NEGRU VODA – DOBRUJA REGION (CD by Fin De Siecle)
RURAL PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY (CD by Nexsound)
CAESAR ROMERO – THE GROTESQUE BURLESQUE REVUE (CD by Fin De Siecle)
ALESSANDRO BOSETTI – ZONA (CD by Grob)
MOLJEBKA PVLSE – TAMON (CD by Segerhuva)
MOUNT WASHINGTON – S/T (CD by Reify)
FORSYTH HEENAN – S/T (CD by Reify)
TEAM UP – S/T (CD by Reify)
ILIOS – ENCYCLOPEDIA RW (CD by Antifrost)
JOHN HUDAK/JASON KAHN/BRUCE TOVSKY – FOR THE TIME BEING (CD by Cut)
GOH LEE KWANG – INTERNAL PLEASURES (CD by Herbal Records)
PAULINE OLIVEROS – TARA’S ROOM (CD by Deep Listening)
SCOTT SMALLWOOD – ELECTROTHERAPY (CD by Deep Listening)
YOSHIO MACHIDA – INFINITE FLOWERS (CD by Amorfon)
THURSTON MOORE – KAPOTTE MUZIEK BY.. (CD by Korm Plastics)
VARIOUS ARTISTS – TRACKS AND FIELDS (2CD by Kill Rock Stars)
KAN MIKAMI – BACHI (CD by Turtle’s Dream)
CISFINITUM – “VS” (7″ by Drone Records)
SOLEILKRAAST – CHORESONIC PRELUDES TO A DARK CYCLE (7″ by Drone Records)
GUIGNOL DANGEREUX – 40N43 74W0 (3″CDR by Tib Prod)
SOUND OO – MICRONOISE (3″CDR by Tib Prod)
BEST OF PRION 2? (CDR by Prionmusic)
ML – MAN IS THE WARMEST PLACE TO HIDE (CDR by Piehead Records)
TIM BLECHMANN – S_N (3″CDR by Moka Bar Records)
THE TLEILAXU MUSIC MACHINE – A FLOW OF CODE (CDR by Minor label)
NEGRU VODA – DOBRUJA REGION (CD by Fin De Siecle)
Member of legendary dark project Megaptera, Peter Nyström, continue his journey into the territories of black sounds with his solo shuttle Negro Voda. The connections to Swedish Industrial label Cold Meat Industry are unmistakable with the evil death-industrial-expression on this first full length. Beginning with the gloomy work “Under The Ice” (divided into two chapters), the album opens dramatically with dark brutal ambient, reminiscent of some mixture between Lustmord and late Namanax. Subtle drones of crushing power electronics floats inside a cavern of echoed sounds and noises. As the first chapter ends the next chapter rapidly takes over with a storm of harsh noise rhythms familiar to the German Power Noise-scene around Ant-Zen Recordings. After the great opening the album slows down with the atmospheric goth-ambient track titled “Re-enter the mine shaft” of eerie choir and ghoulish voices built upon low tempo tribal rhythm textures. Towards the end we move into more gentle zones as the 10+ minutes track titled “Northern beauty” sees the light. The lonely sounds of Northern nature are nicely expressed into a work that in some ways reminds of Biosphere’s majestic ode to Norwegian nature on the amazing album “Substrata”. As everything seems to drift away into sonic beauty, Negru Voda opens the final gates to hell with the ghoulish death ambient track “The ghost of Leftwood Lake” putting an end to this quite remarkable sound experience. (NMP)
Address: http://www.findesieclemedia.com
RURAL PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY (CD by Nexsound)
Psychogeography (the term was coined by the situationist poet Guy Debord around 1950) is the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. This compilation attempts to explore this concept, by presenting the listener a series of changing sonic environments. Field recordings would seem to be the obvious approach to such a concept, but only the first track on this cd is composed purely of such recordings. Geoff Dugan offers binaural recordings made near a lake in New York state. The first half of the cd flows seamlessly together, and quite often I felt that I was listening to one long track. Its as if we have an audio version of the old Surrealist game, where on person starts a drawing on a sheet of paper and then covers it leaving only the edges of the drawing visible so that the next person would continue the drawing using the visible parts as a starting point. No doubt this is the result of the skillful track programming by the editor of this compilation. Artists like Francisco Lopez, Courtis (of Reynols), Jason Kahn, Andrey Kiritchenko, Tomas Korber / Gunter Muller, Lunt, the Moglass, Radian, Tom Carter (of Charalambidies) & Vanessa Arn, Martin Tetreault, Rosy Parlane, Steinbruchel, Kim Cascone, Kotra also appear on the cd. The contribution from Kiritchenko mixes outdoor sounds with spastic acoustic guitar coupled with digital noise. The peak of this cd is the track by the Moglass entitled “Koktebel” an outer body drone which levitates above your ears which would easily put to shame any post rock or digital shoegazer punter. The second half of the cd doesn’t maintain the cohesiveness of the first 8 tracks. Yet none of the tracks are slackers, but taken as a whole they create a work stronger than its individual parts. The CD ends with a collaboration by Kouhel & Freiband, a surprisingly noisy track, something which I would not expect from a Freiband work. Nothing better than going out in a blaze of glorious noise. (JS)
