BRIAN EVENSON WITH XINGU HILL & TAMARIN – ALTMANN’S TONGUE (CD by Ant-Zen)
TIGERSMILK – FROM THE BOTTLE (CD by Family Vineyard)
PAUL DUTTON – ORALIZAITIONS (CD by Ambiances Magnetiques)
TAKU SUGIMOTO – PRINCIPIA SUGIMATICA (CD by A Bruit Secret)
RALF WEHOWSKY/BRUCE RUSSELL – MIDNIGHT CROSSROADS TAPE RECORDER BLUES (CD by A Bruit Secret)
THE SCOTCH OF ST.JAMES – LIVE AT AMPLIFY 2004: ADDITION (CD by Confront)
MARTIN KÜCHEN – MUSIC FROM ONE OF THE PROVINCES IN THE EMPIRE (CD by Confront)
WASTED (Compilation CD by Mirex/Cock Rock Disco)
SOMATIC RESPONSES – POUNDED MASS (CD by Hymen)
ET SANS – POUR NOUSSES TOUSS LES TROUS DE VOS CRANES (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
TRANSIENT TRAVELS (CD compilation by Domizil)
PAUL GREGOIRE – DOULEUR SOURDE (CD by Ambiances Magnetiques)
ROUGE CIEL – VEUILLEZ PROCEDER (CD by Ambiances Magnetiques)
PUNCK – NOWHERE CAMPFIRE TAPES (CD by Afe Records/Crtl+Alt+Canc))
ANDY ORTMANN – NIGHTMANIA (CD by Nihilist Records)
PRURIENT – THE BARON’S CHAMBER (CD by Nihilist Records)
MACHINE BOY – DEPRESSION (CDEP by Incubator Records)
DIE SPATZEN – SNOW BIRDS (CDR by ESF Records)
DIE SPATZEN – AUTUMN SONGS (CDR by ESF Records)
FILTER FEEDER (3″CDR by Entr’acte)
DAVE PHILIPS – HOLE/HOLY (3″CDR by Entr’acte)
THE MILGRAM OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY EXPERIMENT – TRAIL OF DROPLETS (3″CDR by Entr’acte)
ENTR’ACTE SAMPLER VOLUME TWO (CDR by Entr’acte)
NARCOTIC DREAMS – CURSED NIGHT (CDR by 804noise)
DRAFTANK – ORANGE BOOK (CDR by Ristretto)
MY FUN – SUNDAY BEST (3″CDR by Ristretto)
SUPERCILIOUS – VIVA EL PROTOCOLE, MY FRIENDS! (2×3″ CDR by Monopsone)
DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS – NO WORDS (CDR by ConV Net.Lab))
MATT BORGHI – IMAGES (CDR by Slobor Media)
TBC & GUY – LIEDER UBER PFLANZEN UND BAUME (CDR by Wachsender Prozess)
TBC & GUY – ANTI-GRAVITATION (7″ by Knistern)
ODRADEK 4 (CDR and magazine)
PROCESSING QUARTET – S/T (CDR by 804noise)
FIRST (MP3 by N Netlabel)
BRIAN EVENSON WITH XINGU HILL & TAMARIN – ALTMANN’S TONGUE (CD by Ant-Zen)
“Altmann’s Tongue” is the collaboration between the professor and author Brian Evenson and the two sound artists Xingu Hill and Tamarin. Based on the first short story collection by Brian Evenson titled “Altmann’s Tongue” (1994), the album contains the spoken word by Brian himself and the atmospheric soundtrack by Xingu Hill and Tamarin. The stories of Brian Evenson are grotesque and dark. Therefore the choice of letting Xingu Hill and Tamarin do the soundtrack makes sense, since both artists usually works in the dark and dull area of ambient sound. Musically the album is first of all built on subtle drones of noises and concrete sounds, reminiscent of Xingu Hill’s collaboration-project with Black Lung on the soundtrack for the movie “The Andronechron Incident”. Using the album as background listening quite soon becomes drowsy and uninteresting, because of the low frequency sounds layers and the ongoing speech. With some intense listening on the other side, the strange world of “Altmann’s Tongue” becomes quite an interesting experience, adding a whole new dimension to the art of literature! (NMP)
Address: http://www.ant-zen.com
TIGERSMILK – FROM THE BOTTLE (CD by Family Vineyard)
Tigersmilk presents their second cd, recorded live on november 4, 2003 at The Empty Bottle in Chicago. This improv-trio consists of Rob Mazurek on cornet and laptop electronics. He is also known for his work with Chicago Underground and has 4 solo albums out.
