Number 701

announcements

ROSS HAMMOND – AN EFFECTIVE USE OF SPACE (CD by Prescott Recordings)
ALEX JENKINS’ SOUND IMMERSION – GENEROSITY (CD by Prescott Recordings)
TONY PASSARELL 5TET – THE PATH (CD by Prescott Recordings)
BYRON BLACKBURN – THINGS TURN BLACK WHEN THEY TURN (CD by Prescott Recordings)
These four releases offer view into the jazzscene of Sacramento. Prescott Recordings is an outlet for local jazz and improvised music. The label is run by Ross Hammond who engineered, produced or recorded all of these four releases. As a guitarist he is present on two of these releases.
From what I understand Hammonds divides his time
between his improvising projects, his work as a sideman for singers and songwriters, and teaching an curating local new music events. But before we continue first the sad news. Bass-player Byron Blackburn died from cancer last september. Blackburn decided to record this album after he heard from his doctor that the cancer returned. So I do not have to tell you these recordings have a special meaning for all those involved. Except for ‘Getting Ready to Escalate into a Whole Other Level (or Conflict)’ (Hammond), all other pieces are composed by Byron Blackburn. The music is very laid back. Blackburn and his mates enjoy to have time and space together for what became their last session. The guitarstyle of Ross is very special. Sometimes I had to think of Henry Kaiser, at other moments I detect african – echoing – influences. Most of the solo work is done by him. Drummer (Alex Jenkins or Tom Monson) and bassplayer roll out a grooving carpet.
On ‘An effective use of Space’ we hear more of Hammonds guitarwork. A solo album with the assistance of Lisa Mezzacappa (bass) and John Hanes (drums). This is the most experimental of all four releases, opening with drones and ambient moods in ‘Immigration’, a solo piece on lap steel. With two other solo tracks these are recorded in the studio. The other ones are recorded by Myles Boisen, catching Hammond and his trio live in several jazzy jams. Not mindblowing stuff, not as adventurous as it started, but worthwhile. Alex Jenkins’ Sound Immersion is a quartet of Tony Passarell (soprano and tenor sax, flute), Randy McKean (alto sax, bass clarinet), Mike Turgeon (upright bass) and Alex Jenkins himself (percussion). The compositions were not what me surprised on this one. Just plain timeless jazz music. However the drums by Alex Jenkins are another story. Especially in tracks like ‘Jump Cut’ his drumming has an atractive ethno-feel reminding me of Sun Ra. ‘Next Generation’ is a nice grooving tune. ‘Power Outage’ has inspired solowork by both sax players. In ‘All Them Cows’ we come across an unexpected appearance of a banjo played by McKean in a very free piece of music. Jenkins and Passarell we meet again on the CD by the Tony Passarell 4tet: Tony Passarell (saxophone, piano), Alex Jenkins (drums), Scott Anderson (tenor sax), Clark Goodloe (saxophone, piano) and Harley White jr. (bass). This quartet moves along similar lines as the quartet by Jenkins. Again the characteristic drumwork by Jenkins. But of course there differences. There is more to be enjoyed here from the saxplaying by Passarell. Also there are some nice duets between by the sax players. Plus that the improvisations are richer and musiccally spoken more interesting then on the other albums. (DM)
Address: http://www.rosshammond.com/

VERTONEN – WE HAD A FEW SPRINKLES TODAY, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO HELP OUT IN THE GARDEN (CD by C.I.P.)
The source material for this CD was recorded in 1978, so we read on the cover of Vertonen’s latest CD ‘We Had A Few Sprinkles Today, But Not Enough To Help out In The Garden’. I met Blake Edwards, the man who is Vertonen, and I am not sure how old he is, but me thinks he was quite young when he taped this source material. That’s the first observation. Then, when I was listening to these six tracks, I had absolutely no idea what those source recording are. Edwards spent two years of ‘extracting and modifying’ these recordings. He writes that ‘the concept behind this CD stemmed from my interest in reassessing the idea of ‘brainwashing’ and how misperceptions that are easier to accept can easily and dangerously corrode – and, worse, override – the realities of the original event’, which made me altogether more curious about the original event at the source of this music. The six pieces here are all drone like pieces. Low humming sounds, as this CD seems to be quite soft, but if you turn up the volume, you will notice all sorts of small events happening in each piece. Its pretty solid and closed, this music, and easily is one of his best works. Very much like The Hafler Trio’s drone phase, this is simply great music. The only downside I imagine to some people might be that its not a new direction and some could see this as more of the same. However its better of the same, I’d say. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cipsite.net

