BRENDAN MURRAY – COMMONWEALTH (CD by 23Five) *
PURE SOUND – ACTS OF NEW NOISE (CD by Euphonium Records) *
BJ NILSEN & STILLUPSTEYPA – PASSING OUT (CD by Helen Scarsdale Agency) *
SAWAKO – BITTER SWEET (CD by 12K) *
TAYLOR DEUPREE – NORTHERN (CD by 12K)
RICHARD CHARTIER – FURTHER MATERIALS (CD by Line)
CATHOLIC BOYS IN HEAVY LEATHER – NOBODY URGED YOU TO GET CANONISED (CD by Pflichtkauf)
AHNST ANDERS – DIALOG (CD by Pflichtkauf)
DAZZLING MALICIOUS – PSYCHOANALOSE (CD by Pflichtkauf)
CONFIG.SYS – BACK AND FORTH (CD by Pflichtkauf)
THE BEST OF POLISH SMOOTH JAZZ…EVER! (Compilation CD by Recycling Records)
CARTERTUTTI – FERAL VAPOURS OF THE SILVER ETHER (CD by Divine Frequency)
PHILIP JECK – SAND (CD by Touch)
SATANICPORNOCULTSHOP – TAKUSAN NO OHANASAN (CD by Vivo Records) *
VAGINA DENTATA ORGAN – MUSIC FOR THE BLIND (CD by WSNS)
EMANUELE ERRANTE – HUMUS (CD by Somnia) *
RESSONUS NET VOL. 1 (CD compilation by Ressonus Records) *
TUPOLEV – MEMOTIES OF BJORN BOLSSEN (CD by Valeot Records)
SISSY SPACEK – CALIFORNIA AX (4CD by Helicopter)
SISSY SPACEK – FRENCH RECORD (CD by Dual Plover)
JOHN WIESE & C. SPENCER YEH – NEW YORK / ATLANTA (CD by Helicopter)
FLUTWACHT – SECONDFACE (CD by Tourette Tapes/Apocalyptic Radio) *
XEDH – TRUMMER (3″CDR by Loghorn/Apocalyptic Radio)
HINSIDAN – NIGHTSHIFT (10″ Ep by Phisteria)
MÖSLANG WEHOWSKY – EINSCHLAGSKRATER (7″ by Meeuw Muzak)
NAHVALUR – ABOIDEAU (CDR by Mystery Sea) *
STORMHAT – GREEN MACHINE (mp3-album by Bleak)
STORMHAT – ADDICTED TO DIASTER (Advance CDR)
DON CAMPAU & FREDERICO BARABINO – GARNISH (CDR by Lonely Whistle) *
PRELIMINARY SATURATION – STARING AT EMPTY EYES (CDR by Dirty Demos) *
PRELIMINARY SATURATION – CIGARETTES & SANDPAPER (MP3 by Zeromoon)
THE CUTEST PUPPY IN THE WORLD – A WARM WINTER (MP3 by Zeromoon)
TZESNE – CUCHARA (MP3 by Larriskito) *
ZANSTONES – FOURTEEN (MP3 by Ruidemos) *4
JAB LEMUR – INVASION (MP3 by Ruidemos)
EN BUSCO DEL PASTO – BESTIARIO VOL. 1 (MP3 by Ruidemos)
BRENDAN MURRAY – COMMONWEALTH (CD by 23Five)
Over the years the name Brendan Murray popped up in Vital Weekly on various occasions but despite that it’s not a household name for those who love all things drone and microsound. But slowly he’s getting to some fame, and rightly so! This new work, with took fifteen different versions before it was completed, sees him again working in the field of drones, but unlike many others in this field, Murray doesn’t like the ‘go with the flow’ approach, but rather meticulously composes his work. Apparently he uses a guitar, analog synthesis and digital manipulation he plays a single, forty-nine minute piece of music. It starts out quite forceful and stays there from the start, only to increase in intensity. Slowly Murray builds and builds his piece, adding in a subtle way new layers to music, all in a mighty ringing drone fashion. Much louder and less subtle, this is loud drone music, one of the kind that Niblock plays live. Although playing music on headphones is not something I usually recommend, this piece sounds pretty fine on headphones, pressing air against your ears, making a thunderous storm, which shoots right in your brain. Towards the end the volume drops a bit in favor of more heavy weight bass sounds, forming the natural ending to a heavy work. Murray delivers, once again, a mighty fine album that will be another step forward in recognizing him as a true master of the genre. Fans of classical drone music be aware – this is the classic of the future. (FdW)
Address: http://www.23five.org
PURE SOUND – ACTS OF NEW NOISE (CD by Euphonium Records)
This is already the third album by Pure Sound, the band around Vince Hunt, following ‘Yukon’ (Vital Weekly 552) and ‘Submarine’ (Vital Weekly 575). But the story about this album starts long ago, twenty-three years. Hunt had a band called A Witness, a sort of new wave act, but in those days he started to have the vision of this album. Using found sound, field recordings, tape techniques (recorded on quarter-inch tape) such a vari-speed, reversing, cutting and looping, and musical instruments. Less than the two albums before, this is not the work of a band playing rock like music incorporating loads and loads of weird sounds, here its more a collage of found sound with some musical back up. Yet I must say that the end result didn’t work very well for me. Before Pure Sound was more into telling a nice little story, through music and voices, here it seems more a somewhat random approach towards the sounds used, which is a pity, since the pieces by themselves aren’t that strong. The previous approach did the music more justice than what it does now. Still not bad, but a bit too haphazard. (FdW)
Address: http://www.euphoniumrecords.com
BJ NILSEN & STILLUPSTEYPA – PASSING OUT (CD by Helen Scarsdale Agency)
