BIOSPHERE – AUTOR DE LA LUNE (CD by Touch)
KUSH ARORA – UNDERWATER JIHAD (CD by Record Label Records)
OREN AMBARCHI – GRAPES FROM THE ESTATE (CD by Touch)
STEPHAN WITTWER – SICHT 04 ETC. (2CD by Domizil)
BURCH RENDERS & REDUCERS MAMA – THEATERMUSIK (CD by Domizil)
SCHURER – VEXATIONS (CD by Domizil)
DOMIZIL VS ANTIFROST LIVE (2CD by Domizil)
COMPOSITIONS FOR GUITARS VOL. 2 (CD by A Bruit Secret)
FABRICE EGLIN & JEROME NOETINGER – PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS & LIGHTNIN’
RAG (CD by A Bruit Secret)
EARTHMONKEY – AUDIOSAPIEN (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
EARTMONKEY – DRUM MACHINE (miniCD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
AIDAN BAKER – AN INTRICATE COURSE OF DECEPTION (CD by Angle Rec)
GONE BALD – TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY (CD by Gone Bald)
IAN ANDREWS – CEREMONIAL (CDR by Fallt)
TU M’ – POP INVOLVED [VERSION 3.0] (CDR by Fallt)
[SIC] – GORILLA MASKING TAPE (CDR by Piehead Records)
NADJA – I HAVE TASTED THE FIRE INSIDE YOUR MOUTH (3″CDR by Deserted Factory)
ARC/PHOLDE – EYES IN THE BACK OF OUR HEADS (CDR by Worthy Records)
PHOLDE – RELATING TO THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE (CDR by Mystery Sea)
TOMAS KORBER – MASS PRODUCTION (CDR by W/M.OR)
DAVENPORT – FREE COUNTRY (CDR by Digitalis Industries)
HINTERLANDT – THE POWER OF DEL TE (CDR by Grain Of Sound)
ROBOT SPEAKER – PLASTIC TV CHANNEL NO.5 (CDR by BedroomBrain Records)
GINTAS K & DDN – THE PULSE AND CLICK OF YOUR CYBERHEART IS MELODY TO
MY ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL CONVERTER (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
SOUND_00 – OCTOBER GIRL (CDR by Suizid Recordz)
BIOSPHERE – AUTOR DE LA LUNE (CD by Touch)
As a young man I had children versions of some of the Jules Verne
books and one of them was the journey to the moon story. a beautiful
hardcover book with original etchings as far as I remember. As a
young man I liked learning about our solar system and the planets and
so I liked this particular Verne story a lot, which is a true
visionairy one (or maybe the later scientists were Verne readers and
modelled the Apollo after Verne’s design?). In any case, Radio France
Culture asked Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, to use their archival
source material to compose a piece and Geir choose the Verne story to
set to music. The travel starts with a twenty some minute intro, that
lifts you up and then the journey starts. It might be no surprise
that this deep ambient with capital ‘D’ and capital ‘A’. Very low
end bass sounds and high end pitched sounds pushed to the back, this
is the ideal music to listen on headphones at night, on you balcony,
watching the stars. It’s both the sound of a spacecraft aswell as the
sound of weightless space. Ambient music is maybe not at a point
anymore where really exciting new stuff happens, and in that respect
the new Biosphere is no different, but Biosphere belongs to the very
artists in the ambient music field who do a really good job –
throughout. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
KUSH ARORA – UNDERWATER JIHAD (CD by Record Label Records)
Only 22 years old, and already active in music since the age of 15,
is Kush Arora from the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally as
Involution, then as Clairaudience, and now a solo artist. I must say
that I have no idea what an underwater jihad is. A holy war against
sharks? Kush Arora calls his music ‘bhangra-industrial crossovers’,
but, just as I don’t know what an underwater jihad is, I have no much
clue about bhangra music. The music on his CD is a blend of
middle-eastern drum patterns, some sampled singing (also
middle-eastern/Indian nature) with some electronic processing – let’s
say the western influence in this release. I think it’s pretty
skillfull made but for me personally it’s not something I liked very
much. Too often I had the idea of listening to Muslimgauze samples
and I think the world do not need any Muslimgauze copycat, because he
was the best copycat of his own work. The vaguely ethnic music that
