JOS SMOLDERS – HABITAT (CD by and/OAR)
OMENYA -ANCIENT RITES (CD by Purple Soil)
HULK – SILVER THREAD OF GHOSTS (CD by Osaka)
CARLOS GIFFONI – THE BEAUTY OF SKYLINES (3″CD by Feld Records)
BERNHARD SCHREINER (3″CDR by Feld Records)
RUNZELSTIRN & GURGELSTOCK – RUNZELSTOCK & GURGELSTIRN (LP by Nihilist Records)
PANICSVILLE/LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS (7″ by Nihilist Records)
MIMIR (7″ by Brainwashed)
ST – EIN SPLITTER GLAS (7″ by Apocalyptic Radio)
ASCOLTARE – GIVING SET (7″ by Strange Lights Records)
DAVID PAYNE – FEEDBACK #2 (CDR by Entr’acte)
SUNDAY NOISE ‘PEACE’ – FUCKING HOSPITAL (CDR, self-released)
JOS SMOLDERS – HABITAT (CD by and/OAR)
It’s been a while since Jos Smolders has releasesd a CD, but when he does it is spot on. This release from and/OAR fits the label perfectly well. All tracks are based on field recordings done in the past years. Smolders has not been known to work much with field recordings as such, let alone exclusively, so this is somewhat of a debut. Then again, after putting the disc in and hearing muffled sounds from the street it doesn’t take long for electronics to almost take over completely. I presume these electronic sounds are all based on the original recordings. The disc features 8 tracks, three of which seem to function as intermezzo’s (between tracks 1 & 3, 3 & 5, 5 & 7) and the last one as a sort of finale (it’s called coda). But since there are no real breaks between the tracks, it’s not something that is directly heard. Okay, so much for the layout, now to the content. This CD is surprisingly full and rich in colours, textures and dynamics. All tracks are constructed very carefully and display Smolders’ abilities to the maximum without a doubt. I have rarely heard such extreme make over of acoustic sound without it’s identity getting lost in that process. Smolders works around this problem all the time, juxtaposing the different material in such a way that one always somehow knows that these are essentially acoustic sounds. And that is very well done. Compositions are very well done as well, always ensuring a certian tension that keeps the listener activated. My conclusion is simple: this as a great CD! Jos Smolders still rules. (MR)
Address: http://www.and-oar.org
OMENYA -ANCIENT RITES (CD by Purple Soil)
Mark Davis is Omenya and his previous releases where on Tantric Harmonies and Klangalerie. On his website I saw there are forthcoming plans to work with Robin Storey, aka Rapoon. Maybe I shouldn’t have read that, since now it’s stuck inside my head that and it’s hard to avoid comparing Omenya with Rapoon. Deep ambient tones set against a background of semi ethnic percussion. These percussive sounds are rather simple samples which, once stuck into place, hammer their way gentle down the stream. The ambient passages likewise gently wash by, moving majestically. Although it sounds similar to Rapoon it would not be fair to simply say Omenya is a copy of that. More subdued that Rapoon, more controlled, moving around even more slowly, this a step further into the underworld of sound, the subconscious mind of deep ambience. As such nothing new under this sun either, but Omenya executes his work with great care and elegance. Nice work for those who love Rapoon, Internal Fusion and Desaccord Majeur. (FdW)
Address: http://www.egoland.org/ps
HULK – SILVER THREAD OF GHOSTS (CD by Osaka)
This is Hulk’s (aka Thomas Haugh from Dublin) debut full-length, but he has other previous releases (which I haven’t heard) on the labels Static Caravan, Expanding and Melodic. Hulk plays electronic atmospheric idm-influenced music, but there are also guest musicians – Kevin Murphy plays cello and bass, and Rohan Hennessy plays acoustic guitar, providing a nice electro-acoustic aspect in it. Classical piano sound appears also, plus found sound and field recordings (made on various trips through central and eastern Europe). All of that is carefully, nicely and greatly combined in a peaceful mix of drifting atmospheres. Maybe ambient of an idm kind. Totally relaxed, it’s very beautiful music, as Marsen Jules and Manual, even less catchy perhaps. But in this case that doesn’t effect the music’s quality, it’s just what this music is. Totally great ambient coming and growing around you from an idm ground. Even when my enthusiasm about idm/melodic-oriented music is not as great today as it was few years ago, this is one of the best releases I’ve heard in those musical styles recently. Great album with a peaceful kind of music. (BR)
CARLOS GIFFONI – THE BEAUTY OF SKYLINES (3″CD by Feld Records)
BERNHARD SCHREINER (3″CDR by Feld Records)
The name Carlos Giffoni may only ring a few bells, and that’s mostly because of his release with Lee Ranaldo and Jim O’Rourke (see Vital Weekly 430) or his collaboration with Lasse Marhaug (see Vital Weekly 434). On this mini CD, Giffoni presents a recent live recording from a concert in Frankfurt, Germany. In this piece sounds and styles collide together: ambient meets noise and glitches and drones work against and with each-other. In his laptop improvisations, Giffoni is all over the place. It’s certainly quite a nice piece, but I can imagine that it works better when heard live at a full blast volume (which of course you can’t really do at home – not this one).
