SCANNER – ROCKETS, UNTO THE EDGES OF EDGES (CD by Bine Music) *
NANA APRIL JUN – THE ONTOLOGY OF NOISE (CD by Touch) *
INSIDEOUT – A PSYCHE AND ITS GEOGRAPHY (CD by Sonic Arts Network)
AUN – MOTORSLEEP (CD by Alien8 Recordings) *
TORNGAT – LA PETITE NICOLE (CD by Alien8 Recordings) *
PARALLEL WORLDS – SHADE (CD by Din) *
ROBERT MILLIS – 120 (CD by Etude Records) *
MIKHAIL – MORPHICA (3CD by Sub Rosa) *
SOURCE: MUSIC OF THE AVANT-GARDE (3CD by Pogus)
OGOGO – REDUX (CD by III Records) *
L’OCELLE MARE (LP by Minority Records)
CHASING EUDAIMONIA – CIRCLES/WAVES (10″ by Phisteria) *
BETH JEANS HOUGHTON – GOLDEN/NIGHT SWIMMER (7″ by Static Caravan)
LOCRIAN – PLAGUE JOURNAL/APOCRYPHAL CITY, PORTENTS FALLEN (7″ by Bloodlust!)
CYCLOTIMIA – MUSIC FOR STOCKMARKETS (CD by Zhelezobeton) *
AIDAN BAKER & THE INFANT CYCLE – RURAL SPRAWL (CDR by Zhelezobeton) *
NOISES OF RUSSIA – EXPERIMENTAL STRUCTURE – LIVE AT ESG 21, ST. PETERSBURG 06.10.2008 (CDR by Zhelezobeton) *
JACQUELINE – SITU (CDR by Hashish)
HELMETICRONONAUT / ANIMAL MACHINE – HIJO DE PUTA (CDr by KIF Recording)
HELMETICRNONONAUT – PATTERNS OF DUMB (CD by Ethedrone Muzac)
UNTITLED 731 – UNTITLED 731 (CDR self released)
KAPOTTE MUZIEK – EGG (CDR by Lunhare) *
CELER – CURSORY ASPERSES (CDR by Slow Flow Records) *
STEVE RODEN – STARS OF ICE (CDR by Inbetween Noise) *
PLATFORM – CATEGORIES OF DUST (CDR by Minimal Resource Manipulation) *
TTAKUNA – TEMPO DE DAR. EMONALDIA (CDR by Hamaika) *
THE BUREAU OF NONSTANDARDS (CDR by One Zero)
JUAREZ REVONTUTLET (CD by Sabbatical Records)
GREEN BERET PART 1 & PART 2 (CD by Sabbatical Records)
ABSOLUTEN CALFEUTRAIL & BLAKE BAYER CONFLICT RESOLUTION SEMINAR (CD by Sabbatical Records)
JOSETXO GRIETA – DISTANCIA #2387 (CDR by Hamaika)
IRUKANDJI – THE SUICIDE JUMP (CDR by Silken Tofu)
TZII – INDIVIDUALISIM (3 inch CDR by Silken Tofu)
STILLSTAND – BIONIK (CDR by Tib Prod) *
RECONSTRUCT IV: MAURIZIO BIANCHI REMIXED VOL. 1 (CDR by Tib Prod)
UR – FOUR CALLS FOR LOCUSTS (CDR by Mask Of The Slave Records) *
UR & CRAIG HILTON – I WILL BE THE LIGHT (CDR by Afe Records) *
JOHN HUDAK – MISS DOVE, MR.DOVE (CDR by Afe Records) *
TIZIANO MILANI – IM INNERSTEN (CDR by Afe Records) *
ANDREA MARUTTI & TOMMASO COSCO – TURRA (3″CDR by Afe Records) *
NALS GORING (CDR by OSR) *
NALS GORING & NALS GORMAN – HEAT WILSON (CDR by OSR)
NALS GORING (cassette by OSR)
VARIOUS ARTISTS – LASTING (cassette by Pineapple tapes)
THE INSANE BOX (4LP by Vinyl On Demand)
NOTTAROSSA/REDNIGHT (2CD by Small Voices)
SCANNER – ROCKETS, UNTO THE EDGES OF EDGES (CD by Bine Music)
In my previous reviews of Scanner 12″s on Bine Music I expressed my interest in a CD of his for this label. But somehow ‘Rockets, Unto The Edges Of Edges’ is not what I expected. The 12″s were cool, minimal slabs of techno music with a twist of elektro, but on this CD Robin Rimbaud moves into a different area again. The CD opens with ‘Sans Soleil’, which sets the tone for the rest. Micheal Gira plucking the guitar and, for the very first time, Rimbaud on vocals. Clicks below the surface. No techno, no elektro, highly atmospheric in approach. A very nice track. ‘Pietas Ilulia’ has a more forceful rhythm, sampled strings, Fripp like bowed guitar and is a bit too sweet for me. Strangely enough it is followed by a piece with soprano Patricia Rozario, which has a modern classical approach, but it didn’t do much for me, but in the piece followed by it, the voice is continued in a likewise sweet piece, which works nicely around with cliche’s. The fifth and sixth track are the longest on CD but also the weakest with its dark sampled drums, like early Greater Than One. It didn’t do much for me. ‘The Last European’ has sampled voices and pulsating rhythm in a more joyful mood, and is much more interesting, as well as is the closing piece of this CD. The score? Half the tracks I thought was pretty good, the other half I didn’t like very much. Too sombre, too dark or too sweet. Indeed not quite the album I expected. Half a good album is not an entirely a great score. (FdW)
Address: http://www.binemusic.de
NANA APRIL JUN – THE ONTOLOGY OF NOISE (CD by Touch)
‘The Ontology Of Noise’ researches the dark associations of post-black metal’, which made me think this album is not for me. But its on Touch, so I better give it a spin. Christofer Lamgren, who is the person behind Nana April Jun (‘one of his personae’), is a visual artist, composer and art magazine YKKY editor/curator. There is no traditional instruments used here, no arrangements of layers, but a single stream of sound per track. Much like a guitar, Touch says, but then without a guitar. See! That’s more like it. Five tracks of these single streams of a sound, with minor but vital changes inside each and every one of them. They are quite fascinating pieces of ‘noise’ music – not of noise music as we know it. No wall of sound, distortion or feedback, but simple humming of motorized sounds, ‘events’ somewhere in the field. It puts the notion of ‘noise’ upside down again, and that’s what makes this quite an enjoyable CD. Not because what is pressed on the CD is that great, or never been heard before, au contraire, but because it makes the listener re-think his notion about noise, what it is and what it can be. As such Touch has succeeded again to surprise us with this entirely new noise artist. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
INSIDEOUT – A PSYCHE AND ITS GEOGRAPHY (CD by Sonic Arts Network)
The history of Sonic Arts Network goes back to 1979 when it was established in order to “enable people to engage with the art of sound in ground breaking, exciting and innovative ways.” This is materialized for example in editing specially designed concept CDs. You may remember the CD David Moss compiled for this label with vocal artists. This time the CD centers around the work by Andrew Kötting, one of Britain’s most celebrated artists and experimental film makers. The CD is meant as a soundtrack. “Self-contained dramas that coagulate into the shifting and amorphous structure of Kötting’s psyche-ever present in his own work”. Ansuman Biswas opens this CD with a penetrating ambient sketch of sounds. To be continued by a charming simple song by Jem Finer and Jeremy Banx. There are more nice songs on this collection like “Cold Blows the Wind”, a nice ballad by the Band of Holy Joy, or “Drunk and running around the Town” by John Irvine in an uptempo popsong. “Song for Eden” is a blues, not often heard anymore these days, by John Roseveare and Andrew Kötting himself. Besides we find many ambientpieces, soundscaping and other audiopaintings, like “Extracts from City Theme 01″ and ” …02″ by Dryden Goodwin. So it is a very mixed bag, but with many interesting ingredients. 22 tracks by very different, all english and for the most unknown artists complied by Kötting himself. The CD comes with an nice booklet with notes concerning each track plus other literary contributions completing this self-portrait. (DM)
Address: http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org/
AUN – MOTORSLEEP (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
TORNGAT – LA PETITE NICOLE (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
