AUBE – MONOCHORD (7″ by Gender Less Kibbutz)
In Holland there is a saying that goes like: too much can’t be too good. An interesting thing if you would apply to some of today’s music makers. Some of these over productionists seem to deliver a constant high quality stream of music, and offer enough innovation to remain interesting throughout. No doubt you will recognize Aube as one of those over productionists. Here is another offering – I dare not say his latest… (you never know what came out today). Two tracks, spinning on 45, made with the use of steel wires only. Unlike his recent ‘Metal De Metal’ (ranking high in the year list of the Vital Weekly staff), this is a much more noisier affair. It reminded me of Merzbow’s LP ‘Storage’: treated sounds with sparse use of electronics, in which the sound sources remains recognizable. Metal scraping that loops around and gradually built up to a volume and speed climax. The other side is more ‘ambient’ if you wish to use that term and more high pitched. This 7″ is more an average work, that didn’t stand out from the rest. The cover is like always: outstanding. Oh well, I wait for tomorrow’s mail. (FdW)Address: Gender Less Kibutz – P.O.Box 158469 – Nashville, TN 37215 – USA
ARRHYTHMIA 3 (Compilation CD by Charnel Music)
The third offering from Charnel Music’s series of rhythmic music. I must admit Ifeel a bit lost on this series. Percussive music can be so much, yet why do a lot of these bands on this sound the same? Most of these offer drums (wether or not electronic), drench them in a wall of reverb and add sparse synths and suppodesly ethno chants to them. The sort of thing Crash Worship has patented years ago, and even they seem to be a clone of themselves. The golden spray cover adds to the ‘experimental gothic’ taste that is left in my mouth. For yourround-up, this includes work by: Raksha Mancham, ABGS, GLOD, Desaccord Majeur, COTA, Scot Jenerik and a host of others which I never heard of. (FdW)Address: <mason@netcom.com>
SMELL & QUIM/TAINT/CON DOM (triple CD set by Red Stream)
Three known artists on an almost three hour box set. All of these three have hadreleases before on different formats, and work since several years.I started playing Smell & Quim first, not because they are my favourite, but they spliced up some tape-work from yours faithfully. Smell & Quim use more thenany of the other splicedup tape-material in the form of tape-loops and collage material. The input consist of metal being banged and ditto distorted guitars and synths. Here and there are snippets of voices, such as on the first track.Con Dom is the probably the most political of the trio. The subjects are mostly religion, but according to the press text, this CD ‘questions hypocrisy in America’, whatever that means. I assert that no music can have a political message, and if one has some political idea, then write a book. Oh well, Con Dommight not agree. There is a steady stream of sound, with vocals shouting on top.The third track with it’s pounding rhythmbox is the most striking new feature ofCon-Dom.Taint starts furious beating metal, distorting synths and maintains their loud and aggressive noise attack for it’s full 46 minutes and 26 seconds. What else could I add?These three artists represent, for me, the side of industrial music that is slightly conservative: they deal with sexual perversion, religous oppression etc, and quit frankly that is not my subject. Subject-wise this is: seen it all,heard it all. Industrial music for me has more to do with innovating soundproduction, recycling etc. Having said this, I hasten to say I had my pleasure on this, since not everything can be new, but music serves functionallyfor pleasure too. (FdW)Address: <RedStream@aol.com>
STEP WRITE RUN – ALPHAPHONE VOL.1 (2CD by Touch)
W.O.R.M. – AGOGO (CD by Nova Zembla)More functional music. Behind Step Write Run we find one Richard H. Kirk (a.k.a.Cabaret Voltaire, Sweet Excorcist, Sandoz etc.) who is offering some 100 minutesof dance music that is mainly there to entertain you. He is giving his signatureby recgnizable synth patterns, computized snare-drums and voice-snippet samples.I see this work more as a follow up to the Sandoz CD’s then the to more political works such as ‘Agents With False Memories’.W.O.R.M., the solo project of one half of the Self-Transforming Machine Elves, made a record full of likewise entertaining Goa trance music. Nothing new, but then that is not the question here. Entertainment is there, so you won’t be disapointed.Address: <touch@touch.demon.co.ukAddress: <kknz@kk.be>
DMDN – SLING TRIP (CD by Pure)
As regular readers of Vital Weekly will be aware of, I review only CD’s from Pure if I like them and this is no different. A slightly incestous review, since DMDN and one Frans de Waard made music together a decade or so. DMDN’s Jac van Bussel was also a member of THU20 and used to run the label Midas Music. His solo stuff dwells very much on long pieces of industrial music with a great depth and a great trance to them. Treating synths, tapes and voices in a smooth way he creates his own unique voice in industrial, which not many others have. Unfortunally Pure is not going to release the even better ‘Sling Trip 2’, so write your complaints to:Address: Pure – 151 Paige St. – Lowell, MA 01852 – USA
ROGER DE LA FRAYSSENET – KITNABUDJA TOWN (CD by Metamkine)
