NEIL ROLNICK – SHADOW QUARTET – (CD by Innova)
BOCA RATON – ENZO/FURTHER (CD by Spekk)
OH ASTRO – HELLO WORLD (CD by Illegal Art)
CADUCEUS – PROCESS X (CD by Caduceus Music)
EDGAR OLIVIER CHARLES – ET SES APPARITIONS (CD by Squint Fucker Press)
ALEXANDRE ST-ONGE ALIAS FRANCOISE BLANCHOT – L’AMITIE OU LES RUMEURS INSOUTENABLES DU DESIR (CD by Squint Fucker Press)
OCTEX – VARIATIONS (CD by RX:TX)
EXIST – …. (CD by Zen Pendragon Records)
SNOG – REAL ESTATE MAN PLUS (CD by Hymen)
END – THE SICK GENERATION (CD by Hymen)
JGRZINICH – EQUAL AND DISTANT LINES (CD by Cloudmirror)
ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – TRUE DELUSION (CD by Spekk)
TORE HONORE BOE – CONFESSIONS OF A POOLBOY (CD by Humbug)
SINDROME – NOSTALGIE (CDR by Apocalyptic Radio)
POSTBLUE – NEW SHAKE (CDR by Phase! Records)
KIRCHENKAMPF – THE SECRET LIFE OF MACHINES (3″CDR by Cohort Records)
FEAST OF ISHTAR (CDR by Voltage Stress)
FILTHY TURD – MY NAME IS FILTHY (CDR by Voltage Stress)
THE BONGOLEEROS – TONKIN HONKIN HANK (CDR by Voltage Stress)
HENDERSON/RICHARDSON – NEITHER WORK NOR LEISURE (CDR by Voltage Stress)
DEAD AT DER SATAAN VOLUME 1 (CDR compilation by Voltage Stress)
EGOPASTISTISCHE – VERGISSINGEN (CDR compilation by Voltage Stress)
NEIL ROLNICK – SHADOW QUARTET – (CD by Innova)
A new CD by Neil Rolnick, an american composer and performer of computer music since the late 70s. Computermusic is his main thing. Besides he worked with ensembles such as The California E.A.R. The New York Ensemble, Unit, Relache, Gerard Schwarz’s Music Today Ensemble. So it may be more correct to say that computer combined with acoustical instruments is his main focus. In Vital Weekly 377 I wrote about his album ‘Fish Love That’ for Deep Listening. The compositions for this album were leaning towards jazz. His new CD “Shadow Quartet” has a wider range in this respect. His compositions carry influences of blues, jazz, swing, hiphop, etc. From these two albums I conclude that another characteristic of Rolnick as a composer is his love for the diversity of american popular music.
The new CD opens with ‘Shadow Quartet’ a work in three parts for a string quartet plus computer. The first part has a beat and really swings. The second and third part are melancholic in nature and are two nice pieces of chambermusic. ‘Gate Beats’ starts as a piece of minimal music but it changes gradually in a piece with an almost funky but slow beat. Rolnick uses pre-recorded material for this work from his band Fish Love That and builds consequently towards a climax. ‘The Real Thief of Bagdad’ is a vocal piece. “The Real Thief of Bagdad lives in the Bushes” is the first phrase we hear, so I don’t to tell you where this composition is about. ‘Fiddle Faddle’ is for solo violin and electronics. The piece starts with a very atmospheric violin solo, but then a very down to earth beat joins the party and the piece becomes totally different in character. Under the influence of the beat the violin gets the blues. “Ambos Mundos” is played by the Quintet of the Americas. Rolnick let them interact with their digitally processed echoes. The quintet plays a nice tune that reminded me very much of the work of the belgian neo-classical ensemble Julverne. At moments it almost sounds like ragtime, and listening very superficially to it you are inclined to think it is an acoustical piece. But the digital processing is very evident. In this composition like in the other ones, it becomes clear that Rolnick is not interested in inventing completely new composition techniques and new sounds. The computer serves the acoustical and analogue world. The closing work on this cd is no the exception to this: ‘Body Work’ has an appearance of Joan LaBarbara. It is totally different in character then the previous because of the dominance of the human voice. We hear La Barbara in nonverbal but mainly verbal escapades in a multi-layered work. To conclude Neil Rolnick offers a nice cd of accessible and varied works. (DM)
Address: http://www.innova.mu/
BOCA RATON – ENZO/FURTHER (CD by Spekk)