was otherwise part of the dish, could’t interest me very much, nor
the hip hop/techno music in some of the other areas. I think it’s
well-done, this release, but unfortunally failed to hold any of my
attention. (FdW)
Address: http://www.recordlabelrecords.org
OREN AMBARCHI – GRAPES FROM THE ESTATE (CD by Touch)
When Touch released the first Oren Ambarchi I was surprised to see
the work of such an unknown man on such a well-known label, and to be
honest, back then I wasn’t that impressed with ‘Insulation’. Things
changed over the years a lot. Ambarchi is not a guy fooling around
with guitar sounds and computer, but foremost he plays guitar and he
improvises with others – countless CDs are the result. His second
solo work for Touch, ‘Suspension’ was already a more personal album
but now he takes matters to his own completely. The first piece is
like Oren Ambarchi live: playing a few notes, lots of silence – or
rather: space – between the notes and nothing else. But on ‘Girl With
The Silver Eyes’ he add to a similar guitar playing also drums and
hammond organ, however they are also very sparsely used, like a few
small blocks here and there and not throughout. Unlike ‘Remedios The
Beauty’, in which percussion, piano, strings (the only instruments
played by others) play a more continous role in the music, and it
almost becomes a lounge music piece, or maybe an one man Town &
Country. And then the final movement takes us back down, just
electric guitars again, but it seems that this is almost a sparser
piece of music then the opening piece. A single note is played over
and over again, but with various sustains (although these differences
only work on a very small level. If you are still looking for a good
introduction to the solo work of Ambarchi, here’s one. Play this and
then a lot of his work with others fall to place too. And currentely
on tour again in Europe. No reason to miss out. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
STEPHAN WITTWER – SICHT 04 ETC. (2CD by Domizil)
BURCH RENDERS & REDUCERS MAMA – THEATERMUSIK (CD by Domizil)
SCHURER – VEXATIONS (CD by Domizil)
DOMIZIL VS ANTIFROST LIVE (2CD by Domizil)
Maybe the Swiss label Domizil hit upon a secret wallet: so many new
releases at once. The first one is a double CD by Stephan Wittwer,
whose ‘Streams’ CD (Vital Weekly 291) was his second solo CD in
eleven years, but now it didn’t take that long. Wittwer plays guitar,
for what it’s worth to know. In ‘In A’ there are guitar sounds,
clearly recognizable, but there are mutated inside the computer. The
ever so mysterious SuperCollider programm is responsible for these
treatments. In other tracks, the guitar is only present because we
are told so. Here the crackles of plug ins and ever changing
algorhythms run amok. It’s a pretty long one this CD and not always
to access. Served in a smaller dose it is however quite nice. The
second CD has only one track and is the opposite to the hectic first
disc. It starts out with guitar plucking that is gradually being
treated with computer techniques but half way through the piece the
piece unfolds into drone music of a more heavy nature. Strictly
personal I’d say that this is side of Wittwer that I liked better.
The music of Burch Renders And Reducers Mama is of an entirely
different nature. Apperentely these are twins who studied computer
and electronic music, and played many concerts in hotel bars. In
between they found time to compose music for theatre plays. Rather
than lenghty pieces of music these are short songs, quirky popsongs.
They work best when there is no singing in there. All the songs with
vocals are sung by the original actors from the plays and they don’t
have the best voices. But once the material is instrumental, things
are top. Imagine Sagor & Swing with the drums replaced by a rhythmbox
and the hammondorgan replaced by cheap keyboards. But there is a
certain sunny character throughout these songs that makes the
listener very happy. At least that’s what it did for me. Hard to say
what these theatre plays are about, though. Not that I really care,
the music is fine as it is.