It’s good to see a label committed to a work, and that the trust to explore certain roads further. ‘Passing Out’ is the third album recorded by BJ Nilsen and Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson, the later two also known as Stillupsteypa. ‘Passing Out’ of course refers to drinking, just like the previous albums. Not the drinking as a social habit, but fierce drinking as only the scandinavians can do really good. Or so it seems. For a moment I considered to buy a good bottle of this or that, and wait for the evening, drink the bottle, with pen and paper within reach and listen to this album. But it’s monday afternoon and I know I have to get up early tomorrow, so it’ll has to do completely sober, sunshine all round and soft spring breeze – all the wrong conditions I guess. Perhaps this contrast of good condition (all around) makes the album even stronger, I was thinking. The complete and total isolation of the music, the long passages of seemingly no action (there is just one piece, clocking it at 68 minutes), with then a sudden break, a melody filters in, the radio starts humming and field recordings – that backbone of so much in Vital Weekly and certainly here – make this an album of not just pure drones or just processed field recordings, but the strange elements thrown in, give this album a stranger, almost alien feel to it. If it’s the equivalent of passing out is a bit hard to say: the act of passing out on alcohol prevents you from remembering anything. This is however their best album to date and makes a strong trilogy. (FdW)
Address: http://www.helenscarsdale.com
SAWAKO – BITTER SWEET (CD by 12K)
TAYLOR DEUPREE – NORTHERN (CD by 12K)
RICHARD CHARTIER – FURTHER MATERIALS (CD by Line)
Of the three new releases on 12K/Line, only one is really new, which is the second album by Sawako for 12K, following ‘Hum’ (Vital Weekly 502), which we enjoyed very much back then. More than the previous, this is an album in which she receives help from others, such as Jacob Kirkegaard (cello), Radiosonde (guitar and tea), Ryan Francesconi (co-mixing and guitar), Lila Sklar (violin) and Jess Ivry (cello). Some of them play on more than one track. Sawako plays the rest, which I think is mostly electronics and computer processing of field recordings. This new album sees a continuation but also further exploring of ‘Hum’. Sawako still explores the deep end of microsound and ambient glitch, but it’s all a bit more abstract than before, but all is gently humming down the lines. The addition of real instruments add another layer to the music and marks a fine album. Nice progress is made here.
Originally ‘Northern’ was released two years ago, but the 1500 copies were sold in six months, so Taylor Deupree felt it was necessary to do a re-issue, but he calls this a ‘directors cut’. I always understood that to be a term for film makers who made the ‘real’ thing that distributors or producers didn’t want, so how to translate that to a work which Deupree recorded and released himself? I don’t know, it seems odd. The work was re-done on a new computer, new plug ins, error files and such like, so its a bit of a different work. I wrote back then the following about the original ‘Northern’ release: “From the outside it may seem that Taylor Deupree is a busy bee, music-wise, but ‘Northern’ is his first solo release in two years. Deupree is always busy with his own 12K label (and off shoots Line and Happy), playing live concerts and working with others, so perhaps time is a bit sparse to do his own music. Recently Deupree moved from urban Brooklyn to upstate New York, and the change of atmosphere is a fact. Well, or not? Deupree’s music is, at least for a longer period of time, made of tranquil and silent elements. Textural music, made with sounds from the environment but also electric piano, melodica and guitar, but then highly processed. It is what he has been doing since quite some time now, wether he was in Brooklyn or Pound Ridge, where he is now. But it seems that he takes even more time to tell his story. Only six tracks are present here, mostly lasting around nine to ten minutes. Deupree wants the listener to sit back and take it all in, but in a very slow pace. Things develop, that’s for sure, but everything seems to be taking it’s time, gradually everything becomes bigger and bigger, with subtle sounds added, longer sustains. It’s warm music that may perhaps not fit springtime coming (the cover depicts a winter world), but it’s certainly one of the best Deupree works so far. The calmest and most slow one.” It seems to me that this new version is still very much covered with this review, although it also seems new elements came into place, a bit more emphasis on rhythm. This crackle… was it there before. That sort of thing. Deupree’s music belongs to the absolute top in the field of ambient glitch/microsound and this new version of ‘Northern’ is another fine example.