Jason Roebke plays acoustic bass and works in the Chicago area with formations like Rapid Croche, Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio and Terminal 4. Percussionist Dylan van der Schyff is from Vancouver. He works with several Vancouver-based projects and musicians (Talking Pictures, New Orchestra Workshop, Brad Turner, Peggy Lee, and Tony Wilson among others). He did also make recordings with George Lewis, Barry Guy, Scott Fields, Dave Douglas, Wayne Horvitz, a.o.
But what counts now is what these three have to offer us as Tigersmilk. Fully improvised music that is not of the most accessible kind. The feeling of jazz is always there. But the paradigm of bizarredeconstruction and complexity dominates their approach. Through bizar and turbulent excursions, introspective and slow passages and concentrated playing they make their mark. I enjoyed the high-energy eruptions by Mazurek. Also the many-sidedness of drummer Van der Schyff, a player with character. Again it’s dark and intellectualistic group-improvising they offer, so for the hardcore impro-lovers only I guess. (DM)
Address: http://www.family-vineyard.com
PAUL DUTTON – ORALIZAITIONS (CD by Ambiances Magnetiques)
Vocalist Paul Dutton strikes back with another solo-album now for Ambiances Magnetiques. A few years ago the Ohm/Avatar label released his “Mouth Pieces”-album. Paul Dutton belongs to the select company of vocal artists like Phil Minton, David Moss, Jaap Blonk, a.o. Together with these three artists plus Makigami Koichi, Paul Dutton performed as the Five Men Singing at the Victo Festival in Canada. But already in the early seventies he choose the path of soundpoetry. From 1971 to 1989 he was member of The Four Horsemen, a famous canadian quartet specialized in soundpoetry. From 1989 Dutton continued as a member of another famous canadian experimental outfit named CCMC (John Oswald a.o.). Also he published several books of his poems. The pieces on his new cd range from english spoken poems to pieces mixed of speech and sound, to pure soundpoetry. Verbal, non-verbal or anything in between, Dutton in all pieces is interested in the sound qualities of his voice performance. In verbal pieces like “Else” or “First movement” it is clear that however verbal and about meaning, the sound-qualities of the performance are of a same importance. Dutton himself defines the spectrum he covers as ranging from speech to music. So in his vision the border between literature and music is a gradual one. Sometimes he comes close to tuvanlike throat singing (in ‘Sonorality’). A piece like “Wolf-chant” brings some shamanistic ritual by some unknown tribe to my mind. Other pieces are just hilarious. Dutton tries once more to expand he technical and expressive potentials of his soundpoetry. Albums like this one make you astonished about the possibilities of the human voice. What an instrument! No electronic treatments or overdubs are used, except some overdubs in “Sugar” and “Ther”, two poems where Dutton added some sound-singing. Its music that has to be seen to be believed!