So far the works of Aun have been released by Canada’s Oral label, but they moved to another great Canadian label, Alien8 Recordings for the release of their new work ‘Mortorsleep’. Aun is Martin Dumais, and his first (?) CD ‘Mule’ didn’t do much for me (Vital Weekly 570), but the entirely cosmic affair recorded with Germany’s Allseits project was quite nice. It was named ‘Irrlicht’, perhaps in reference to the work of Klaus Schulze, and the music breathed the whole cosmic Germanic synth music of the seventies. It seems to me that Dumais solo continues this line of music with ‘Motorsleep’ which he recorded using guitar, violin and electronics. I could have easily mistaken this for a bunch of analogue synthesizers. Many of the eight pieces flow into eachother and have this continuos stream-idea attached to it. Isolationist music, kinda like early Thomas Köner, which also seems an influence on him, Dumais creates some top heavy ambient cosmic music. No arpeggio’s around here, but long, endless sustaining sounds, with sounds captured in a chain of sound effects. As chilling as warm. More abstract than ‘Irrlicht’, this is music that should appeal to lovers of the old German sound, attached to the latter day experimentalists of Maeror Tri/Troum, Köner and to some extent Asmus Tietchens. Or, to be hip, Emeralds raw take on the genre. Nice one.
Back in Vital Weekly 592 we reviewed Torngat’s ‘You Could Be’, the odd release of a band with a drummer, a keyboard player and a french hornist. Not an easy record, which I had some trouble with. Here they return with, as Alien8 says, an album that represents their live sound more, with an emphasis on the organ. It indeed sounds more ‘live’ than before, and with more variation than before. Torngat sound more like a band here, in one track sporting the organ and in another the horn. With just seven tracks, a bit longer than before, this is quite a nice album, but now I wish the sound quality was better. It sounds like recorded in their rehearsal space using a stereo microphone, and not as a studio recording. I have no idea if that was their idea to sound it like that, but me thinks things could have been better in that department. (FdW)
Address: http://www.alien8recordings.com
PARALLEL WORLDS – SHADE (CD by Din)
At the heart of the music of Bakis Sirros is a system of modular synthesizer, the Doepfer to be precise. Apparently he is an expert at using this kind of synthesizers, doing workshops and moderating an user group. Sirros works under the alias of Parallel Worlds since about six works, and has collaborated with people like Ingo Zobel, Zeitgeist and Alio Die. Music from IDM to ambient, which, judging by his own solo work is also something he is interested in. ‘Shade’ is his fifth CD, although my first encounter with his music. The label makes the long term references, from Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze to Biosphere, Autechre and then back to Robert Rich. The whole wide world of forty years of electronica drops by here, and Sirros is aware of that. The ten pieces on his CD are quite nice, with deep ambient moves and floating techno-like rhythms. Chill out music, ambient house or whatever it was a decade or so ago. As such Sirros offers nothing new. I am hardly qualified to judge technological things, such as programming and playing modular synths, but it seems to me that Sirros does a fine job. Just pleasant, non demanding music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.DiN.org.uk
ROBERT MILLIS – 120 (CD by Etude Records)
Throughout the years I didn’t keep up with the Climax Golden Twins. What I heard, I liked, but what I didn’t hear, I perhaps didn’t miss. Robert Millis is a member of Climax Golden Twins, as well as a member of the ‘avant-scum-noise-rock’ vand AFCGT and field recordist for Sublime Frequencies. ‘120’ is a rare solo release (his second actually), originally released in a limited edition CDR, but now on Mike Hansen’s Etude Records as a real CD. Somewhere in ‘2 (All Balled Up)’, there is a railway sound, and chirping birds, followed by a lengthy passage of ambient sounds. Elsewhere he uses his beloved 78rpm records of spoken word and music. Everytime I heard this, I had to think of the KLF’s ‘Chill Out’. The same ‘easy’ approach of combining sounds and textures to create nice moody and atmospheric music. The various passages are a bit lengthier than with ‘Chill Out’, but it has that same great quality. Ah, and devoid of any rhythm here. That is a distinct difference. Its hard to say what is all at use here, instrument wise, but besides old vinyl and shortwaves, it seems to me mostly computer processing, along the lines of say Stephan Mathieu. Microsound hand in hand with turntablism of a gentle kind. A fine work here. (FdW)
Address: http://www.etuderecords.com
MIKHAIL – MORPHICA (3CD by Sub Rosa)
Everything about this package is complex. Three CDs, a whole bunch of collaborators on all sides (musicians, designers, writers), and all to do what exactly? I understand this is some sort of extension of Mikhail’s ‘Orphica’ record from 2007, which I didn’t hear, but why it spans three CDs, which could have more or less fitted on one CD is a bit unclear. One CD is called ‘electronics’, one is ‘voices’ and the last one is ‘strings’, but there is all kinds of overlaps. On ‘electronics’ we also hear voices, for instance. But it seems from the small print that ‘electronics’ have people from the world of electronic music doing remixes, on ‘voices’ this is done by vocalists and choirs and strings (actually with fifteen minutes the shortest of the three) with strings. Ok, so its a complex remix package. We have DJ Spooky, Alamire (choir), Telekaster, Rob(u)rang, and many more. It lacks that I don’t know the original album that was at the basis of this. I can say however that this remix is a nice album, and that Mikhail must be like a male Björk, who gets his work remixed like Björk. Interesting techno like music, sometimes melodic, sometimes dramatic. Nothing outstanding. The voices CD was more surprising, with voices imitating the various instrumental parts, which leads to great results, partly sounding like early music and partly like an orchestra of Jaap Blonk inspired voices. Its throughout a nice remix compilation, but as far as I am concerned they could have been shuffled and put on one CD. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mikhailmusic.com
SOURCE: MUSIC OF THE AVANT-GARDE (3CD by Pogus)