What exactely the ‘Vexations’ in Schurer’s case are is not clear.
‘Vexations’ is a small piano piece by Erik Satie that had to repeated
some 800plus times to get it’s entire performance. Schurer, who
sometimes operates as Teleform, offers twenty-eight small sketches of
piano playing, but not just regular piano playing (just in some
cases), but also computer processing of these sketches – well, or
maybe other sketches, who knows. Sometimes Schurer touches upon the
melancholy of Satie, such as in ‘Compass3’ (Schurer didn’t use
Satie’s love of bizarre titles) and sometimes it removes the piano
sound and soft crackles remain. Of course it’s easy to compare this
with Mitchell Akiyama’s recent piano CD (see Vital Weekly 421) and
the winner is Schurer. His delicate small playing wins the prize. Not
really close to Satie’s ‘Vexations’ but indeed a new counterpart to
Satie indeed.
The final new Domizil release is another double CD. In 2003 Coti K
and Ilios from the Greek Antifrost label were travelling through
Switzerland and they met Jason Kahn, Marcus Maeder, Bernd Schurer and
Steinbrüchel. During various concerts in Switzerland they played solo
concerts aswell as duets. This double CD has a disc of various solo
outtakes and a disc of various collaborations. On the solo’s CD
Ilios’ track is a standout in terms of upfront noise and Bernd
Schurer is also on the noisy side but less upfront. The other four
tracks all hoover round in the areas of microsounding crackles, deep
bass tones and some high end peeps. Nice tracks for sure, as all four
are main players on the scene, but maybe a bit too regular for my
taste.
In thah t respect I could more or less say the same about the duo’s
CD, but here the soft reputions of sound built up carefully and there
is a little bit more tension around, probably due to the fact that
the players are unfamiliar with eachother but each of the five pieces
is a good quality laptop improvisation. (FdW)
Address: http://www.domizil.ch
COMPOSITIONS FOR GUITARS VOL. 2 (CD by A Bruit Secret)
FABRICE EGLIN & JEROME NOETINGER – PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS & LIGHTNIN’
RAG (CD by A Bruit Secret)
In a way both of these new releases on the French improv label deal
with guitars, but both from a different perspective. The first one is
a compilation of four Japanese guitar players, each with his own
specific playing of the guitar. The CD opens with Tetuzi Akiyama
playing ‘nylon string resonator guitars’, which do not sound like a
guitars, but rather like standing waves by Alvin Lucier. By contrast
Toshimaru Nakamura’s ‘Gt Flo #2’ is, despite being described as
‘purely carved within feedbacks between and [sic] electric guitar,
two guitar amps and three pickups’, a calm piece of plucking an
acoustic guitar. Just to be followed by the electric storm of Otomo
Yoshihide’s outburst in ‘Plastics Pick & Mini Motor’. This man makes
a hell of noise of his own, but when five of them pick up their
electric guitars, things go very silent. Most odd. Taku Unami’s piece
concludes the CD with feedback arising from an acoustic guitar and a
pedal steel guitar and is a nice one. Five contrasts for guitar.
Diverse yet uniform in their radical approach of the guitar.