Address: http://www.actuellecd.com/
TAKU SUGIMOTO – PRINCIPIA SUGIMATICA (CD by A Bruit Secret)
Taku Sugimoto is a man who is always in for surprise, although I’m sure this is not the way he thinks about those things. The ‘principia Sugimatica’ is a scheme for him to play (and other instruments), in which he tries to simplify the notation for compositions, mainly symbols, which he only means anything to Taku himself. It’s a way to control whatever he is playing. The seven pieces on his CD are all for guitar and are titles like this: ‘.. .3m/6 3m.. . 3m//6. (left) 3m . ..3m/6 3m. (right)’, which is the title of the fifth piece. With intervals that make sense, Sugimoto plays a single note on his guitar and is quite for the rest of the time. This is a highly rhythmical word, if this word can be applied here. The sounds drop in a regular intervals and that is some form of rhythm too. I have nothing against onkyo sounding CDs, but what Sugimoto does here, onkyo in combination with a rigid conceptual approach: that is simply too much for this boy. I thought it was very hard to get through this album, and nothing seemed to be moving me here. A much curious affair this one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com
RALF WEHOWSKY/BRUCE RUSSELL – MIDNIGHT CROSSROADS TAPE RECORDER BLUES (CD by A Bruit Secret)
Last week we reviewed P16.D4’s re-issue of ‘V.L.N.R.’, now it’s time to return to the present and have a look at Ralf Wehowsky’s latest collaboration. As per usual, solo recordings by Wehowsky are pretty rare, for as a musician he rather works together with other musicians, music being about interaction and all that. Here he works, for the second time, together with Bruce Russell. The first collaboration, ‘Sights’, was released by Russell’s own Corpus Hermeticum label. The main inspiration for this new collaboration is the good ol’ blues and musique concrete – two seemingly unrelated forms of music, but as Russell says in the booklet, ‘both are children of the twentieth century’ and we know a lot of old blues because they were recorded to sound carriers. Russell taped his guitar playing onto analogue sound equipment (including tape-splicing, looping and other such fine things from the old school electro-acoustica), thus maintaining the hiss and crackles of old recordings and Wehowsky is responsible for the editing of the sounds through computer means. The guitar plays a dominant role on this CD and is being fed through many sort of processings. Going back and forth through various tape edits, this is foremost an album of improvised guitar playing and with little bits of musique concrete weirdness thrown in. It’s very much a work of both, rather than one guy being the processor of the other guy’s sound-material. It’s, I think, not a very common work for Wehowsky, but because of that, it stands firm aside from much of his other work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.abruitsecret.com
THE SCOTCH OF ST.JAMES – LIVE AT AMPLIFY 2004: ADDITION (CD by Confront)
MARTIN KÜCHEN – MUSIC FROM ONE OF THE PROVINCES IN THE EMPIRE (CD by Confront)
The UK improv label Confront now have a ‘collectors series’, in a plastic shell with simply graphics. The recording by Tim Barnes, who plays prepared (snare) drum and amplification and Mark Wastell who plays ‘amplified textures and tuned metal’, was recorded in Berlin in 2004. The textured piece of scraping, scratching and touching the surface, with occasional brushes playing the snare and the various textures, is a very nice piece of playing objects as instruments and instruments as objects. The whole thirty-five some minute piece breathes silence, concentration and is an example of the skills and innovation of both players. Great improvised musique concrete.
As you careful readers might have noted before, I don’t like the saxophone very much, so it was with some caution that I put in Martin Küchen’s solo CD in them machine. Other than that he is a saxophone player I don’t know anything else about him. The fifteen short pieces on his ‘Music From One Of The Provinces In The Empire’ were recorded at Fylkingen in Stockholm and I think it’s amazing stuff: the saxophone, alto and soprano are ‘prepared’, meaning that whatever Küchen does with his saxophone, it doesn’t sound like one. I’d be very curious to know what it is that he did with his saxophones, because somewhere vaguely along the lines there is some blowing sounds to be recognized, but by and large it sounds like a lot of other sounds, experimental music or what it is, but not a saxophone. Feedback like treatments, contact microphone rumblings and occasional blowing. If all saxophones would sound like this, it would be my favorite instruments, I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://www.confront.info
WASTED (Compilation CD by Mirex/Cock Rock Disco)