The Line release of today is also music that was released before, but scattered over a bunch of compilations. They consist of the music of Richard Chartier and many were reviewed in Vital Weekly. I am not sure at whom this is aimed at, as I can imagine that the true die hard fans of Chartier have all of this already and that those who are only mildly interested will have enough Chartier to pleasure them. But then, who knows? Maybe this is also a perfect introduction if the sound world of Chartier is not your daily digest and as such this is a very fine work. We hear the super quiet version of Chartier, the sound he is best known for. Resonating frequencies, low bass rumble, a high peep. The clicks and cuts with faint traces of rhythm and even a loud piece is present here (‘in an attempt to drown out Akufen’s set filtering from an adjoining area’). That is perhaps a side we haven’t heard that often of Chartier, but here too it’s a nice one, so perhaps the more noisy route needs further exploring? (FdW)
Address: http://www.12k.com
CATHOLIC BOYS IN HEAVY LEATHER – NOBODY URGED YOU TO GET CANONISED (CD by Pflichtkauf)
AHNST ANDERS – DIALOG (CD by Pflichtkauf)
DAZZLING MALICIOUS – PSYCHOANALOSE (CD by Pflichtkauf)
CONFIG.SYS – BACK AND FORTH (CD by Pflichtkauf)
Four new albums from German label Pflichtkauf, the label established by one of the brains behind experimental electronic festival Maschinenfest. First album comes from the project with the bizarre name CATHOLIC BOYS IN HEAVY LEATHER. The album titled “Nobody urged you to get canonised” opens with sexual orgasms soon fading over to the bass-riff of Boney M’s legendary hit “Daddy Cool”. The first thought crossing the mind is the fact that this must be a kind of Kitch-Art-project, but as your thoughts drift in these directions, the music suddenly turns into seriously harsh territories combining blasting power noise-rhythms with crushing harsh noise-sound textures. Catholic Boys In Heavy Leather is the project of Joke Stryker and Roto Siffredi from Italy. Conceptually the two guys take their aesthetic approach in fetish leather-suits, making this album even more interesting thanks to the extremely harsh expression. The album operate in a balance between a quite humorous approach to electronic music with a number of samples of voices and old classic songs and harsh expression sometimes of pure harsh noise and other times with rhythmic interventions in-between. Other times club-based technoid rhythms is combined with harsh noise. A quite interesting album from Catholic Boys In Heavy Leather, and hell, I’d be interesting watching these two guys on live stage! The artwork on next album reviewed here contains a cardboard photography created for every piece on the album titled “Dialog”. The man behind is called Henrik Erichsen, operating under the artist name is “Ahnst Anders”. Present album is the debut of the German composer. The music is quite dark and mysterious, circulating on the borderlands between drones-based ambient and downbeat Industrial. There is a frequent use of concrete sounds giving an organic and quite authentic atmosphere. An interesting album that would be a perfect soundtrack for some Arthouse horror flick! Next album comes from another German composer operating under the name Dazzling Malicious. And once more we’re talking about explorations into sheer darkness. The album titled “Psychoanalyse” is the follow-up album to the debut from 2004, “Don’t like”. Circulating somewhere in-between the first two reviewed albums, “Psychoanalyse” changes between up-tempo power noise and downbeat ambient based on icy low-frequent drones, with an overall minimalist approach to expression. Best moment on the album comes with the second piece on the album titled “Verschleppte psykosen”, an atmospheric piece with long stretching and dramatic drones running a couple of minutes on its own before threatening evil noise-passages washes over, creating an alluring contrast between beauty and ugliness spiced with samples of crying women and shouting man. Very intense piece and a great album. Last album reviewed here is by Config.Sys, a project consisting of Sebastian Hüttl and Stefan Komnick. Config.Sys take their starting point in classic harsh Industrial with integrations of a number of different music styles from EBM to house. And it does work well. (NM)
Address: http://www.pflichtkauf.de/
THE BEST OF POLISH SMOOTH JAZZ…EVER! (Compilation CD by Recycling Records)
It is always exciting to explore albums that put focus on the music scene of a certain country, especially in cases where we’re dealing with less known countries of electronic music, as is the case with this compilation from Recycling Records concentrating on e-music from Poland. The concept of the album is top hits of Polish music industry being transformed into new modern and experimental forms. The result is quite fascinating since the re-processes are quite different to the origins. Contributions range from Harsh Noise-related abrasive electronics to downbeat Chillout, from Breakcore to experimental Ambient. Only sign to the fact that the works on the album is derived from more commercially based music is that quite a number of the tracks have acoustic elements included. Especially guitar-based interventions occur: From psychedelic and trippy Pink Floyd-reminiscent interpretations across atmospheric and beautiful to harsh digital pieces. Thus the album is both interesting in its conceptually approach but also the musical end result is very pleasant indeed. (NM)
Address: http://www.recyclingrecords.com/