Address: http://www.nexsound.org
CAESAR ROMERO – THE GROTESQUE BURLESQUE REVUE (CD by Fin De Siecle)
“The grotesque burlesque revue” is a bizarre and disturbing tale based on the fable of Bluebeard. Performed by the art company called “The Dragon Ladies” the theatre piece gained cult status during the shows in 1997 and 1998. This seven track 3″ CD is a remixed version of the original soundtrack that was released as a limited edition. Even though you didn’t know, you wouldn’t question the fact that this is a soundtrack of some kind. Quite dramatic and atmospheric, the Caesar Romero does recall legendary soundtracks from composers such as Wendy Carlos and Bernard Herrmann. Overall electronic based, the musical expression is strange and dark with a frequent use of classical music elements such as shrieking violins and moments of orchestral symphony. What makes the soundtrack quite intriguing is the graphic and vital expression that makes it easy to imagine the scenes from the performed tale. Meanwhile it almost seems ironic with the sort of festive expression that saturates the music of such a dark tale. Grotesque carnival music you might call it. (NMP)
Address: http://www.finedesieclemedia.com
ALESSANDRO BOSETTI – ZONA (CD by Grob)
Of course almost every improvising musician wants to do a solo recording, displaying his qualities on his own instrument. Alessandro Bosetti is no different there. He is originally from Milan but lives in Berlin for some time now, playing with the local folks improvised music on his soprano saxophone. And as you may no doubt aware I am not a particular great lover of saxophones. But hearing this CD, I think I must adjust that a little bit: it goes only for the traditionally played saxophones. Because what Bosetti does here is something different altogether. By placing his microphones all over the place, he records his saxophone treatments, which is not anything like regular playing and makes recordings with that. Then he takes those recordings, takes them apart and re-arranges them on the computer. Small bits and pieces of his recordings are made into a new track. Taking bits of microphone one, then the same recording from a different microphone takes over, thus changing the piece. In all of these four pieces it’s hard to recognize any such a thing as a saxophone. It sounds more like ‘mouthstuff’ in the veins of Jaap Blonk, but more austere, more silenced. Especially the fourth piece is great. Playing on the edges of silence, he really knows to capture my attention. Great stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.churchofgrob.com
MOLJEBKA PVLSE – TAMON (CD by Segerhuva)
In some areas of the musical world, Moljebka Pvlse are true heroes, with their releases on Eibon, Cold Meat Industry or Old Europa Cafe. It’s an one-man band with Mathias Josefson from Stockholm at the controls. In Vital Weekly 394 I was quite pleasentely surprised by ‘Duhka’, which was a mighty droney affair. On ‘Tamon’ things move in a different way. There are some of the more droney and minimalistic outings to be noted here, like in the opening piece ‘In Dust And Ashes’, the middle ‘Arizona Recursive’ or the closing ‘A Bird Is Not An Animal’ (which is apperentely the soundtrack to a film by D&D Productions), but in the two pieces in between things occassionally furiously explode. In a highly digital way (digital high way?) this guy puts on some truely loud noise, in the best Merzbow tradition – or maybe even better, since not all of the recent Merzbow digital works are that much of an artistic succes – but it’s something that has been heard before throughout on say the better Merzbow or the better Lasse Marhaug releases. I think I would have preferred the more droney way of the previous release. Not that the noise here is bad or so but it’s miles apart from the other pieces, and that makes it a bit odd… (FdW)
Address: http://www.segerhuva.se
MOUNT WASHINGTON – S/T (CD by Reify)
FORSYTH HEENAN – S/T (CD by Reify)
TEAM UP – S/T (CD by Reify)
