ZAAR – ZAAR (CD by Cuneiform) *
TAKUMI SEINO & ANTOINE BERTHIAUME – ARC BENEATH THE SURFACE (CD on VOS Records)
TOMAS KORBER/CHRISTIAN WEBER/CHRISTIAN WOLFARTH – MERSAULT (CD by Quakebasket) *
ROBERT MARCEL LEPAGE – PEE WEE ET MOI (CD by Ambiances Magnétiques)
TRIO DEROME-GUILBEAULT-TANGUAY – THE FEELING OF JAZZ (CD by Ambiances Magnétiques)
IZU – GOING SALAMANDER (CD by Highpoint Lowlife) *
FISK INDUSTRIES – 77 AND RISING (10″ by Highpoint Lowlife)
UNCLE E. – DEEP IN THE BUSHES (CDR by Antboy) *
RUNAR MAGNUSSON – THE ART OF DYING IN A LIVE SITUATION (CDR by White Label)
VINDVA MEI – FUNGI TO THE MOON (CDR by White Label) *
EARZUMBA/PAULO BETO/ELOI SILVERSTRO – PSICOTRUCHAS AROUND THE WORLD (CDR by Edition Fästing Plockare)
THE CIRCULAR RUINS – DEGREES OF SEPARATION (CDR by Databloem) *
MATHIAS GRASSOW & GUESTS – OPUS POSTHUMAN (CDR by Databloem)
DANNY KREUTZFELDT – CLOSELANDS (CDR by Databloem) *
FORMATT – RE-TAKE_REPEAT (CDR by Audiobot) *
LOOPOOL – PARTHENOGEN (CDR by Audiobot) *
DOUG THERIAULT & KATHLEEN KEOGH (CDR by Audiobot)
OFFENSIVE ORANGE – ROUGH RIDERS (CDR by Audiobot)
KOLUMKILLI – VILLAGE AT NIGHT UNDER LUCENT SKY (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
WAPSTAN – TRANSCENDING HYPOTHERMIA (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
WAPSTAND/CLON (3″CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
HARM STRYKER (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
FEEDBACK COWBOYS – WOODEN BULLETS (CDR by Brise-Cul Records) *
DRONE SEASON 1 (CDR compilation by Brise-Cul Records)
IDLE SUNDER – AETHER 1 (MP3 by Entity) *
DOTKRAZ VS IDLE SUNDER VS CASUAL COINCIDENCE – RUST (MP3 by Entity)
ANTANAS JASENKA – SONIC MACHINE (MP3 by Entity)
SEDARKA – SHIBASHI TODOMEN (MP3 by Entity)
FP – FIUK & CSAJOK (MP3 by Entity) *
CISFINITUM – MALGYL (MP3 by Entity)
ZAAR – ZAAR (CD by Cuneiform)
The vielle à roulle or hurdy gurdy is a popular instrument in the folk music of france. But it also finds it’s way to other musical territories. French improvisor Dominique Regef plays it. I remember also a very impressive improv concert by another french man Eric Cordier on hurdy gurdy accompanied by japanese percussionist Seiji Murayama. With this CDc.d. by Zaar also from france the hurdy gurdy appears in a rock context. Ok, because of my fascination for this instrument I choose for this introduction, but let’s come to business now.
Zaar arose out of the ashes of Sotos in 2004. Sotos is an example of the second generation of avant-progressive music taking the heritage of King Crimson, Magma, etc. They made two CDs for Gazul and Cuneiform. Zaar takes over where Sotos left and continues in the same musical area. The axis continues to be formed by the brothers Hazera. Michael on drums and percussion, Yan on guitar. Pairbon play bass and double-bass plus. A very conventional line up if it were not completed with the hurdy gurdy played by Cosia.