CARTERTUTTI – FERAL VAPOURS OF THE SILVER ETHER (CD by Divine Frequency) This is a review full of confessions. One: to be honest, I had to check the dictionary to find out what “feral” actually means (it means “wild” in case you’re wondering too). Two: I have lost track of Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti’s output since their excellent early 80s albums Songs Of Love And Lust and Trance. Three: to be even more honest, I have had to listen to this disc 3-4 times before I actually fully appreciated the music. The fourth confession is that I think both the album’s title as cover art lean a bit towards Harry Potter-imagery. Nothing wrong with that, but it all looks a bit “ambient soundscape”. Over the years a plethora of Chris and Cosey albums have been released and there is bound to be a plethora of Carter Tutti (interesting how they first recorded under their first names and now under their last names) albums to follow. What remains the same however, is the construction of their music. Here, as before, Carter lays down the rhythms (very subdued), sequencers, keyboards and patterns whereas Tutti adds her breathy (and reverbed) vocals, guitar and cornet. This combination could well fall flat on its face, but on Feral Vapours Of The Silver Ether this actually works. The songs are soft, almost like a vapour (get it?) hanging in your cranium. This works wonderfully on a reflective, dare I say ethereal level. In a sense, all tracks merge into one long composition/work. As such I feel this album is better reviewed as one whole, rather than divide it into various tracks. And the final confession is that I actually love this album. It just gets better with every play. (FK)
Address: http://www.divinefrequency.com
PHILIP JECK – SAND (CD by Touch)
The recent release of Gavin Bryars’ Sinking Of The Titanic leaned quite prominently on the vinyl manipulations of Philip Jeck. On this new solo CD (his fourth for Touch) Jeck is on his own. Recorded live at performances in The Netherlands and England in 2006 and 2007 Jeck edited these recordings into seven tracks. It is interesting to note what he is able to do with equipment limited to old records, record players, keyboards and mini-discs. Several tracks feature a calm atmosphere with crackling and drones, with sometimes the source material (Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “Fanfare for the common man” is featured quite prominently, even though I have to admit I missed that one – I’m not much of an ELP-fanatic). On other tracks his source material evolve to a more industrial nature. Personally I like the subdued tracks on this CD better than the heavier material, but that may just be me. However, I do think this would have worked better if Jeck had chosen for either a more subdued or either a heavier approach, but then again, as this is intended to be a reflection of his live set that would not have been a good idea. A nice listen therefore, but not special enough to me to keep my interest throughout the complete disc. (FK)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
SATANICPORNOCULTSHOP – TAKUSAN NO OHANASAN (CD by Vivo Records)
This is the second release by Japanese Satanicpornocultshop for Polish label Vivo Records, following the lengthy EP ‘.aiff Skull’ (see Vital Weekly 554). I have just finished my supper and the last thing of day will be this CD. Not a great CD for a food coma. That’s not because this is a bad CD, not at all actually. This is a great CD, but loaded with information. Packed to the top with sound. Satanicpornocultshop are a Japanese group of samplemaniacs. They take everything from the hundred years of popular music and effectively messes things up in a totally wild mixture of sound, rhythm and electronics. I switch it off and start hearing something else, until the food has come down, make a new coffee and then start, afresh again. Hip hop, easy tune, rap, break beat, everything runs rampant in this mix. Sweet female, french vocalists, cliche pop, cheesy easy tune, loud rhythm, deep bass, this is party music bar none. The dancing was last night, but in the after party of tonight Satanicpornocultshop play a bunch of great tunes, providing a big smile on this face. I mean, ‘Heineken – fuck that shit’ is shouted somewhere, and I couldn’t agree any less, that beer is piss. I must admit the tracklisting doesn’t make any sense at all. There are many names, but it says produced by Satanicpornocultshop, so we may come to the conclusion that these are remixes? But do we care? Hardly. A long list of tracks, twenty-six in total, with confusing credits, but making a strong CD. That’s what matters. Satanicpornocultshop will leave you breathless with the highly curious but gorgeous great take on popmusic. Plunderphonics gone music – at last! (FdW)
Address: http://www.vivo.pl
VAGINA DENTATA ORGAN – MUSIC FOR THE BLIND (CD by WSNS)
Amidst the recent controversy over the Valls-brothers’ (Jordi and Marc) censored art exhibition in Spain, Jordi Valls (better known as VDO) releases his fourth album. With previous releases featuring their remarkable vision on surrealism, Music For The Blind comes as a total surprise. Gone are the sounds of the motorcycle (which featured on Un Chien Catalan) or the tolling of bells (on The Great Masturbator). Instead we are treated on 5 beautiful variations of Seranata, Enrico Toselli’s (1883-1926) most famous composition. Like The Great Masturbator this new CD is a homage to surrealist Salvador Dali, as Serenata was his favorite composition. The variations on this album are performed by master violinist Bernarda Jones, who recently performed with VDO at the 11th International Experimental Music Festival in Barcelona. Planned as music “so beautiful it makes you cry”, this album fullfils this promise. Jones’ violin soars and amazes in its simple, fragile beauty. Although short (only 15 minutes) it should be noted that music this beautiful should not be measured in quantity but in quality. Again VDO, in true surrealist tradition, have managed to surprise and amaze everyone. (FK)
Address: <hashashin@hotmail.com >
EMANUELE ERRANTE – HUMUS (CD by Somnia)
Again packed in a beautiful hand-sewn package comes another album by Emanuele Errante, of whom we reviewed ‘Migrations’ in Vital Weekly 553. Still we know nothing about this man, but he continues his path in ambient music. I’m not sure for ‘Humus’, wether it was also created using guitars but it surely has lots of things with keys to it, in real life or as a piece of software. The opening piece ‘Fecunda’ is a nice, flowing piece with a slow bass sound. It forecasts a change in the music of Errante, that of the incorporation of rhythm. In many of the pieces to follow (there are eleven on this disc, which seems to me a good number, and their length is always kept within limits) there are ‘faint’ traces of dub like rhythms. Going back to the Chain Reaction school, this is however much more subdued and relaxed than the more dance floor oriented black pieces of vinyl. If one has to compare this with something else, than I’d say Marsen Jules’ lush music comes to mind. It has that same calm, relaxing feeling, but with steady pulses – however slow they might be. The rhythm is merely an ornament to the music, not the foundation. Sometimes ethnic in approach, sometimes more owing to the dance floor, but it’s never the objective for Errante. His music is after party music, the chill out zone, or, if you prefer weak up call music. You can still hear, perhaps feel, the beat, but it’s gone and replaced by sunlight and an autumn breeze. Relax and flow down stream. Great stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.somniasound.com