After a 7″, a couple of CDR releases and two split releases (one with Richard Chartier in the ‘Kapotte Muziek by…’ series and one with Freiband), here is at last the first full length release by Boca Raton, aka Martijn Tellinga, who is otherwise known as the chief of Stichting Mixer. Boca Raton is one of those guys who see running down the street with their minidisc and microphones, taping the environment, bringing it home and transferring the recordings through computer means. Building his own patches in Max/msp, Boca Raton’s music has quickly progressed from a rather free form electro-acoustic hotch potch into a much more tighter, more structured form. ‘Enzo’ is the first piece here, and it is divided into ten smaller sections. Dwelling heavily on structural compositional forms set out by the early musique concrete composers such as Schaeffer and Henry, this work can be seen as homage to them, albeit with new means. Melody and harmony play no role, but the shape of the sounds do, aswell as volume. It would be too easy to slap Boca Raton down as one of the many followers of microsound, but it doesn’t entirely justify his music. Boca Raton doesn’t play ‘ambient glitch’ but musique concrete in it’s very best form. ‘Further’, as I understand it, uses the same elements as ‘Enzo’, but now as one piece. The element of unprocessed field recordings is stronger here and it sounds even more coherent. More ambient and drone related, ‘Further’ is a strong contrasting piece to ‘Enzo’. Great debut! (FdW)
Address: http://www.spekk.net
OH ASTRO – HELLO WORLD (CD by Illegal Art)
‘Hello world’ is an EP by Oh Astro aka Jane Dowe. She has collaborated with Terre Thaemlitz before and released their CD on Mille Plateaux. And also done some tracks for various compilations. The info further says that “Illegal Art is a label dedicated to ignoring copyright law and supporting music created almost exclusively from sampling.” So, the sound sources/samples on the Oh Astro’s EP are from officially released music by Ennio Morricone, Miss Elliott and other electronic music, but that’s not much important for the final musical result I think, only for the label’s ideology, of course. So, what’s this music about? Clicks, bleeps, pieces of beats almost always rhythmically arranged. A reference point for that can be Mokira’s sound. Click-hop and pop. This music sounds quite good to me, interesting, entertaining and witty. A kind of music I’d rather just listen without talking about it. Don’t have much else to say, except that I enjoyed it from start till end in all 6 great tracks. (BR)
Address: http://www.illegalart.net
CADUCEUS – PROCESS X (CD by Caduceus Music)
I was just listening some older songs by New Order, tracks like ‘Regret’, ‘Bizarre love triangle’ and such, and right after that I’m playing this music by Caduceus. Maybe they don’t mix with each other very well, but they’re both excellent pop music. Caduceus (Christian and Joanne Althoff) don’t have vocals in their music and are within the areas of the contemporary minimal techno 4/4 sound. Or as the sub-title of their label nicely explains it: narrative minimalism. ‘Process x’ is the first (cd album) release on the label, after which 2 more 12″s are released, certainly more suitable for djs. The music is excellent in it’s own style, I’m sure fans of Brinkmann will like it. Pity I can’t go much in details reviewing it, but I certainly enjoy to listen and dance to it in a certain occasions. Recommended also for fans of what net-labels Textone and Thinner are releasing. (BR)
Address: http://www.caduceusmusic.net
EDGAR OLIVIER CHARLES – ET SES APPARITIONS (CD by Squint Fucker Press)
ALEXANDRE ST-ONGE ALIAS FRANCOISE BLANCHOT – L’AMITIE OU LES RUMEURS INSOUTENABLES DU DESIR (CD by Squint Fucker Press)
