MIGUEL A. GARCIA – ARMIARMAK (CD by RMO-Open)
BASELINE – ESTADO LIQUIDO (CD by RMO-Open)
TAYLOR DEUPREE & KENNETH KIRSCHNER – MAY (CD by Room40) *
DNE – 47 SONGS HUMANS SHOULDN’T SING (CD by Room40) *
VIOLENCE AND THE SACRED PERFORMING AS VIOSAC- RUSTYPILE (CD by VioSac) *
DRU – L’AIGUILLE (CD by Headlights) *
SASCHA DEMAND & HANNES WIENERT – SIRENEN & BLUTEN (CD by Creative Sources Recordings) *
AUGSBURGER TAFELCONFECT – FRIENDLY MOHAWK/TASTES MAALOXAN (7″ by NNeon)
FRANCISCO LOPEZ/MICHEAL GENDREAU – TDDM (2CD by Sonoris)
DIAPHRAGM SUBLIMATION (CD by SNSE)
NOVI_SAD – JAILBIRDS (CD by Sedimental) *
LEIF ELGGREN – VENTILATION (CD by Firework Edition) *
ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – MISTERRIOUS (CD by Spekk)
LEVEL – OPALE (CD by Spekk)
FELICIA ATKINSON – LA LA LA (CD by Spekk) *
DISTRICT OF NOISE (CD compilation by Sonic Circuits)
DEPARTURE OF MELANCHOLY (CD compilation by Firework Edition)
UNTYPICAL (CD by CAC)
REUTOFF VS TROUM – KREUZUNG ZWEI: CREATURA PER CREATURAM CONTINETUR (CD by Ewers Tonkunst) *
HUM – THE SPECTRAL SHIP (10″ by Substantia Innominata/Drone Records)
OVRO – HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL (7″ by Drone Records)
ARTEFACTUM – SUB ROSA (7″ by Drone Records)
THE INFANT CYCLE – SECRET HIDDEN MESSAGE (7″ by Drone Records)
1, 2, 3 WHITEHOUT (DVD+CD by Zeromoon)
RINUS VAN ALEBEEK – MUSIK FOR MITTE (CDR by Editions Zero) *
TILMAN SCHMIDT/IHLENFELD – SHIPS AND ICY ROADS (CDR by Privatelektro)
CALDERA LAKES – CALDERA LAKES (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive)
HEAD IN BODY (CDR by Klang Und Krach) *
KASPAR VON URBACH – SELFBONDAGE (CDR by Klang Und Krach)
SINDRE BJERGA – BLACK COBWEB MIND (CDR by Klang Und Krach)
BEN OWEN/MICHAEL PISARO (3″CDR by Compost And Height)
ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO/LEE PATTERSON (3″CDR by Compost And Height)
FERRAN FAGES/BHOB RAINEY (3″CDR by Compost And Height) *
ARCTIC CIRLE ENSEMBLE – THAT FUZZY FEELING (MP3 by Static Caravan) *
MYSTAHR – M14 (MP3 by Just Not Normal)
DURAN VAZQUEZ – DE CATRO A CATRO (MP3 by Larriskito)
MENGELE QUARTET – MONGOLO BAT BI HIRU (MP3 by Larriskito)
ORKESTRA ZOMBIE (MP3 by Larriskito)
MIGUEL A. GARCIA – ARMIARMAK (CD by RMO-Open)
BASELINE – ESTADO LIQUIDO (CD by RMO-Open)
After a long strings of MP3 and CDR releases, which showed a constant improving of his playing, Miguel A Garcia made the big step and now releases his first real CD. He worked first as Xedh, but also as several projects I never heard of such as Baba Llaga and Valvula Antirretorno. Here he uses strictly ‘a mixer with a pair of microphones, which register its ‘human activity’ and the sine waves extracted from a simple oscillator’. That might be hard to believe I think. One thing that can be noted here is that the conversion to entirely being microsound didn’t happen, and that’s a great thing. Garcia started out in the more noise end of the musical spectrum, and then slowly worked his way towards microsound. Here on ‘Armiarmak’ he seems to be interested in melting the two opposites together, and he succeeds rather well. Despite the fact that this album has many ‘soft’ spots where the music drops in volume quite a bit, there are also many instances were the sound gets quite loud. Garcia seems to be introducing here also the element of improvisation (perhaps already present before, but now more clearer), and his electro-acoustic music, spiced with lots of processed sine waves (making them very high or very low end), gives us some highly refined pieces of micro- and macrosound. Its probably a great step for Garcia to go to real CDs but this first one is surely also a great step for him as a composer.
