CD by W.M.O/R)
Now here’s an improvisation of extreme opposites: the silent trombone player Radu Malfatti vs the computer noise of Mattin. I guess the title here is supposed to be the programme: Mattin has some white noise (static, hiss) in his computer, which he plays back. Now the whitenoise coming from such an unlikely source as the trombone is an altogether different affair. Malfatti plays his trombone of course in quite an usual manner: one hears soft blows or maybe an occassional bang, but overal his trombone playing fits the scene really nice. It may be an unlikely meeting, but one that worked really well. Mattin is the person who helds back here and overall it sounds more like Malfatti: controlled, spacious and quiet. Quite intense playing with a careful built up throughout the two pieces captured here. An effort full of surprises and much to my surprise a well-made one! (FdW)
Address: http://www.mattin.org
USA/USB (2CDR compilation by The Shadow Puppet Recording Company)
Here’s a double CDR for a good cause: all proceeds will go towards the The World Trade Center Relief Fund. A cynic could ask: but how many people will actually purchase a copy? It doesn’t feature Bruce Springsteen, nor Sir Paul or Sir Elton and even by underground standards a lot of unknown names. In fact of the thirty-two involved artists, I only recognized TV Pow, Brent Gutzeit, Brekekexkoaxkoax, Accelera Deck, Glenn Bach, Dale Lloyd and Omnid. Many of the other artists were pulled out of the big internet and submitted their computer generated music pieces – at least that’s what I think. The title hints in that direction. To start with the negative aspect: there wasn’t a single stand-out track among the lot. But there wasn’t really a weak brother either. Many of the enclosed artists work inside in the fields of microsound and lowercase. Small crackles, static hum and processed drones form the basic ingredients of all of these tracks. As said, no real standout tracks, but nevertheless a fine journey for two hours. And it’s never bad to support a good case, whilst discovering new artists. (FdW)
Address: <omnid@optonline.net>
PAOLO VENEZIANI – THE PUDDLE EP (CDR by Tib Prod)
PAOLO VENEZIANI – THE FIRST FLOOR (CDR by Tib Prod)
The name Paolo Veneziani may not ring a bell right away, but he’s a visual artist, and did several of the covers for Tib prod. In the past he was also active as a composer of music, and the recordings on these two releases stem from the years 1996-1997. I am a bit clueless why they weren’t put onto one CDR. ‘The Puddle’ has four tracks of time stretched samples and a slow, almost trip-hop rhythm and technoid bass-lines. The title piece leads towards a more cosmic ambient affair.
On ‘The First Floor’ things move in a more experimental direction. Rhythm only exists by the sake of loops used, or super slowed down such as in ‘Before The Flood’. Whereas ‘The Puddle’ has a pleasent play, I thought that ‘The First Floor’ was a bit poor on ideas and that these poor ideas dragged on a bit too much for my taste. Not every musician is a great visual artist, and vice versa is also the case. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tibprod.com
MARGRAVE RUEDIGER VS. TROMBONE – TWO BROKEN TEETH AND A CRACKED RIB (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
I must admit I never heard of Margrave Ruediger and Trombone, but together they play a Roland SP 808, Zoom ST-224, Korg Electribe EA1, casio C-18 and Glockenspiel and their release was recorded live in Lyon, France at Le Placard headphone festival, for a bewildered audience of eightteen people. Although cut as one track on this disc, it’s ten distinctive parts of mostly melodic synth lines and some more daring experimental parts. At times a bit of experimental techno thrown in, like in ‘Casiotone’, which brings the whole thing more in favor of nice, almost poppy music and surely fits the recent releases on Burning Emptiness (away from the hardcore underground techno and into the land of popmusic). Nice alternative popthing. (FdW)
Address: http://www.burningemptiness.fr.st
BIG CITY ORCHESTRA – HI-FI STEREO TEST RECORD FOR PETS (8″ by Dhyana Records)
RUMPELN – I CAN LIVE WITHOUT MUSIC (8″ by Dhyana Records)
>From the ever so lovely Dhyana Records comes the first two in a series of eight eight inch records, all cut by Peter King in New Zealand. The first one is by also ever so lovely Big City Orchestra, who offer two pieces (of, do I need say, around eight minutes) of sounds that your pets will love to hate. Ever since the run out groove of ‘Sgt Pepper’ musicians are intriguid by the question how pets perceive our music and it’s known that some frequencies being inaudible to men but can be heard by pets. I don’t think however that a Peter King Lathe Cut pressing would reproduce those frequencies. What is left two densely layered Big City Orchestra tracks of which especially the b-side is quite nice: dense but with slight touch of melody. Quite a contrast with the other chilly a-side which sounds like a minimal set of detuned shortwave radios.