With this release Reify recordings are starting with their work, releasing new, experimental, acoustic, improvised music, also making definition of the sound that they will care for in the future. ‘Mount Washington’ is collaboration recording document of once-in-a-lifetime recoding session done by eight improvisers from four countries on the eve of Line space line festival of improvised music 2003 at painter Patric Wilson’s Los Angeles home. Behind Mount Washington project you can find whole ensemble of well or lesser known improvisers from improv scene like: Martin Blume (percussion), Jeremy Drake (amplified acoustic guitar), Tucker Dulin (trombone), Wolfgang Fuchs (soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, contrabass, clarinet), Chris Heenan (alto sax, bass clarinet), Anne LeBaron (harp), Torsten Muller (contrabass), Philipp Wachsmann (violin and electronics). The result of this meeting and recording session is cacophony of various sounds and instruments structured into chaotic, incoherent mess, placed in seven longer improvisational tracks. Focused on the character of combining the instruments without order and limits this whole sound exploration gives completely pure feeling of compactness, naturalness and depth. So this first-time meeting of this unique all-star improvising large ensemble cause with good result.
Forsyth Heenan is second release by improv label Reify. This is first of ongoing collaboration between the Brooklyn based guitarist Chris Forsyth and the Los Angeles based multi-reed player Chris Heenan. First they played in 2002 in New York City and have continued with their work closely despite they are living on opposite sides of the continent. Chris Forsyth is also working in electro acoustic improv duo psi, together with Ernesto Diaz-Infante and others, which work resulted with 15 releases in last 5 years. Chris Heenan is working in projects Mount Washington and Team up, plus with many other artists. Now together they are trying to connect their playing skills in this joint project that results with fine, sonic, glacial soundscape. Calm long falls of guitar feedback and articulated clarinet are waving and mixing into fine composition. With their instruments they are trying to picture clean, dark, ambient sound, with sporadically noisy and glitchy moments, in which they succeeded.
Team Up is improvising trio of Jeremy Drake (amplified acoustic guitar), Chris Heenan (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet) and Stephe Flinn as third revolving member on percussion and drums. Sound is very similar to previous reviewed Reify release, which means improv acoustic sound, of course with fewer instruments and sounds but more feedback and noise. This recordings documents group’s third incarnation (past members have included percussionists Brian Christopherson and Jerome Bryerton ) and marks continuation of their constant aesthetic evolution and developing marked by unique contributions each percussionist has brought to the ensemble sound. They are concentrated on sound exploration and first of all focused on details and than to build totality out of them. Interaction is really important. They never overwhelm each other, making quiet combination of noisy structure and gentle sound texture. (TD)
Address: http://www.reifyrecordings.com
ILIOS – ENCYCLOPEDIA RW (CD by Antifrost)
More than ten years ago, ‘Encyclopedia’ by Ilios was released. It was his third solo release, and even though I am sure I heard it back then, I don’t remember what it sounds like. It was also the first release on Antifrost, a Greek label that brought us many interesting works over the years by the likes of Francisco Lopez, Leif Elggren, Lasse Marhaug and other delights from the more serious underground electronic music. Time for a little celebration and why not with a rework/remix CD of that very first release? All of the usual Antifrost suspects are present here, plus some I never heard of like, Panos Ghikas, Xabier Erkiza or Nishide Takehiro. Even when I don’t recall ‘Encyclopedia’ the original release, things are taken into extreme areas here. They are either very quiet, like the obvious Lopez track, Xabier Erkiza or Ilois, or the full noise blast by such experts as Mattin or Jazzkammer. It’s the tracks in between those extremes that I personally like, like the second Ilios track, Jason Kahn, Marc Behrens. They take the original sounds and create something that sounds very much like their own thing. Less extreme but more listenable. Overal a nice compilation – now I must go and look for the original. (FdW)