Central on this CD are two lengthy pieces (20 and 17 minutes). In both tracks they take their time to work out themes and motives. The first one “Sefir” impresses because of the frippian solowork on hurdy gurdy. The other one “Omk” succeeds in creating the most intense atmosphere through the lines of a striking composition. The other shorter pieces attract attention because of different aspects: “Ce n’est pas triste” with acoustic bass is very spheric and a little jazzy, followed by the very speedy and electric “Tougoudoegoum”, in order to continue again with a more acoustic sounding piece called “Discasambo”. Pieces like “Zolg” and “Scherzo” stand out as a very cleverly composed polyrhytmic pieces.
With this diversity of compositions these guys fuse together chamber-rock, symphonic and progressive rock, improvisation, and even elements of folk. They operate in the more friendly section avant rock. Their music has not the darkness and aggression of Present or Univers Zero.
But a typical french touch that reminded sometimes a bit of Philippe Cauvin and Vortex. Not all their compositions are that original, although they are far from just imitating their heroes. This surely is a band with real potential. I hope they will develop their own voice further in the future. For the moment there are some very surprising twists, etc to be enjoyed. And the playing is intense and dedicated. Bob Drake (Thinking Plaugue, etc.) recorded and mixed this album. I hope you do not mind I return to the hurdy gurdy again. I was really delighted by the natural way this instrument is used in this rock music and hope Zaar will explore this further. At the moment Zaar prepares their contribution for a cd that will be a tribute to the music of Magma: watch out for their Troller Tanz! (DM).
Address: http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/
TAKUMI SEINO & ANTOINE BERTHIAUME – ARC BENEATH THE SURFACE (CD on VOS Records)
On july 18, 2005 Berthiaume and Seino gave a concert at Big Apple, in Kobe, Japan. It is perfectly recorded and made available on this cd. And it was worth it. Because this duo offers some really innovating guitarwork that’s hard to describe. Both are unknown guitarists. Berthiaume debuted a few years ago with a cd with duets with Fred Frith and Derek Bailey. It was followed by a cd in trio format with pianist Quentin Sirjacq and sound engineer Norman Teale. Both cds were released by Ambiances Magnetiques. But of the two players Seino seems to be most experienced one. He has already several cds out, just explore the VOS-catalogue. He had his own trio, and group and was engaged in numerous – most japanese – collaborations. Both are well-educated and very talented guitarists, and what is more important they are intelligent musicians who have something to tell. If easy listening and avant garde can go together, I would say this describes some of their improvisations, like the first part of track 6 or the solo piece by Berthiaume. Also the title-track is an excursion into spacious and echoing guitar-sounds that makes them more related to Frisell of Fripp-like soundscaping then to Frith or Bailey-inspired improvisations. But at other moments they chose for a very hectic, distorted and dynamic approach, like in the end of the title track. Although the cover makes no mentioning of it, it is evident that both have surrounded themselves with lots of technical and electronic devices. But the gentlemen are throughout in charge of what they are doing and deliver some very engaging music, true sonic symphonies I would say. (DM)
Address: <http://www.takumiseino.com/ http://www.antoineberthiaume.com
TOMAS KORBER/CHRISTIAN WEBER/CHRISTIAN WOLFARTH – MERSAULT (CD by Quakebasket)