Elsewhere I may be all nostalgic about some re-issues, connected to the first time they were released, and I wish I could add this one to that list, but they were released in a time when even I was a small boy. “Source: Music Of The Avant-Garde” was a magazine which included scores, articles, interviews, essays and music, placed on a 10″ record. First released in 1967 and then semiannually until 1973, although the records were released until 1971. Some of these pieces on these records have turned to be true classics of our time. Here we have the first version of ‘I Am Sitting In A Room’ by Alvin Lucier, ‘The Wolfman’ by Robert Ashley and ‘Wave Train’ by David Behrman. Some other composers here are still the big shots of today, like Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran and Annea Lockwood, and some I must, perhaps shamefully, admit I never heard of, like Larry Austin (the founder of the magazine), Arthur Woodbary, Mark Riener, Lowell Cross (who has a great drone like piece), Stanley Lunetta (with a great noise based of electronics) and Arrigo Lora-Totino, who has a piece that uses just voices. Most pieces clock in at fifteen minutes, the length of a 10″ side. All of the pieces deal with electronics in some way, along with real instruments. One could say that its a pity that the magazine, the printed words, aren’t available, say as PDF’s on the disc (or a website), but this is a lovely three CD set of some great music. Always nice to hear Lucier’s piece again, even in this shorter version than on the CD by Lovely music, some interesting discoveries such as Larry Austin himself, Lunetta and Cross. A most needed re-issue. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pogus.com
OGOGO – REDUX (CD by III Records)
About a year ago, in Vital Weekly 609, I reviewed a solo CD by Igor Ogogo, now there is a new CD, ‘Redux’, but despite that it has expanded into a duo. Ogogo is now Rodney Oakes on Midi trombone and Igor Grigoriev on guitar. ‘The major trendsetter of contemporary Avant-Garde music, Ogogo has spoken itself in the lingua france of avant-garde, experimental, classical, collage, ambiant [sic], atonal, surreal, electronic, hypnotic spacey sound and sociopath recordings with easiness and eagerness’, I read on the press information. Perhaps I missed a point about trendsetting, or perhaps I am on a different plane. Ogogo improvise music on their midi trombone and guitar, and surely they have had a lot of fun of doing so. Creating music is fun, believe me. But not everything that is created has to be shared. Igor Ogogo speaks of ‘always wanting to create an atonal record’, and he has succeeded I guess to quite an extent. It is as atonal, as well as quite unlistenable. Fifty minutes of trombone rehearsals, guitars and effects. Maybe it is trendsetting, maybe its classical (that’s what Itunes says when I popped this in the computer), or perhaps it is indeed a ‘distinctive blend of musical styles’, but more likely I’m not a different plane, but on a different planet. Like before: I pass on/out. (FdW)
Address: http://iiirecords.com
L’OCELLE MARE (LP by Minority Records)
Hurrah for Minority Records. I never heard of L’Ocelle Mare, the baby project of Thomas Bonvalet, of Cheval de Frise (also never heard of), but hurrah for Minority to release it on a limited piece of vinyl, with a nice printed cover. Bonvalet plays guitar here too, and he spent a week in ‘deserted French places’ in 2006 to play his guitar in a very improvised manner. Using shakers, slides, the neck of the guitar, in sixteen relatively short pieces. At one point we hear some insects in the background, which adds to the intimate character of the music. Bonvalet lets his guitar sign, weep, sweep, burst and crack but it always sounds like an acoustic guitar. He’s not interested in letting his guitar sound like anything else but a guitar, but plays short, skilled pieces of improvised music on the six string thingy. An intimate album by all accounts. A small delight, much against the waves of anything – improvised music, classical music, field recording etc. – a minority record for the minority of fans enjoying this kind of music. Refined. (FdW)
Address: http://www.minorityrecords.com
CHASING EUDAIMONIA – CIRCLES/WAVES (10″ by Phisteria)
The name Chasing Eudaimonia is a new one to me. They are from Copenhagen, and that’s about all I know about them. The CDR version has no link to a band website. It says that the music is alike Jesu, Bardo Pond and Earth. Two pieces, one per side, of ten minutes. I hear guitars, bass, female (?) vocal humming a wordless lyric. Sad music. A bit depressive but actually also quite nice. Both tracks are alike: slowly evolving, with guitars tinkling, the bass howls below. If I was to choose one track of these two, I’d say I prefer the b-side, because the vocals are pushed a bit more to the background, leaving a bit more room for the instruments. Minimalist post guitar rock, without drums. Its been a while since I last heard that, but Chasing Eudaimonia do a nice attempt in recovering that. (FdW)
Address: http://www.phisteria.com
BETH JEANS HOUGHTON – GOLDEN/NIGHT SWIMMER (7″ by Static Caravan)
LOCRIAN – PLAGUE JOURNAL/APOCRYPHAL CITY, PORTENTS FALLEN (7″ by Bloodlust!)
The 7″ by Houghton raises an important question for me: do I like folk music? Not an easy question to answer. My immediate response would be ‘no, I don’t’, but perhaps that would go as far as playing folk music all day. I heard these two pieces on the classic format and I must admit I like this 21st century Joni Mitchell quite a lot. Quiet, but with a strong voice, and a shimmering, electronic interlude of ‘Golden’ – along with guitars and drums. Yes, I do like folk music I guess. I could imagine liking an entire CD by Houghton, played on rainy sunday afternoons.
Of an entirely different nature on the same size is the US noise drone outfit Locrian. Jliat didn’t dig their first release, but I enjoyed at least half their second LP. Wether this is music that fits the 7″ format well is to be seen, since Locrian plays music that needs time to develop. At 33 RPM however they keep both tracks within the limits of time and within the limits of a song, which is actually quite nice. ‘Plague Journal’ is more a song of noise, whereas ‘Apocryphal City, Portents Fallen’ has a cold, stale wind from the synths, along with semi-distorted guitar tinkling – quite a small menace this piece, whereas the other side is nice too, but perhaps a bit too common in approach. But both are surely a step forward. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staticcaravan.org
Address: http://bloodlust.blogspot.com
CYCLOTIMIA – MUSIC FOR STOCKMARKETS (CD by Zhelezobeton)
AIDAN BAKER & THE INFANT CYCLE – RURAL SPRAWL (CDR by Zhelezobeton)
NOISES OF RUSSIA – EXPERIMENTAL STRUCTURE – LIVE AT ESG 21, ST. PETERSBURG 06.10.2008 (CDR by Zhelezobeton)
‘Music For Stockmarkets’ is ‘most probably the only project in the world which has chosen the creation of a soundtrack to ‘globalisation’ and the life of the ‘consumer society’ as their concept’, Zhelezobeton tells us, which might be entirely true. Cyclotimia is from Moscow and has quite a number of releases already, which I don’t think I know. Cyclotimia uses old vintage Soviet synthesizers to play no less than thirty-two tracks on this album, divided in three main pieces, ‘Wallstreet Requiem’, ‘Trivial Pleasures’ and ‘Financial Glossary’. Its hard to pin this down to a specific style (why should I?), but in general lots of things from the world of electronic music drop by: click n cuts, techno, ambient, pop even, but everything is too short to keep the interest. Most pieces are quite miminal and revolve around one or two themes inside a track, which makes this altogether a bit of tiring listening thing. In a small dose quite nice actually.