RESSONUS NET VOL. 1 (CD compilation by Ressonus Records)
Complaining about reviewing compilations doesn’t help – I know. But I like to do it. It’s never an easy task. Twelve tracks on this compilation ‘Ressonus Net Vol. 1’ and the only name I surely recognize is Kora Et Le Mechanix, who are from the Czech Republic, just like four others as well as the label. One is from The Netherlands, Mark Tamea (UK born however), but I never heard of him. The label sent me extensive notes on all of the artists, which is great. I learn that Farmacia from Argentinia has a track on the recently released ‘Some Bizarre Double Album’ (I liked the first one, from when was it, 1981 or so, so must check out. Makes note). For instance. There is lots and lots of carefully played music here. The cover bears a sticker saying ‘ambient – glitch – experimental electronic music’, which is very much true. Tamea has a great electro-acoustic, field recording piece, which forms a contrast to the somewhat heavy drones of Selectone, with cricket samples. Which forms a contrast with the dark drone only from Landschaft. The music pieces by themselves are pretty different from eachother, all however with certain limits of course – as outlined on the sticker. This makes this quite an enjoyable release, with however one objection too: none of the tracks really stood out of the rest. Maybe Gurun Gurun made the biggest impression with the sampled guitar strumming – it’s the only one of which I’d say, let’s have some more. I would want more of the rest – but wouldn’t actively seek it. Also included are: Sunao Inami, Methera, Strangelet, Alessandro Fidrin Damiani, Emdy and Stusha. (FdW)
Address: http://www.ressonus.net
TUPOLEV – MEMOTIES OF BJORN BOLSSEN (CD by Valeot Records)
A four piece band from Vienna, Tupolev: Peter Holy (piano), Alexandr Vatagin (bass, cello), Lukas Scholler (electronics), and David Schweighart (drums). They are also active in bands and projects like Port-royal, Slon, Kes, Primordial, Undermind and Liger – all of which I never heard of. It’s a bit of weird line up, but the combination works well. The piano sounds as a piano, and usually takes the solo in a song. Drums and bass play the spine and electronics have a free role play in this one. All the songs are instrumental and they some guestplayers on pieces, providing a guitar, clarinet or just ‘ambience’. Its hard to avoid the Radian et al influence on Tupolev, even when it has more emphasis on a ‘normal’ song structure. There is great variation in the songs, uptempo, downtempo, rock like, jazz like, introvert and extravert which makes this quite a nice album of almost post rock, but in a wider musical field. The only thing that a bit less is that the piano sounded always the same, playing chords and always with the same tone color. Otherwise this was quite enjoyable, not great and exciting, but just nice enough. (FdW)
Address: http://www.valeot.com
ISSY SPACEK – CALIFORNIA AX (4CD by Helicopter)
SISSY SPACEK – FRENCH RECORD (CD by Dual Plover)
JOHN WIESE & C. SPENCER YEH – NEW YORK / ATLANTA (CD by Helicopter)
It might be a 4CD box, but that’s just Sissy being generous, as all four albums also have titles of their own and seem to have no direct connection to each other, not even concerning who’s playing (the only constants being John Wiese and Corydon Ronnau). So no idea what these albums are doing together in one plastic box, but hey, I won’t complain about Sissy overload, especially when it’s as diverse as this. Of course, ‘diverse’ is relative, as all of this is clearly right at home under that misnomer called Noise. So, a runthrough then: Album one is called “Tinsel Dripping Ink” and collects 26 short tracks, of which a couple are remixes by like-minded such as Gerritt, Oblivia (from Smegma) and Tom Recchion. I actually don’t think there’s a better introduction to the either the band or even the genre as this album, it sounds like a dictionary of noise music, with elements of basically every other experimental music style thrown in for reference. It’s quite something. Album two (“Police”) has less tracks , and they’re marginally longer, and apart from that they sound more like coming from an actual band playing. It has quite a jazzy/improvy feeling to it, maybe like a more quiet John Olson project. It gets more & more quiet with every track, until at the end you think you’re listening to some Japanese reductionist workout. Album three, which goes under the mystical title “Abreq Ad Habra” is two long pieces recorded for radio shows. All I can say is that I worry about the people listening to these radio stations without knowing what they got themselves into. “13-Tet Los Angeles” finally is two live sets by a larger ensemble and returns in sound a little to the second disc, albeit more lively. Everything is being scratched and scraped in good improv fashion. For a band not so known for it’s diversity, this 4CD breaks open that completely by showing only four possibilities of what could maybe be many more transformations for this unit.
And as if that’s not enough, there’s also the separate album “French Record”, released around the same time. On it, they get help from Kevin Drumm and C. Spencer Yeh as well as some others. As an album, it might be slightly more interesting then any single album from the box set (except for maybe the first CD), as it jumps all over the place like a hyperactive child, but it also has a element of humor which I can’t really explain, but it gives the whole record a sort of breeziness that is quite alluring. It’s always nice to hear a record that in every way sounds ,extreme’ but ends up being a very pleasurable and easy listen.