I never heard of Baseline, also from Bilbao in the active lands of Basque country, but she seems to be skipping the whole notion of releasing CDRs and MP3s (or perhaps I never encountered those) and goes straight to a real CD. She works with ‘glitchs, field recordings, sounds of synthesis… she manipulates loops and sound fragments to make dense and heavy compositions’, but here I’m less enthusiastic for what’s on offer. Baseline creates three long pieces of indeed field recordings, glitch sounds, but also lots of synth-synthesis, which in ‘Dentro’ results in some heavy deep ambient with a pulsating beat, but sounds somehow quite retro. Its the least interesting piece here. ‘Publico’ with a variety of street sounds is better, but not great either. ‘Escuchando’, the second and shortest piece, is not bad either, but the ‘gothic’ undercurrent in her music doesn’t work for me very well. Its all OK, but not great. (FdW)
Address: http://www.rmokultur.com
TAYLOR DEUPREE & KENNETH KIRSCHNER – MAY (CD by Room40)
DNE – 47 SONGS HUMANS SHOULDN’T SING (CD by Room40)
Side by side at the piano – that reminds me of that dreadful song McCartney once recorded with herr Wonder, but thank god in the future I will also be reminded of Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner. On May 9 of this year they sat side by side at the grand piano – each played the piano, each transforming the sound: Deupree the inside of the piano and Kirschner the keys. On top they played the piano. The interesting thing of course here is the fact that this is a live recording. This means more notes per minute. Whereas in the studio of them (solo), sparseness is one of the greater virtues and sometimes nothing much seems to be happening – and this I mean in a positive way – things here are much more ‘lively’ with more ‘action’. Having said that, this is of course not an album of ‘fast’ music, or ‘noise’. It still has that fine trademark of both Deupree and Kirschner: lots of sound moving into free space, with minimalist changes – but the changes occur quicker than before. Great weightless space music – sparse tones, humming drones, this is an excellent work of microsound meets improv meets minimalism.
Something entirely different is the album by DNE, also known as Eugene Carchesio, who recorded ’47 Songs Humans Shouldn’t Sing’ in 1987, but when he scraped together the money to press up 250 LPs the pressing plant when out of business and the master disappeared. Salvaged from the original cassette this now comes here. Forty-seven songs in close to thirty-two minutes. Some of these pieces last for mere seconds. Mostly made of acoustic sources, like guitar, saxophones and drums, this is truly strange record. For what it is? Jazz? Well, perhaps, to some extent. Improv? Surely. Post-punk weirdness? Also. No Wave then? That too. The name of that ‘other’ Eugene, Chadbourne, is mentioned in the press blurb, and that’s also a strong reference. A record that is, so to say, hard to pin down. That’s a great power of it, but also, to be honest, in all this briefness its hard to pin a track down, or various tracks. Things happen so fast, that it leaves quite a fragmentary impression. When there is something that you really like, its broken down again and torn up. That perhaps is the downside of such weirdness. Otherwise, the weirdness itself is great. (FdW)
Address: http://www.room40.org
VIOLENCE AND THE SACRED PERFORMING AS VIOSAC- RUSTYPILE (CD by VioSac)
This is what sometimes happens: a name from the past pops up again (everything is eventually recycled), but one totally forgot what it sounded like. Violence & The Sacred is such a name. In 2007 they started again, after a 14-year sleep, although it seems to be reduced to one member only Graham Stewart (I honestly don’t remember if it was an one-man band before) and goes by the name VioSac (the cover says ‘Violence And The Sacred perfoming as VioSac). On the cover there is a list of equipment, ranging from the Korg family to guitars, cello, bass guitar, garage sale LPs and the words of William Shakespeare. All of this captured on analogue tape. As said I can’t remember how the old Violence And The Sacred sounded, perhaps they failed to make an ever-lasting impression, but I’m afraid it happens again. They are at their best in six of the shorter pieces, when things are kept to their bare minimum, with just a few synthesizer sounds, some spoken word and a hand-spun record. There are however also two epic pieces of twenty-three and fifteen minutes, and here things are too widely spun and moves seemingly on end through the same sort of sounds – pretty much all of the above ingredients, but taking so much time to develop – or rather undeveloped. These pieces seem to be the unedited results of a jam session on a few dislocated sounds. If these two pieces would have been cut to also say five or six minutes than I would have thought this was a pretty good CD. Now they stand at the heart of the CD and the result is less positive, because it takes the CD down for me. I am told a new CD is ready the very near future, so let’s hope for some better and more concise ideas. Perhaps it will stick better. (FdW)
Address: http://www.viosec.net
DRU – L’AIGUILLE (CD by Headlights)
Throughout the years I have been a great fan of David Maranha, a solo composer of minimal music, or his collaborations with Osso Exotico or the excellent Organ Eye. Here he teams up with Manuel Mota on electric guitar and Riccardo Dillon Wanke on electric piano, whereas Maranha plays organ. I must say I had a hard time getting into this release. To start with things are pretty soft in volume. So you need to crank it up to quite some extent. That in itself doesn’t have to be a problem, but the music here, all improvised is of such a nature that one keeps thinking: what exactly is it that I’m hearing? Its like all three hold back in what they are doing as to not disturb the others. Quite some free doodling, but all a bit too free and with any focus or plan. Perhaps not bad for a couple of tracks, but all seven more or less sound alike. This might very well be the first time I am somewhat disappointed in the work of Maranha. This seems to me a bit of a hasty job. (FdW)
Address: http://www.geocities.com/headlightsrecordings
SASCHA DEMAND & HANNES WIENERT – SIRENEN & BLUTEN (CD by Creative Sources Recordings)
AUGSBURGER TAFELCONFECT – FRIENDLY MOHAWK/TASTES MAALOXAN (7″ by NNeon)
Last week I saw Ensemble Integrales perform a live soundtrack with Augsburger Tafelconfect to Walter Ruttman’s 1928 film ‘Berlin’ and got these two items handed. Guitarist Sascha Demand from the ensemble teams up with Hannes Wienert, who handles soprano saxophone, trumpet, trumpsax, sheng and tubes here on a CD that holds eightteen tracks in thirty minutes. I am not sure why they are so short, but it makes great sense. Each of the pieces seem to explore their own sound world within the miniature frame. The table top guitar, and the various wind instruments merge together most of the times, and its hard to tell which instrument does what here. Sometimes they drift wide apart and each is on his own. And then things are over, and things start again. Nothing lasts more than its supposed to be, which is the greatest thing about it: a fine quality that is: knowing when to stop. Excellent CD, not just for those who love improvisation, but also for those who love electro-acoustic and acousmatic music.