Releases on Squint Fucker Press, the label run by Christof Migone, are usually a puzzling affair, and these two are no different. The covers usually don’t reveal that much information and read like cryptic texts. For instance: Edgar Olivier Charles doesn’t exist, it’s the alter-ego of Roger Tellier-Craig, who works as Et Sans, Le Fly Pan Am and Set Fire to Flames. So far so good. ‘Rediscovered music recorded in Montreal between september 2002 and january 2005, it says on the cover and rediscovered are three tracks. In each subtitle, to each track, a name is mentioned: Iannis, Karlheinz and John – so, I’d say Xenakis, Stockhausen and Cage (well, more likely than, say Adams? Lennon?). And maybe Edgar Olivier Charles is then Varese, Messian and Ives? Strangely enough the music has quite a modern classical feel to it, or is that something I started thinking after working out all these clues. Parts are played on orchestral instruments such as violins and celli, but a fair portion exists of electro-acoustic objects and also some choir like voices. The result however is a beautiful affair of colliding instruments, sounds and textures. Very modern classical.
Likewise puzzling is the latest CD by Alexandre St-Onge alias Franciose Blanchot (whatever that may mean. “This record is nothing else than a delirium about friendship and how friendship is the space of delirium. Here or there, there is a lot of animals, girls and some weirdoes singing on top of sounds shaped by a drunken bastard that likes above all other things exploring love at the limits of self-destruction and childish madness”. Alexandre plays electronics, voice, contrabass, percussion, piano, saxophone, guitar, rhythmbox and organ and gets help from a whole bunch of people. Maybe a bit like Edgar Olivier Charles, this is a modern classical affair, with the scrapings of the contrabass and electronic interludes, combined with some electro-acoustic sounds. The emphasis however lies on the use of voices, which are many, human and non-human, or humans imitating animal wild-life. It’s very hard to pin this release to a certain musical genre, and perhaps there is none to pin it too. Although this is a nice mishmash of styles and ideas, it’s not as good as the Edgar Olivier Charles, which is altogether more coherent. (FdW)
Address: http://www.squintfuckerpress.com
OCTEX – VARIATIONS (CD by RX:TX)
With a title such as ‘Variations’ one could easily think that we are dealing with a remix album here, a follow up to something else, remixed by others. It seems that neither is the case. Octex is the project of Slovenian Jernej Marusic who delivered his debut in 2002 with ‘Idei Lahesna’ (on Tehnika/Nika). ‘Variations’ is not the remix album of that, but simply the next step. Eleven pieces that could have come out of the Chain Reaction/City Centre Offices circles (even when I am unaware what these labels do these days), or that could be described as the little brother of Si-cut.db or Benge – a dubby bass line, some psychedelic sounds that fill the space. Perhaps not really music to dance your ass of until down, but rather to sit back and enjoy. Not music that is something really new, his examples are numerous, but nevertheless well entertaining throughout. (FdW)
Address: http://www.rx-tx.org
EXIST – …. (CD by Zen Pendragon Records)
If you missed out on Exist’s first release, from 2000, then don’t feel bad: it was released in an edition of 20 copies as a CDR. But now Exist, aka David Stoller from Bloomington, released his first full length, real pressed CD in an edition of 1000 copies on his own Zen Pendragon Records. Stoller plays ‘effected guitar, effected microphone feedback, effected voice and effected acoustic piano’ all laid down on a Korg Digital 8 track. It shows his love for the somewhat more noisy aspects of music, but it’s a little bit more than that. Although the proceedings open up with ‘Way To Go Sound!’, an attack on the nerves, things are more mellow throughout this release, and also more varied. That’s all good, since it’s clear that Stoller thought about his work, rather than throwing some sounds together. But that’s only one aspect of the thing. The music itself, I’m afraid, is only fairly interesting. None of the ten tracks could really hold my attention for a long piece, not even after repeated play-back. The distortion, found sound and more distortion sounded all a bit tired, without a real urge or necessity to sound interesting. For whom, I asked myself, was this made? (FdW)