The ever so active Tomas Korber, guitar player and electronics expert, is a lively force in the world of improvisation music, especially in his home land Switzerland. Here he teams up with two Christians: Christian Weber, a for me unknown double bassplayer and Christian Wolfarth on drums and percussion. Of him we recently reviewed a solo CD. Here is where the world of analogue and digital sounds meet up, these days not an uncommon thing in the world of improvisation. The occurrence is usually of a different nature. Sometimes the emphasizes lies on the difference of both, or the two trying to imitate each-other, so that they all blur together. On this CD however the form is rather much more open and free. There are section when everything indeed blurs together, but that seems to me to that the majority of music everybody does their thing, using the specific coloring of their own instruments and put them to use in perspective of the greater thing. Don’t get me wrong here: it’s not about how we play our own thing and not caring about the rest, but it’s a highly delicate form of playing together, using their own sounds and place them in the right combination with the others. They do a more than excellent job at that. It brings the listener a set of three pieces that are all highly powerful to say the least, ranging from soft, introspective playing towards some more noise related paths, but throughout it’s a well made disc. (FdW)
Address: 113 Spring St. 4th Floor, NY, NY 10012 – USA
ROBERT MARCEL LEPAGE – PEE WEE ET MOI (CD by Ambiances Magnétiques)
TRIO DEROME-GUILBEAULT-TANGUAY – THE FEELING OF JAZZ (CD by Ambiances Magnétiques)
Veterans of the new music/jazz scene of Montréal honor some of their jazz idols. The trio presents 11 standards of Duke Ellington, Lee Konitz, Sonny Clark and even Misha Mengelberg. Why record these standards that have been played and recorded by the composers and others so well and so often? Derome simply states “music needs to exist in the flesh” which is undeniably so. Jean Derome plays flute, saxes and also sings. Normand Guilbeault plays bass and Pierre Tanguay percussion. They really enjoy playing these standards and play them with verve. Robert Marcel Lepage concentrates on the work of Pee Wee Russell (1909-1969) a composer and clarinet player in the ragtime and swing-period. Not by playing his compositions, except one (Muskogee Blues). But by evoking his music through his own bluesy compositions. The pieces are played by Tanguay (drums) and Guilbeault (doublebass), Rene Lussier (guitar) plus Lepage and six other musicians on clarinets. In each track Lepage explores an aspect of Pee Wee’s legendary phrasing and tonal language. The result is some really ‘goodtime’ and accessible jazzmusic. Only by the complex and freaky guitarwork by Lussier – as in track 2 – we know life is more complicated. (DM)
Address: http://www.actuellecd.com/
IZU – GOING SALAMANDER (CD by Highpoint Lowlife)
FISK INDUSTRIES – 77 AND RISING (10″ by Highpoint Lowlife)
Ronnie MacPherson was brought up on the remote Hebridean island of South Uist, but now lives in Glasgow, where he lurks around in the electronic scene and plays around under the Izu moniker. He was part of the compilation of the Marcia Blaine School For Girls (see Vital Weekly 461) and had a 12″ on Stuff Records. I believe ‘Going Salamander’ is his first real CD. There is in Vital Weekly the reference that goes like, ‘sounds like music released on Highpoint Lowlife or Expanding Records’, when referring to break-beats and melancholiac keyboards. Izu is not part of that. Izu plays loud music, heavy rhythms, aggressive keyboard lines and when things come down to being melancholiac, such as in ‘Jumpers’, Izu effectively kills it with a fair amount of distortion. Izu moves away from the ‘standard’ (hohum) sound of Highpoint Lowlife in order to create something that is much more of his own than something that can be anybody on the label. Loud, mean, driving around with high speed, this techno punk as we want to hear more.