Address: http://www.antifrost.gr
JOHN HUDAK/JASON KAHN/BRUCE TOVSKY – FOR THE TIME BEING (CD by Cut)
>From the world of laptops, here come at least two of my favourite players on the scene, although actually it must be understood as a John Hudak plus guest CD. On the first piece he plays with Jason Kahn and on the second with a guy named Bruce Tovsky. Of course Kahn is well-known as percussion players cum laptopist and for what he has being doing either solo or in combination with others, it seems to me that John Hudak is the most natural person to work with for him, almost like a twin brother. In their duo piece, performed on the occassion of Kahn’s installation ‘Winter’ at the Diapason Gallery in New York, the winter becomes almost audible. Sounds come in like a icy winds blowing of the northpole and on top the sound of snowflakes is kindly processed into that of small stones towards the end. Gentle, minimal but with a nice edge to it.
I never heard of Bruce Tovsky, but he and Hudak play guitar which is fed through a Max/MSP programming environment (in other words: it’s fed through the computer to change the shape of the sound). It starts out minimal and nice, but it couldn’t hold my attention throughout. Things were too minimal but also, strangely enough, too haphazard for me and towards the end the piece derailled, which broke the chain of sounds in a rather nasty way. Facit: the first piece is great, the second only partly. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cut.fm
GOH LEE KWANG – INTERNAL PLEASURES (CD by Herbal Records)
Some parts of this world are just not very well known for experimental music, and Malaysia is no doubt one of them. From there comes a man, Goh Lee Kwang, who has already produced six albums and several tracks for compilations. He is also one of the founders of Experimental Musicians And Artists Cooperative Malaysia and has made music for theatre and visuals. His album presented here was recorded in Stuttgart in Germany and contains improvisations for a DJ mixer. “The line connection of ‘output back to input’, the electronic signal becomes audioable”, I read on the press blurb, so I think it’s another example of feedback treatments. It could have been a normal mixer too, as far as I’m concerned. That, maybe poor concept, aside, what I hear on this CD is also not sounding utterly fresh and new, but it’s not bad either. Kwang stays firmly in his concept, but he somehow manages to produce an album that carries enough variation in it to be enjoyed throughout. Sometimes I think the stylus can be heard here and there, but maybe it’s not. If Otomo Yoshihide is your man, maybe Goh Lee Kwang can be yours too. (FdW)
Address: http://www.geocities.com/herbalrecords
PAULINE OLIVEROS – TARA’S ROOM (CD by Deep Listening)
SCOTT SMALLWOOD – ELECTROTHERAPY (CD by Deep Listening)
Two new releases on the Deep Listening label from Pauline Oliveros, the first being by Pauline herself. Ever since the sixties she has composed lenghty, minimal and meditative pieces and since some time she works with her own ensemble Timeless Pulse and self-built sound processors called the Expanded Instrument System. On this new release of older works – both are from 1987 and were previously released on cassette – Oliveros plays a small accordion on ‘The Beauty Of Sorrow’ and on ‘Tara’s Room’ she plays voice, percussion and flute. The first piece is ‘intended to assist the listener in connecting and relaxing with deep feelings’ – and therefore maybe less appropiate for someone like me, sitting upright, staring out the window and trying to concentrate on his next review. Meditation may not be my thing, but ‘The Beauty Of Sorrow’ is a beautiful, melancholic piece. The accordion notes are played sparsely and the instrument is well suited to play such melancholic music. ‘”Tara’s Room” is an invocation for wisdom especially during an unfamiliar journey’ it says on the cover and I must admit I have some trouble with the piece. Slow bangs on the percussion, the flute recorded with lots of reverb and the vaguely religious eastern chanting sound like, again, vaguely religious piece of music, and I simply are not ready for this. Maybe it appeals to those who are open to that, but maybe I’m just to closed for that experience.