Anton Kauh aka Rumpeln might not be as well-known as Big City Orchestra, but he released some works before with Kollaps and Hausmusik and maybe you catched him with his tour with Console… I once saw him live and it was quite a more forceful thing than what I heard on record. On record he uses a simple, broken rhythm – maybe sampled in a very low resolution, with some noisy interjections. The second track on side a, ‘Station Of Deva’ samples in the same lo-fi manner trashy guitars (and with the subtitle being ‘It’s Red Noise Day’, the guitar player is probably Bill Nelson). ‘Rabarbabatz’ is again quite noise related and again in a more rhythmical affair. ‘Schleim Schleissen’ is a sort of contact microphone affair, and maybe the nicest thing on the record. The music of Rumpeln is quite minimal and maybe at times a bit minimal on the idea side and I think it works better seen live. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dhyanarecords.com
9-16 SPLIT SERIES (CD compilation by Fat Cat)
The fact that I like Fat Cat as a label has to do with first seeing their 12″s: plain white sleeves with holes drilled in it and a strong black/white inner cover design, plus they also had artists to offer which seemed new and each side was devoted to one artist. Fat Cat will release twenty-four of these 12″s, having done so far sixteen. There will also be three compilation CDs, with a track of each record. With number sixteen released, it’s now time for the second compilation, which is good news for me, since I don’t play that much vinyl these days. If you listen to these seventeen tracks (Duplo_Remote has two tracks) you immediately will note the many musical style in which this series operate (and that being the thing I liked so much about it, that it’s not just one style but many), from the soft spoken glitch music of Motion, Main or Alejandra & Aeron to the heavy cut-up, drum & bass and noise inspired music by Dat Politics, Duplo_Remote, Christoph de Babalon, Com.a or QT?. Odd-balls are the singer songwriter stuff by Avey Tare, the near classical approach of David Grubbs and the improvisations by Anna Planeta. This compilation is a fine taster in case you never heard of any of these people, or suitable for your walkman on the road. Or simply a souvenir for an excellent series. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fat-cat.co.uk
AIDAN BAKER – DREAMMARES (CDR by Mechanoise Labs)
How strangely unusual and wonderful title for an album with music like this. This is one of the albums I’ve been listening lately with great enjoyment and I’m really glad I can review it. Aidan Baker has a lot of releases recently on many different labels. Here he is on a diy label Mechanoise Labs, a CDR release with great cover design and artwork that goes perfectly well with the drone oriented music played by Aidan with electric and acoustic guitars, bass, tapeloops and samples. Aidan has a very tame approach to his warm droney music. It leaves an impression of being simple from one side, it is actually quite plain and elementary music, but with great depth. I specially like it because it sounds like handmade music, probably due to the guitar playing. The simplicity in this music is just seeming, all pieces are completely developed, the longer ones are made of few different parts fantasticly combined together. Dreammares is limited to 100 copies, I warmly suggest you to get yours sooner. By the way, Aidan Baker is releasing another album on the new Arret Arret Recordings in this period. I’m really looking forward to hear it, as soon as possible. (BR)
Address: http://www.mechanoise-labs.com
GHOSTHUNT – CRUSH SEA DOME SPIRIT (CDR by Binkcrsh)
The first CDR release from the net-mp3-label Binkcrsh. I don’t know why I expected ambient music on this new CDR album? Actually, I know, but should I bother you with that? OK I will, I expected ambient mainly for two reasons: the title sounds 100% ambiental + Can’O’Lard aka Lackluster has an EP on Binkcrsh and even tho I haven’t heard it yet, his music can be very atmospheric. Well, so much for that.
Crush Sea Dome Spirit by Ghosthunt starts with fast beats and rhythms. Things slow down a little in the second track, there are even two completely ambient tracks to keep the balance, but it is mostly with speed up textures and breakbeats. The rhythm is sometimes fast drum’n’bass, constantly varying, like Squarepusher. The beats are sharp and the production and the sound are very clear, I like that. Although this is not the kind of music I listen often, specially not lately, I like it. It will also fit nicely with the other music I play in my radio program called Mainstream. Ghosthunt makes some nice mainstream breaks and beats. (BR)
Address: http://c67.org/binkcrsh