Address: http://www.zenpendragon.com
SNOG – REAL ESTATE MAN PLUS (CD by Hymen)
END – THE SICK GENERATION (CD by Hymen)
Besides Monty Python’s bright side of life and all the beautiful things, there is, of course, a really dark and gray side in life and in the world, bureaucracy, globalization and shit. Labels as Hymen, Ant Zen and Mirex are here to remind us of that in a nicer and more safe musical way, and David Thrussell’s Snog is doing that in a dancey way. On this release the track ‘Real estate man’, originally from the 1999’s album ‘Third mall from the sun’, is presented in 9 similar sounding remixes and one live version at the end. The remixes (by who knows who?) are in the electronic dance electro-housey break-trancey styles, I’m sure lovers of Fischerspooner, Miss Kittin and Tiga will like them. And the live version at the end is in a totally different songwriting style, only a guitar and some spooky vocal singing. It’s all specifically and very well done I think, with a certain dark touch to it. No humor, at least no easy-going, this is certainly mostly for the more serious dance heads.
Even more remixes courtesy of Hymen Records and now End aka Charles Pierce of whom I haven’t heard, but he has released on Tigerbeat6, Mirex, Ipecac and Hymen before. More guitars this time, messy in their electrock’n’roll-bastardization style, trashy in a more rocky way, so to say, and to note the difference with Snog. However, there are some nice dirty beats here too, as in the remixes by Duran Duran Duran and Ning Nong, some of my favorites. There are 4 original pieces by End – 2 studio tracks, one demo version and one live. Four remixes of ‘The sick generation’ and the others are remixes of other tracks, 16 in total altogether. Mad Ep/Eq brings in some nasty hip-hop/raps with vocals and a sitar. Some of the other remixers are Jason Forrest, Drop The Lime, Foetus, Hecq, Messer Chups and others… Nice varied combinations and collections of sounds and styles, and in smaller doses I can find a lot of pleasure in here. (BR)
Address: http://www.hymen-records.com
JGRZINICH – EQUAL AND DISTANT LINES (CD by Cloudmirror)
I remember the name of this artist from the Intransitive label where he has a collaboration with Seth Nehil. However, I haven’t heard his solo music before, and I’m quite positively surprised with this CD, which is a part of the so called Cloud Of Statics series of long works or albums on the new label Cloudmirror.
It’s a longer album of 57 minutes. Five pieces with various lengths, from 17 to 5 minutes. The first 10min piece is fantastic, stylistically can be characterized as static ambient, there’s one main tone or sound or drone which unfolds itself with a certain intensity, never overloaded or over the top. Keeping a nice balance, the static sound goes on, mostly quite focused and gently shifting, pulling you inside the sound. This is for the lovers of sound itself. Fans of Sachiko M’s weightless onkyo-sound should enjoy it quite a lot. Very nice album. (BR)
Address: http://www.cloudmirror.org
ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – TRUE DELUSION (CD by Spekk)
Of course the name Andrey Kiritchenko is familiar to you. Apart from his own music and his own Nexsound label, he also plays with Critikal, Sidharta and Nex and is at the forefront of experimental music in the Ukraine. His previous releases on Ad Noiseam displayed an interest in glitch, ambient and rhythm, but that seems all far away when playing ‘True Delusion’. The record falls apart in two parts, each of them having four tracks (and noted as ‘side a’ and ‘side b’ on the cover, very odd for a CD). In the first four tracks environmental sounds and guitar play the leading part and on the second four the piano plays the same role. Playing around with overtones is what Kiritchenko had in mind when he started working on this record. Despite the computer-processing that no doubt went into making this record, both guitar and piano are clearly to be recognized. They play a set of simple tune and the overtones of both instruments are clearly worked out. Rhythm and techno influences are no longer there. Unlike Boca Raton’s new CD on Spekk, this new Kiritchenko certainly qualifies as ambient glitch music, although it’s less minimal than some of the outings on say the Line label. Kiritchenko keeps his own tunes together, plays around with them in his own way and at that he does he very fine job. A fresh start, perhaps? (FdW)