Rumors say that the first weekend in February was pretty awesome in Berlin for everyone interested in noisy electronics. “Wasted” was the title of the breakcore mini-festival delivering two nights of fast and furious breakbeats and dancefloor destruction. If you are one of the unlucky ones (just like me!) that missed the event, you might be happy to know that German breakcore-label Mirex (daughter of Power Noise label Ant-Zen Recordings), has immortalized the event on this cd. It is a very nice and varied release with a wide spectrum of artists from the breakbeat underground. Highlights on the 15-track album come from Bass Force One as well as from Pure. Both artists deliver some excellent tracks of extreme darkside-oriented breakcore. Especially Pure (who in fact was the co-organizer of the entire Festival) impresses with the track titled “Figth ‘Em” consisting of icy noise-drones swirling inside a storm of aggressive Techstep-rhythms. Overall the quality level of the entire compilation is very high. If you are already familiar with the sound style of the Mirex-label you will know what to expect. If not, you’ll have to prepare yourself for 70 minutes of merciless Breakcore Noise-freakout. (NMP)
Address: http://www.c10cl12.com / http://www.cockrockdisco.com
SOMATIC RESPONSES – POUNDED MASS (CD by Hymen)
What a great album! “Pounded mass” is the fourth full-length from Welsh brothers, John and Paul Healy, calling themselves Somatic Responses. Ever since I put my ears to the contribution track “Oblique” on the classic Hymen-compilation “Teknoir” (1999), I have been truly following the musical adventures of Somatic Responses. And in fact the couple apparently still manage to find new unexplored territories within their certain style of expression. Somatic Responses works in the areas between Industrial, Power Noise, Drum’n’Bass and IDM, with a few associations back to earlier Autechre. The style is unmistakable. Their trademark is the complex dislocated and broken beats, distorted intelligent constructions, fascinating sonic structures, force and sweetness intertwined. What separates Somatic Responses from many other projects from the Technoid-scene is the ability to combine harsh sounds and warm ambience into a superb blend. Beauty meets ugliness. Like floating in landscapes of futuristic decay, the listener gets surrounded by harsh technoid breakbeats that swirl inside dark waves of sonic ambience. Sinister as well as beautiful! (NMP)
Address: http://www.klangstabil.com/hymen
ET SANS – POUR NOUSSES TOUSS LES TROUS DE VOS CRANES (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
Some water has passed on the bridge since I first reviewed Et Sans in Vital Weekly 293. Back then it was a duo of Roger Tellier-Craig (who is a member of Fly Pan Am and Godspeed You Black Emperor) and Alexandre St-Onge (who is a member of Undo and Shalabi Effect). Now it’s a quintet with the same two guys, plus Felix Morel (Fly Pan Am), Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed, A Silver Mt Zion) and Stephen de Oliveira. Also they moved away from the early drone related works into a field in which various forms of alternative popmusic of the last thirty-five years pass by. The music is quite an interesting collision of rock noise, industrial music meeting the lengthy space jams of psychedelic music. Sounds from synths, guitar and vocals snippets swirl in and out of the mix and form a trance inducing hybrid. The drums and bass form the tight backbone of the compositions. The influence of the new members become apparent in the use of a more rock oriented sound, but with enough weirdness wrapped inside to make it far better than y’r average kraut rock record. The only band that I compare it with is HNAS, but then I might be either too old or my references aren’t that good. Nice one indeed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.alien8recordings.com
TRANSIENT TRAVELS (CD compilation by Domizil)
You can’t book your holiday at Transient Travels, as it was a temporary travel agency which ‘operated in a carriage of the Sound Train during the World New Music Days 2004 in Switzerland featuring a panorama of contemporary computer music”. Six artists were invited to compose a piece of music about the theme of ‘sonic journey’, which were played in various listening stations inside the carriage. These six are Coh, AGF, Hecker, Ilios, Jasch and Marcus Maeder. Some of them gave the idea of ‘movement’, ‘travel’ and ‘trains’ a thought and incorporated such sounds in their music, and some didn’t – well, maybe it’s with their pieces less notable. As someone who likes trains and doesn’t have a drivers license, I was attracted to the idea very much, but I must admit I had a hard time listening to these pieces. Hecker’s noise, Jasch’ undirected sounds mass and Maeder’s piece were all not pieces I’d like to hear when riding on a train. Coh and AGF relatively easy accessible works were more like it, but Ilios’ piece ‘Kandy 95’, with it’s quite, almost ambient processing was the best, although I can imagine that with the train engine in the background it might be difficult to hear. My favorite train music would indeed be something different… (FdW)
Address: http://www.domizil.ch90
PAUL GREGOIRE – DOULEUR SOURDE (CD by Ambiances Magnetiques)