FRANCISCO LOPEZ & RICHARD FRANCIS – BROMBRON 14 : IN DE BLAAUWE HAND (CD by Korm Plastics)
On this fourteenth issue in the Brombron-series, one of contemporary sound art scene’s most prolific artists, Francisco Lopez join forces with another interesting artist from the contemporary scene: Richard Francis. For more than two decades Spanish sound artist Francisco Lopez has exploited the connections between field recordings and “acousmatic listening” – the latter term was originally founded by the father of “Musique concrete”, Pierre Schaeffer, with inspirations back to the the Greek philosopher Pythagoras and his “blind” teaching sessions. The idea behind “acousmatic listening” is that the listener must experience the sound independent from its source. The strength of Lopez is the ability to utilize natural sounds that most people barely notice and transform these sounds into sonic art. New Zealand-based sound artist Richard Francis has a similar approach to his explorations using field recordings of acoustic and electronic sounds combined with tone generators to compose textural and tonal sound works. “In de blaauwe hand” is one lengthy piece running 66 minutes. Conceptually the work reminds me of Francisco Lopez’s excellent “Untitled #89” released on the Or-label in 1999. With a barely perceptible crawl in from silence, softly mechanical drones begin to appear, rippling with a radiant, ever-building hum. As the piece progress the hum gets thicker and the drone texture strengthens. Despite the growing intensity in expression the piece never gets harsh. As we reach the 45 minute mark, clicking pulses are overtaken by thick drones of buzzing noises that despite its ongoing abrasiveness also seems hypnotic and comfortable. The sound of a tone generator slowly mixes up with the buzzing drones, giving a nice depth and complexity to the sound texture. As is the usual case with releases in the Brombron-series, “In de blaauwe hand” are neatly packed in a tasteful card-slip-sleeve. Highly recommended! (NM)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl/

ANDREA BELFI & MACHINEFABRIEK – BROMBRON 15 : PULSES AND PLACES (CD by Korm Plastics)
The Brombron project itself is work a true work of art and a good reason to the fact that the Netherlands is one of the world’s leading countries in field of sound art. The conceptual idea behind Brombron was originally established as a co-production between legendary Dutch label Staalplaat and the venue for experimental music, Extrapool. Two or more musicians become artists in the residence of Extrapool. Equipped with the recording studio of Extrapool, the artists can work on a collaborative project that will be released in the Brombron-series. Fourteen excellent releases from year 2000 forward is the result of the Brombron project, this present album being the fifteenth release. Behind the album titled “Pulses and places”, you find the two composers Andreas Belfi and Rutger Zuydervelt alias Machinefabriek. Andrea Belfi is an electro-acoustic musician from Italy who has been involved in quite a number of sound art projects for the last decade. Rutger Zuydervelt started his Machinefabriek project five years ago, and has since then become a prolific artist of the Dutch sound art scene. To accomplish this new chapter of the Brombron series, the two artists utilize drums, small percussions, guitar and organ. The result is a real beauty. Drifting somewhere between gentle drone-based ambient and modern psychedelia/postrock, the four pieces of “Pulses and places” consists of waving organ sounds, chilling guitar drones with downbeat hand percussions. The expression of the overall album sounds like a mixture between early Pink Floyd as they sounded in their most trippy psychedelic moments and 80’s rock/pop-giants Talk Talk in their more experimental postrock-based period around the “Spirit of Eden”-album (1990). As is the usual case with releases in the Brombron-series, “Pulses and places” are neatly packed in a tasteful card-slip-sleeve. Highly recommended! (NM)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl/

FUCK BUTTONS – TAROT SPORT (CD by ATP Recordings)
It wouldn’t be correct to categorize British duo Fuck Buttons, consisting of Bejamin Power and Andrew Hung, as an easy accessible musical project. Despite the fact, that the beats of their second full length titled “Tarot Sport” contains some quite listenable and even danceable rhythm structures, the music of Fuck Buttons is a complex soup of organ sounds, noise drone developed on guitars. But underneath this chaotic sound texture lies a quite beautiful and melodic tune that due to repetitive nature of the album adds to an alluringly great trance-like effect. There is quite some similarity with Swedish project The Field and his debut “From here we go sublime” (Kompakt, 2007), that also used a repetitive style with long stretching loops of repetitism to create a hypnotic effect. Excellent album from a duo whose signature is devout repetition. Highly recommended. (NM)
Address: http://www.atpfestival.com/atp-recordings