The second is by guitar player Fabrice Eglin and electronics
specialisty Jerome Noetinger, the latter probably more known than the
first. Noetinger plays tape-recorder, feedback machines and pick-ups
in such a way that I have rarely seen. Hectic, but somehow always on
control. In this duet the guitar and the feedback meet up again, but
unlike rock guitarists, guitar and feedback are seperated and played
by two musicians, even when the two instruments used (guitar and
reel-to-reel machine) are connected to eachother, as it would do in a
rock situation. I hasten to say in a ‘hard-rock’ situation as at
times these boys rock the house pretty loud. They put on a loud show,
but before they do and just after that there is silence –
inaudibility for several minutes. Thus they create a careful tension
between noise and silence. An intense improvisation but also a
rewarding one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com
EARTHMONKEY – AUDIOSAPIEN (CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
EARTMONKEY – DRUM MACHINE (miniCD by Beta-lactam Ring Records)
No doubt my mistake, but this is, I believe, my first encounter with
Earthmonkey. I am told that this is the project by Peat Bog, who also
plays on a couple Nurse With Wound records and I am led to believe
that Steve Stapleton is also present on one of these releases,
although I couldn’t find any information on the cover. This is one of
those releases that I played a lot of times, not because I
particulary liked or disliked it, but because I found it so hard to
form an opinion about it. The pieces on both the full length and the
mini CD are lenghty jams around a central theme – usually a jarring
rhythm machine that continues on end. On top a bunch of samples are
placed, like a drunk opera singer under the shower and then a guitar
plays endless spacey jams on his guitar and his collection of 100
foot pedals. Not the usual Vital Weekly dish, but there are moments
when I was working and really could ‘dig this shit’, but on the other
hand, there are also moments when I switched it off in total
annoyance. But somehow the annoyance wasn’t strong enough not to give
it another try. Krautrockers with a love for Nurse With Wound jamming
around with The Legendary Pink Dots should take notice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.blrrecords.com
AIDAN BAKER – AN INTRICATE COURSE OF DECEPTION (CD by Angle Rec)
More and more Aidan Baker is as people like Jim O’Rourke, Merzbow,
Hakan Lidbo, Frans de Waard… – they’re everywhere!… Till now
there’s sure more than 15 hours of solo music from Aidan Baker and
I’ve heard about 4 hours so far. This album is released by the small
label Angle. It’s made of 4 pieces, the first one being the longest
with it’s 25 minutes and it’s a blissful drone ambience, extremely
calm and kinda warm, like something from Windy & Carl. The common
peaceful atmosphere goes on but also some gentle noises appear later,
not disturbing at all but adding more intensity, and also the mood
gets darker at the end. Aidan knows how to make good and interesting
droney music, he’s developing the sound with lots of patience,
realizing the ideas in a very proper way and without much unnecessary
improvising, ’cause this is still drone music and there’s not much
space there for typical improvisations, one should have an idea what
to do. And Aidan knows what to do to keep it interesting even when
the pieces are longer than 20 minutes. So it’s not a surprise Drone
Records have noticed this and he’s releasing a 7″ for them soon.
Excellent. (BR)
Address: http://www.angle-rec.net and http://listen.to/aidan
GONE BALD – TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY (CD by Gone Bald)
Originally Gone Bald is from Zagreb, Croatia but ever since their
start they are from Amsterdam. This year they exist for ten years
which is celebrated with this compilation of a new Gone Bald track
aswell as a host of other Dutch bands. Ten years old but somehow I
missed out on them. Gone Bald plays energetic rock music with a lot
of wind instruments, at least judging by the fifteen minute track on
this CD. I believe the windinstruments are a new feature on this
track and they are played by people from the Pink Noise Quartet.