Address: http://www.spekk.net
TORE HONORE BOE – CONFESSIONS OF A POOLBOY (CD by Humbug)
Following last week’s CDR release by Tore Honore Boe, also on Humbug, now the ‘real’ CD on Humbug. It all has to do with the FIVE YEAR PLAN of Boe: playing solo concerts for five years, releasing solo stuff. In Buenos Aires on October 29th of 2004, Lasse Marhaug, John Hegre and Anla Courtis played the last concert as ‘Tore Honore Boe’ and now Boe’s back with his various Origami Republika things. And as far as I understand, these releases sum up some of the solo work done, a more or less historical document of some kind. The first piece is a major tour de noise of heavily distorted sounds, much alike what we heard last week on ‘Freezer Burn’. The next track, ‘Sunscreen Oil On Damp Dark Skin’, starts out in complete silence and more or less stays there. It’s the shortest track of the three, but for me it’s one of things I prefer hearing from Boe. The final piece is ‘Beach Buddha In Surfer’s Paradise’, consisting of the total abuse of acoustic objects take over, but it’s a more interesting piece than the opening piece. After many delicate microsounding takes on electro-acoustic music, I must admit that the recent noise thing from Boe is not my thing, but I’m sure lovers of the full Merzbowian blast think differently. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tibprod.com/humbug.htm
SINDROME – NOSTALGIE (CDR by Apocalyptic Radio)
The name Sindrome popped up for the first time, when I reviewed a whole bunch of releases on Apocalyptic Radio (Vital Weekly 463). Still, I don’t know much more about Sindrome, and I still think that much of the sounds used here are lifted from radio waves in combination dark, atmospheric synthesizers. Overall, a pretty grim release, but I must say, it’s also a varied one. Guitar snippets fly by, some bad sounding digital synth (in ‘TV Noir’) and the price winning kitschy ‘Sonata No. 2 In BB Minor, Op. 35’, a cover of the otherwise known ‘Marches Funebres’ by Chopin. It’s slightly processed, but the original is still to be recognized. It’s kitschy, but maybe therefore quite alright. A leap forward, this release. (FdW)
Address: <apocalyptic-radio@web.de>
POSTBLUE – NEW SHAKE (CDR by Phase! Records)
Already the third release by Postblue, the second for Phase! Records. Postblue, as noted before is a rock band with noise influences, or a noise band with rock influences, it depends on how you look at these matters. Two lengthy tracks here, recorded in a studio, even they manage to sound like a live recording. Guitar, drums, bass form the background, but they improvise their way into the material, adding electronics, feedback and what seems to be a heavily delayed trumpet sound and vocals. At certain times, I thought Postblue sounded a bit like very early Throbbing Gristle, when they sounded more like a rock band, but at others they are the freeform noise rock ensemble we have encountered on their previous releases. In that sense this new release doesn’t necessarily add something new to what we know, but adds a fine work to the small catalogue already out there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.phaseweb.tk
KIRCHENKAMPF – THE SECRET LIFE OF MACHINES (3″CDR by Cohort Records)
The name Kirchenkampf has been lurking around for many moons now, maybe close to a decade even, but somehow I could never pin them down. Their small output was usually on highly limited releases, in various formats. On ‘The Secret Life Of Machines’ they (although I suspect it to be an one-man band) experiment for the full nineteen minutes with shortwave sounds locked inside a system of analogue synthesizers, feeding its sound back and forth, slowly multiplying it until a mass of cosmic sounds emerge. Dark and atmospheric ambient music of a rather unnerving character. Music made by bugs in the system, perhaps indeed even the secret life of machines. (FdW)