On the same label, comes a 3″CDR in an excellent, almost professional package by Bernhard Schreiner. Previously he had a CD on Reduktive Musiken (see Vital Weekly 456). Both pieces here are based on Samuel Beckett’s script ‘Film’ and presented as a group-installation at the Art)fair) Frankfurt in 2005. In both pieces he uses crackles to a wide extension. In ‘Objekt Hund Katze’ they appear upfront, but in ‘Outside-Window’, entirely based on field recordings, they move along the lines of inaudibility. Like his previous CD, this is not a work full of surprises, but it’s executed with great care. And with a limitation of just 20 copies, something to cherish. (FdW)
Address: http://feld-records.com/
RUNZELSTIRN & GURGELSTOCK – RUNZELSTOCK & GURGELSTIRN (LP by Nihilist Records)
PANICSVILLE/LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS (7″ by Nihilist Records)
Two new slabs of vinyl on Nihilist Records, aka Panicsville own label. The first one is by someone whom I lost contact with over the years. In the second half of the eighties, Rudolf Eb.er’s Schimpfluch label was one of the most exciting labels in the world. Excellent experimental music packed in covers that were simple but beautiful. Eb.er’s own musical inception was Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, whose music was a vivid cut-up of noise, field recordings and the voice of Eb.er that sounded like he was in the middle of some therapeutic session. But as said, I lost touch with his releases, probably around the period he moved to Japan or Taiwan – or some such. So with ‘Runzelstock & Gurgelstirn’ he is back on track and that’s a good thing. The thing that didn’t enjoy me that much was the fact that it sounded exactly as where I left off, maybe a decade or so ago. Rudolf Eb.er is still a man to cut his sounds short, with silence, with screams (here the whipping in a SM action), with ticks, with electro-acoustic sounds and with cracks, but essentially nothing changed, and that is a pity to those, like me, who still cherish the good ol’ Schimpfluch catalogue. I can imagine that those who never could get hold of the old LPs by simply not having the cash at Ebay, can finally have a peak at how it sounded back then, but I am a tad bit disappointed by this. It would have been nice to see where he was now, what he was up and what the past decade would have brought for him. Nice for sure, a good re-introduction and perhaps a push to play the old stuff again too.
The other one is a split 7″ by Panicsville and Lovely Little Girls. Panicsville comes with a less refined moment of record spinning, girls laughing and lunapark music. Especially the second half of the 7″ with it’s guitar loops and jew harp (or some such) reminded me of Nurse With Wound’s krautrock meets musique concrete. More traditional tunes are to be found on the other side, by Lovely Little Girls, with an extended line up and there are two or three tracks. The vocals are divided by a male and female singer, plus more credits for grunts by other members, and the hectic, free but tight playing reminded me of the early B52’s. Less refined yet, but who knows, this could bloom into something similarly great. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nihilistrecords.net
MIMIR (7″ by Brainwashed)
What it is that defines a supergroup? The fame of it’s members, but I’m sure out there there are enough people who never heard of Edward Ka-spel, The Silverman, Andreas Martin, Christoph Heeman and Jim O’Rourke, yet from my perspective some of them gained real fame with whatever they are doing and their supergroup is therefore Mimir. Not that they are very active, since their releases in the last fifteen or so years can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Earlier this year they played a very rare gig, in Antwerpen, Belgium, guesting also Timo van Luyck (Af Ursin). The whole proceedings where captured on video and come on a limited DVD-R with this 7″. The 7″ captures two tunes, albeit very short, but a great showcase of Mimir’s music, which is the sum of many influences: the krautrock psychedelia of The Legendary Pink Dots, the minimalism of Andreas Martin’s guitar playing and the deep drone works of Mirror. The a-side is more Mirror and the b-side more Pink Dots. Two sides of the same coin. How they come together is best witnessed while viewing the DVD-R of the concert. Slowly it builds up through a web of drones, then slowly adding a rhythm and a counterpart of it, and an acoustic guitar slides in. Everybody is full on concentration and seeing your heroes sweat is always a good thing! (FdW)