And although many if not all releases on Highpoint Lowlife deal with dance music, I believe this 10″ by Fisk Industries is the first vinyl release on Highpoint Lowlife. In Vital Weekly 389 we were both introduced to the music of Fisk Industries as-well as the label, and this is his follow-up. Mat Ranson, the man behind Fisk Industries, is not a fast worker, but the results are quite nice. He has played concerts with Funckarma, B12 and Posthuman, and they, along with Boards Of Canada and ISAN are still important influences. The previous release sounded to me a bit fresher and cheerful than many of Fisk Industries contemporaries, but this new 10″ is a bit darker, without the usual melancholy that is also often part of this kind of music. A bit monotone, a bit more industrial, but it means also that Fisk Industries is capable of producing that is outside the standard and that is of course a most welcome thing. These six tracks are to the point, do something new outside the usual paths of this kind of music, and is in general a very fine small item to have. (FdW)
Address: http://www.highpointlowlife.com
UNCLE E. – DEEP IN THE BUSHES (CDR by Antboy)
Now, this is a bit of surprise. Uncle E. is one Timothy Pledger from Melbourne, and besides playing music, he makes films. He’s the leader of Bohjazz, an experimental band, but also plays in the rockband Bikeboy and he has two audio visual experimental bands, Sandwich Jesus and Viaduct. He is ‘deeply involved in the tonal and emotional aspects of rhythmic harmony as they move against each other in blocks and waves of sound’, it says on the cover. ‘Deep In The Bushes’ is resampled reworking of Bohjazz album ‘Deep In The Woods’, and is his third album as Uncle E. The reason why I call this a surprise is that it is indeed all about emotions and harmony, the latter aspect not a frequent thing on releases by Antboy. Usually this label deals with the more noise related aspect of improvisation and electro-acoustic music. In each of the five pieces, Pledger uses samples of mostly wind instruments that only differ marginally from each other but that he staples as blocks next to each other and creates shifting layers out of that. Highly electronic and organic sounding, this moves away from the cut ‘n collage sound of many other Antboy releases. Minimal along the lines of Phil Niblock, but more harmonic and also with a more low fidelity character. Shimmering, twilight music. The only point of critics might be that some of the tracks are perhaps a bit too similar, like ‘The Dep Boy Descends’ and ‘Deeper’, but throughout I thought this was a very nice moody and atmospheric release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.antboy.com
RUNAR MAGNUSSON – THE ART OF DYING IN A LIVE SITUATION (CDR by White Label)
VINDVA MEI – FUNGI TO THE MOON (CDR by White Label)
This gives me the opportunity to set some fact straight. When I reviewed the previous Vindva Mei CDR, ‘Germans Are People Too’, I complained about the fact that it had only one track, but I forgot to mention the subtitle ‘Alive & Kickin’, and the fact that it was a live recording. Same thing here with the release by Runar Magnusson, one half of Vindva Mei. It’s not so my thing to do one track of whatever long length on a CD, but ok, let’s say that this is a live CD – although we can’t find any clue as to where and when it was recorded, but according to the press info it was recorded at the Sound Art festival in Copenhagen in 2004. Magnusson continues with what he left us with the previous ‘The Greatest Of The Great’: pretty dense and dark soundscapes, that shows an interest in The Hafler Trio as-well as some mid-nineties Stillupsteypa. Slowly unfolding soundpieces that are at times creepy, but never without a small trace of light, a trace of humor (any good horror movie has these funny bits). Sometimes things get of the track, but throughout it’s a nice CD.
Also from Vindva Mei there is a new release, or rather a re-issue. Originally released in an edition of 15 copies for some festival, then re-issued in an edition of 51 copies and now copied on demand. The recordings are somewhat older, from 2001 to 2003. Despite the fact that this material is a bit older, they take us on a similar ride as with the previous album, albeit now chopped up in separate tracks. Things work best for me when Vindva Mei are a little bit more abstract, making longer curves in sound, incorporate field recordings and built up the tension, such as in ‘You’re A Moist Doggy Now’. When thing are more rhythmical, this tension is not really present and alive, but remains cold and alienated. It never becomes dance music anyway. Although Vindva Mei operate in a multitude of sound approaches, they know how to create a pretty consistent album. There are some weaker spots on there, but throughout it’s quite nice. (FdW)
Address: http://this.is/whitelabel
EARZUMBA/PAULO BETO/ELOI SILVERSTRO – PSICOTRUCHAS AROUND THE WORLD (CDR by Edition Fästing Plockare)