Address: http://cohortrecords.0catch.com
FEAST OF ISHTAR (CDR by Voltage Stress)
FILTHY TURD – MY NAME IS FILTHY (CDR by Voltage Stress)
THE BONGOLEEROS – TONKIN HONKIN HANK (CDR by Voltage Stress)
HENDERSON/RICHARDSON – NEITHER WORK NOR LEISURE (CDR by Voltage Stress)
DEAD AT DER SATAAN VOLUME 1 (CDR compilation by Voltage Stress)
EGOPASTISTISCHE – VERGISSINGEN (CDR compilation by Voltage Stress)
The medium CDR is a most welcome alternative to the world of real CDs, just like cassettes were twenty years ago for vinyl. Besides the economical point of making just a few, it is also possible to make a really nice package. Nothing so with some, and Voltage Stress is one of them. Each of these releasescolor are poorly packed with a simple xeroxed sheet in a plastic bag (although the website shows some in color, perhaps it’s just my promo copies). Voltage Stress is a UK noise label. Feast Of Ishtar is ‘Dean “Mr Romance” on dug up bones stolen brains looped violence and Eeyow “my name is Filthy” on Connie Mason appreciation pigs blood and electronic limping. Their untitled CDR was recorded in 2004 at the Armley Butchers. So far all the data. The first two tracks are pretty short and the third is pretty long. Radiosignales are fed through the endless line of distortion pedals, waiting with hunger of signals. Maybe there is a guitar in this wall of feedback too. Perhaps. We don’t know. Pretty standard noise along the lines of Eeyow’s own solo releases for Verato.
My third encounter with Filthy Turd is more along the lines of their ‘Noisemanure #2’, reviewed in Vital Weekly 458, music is a strong cut-up style, ten tracks in total, with a length of some thirty five minutes. The gimmick of the previous release is repeated and that’s never a good thing, but alas, things may not progress that fast. But the result is quite alright, in its kind that is.
The Bongoleeros put a smile on my face: their utter lo-fi sound consists of tape-loops of rhythms, on top of which they play guitar and sing, sometimes all four members (Sir Charles Bascomb, Bogo Hobo, The Lonesome Cowboy and Milovan Srdenovic of Smell & Quim). Together they improvise eight pieces of rock ‘n roll tunes, like The Velvet Underground with some wacky sense of humor. Shouting, screaming, talking, singing, it all doesn’t matter, the spirit of Hank Williams entered into The Bongoleeros. Kaw Liga for a bunch of drunks. Outsider music.
Whoever Henderson and Richardson are, I don’t know, but their ‘Neither Work Nor Leisure’ is a pretty short (twenty minute) release of a wall of feedback and distortion, in which nothing of interest could be detected.
The final two releases are compilations. On the first five noise makers team up on a compilation. I never heard of Chrysalis, but Cheapmachines, Fckn’bstrds, Filthy Turd and Concrete Violin are all a bit more well-known in the world of CDR and MP3. All five tracks are pretty standard radioshortwave doodlings, feedback and bangs on metal.
The other compilation is on the cover announced as Egopastische and ‘Vergissingen’ (‘mistakes’), the title, but we are dealing here with a compilation of various bands and projects from the Dutch Fckn’bstrds and their Hondenkoekjesfabriek label, so Monomarc, Odal, Civic TV and Sjabel Kebab are all present. Perhaps this is the most varied release here, ranging from harsh noise to really lo-fi recordings of people mumbling or unamplified noise. The Bongoleeros may have won the race, this compilation is a good runner up. (FdW)
Address: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/voltagestressr/
correction: XV Parowek (see last week) has a new website: http://www.xvp.pl
And various people have drawn my attention to the fact that Daniel Menche has released a couple of CDrs, such as ‘Absolute Vehemenche’ on MSBR and ‘Voke’ on Authorized Version (which was reviewed in Vital Weekly 408)