THOMAS BEY WILLIAM BAILEY – STRANGELET (CD by Belsona Strategic Recordings) *
ASHER – MINIATURES (2CD by Sourdine) *
SEBASTIEN ROUX & VINCENT EPPLAY – CONCATENATIVE MU (CD by Brocoli) *
VIOLET – VIOLET RAY GAS & THE PLAYBACK SINGERS (CD by Zeromoon/Sentient Recognition Archive) *
BRUNNEN – SWOON (CD by Beta-Lactam Ring Records) *
TENNISCOATS – TEMPOACHA (CD by Room40) *
FABRIQUE (CD compilation by Room40)
PHANTOM LIMB & EARTH’S HYPNAGOGIA – IN CELEBRATION OF KNOWING ALL THE BLUES OF THE EVENING (CD by Unframed Recordings) *
RICHARD GARET & BRENDAN MURRAY – OF DISTANCES (CD by Unframed Recordings) *
I/D/V 01 (7″ by Unframed Recordings)
I/D/V 02 (7″ by Unframed Recordings)
STEVE RODEN – ECSTASY SHOREWED ITS PETALS WITH THE FULL PEAL OF THE BELLS (3″CD by Ferns) *
STABAT MORS/KARL BÖSMANN (split LP by Psych KG)
BALDUIN – RAINBOW TAPES (LP by Everest Records) *
BENFAY – REPLAY LIFE (CD by Everest Records)
N.STRAHL.N/METEK – DROWNING DEVICES (CDR by Cohort Records) *
CHUCH – FACELESSNESS (CDR by Twilight Luggage) *
XEDH – VINDUSKARM (CDR by Triple Bath) *
TERJE PAULSEN – THREE STRINGS (CDR by Et Le Feu Comme) *
JGRZINICH – PHASE INVERSION (CDR by Mystery Sea) *
MATHIEU RUHLMANN – FOURTEEN WORMS FOR VICTOR HUGO (CDR by Gears Of Sand) *
CHURCH OF MANDRAX – MEDROXY PROGRESTERONE ACETATE (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive) *
OPHIBRE – DRONE WORKS FOR DIFFERING DIGITAL AUDIO FORMATS AND ENCODING METHODS (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive) *
AUDIO ROADKILL VOLUME ONE (CDR compilation by Thee Instagon Foundation)
MARTIENSGOHOME – ABSCONS DEPUIS 1996 (USB stick, private)
TSUKIMONO – GREAT BLOOD (MP3 by HWEM) *
CRAQUE – SUPPLE (Mp3 by Audiobulb Records)
THOMAS BEY WILLIAM BAILEY – STRANGELET (CD by Belsona Strategic Recordings)
Previously known as The Domestic Front, Thomas Bey Wiliam Bailey now operates under his own name. Which is something more and more people do and did. Who remembers Crawl Unit, since long known as Joe Colley? As The Domestic Front he delivered some pretty interesting releases that were surely noise based, but which always seemed be more than just pointless attacks of brutality. Here on ‘Strangelet’ things start out in a pretty heavy feedback mode, but quite soon returns to the form of The Domestic Front, and were the great power lies of Bailey: the sound collage. He does hard edits in the music, swiftly changing from one thing to another, while sometimes he lets a few layers continue. Throughout it seems to me however that this first release under his name is overall a more louder one than the previous releases. Things are full on, all the time. That seems to be a new feature here, even with the edits he made. I always say I don’t like noise for noise’s sake, but when things are played here this forcefully and with so much care, intelligent noise I could even say, than I’m fully interested. A pretty intense release, even in its quieter moments, such as in ‘The Sanctity Of Sloth’. Digital noise with an intelligent edge. (FdW)
Address: http://www.belsona-strategic.com
ASHER – MINIATURES (2CD by Sourdine)
Finally Asher has made the ‘big’ step towards releasing a CD, and why not a double CD (in good Frank Zappa tradition?). But Asher goes a bit further than this. ‘Recorded in Somerville, MA winter 2007’, the website of the label (his own) and a catalogue number. Nothing else. It’s called ‘Miniatures’ and both discs have thirteen tracks, but is not some conceptual thing of ‘play both at once to hear the real thing’. Its Asher being the piano, playing Satie like pieces. Just yesterday I heard some Satie (on ‘The Fruit Of The Original Sin’), and it always sounds good but it always make me a bit sad – great music. The music of Asher however doesn’t make me sad per se, but his piano playing and very sparse processing are quite delicate. It seems to me that Asher records his piano playing on a hissy cassette, and then further amplifies the hiss a bit more in the computer and compresses the whole thing so that there is some kind of piano playing left over. It also seems that over the course of the two discs thing deteriorate further and further, with more and more hiss and gradually an almost disappeared piano. Perfect late night music, and if played in the right order, silver first and then the black CD, things end in total hiss bliss. Great CD, and hopefully the first of many more. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sourdine.net