The second release is by Scott Smallwood, his fourth release. We only discussed his first CD ‘Desert Winds: 6 Windblown Sound Pieces And Other Works’ (see Vital Weekly 320), but his new one takes his music into a totally different direction. Smallwood leaves the field recordings aside and moves to recording early 20th century electrical devices, including “induction coils, a diathermy machine, an ultra violet ray oscillator and a sectorless wimshurst machine”. Recordings of these devices were used to create the pieces of this CD. Somehow I think he just uses the sounds as he sees fitting them in a piece. If you ever heard the sound of lightbulb that is near the end of its life, you may have any idea how this release sounds: the sound static electricity. That may sound simple, but Smallwood knows how to craft a very fine piece of music. Some of these pieces are downright ‘industrial’ – and I mean industrial in the sense of industry, not the musical term – and ‘noise coming from a factory’ like in ‘Energex’, but in other instances the statics are cut up into rhythms and even music, like in ‘Sunkraft’ or in ‘Ropiquet’. Here Smallwood creates zombie-like techno music, more electric than Pan Sonic. Especially in these two tracks, Smallwood shows us the potential of creating ‘music’ out of ‘noise’ – and I see even possibilities of a remix project there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.deeplistening.org
YOSHIO MACHIDA – INFINITE FLOWERS (CD by Amorfon)
Some time ago, in June, few Japanese improvisers were in Macedonia. One of them was Yoshio Machida, and they all played in 2 cities, Bitola and Skopje, and you can read something about that in this month’s Wire on their Global Ear page. In Skopje they played with one Macedonian musician Oliver Josifovski (a former member of the band Foltin), a fine double-bass player who in this occasion played on that instrument + contact microphones attached on it. Everyone of the 5 musicians played a solo set first, presenting their set-up and music, and at the end they played altogether. Yoshio’s solo part was the most quiet of all, with kinda fragile electro-acoustic sound (with a strong accent on the acoustic side) from his self-designed steel-pan and Max/MSP on the lap-top. The live sound I heard from Yoshio then was quite different compared with the studio sound of his album Infinite Flowers which I heard later. That’s probably mainly because when Yoshio played live he was alone playing on both steel-pan and lap-top, and on the album almost all of the pieces are made by collaborative playing with Tetsuro Yasunaga on electronics and Keiichi Sugimoto on guitar (both members of Minamo), and Yoshio plays steel pan, steel guitar and electronics. The sound is calm and somewhere between ambient and improvised music, or improv music that sounds like ambient, a successful cross-over of both. Relaxing and easy-listening. What I miss on this album are some more edgy moments, it’s improvised music and I’d like it to be more unusual and strange. But nevertheless, it works alright here even without that, I think it would be nice if Yoshio goes even more into the ambient direction with his music and set-up as they are here. That works best for me in the tracks Fragrance 1 & 2. Subtle improv music that sounds like nice ambient. (BR)
Address: http://www.amorfon.com and http://www.yoshiomachida.com
THURSTON MOORE – KAPOTTE MUZIEK BY.. (CD by Korm Plastics)
Number 12 in a series of reworkings of Kapotte Muziek live recordings. In the past composers like RLW, Tietchens, Illusion of Safety, Leif Elggren, a.o. were invited by Kapotte Muziek to rework some of their work. For number 12 Thurston Moore accepted the invitation. So Kapotte Muziek delivered a recording from a concert that took place on april 16th, 2002, at Flywheel, Easthampton. Thurston Moore reworked it two years and a few months later, on a day in june. The result is a 25 minute piece that is offered now by this new Korm Plastics release.