Its been quiet around Aidan Baker, at least in these pages, but last week saw a review of Arc, and here is a new release. It contains two tracks previously released by Blade Records in 2002, and two new tracks, and all four recorded with Jim DeJong, also known as The Infant Cycle. Guitar, bass, tapes, rhythms, feedback generators, tapes, playouts, thumb piano, divided amongst the two who set out to put the four seasons to music. Its not easy to hear that in this music, which is throughout based in rhythmical cycles. Wether they find their home in repeating loops, or in slow percussive sounds, they form the strong fundament of the music. However Baker and DeJong know how to keep the material interesting, and not just have a bunch of loops running around all the time. On top of their loopings, they wave an ambient based pattern of sound on their guitars. A swirling piece of ambient music, which is exactly up the alley of both artists. Very nice, without big surprises.
A live recording made by Noises Of Russia offers only half the thing presented on october 6th 2008 at the Experimental Sound Gallery in St. Petersburg. Missing is the butoh dance of Grigory Glazunov and the video projection of VJ Alco. But the music is there, played by Gosha Solnzev (a.k.a. 1g0g – “van gogh”), the leader of the band, along with the help of Nikolay Kalmykov (analogue electronic noise), M.M. (also known as Kryptogen Rundfunk, labelboss of Zhelezobeton, playing guitar here), Igor Potsukailo (also known as Bardoseneticcube on metal percussion) and Evgeney Savenko (also known as Lunar Abyss Deus Organum on voice. 1g0g plays samples, field recordings and laptop. The music was all improvised, which is something that is shown in the music I think. That makes this a strange affair I think, but also a nice one. On one hand we have the ritualistik music, mainly through the use of voice, mumbling like a priest, thus overflowing the music with connotations of music I don’t like. But the instrumental part is actually quite nice, with a mixture of ambient, psychdelic guitar and microsound, the latter mainly in the field recordings part of the music. Perhaps a bit long to be fully entertaining on CDR, and surely it worked better in a concert situation. It could have used a bit more editing I think, but nice enough. (FdW)
Address: http://zhb.radionoise.ru
JACQUELINE – SITU (CDR by Hashish)
“jacqueline situ hashish ha4” gives 8 hits in Google, the only one of which providing any information being discogs – where there is 1 of this limited edition (50) for sale. The three tracks are of extreme harsh white noise, the third having @ the intro some watery type sounds before sporadic bursts of white noise take over once again. The packaging is minimal providing no information and a print of a very old photograph of what looks like a young man. Dicogs gives its origin as Greece and that the entry was submitted by manfred who is “George Kanavos Location: athens, Greece Profile: 29,ambient/drone/experimental/noise fan. Married, one boy, aek athens supporter. Love cats and lautreamont. Currently into 2 projects: wand and princess and jacqueline.” The former a drone/ambient project (see VW 658) very unlike the severity of Situ, but perhaps still hinted at in the opening of track 3, which might pose a problematic, though this release perhaps relatively marks first steps, the monolithic nature of the walls of white noise have yet to be fragmented. HN if anything is about effacement, effacement of music, structure, teleology, being, time and ultimately itself, a process which when complete can be nothing other than perfect, but which here perhaps still lies a little ahead. (jliat)
Address not given but try: http://www.myspace.com/wandandprincess
HELMETICRONONAUT / ANIMAL MACHINE – HIJO DE PUTA (CDr by KIF Recording)
Again as with ‘situ’ this collaboration, and perhaps because of this, still at times has recognizable identities, its very much a work where at times one is aware of the process, of collaboration, of technique or of a relinquishing of technique, to the extent it could be a live performance. The “anecdotal” passages are insufficient to detract from the themes of annihilation of structure unless – and I find it unlikely, and I hope it is unlikely, that it might mark some kind of decent from the mountain, though the rhythmic of track 2 seems somehow out of place, and at times the intensity is somehow lost, perhaps in order to dangerously engender some form, a form of amusement even. The 8 tracks could benefit from some editing, as in editing out of the irrelevancies of “how its done”- no doubt a defense lies in the series title Productive Vs Destructive, but a demonstration lacks something of the totality of a performance, as in the clinical lack of eroticism in a “good sex guide”. (jliat)
Address: http://welcome.to/kifrecording
HELMETICRNONONAUT – PATTERNS OF DUMB (CD by Ethedrone Muzac)
Some things are generally true and contradictory, other peoples dreams are dull, whilst your (my) own full of surreal insight, which is puzzling as when you relate the one where you’re back at school, (again) you find it strange that listeners seem to glaze over or else want to tell you about their dream, which as far as you can see is of no interest at all. Likewise if you get to playing with a shortwave radio its fascinating to tune into and out of strange stations or those equally strange signals and noise, you can spend hours playing with the tuning dial, how odd then that anyone else in the room finds your improvisations incredibly frustrating or just plain silly, and when they try, well they simply have no idea how to make such radio transmissions sound as piquant as you can. That – in not a nutshell is I think is the problem here. Resisting to quote the title, or the track titles which are no doubt very amusing – to the author, this is endless twiddles with feedback and electronics which never gets anywhere, other than being genuinely annoying, but only as annoying as a blue bottle in the room without the fear or threat of a wasp. “Thirteen-track mandate from the Norwegian King of Feedback.” P.S. if you go to the site (below) it plays a track whilst scrolling this- “language of light – (excerpt) inside the Head of a Butterfly Dreaming of being a Giant Moth Destroying Tokyo” (excerpt) I kid you not. And “the narwhal invasion: if we were constellations-“time #1” (jliat)
Address: http://www.ethedrone.com/
UNTITLED 731 – UNTITLED 731 (CDR self released)