SEBASTIEN ROUX & VINCENT EPPLAY – CONCATENATIVE MU (CD by Brocoli)
Its not very often these days that musicians site as influences the German experimental music of the 80s, such as HNAS, P16.D4 and Rowenta/Khan, along with the plunderphonics of John Oswald, Negativland and The Tape-beatles. I thought the first were pushed in a corner of the history, waiting for a revival. Maybe this has happened with this CD. I was thinking about these bands and persons – all six of them – and what it is that ties them together. I think its the extensive use of voice material in all six – created by themselves, or lifted from various sources. That’s one thing. The other is their strong love of swift editing the material, adding surprise elements in the mix. Thirdly they all used humor in some way. Roux, whom we know for his albums for 12K, Room40 etc., and Vincent Epplay, who is more a multi-media artist, understand this well. They call their music punk musique concrete, which is a nice invention, but not entirely an invention of their own. Rather than punk musique concrete, I’d like to say non academic musique concrete. They work above the strict laws of composing according the holy book of acousmatic music (which in France might be the same as blasphemy) and throw in many elements of pop culture, to make a social comment. That’s what makes this ‘punk’ indeed. This is a great CD, much better recorded and produced than the old P16.D4 (still a favorite here), but Roux and Epplay are no doubt laptop musicians so it’s ‘easier’ anyway. They very much create their own take on things, and thus created an album that is beyond the usual microsound, careful laptop doodling, but also they are clever enough not to fall into the many noise holes on their way. Their album is a great mixture of noise, laptop, and musique concrete – punk or otherwise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.brocoli.org
VIOLET – VIOLET RAY GAS & THE PLAYBACK SINGERS (CD by Zeromoon/Sentient Recognition Archive)
Jeff Surak has been called ‘The godfather of American noise’, which of course is not entirely true, as there are more ‘survivors’ from the old 80s noise school, fact remains that Surak never lost his profile as a musician and organizer. In the 80s he worked solo as -1348- and with New Carollton and had his label Watergate Tapes. In the 90s he lived in Russia for a while and upon return he worked as V., a duo of which now Violet is his solo project. Curiously enough he never released a full length solo CD. That omission has now been corrected. Violet uses found objects, microcassettes, damaged CDs, prepared acoustic instruments and old record players, along with a laptop to create his music. In its earlier days I thought Violet (when releasing CDRs, mini CD, MP3s) was intop creating microsound, but now he has extended his work field quite extensively. In ‘Violet Ray Gas’ for instance he uses quite a bit a violin like sounds, which are layered into an orchestral mass of sound, along with some obscured sounds at the bottom. The closing piece of the CD is ‘Interior Ghosts’ is a hissy, glitchy piece of shifting organ like tones. There is also noise, as part of the long ‘Marionetki’ piece, and drone like ambience. Violet creates music that defies many descriptions, and produced an album that is highly varied but at the same time also pretty unified and strong – an excellent display of what Violet is all about. Ambient, noise, musique concrete, old school industrial music and microsound, all blended together in a strong work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
BRUNNEN – SWOON (CD by Beta-Lactam Ring Records)