Augsburger Tafelconfect (Jürgen Hall on synths and Sebastian Reier on electric guitar) did a 7″ with the help of Andrew Sharpley (sampler, wet computer) and Mauro Pawlowski (electric guitar) which was produced by Brain Emo (great!). Its a risky affair, to produce a 7″ at 45 RPM with improvised music. But they manage to get away with it, through three short pieces, which one could say work as ‘songs’, albeit of course of a more improvised nature. Elements of rhythm leak through, especially in ‘Tastes Maaloxan’, which has a vague jazzy feel (fake jazz?) and ends nicely in a lockgroove. Great effort, this one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.creativesourcesrec.com
FRANCISCO LOPEZ/MICHEAL GENDREAU – TDDM (2CD by Sonoris)
One morning this week I played an old 7″ by Vivenza – the futurist inspired musician, who used machine like sounds. I was thinking about Vivenza and that someone told me he didn’t use actual machine recordings, but a Putney synthesizer, which somehow sounded like machines. Curiously enough in the afternoon a new double CD arrived from Micheal Gendreau and Francisco Lopez. Looking at the sparse credits on the cover this seems not to be a collaborative effort, but both deliver two long pieces entirely based on their own recordings of machines in Taiwan and Malaysia (Gendreau) and Singapore, China, Taiwan and Japan (Lopez). In the first Lopez piece he comes close to the old Vivenza sound: hammering machine rhythms with lots of sound effects to transform the sound, but his other is entirely different. Very low in volume, and the sounds of the machines seem to be pushed to the background. There is a sense of rhythm to it, but it sounds quite strange. Ultimately, in fine Lopezian twist, things go up and the real machines comes in and as suddenly disappear. In the two pieces by Micheal Gendreau machine sounds play, obviously I say, a role too, but somehow he seems to be interested to create ‘more music’ out of it, especially in ‘M928’, with its organ like tones comes in and out of the piece, before it slips into silence first and then into noise. The first piece by him has a similar built-up but a different ending. Four different sides of the same coin. Excellent stuff, but I don’t think I expected something else. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sonoris.org
DIAPHRAGM SUBLIMATION (CD by SNSE)
“amalgamation of dark droning machinery, choppy shuddering, and static-laden buzz.” Which is a pity given what I’ve said regarding noise and industrial.- and those industrial wastelands of which the inspiration of this kind of thing derives is at least in Europe an endangered species. But I must thank the label for at least sending a flyer with information – but inspiration from “the greyed-out hulks of broken concrete and broken razorwire” is now a little passé? And at the risk of annoyance such collectives might find some solace in the inward stare and dereliction of the post industrial scene – and if Caldera stops releasing stuff and the recession continues they may have more of that kind of landscape to brood
about – but it wont be factories- but empty deserted shopping malls and plazas, smashed and boarded up wine bars and burnt out Porsches. However shaky the stock gets though Eva and Brittany can make everything fine – soooo mine will be a dry martini – with olive and definitely stirred not shaken. (jliat)
Address http://www.snse.net/
NOVI_SAD – JAILBIRDS (CD by Sedimental)
The fastest rising star in the world of microsound might be Novi_Sad, being on Thanasis Kaproulias. He has a damn fine debut CD ‘Misguided Heart Pulses, A Hammer, She, And The Clock’ (see Vital Weekly 611), and his work has been on TouchRadio and soon a release in the ‘Mort Aux Vaches’ series. The attraction of his music lies, I think, in the combination of microsound and dark ambient music. There are the cracks and hisses of micro world, but also the thunderous deep ambient drones which can be top heavy, like in the opening ‘Komdu! Hvert?’. Field recordings, the call of the birds, leak through here, as the deep bass dies out very slowly for the rest of duration of the song. ‘Torched Estates’ starts out with some nasty high pitched sounds, but throughout the pieces moves into various heights and depths, and it strikes me that this is the more complex piece of the two on this release. Many heavily processed field recordings are present, but then also sometimes naked and pure. Whereas the first is built around one theme, is the second piece more a collage of various moods and textures. Quite loud microsound altogether, and thus a strong break with tradition. Great one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sedimental.com http://www.novi-sad.net
LEIF ELGGREN – VENTILATION (CD by Firework Edition)
Elsewhere I write about the ‘Departure Of Melancholy’ compilation on Firework and I suggest its ‘art’ at work. That might also be the case with the work of Leif Elggren. He likes ventilation, he likes hats and ties these two together – inside and outside, two spaces communicating – to sell us a CD with sixteen tracks of ventilation recordings. The first one was already released on ‘Testament’ (the 5 times 7″ on RRRecords), in 1991, and there are three recordings from 1987, but otherwise the recordings are from 2007 and 2008. Pure and unprocessed. Ventilation on the street mainly and mainly in Stockholm, one at a firestation in the USA. A nice set of field recordings. Beautiful recordings, and great material to work with if you plan a radioplay, an experimental DJ set, or simply want to upset any visitors. We only have to consider this a nice one, and that we did. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fireworkeditionsrecords.com
ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – MISTERRIOUS (CD by Spekk)
LEVEL – OPALE (CD by Spekk)
FELICIA ATKINSON – LA LA LA (CD by Spekk)
Kiritchenko returns here to Spekk, following ‘True Delusion’ (see Vital Weekly 476), although of course Kiritchenko has released various other releases in the meantime. He set himself at work with the idea of creating something that was more acoustic than electronic, with the vague notion of jazz, in the Kiritchenko way that is. The album is built from various elements. First there is the piano playing of Kiritchenko, with some guitar parts. To add he added some percussion of his own, mainly a snare and a cymbals, but also he asked Martin Brandlmayer and Jason Kahn to play some real drums. Last but not least he added some insect field recordings from the Crimea area. Maybe the drumming is a bit jazz like, but throughout I didn’t perceive this as a jazz album. But then perhaps also I didn’t hear this to be a microsound album, or glitch or, well fill in whatever you think is appropriate. Its one of those albums that avoids any tags. Postrock, ambient rock, may come close, but then its hardly rock what is going on here. Very mellow music, with an excellent mixture of instruments and field recordings, and indeed to a very minimal extent an album of electronics. That perhaps is the greatest achievement of this disc, to move away so strongly from the old territory and so finely moving into a new one, or rather: expanding on the old one, and create something that may sound like the old one, but achieved with new means. Fine album indeed.
Barry G. Nicholas (which sounds like a familiar name, but I have no idea where i recognize it from, and Spekk has no additional information) works as Level. His ‘Opale’ was recorded ‘during a period of personal turmoil, and creative turbulence’, along on the piano and keyboards. The piano is played by Linden Hale (and in one instance by Keith Berry), which are sampled by Nicholas and then transformed into the eight pieces of his release. Though its certainly not a bad release, I am not jumping of ecstasy either. Nicholas uses a great amount of reverb and echo, letting the music sink down into this bath of effects which are only very occasionally well used. Certainly in the opening piece this is all a bit too much. In the other tracks he makes up quite a bit, but throughout the Eno-like textures were no more than ‘pretty decent’ and not ‘outstandingly great’. Pretty solid ambient music, nothing special, not bad either.
Felicia Atkinson regards herself a multimedia artist rather than a full time musician, which probably explain why she wants to make a CD (a multimedia artist does all media). She recorded some basic stuff with free software, such as Garageband, which she used to record other music on top, using her voice, piano, acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and the ambiance of the room. Put together in a rather improvised mode of operation. Its the ambience of Level mixed with the acoustic sound of Kiritchenko, but with the strong addition of the voice. Short pieces (eleven in thirty minutes), singer songwriter like material (hard to say what these songs are about) of a rather intimate kind. Sparse sounds and tones, a few words, some sounds from the kitchen sink. Quite a nice release, bringing Spekk more towards the world of pop, although this will be hardly chart topping stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.spekk.net
DISTRICT OF NOISE (CD compilation by Sonic Circuits)
DEPARTURE OF MELANCHOLY (CD compilation by Firework Edition)
UNTYPICAL (CD by CAC)
I think I may have mentioned the fact that I don’t like reviewing compilations? Yes, I did, on many occasions, and here’s a couple to make life more difficult and in one case more easy. In the first instance there is no information but with some clever thinking and deducting, its a compilation of ‘noise’ from the Washington area, Washington D.C. – district of Columbia, district of noise – gettit? The excellent Sonic Circuits festival hosts every year a long list of international acts, but never forget the ‘community’ in their immediate surroundings. You can find them on this CD compilation. A few names have been part of Vital before, like Myo, The Caution Curves, Northern Machine, RDK, Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind and of course Violet (since more than twenty years part of Vital), but lots and lots of new names, such as BLK w/Bear, Blue Sausage Clique, Echolalia, Janel & Anthony, T.A. Zook, Corpus Callosum, The Cuttest Puppy In The World, Tone Ghosting, Barsky/Allison and Twilight Memories Of Three Suns. The good thing about this compilation is that it is not entirely about ‘noise’ and that feedback is not always propagated here. Not that’s ambient or rock in anyway, as the pieces on this compilation are certainly more forceful, more present and occasionally loud, they side step the ‘real noise’ tag, and do something that is much more interesting. A fine compilation.