It is not said that the Moore’s reworking implies that one way or the other the original sounds of Kapotte Muziek are on this cdr. The invitation gives room to other possibilities as well. The information of Korm Plastics suggests that Moore recreated the concert “by removing the concert and replacing it by its own playing, where the original recording serves as a score”. But let us turn from speculation to the actual music on this cd. My overall impression is that it is a one take recording, that sounds like a lo-fi live recording. This contributes to the charm of this release. You can imagine Moore sitting in a room with a guitar, piano and other devices around him, making his meta-music. The noisy excursions end with a tonal and atmospheric piano piece that brings some rest after a day of hard labour. After this epilogue, what is left is the sound of a cassettedeck winding the tape, and the breathing of Moore. Finding some sleep at last? Where the original Kapotte Muziek tapes may have functioned as a score, what Moore created sounds again as a score, this time of a movie that tells the story of a day in the life of a man working alone in his studio on Kapotte Muziek (DM).
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl
VARIOUS ARTISTS – TRACKS AND FIELDS (2CD by Kill Rock Stars)
‘Tracks and fields’ is latest Kill rock stars compilation. It’s follow up to the 2002 compilation ‘Fields and streams’ and collects 43 previously unreleased tracks by bands that KRS loves and release by now. This is second of three compilations that will appear as trilogy in the spirit of original Kill rock stars/stars kill rock/rock stars kill trilogy of the 90’s. On this issue of comp series can be found so many different names (some of them really notable), and find so many variations of guitar styles. But that’s not all. On first CD in between mellow jazzy variations of His name is alive and early 90’s rock sound of Superchunk, you can find pure punk energy from Gas Huffer and untouched 80’s new wave electro by The Capricorns. Acoustic moments are provided by Cynthia Dall, emotional by Lovers and experimental by Xiu Xiu. Gravi train!!! offers another beautiful and clean 80’s new wave electro punk and Jucifer, their hard track played live. Worth mentioning are also tracks by The King cobra, which covers well known track ‘This town ain’t big enough for both of us by Sparks; and track by Semiautomatic in which they experiment with old fashioned new wave/post punk. Second cd again, gives us a mixture of names and sounds. It starts with completely lo-fi recording by Shoplifting and continues with melodic college rock by Biography of Ferns. Radio Berlin are trying to mess up with psychedelic disco punk; Slumber party with fine electro and Sleetmute nightmute with noise/hardcore variations. On this compilation can be also found rarities as ‘Industrial noise blues’ by Male slut, project consisted of Thurston Moore, Jim O’rourke, Steve Sheely and Lee Ranaldo. This song, that’s about Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Patty Smith and Joe Ramone, after that has been recorded a bit more professionally as a Sonic Youth forthcoming thing. Next few noticeable tracks that follow and closes the comp (laudably) are: Nedelle with her acoustic piece and angel voice; Sahara Hotnights with old school surf punk rock; Sweet heat with their New York garage sound, C Average with long metal/noise/hardcore like track, Dead meadow with psychedelic acoustics and at the very own end The Decemberist with their calm, melodic, melancholic, no depression alt country. Tracks and fields is not just another boring rock compilation that you can’t allow to listen whole. It offers interesting bands, songs, vide range of styles, combinations, experimentations, live tracks, demos, versions· that keeps you listening lustily till its end, in its total running time of two and a half hours. Comp is provided with excellent cover designed in 80’s style and photography by (beautiful) models (Anna and Jerry) with 80’s styling (design and photography by fon-lin neu). Third of this comp series will be out in 2005 or 2006 and will be called ‘Roads and tracks’. Waiting for it. (TD)
Address: http://www.killrockstars.com
KAN MIKAMI – BACHI (CD by Turtle’s Dream)
Kan Mikami is a poet, novelist, and an occasional film-star (Merry Christmas, Mr.Lawrence). But he is also a singer/songwriter of ‘japanese blues’. In the 70s he was a huge star in the folk scene. During the 80s he entered into oblivion. The PSF label rediscovered him and many of his solo-work is available from this label. This opened a new career for Mikami, who played since with many improv and rock musicians from Japan, like Keij Haino, and many more.