Fifteen years after its original release, now comes a remastered CD-album of the album titled “Swoon” by Dutch artist Brunnen. The album was recorded in 1992/1993 just after the debut (cassette)-release “The garden of perpetual dreams”. The “Swoon”-album came out as a vinyl-format in 1993 on the label “Seven On A Broom In The Sky”. Apparently the sound quality of the original release wasn’t too well and the release was printed in a limited edition of 263 copies. Now fifteen years later the album has been reissued with a much better sound production this time in a CD-format. – And the album certainly deserves this treatment! Behind Brunnen, you find the artist Freek Kinkelaar who apart from the Brunnen-project also is known as part of the Beequeen project with Frans de Waard. The expression on the album is overall quite minimal, based on keyboard sequences from the old Ensonic Esq 1 synthesizer and then discreet vocals from Freek himself. The atmospheric and overall mellow synthlines from the electronic equipment is the dominating part of the sound picture with the gentle downbeat vocals coming from the distance. Weird electronic experimentations intervenes the pieces, sometimes quite noisy, and thus breaking the calm and easy-going musical textures with some quite interesting contrasts. That Edward Ka-Spel (of Legendary Pink Dots) takes part on a track doesn’t come as a great surprise, since the whole expression draws attention to the style of the Dots. A very nice release that fully deserves this fine treatment! (NM)
Address: http://blrrecords.com
TENNISCOATS – TEMPOACHA (CD by Room40)
FABRIQUE (CD compilation by Room40)
When reviewing the previous release by Tenniscoats, ‘Totemo Aimasho’ (see Vital Weekly 590), I wrote I don’t get their music very well. “Simple songs, played rudimentary, without much skill, but they play, or try to play a popsong”, but there was something about their naivety which I didn’t get. That lies mainly in the singing. It is with some reluctance that I started playing the new one, “Tempoacha”. Tenniscoats, a duo of Saya and Ueno were at the time of recording impressed by Lawrence English’ ‘Studies For Stadbroke’ on Winds Measure Recordings, so it was suggested that they would go out and record their music outside, in nature, on the street and incorporate the field directly into the music. The vocal part is left aside, or is used very sparsely here, which improves, me thinks, the music a great deal. The sparse, naive playing is still there present, but the ‘open’ character of the music, and the moving away of the need to play pop tunes, makes this into a highly enjoyable CD. Laidback music, very musical and yet also at the same time, having that field recordings feel to it. I would hope this would be the change of the tune, they would need and not just an one-off experiment.
The other new release by Room40 is a compilation, which deals with the eight year existence of Fabrique, a series of forty concerts in the Brisbane Powerhouse Turbine Platform. Over these years a variety of Australian and foreign artists performed there, ranging from David Grubbs, Pimmon, Chris Abrahams, Fourcolor, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Janek Schaefer, Andrew Peckler, Ulrich Krieger, Scanner, DJ Olive meet I/03, John Chantler, Greg Davis, Camilla Hannan, Robert Henke, KK Null, Leighton Craig, Seaworthy and Tujiko Noriko – no doubt more, as the pictures in the booklet proof. But these names are present on the CD that celebrates these eigth years. Looking at the pictures there a lots of people of laptops, guitars and some with other instruments. The CD is nice bunch of live pieces, excellent excerpts of bigger performances, with none really standing out of the rest or seem to be making a true difference, but its quite a fine collection. Difficult as it is to review such as compilation, it has captured some nicer moments. (FdW)
Address: http://www.room40.org
PHANTOM LIMB & EARTH’S HYPNAGOGIA – IN CELEBRATION OF KNOWING ALL THE BLUES OF THE EVENING (CD by Unframed Recordings)
RICHARD GARET & BRENDAN MURRAY – OF DISTANCES (CD by Unframed Recordings)
I/D/V 01 (7″ by Unframed Recordings)
I/D/V 02 (7″ by Unframed Recordings)
Four very stylish packed releases. The first release is by one Phantom Limb and Earth’s Hypnagogia, which according to the cover is one Jaime Fennelly and Shawn Hansen. They play farfisa organs and HP sine wave oscillators. Two different titles, each three pieces. ‘Civil Twilight’ moves along the lines of the inaudible, whereas ‘Darkness (Nautical Twilight)’ is unmistakably louder and meaner – pressing to the ears. These pieces are alright, but tend to go of the rails a bit. The first three pieces are much nicer, as they are slow humming works of a delicate nature. Slow, evolving and revolving – nice drone stuff.