Paul Grégoire is a multidisciplinary artist from Canada. Since 1970 he has been active in the fields of sculpture, music, literature, and performance. In the 90s he played saxophone in several groups in the bars and galleries of Québec. From 1996 till 1999 he was the sax-player and singer of Whisky Blanc. In 2004 he recorded some of the songs he played with this group for his first solo album ‘Douleur Sourde’. It’s an album of traditional songs. The music is slow and melodious, and often borrowed from a known repertoire. The album opens with “Dreaming of a white christmas”! It has a great solo by Jean Derome on sax. We hear more evergreens of this kind on this album. Not exactly my cup of tea. But I must say all the songs have been arranged with taste. Gregoire has the company of some reputated musicians like Jean Derome (sax), René Lussier (guitar, etc.) and M.F. Coté (drums). Also lesser known musicians were invited like guitarist Drae Rival and drummer Jonas Slowenski. They do a good job, and give funny and interesting interpretations of the songs. Grégoire wrote all the lyrics that are sung by him in french, a language I do not speak. So I can’t tell you what the lyrics are about. But the information says they are “unique, occasionally anecdotal, always sensitive, and present a certain level of reflection on social matters and a touch of humor, while remaining dark”. (DM)
Address: http://www.actuellecd.com
ROUGE CIEL – VEUILLEZ PROCEDER (CD by Ambiances Magnetiques)
In october 2004 Rouge Ciel recorded their second album that is now available through Ambiances Magnetiques. Their debut cd dates from 2001 and received a good press. The violinplayer of this group, Guido del Fabbro, released a solo album in 2003. Del Fabbro started Rouge Ciel in 1996 together with Antonin Provost. In the early years they were inspired by jazzrock, ECM, etc. In more recent years they developed their own version of instrumental ‘chamber’ rock that brings to mind the artrock of earlier generations like Henry Cow, Debile Menthol, Conventum, Samla, etc. Not that Rouge Ciel is a retro band. Absolutely not, although there a few moments on the cd where the compositional form sounds is a little outdated. But the overall impression is that we have here a fresh new blend of folk, rock, jazz and other influences. Most pieces are heavily composed, but there are also a few short improv-like pieces (‘Bond précionnel 1-4’) on this album. But one could say that this band is an exponent of the resurrection of ‘art-rock’ who are developing it further into new directions. This makes Rouge Ciel, a quartet of young musicians, a promising band.
The band consists of Guido del Fabbro (violin, acoustic and electric 5-string violin, prepaped violin, turntable, electonics, octave mandolin), Simon Lapointe (piano, keyboards, prepared piano), Antonin Provost (electric and acoustic piano), Némo Venba (drums, trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion). Because all of them are multi-instrumentalists the music is rich and diverse in sound. The playing is convincing and very enjoyable. Rouge Ciel delivers a very good follow up to their first one. I hope it will not take another three year for their third one. (DM)
Address: http://www.actuellecd.com/
PUNCK – NOWHERE CAMPFIRE TAPES (CD by Afe Records/Crtl+Alt+Canc))
For me this is the third time I encounter the music of Adriano Zanni, aka Punck (see also Vital Weekly 357 and 423), but this is the first ‘real’ CD, but his sound-sources still consist of laptop, objects, field recordings, contact microphones and samples. In the eighties he started playing music, going electronic in the nineties and using the internet to distribute his work. I think that with ‘Nowhere Campfire Tapes’ he has reached his most refined moment. Playing around with his sources quite clearly (the rain in ‘Almost Anything’ or the water sound in ‘Tsunami Notes’), each on its distinct part of the sound spectrum, the four pieces are lengthy, microscopic and detailed precise pictures. Whereas his previous works had industrial music elements, this is all gone here and replaced by a more than excellent work along the lines of Richard Chartier or Roel Meelkop, but with even clearer diversification of the sound sources. A very fine work! (FdW)
Address: http://www.aferecords.com
ANDY ORTMANN – NIGHTMANIA (CD by Nihilist Records)
PRURIENT – THE BARON’S CHAMBER (CD by Nihilist Records)
As noted before Andy Ortmann, who used to work under the moniker of Panicsville, is among the more interesting noise musicians from the USA. His latest offering, for now under his own name (a shift that is seen more and more amongst the noise scene), is a six piece CD, each of the pieces on it referring to a painting or drawing in the booklet. Ortmann uses electro-acoustic sound sources, but amplifies them heavily, so they become larger than life. Maybe children’s toys smashed to pieces. In addition he plays a wide array of synthesizers, percussive sounds and electronics. Everything is brought to the listener in the form of sound collage, with the final ‘The Flies Are Laying Eggs’ as the highlight of the album. In an almost Nurse With Wound like atmosphere of spoken words, collage-like cuts and guitar interplay, Ortmann plays his best moment to date.
