PRINCIPIA AUTOMATICA : SYSTEMATIC SONORITY ( CD on MINUS
HABENS RECORDS)
This CD starts out wonderfully in a massive and scary place
and I found I was quite willing to let my ears wander about
in it for a bit. Memories of this creepy place return
sporadically throughout the CD and how I wish that
once I had entered this strange forest I could have stayed
there. Sadly (in this case) there are a few forays onto the
beach marked ‘beat’ and this is where, as Neil Young once put
it ‘disappointment lurks’ .After all had I wanted to listen
to Clock DVA wouldn’t ich have bought a CD by himthem. The
rhythmic excursions on this slice of silver do not even try
to escape Mr. Newton’s sonic influences…all that’s missing
are the paranoid, apocalyptic mutterings and the clenched
teeth that grind. Systematic Sonority appears to be a
collaboration between Implant Code and someone else and would
do well in a hard chill cellar. (MP) (e.mail:
i.iusco@agora.stm.it)
SINGLE CELL ORCHESTRA: SINGLE CELL ORCHESTRA – CD on ASPHODEL
)
We all like drugs CHORUS: We all like drugs Except those of
us who don’t. This music is another example of the basically
normal, although it has been made with utmost care and sounds
fabulous. It starts with an amazingly high techno track which
ends just in time. This is followed by a rather lovely
drumbass piece which is unfortunately ruined by the waves of
horrid preset sounds that eventually suffocate it. (Can’t
stand most preset sounds, me.) And so it goes for the rest of
this release…there is another area of note further on down
the road,as it were. It is a track, the number of which
eludes me for the moment, which sounds so much like half the
riff Rick Wakeman used circa the somewhat appropriated
overture at the end of ‘The Journey To The Centre Of The
Earth’ .I don’t like memories like these being dredged up by
anything so it’s back to the store with this one. Pluspoints
for it’s undeniable drug activation potential, though. The
fifth letter of the alphabet and a bit of this should get you
into orbit, no worries mate. (HP) (e.mail:
asphodel@interport.net)
BISK : TIME (CD on Sub Rosa)
Wow! That was my first reaction to the first track on this
new item from extremely unusual and great Belgian label Sub
Rosa. This is a very intense experience…it’s like there is
a new sound introduced every time there is a beat in the bar.
The music is made by one Naohiro Fujikawa, who may be a
drummer in real-time-life. I’m not sure…he is certainly one
hell of a programmer. The music twists and turns donning
different rhythmic disguises as it thrusts and pounds it’s
way out of the loudspeakers. I was left with the idea after
listening to it a few times that I should have heard it on a
bigger (read I louder ) sound system. One thing it sort of
all sounds the same, which is not a bad thing if you like the
sort of sound that it has. Personally, I think the first
track conveys the character of this music quite well and
would be happy to hear it as part of a compilation sometime.
(HP)
(address: p.o. box 808, 1000 brussels, belgium)
MICK HARRIS/JIMMY PLOTKIN I COLLAPSE (CD on ASPHODEL)
Music made with guitars as a primary source will always
inspire me to use stuff from Main as a comparison.(I think
they reached a major highpoint with Firmament 2…finally an
album of music made from completely new and unrecognizable
sounds… ‘Hz’ , the arty box set of six CD singles contains
some major lowpoints on the other hand. Bobby shouldn’t sing,
geddit ?) I really got into this collaboration between Mick &
Jim (sounds like an ice cream company, dunnit?). It starts
out well with the track ‘Momentum’, which is as absorbent as
a sponge with big holes. Murk lurks in Mick’s soul and Jimmy
won’t wash cars (well, that’s what I read anyway).The gents
continue grinding away at their machines, flexing their
drones and using titles like ‘Collision’, ‘Collapse’,
‘Drench’ and ‘Dissolve’ to frighten the children some more. I
liked it all with one exception… ‘Drench’, I think, because
it incorporates what sounds like a goddamm yedaki (that’s
digeridoo to you Rolf)…and if there’s one instrument that I
have heard enough of lately (well, for the last few years)
this is it. Shame because it distracts. Worthwhile anyway.
(MP)
(e.mail: asphodel@interport.net)
RAPOON: DARKER BY LIGHT (CD on SOLEILMOON)
Robin Storey, spaced cadet and man behind Rapoon has produced
what is for me his most interesting release since ‘Raising
Earthly Spirits’, which was released by Staalplaat a while
back. (The first track on ‘Raising Earthly Spirits’ is called
‘Alchiva’ and is THE Rapoon track as far as I am concerned.
It is ten minutes long and opens a lot of doors down that
long corridor leading to wonderland.) ‘Darker By Light’ has a
similarly ritualistic quality to it, starting with a bunch of
Tibetan monks growling before breakfast The blurred,
eccentric rhythms so characteristic of Rapoon smudge their
way through, dragging delay trails like jetstreams behind
them as they are stirred into this muddy pond. Midrange
frequencies linger like silver snail smears on a cold
morning. It’s like watercolour paints which are allowed to
trickle and blend into each other, creating ,by chance, new
shades, new shadows. I enjoyed the sequence of tracks on the
CD too…there is a definite sense of ‘motion towards’ and
when it’s over a certain feeling of having arrived. This CD
is far, far superior to the other Rapoon product which came
out more or less as at the same time titled Errant Angels.
Errant Angels is an audio document (let’s be kind here! ) of
a pirate radio broadcast of a live performance by Mr Storey
somewhere in England and which I guess, will soon end up in
the bargain bins. Sod the Angels, get Darker. (MP)
(e.mail:soleilmoon@aol.com)
SHEA-RIMBAUD-HAMPSON :SUB ROSA LIVE SESSIONS (CD on SUB ROSA)
An interesting (and perhaps predictable) collaboration
between three of the trendiest names in the ‘alternative’
scene at the moment. David Shea was recently in Europe to
promote his latest CD ‘The Tower Of Mirrors’ (also on Sub
Rosa) which stunned me when I first heard it. I had been
waiting a while to hear so much in such a short space of
time. The first track on this live session is a duet twixt Mr
Rimbaud and Mr Shea. Scanner meets Sampler in a swirling mix
of Sheasounds with (live?) intercepted telephone
conversations. There is a brief interruption by a bit of a
breakbeat and theremin vox (?) before it returns to the sound
track.
I really enjoyed the reapplication of sounds by David Shea. A
lot of the material he uses in this session has been
incorporated elsewhere. Back- and foreground change places
continually. Extremely odd combinations of sounds occur –
Shea’s post-Penderecki samples and arrangements don’t quite
cut it with a (possibly Robin’s) techno section and there is
a rather awkward fade of the track ‘The Land Of Pure
Illusions’ by Shea which was recently released by Sub Rosa as
their first vinyl foray into the dance arena. The second and
last track on this live set was performed by Mr Shea and
Robert Hampson and already at the start sounds much more
subterranean than it’s predecessor. (Although there are
thoroughly ecstatic moments such as when a Perrey/Kingsley
sample is combined with Bobby’s serious guitar and a load of
heavy,heavy breathing. Suddenly we break through to a fifties
movie set which is slowly torn apart by a very gnarled thing
while twelvetone trumpetbirds yurp their appreciation. There
is a (very) brief distracting abstraction of rhythm which is
so short it is almost a memory of itself. The terrain shifts
more and more slowly becoming very thin and transparent.
Mostly it glows with the joy of melding minds merging music.
I also enjoy the very ‘live’ feel of this CD and don’t miss
for a moment the chink of beer glasses as they collide with
unsuspecting crania. Excellent stuff by a smart trio. (MP)
(address: see above)