The ‘Departure Of Melancholy’ does have a press text, but its entirely in Swedish, a language which I haven’t fully mastered. I recognized none of the names and didn’t like what I heard. Swedish texts (sound poetry), with some music, no doubt dealing with melancholy, the sound of sobbing, crying. I am pretty sure I miss out on the finer point of this – art perhaps?
Lots of reading material comes with the CD ‘Un Typical’, or perhaps rather, lots of things to hear come when you read the ninth/tenth (double issue) of SMC Interviu. On the white papers the tetx in Lithuanian, and on the blue papers the translation in English. This issue deals with art/music/sound and has interesting pieces on Glenn Gould, Art strike and various musicians I never heard of, all from Eastern Europe. Even if you don’t know who they are, its still a highly intelligent reading matter. On the CD, curated by Arturas Bumsteinas, music from Eastern Europe, or people from the west with strong eastern European ties, such as Violet. An active scene and we recognize many names such as Anton Nikkila, Alexei Borisov, Antanas Jasenka, Gintas K, Critikal, Zenial and Twentytwentyone, but also many names. They aren’t always (or not at all) discussed in the magazine, but that’s ok of course. Many of them deal with electronic music, some of them even tap into techno inspired music, but throughout the experiment prevails. None of the tracks jump out immediately, but there is likewise no weak brother here either. However specially worth mentioning is the piece by Twentytwentyone, the laptop quartet by Bumsteinas, which perform graphical scores, here by Viking Eggeling. I also received a DVDR with seventeen of such pieces. I am not sure if this is an official release but if you are curious to see the laptop quartet in action, you should kindly ask for a copy. They play pieces by Stockhausen, Beksiak, De Waard, James Tenney, Cardew, Frobi, Duchamp, Smithson, Arnold, Brun and Bumsteinas himself. Scores are projected in the background, to give you some clue. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dc-soniccircuits.org
Address: http://www.fireworkeditionsrecords.com
Address: http://www.cac.lt
Address: <bumsteinas@gmail.com>
REUTOFF VS TROUM – KREUZUNG ZWEI: CREATURA PER CREATURAM CONTINETUR (CD by Ewers Tonkunst)
HUM – THE SPECTRAL SHIP (10″ by Substantia Innominata/Drone Records)
OVRO – HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL (7″ by Drone Records)
ARTEFACTUM – SUB ROSA (7″ by Drone Records)
THE INFANT CYCLE – SECRET HIDDEN MESSAGE (7″ by Drone Records)
Lots of works from the house of Drone Records, although the first release is not by Drone but by Ewers Tonkunst but it’s by the Drone Records band Troum. Inspired by the cosmology of Hildegard von Bingen, they work together here with ‘basic sound sources and samples made by Reutoff’, from Russia. I don’t know wether its this collaboration or not, but the material sounds like it has gained a lot of more depth. The previous Troum releases always seemed a bit of a low affair, with sounds pushed together in the spectrum, but here things are much more detailed and richer, all over the sound spectrum. The guitars sound crisp and clear, its ambient and drone, but spiced up to get a lot more bite. ‘Ignis Niger’ has a rhythm machine to it and humming voices, which both seemed to me a first time for Troum. The rhythm even has a break/bridge between various passages, and the voices chant like mad monks. Quite a nice one this release. It expands on the concept of Troum and has some pretty strong music – always handy!
‘Sing The Song Of The Unknown’ is the guiding theme of the 10″ series on Substantia Innominata, part of Drone Records. More ties to Russia (where Troum I believe is hugely popular) here with Hum, who is from Moscow. Two pieces, twenty some minutes in total, of dark ambient bliss. It sounds like a variety of organs sounding at the same time, mixed together with lots of sound effects, making miniature differences in the overall sound. Especially the title piece on the a-side works like this. On ‘Tidal Fire’ it seems as if things are pushed away, below the surface as it were. A rather subdued piece of music. This record is like two sides of the coin. The more present ‘Spectral Ship’ and the subdued refined piece of ‘Tidal Fire’. Pressed on silver colored vinyl and still sounding great.
Slowly Drone Records goes towards the 100th release (I wonder what kind of celebration that will be, but let’s hope for multiple CD set of all releases). Here, number 93 is done by Finnish Ovro, ‘the wondergirl of Finnish experimental music’, but here on her 7″ things go out of control I thought. Both sides are highly unfocussed with ‘Horizontal’ having a vague rhythmic notion and ‘Vertical’ being built around field recordings. That one I thought was slightly better, but both tracks didn’t do much for me.