To top it all off, Mr Wiese has released another chapter in his ongoing road trip diaries with C. Spencer Yeh with shows from New York and Atlanta (after recently seeing an LP and a 7″ with performances from a UK tour) on one CD. Yeh’s violin destruction sounds as vital as ever, and the sound quality is supreme. Plus these two really seem to have good fun together. Really great.
This might be 6 Wiese CDs in 1 week, but if they sound like this, I can keep up this rhythm for many more weeks, if he could as well. So, keep ’em coming. (RM)
Address: http://www.john-wiese.com
Address: http://www.dualplover.com
FLUTWACHT – SECONDFACE (CD by Tourette Tapes/Apocalyptic Radio)
XEDH – TRUMMER (3″CDR by Loghorn/Apocalyptic Radio)
From the house of Apocalyptic Radio two new
releases. The first one is a real CD on Tourette Tapes by Flutwacht, by now a constant factor in the catalogue of the label. If you want to search for older reviews, try also typing ‘Fluchtwacht’, as I made some errors in spelling their name right. But it’s Flutwacht and ‘Second Face’ is a re-issue of a CDR in an edition of 50. I don’t think I reviewed that one, misspelling or not. It’s an album of eleven tracks which were recorded in collaboration with various people from the noise underground, such as Xedh (with whom an ultra low volume deep bass rumble is produced), Contagious Orgasm (a nice samplemania piece), Objekt/Uria, Vincenzo Bossi, Antracot, TZII, Bonemachine, Synomorph, Terg and Hyeno. Some of these names are also new to me. I think I expected something to be more noise based than what it is, and that is so much better. The element of noise, shock and heavy rhythm is never far away but throughout this collection what prevails is a more dark ambient sound – deep and dark atmospheric synthesizers, obscured samples from machinery at work and perhaps even field recordings. The noise pieces are placed cleverly around this disc and, as said, don’t take up too much space. A nice album, if a bit long. Some of the pieces could have been a bit shorter for my taste, while it would still hold the same power.
In the Loghorn series (a series of 3″CDR in plain white, stamped envelopes) we greet Miguel A. Garcia, a.k.a. Xedh. Recently his music moved from the loud and rhythmic to the quiet and non rhythmic, and this new, with five shorter pieces, is no exception. I already stated that this is the side of Xedh which I like much better than the previous work, and in the dark, subdued clouds of sounds that he produces here, he moves again: the dark, earthy rumble is a new feature bringing together microsound and dark ambient, until it reaches a more noise based climax in ‘Utlope’. Quite nice this one, offering many more road to explore. (FdW)
Address: http://www.apocalyptic-radio.de
HINSIDAN – NIGHTSHIFT (10″ Ep by Phisteria)
In the fall of 2007, I had much pleasure listening to three albums from Danish drone-project Hinsidan. It was three quite different albums with the common denominator of laying much emphasis on sonic drones. “Hinsidan” meaning “Beyond” in English, is a quite suitable title to sound expressions that are first of all introvert, with atmospheres that demand for some deep listening without any interruptions of human activity. Now it is time for another dose of soundscapes from this very active project. The album titled “Nightshift” comes as a 10″ vinyl Ep divided into four cuts. Opening very slowly, the first piece titled “The first time we met the blues” (no worries, not any sign of Blues on this track!) builds steadily from inaudible drones to smoothing vibrant drones building a great atmosphere from early start, not too far away from British legends Zoviet France. As the first piece fades out, another swarm of drones build with the opening of following piece “Labyrinths of obsession”, this time with a more abrasive approach. Soon after subtle acoustic drum-patterns penetrates to create a rhythm structure in the abstract composition. Side B of the vinyl opens with a remix of “The first time we me the blues” executed by Ant-Zen legend L’Ombre. The result is a completely different work based on repetitive downbeat rhythm textures assisted by discreet ambient melody in the background. Final piece on the album is a live recording from legendary Danish underground club “Ungdomshuset” (R.I.P.). Despite the fact that it has been recorded live the sound of the work is still nice and clean. The title-track “Nightshift” consists of vibrant drones and distant male vocals adding to the strange nocturnal atmospheres of the track. As was the case with the earlier efforts of Hinsidan the guitar plays an important role in the spheres of work, and the result again is utterly beautiful. (NM)
Address: http://www.phisteria.com/
MÖSLANG WEHOWSKY – EINSCHLAGSKRATER (7″ by Meeuw Muzak)
More and more the 7″s released by Meeuw Muzak are cryptic affairs. Partly because the label doesn’t provide any information, nor there is any relevant information on the cover. ‘Möslang Wehowsky’, ‘Einschlagskrater’, ‘MM036’ is all that is said on the, as ever cheap printed, cover. Thank god we know Norbert Möslang and Ralf Wehowsky as crafts man of cracked everyday electronics (which I saw before, but where?) and computer manipulation of the deviates of cracking those electronics. Who did what, is not said, and perhaps not relevant. One side is like a continuos piece of falling sounds set against a dark drone like backdrop. The other side is more a musical piece in which we may, or may not, detect an upright bass, but that also may, or may not, have similar sounds of things falling and lots of processed variations thereof. Quite an ‘art’ record this one. Good or bad are simply irrelevant questions. Meeuw does it again, and does it best. Leaving the listener in full confusion and thinking ‘was that all?’. I quite enjoyed these two little, conceptual, affairs. (FdW)
Address: http://www.meeuw.net
NAHVALUR – ABOIDEAU (CDR by Mystery Sea)