Richard Garet we know from his releases on Winds Measure Recordings and Brendan Murray, well he’s one of the music scene’s undiscovered heroes. The work they carried out together was recorded between 2004 and 2007. I am not sure if there is some sort of thematic approach to this, but this is a fine work of two long pieces of field recordings and computer processing. In terms of microsound, drone, field recording or ambient music I didn’t hear anything ‘new’, but throughout this was a most enjoyable disc. Especially ‘In Parallel’, the longest piece of the two is a piece that goes through various stages of field recordings – mostly recordings dealing with the weather – and gliding and sustaining electronics, works very well. Like said, nothing new under that particular sun (pun intended), but executed with a great love for the material and with great skill towards the methods at hand.
The two 7″s are on a conceptual level. Each artist has a piece and two lockgrooves at their disposal. It reads a bit like a who’s who in the experimental music field, with on the first volume the more experimental and noisy artists such as Lary 7, Joe Colley, Busratch, Toshio Kajiwara, Tommy Birchett and Dieb 13, while on the second volume things get more musical with improvising musicians as Ian Epps, Kenta Nagai, Annette Krebs, Chris Forsyth, Giuseppe Ielasi and Koen Holtkamp. Especially the side with last three is particular musical. Not easy 7″s to play with all these lockgrooves, but like always with this sort of thing they might serve as DJ tools for the more adventurous DJs out there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.unframedrecordings.net
STEVE RODEN – ECSTASY SHOREWED ITS PETALS WITH THE FULL PEAL OF THE BELLS (3″CD by Ferns)
More Steve Roden here, following his release of a few weeks ago. He has a small hand bell as the prime sound source here. I assume one of those bells to call upon the downstairs staff for a drink. This bell generated the sounds used here, and this twenty minute mini CD is an absolute text book Roden piece. There are various transformations of the bell, pitched up and down, reversed and otherwise altered, and then they are looped. All of these loops are placed in a multi-track editor and then mixed together in a very consistent built-up – the Roden method. This piece is no different, and of course that’s no problem, but I must admit I thought it would be time to try his hand at something new. New working methods, new sound sources perhaps. This is a beautiful piece, but its also perhaps something that we know all too well. (FdW)
Address: <fernsrec@numericable.fr>
STABAT MORS/KARL BÖSMANN (split LP by Psych KG)
The name Stabat Mors only means something to me in a sense that I may have heard the name before, somewhere, but probably never heard his music properly. Karl Bösmann, who released this split record, tells us he doesn’t know much about the pieces here, as Christian Köhler, died last year (although according to discogs he committed suicide in 2006). His pieces are around the theme of ‘Fractals Of Benoit Mandelbrot’. I don’t know what to think of this, I must admit. Stabat Mors sound influenced by noise. There is some distorted guitar playing going on, with bits of feedback here and there. Then there is channel or two reserved for some voice material, spoken, but unrecognizable as to what it is about. The material doesn’t seem to have much relation to eachother it seems, and bounces around in quite a random way. The other is by Karl Bösmann, and is much more interesting. He recorded his piece using a Korg MS-20, an old Roland R8 triggered by a Doepfer 2 Sequencer, along with some samples of guitar and vocals. It results in a long flowing piece of swirling electronics, sequencer based rather than rhythm based, in which the title, ‘Traffic Brain’, becomes a kraut-rock like piece, motorik music. ‘A Drone Called Monster 1-42’ is the start of a multi-layered project of 42 different lines of analog sources, like ‘blown plastic pipe’, ‘woodpipe harp’, ‘accordion’, ‘trombone’ etc. which Karl Bösmann mixes together into a somewhat crude but nice piece of acoustic drone music that has some great sustaining character. Crude, since the recording quality could have been better, but I think Bösmann made this part of the game. Nice side this one. A 7″ with more material of the analog sources is ready, but no label has touched it yet. Please do, aspiring labels out there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.karlboesmann.com