LOIC BLAIRON – X/O (CD by W.M.o/r)
There is an extensive text on the cover of this CD, which I’d like to quote in full, but its not online yet, and I am too lazy to retype the whole thing, so I’ll get you the drift of this: One Loic Blairon writes that he listen and responds, but the way I read his text, he’s not interested in doing music: ‘In doing so, I say no to music, but this ‘no’ is the unilateral relation which I attempt to stabilize in and through sound, but in accordance with the real, as negative and foreclosed; what I attempt to superimpose onto the latter acts as so many unknowns which would at once escape the whole even as they constitute it, beneath but also above all things’. Etc etc etc. Perhaps Blairon plays double bass as it says on the cover, but perhaps not. His CD lasts thirty minutes and consists mostly of silence. Real silence (whatever that is), and some dry, high pitch click coming every now and then, at what seems to be irregular intervals. I guess all this time we can contemplate about the text and how that relates to this bare minimum of music. Alternatively you could decide to play a nice CD. (FdW)
Address: www.mattin.org/recordings.html

MAJA S.K. RATKJE & LASSE MARHAUG – MUSIC FOR GARDENING (CD by Pica Disk)
Micro found sounds looped – too much looping and always of the same length –
speeded up voices, cat meows – dog barks again looped. Music for gardening as a title sounds silly and silliness abounds on these tracks. I presume the cats are a gardening problem, as is the radio which is not correctly tuned in – maybe after smoking certain home grown products this might appear amusing or somehow meaningful? – the blurb gives “plunderphonic collage-work,. great stuff” – well I don’t think gardening or music for it can ever achieve greatness unless its on the scale of Capability Brown which was underpinned by Kantian enlightenment and a vision of sublime synthetic perfections – with a theme and structure – even though there the lakes and temples were all fake.. we are however sadly far from arcadia – but now we know that even there is death – but I’m getting far to serious? “Et in Arcadia ego” – but now such classical truths are abused by the likes of not Capability (note the predicate) but Dan- so maybe there is a serious social and political comment to be un-earthed here? Or one that might be grafted on – “Thus, the Real as foreclosed or as separate-without-separation from Decision is cloned as that force-(of)-thought which is separate-withoutseparation or foreclosed to the Decision that serves as its empirical support.” (jliat)
Address: http://www.picadisk.com

V/A WHAT PLEASING THE LORD LOOKS LIKE MARRIAGE: EXTREME NOISE AND TERROR FROM JAPAN AND ISRAEL (CD by Heart & Crossbone)
GRIM KIRBY/ THE SHOCK TECHNICIAN SPLIT (Cdr by Hirnmetastase Records)
Ryokuchi, Cadaver Eyes, Zenocide, LietterSchpichDiet, MONEYI$GOD, Poochlatz
Remesh, Nerveless . I’ve given a list of all yet on playing the similarities – maybe evolving towards noise of distorted voice, lots of drumming and harsh guitars I had by accident rather than design done a kind of Pepsi challenge on this CD, – maybe industrial power electronics – I don’t know – but strangely conservative for all that. The Kirby / TST split was again cohesive – though not proto orcish rock band stuff – micro electronics of sound more in the vein of the Ratkje / Marhaug but lacking in the humor which makes the latter a hidden critical object- very much a non-work rather than the ghost of modernity. I see this – these two releases above as ghostly not just because of the sound, but lack of object – lack of Reality – the Addendum miss-spelling or spray paint, rocks and nail. but we have lulu.com these days to create the Real. (jliat)
Address: http://www.hcbrecords.com
Address: http://kulturterrorismus.de/hirnmetastase-records

ALPHATRONIC – SONIC LANDSCAPES (CD by Everest Records)
This release doesn’t quite offer a lot of information, nor does the label’s website. Alphatronic is one Daniel Wihler and he plays here twelve pieces of electronic music. The cover offers a seventies logo of the band name and something that looks like a transformed synthesizer, in dots and figures. There is something utterly retro about this release, and that’s great. Inspired by techno, film soundtracks, spiced up with a bit of experiment, but essentially this is some damn fine armchair electronic music. Rhythmic yet I don’t see the masses dancing to this. But this is perfect sunday afternoon music, waking up, drinking coffee, but not yet entirely out of the clubbing from the night before. Your legs are tired, but your feet may want to tap along the rhythm. Purely listening to the music I’d say that twelve tracks is a bit long, and that eight pieces, say the length of this of on a piece of vinyl, would have made more sense. But pleasant it is for sure. (FdW)
Address: http://everestrecords.ch