I wish I could say similar nice things about PRurient, who had a CD before on Ground Fault Recordings, but it’s hard. This is noise as noise is and as far as I’m concerned it’s passed station. An endless wall, well almost thirty minutes, of feedback sounds, shortwave radios and bangs on metallic percussion, fed through a long line of distortion: it’s all a bit been there and done that. No doubt one for the hardcore lovers of the genre, whom I’m sure are plenty out there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nihilistrecords.com
MACHINE BOY – DEPRESSION (CDEP by Incubator Records)
Whoever is behind Machine Boy but the tracks here are written by Dean Cook and Lorian Elbert (‘featuring Lorian Elbert’, it says on the cover, but if one doesn’t know who she is, what’s the key-selling point?, I wonder). I learned that she is poet from Seattle and she recites four of her poems on this CDEP, set to music by Machine Boy. Each of the four pieces is exactly the same: the electronic backdrop against the Anne Clarck like reciting, after the first track you know what is about. However the best track is at the end: ‘Abyss’ has a nice bass line, sampled Elbert and a stuttering synth line. When I was young, innocent and depressed I’d go out to drink to music like this, contemplating another nuclear war. ‘Sleeper In Metropolis’ by Anne Clarck was big underground disco hit. This Machine Boy is a Time Machine – it takes me back twenty years and doesn’t make me happy – there is much nicer music from those depressed years to play… (FdW)
Address: http://www.machineboy.co.uk
DIE SPATZEN – SNOW BIRDS (CDR by ESF Records)
DIE SPATZEN – AUTUMN SONGS (CDR by ESF Records)
These two short, self-released CDRs are by Die Spatzen, aka Chandan Marayan, who hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He plays solo baritone guitar music, recorded in his garden (birds and other elements included). Simple strumming and slow finger picking create a nice, somewhat dark and melancholic atmosphere. One of the releases is called ‘Autumn Songs’ and the other ‘Snow Birds’ and although it’s not exactly that time of the year, it work well on a spring afternoon, when a somewhat fresh spring wind fills the living room, and the empty music of Die Spatzen does the icing on the cake. Intimate, slow music. No big surprise, just warm and friendly. (FdW)
Address: http://www.esfrecords.com
FILTER FEEDER (3″CDR by Entr’acte)
DAVE PHILIPS – HOLE/HOLY (3″CDR by Entr’acte)
THE MILGRAM OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY EXPERIMENT – TRAIL OF DROPLETS (3″CDR by Entr’acte)
ENTR’ACTE SAMPLER VOLUME TWO (CDR by Entr’acte)
Entr’acte previous releases were discussed in Vital Weekly 455 and showed a love from the more raw and untamed music, sometimes a bit noisy. They have a bunch of new releases ready.
Filter Feeder had a previous release, which didn’t leave a big impression on me and I’m afraid this release, with two tracks clocking at some twenty minutes doesn’t do things to good either. Lengthy improvisations built around an all too simple rhythm. Rhythm feeds into synth, synth burps and that’s it. Recording quality is not great either.
Dave Philips, whose work I noticed before on various compilations as usually one of the more interesting names on a compilation for his collage like harsh musique concrete, has one piece on his ‘Hole/Holy’, and it is a mixture of electro-acoustic sound (rubbing of objects) in combination with some sounds from sexual intercourse. A slow built up and likewise slowly adding new elements. It’s a nice piece, but not great.
I never heard of The Milgram Obedience To Authority Experiment (but I do like the name), who have four tracks of very unfocussed rhythmic doodling. It could be a bit techno, but it isn’t. The synth mumbles in the background, but nothing leaves an everlasting presence.
So far not so good, but the compilation is quite nice. Dave Philips has a much better track, much along the lines of the old Schimpfluch records. Formatt from Belgium has nice dark rhythm piece, with lots of echo – darker than dark dub. Sudden Infant has a short and powerful broken turntable piece and Absent-Minded an all too abruptly ending drone piece. Even the Filter Feeder piece is ok, with a consistent built-up, but maybe a bit too lengthy. The Milgram Obedience To Authority Experiment was the only track that could bother me that much, making this into a nice label sampler. (FdW)
Address: http://entracte.co.uk/
NARCOTIC DREAMS – CURSED NIGHT (CDR by 804noise)
Cursed night is the second release of the limited 804 noise series. This time on this 3″ Narcotic Dreams AKA James McCrea is trying to reuse a sound palette from the ‘Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse’ NES game and make a cover or reinterpretation of this innocuous amusement combining it with experimental/noise moments. Lo-bit game sounds are still giving an impression of old video games and B-rated horror films. This whole gothic and horrid atmosphere is intensified with guitar distortion and noises making the tension even stronger. An unusual combination of cinematic mood, gothic feeling and contemporary noise – enjoyable for fans of old computer games and cheep black/white horror movies. (TD)
Address: www.804noise.com
DRAFTANK – ORANGE BOOK (CDR by Ristretto)
MY FUN – SUNDAY BEST (3″CDR by Ristretto)
Two new releases on Ristretto, the subdivision of Grain Of Sound. Behind Draftank is Nuno Moita, whom plays digital turntable and one minidisc. The pieces on his ‘Orange Book’ are played by methods of improvisation, but very much in a glitch related way. The influence of say Fennesz is never far away, but Moita’s music is much more linear and simpler than Fennesz. It’s quite easy going, not too complicated but at the same not always interesting enough to keep the attention going for the entire length of each track. It’s alright, but by no means great.