BALDUIN – RAINBOW TAPES (LP by Everest Records)
Some weeks ago somebody gave me a CD, mono, of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, since he now had the vinyl. And I am a bit Beatles fan, especially the later period, so it was a hardly a surprise that, even I don’t play the Beatles a lot, I still knew every song, every move and am still amazed by the complexity of the music, with the limited means it was made. I don’t know if Balduin’s means are limited, even when he says it was all recorded on analoge tape, but he likes later Beatles too, as he shows in the twenty-four pieces on ‘Rainbow Tapes’. The same fascination for short pieces, psychedelica, the use of weird sounds, weird lyrics. Balduin, who previously recorded for Crippled Dick Hot Wax!, plays all the instruments himself, ranging from guitar, xylophone, flute, rattle, a children’s keyboard and apparently he sings for the first time. Quite a fine record, even when it seems to outside the limits of Vital Weekly (it’s a pity that The Square Root Of Sub no longer writes for these pages, who dug this kind of music best in our team). Balduin is a Lennon and McCartney in one. Strange lyrics, regular lyrics, strange sounds and normal playing – it makes an album of highly psychedelic music, topped with a great retro cover too. Ah, the old days. (FdW)
Address: http://www.everestrecords.ch
BENFAY – REPLAY LIFE (CD by Everest Records)
“Replay life” is an album from the artist calling himself Benfay. Benfay is Swiss born and an artist from the Hochschule De Künste in Bern. Since 1998 he has studied composition and electronic sounds. The debut release came out in 2001 and as is the case with the main part of the back catalogue counting 12 releases, the release format was mp3. Present album is released as a vinyl. The opening pieces of the album are melancholic and a downbeat approach to the IDM-style drawing associations towards the British “Boards Of Canada”. As the album carries on acoustic instruments adds a more chamber classic approach with a clever use of string instruments such as guitars and cello sounds adding a nice atmosphere to the more upbeat expression penetrating as the album develops. Nice release! (NM)
Address: http://www.everestrecords.ch
N.STRAHL.N/METEK – DROWNING DEVICES (CDR by Cohort Records)
This is not the first time that W. Loehr, also known as N.Strahl.N does collaborations, where he sends field recordings and unfinished compositions to someone else and receives the same in return. In this case its F. Nilsson, also known as Metek. The thematic approach here seems to be ‘life under water’, and more special the life inside a submarine. Both artists feel quite the same what the other wants and together they drum up five pieces that fit together quite well. The field recordings are difficult to pin down – but seem to me made in tunnels to get that reverb and that also keeps the sound ‘outside’, as recorded through a tube. To this they add their own electronics and sound effects. It starts out a bit noisy, but quite soon moves into a musical area where ambient, industrial, and microsound meet up. At times the amount of reverb used is a bit too much, but the claustrophobic nature of the music comes out quite well. Certainly when played through headphones this comes quite close. There is not much difference between the tracks that were finished by Metek or by N.Strahl.N, which might be a bit problematic – faceless perhaps – but together it makes quite a strong album. Something for the lovers of more present drone music, and those who love the Mystery Sea releases. (FdW)