Other rocking bands here are Peach Pit, Mika and Makazoruki. Punk is
never far away for them, but unfortunally for me it is. Most
interesting were Living Ornaments with the electronica experiments
(and more regular visitors to Vital Weekly) and Terrie Ex (of the one
punkband I like, The Ex) and Andy Moor’s guitar improvisation. It’s
to see that Gone Bald have such diverse friends, hopefully bringing
the weirder stuff to a wider audience. I hope they have more succes
than bringing rock music to me. (FdW)
Address: http://www.gonebald.net
IAN ANDREWS – CEREMONIAL (CDR by Fallt)
TU M’ – POP INVOLVED [VERSION 3.0] (CDR by Fallt)
Fallt could have fooled me with their new releases: DVD cases with
print work in matching colours on the cover aswell as on the sound
carrier, yet I couldn’t see that they were CDRs… Ian who, you may
ask? He comes from Australia and produces music since 1981, as a
member of The Loop Orchestra, but also under the name The Horse He’s
Sick. Andrew plays rhythmical music, long pulsating tracks. Of course
no surprise for someone who is a member of The Loop Orchestra, but in
his solo work he works completely electronic. In some of the tracks,
like ‘Gynoecium’, ‘Departure’ or ‘Jaffa’, the influences of Chain
Reaction or Vladislav Delay are apparent, but Andrews can get away
with it. The more interesting pieces to be found here are ‘Libidinal
Day’, with it’s gamelan samples and ‘Da’, which has a strong modern
classical/minimalist approach to it. Here Andrews moves away from the
fairly traditional minimalist techno movement and puts his own, much
stronger voice, on rhythmical and minimalist music. Changes are
subtle in all of his tracks, and the capture the listener. And the
opening sound of ‘Working The Hole’: is that a sample of
Gilbert/Lewis’ Dome project? This and otherwise a very nice release.
It’s been a while since I last heard some music by Tu M’, the Italian
duo of Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli. Much of their
previous releases were alright, but there was always something
missing, or rather: not every track was as strong. Each of the works
had hit or miss character. I can’t say that has changed in the time
that I didn’t hear their music but the majority of the fourteen
tracks found on this CDR is quite enjoyable. More than before Tu M’
seem to take their inspiration from popmusic, with sliced up parts of
guitar playing and it is processed with all the usual laptop
technqiues. Also more than before the balance between these two
different sources is much better. But as so many with Tu M’ releases
that I heard there are some very nice tracks in here, but also some
that I think would have been left off, like ‘Plum Cake’ or ‘What Time
Is It?’. Maybe the release would have been too short, but it could
have captured one’s attention throughout. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fallt.com
[SIC] – GORILLA MASKING TAPE (CDR by Piehead Records)
Although I don’t remember this very well, I think I heard music by
[sic] before, but I did I don’t remember it now. Let’s safely state
that ‘Gorilla Masking Tape’ is my first real encounter with her
music, for [sic] is one Jen Morris from Canada. Apperentely she uses
such diverse sources as the Japanese koto and field recordings, but
on both accounts she could have fooled me. In none of the six lenghty
tracks I recognized much of any instrument, maybe safe for a
wandering melody in ‘Le Pukiste’. Mostly she transforms her sources
into deep an dark ambient pieces and she does that rather well,
although not much happens in this kind of music which is really new
or adds much to what you may know about dark drone ambient music.
After various releases on Piehead that were all in the category of
‘breakbeat dance techno with a microsound twist’, it’s good to see
that their 2004 series is moving in different directions too.
Hopefully it will bring fans of the aforementioned shopping mall
category to the bin where it says: ‘pretty decent dark ambient drone
and related music’. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pieheadrecords.com
NADJA – I HAVE TASTED THE FIRE INSIDE YOUR MOUTH (3″CDR by Deserted Factory)
ARC/PHOLDE – EYES IN THE BACK OF OUR HEADS (CDR by Worthy Records)
PHOLDE – RELATING TO THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE (CDR by Mystery Sea)
Aidan Baker remains a busy bee. Last week we reviewed a solo release
from him under his own name, and now it seems he also has a solo
project under a different name: Nadja. It is explained to us that as
Nadja he plays more ‘heavy ambient music, combining ‘swirling
soundscapes with heavy guitar riffs and drums to create what might be
termed drone-doom metal’. This 3″ CDR is his second release as Nadja,
following the full length ‘Touched’ from 2003. I must say I am not
very impressed with ‘I Have Tasted The Fire Inside Your Mouth’. The
self-proclaimed qualifications are indeed rightly chosen: this might
be ‘drone-doom metal’, but the twenty-one minutes are filled with a
wall of guitar and drums sounds that hammer wildly around, but not
necessarily go anywhere. I always thought this kind of music was
called ‘space-rock’.