My Fun is one Justin Hardison, who worked before under different guises inside field recordings and sampling, but as My Fun it’s less of a story. The pieces on this 3″CDR are mostly beat-oriented, although I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that these beats are derived from sampling electro-acoustic sources. The material is sometimes quite techno oriented but in the fifth track, with a broken beat, piano loops and other, unidentifiable sources, could certainly be the start of a new direction. Five pleasant pieces, nothing surprising, but nice for sure. (FdW)
Address: http://www.grainofsound.com/ristretto
SUPERCILIOUS – VIVA EL PROTOCOLE, MY FRIENDS! (2×3″ CDR by Monopsone)
This France based label comes back with another release and as it seems it is similar with its previous release remaining in melodic electronics with a glitchy and contemporary production. Alexandre Vaudin aka Supercilious, who deals with these sounds, comes back with another release following his album “Next Time We Go Sublime” released in November 2004. This time a dozen of artists solicited by affinities (Objectile, Velma, Sofus Forsberg, Yorgl, Alban Punition, Stupid dog) are remixing tracks from his album. Combined with two new tracks he collected two parts of this release that appeared on a double 3″. The sound of the remixes is quite similar to the original sound. Everything is around IDM-ish, pop electronic sound with glitchy background and broken rhythms. At moments everything gets intensified with a drum n bass rhythm and noisy parts but than again everything calms down with nice and subtle vocals that are also present. Samples from movies can be found here and there. And that seems to be all. But if you still want more, you can try checking couple of more remixes by other artists (Laudanum, Stuntman5, Red Shift, Schengen, Feubo, 2tokiislands, Virga) that can be found as mp3 on the label’s site. (TD)
Address: http://www.monopsone.com
DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS – NO WORDS (CDR by ConV Net.Lab))
On the same label, the same artist of whom we reviewed a MP3 work last week. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words. This is a somewhat longer release, forty six minutes, but with no less than sixteen tracks, of which no less than six are called ‘No Words’. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words continue here the combination of ambient music with musique concrete, but sometimes things are simply too rough to pleasure. A track like ‘When Skies Are Grey’ is a bit of lo-fi recording and gets a bit lost therefor. In other tracks, where the ambient plays a darker tune, things are much more enjoyable. Then Thomas Ekelund, the man behind Dead Letter Spell Out Dead Words, plays a decent tune. Not great, nothing new, just a bunch of decent computer generated ambient textures. Nice but maybe a bit too average. (FdW)
Address: http://www.con-v.org
MATT BORGHI – IMAGES (CDR by Slobor Media)
The name Matt Borghi is one that only rang a vague bell here, and upon re-reading old Vital Weekly’s I learned that in Vital Weekly 417 I reviewed a previous CD from him. For some reason I associate the name Matt Borghi with synth people like Matthias Grassow and his previous ‘Washout’ was indeed along those lines. But for his latest release, ‘Images’ (a homage to Claude Debussy’s pieces of the same name), Borghi adds rhythm to his pieces. Although in the accompanying text he says something about ‘his first true incorporation of minimalism (in the vein of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Lamonte Young and Terry Riley)’, this doesn’t become apparent in the music. All of the rhythms used are rather indeed minimal by nature but they don’t ‘shift’ in the same way as the four mentioned composers. These rhythms are rather static pieces of ongoing, repeating blocks, set against a large wall of ambient synthesizers. It sounds like I don’t like this release, but that’s not true. The simplicity of the rhythms in combination the deep ambient sounds is very nice, excellent music to work by (in my case some stupid manual labor thing). You forget the the stupidness of the work involved and the music makes you pass time easily. And that’s what ambient is probably all about: create a nice environment. (FdW)
Address: http://www.slobormedia.com
TBC & GUY – LIEDER UBER PFLANZEN UND BAUME (CDR by Wachsender Prozess)
TBC & GUY – ANTI-GRAVITATION (7″ by Knistern)
ODRADEK 4 (CDR and magazine)
Thomas Beck is a busy bee from Hamburg. Besides running his label Wachsender Prozess, his magazine Odadrek and a radioprogramm, he also has his own soundproject TBC. On his ‘Lieder Uber Pflanzen Und Baume’ (‘songs about plants and trees’), he works together with Guy, who plays bass (and who also played on one of the 7″s on Knistern, see Vital Weekly 466). The seven improvisations for feedback, effects and bass are quite noisy and unstructured, and don’t sound like hippy songs about the beauty of nature. A harsh and abrasive sound. Not too bad really, but I heard better stuff by TBC.