There is fairly comprehensive and readable background to this on myspace, together with 4 extracts, the second and subsequent tracks throwing more light on this project. Briefly – in case you don’t wish to wander – James Low plays heavy metal guitar, David Wheatley laptop electronics/noise. Influences include Steve Reich, Alvin Lucier, Merzbow, Autechre, Black Sabbath, Slayer & Frank Zappa. This is a first release of a relatively new project. I nor they perhaps consider this to be noise, which places it out of my direct interest and I would not wish to be overly negative towards a project in what is its early days. I would make two- if overly long points. First off you don’t and cant do “experimental electronics” on a lap top. Its dubious to see how experimentalism fits in to the post-modern zeitgeist anyhow, certainly its present in early Reich, but things are/were more complex intellectually and lifting the terms or a technique without recourse to this simply will not work. OK its possible to grab a piece of minimal art and give it a lick of paint and hide behind terms such as post-modern, eclectic, or best of all ironic, and that might be a relevant case, but not here. The artist may play dumb, superbly in the case of Warhol – but it’s a façade. It’s a simple fact that the influence of an artist like Reich unless thoroughly explored and understood to a certain level is overwhelming- or missed. As example its trendy for some idiot “artists” at dinner parties to cite Heidegger as an influence – without the slightest batting of the eyelids. Its enough to simply remark that he was a good Nazi to shut them up. I’m sounding like a snob, – but I’m not saying I know any better other than I for one am in agreement with Heidegger himself in
admitting to his incompressibility, and acknowledge his influences- though not directly. My second point is similar, – here a philosophical system is replaced by a – perhaps THE – fetish of popular Phallogocentric culture – to pick up an electric guitar and tune it, put it through effects into a Marshall stack and play whammy chords is to locate oneself in one of the most culturally psychological unconscious power structures that exist. OK so its fine for the thick kid, or now thick parents – but that is what this phenomenon has become – a huge commercial capitalist industry manipulating a global-unconsciousness, played as torture in guantanamo, played by moms and dads on Band in a Box world tour, air guitar jokers and wankers the world over. Any attempt at deconstructing this requires the sort of psychological heroics of Keiji Haino- etc al. in which the phalo-fetish is turned in on itself as disembowelment/ emasculation. We can wave all this away by simply saying that “the music of Untitled 731 is post-ideological”. well really – my my. ‘Il n’y a pas de hors-texte’ (jliat)
Addres: http://www.myspace.com/untitled731
KAPOTTE MUZIEK – EGG (CDR by Lunhare)
A staggering 31 tracks from previously tape based releases by KM. With plenty of variety, typified by the term electronica, the use of both electronics and sampled found sounds from various sources. Maybe its my state of mind at the moment, but these short pieces of “experimental” electronics from the mid 1980s exhibit a (now) sad optimism, a gentle, subtle and precocious wonder at opportunities which some how never fully developed, perhaps killed by the democratizing viciousness and hedonistic egoism of the myspace generation, they shine like gentle small flowers amid what is now a far more harsh environment where such work could somehow no longer exist. A compilation such as this has to be in part an historic document, one that I can associate with, unlike the current obsession with Nintendo Wiis and Band in a Box, they represent perhaps the last delicate flowers of what was once something called music? 73 minutes of delicate flowers or insect creatures but they cant compete with the day of ipod torrents and terabyte drives holding sufficient sounds such that one can not live long enough to hear, if the avant garde was once thought crazy now the common place is insane. (Jliat)
Address: http://www.lunhare.net
CELER – CURSORY ASPERSES (CDR by Slow Flow Records)
From the by now active forces of Celer, the duo
of Will Thomas Long and Danielle Baquet-Long, comes another release. One that lasts an hour, and that has one track ‘Cursory Asperses (in 8 Parts)’, but all eight parts get a title. Why not index the release at those eight tracks in a continuos mode? Perhaps there is logic there somewhere. This new piece(s) is based ‘around the single concept of slow movement’, which is indeed very much true. Perhaps its so slow that I didn’t detect eight different pieces on this release, or maybe that was never the idea. Built from field recordings, such as an isolated streams in the woods and such as the laundry hanging on cords in the backyard, Celer crafts once again a piece of music that is high and mighty based in the world of drone music, deep and atmospheric. Its hard to see the difference with their previous works or, in a larger perspective, the world of drone music as such. ‘Cursory Asperses’ is a very fine work altogether, but one without many surprises. (FdW)
Address: http://slowflowrec.web.fc2.com/index.html
STEVE RODEN – STARS OF ICE (CDR by Inbetween Noise)
Its a bit late/early for christmas music, but Roden uses a Chinese Christmas carol (perhaps its Chinese Christmas time these days?) from an old 7″, a 78 rpm of the ‘Songs From The First Grade Reader’, and various objects and instruments, while using the poem, ‘with numerous words erased’, as the lyrics. That may seem an odd twist for Roden, perhaps a song like piece, but it’s no such thing. The words, ‘the singing’ is heavily processed inside a field of crackles and hiss. There is a lovely repeating loop, like a lock groove, around this thirty-two minute piece, in which ‘singing’ pops up and goes away, like a carrousel, while in the second half the same thing happens with some stringed instrument. A lovely little piece that fits the cold season. A typical yet great Steve Roden piece. Ambient, meditative, contemplative. Microsound in optima forma. (FdW)
Address: http://www.inbetweennoise.com
PLATFORM – CATEGORIES OF DUST (CDR by Minimal Resource Manipulation)
Matt Atkins’ Platform project turns out to be a busy bee, with a number of releases in a relatively short time span. Not everything was great, but his ‘Categories Of Dust’ belongs certainly to his more interesting works. One piece, twenty-one minutes, of recordings made around the house with a very sensitive microphone, which were then ‘processed, re-processed and layered’. Platform enters here the world of microsound and does that with some style. Crackles, deep drone basis and hiss work fine in this piece, which may have a bit too much reverb here and there, but throughout this piece works along the lines of all the other micro-nists, such as Roel Meelkop and Marc Behrens. Not yet entirely their class, but this is his best effort so far. Sounds flow into eachother and have, certainly towards the end, a nice ambient texture to it. Let’s hope this new road will be his main one for the future and that he expands further on it. (FdW)
Address: http://www.minimalresourcemanipulation.co.uk
TTAKUNA – TEMPO DE DAR. EMONALDIA (CDR by Hamaika)