The ever so active Christian Dergarabedian, aka C.D., aka Earzumba dug up an old recording of him and two boys from Brazil, of whom I never heard: Paulo Beto, of the electronic bossa-nova project Anvil FX and Eloi Silvestro, who builds his own instruments from the trash. Together they operate analogue synths, laptop, tapes, radio and percussion. The recording is from 2002, but sounds still like a very fresh thing. It moves away from the usual Earzumba material but is certainly also not the plink plonk improvisation on a bunch of electronic gear. In stead the boys move in a sort of psychedelic, cosmic trip of crashing analogue synth sounds, set against a constant driving rhythm of sequencers, rather than drums. A bit like the good seventies, but than a lot more experimental, with digital organ sounds flying about. Crazy stuff that in the end is a bit too short, but perhaps the wish for more is enough. One shouldn’t always want too much! (FdW)
Address: http://www.edition-fasting-plockare.ch
THE CIRCULAR RUINS – DEGREES OF SEPARATION (CDR by Databloem)
MATHIAS GRASSOW & GUESTS – OPUS POSTHUMAN (CDR by Databloem)
DANNY KREUTZFELDT – CLOSELANDS (CDR by Databloem)
The medium of CDRs can have a mixed appearance: from hand-written, badly xeroxed covers to say the top-level, the CDR releases by the Dutch Databloem label, in their Data Obscura series. The only reason why you know they are CDRs, is the green side (once Databloem knows there are also silver bottom CDRs, can’t tell the difference). Databloem is a label which is specialized in ambient music, with the big A. These three new releases contains the work of an old friend, a second introduction and a newcomer. That’s be Anthony Paul Kerby, aka The Circular Ruins from Canada. It’s not easy to review his release, other than in terms of general ambient speak. Stretched out pieces, warm analogue baths of synthesized waves of sound, floating endlessly. It’s very nice stuff for sure, and I played this all morning (like all three Databloem releases in a row, really) and it creates a feeling of levitation, but The Circular Ruins are edgy enough to not fall into any new age trap.
The old friend of this bunch is Mathias Grassow, of whom we reviewed previously some work on labels such as Staalplaat and Lunar. He is sort of a well-known person in this world of ambient music. For this CDR he comes up with a bunch of friends, such as Jim Cole (harmonic singing), Kai Schröder (self-built Veena, an Indian string instrument, an electric bass and field recordings) and Klaus Wiese (tambura, another Indian string instrument, drones and bowls). The two Indian instruments play an important role in the four ‘Improvisations On Raga Shudda Todi’, where they play a majestical strum every once in a while, set against a dark wall of electronics and processed harmonic singing. In the other four pieces things are more the regular sound of Grassow, which is deep space ambient music, moving slowly around like planets around the sun. Majestically moving, peaceful, but Grassow is dark enough to stay away from the dreaded new age shit. Great stuff once again.
Danish Danny Kreutzfeldt’s previous release ‘Counterpheripheral’ was reviewed in Vital Weekly 479, which had dubby bass lines and clicks in combination with ambient synths. This new release was recorded between 2004 and 2006 and sees a departure of that music in favor of a much more experimental sound. Deeply atmospheric, but much more wayout there than the usual dark ambient music. There is hints towards some form of rhythm, but it’s all covered up, twisted around and transformed into alien life support machines. They stand there in the dark, quietly but distinctly pumping their way, forming heavy weight particles falling towards the swamp, where they slowly sink away. Kreutzfeldt crosses the lines of drone music, ambient and industrial, which for me is always a fine combination of styles. Without putting the other two down, I think this is best of these three new ones. (FdW)
Address: http://www.databloem.com
FORMATT – RE-TAKE_REPEAT (CDR by Audiobot)
LOOPOOL – PARTHENOGEN (CDR by Audiobot)
DOUG THERIAULT & KATHLEEN KEOGH (CDR by Audiobot)
OFFENSIVE ORANGE – ROUGH RIDERS (CDR by Audiobot)
Another fine label to release CDRs is Belgium’s Audiobot label. Their packaging always looks nice, just as the Databloem releases, except that Audiobot operates in an entirely different field of music. Their releases are usually more noise related, but they use a very broad perspective for that. Things had been quiet for Formatt for a while, but ‘Re-take Repeat’ is a new release. Formatt is Peter Smeekens and he has released a whole bunch of CDRs of his laptop made music. Some of his previous releases dealt with a rhythm related version of that, but in this work the rhythm aspect, in some other life time it was called ‘clicks & cuts’, is less present and replaced by the more common microsound/ambient glitch. Not much I know about these five tracks, even when the title may relate to some sort of remix project of some kind, maybe his own music. The titles of the pieces doesn’t help any further. They are good, solid pieces of ambient glitch, made with skill and care, but also remain a bit too much on the known side of things: the music as such doesn’t hold many new directions. That by itself isn’t a big problem, but the music doesn’t seem to grab the listener that much, but stays a bit distant, cold and remote. Having said that, I must also say that’s all made with great care.