The 7″ sound similar noise related but better. Thomas plays feedback on a mixer and Guy plays his bass with the use of much distortion. Because of the shorter time span on a 7″ things have to be shorter and concise and this surely add to the quality of the music. Things are much clearer, louder and more vicious. The noise works well on this release. Short and powerful.
Thomas Beck also puts out his own magazine, Odradek, with very irregular intervals, and I believe it also reduces in size. You need read German to understand this, but it has an article by Asmus Tietchens, an interview with John Duncan, an article on Luc Ferrari and an article on Radio Gagarin, not coincidentally the station where Thomas has his radio show. On the enclosed CDR you can find recordings made at the first Radio Gagarin festival, with people as Asmus Tietchens, Totstellen, Tumorochester, Jetzman, (-Hyph-), The Nautilus Deconstruction, Intertronic and of course TBC. The music ranges from noisy to noisy and some are less noisy. The sound quality is not that great here and there, except for Tietchens’ nineteen minute piece ‘Flora’ and Intertronik’s ‘Radio Improvisation Nr. 1’.
Address: <thomas@fsk-hh.org
Address: http://www.knistern.net
PROCESSING QUARTET – S/T (CDR by 804noise)
804noise is collective of artists and enthusiast from Richmond area dedicated to noise, experimental avant-garde scene. They are networking with other experimental artists to make Richmond community more receptive to experimental events. Under this name they have already started a label and have couple very interesting releases signed by 804 artists. With this release, under label 804noise they are starting new series of limited edition releases. First release in the 804noise limited series is live performance of project Processing Quartet, recorded on their live act in Richmond. For this occasion, noted names of experimental/improv scene in Richmond, members of 804noise, joined their forces on the stage to intersect their work together and record this performance on two minidisks. Improvisers Marty McCavitt (laptop) and Darius Jones (alto sax), who record and perform together as Birds in meadow, were joined by Brian Jones on percussion, together with Kenneth Yates of Harm Stryker one of most outstanding member of 804 community. Here they are improvising elements of free jazz, improve, noise/experimental, making detailed and shifting tapestry of sound. First part of the release is more into jazz improvisation sound and than it is getting louder and louder taking noisy dimensions, but without exceeding limits of audibility. Minimalistic and glitchy moments are also appearing later, incorporating into noisy electronic background. At this point electronic improvisation dominates over jazz improvisation, but at the end jazz moments are coming back again. So here we have another interesting release from 804 community worth for our attention. (TD)
Address: http://www.804noise.org
FIRST (MP3 by N Netlabel)
A while back I reviewed a MP3 release by Andrey Kiritchencko for the N Netlabel, who now present their first release to me, a compilation, of ten acts and of which I only recognized Kiritchencko’s name. His track and the closing piece by one Masaya Sasaki are the most experimental tracks on this album. Sasaki plays a fucked up glitch piece that is quite chaotic and Kiritchcenko plays his usual blend of rhythms and ambiences. The eight tracks sandwiched between these two are all best described as minimal techno. Some more straightforward, as is C6 or Lod, or a little bit less dance floor related, such as Shalma. Nice pieces, even when none of the pieces were really breaking the rules set out by Cologne sound of Kompakt. Download and dance, I’d say. (FdW)
Address: http://www.minusn.com