Address: http://cohortrecords.0catch.com
CHUCH – FACELESSNESS (CDR by Twilight Luggage)
On Twilight Luggage a new name, Chuch. This seems to be a trio with on guitars, voices, devices someone who calls himself 13.10.08-02.01.09, then one Lizbet Jenks on shakers and drums and Beddmanarch Corvids on dawn chorus. I assume the latter plays around with field recordings. Three lengthy tracks here. ‘Sleeping And Arising’ is almost a bass-less dub affair, with shakers, twangy guitar and lots echoed sounds. In ‘Sky Pox’ the cries of seagulls are present and this piece continues the same what laid back music of the previous one, but with less drums. ‘Face Of Entrails’, which closes the release is quite different. Also lots of echo and reverb, but more noise based, with the shaker playing a dominant role, but it totally breaks with the relaxed atmosphere of the first pieces, which were much more enjoyable. All three pieces are a bit long but in the first two one could say that the ambient meets dub meets psychedelics goes a certain relaxing atmosphere, but not the third one. Quite nice altogether and a promise for the future it seems. They only need to decide in which direction they might go and work that through a bit more. (FdW)
Address: http://www.twilightluggage.com
XEDH – VINDUSKARM (CDR by Triple Bath)
Another release by Miguel A. Garcia, also known as Xedh, whose work is getting better all the time. Starting out with industrial music, heavy beats and noise, these days its a very interesting mix of microsound and on this album modern classical music. ‘Vinduskarm’ was recorded in 2006 already, and he uses to some extent classical instruments, which he puts on his computer together into some highly interesting music. This release has three pieces, of which the second and third are in three parts. In the last part Xedh uses brass and strings to create an intense and beautiful piece of modern classical music. In the second piece it seems that field recordings play the all important role, and the instruments are absent. In the first piece, in one part only, the balance between instruments, electronics and field recordings seems to be the same. Xedh adds electronics and field recordings to the total spectrum of sounds. His recent CD release was good, but this is even better. Well balanced, owing to microsound, but the combination with real instruments works great. Perhaps a great pity that this is only released as a limited CDR and not as a real CD, but then we should be glad we can hear this after all. (FdW)
Address: http://www.triplebath.gr
TERJE PAULSEN – THREE STRINGS (CDR by Et Le Feu Comme)
The two string instruments that Terje Paulsen uses on this release are an old acoustic guitar and a very old folk instrument, and both have three strings only – hence the title. These instruments are played with fingers, bow, e-bow, some sound effects and recorded with contact microphones and prepared with wooden sticks. The three pieces here are all improvised in nature, and have no post production. Three excellent pieces that is. Paulsen uses a variety of techniques to play the strings and does that with much elegance, repeating actions but never quite similar and builds his pieces with much care. Quite intense playing going on here, which ends in a beautiful drone like third piece (which was made with a buddha machine). Great release! (FdW)
Address: http://www.etlefeucomme.be
JGRZINICH – PHASE INVERSION (CDR by Mystery Sea)