Once again Mystery Sea finds somebody (actually two) of whom I never heard. Nahvalur is made up of Alexandre Rito from France, who records as Oh, Birds! and Xalaxsxaq (and as such will have a release on Mystery Sea soon) and from the UK Matthew Ellis, otherwise known as Parhelion and Openverge. I assume they exchange files per (e-)mail. Their four tracks on ‘Aboideau’ are trade mark pieces for the catalogue of Mystery Sea: the aquatic, deep sea drone music. Taking sounds from the washing machine, a ventilator or something like that, they transform the whole thing into music which sounds like you having your ears under water. Sounds from far away become mingled, semi-distorted and far away, muffled. As such I must say nothing new under the drone sun (or should that be: nothing new on the waterline?), but Nahvalur play quite a decent job at their music. Nothing too spectacular, nothing too weird either. Just a plain, solid job. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
STORMHAT – GREEN MACHINE (mp3-album by Bleak)
STORMHAT – ADDICTED TO DIASTER (Advance CDR)
Creating musical pieces exclusively built on field recordings can be quite a task: combining sonic images of the real sound world ending as whole piece of art and more importantly: As a musical composition. Composer and sound artist Peter Bach Nicolaisen succeeds in his explorations into concrete sounds on his two latest efforts as Stormhat. Stormhat is the Danish word for one of the European continent’s most poisonous plants; a few grams consumption of the Stormhat-plant marks the end of a human life. That Peter Bach Nicolaisen has chosen the name of a threatening and dramatic object makes sense when listening to present releases by Stormhat titled “The Green Machine” and “Addicted to disaster”. The atmosphere on both albums is quite dark and mysterious with sonic expressions that float around crackling noises, high frequency tones, industrial sounds and deep buzzing drones. Distant voices appear once in a while inside the six intersections of “Addicted to disaster” that otherwise floats in repetitive sound spheres giving an excellent hypnotic effect on the entire album. Compositions on both albums circulate in-between concrete found sounds and processed field recordings. The “Green Machine”-album has a more Eastern musical approach to the ritual soundspheres reminiscent of a non-rhythmic version of early Muslimgauze. Where pieces based on field recordings sometimes can seem quite static the expression of Stormhat, due to the many sound layers, creates plenty of sonic energy to keep the intensity intact throughout both albums. With an expression stylistically finding itself in the borderlands between drone-based ambient and subtle noise, I advice adventurous listeners to check the excerpts of both releases, “The Green Machine” and “Addicted to disaster”, that can be found on the web-site of Stormhat. The complete “Green Machine”-album is available for free download on the web-site of the Austrian netlabel Bleak meanwhile the “Addicted to disaster”-album will be available on US-label Diophantine Discs soon. (NM)
Address: http://www.bleak.at
Address: http://www.discs.diophantine.net
Address: http://www.stormhat.dk/
DON CAMPAU & FREDERICO BARABINO – GARNISH (CDR by Lonely Whistle)
Frederico Barabino is a guitar player from Argentina, whose likes to play with other people. He did so with Kenji Siratori and with Charles Rice Goff III – two quite different musicians. Don Campau has been playing music since the early 70s and it’s a name I remember seeing on cassette compilations in the 80s, but I honestly can’t say that I ever heard his music properly. He takes control of the electronics on this release. I am not sure how this music was recorded, either face to face in the studio or, and that seems more likely, through the use of internet and ‘file exchange’. Likewise I don’t know who is responsible for the mix of it, but, and again we are making assumptions here, I think it’s Campau who added electronics to the guitar playing of Barabino. The latter plays some free open strumming, plucks his strings and such like and Campau certainly captures a right setting for this to flourish in, but it’s more that Campau saves the day that Barabino. It’s not the pairing of say Martin Hannett and Vini Reilly when they recorded ‘The Return Of The Durutti Column’, not even in the fifth (no track list was provided, nor a cover, nor information – which might say much about to what extend people care about what they create, says the cynic in me) with a jazzy drum loop pumping in all at once., as this is much abstracter but also, and I say, unfortunately a rather sketchy affair. Perhaps a real meeting should be set up between the two and make something more coherent. (FdW)
Address: http://www.doncampau.com/
PRELIMINARY SATURATION – STARING AT EMPTY EYES (CDR by Dirty Demos)
PRELIMINARY SATURATION – CIGARETTES & SANDPAPER (MP3 by Zeromoon)
THE CUTEST PUPPY IN THE WORLD – A WARM WINTER (MP3 by Zeromoon)
Suddenly it all came together. Preliminary Saturation was hard to avoid this week. This duo of Wouter Jaspers (sometimes known as Franz Fjodor) and Steffan de Turck (otherwise Staplerfahrer), both from the active forces of the Dutch city of Tilburg, were playing at Extrapool this week, and on returning home I found two of their releases. On stage I noticed a wide range of effect boxes, mixing console, acoustic objects (including tin cans, jar lid and what appeared to be sand) and mechanical devices. Their concert started out with high pitched feedback but fared better when they started to explore the objects with contact microphones and treated the sounds with their sound effects. Both releases are alike the concert, but worked out better, even when they too seem to be live recordings. All of the pieces last around twenty to thirty minutes. ‘Staring At Empty Eyes’ is slightly under thirty minutes and is more alike the concert I heard, less a noisy beginning. Here things are ‘mildly’ noisy at the beginning with rotating sounds (mechanical objects on surfaces?) which gradually goes down in volume but cranks up in frequency. Once arrived in the area of a few crackles they built up their sound and end up with much noise.