I am puzzled… I wrote that before, but now I am more then ever. There is not my clarificatio with this CD. If you remove the CD holder then you’ll find a hugh list of names of musicians. What their contribution was to the project remains unclear. The last line reads something like ‘A musical essay by Lionel Marchetti in the form of quotation-collage’. Sometimes you may recognize some ofthe stuff, sometimes you don’t have a clue. It’s like turning the dial of your radio. It stays however on one volume level. The CD is as fasnitating as dialingthe dial, but maybe both make no sense. There is apperentely no story going, a composition as such is not apparent, so what is going on? Again, I’m puzzled. (FdW)Address: Metamkine – 13,ÊRueÊDeÊLaÊDrague – 38600ÊFontaine – France
MICHEL REDOLFI – DETOURS (CD on CIRM)
Michel Redolfi (1951) is a (predominately electro-acoustic) composer,inventor and director of CIRM (Centre International de Recherche Musicale) in France, where he has resided since 1986. Prior to this he conducted 11 years research inmusical cybernetics and computer assisted sound design at various prestige locations in America. It was while in California (where else ?) that he premiered his first underwater concerts during which the music circulates underwater, resonating through the physical bodies of his audience who, not surprisingly, have to get wet in order to hear the sounds. Redolfi continued to expand on this idea, having written an underwater opera and additionally programmed and composed some of the music for an aquarium in France. He also design interactive installations, again with an emphasis on moisture.Mr Redolfi is quite a busy bloke, especially since he won the Ars Electronica Prize for Computer Music in 1994. I was fortunate enough to have heard his musicbefore he received this award, and was already well seduced. ‘Detours’ is the latest (and perhaps only ?) compilation of his work…I suspect that it is availible from the address below; I got mine because I’ve financially committed myself to a series of concerts at De Ijsbreker, Amsterdam curated (sorry Wodge) by the big guy from France. This CD comes as a bonus for those optimists who areprepared to book concert tickets six months in advance. (So hold off the apocalypse till mid-1997, please)Back to the music….there are 23 tracks on this compilation and Michel recommends you shuffle. I didn’t because I like to read the liner notes in trackorder. I’ll shuffle later, I promise.
The liner notes are full of loads of fascinating information, so are well worth the time. Some snippets…’Crysallis’,an underwater opera – the audience floats in zero gravity. They are surrounded by sonar speakers and are suspended by the water above the vocalist (who is in a transparent atmospheric chamber), and a bell-ringer, who both perform from the bottom of the pool. The audience perceives the music through bone conduction…’by simply floating on the surface of the (now) sonic waters, the skull vibrates like a tuning fork’. Any references to stereophonic space disappear and the music seems to resonate in the centre of the body. I’d love totry it.’Nausicaa’…also the name of a beautiful compilation CD (released on CIRM,1991).
The music is used as a permanent soundtrack in the Centre National de la Mer, France – apparently the largest aquarium in Europe. Multiple speaker systems line the walls down corridors lined with tanks full of ‘fishy lifeforms’, replaying endless flute loops. The ‘Nausicaa’ CD also contains a couple of pieces by Luc Martinez and Michel Pascal, both colleagues at CIRM.’In Corpus’ represent some of the latest developments in underwater concerts. The audience swims about wearing bathing caps fitted with sensors/MIDI controllers in a well-wired interactive pool, generating continually changing sound sequences. The representative track on ‘Detours’, however,was composed by a computer simulation…’Sonic Waters – Music for Salt Water’ was premiered in the Pacific Ocean in San Diego in 1981 and relies on the same principles of perception as ‘Crysallis”Too Much Sky’ was first availible on the INA.GRM release ‘Desert Tracks’ and isincluded in it’s entirety on ‘Detours’. Harp phrases were sampled and stretched in the digital domain and then subject to the further mysteries of processing before being arranged as this composition. This piece was often used by Redolfi during his all night ‘nocturnal concerts’…’an invitation to reverie, this music brought the sleeping listeners all the way to the morning’.
Additionally, and as an electro-acoustic composer, Redolfi often sources his sounds from the natural world…a few of his recording experiments in the Mato Grosso and Amazonia are included here. Some of the pieces have undergone manipulation and have been augmented by synthetic sounds, while others remain asthey were recorded – glorious documents of the rich tapestry of sound which surrounds us all, all the time.There are also some truely ‘ambient’ vignets, styled ‘Eloquent Silences’ by Redolfi, which occur throughout the CD. Some are recordings of deserts of the American West, others are musical evocations of sleep. They are intended to create mysterious pauses in between the tracks, avoiding the emptiness of digital silence.If you’ve never heard music by Michel Redolfi, then this is perhaps the best introduction to his work. If you’re already familiar with his stuff, then this is still an extremely worthwhile acquisition. Real gold. (MP)Address: fax: (33) 493160766