Happily now also a european label brings some of his work to the public. Alas it is a mini-cd containing only 9 songs, recorded during his visit in France in february this year. In the last song Mikami, who sings and plays guitar on all tracks, is accompanied by Fabrice Eglin on feedback guitar.
Mikami is a very expressive performer with a very idiosyncratic way of singing and playing the guitar. Yes, he has the blues! Because of this I enjoyed the songs although I don’t understand one word of it. But Alan Cummings translated the poems and can be found in the enclosed booklet of this nice release. Mikami’s personal guitar style, his unique voice, make him a universal troubadour of a violent and sensual blues (DM).
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com/
CISFINITUM – “VS” (7″ by Drone Records)
SOLEILKRAAST – CHORESONIC PRELUDES TO A DARK CYCLE (7″ by Drone Records)
More new drones courtesy of Drone Records, interesting label that works since 1993 and releases only 7″ vinyls with droney music, run by the people from Troum/Maeror Tri, and they’re from Bremen, Germany. Just recently I bought parts 1 and 2 of Troum’s Tjukurrpa Trilogy (I already had part 3 before) from a really nice music shop Lotus in Thessaloniki, Greece, and while being there I found out that the owner of that shop, Prokopis Tzilis, has released a vinyl from Maeror Tri (they don’t exist since 1996; from 1997 it’s Troum) on his label Poeta Negra longer time ago, in case you’re not familiar and want to search for their older records. However, Troum’s Tjukurrpa CDs are quite impressive post-industrial droney ambience music and the band members leave an impression that they are pretty much involved into the drone scene on a worldwide level (specially for more obscure-ish sounds), so you can generally trust them with what they release on Drone Records, as far as this musical expression is concerned. They released 4 new 7″EPs at once in May/June 2004, two were already reviewed in Vital 434. The other 2 are by Cisfinitum and Soleilkraast.
Cisfinitum is a Russian duo from the post-industrial scene of Moscow. Their EP is called “VS” and has 2 tracks (one on each side) titled Curve and Curse, which certainly adds more to the mystery. The industrial aspect in their sound here is obviously dominant (specially in the second track) and present mainly through repetitive machine-alike noises. Also howling windy sounds and echoes. Grey atmosphere, it’s a bit too much of the same for me and too grey, without many changes. If you like dark ambient, you might like it better. But I like that music too, just not that much in this moment.
Soleilkraast is another story, specially in the, for me more interesting, track on side B, which is made with a recording of a piano improvisation that can be heard through the track, and also electronic treatments, bass synths, absence and meditation, as it says on the cover. It’s an interesting quieter piece, a bit blurry and lo-fi. More modern production might point out certain sounds and sure make it sound more clear, but that way it will lose it’s antique touch and charm. The track on side A is much louder and intense, very different. Starting from silence it grows very slowly into noise, using, I’ll quote from the cover: analogue synthesizer, audio tape, effects, compression, voluptuous violence and Wagner. Soleilkraast is a new French one-man-project from Nantes and this is his first release. (BR)
Address: http://www.dronerecords.de
GUIGNOL DANGEREUX – 40N43 74W0 (3″CDR by Tib Prod)
SOUND OO – MICRONOISE (3″CDR by Tib Prod)
After a whole series of CDRs and MP3s, Tib Prod now move into releasing 3″ CDRs and these are the first two. Guignol Dangereux has had previous releases on Tib prod, and here he presents a kind of conceptual work around the nightmare of 9/11. By using taped radio control messages – no doubt all in the public domain – and improvisations on two self-built theremins, Guignol Dangereux brings five small pieces of electronics – mostly quiet without going too much in the areas of ambient. But more quiet than his previous work, without losing his also more rhythmic edge. Quite nice indeed – of course as far as ‘nice’ is an appropiate word for such a heavy loaded content.