Somehow I lumped Loty Negarti as a noise boy in a my telephone book, but perhaps I am mistaken. Here he plays voice, ballon, aspirins, piano, artiach motor plate, mobile phone and metallic cap, while Oier I.A. plays batteries, cyclist small bottle, aspirins, photo camera, radio cassette, speakers, poliexpan box and plastic shopping bag. That could be a guarantee for lots of noise, but its very much the contrary thing here. One has to put the volume all the way up to hear something at all. The cover contains the ‘score’ of this, all in Basque of course, but it gives an idea about the consistency of how this is performed. Very soft with carefully placed sounds and at some point a text read. The sounds are far away, which doesn’t help concentrating on listening to this. Its a bit far away, its a bit too soft and careful. Or perhaps this is just not the time of day to hear this, or perhaps I should be using headphones – which I hardly ever do – to enjoy this. It would have been best however to experience this as a concert, I think. Then it would have been hard to escape this and truly enjoy it. Now it’s not bad, but not the full potential has been used. (FdW)
Address: http://www.gatza.org/hamaika.html
THE BUREAU OF NONSTANDARDS (CDR by One Zero)
Behind The Bureau Of Nonstandards is a duo of Kevin Smith on circuit bending and Maurice Rickard on laptop processing whatever Smith bends on his circuits. Rather than playing noise, they go for ‘layered ambience and surprisingly expressive soundscapes’, which is of course always good – stay away from the noise, boys. What is also nice is that the fifteen tracks are short, and are excerpts of various concerts around Pittsburgh were they are from. By choosing the best fragments of concerts they prevent us from having to listen to struggles or false starts. Or perhaps they plan them as tracks, I don’t know. That makes this quite an enjoyable release of improvised music, which is also pretty varied. There are elements in which we hear a broken drum computer, small melodies on keyboard that melted just recently, or mixed up voice material. The tracks are kept short and to the point, which altogether makes a very nice release. (FdW)
Address: http://onezeromusic.com/index.php/a7
JUAREZ REVONTUTLET (CD by Sabbatical Records)
GREEN BERET PART 1 & PART 2 (CD by Sabbatical Records)
ABSOLUTEN CALFEUTRAIL & BLAKE BAYER CONFLICT RESOLUTION SEMINAR (CD by Sabbatical Records)
Before I attempt to review these three releases on Sabbatical (I need one) as what might be an irrelevant and rather stupid observation, looking at their blog and in particular the now obligatory you tube clips of electronic improv I note something that might differentiate wheat from chaff. Why is it that some performers seek to rock, sway and almost dance whilst twiddling knobs when others remain totally static and immobile? And drawing a mental list of the immobilities, they go Cage, Tudor, Merzbow, Bailey even, and he plays guitar!. et al. – are the other kids (the head nodding swayers) just wishing they were in a rock band? Anyway back to the task in hand, “Juarez is the solo project of Jessica Pinney..” comes with a picture and painting of goats, and despite the P.R. blurb only has “layering of rich vocal lines” on the last track, the first being mostly very quiet ambiance punctuated by blasts of noise, the others still ambient sounds if perhaps slightly louder, and all tracks end with about 10 seconds of silence? Green Beret is a collaboration. which again produces fairly quiet ambient electronics. The final offering again is electro improv which consists in parts of short bursts of noise – though not particularly harsh, and sections of what could be machinery, a lathe or food mixer. You would certainly find all three pieces difficult to rock to, but sadly anything else. The idea of conflict resolution has perhaps permeated all three releases, but as we all know children without conflict or disturbance we wont hear a thing.. (Jliat)
Address: http://www.sbbtcl.com
JOSETXO GRIETA – DISTANCIA #2387 (CDR by Hamaika)
Josetxo makes a good opening impression, the sleeve is a folded piece of black manila held together with staples and sporting a photo of Josetxo held onto the sleeve by red insulation tape. He – in the photo, looks drunk or half asleep, is holding a mike in one hand and cigarette in the other. Apart from the CDr inside there is a green slip of paper in Spanish, so from the outset it presents a completely different image to the attempt at corporate cool of the sabbatical releases. Superficially you could say the single track shared much in common with the Sabbatical releases, though unlike those this glories in its throw-away inconsequentialities. So the section where the sound appears cut up could be down just to the CDR skipping, the whole thing is thrown, taped and stuck together in a make ship fashion which of course is deliberate. “Me quedo con el placer de la musica el crearla con otras personas y no necesitar hablar que sea la musica la que hable por ti y el resultado te sorprenda positivamente. Y reniego absolutamente del negocio musical nos mino” Thanks to Google gives “I stay with the joy of music create it with the others and no need to talk it is music that speaks for you and the result will surprise positively. And absolutely denies us the retail music business. ” Something absolutely missing in the attempted corporate image and lush PR of Sabbatical, a case of – with this type of sound – not trying harder – but not trying at all. Bien hecho mi hijo. (Jliat)
Address: http://www.gatza.org
IRUKANDJI – THE SUICIDE JUMP (CDR by Silken Tofu)
TZII – INDIVIDUALISIM (3 inch CDR by Silken Tofu)
I’m not that familiar with all the versions of Van Halen’s jump, the first minute of Suicide Jump consists of some very typical cheesy synth sweeps and strings before @ about 1 minute two or so recognizable opening chords are subsequently obliterated by 20 minutes of harsh noise, which end with a fade and I forgive in this case as it is all perfectly in keeping. You can hear extracts of the HN @ Silken Tofu, unfortunately not the actual moment of the annihilation of the heavy metal, akin to B52s carpet bombing a candy floss. With the Tzii offering I suppose we are back into industrial, there’s a guy talking in perhaps german, then what sounds like a badly made washing machine or perhaps hot air clothes dryer to the more discerning listener to the sounds of white goods. After about 6 minutes there begins sporadic crashing – perhaps a service lift slamming open. Something is missing – either here or in my critical facility, lets be noble and accept blame, I’m also the cause of the credit crunch. However I must finally return to the Irukanbji (before being nationalized by Gordon Brown), who is one Michael Page, it is a superb piece of iconoclasm, and rightly deserves attention if not a government bail-out. (Jliat)
Address: http://www.silkentofu.org/
STILLSTAND – BIONIK (CDR by Tib Prod)
RECONSTRUCT IV: MAURIZIO BIANCHI REMIXED VOL. 1 (CDR by Tib Prod)
Martin Steinebach is the man behind Monoid and Stillstand, smaller definitions of electronic music. The pieces here presents here as Stillstand were recorded between 2006 and 2008 and are best classified as up beat ambient music. The rhythm carries the piece, synthesizer howl and sing underneath. Sometimes a bit angular and strange, and other times pleasantly humming. Ambient music in the sense that you can stick this on, and have it playing, perhaps even on repeat, while you do your homework. Quite pleasant, not too demanding stuff going on. Nothing ordinary or strange, just mildly experimental music.