Baker is also a member of ARC, together with Richard Baker (not his
brother, you might want to know). The third member, Christoph Kukiel,
is not presented on this recording, but instead the two Baker’s team
up with Alan Bloor, who is sometimes Knurl and sometimes, like here,
Pholde. As Pholde he plays amplified metal sheets and Aidan plays
guitars, woodwinds, strings, percussion and Richard drums and
percussion. Despite the input of three people playing percussion it’s
not really a percussive thing. It plays a role, but it’s set admist
this wall of ambient guitar playing and highly reverberated walls of
metal sheet scraping. At times not to dissimilar to the Nadja
release, and even when throughout the three tracks things go out of
control, the collaborative structure of the piece is kept in mind, by
all three. On a scale of 10, Nadja would be 5 and the Arc/Pholde
collaboration 7.
Pholde is also part of the slowly expanding imperium of Mystery Sea.
Unlike others on Mystery Sea, Pholde plays seven tracks (as opposed
to just a few very lenghty ones), but the strange thing is however
that it’s hard to see them as different tracks. The experience of the
soft metal scraping, an occassional bang and tons of reverb is one
lengthy track of highly underwater ambient. A deep sea soundtrack of
a submarine with no windows, but still being able to swim forward.
Small rocks are being hit against the submarine and fish swim by.
Mystery Sea, a label devoted to the more fluid character of ambient
music, have succeeded to add another fine example of the label
philosophy to their catalogue. (FdW)
Address: http://www.desertedfactory.com
Address: http://www.worthyrecords.com
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
TOMAS KORBER – MASS PRODUCTION (CDR by W/M.OR)
Swiss guitarist Tomas Korber is one of the upcoming names in
improvised, electronic music. He has done several collaborative
works, such as with Steinbruchel and Gunter Muller, but slowly has
more and more solo recordings. On this new CDR he plays, according to
the cover, guitar and electronic devices. As far I’m concerned it
could have listed ‘anything + electronic devices’, as this material
sounds unlike a guitar and could be just any sound source being fed
through electronic devices. I don’t mean this as an critique, but as
a compliment. Not that I hate the guitar but it’s always nice to hear
the guitar being used in a totally alienated way. And that’s exactely
what Korber does. In this single piece of three-quarters of an hour
he shifts through a whole bunch of electronic textures, ranging from
static hiss to the processed hum of motors on the guitar. Korber
plays here a minimal card, that only occassionally leaps into noisy
patterns, but for the bigger part is about ambient textures, although
not necessarily appealling to the real ambient crowd. In his approach
he sounds like a very early Jim O’Rourke and that’s surely not the
worst thing to be compared with. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mattin.org
DAVENPORT – FREE COUNTRY (CDR by Digitalis Industries)
More from Digitalis Industries (see also last week). Free Country.
What a great title. Is it about a country that is free? Or supposed
to be free? Or is like Free Jazz, or Free Improv? Somehow I think
it’s more the latter than the first. This ten-people group (although
for one reason or the other I don’t think they play all at once) play
different kinds of musics, but somehow the pieces fit to eachother.