The second release is a MP3 by Zeromoon is a more subdued one. Over the course some twenty three minutes they play around with objects which are fed through an array of sound transformers, of which they mainly use the echo machine, a bit of reverb. Mainly their sound is fed through the lower lines of the sound spectrum making this quite a dark piece of music. As said the noise element is here absent, and there is a subtle, gentle flow to the sound. As a composition it may not work, as an improvisation it does however. The best out of three, this week. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Preliminary Saturation would be as active with releases as Bjerga/Iversen, with whom they also share musical similarities.
Also a duo, also on Zeromoon and also improvising is the duo of Bryan Rhodes and Layne Garrett, and as The Cutest Puppy In The World, they already released two CDRs before. Together they use “prepared/de-tuned guitar, various keyboards/synthesizers, found objects, and voice”. ‘A Warm Winter’ was recorded in two ‘winter’ months, December and January. Two long pieces of improvised is what these warm winter months gave us. ‘December’ starts out with some heavy church organ (preset on a keyboard, not the real thing) for quite some time, before landing in the land of free play: plucking strings, silence, more plucking, some piano and some sound effects. ‘January’ is even longer, but also less focussed. The Cutest Puppy goes through various phases in this piece, some of which lack coherency. It’s scattered all over the place this music, which is a pity. With some more rigorous editing things could have been saved. ‘December’ is also long, but it’s ambient, flowing character saves the piece. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/dirtydemos
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
TZESNE – CUCHARA (MP3 by Larriskito)
From the active scene of Basque land comes the
‘older’ master of Tzesne, who re-releases ‘Cuchara’. I have no idea when it was released before. The recordings were however made in a restaurant, ‘La Cuchara De San Telmo’, saint Telmo’s spoon that is. From his previous works we have learned to like Tzesne for walking a fine line between noise and dark ambient, but this work, from 2002 mind you, displays more a love of industrial music – and I really mean ‘industrial’, as whatever was recorded in the kitchen over there sounds like a factory with machinery in full action. Mechanical sounds from washing machines, the oven and the looped sounds of spoons and forks, make up a work that owes everything to Russolo right to Vivenza. It doesn’t like the previous works I heard by him, and it took me some time to adopt to it. The retro industrial sound is something that I heard well before, but Tzesne does a nice version of it of his own. Not the greatest, best work in the world, not even in the smaller world of Tzesne, but surely nice enough to hear at least once. (FdW)
Address: http://www.xedh.org/larraskito
ZANSTONES – FOURTEEN (MP3 by Ruidemos)
JAB LEMUR – INVASION (MP3 by Ruidemos)
EN BUSCO DEL PASTO – BESTIARIO VOL. 1 (MP3 by Ruidemos)
The first of these three new MP3 releases on Ruidemos is a re-issue of cassette from 1986, which still sounds, technically, great. Zanstones is a project by the omnipresent Zan Hoffman, who has been active in releasing tons and tons of cassettes, CDRs and MP3 since the early eighties. Usually solo, but as Zanstones he uses sounds which other people sent him. In ‘Trouble With T. Diez!Minoy!Fd”, these are Fenner Castner, Foundation T. Diez and Minoy. In this piece the violin plays a role, but slowly other sounds, provided by the others, leak in, making things a bit more noisy, but it was not enough to hold my attention throughout. Of more interest are the two pieces ‘Violin Improv A1’ and ‘Violin Improv A2’, in which Hoffman layers various violin parts over eachother and sounds like cross-over between Steve Reich’s ‘Violin Phase’ (but less of a phase) and Tony Conrad’s ‘Four Violins’ but less gritty. A simple, minimal affair, direct in your face playing of the violin, certainly in ‘A1’.
‘Editado’ par Jab Lemur it says on the ‘Invasion’ release, but it seems hardly edited to these ears. Lemur has a sampler, I think, one of those DJ samplers when you can sample a sound on the spot and rework it by speeding it up and bringing the down the bitrate, length, etc. He feeds it with all sorts of sounds, including a version of ‘Rock and Roll Music’ and then starts messing them about. In all of the ten pieces I had the idea of listening to his raw material. The editing process hasn’t started. The seventy-five minutes presented here are the bricks for a composition, not the actual composition. Noise based, very digital sounding, this is a hard thing to hear. More work please, next time around.
A real group is En Busca Del Pasto and includes Jorge Ruizm Pedro Pons, Ricardo Sanz, Pablo Delgado de Torres and Juan Morales, who, I think, have the line up of a rock band, but they don’t sound like one at all. They improvise carefully around the theme of silence, with sparsely constructed pieces of music. They play loosely tunes, notes, clusters of sound, and very occasionally (but really: very) burst out in a more noise driven mood. Quiet music, with on the surface not much happening, but below that, just above the threshold of hearing, there is of course lots of delicate sounds to be discovered. Nice one, if a bit long. Here too more editing would have been in place. (FdW)
Address: http://ruidemos.freelinuxhost.com