To remix Maurizio Bianchi is, at least in some musical circles, probably a wet dream coming true. On the Tib Prod website there are these remix projects organized where the artist has some samples available, and then everybody can download these samples, remix them and Tib Prod will release it. They done so before with the music of labelboss Jan-M Iversen, Cadmium Dunkel and Swamps Up Nostrils and now with Maurizio Bianchi, which is I think is quite a coup. I haven’t heard the sound samples, but I know much of his music to imagine such a remix project can be quite interesting. It ranges from quite soft, almost new age music to early industrial music – the preferred style around here, as well as with the people doing remixes. Everybody, all dedicated fans I imagine, grasp the idea of early Bianchi quite well: electric fields of sounds, stretched, much delay, but no-one seems to be surpass the master in what he did before. That perhaps proofs his quality in producing some highly personal industrial music, and it perhaps also learns a bit how this scene works. We have a great example, and we can do something similar. Included are Liquid Sphere, Rioteer, Bas van Huizen, Staplerfahrer, Jani Hellen, N Strahl N & Strahlenzentrum, Jan-M Iversen, Plastic Boner Band and Vernaggelkramp. Nice release, no weak brothers in arms here, and nothing special. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tibprod.com
UR – FOUR CALLS FOR LOCUSTS (CDR by Mask Of The Slave Records)
UR & CRAIG HILTON – I WILL BE THE LIGHT (CDR by Afe Records)
Italy’s Ur is a duo of Federico Esposito and Mauro Sciaccalugo, and they have met through the ‘hardcore’ circuit. They improvise on their instruments, which aren’t listed as such anywhere, ‘which can’t easily be described without referring to the well-known and wildest experiments of Industrial music of the late 70s/early 80s.’, as they put it themselves. And that’s well put, as the four tracks on this self-released CDR show this interest quite well. Rumble on metal sheets, guitars with e-bows and motors played through the pick-up element, lots of sound effects. However Ur aren’t a bunch of noise makers with their heads buried inside the speaker cabinet listening to feedback and distortion. The four pieces show an interest in more industrial ambiance, with a keen ear for the overall composition they are playing. Intelligent noise rumble this one. The noise I like.
A joint fascination for the work of Maurizio Bianchi brought them in contact with Craig Hilton, who did a collaboration with Bianchi (see Vital Weekly 644). Ur send Hilton four different takes of music and asked him to work freely with that. The title comes from Timothy Leary, about his ashes sent into space. Again, the whole Bianchi link is not very difficult to hear in the three pieces. Unlike Ur on their own, which have a more gritty, lo-fi electronic sound, this is more of a digital processing kind. The metallic sounds are filtered and re-processed into a new world of its own. Floating like rusty space ships – to stay on the thematic approach of the title, moving and humming. A bit like Organum’s early works, but then covered with electrically charged dust. A very fine work too, more refined that the previous Ur release, and the industrial music of the 21st century. Chilling. (FdW)
Address: http://www.geocities.com/mirgilus
Address: http://www.aferecords.com
JOHN HUDAK – MISS DOVE, MR.DOVE (CDR by Afe Records)
TIZIANO MILANI – IM INNERSTEN (CDR by Afe Records)
ANDREA MARUTTI & TOMMASO COSCO – TURRA (3″CDR by Afe Records)
Since many years I closely follow the work of John Hudak. In the early days it came on cassette and then on CD and CDR. One thing has remained a constant factor in his music and that his interest to explore one theme per project. On cassette always two actually, one per side, but these days its one piece per CD/CDR release. On ‘Miss Dove, Mr. Dove’ he uses field recordings made in the Czech Republic, recording doves at dawn, while traffic and people on the street increases. These sounds are treated with some kind of unnamed software and the entire piece lasts an hour. ‘It is intended to be played as background sound/music’, it says on the press release, and that’s quite right. The music has changes, but throughout they are quite minimal, with envelopes on specific sounds being opened with great care. Music to be played while doing something – reading being my preferred kind of activity. Non-intentional music, the perfect back-drop. Like Satie intended with his music for furniture. Ambient music as Eno intended, but of a somewhat stranger kind. The bird like sounds are rhythmical, cut-up and not endlessly flowing. Very nice.
The name Tiziano Milani is a new name for me, although he has some releases on Setola Di Maiale and Chew-Z. He has a passion for ‘collected’ sounds, by which, I assume, the label means he does field recordings. He has built a reverberation room of which the details are on the cover. I must admit I didn’t understand much of what he said about the music, but it seems to me that this is constructed by melting all these sounds together. He likes muffled sounds, far away, recorded through the walls. This results in three long tracks which work as endless streams of sounds, rather than a fixed composition of specific sounds. This makes it hard to focus on the end result – the composition – but like Hudak, it seems that its much more three pieces of undirected ambient music. Whereas Hudak limits his sound source to one specific recording, Milani works with a multitude of sounds, which move about on end, but the end result is like Hudak: music to do your newspaper reading, cleaning or just sit back and relax. Also nice, certainly if you play these in a row.
You could decide to end with the disc by Afe labelboss Andrea Marutti with someone I never heard of, Tommaso Cosco. He delivered the field recordings for ‘Turra’, which are then processed by Marutti. Marutti has an extensive discography at hand in all sorts of music, but he is best known for his subtle dark drone music. This particular piece is no stranger in that land, as he regards it as his companion piece for his ‘The Subliminal Relation Between Planets’, released by Nextera. Almost nineteen minutes of the deepest and darkest rumble around. It carries the listener away, but its over before you know it, and you land with a bump on earth again. This could have been easily twice the length. (FdW)
Address: http://www.aferecords.com
NALS GORING (CDR by OSR)
NALS GORING & NALS GORMAN – HEAT WILSON (CDR by OSR)
NALS GORING (cassette by OSR)
Here’s a bunch of stuff that gives me some headache. Not the music as such, but the content of the packaging, which is just hard to decipher. There is a CDR by one Nals Goring, with tons of little tracks on it, which are all made by cutting up sounds and spoken word of records and TV. Nothing much else is done with it, although he might have added his own voice to the end result. Maybe not. I couldn’t decipher the scribble on the cover, which may, or may not hold some clue. Plunderphonic? Perhaps. Or perhaps an excuse to do just anything.
Together with another Nals, Nals Gorman (do they have an obsession with former nazi idiots), there is another CDR on the same label, with more or less the same approach, just less tracks, twenty in total in some thirty five minutes. Sounds and noises are thrown into a cheap sampler, or simple two-track audio software, and there is some additional noises of things happening in the room, picked by a cheap microphone.
More of that on a cassette, most likely by Nals Goring again, but no information, but lots of track titles. Maybe this is more played that plundered, but who am I to tell?. This is one of things where I am thinking ‘if you don’t bother, why should I?’