From Poland hails Artefactum, and this 7″ is
their first vinyl release. They are, I think, a typical product of former Eastern Europe. Their music is dark, inspired by some templates from the west, and they work from there to deepen the sound, but sometimes things sound a bit lo-fi. There is some mild distortion on this record too, but throughout I thought that these pieces were quite nice, especially ‘Rosa Rubea’, with its more open character. Its hard to tell what they use, instruments or otherwise, but they make a fine impression.
The experimental edge of drone music comes here from Jim DeJong’s The Infant Cycle project. Active since quite some time, with lots of releases on his own The Ceiling label, presenting here two older piece. The A-side was recorded in 2006, and the B-side even in 2000. He uses here a ‘guitar, cookery, carved playout groove, marimba, bird cage, wind chimes, concoted field recording, electronic organ, guitar and the b-side is entirely a trombone. The title piece reminded me of the more experimental side of Richard Youngs (era ‘House Music’), whilst ‘(And Then The Dog Replied)’ is a nice piece of drone music, but much too short. The b-side is made with a trombone and called ‘Trombone’ and has some highly processed trombone sounds. Feeding through delay machines it seems, the sounds are cut short in itself. It reminds me of some of the releases by Experimental Intermedia, if their artists would have been on drugs (or loved noise, or vice versa). Quite a nice one this one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dronerecords.de
1, 2, 3 WHITEHOUT (DVD+CD by Zeromoon)
Lets be frank (again): I am not a reviewer of films, simply because I like everything that a film reviewer needs to have, one of that being of any knowledge about films, how they are made, or the history thereof. Certainly when it comes to experimental movies I am totally lost, unless somebody explains it to me. So, I watched ‘1, 2, 3 Whitehout’ and read the Zeromoon website what the Leeds International Film festival had to say: “This ‘tone poem for darkness’ mixes amazing original vignettes with diverse archive found footage, an exceptional sci-fi sensibility and incredible soundscapes to form a blissfully imaginative and retro-futuristic creation. Set in ‘an old-fashioned kind of future’, Veronique and an inventor (the legendary Lou Castel) are trying to bring back a ‘positive’ darkness to offset the glaring, bright, technological man-made light and ‘make the night night again’. As much about sound as about darkness, it asks: Can we shine when we are faced with blinding light?” That didn’t clarify things very well either. But it deems to me that sound plays an important role here. It seems to be always there, always it seems to be derived from field recordings. Perhaps that’s why we get an extra CD with just the soundtrack. The music is by Elmapi, Accident and Emergency (which has Andrew Sharply in their ranks, who also play a small role as onstage musician), Richard Harrison and Michael Schumacher. It doesn’t clarify the music for me at all, I must admit, but some of the dreamy sequences mixed with sound make a nice thing to watch. Perhaps I understood the extra features better, maybe because they were more abstract. Two short films by the same director, James June Schneider, made with x-ray (unexposed film going through customs check at airports and government buildings, a lot of time) and music by Violet growing in extreme intensity. Highly abstract – one color, changing all the time. Quite like Alvin Lucier’s work-as-progress, but then for film. These six minutes made more sense: this I understand and appreciate right away. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
RINUS VAN ALEBEEK – MUSIK FOR MITTE (CDR by Editions Zero)
Berlin is an exciting place to be, although I never considered moving there. I certainly like it, but to live in a big city is not just what I was made for. Rinus van Alebeek settled himself there, armed with his dictaphones, walkman recorders and mixing board. Van Alebeek’s career started as a writer in The Netherlands (under a pseudonym which I forgot) and then turned, at a later age than most of his peers, to music, with some obscure releases by Zeromoon, but these days is the spotlight. His main interest is in creating music out of field recordings, but unlike say someone like Chris Watson, part of the Alebeek esthetic is use lo-fi equipment and deliberately add the hiss, the tape inadequacy and the low resolution as part of the music. In the centre (mitte) of Berlin he taped a whole bunch of sounds and created these eight pieces of music. These are not pieces of music that are cut out of a bigger part of unedited field recordings, but in a ‘studio’ set up been collated together to make well finished off pieces of music. Each tells his own story, and contains the sounds of the city. Quite a nice release altogether.