The man behind Sound 00, is also the same one as the person behind Every Kid On Speed or Every Kid On Acid, but for his monniker Sound 00, he operates in the corners of ‘micronoise’. Playing around with clicks and cuts fed through to a line of distortion – and I mean the plug in, not the pedal – the result is only mildly interesting. Maybe the idea of creating noise with digital means is a nice one, but the result however is not very strong. The ideas behind the short tracks (eleven in total) are too minimal to keep the full attention even for their short time span. I think this could be done better. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tibprod.com
BEST OF PRION 2? (CDR by Prionmusic)
Before Prionmusic was called like that, it was called Prion Tapes and it started in the mid 80s with releases of experimental, electronic music but also some more guitar oriented music, such as by PCR (the band behind the label) and Doc Wor Mirran. Over the years I lost track of their releases, but this ‘Best Of Prion’ will gain me some insight of their more recent doings. I recognized some of the names, such as PCR, Tesendalo (maybe the most well-known thing on Prion, for he had various LPs out in the past), Harald-Sack-Ziegler and Der Pilz. Others were new to me, such as J. Inutile, UPM, Edition Grundmann u. Neubert, Doppelwirkung, Autumn, Besentiel, Placmodium Syndrom and Forbidden Syndrom. Some of this music sounds really naive and lo-fi, even when it deals with electronics, such as Doppelwirkung or UPM, and don’t seem to extend beyond the home environment in which it was made, but J. Inutile’s dark ambient piece was quite nice, and PCR rock cut-up too. Autumn’s more gothic sounding cliche synths are over the top, but for that, they are also nice. Forbidden Citizen and Tesendalo are on the edges of darker electronic music. Quite a varied bunch here, and at times quite tedious, but a nice overview indeed. (FdW)
Address: <prionmusic@yahoo.de>
ML – MAN IS THE WARMEST PLACE TO HIDE (CDR by Piehead Records)
Of course you’ll have to excuse me for I’m not very familiar with the works of John Carpenter (you know: of The Carpenters), and certainly not his early scores. The band ml (underscore intentional), being Rian, Tanner and Laird from Oregon and Washington, asked themselves the question: “What would John Carpenter do?” – but the resultant CDR release has very little to do with John Carpenter. In these seven tracks, ml shows an interest in crossing boundaries of early seventies cosmic music and late nineties techno music. Sequencer lines and arpeggio’s run amok, and a mild beat ticks the time away. Quite a pleasent and entertaining release, this one. With the sun shining mildly and an occassional drop of rain, this is the perfect music for late summer listening. Joyful, with a small touch of sadness never far away. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pieheadrecords.com
TIM BLECHMANN – S_N (3″CDR by Moka Bar Records)
Without any information comes the release by one Tim Blechmann on the Moka Bar Records label. The cover says that ‘S_N’ one piece is and that it is from this year and that Blechmann plays bass and laptop. Dark unearthly rumbles going on here, which gradually, as the piece evolves, grow into a more heavy droning matter, or that should be the idea. The sounds slows down and speeds up every now and then, which sort of destroys the idea of good drone music. It started out ok but as time went by, the quality was not really that good anymore. It is all of the place and doesn’t seem to have any coherent structure of idea. A pity. (FdW)
Address: <timblechmann@gmx.de>
THE TLEILAXU MUSIC MACHINE – A FLOW OF CODE (CDR by Minor label)
I got a demo from this guy a long time ago, than he went to Holland to work or something and than after couple of mails spontaneously we stopped our communication. Couple of years after I got his release on small German label named Minor label, signed as The Tleilaxu Music Machine. Music on this release is identical to sound that I heard on his previous material. Loud, harsh, noisy soundscapes are constantly driving without stopping. Hums, sporadic noisy melodies, distorted unrecognizable mutated vocals, delayed pulsating drones· are appearing from time to time to change the atmosphere. And than again noise, noise and noise. Loud, intensive, ear piercing and harsh, creating chaotic mash or granular syhthesis. Try to remain to its end. (TD)
Address: http://www.minorlabel.de