Address: http://www.osr-tapes.info
VARIOUS ARTISTS – LASTING (cassette by Pineapple tapes)
I was given this tape for review 2 weeks ago. Since then I have played this quite a few times. Not because I wasn’t sure what to write about it, but because I really enjoyed so much of the music. Now I’m not quite sure if there was a mutual theme agreed upon when contributors were approached, but it is interesting to hear that so much of the music is in the same mood. With Pineapple tapes being run by Scott Foust and Karla Borecky of Idea Fire Company, it comes as no surprise that we have contributions by many artists associated with (or downright member of) the Idea Fire Company. The general feel of this tape reflects IFC’s latest (and, in my humble opinion, best) album The Island of Taste, which was released last year. If you haven’t got a copy of that album yet, you should buy one immediately as it is truly beautiful. The 90 minutes that make up Lasting feature 16 tracks indicating that most of the songs are of considerable length. The slightly noisy opener by Foust! (guess who) is an exception as is Nijmegen Hiss by Frans de Waard (which is anything but). There are several tracks that could have well fitted on their The Island of Taste album, even at times sounding like outtakes. There are beautiful and fragile compositions based around the piano (as is so much of the music on The Island of Taste), such as Structure by Borecky herself, Ditmas Park Excerpt by BRRR (which is slightly ruined by the abrupt fade at the end), A Night Sketch by Vikki Jackman (where also Andrew Liles and Daisuke Suzuki are credited, but I am uncertain what their contribution is, unless it is another hopelessly abrupt and disturbing fade at the end) and of course IFC themselves with The Sinking Ship. Then we have beautiful pieces by Ian Middleton, Mat Krefting and an uncharacteristic synthesizer piece by Andrew Chalk himself. Slightly odd ends here are Asmus Tietchens, whose cold, mechanical piece S.17 A is at odds with the warmth of the other material. The same goes a bit for Tim Goss’ Thunderrum based on sampling and drums and features lyrics. Don’t worry, it’s not that there are de facto bad, far from it, since the mood of the tape is so strong, they sound a bit out of place. First prize for best band name goes to The Collection Of The Late Howell Blend. Brilliant. With a great cover painting by Karla Borecky (not sure if she sells paintings, but I would be interested in that) Lasting is a tape well worth buying. The audio quality is excellent with only a minor bit of tape (Nijmegen?) hiss. Described by some as similar to the legendary “From Brussels with Love” cassette, this might be overstretching things a bit, but interestingly enough it does have the same mood of that release. As such, this is a gorgeous tape offering some great music. Very recommended indeed. (FK)
Address: http://www.anti-naturals.org/swill
THE INSANE BOX (4LP by Vinyl On Demand)
NOTTAROSSA/REDNIGHT (2CD by Small Voices)
Caution: This is not a review, its merely a bunch of memories. In October 1985, after I published a small fanzine ‘Archive’, which was a collection of discographies on various bands (a kind of Discogs, but then on paper), I decided that the second issue would be on a bunch of groups around the Insane Music Contact label. It had to come with a cassette with some rare tracks. I wrote them a letter, no doubt not the first, and I was invited to Nivelles to come and talk and select a bunch of tracks. I was 21, and met a by couple, Alain Neffe and Nadine Bal, about half my size, but lovely. They showed me their basement, the Insane studio, filled with tons of great equipment (which should have stopped me from ever wanting to make music again with my own two cassette players, but that’s a different story), and all the obscure compilations where they had tracks. They explained me the difference between the all the Insane bands. All bands had involvement from Alain Neffe. I Scream was his first project from the early 70s, playing around with a synthesizer. Then came Pseudo Code, my personal favorite, a trio of Neffe and future Sub Rosa owners Guy Marc Hinant and Frederic Walheer (who were also Kaa Antilope), followed shortly after that by the music by mail project Human Flesh, the pop band Subject (which Nadine thought was ’empty’), the poetry of Cortex, and the duo of Neffe and Bal as Bene Gesserit. Did I skip one? Perhaps I did. I stayed the whole weekend and was delighted. I thought these people were very kind, their music was great and made this small fanzine with discographies and a great tape, with some lost classics. I looked at their collection of tapes and records, eat my soup and the next day we went to a flea market where they sold stuff. A great weekend. I don’t think my lost classics are on this 4LP boxset, which is perhaps even better news. My beloved Pseudo Code are represented by an entire LP of live recordings. Human Flesh with a bunch of unreleased recordings, including a track sung in Dutch by Cor Gout, while I Scream and Subject share an album. I remembered liking Subject back in the day, but now is a bit disapointing. Perhaps because we are spoiled by so many other great synth pop? I Scream sounds on the other hand much better than I remembered, with their cosmic approach. Bene Gesserit might still be the important name on the label, still producing new music (like Human Flesh), but somehow their synth/vocal/rhythm music is not well spend on me. Still not spend on me. They also have the bonus 7″, whereas it would have been nice to have some shorter Cortex poems on the 7″. Inside the booklet an extensive discography, which is great, although perhaps not in the internet age something to print anymore and a rather clumsy interview with Neffe. Needles to say I think this is great stuff. I am going to dig out the cassette I released, and perhaps I could express interest in a Pseudo Code complete works boxset? I will save up some pennies for it.
A label like Vinyl On Demand, or in fact any other label, would have trouble putting in a box is Italy’s Trax label. Their releases were not just cassettes or booklets, but also events, clothing, and other ephemera. When the label stopped a nice catalogue was released, which summed up these releases nicely, but true fans – here’s one, here’s one – would miss out on the music. Trax was best known for some extreme packaging. I remember seeing ‘Tooth & Nail’ at Alain Neffe’s house in 1985, with a sugar candy representing the vagina dentata. Many of their compilations were around themes, such as alternative anthems or in ‘Nottarossa/Red Night’, the work of William Burroughs. I remember having this tape and the extensive booklet with cut-up and pornographic collages – hey, that’s a great combination I thought back then, always liking to buy music and not porn, but combined? This new package on Small Voices (there is a website on the cover, but how does it work – beats me. It re-directs to the sister label of A Silent Place, but you can’t access the Small Voices catalogue) doesn’t represent the original package at all. A fascimile version would be great. But the scanned images on the second disc make up at least something and the oversized print work is beyond the ordinary at least. I was surprised that hearing this I recognized so much of the old stuff. It once again proofs my point that in the ‘old’ days you didn’t have this overload of (free? what’s free?) music so you could only listen to what you have on end, and it makes that after twenty-five or so years you still have an exact idea how it sounded like. Amazing. Its an hour long collage of sound and music people sent to the Trax headquarters, with fitted the ideas of cut-up of Burroughs and Gysin. Small Voices promises three more re-issues, forming the word ‘TRAX’. ‘R’ is represented by ‘Red Night’, ‘A’ will be ‘Anthems’ (can’t wait for that, a particular favorite on Trax), T for Traxman (graphic novel) and X for Xtra, an album composed of music through mail. Much to look forward to. Its nice that there is a Gianluca Becuzzi remake part of the Red Night package. He mastered the original and reworked it into a piece of music of his own. As said, but perhaps also a bit superflous, and a bit of historical fraude, as it was not part of the original package. But its the same disc that has all the images so perhaps that didn’t fit on the first disc and we should regard this as a bit of extra. Great re-issues. (FdW)
Address: http://vinyl-on-demand.com
Address: http://www.smallvoices.it