Active since many years now, through solo work and various collaborations (with Micheal Northam, Seth Nehil and Olivia Block) and many releases (on Intransitive, Elevator Bath, Orogenetics, Cloud Of Statics, Edition Sonoro, Sirr, CMR etc), John Grzinich, also known as Jgrzinich, is a settled artist. He lives in Estonia these days, where he work on his music and as an organizer. It is not revealed what his sound sources are, nor what kind of process Jgrzinich uses, this new work is exactly what it is that Jgrzinich does. A bunch of acoustic objects, bells, wood, metal, stones, are being played manually and then the sound gets processed with various electronics and layered into thick swirling drone pieces. Jgrzinich never stands ‘still’, its always on the move. Small crackles from field recordings, majestic drones from electronics, with always something new happening. This is a Jgrzinich as we would have expected. Perhaps a bit like the release by Steve Roden reviewed elsewhere, one could say that Jgrzinich doesn’t change his mode of operation very much, which might be necessary by now. But without that one could easily say this is another damn fine disc. Perhaps not as aquatic as many of the other releases on Mystery Sea. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
MATHIEU RUHLMANN – FOURTEEN WORMS FOR VICTOR HUGO (CDR by Gears Of Sand)
“In 1853 while in exile Victor Hugo began conducting seances, as a way to communicate with his daughter who had drowned in the Seine.” He spoke to various person, including Jesus and also got the message from across that afterlife was a return to Earth in four states depending on how you conducted your life. You could be a stone/pebble, a step plant, animal/insect or as a human – of course the better you lived, you would be a human. So Ruhlmann works here with worms, flies, moths, beetles, crickets, wasps, stones, water kettle, children’s toys. tin can, sagebrush prayer bowl and piano. Which is interesting if you keep the Hugo thing in mind. Produce sound with these stones which might be some bad person from another life. An interesting point to start I should think. Not fourteen but seven tracks here with music that is made of all these objects, recorded with microphones and contact microphones. It starts out with soft rumble, stones being rubbed, but as the music progresses, it seems that Ruhlmann also added some other sound material, including field recordings and/or computer processing. Together these field recordings and rumbling of acoustic objects make a very intense piece of music. Intense yet atmospheric. Kinda like Jeph Jerman, but then with more electronics. Very nicely woven music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.gearsofsand.net/home.html
CHURCH OF MANDRAX – MEDROXY PROGRESTERONE ACETATE (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive)
OPHIBRE – DRONE WORKS FOR DIFFERING DIGITAL AUDIO FORMATS AND ENCODING METHODS (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive)
Sometimes you read things and you don’t know if its true (and internet is never good to place verify information), but apparently ‘The Theater of Diminished Faculties is a story in seventy-eight episodes, of which this is the first. Church of Mandrax is an introduction and consideration of the legendary Midwest witch Vons Serin, around whom the entire series is wound, and who is hidden in the corners of every MPA release’. I don’t know if there was such a witch and how her influence stretches out to seventy-eight episodes, but then the music is quite a surprise too. There is a credit for one Darren Bauler on junk and Deborah Siegel on voices. But that hardly justifies the content of this release. That may sound like a ‘screaming industrial garbage tape’, but the junk of Bauler is fed through lots of computer processing and/or other electronic means and make together a highly interesting industrial and ambient (although that feature comes second after the industrial component) sound according to the latest fashion in this scene. Very digital that is, but Church Of Mandrax manages to keep things warm in all its harshness. There is a great flow to the music, always moving and changing, and there is also a nice sense of humor: tracks are called ‘Obscure Tape Music Of Eastern Iowa’, ‘Trying To Sell Some Broken Amps’ and ‘The Loyal Order Of Pschedelic Housewives’. All of this combined made me think this was a giant laugh. It plays around with all sorts of notions – gothic at the very forefront – but its cleverly never what it seems to be.