However Loopool is, I don’t know. It’s a nice palindrome though. They play two lengthy pieces of music that is hard to pin down. They use electronics, guitars, sound effects, synthesizers, all mentioned here with a big perhaps, because it’s not known. The music is loosely improvised, but the name of the band hints towards some sense of looping sounds. Loopool loops their sounds through delay pedals. The whole thing breaths a lo-fi affair. None of the sounds jumps out of it, and it’s more an endless stream of sound without any hierarchy or structure, but that is strangely enough also quite captivating. Very alien but very nice.
Also Doug Theriault and Kathleen Keough are new to me. The first plays ‘sensor guitar’ (whatever that may be) and the latter dictaphone/voice. Their release has one piece of just under thirty-seven minutes, which was recorded in July last year, ‘live in studio’. Probably recorded in one go, this is the typical product of improvisation, but it seems to me in the learning stages of improvisation. At times these strike a note, an idea or a thought which sounds pretty good for a while, but in other moments they are trying out to get anywhere, but they fail. That makes this release sort of alright, but not great. Just a nice but perhaps a bit average improvisation disc.
Although ‘Rough Riders’ is my first encounter with Offensive Orange, I reviewed two releases by one of their members: David Payne, who is credited here with electronics and voice, but has two excellent solo feedback release on his list. Together with Matthew Boughner, who also plays electronics and voice, he is Offensive Orange. Another ‘live to tape’ recording. One can see the influence of Payne on this project, which is a loud and harsh electronic sound, but overall the material is not as convincing as Payne solo material. Overall it’s a pretty standard noise affair of feedback electronics and probably some voices to trigger it (thank god it’s stays away from any Whitehouse imitation). Quite alright, me thinks, but not the greatest new thing out of the world of noise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.freaksendfuture.com
KOLUMKILLI – VILLAGE AT NIGHT UNDER LUCENT SKY (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
WAPSTAN – TRANSCENDING HYPOTHERMIA (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
WAPSTAND/CLON (3″CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
HARM STRYKER (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
FEEDBACK COWBOYS – WOODEN BULLETS (CDR by Brise-Cul Records)
DRONE SEASON 1 (CDR compilation by Brise-Cul Records)
Although I reviewed two previous releases by Brise-cul Records, this is the first time I received something directly, and I must say: it’s a bit much. Many new names, sometimes hard to read covers, and all that. Kolumkilli is new and has a cover that is hard to read. I understand he Iain McMaster from Montreal and his release ‘Village At Night Under Lucent Sky’ was recorded on ‘September 17th and unknown’. He plays ‘guitar and all between’, whatever that may mean, but this one-piece release, is a nice travel in the world of darkness. The guitar vibrates somewhat metallically around, bathing in reverb and delay, creating small overtones. Nice and spooky.
Behind Wapstan we find one Martin Sasseville, also from Montreal and he has a couple of more releases on Brise-Cul Records, which I do believe is his own label. He too plays the big D(rone) music, but he sort of settles for the more noise related version of it. The first piece is relatively soft but in the other two pieces, the feedback and distortion come up and create a more violent of monotonous drone music, but I must say it lacks the true power to be real noise, or the subtleness to be real drone music.
More Wapstan is to be found on a 3″CDR release which is recorded via mail with Clon, a.k.a. Cornucopia. Here again drone music is at work, but where things sort of fail at ‘Transcending Hypothermia’, they work much better here. Two pieces of twenty minutes in total of slowly evolving and enveloping sounds, with just a little bit of the right amount of noise creeping into it. Me thinks that both artists did their own mix of the material collected. Pretty good dark and deep drone music here. Well played, well executed along the known routes of the music.