Address: http://www.brainwashed.com
ST – EIN SPLITTER GLAS (7″ by Apocalyptic Radio)
After a couple of CDR releases, the first 7″ by Apocalyptic Radio, by the band ST, which stands for Shadow Theater, and which, perhaps is a collaboration between Fluchtwacht and Psychohead (at least their two e-mail addresses are mentioned, so one plus one is zero). Side A is definitely the most noisy one of the two, with loud, piercing and dense walls of noise, feedback, distortion and a screaming voice of agony. A bit like good ol’ Ramleh. Side B starts out in a more rhythmic fashion, but here too vocals kick in that that are distorted through a bunch of sound effects, thus coming to a likewise densely layered vocal piece along the lines of Ramleh, but here with a minimalist banging rhythm in a likewise good ol’ industrial vein. For those who never can get enough of the eighties industrial music, or simply can’t afford to buy the rarities of that time, this is a good thing to have. (FdW)
Address: http://www.apocalyptic-radio.de
ASCOLTARE – GIVING SET (7″ by Strange Lights Records)
The man behind Ascoltare is one Dave Henson, who released his first 7″ as Ascoltare on his own Tripel Records and some stuff on Dubbel, but this new 7″ is his second 7″. Ascoltare works perfectly in the world of glitch. If you think of a blueprint of the genre, then this could be it. Using ‘improvisation, acoustic samples, found sounds and digital cut-ups’, he crafts together a minimal, yet lively set of pieces, with loops going in and out of phase, like ‘Come Out’ by Steve Reich, but the whole crackles and buzzes like a good Fennesz record would do. While perhaps adding nothing new to the genre as such, I still think this was a pretty neat record. A bit Fennesz, a bit classical, a bit O’Rourke in his ‘I’m happy’, nervous and hectic but yet at the same time relaxing in some odd way. (FdW)
Address: http://www.strange-lights.co.uk
DAVID PAYNE – FEEDBACK #2 (CDR by Entr’acte)
The medium of CDRs is always good for an introduction to new names, and Entr’acte knows a few. I never heard of David Payne, and there is no information available, so we can move straight onto the music. Apparently ‘Feedback #2’ is his second exploration of feedback loops. Feedback, in general, is created by feeding the output of the mixer back into the input or running effect pedals back into each-other, and with some knob-twiddling one can change the color of the sound, so that it’s not just high-end piercing sound. All of the tracks on this CDR were produced without overdubs or editing, and David Payne is interested in ‘very little control over the sound produced’. Of course this is not really a new thing, but if I need to compare David Payne with somebody else from the history of feedback music, I’d say Arcane Device. Although Payne’s work seems more raw and made with less refined means (that may seem hard to understand, but it’s true, there is difference in machines and means to record it), there is the same sense of rhythm that Arcane Device once had, circa ‘Diabolis Ex Machina’. More spun out and more minimal in his use of sounds, and perhaps less controlled, David Payne doesn’t necessarily add something new to the world of feedback, but he sure has a couple of ideas that make him more than just another noise musician. (FdW)
Address: http://www.entracte.co.uk
SUNDAY NOISE ‘PEACE’ – FUCKING HOSPITAL (CDR, self-released)
This is the first release by Sunday Noise ‘Peace’, a new sound project from Greece. All source recordings were made between 2003 and 2005. And that’s about all the information we are given from them. Or him. Or she. In the four lengthy tracks Sunday Noise ‘Peace’ explores the odd ends of drones and rhythms – especially very slow rhythms that are woven together in the form drones. Very minimal in approach, but never monotonous, these rhythms are shaped in the best traditions of Ikeda, Pan Sonic and Goem, slowed down, but constantly changing shape and color, lighting sparks in the world of analogue synthesizers, or running amok with various plug ins on the computer (these borders are quite blurred here), from the deeper than deep bass and the higher than high sine waves. Covering a very distinct area, this is quite a lovely release. (FdW)
Address: <mourgoskull@yahoo.com>