Address: http://www.noise-below.org
TILMAN SCHMIDT/IHLENFELD – SHIPS AND ICY ROADS (CDR by Privatelektro)
Three pieces by one Tilman Schmidt and three by Ihlenfeld, both are new names to me. Both hail from Berlin and both cover slightly similar territory, but both with finer differences. Tilman Schmidt is of the two the one that has most interest in playing around with real instruments. He samples the drums, trumpets and cello for instance and works into an atmospheric sound. In ‘Sophie Spandau’ this works out into the fields of post-rock, while Sigur Ros lurks around in ‘Ferner’. Jazz is explored in ‘Flance’, which is my least favorite cut on the release. Ihlenfeld uses field recordings which are highly processed into the world of glitches, but his music is only partly abstract, and partly covered with shimmering small melodies. The fence sounds of ‘Clouds And Cardingans’ are covered with hissy textures of a rather moody nature, while ‘Catching Minnows’ has broken up beats and tinkling bells. The more amorphous mass of ‘Dinja’ is then totally abstract and closes a rather fine release. None of them do really something new or out of the ordinary, but throughout these six pieces are highly enjoyable. Would have been a very fine split LP, I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://privatelektro.de
CALDERA LAKES – CALDERA LAKES (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive)
An obscure project – of Eva and Brittany (no second names on the CD) on an obscure label. The Caldera website http://deathbombarc.com/calderalakes/index.htm gives little away as does the myspace page, the label also has a myspace page but more information can be found here
http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/2008/10/caldera-lakes-caldera-lakes-sentient.html “This piece is profoundly expressive. This is one of those releases where words fail. Fuck the financial crisis and all that, everything will be fine as long as Caldera Lakes keep putting out records.” Wow – and Gordon Brown thinks he is on to something. The blog gives a friendlier description than I would – it mentions harsh noise (from Eva) and Björk singing (by Brittany). Given the hosting sites “belief that music has no rules” this could be noise, “eerie though calming female coo[ing]. Peaceful vocal loops and the agitated harshness . it takes a sampling of the entire spectrum of sound and births an entirely coherent work of art that creates so many sensations and feelings in me that I don’t know where to begin.” If noise is the deliberate attack on the edifice of the given norms of beauty and behavior – which I a) think it is and/or b) think if not it should be then this is not noise, or is the rebellious behavior of another Brittany. Noise always should be politically incorerent – the spell checker suggested incoherent but I meant incorrect – but incorerent is even better. Ben Johnson was a shit- or shite? or shiite) (jillyhate)
Address http://www.myspace.com/calderalakes
HEAD IN BODY (CDR by Klang Und Krach)
KASPAR VON URBACH – SELFBONDAGE (CDR by Klang Und Krach)
SINDRE BJERGA – BLACK COBWEB MIND (CDR by Klang Und Krach)
Of these three releases on Klang Und Krach (sound and noise that is) from the Czech Republic we of course recognize the name of Sindre Bjerga. The other two are new to me. What I could find about Head In Body is in the Czech language, so not much use for me. They (he? she?) calls it minimal music and that is true. A simple straight forward rhythm is used, some bass sound is added, and voice through a delay unit. The shortest track is two and half minute, but the other eight are somewhere between five and nine minutes, which seems to me at times a bit long for what the actual track is, but through this rather lo-fi techno hybrid music was quite nice. Maybe with some trimming down and a somewhat better production there is more to it, but who knows, time will tell. I’d say: keep up, get on.
Also from the Czech Republic are the noise band Kaspar von Urbach which “focuses on an obstinate and deeply unnatural sound-mining: partly from things and devices originally designed for very different purposes and partly from musical instruments, effects and processors that are broken, left-off, cheep, despised, incorrectly used, crap etc. ” They make it sound like this too, I must admit. Partly they find their inspiration in noise, but also the folk noir of say Current 93, especially in those pieces that have vocals to it. Though not entirely my dark cup of tea, I thought that this mixed bunch of music was pretty much alright. It moves into various places (noise, gothic, even microsound in ‘Almost At The End’, and obscured darker ambient electronics), which may come off also as a bit of searching which style they fit best. I’m curious to see where that is.
No further info on the Sindre Bjerga release, just a twenty-five minute piece of music. Its an electronic piece of shimmering electro-acoustic sounds, looped around, colliding against eachother, and fed through some effects. The bass end seems to be lacking a bit here. Somewhere half way through things collapse and it moves on with the same sound pushed to the background and a sort of glitchy sounds in the foreground. It slowly decays into sonic debris. Its a nice piece for sure, but why stand by itself? Why not add something. Its seems a bit a release for the sake of a release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.klangundkrach.net
BEN OWEN/MICHAEL PISARO (3″CDR by Compost And Height)
ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO/LEE PATTERSON (3″CDR by Compost And Height)
FERRAN FAGES/BHOB RAINEY (3″CDR by Compost And Height)
The next three releases by Compost And Height are again packed along with a lump of wood – packaging makes the difference. Like the first these are all split discs of two artists. The first has a piece by Ben Owen, sitting with a radio next to a canal in Berlin, and recording that radio as well as the wind, people passing, birds and such like. A very Cageian exercise in silence, through a very planned but open score. Nice, but you can do it as well. And that’s perhaps the point of it. Second on this disc is the for me unknown Michael Pisaro, who composed a piece that was to be played outdoors or that should have a field recording going along. The music is played on various instruments, such as flute, clarinet, violincello, trombone (by Radu Malfatti), guitar and stone harp. In a curious mix the instruments are quite soft and the field recording (the waterfall close by to a town) is quite loud, which makes this into a gentle piece of music with ‘loud’ extra noise. As said, quite curious!