The title piece a drone rock piece and ‘Hymn To Broken Neck Bone’ is
likewise but more minimal. ‘Thou Shall Be Waking’ sounds like a
Current 93 going protest song, but it’s very loosely played on
guitars and fiddles. ‘Taking On The Rails’ is also loosely played,
semi-improvised of violins, metallic percussion and guitars, but here
no singing, but that happens again in ‘Play It Once, Sam’, also a
song that isn’t free from political connotations in the most free
rocking setting on this CDR. Five tracks that are alike and different
at the same time. For those who like Jackie O-Motherfucker and No
Neck Blues Band a must-investigate and maybe a must-have. (FdW)
Address: http://www.digitalisindustries.com
HINTERLANDT – THE POWER OF DEL TE (CDR by Grain Of Sound)
Jochen Gutsch, aka Hinterlandt, produces his follow-up to the
well-received ‘Poprekordt’ release (see Vital Weekly 404). Well
received by me, that is. I am not sure how well it in terms of sale,
even when I would still recommend everyone to get a copy. That
release was a fine blend of popmusic influences with the more
electronic nature of microsound. I wouldn’t say that this is a
masterpiece that can’t be better, but the new ‘The Power Of Del Te’
is a bit less. Gutsch takes sounds that are otherwise ignored, such
as accidental noises. The grounds Gutsch walks here are more
commonground microsound than ‘Poprekordt’. I understand that ‘The
Power Of Del Te’ is the counterpart of ‘Poprekordt’, but maybe it’s
more about the economical recycling of sounds that were left out of
making ‘Poprekordt’. It’s nevertheless not a bad record at all:
certain parts (like the opening sequence) are certainly worth, but
the sequence following that is too regular microsounding of cracks
and beeps. I’d say this is a nice introduction, but ‘Poprekordt’ is
the thing to beat. (FdW)
Address: http://www.grainofsound.com
ROBOT SPEAKER – PLASTIC TV CHANNEL NO.5 (CDR by BedroomBrain Records)
Music can be tiring and still be nice. Let me explain. Robot Speaker
(aka Takuma Ebisawa, Tokyo, Japan) plays nice but tiring music.
Twenty tracks in some forty-seven minutes, all with the same crazy
sample madness. Lifting his sound elements from radio, TV, both music
and spoken word, he chops it up in his sampler and combined with
rhythmmachines and patterns, things get even more crazy. And tiring.
This music is great, witty, short and to the point, but it should be
a 3″ CD(r) to maintain it’s full power. Now tiredness leaps in and
brings the album a bit. A very fucked up version of plunderphonica.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.bedroombrain.com
GINTAS K & DDN – THE PULSE AND CLICK OF YOUR CYBERHEART IS MELODY TO
MY ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL CONVERTER (CDR by Burning Emptiness)
From the ever active Burning Emptiness, no longer dark underground
techno, but maybe even a ‘pop-label’, more and more releases deal
with collaborations between artists. Here Gintas K, from Lithuania
and DDN, the men behind the labels, swapped sounds for over a year,
which were ‘remade and destroyed, sampled and resampled, cut and
copypasted, mixed and edited’. Gintas K on his laptop full of
software and DDN on guitar, theremin, synths and computer. The result
is an odd mixture of semi-cosmic music, with arpeggio’s from synths
but at the same time some high-end software sound synthesis. Could
sound like a drag, but it’s not, and that has mainly to do with the
fact that all tracks are shorter than two minutes and there is a
great variety in approaches throughout this CDR. There is a funny
cut-up style of analogue and digital means, which makes this into a
very short but nevertheless long enough release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.burningemptiness.fr.st
SOUND_00 – OCTOBER GIRL (CDR by Suizid Recordz)
Another droney release I’ll review for this week’s Vital is October
Girl by my friend Sound_00 aka Toni Dimitrov. It’s interesting to
write about music made by people you hang out with. And since I don’t
make much music myself, it’s sure great to know someone in my city or
country makes this music. Sound_00 (who also runs Acid Fake
Recordings) this time finds himself in a drone territory, conscious
about that for the first time I guess (or perhaps not?), making a
drone piece of 33 minutes. I’d say I’m positively surprised with how
it sounds, it starts with few crackles and then distant lo-fi
distorted sounds appear and they move on for 20 minutes, creating the
main body of the piece (there’s not much bass, except at the end). In
the last 10 minutes other new sounds appear and that makes it
interesting, though it might be more interesting if those or other
new and different layers of sounds appeared more in the first half
too… It would be great if this is a start of more thought-out and
developed drone music to come. Let’s see… (BR)
Address: psychohead@t-online.de and www.acidfake.tk