No information on either cover or on the website on the label or Harm Stryker himself, but his release has a bunch of pieces on this otherwise handmade CDR release (handpainted, handwritten) which deal with the subject of noise, but just as handmade it looks it also sound a bit handmade. Distortion, feedback, sometimes a loose end rhythm, but made without caring too much about whatever he was doing or who the listener is. A bit too easy this one.
The Feedback Cowboys are also from Montreal and are a duo: P. Ayotte and E. Wrazen, and they play a variety of guitar, theremin and ‘analogue stuff’ and on September 4th 2005 they recorded two lengthy pieces of improvised music: ‘Muddy Boots And Bloody Hands’ and ‘Noisefight At The 0Khz Corral’. This is some dam fine improvisation music, along strict minimal lines. In the second piece everything is held together by an ever ongoing rhythm machine, but in the first it’s just mainly the guitars who do this job, and they do it well. Once everything is set in motion, things move slow but steady forward. Like marching music. Things pop in and out of the mix, but everything remains pretty lo-fi, thus adding to the directness of the music. A bit like some of the old Henry Flint stuff, but with the intensity of early Cabaret Voltaire, but then played on guitars – get my drift? Very nice one this.
The final release is a compilation of various drone musicians from Canada, eight in total of which I just recognized Roxanne Jean Polise. Overall it’s the more noisy forms of drone music at work here. The densely layered chaos of Scant Intone or the higher pitched shrieking tones of Pulse Emitter. Softer moments arrive through Warning Broken Machine, Broken Sleep and Roxanne Jean Polise. A nicely varied compilation showing the various forms that drone music can take, with new names to discover to the more adventurous A&R managers of CDR labels. (FdW)
Address: http://www.brise-cul-records.cjb.net/
IDLE SUNDER – AETHER 1 (MP3 by Entity)
DOTKRAZ VS IDLE SUNDER VS CASUAL COINCIDENCE – RUST (MP3 by Entity)
ANTANAS JASENKA – SONIC MACHINE (MP3 by Entity)
SEDARKA – SHIBASHI TODOMEN (MP3 by Entity)
FP – FIUK & CSAJOK (MP3 by Entity)
CISFINITUM – MALGYL (MP3 by Entity)
Belgium’s netlabel Entity sort of never got my attention, despite their big catalogue. Here is no less than six of their releases, mostly by people I never heard of before. People like Idle Sunder, which seems to be a group. ‘They set out to disassemble the physical reality we all reside in’ and by looking at the title of their release, I think they use sounds lifted from the aether. These sounds are heavily treated inside the realms of the computer and served as a highly intelligent collage of radiowaves, even when the original is hardly to be recognized. When things are abstract, they reminded me of The Hafler Trio, circa ‘A Thirsty Fish’ and when things are a bit more rhythmical they reminded me of the older work of Lilith, with whom they share throughout a fine taste in sampling obscure sources. A very nice work.
More Idle Sunder is to be found on a release of various collaborative works, together with Dotkraz and Casual Coincidence. It’s not all of them working together all the time, but rather one vs the other, the other vs the third, the third vs the one etc. Although I don’t know anything about these bands I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that the members are linked together since there is a strong coherent sound to be detected among this lot. Again the sampling of sounds is the main ingredient in this music and once again the music is quite dark. The piece by Idle Sunder vs Casual Coindence reminded me a bit of the late eighties period of Controlled Bleeding (area ‘Golgotha’), which was quite nice, marking this music down as a residue of a very specific moment in time, but even in this new millennium it sounds pretty fresh.