Following the last review of fortnight ago of Monteiro, another piece here and its on similar conceptual length. Monteiro uses just the sound of paper, which I believe he did before. What is hard to believe is that this is just the sound of paper. It sounds like metal being played, with all the deep frequencies cut out, rotating on a turntable. A great piece of electro acoustic music. The best of this lot. Lee Patterson works with ‘the timbral and tonal complexities generated by plucking selected springs’. These springs were attached to a metal plate and picked up with a contact microphone. The attack of the sound was removed and only the sound in decay were used. This piece is also great, starting out in the fields of drone music, but eventually goes into the world of electro-acoustics. A great pair of more conceptual music, but in both cases the musical element remains important.
We haven’t heard much from Fages recently, but its good to hear him again. Here he has a seven minute piece of acoustic turntable and field recordings, in a fascinating interplay of rotating and clicking sounds in a free improvised manner. It makes a nice contrast to the following piece by Bhob Rainey, which is a dreamy piece for solo saxophone. Distant, sustaining, minimal. Like air being captured on tape. Its a pity that it’s so relatively short. Don’t forget to check out the label’s website as there is plenty more free to download by all the good field recording boys. (FdW)
Address: http://www.compostandheight.blogspot.com
ARCTIC CIRLE ENSEMBLE – THAT FUZZY FEELING (MP3 by Static Caravan)
That time of the year again, and never a particular favorite of mine, except of course waiting for the annual Meeuw 7″, which still hasn’t arrived, but these five songs on Static Caravan make up a little bit. I don’t think Meeuw would release this on a 7″, but they make up some very delicate, nice christmas songs. Melancholic songs, with the bells shimmering, bittersweet melodies and a touch of jazz in ‘It’s Christmas (And I Hate You)’, which is a great piece. Sweet but with a nasty painful lyric. ‘I hate you a little bit more than last year’. By far the nicest song for such a depression season of joy. The other songs are more introspective, fitting the grey, short, sunless days of the year. And somehow it seems that Josh Weller’s ‘I’ll Save The Bath Water For You This Christmas Time’ is borrowed from ‘Across The Universe’, but maybe my mind is blurred. I may have time to play some Beatles during christmas. Right after the Meeuw collection and this nice short collection. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staticcaravan.org
MYSTAHR – M14 (MP3 by Just Not Normal)
The options here were to translate the press text from Dutch into English and then send it off to Jliat, or review it myself. I choose the latter. Mystar is one Mark Stolk, who runs the Just Not Normal net label – we reviewed some stuff before. He also has a radio program and before starting this, he plays some music to get into the mood of things. Here has four analogue synthesizers, some effects and a four channel mixer. Everything, the entire thirty-three minutes, was recorded in one go. Its a pretty noisy affair -that was clear already from the fact I would sending this to Jliat, but then perhaps a bit too soft for him – of heavy electronics, feeding through a line of reverb and delay machines, partly exploding into the world of feedback and then going back to a sub-standard noise thing. Not entirely satisfactory to my taste – maybe too long and maybe too much the ‘one attempt’ approach. Maybe if he would explore the parameters of his sound more and put that in a more concise version, and less going for the noise effect, this could have been much better, I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://www.justnotnormal.wordpress.com
DURAN VAZQUEZ – DE CATRO A CATRO (MP3 by Larriskito)
MENGELE QUARTET – MONGOLO BAT BI HIRU (MP3 by Larriskito)
ORKESTRA ZOMBIE (MP3 by Larriskito)
A variety mix, these three new releases on Larrakito, the net label from Miguel A. Garcia. Unfortunately all the information on the website is in Spanish, which I try to interprete. Duran Vazquez is from Gallicia and produces music that is based on organic electronic textures. Maybe build from sounds generated on a no-input mixer and sound effects, but perhaps I am barking the wrong tree. It sounds so. The music seems to spiraling around some sounds, flowing in, going out and then coming back to the same texture again, and then moves on to an almost identical texture, yet a little bit different. On the fourth part has some field recordings from the sea, and seems a bit out of place here.
Nine tracks in fourteen minutes are offered by Orkestra Zombie. I couldn’t make any sense of the website, but it’s nine pretty varied bits of music. Vocals, field recordings, electronics, noise, microsound. Not entirely convincing in what it is that they (?) want, the very briefness makes this also quite an enjoyable thing. Pretty vague and rough stuff altogether.
Behind the unpleasant name of Mengele Quartet we find Mikel Etxegarai, Joseba Irazoki, Xabi Iturria e Iban Urizar, playing guitar, percussion and electronics, but the outcome is something that is rather ‘free’, rather ‘improvisation’ and rather ‘jazz’ like – even. This is most apparent in ‘Mongolo Bi’ and ‘Mongolo Hiru’, two rather free jazz styled pieces with some feedback like sounds, of which the second is the best. ‘Mongolo Bat’ is much more spun out, with sounds wide apart, and covered with lots of silence. Not entirely my cup of tea this one, but I guess for what it is, not bad. (FdW)
http://www.xedh.org/larraskito_netlabel/