Ophibre offers a work that has a conceptual edge: “Drone works for Differing Digital Audio Formats and Encoding Methods a forty-eight minute work that is cut up into twenty-four two minute sections that have each been encoded and treated differently. The result is a body containing differing translations of the same piece by way of manipulated quantization methods and encoding algorithms.” These twenty-four pieces are sometimes MP3s, sometimes wav, sometimes aif, a MP4, sometimes 8 bit and sometimes 16 bit. Not on the actual release however, here its one continous piece, indexed with twenty four track markers, of a single drone sound, moving through various stages of encodings. Quite a Jliat approach to conceptualizing sound and digital storage, but whereas Jliat’s work not always work as music, Ophibre here delivers a forty-seven minute of drone music, that every two minutes changes, something slightly, sometimes a bit more, but throughout however makes a nice piece of drone music. A great conceptual edge, but also something to actually hear. Very nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.naszczepanik.com/sra
AUDIO ROADKILL VOLUME ONE (CDR compilation by Thee Instagon Foundation)
On what seems to be a new label, at least to me, comes a compilation with four bands, which I never heard off: Instagon, +Dog+, Wyrm and CJ Borosque. Instagon have a live piece. They are a four piece, but their piece, (each of these pieces last around twenty minutes, to make good use of the full 80 minutes that a CDR can hold) is really not interesting at all. It sounds improvised, but rather some sounds that fly about, a bass, a synth? Who knows if they know what it is. Seems to me performed without much interest, but perhaps the actual concert was much better. It sounds like an ambient recording of old Throbbing Gristle. +Dog+ have quite an extended line-up, nineteen persons in total, but they too fill their gap with something quite pointless, but then from a noise perspective. Allan Zane is Wyrm and he plays guitar – or rather, ‘the only sound sources for this piece were derived from guitars’, and things become finally interesting here, with a nice layered ambient piece for various types of guitar sound. I tried reading Big City Orchestra in C.J. Borosque, which was ‘recorded by Das and Ninah at KPFA. Edited using Audicity’, but unlike the work of Big City Orchestra, this particular piece didn’t bother me very much. Maybe C.J. Borosque is a noise off-shoot – lots of feedback sounds, but doesn’t come to anything either. One good piece, three that sadly didn’t do much for me. Not a great score. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tif.org
MARTIENSGOHOME – ABSCONS DEPUIS 1996 (USB stick, private)
Size wise the smallest release of this week, and also a first: the USB stick by Martiensgohome, the collective of sound makers from Brussels, whose prime interest it is to produce works for the radio. They play with other people, both musicians and dancers and visual artists, and have had various releases. They exist since April 1996 and to celebrate their 12 years of existence (I think 13 but who knows), they released this USB stick with no less than ten complete albums of unreleased material from their 600 hour archive. This makes this smallest item of the week, but by far the biggest. You’d have to excuse me but I didn’t hear it all. There is some 13 hours of music around here. I played most of them, if only partly, and I must admit its all quite interesting. Martiensgohome use lots of computer processing, laptop techniques and field recordings and can, perhaps, best be compared to Farmers Manual. They share a love of all things laptop, be it ambient, or partly rhythmic, lesser here than with Farmers Manual, crackling and hissing. Its a pity that this USB stick doesn’t have an earplug connection and one could play this on a long train journey. But of course its easily transferred to a MP3 player. Just like the Farmers Manual DVD which lasted three or so days, this is a likewise heavy bundle, but more light weight. Certainly as nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/martiensgohome
TSUKIMONO – GREAT BLOOD (MP3 by HWEM)
Jonas Gustavsson is the man behind Tsukimono, and I always had that name in my book as a guitar player with a microsound background. But I learn from the finer print that HWEM delivers with this, that this is his ‘harshest, most uncompromising works to date. ‘Great Blood’ is a journey full of feedback, distorted sine waves and maximum frequency guitar workouts’. That is indeed true, very true. Well, if it’s a guitar, I wouldn’t know, at least not in every track, but at times this is quite distorted. Gustavsson puts on quite a racket of noise, but its the pieces that are a bit softer, like ‘Burntitled’ that are actually best enjoyed here. Although as a noise release this isn’t bad, I must admit it didn’t as much as some of his previous work. I think the ambient glitch tag suits him, I have some difficulty seeing him moving away from that. (FdW)
Address: http://www.hwem.net
CRAQUE – SUPPLE (Mp3 by Audiobulb Records)
Audio Bulb Recordings is a label focusing on exploratory electronic music with some quite interesting releases in its back catalogue. Present album from the artist Craque also is a truly pleasant album. Behind the name you find the US-born composer Matt Davis who has studied classical composition. The acoustic background is used to give a nice organic touch to the IDM-based sound world. Acoustic guitar strums bounces along complex IDM-rhythm textures and clicking pulses waving in and out of the sound picture. A beautiful work that combines gentle musical tones with demanding approaches to electronic sound art. (NM)
Address: http://www.audiobulb.com