Lithuanian composer Antanas Jasenka was reviewed here before (and even called Russian by mistake), most recent with his split CDR with Arturas Bumsteinas (see Vital Weekly 502) and for this MP3 release he takes up the ‘sonic’ tag again, this time dealing with the relationship man and machine. Not doing a Kraftwerk cover here, but producing mechanical music to show the relationship between man and machine. Jasenka doesn’t feel himself to be limited to any specific sort of style, so this release becomes a hotchpotch of styles. There is drum & bass, techno, glitchy parts and even some bits of noise. Given that this release holds no less than twelve tracks, spanning just under an hour, one can imagine it’s a bit of ride to hear all of this various styles. Maybe a bit shorter and a bit more coherency would have been a better idea. But since it’s a download you can always re-arrange the order and make the coherency yourself.
Sedarka is from Belgium and despite his releases for labels such as Divine Comedy and Mirex, I never heard of him. On ‘Shibashi Todomen’ there are six of his own tracks and two remixes, one by Satka and one by Atomhead. Sedarka plays breakcore music of a hyper-nervous kind. Beats roll over like crazy, in an ultra tempo. Somewhere in the back there are drone like sounds lurking about, trying to form a counterpart, but unfortunately they remain in too much in the back. After a long day of reviewing, this is the one that causes serious brain-damage!
I had more fun with the release by FP, which stands for Fabrice Planquette, who sometimes works as element.act, acta and xE Phalanx, with various releases on Entity but also on Enough Records. On ‘Fiuk & Csajok’ he works also with rhythm but in a much straight forward fashion, but also in brutal way. The opening piece ‘Int’ reminded me of Esplendor Geometrico in their best years and sometimes a bit Muslimgauze like. But that’s just part of his sound. In other tracks he uses field recordings as-well as freely plundering other people’s works. It seems I heard some Asmus Tietchens passing by, but also James Brown, making this into a dam varied album of rhythmic pieces, atmospheric pieces, musique concrete and popmusic. All excellently produced.
The final release is by Russia’s Cisfinitum, who is getting more and more recognition outside it’s home country. ‘Malgyl’ is the closing part of a trilogy, following ‘0 vs 0’ and ‘Landschaft’. Cisfinitum plays mood music for the darker than dark minds. But unlike many others he doesn’t do this by just turning on some analogue synths or running plug ins over a few field recordings, but instead he uses a large dose of classical samples, which he stretches out. This gives the music a highly loaded character that perhaps in another life I would have slagged down as ‘gothic’. I must admit that despite the fact that this is all nicely produced, it’s still not my cup of tea. Too much pathos for no apparent good reason, although some parts were quite alright. (FdW)
Address: http://www.entity.be
Vital Weekly is published by Frans de Waard and submitted for free to anybody
with an e-mail address. If you don’t wish to receive this, then let us
know. Any feedback is welcome <vital@vitalweekly.net>. Forward to your allies.
Snail mail: Vital Weekly/Frans de Waard – Acaciastraat 11 – 6521 NE Nijmegen – The Netherlands
All written by Frans de Waard (FdW), The Square Root Of Sub (MP <sub@xs4all.nl>), Dolf Mulder (DM) <dolf.mulder@hetnet.nl>, Meelkop Roel (MR), Gerald
Schwartz (GS), Niels Mark Pedersen (NMP), Henry Schneider (SH), Jeff
Surak (JS), TJ Norris (TJN), Gregg Kowlaksky (GK), Craig N (CN), Boban Ristevski (BR), Maurice Woestenburg (MW), Toni Dimitrov (TD <info@fakezine.tk>), Chris Jeely (CJ) and others on a less regular basis.
This is copyright free publication, except where indicated, in which
case permission has to be obtained from the respective author before
reprinting any, or all of the desired text. The author has to be
credited, and Vital Weekly has to be acknowledged at all times if any
texts are used from it.
Announcements can be shortened by the editor. Please do NOT send any
attachments/jpeg’s, we will trash them without viewing.
There is no point in directing us to MP3 sites, as we will not go there. Any MP3 release to be reviewed should be burned as an audio CDR and send to the address above.
the complete archive of Vital Weekly (1-494) can be found at: http://staalplaat.com/vital/