CHRISTOPHER ROBERTS – LAST CICADA SINGING (CD by Cold Blue Music)
CHRISTOPHER HOBBS – SUDOKU 82 (CD by Cold Blue Music)
Two new releases on Cold Blue Music, and both of them are relatively short: Hobbs’ lasts 19 minutes and Roberts’ CD is about twenty-eight. Cold Blue refers to these as CD singles. Christopher Roberts plays the qin on his release, which is a zither like Chinese instrument. Unlike many (if not all) releases on Cold Blue Music, this actually doesn’t composed (composer jotting notes on a piece and then get it performed by somebody), but more improvised. Silent, slow and sparse, envisage big vast empty desert space. Americana music, slide like, blues like – all of which seem odd if you realize its not played on a six string apparatus we call the guitar but some Chinese instrument. Actually you could make this into a quiz I guess: ‘tell me what instrument we hear?”, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many would answer ‘guitar’. Not that it really matters I guess. What counts is the true beauty of this music. Peaceful music. Think Loren Connors playing Morton Feldman. And the strange thing is, perhaps, that it doesn’t sound at all improvised. A very refined release.
A while ago there was a power cut in the block were in, at night. Having no juice is a nightmare at night: you can’t use internet, no phone, no TV, no light to read a book, so I picked up my ipod and looked for a bit of music to play. I picked ‘La Nouvelle Serenite’, an older CD compilation on Sub Rosa with Jon Hassell and Harold Budd, among others. It seemed appropriate for a dark house. I was reminded of that evening when I was listening to the ‘Sudoku 82’ CD by Christopher Hobbs. Composed using Garageband, but played by a real life pianist, Bryan Pezzone, on eight pianos. Although you may Hobbs for his involvement with the Scratch Orchestra, his record for Obscure Records, his work with early AMM, he also performed Satie’s ‘Vexations’ with Gavin Bryars. In that respect you should hear this piece, number 82 from a series that he started in 2005, and already mounts up to 125 pieces. Its Satie like music, light, sparse, spacious and seemingly doesn’t go anywhere, simply because there is no need to go anywhere. A great work. One to play on dark night, when the power is cut, and you can use your computer’s battery for a short time: I’d say play Hobbs, followed by that old Sub Rosa CD or anything else by Harold Budd or Erik Satie’s piano music and that Roberts CD on Cold Blue Music. The best night of silent music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.coldbluemusic.com

SMALL COLOR – IN LIGHT (CD by 12K)
OPTIFONICA (DVD by Line)
With Small Color 12K expand their horizon a little bit, stretching up those boundaries which they stand for. Small Color are not the usual field recordings, laptops, microsound, or clicks and cuts. Well, perhaps they are there somewhere, but I think Small Color is primarily a popmusic band. The duo of Rie Yoshihara (on accordion, voice, vintage keyboard instruments) and Yusuke Onishi (guitar, banjo, bass, programming and production) play songs, rather than pieces. Very Japanese in a way, with Tujiko Noriko as their prime example, but perhaps also Tenniscoats, but produced better and with much more style. Computers do not play a role in this music. This is acoustic music. Soft tinkling guitars, accordion and the wordless singing of Yoshihara, that yet somehow seems to fit wonderfully well into the world of 12K. Sparse popmusic that would have fitted well on the Happy label, a sub division of 12K that no longer seems to exist. Lovely popmusic that made me think it would have sounded great on a label like Les Disques Du Crepuscule, had it still existed. Quite a daring move for 12K, but, like said, a release that fits really well on this great label.
Just because I write a few words every week about music, hasty sometimes, inaccurate at times, but always trying to say something about the music and place it in a wider sense, doesn’t mean I am qualified to review things like ‘Optifonica’, a two-and half hour DVD release, of forty-two artists who ‘incite a unique multi-sensory awareness of both physical and mental (imagined) space. Optifonica is a platform by one TeZ, who asked all these people to work around that theme. So we have on one hand Quayola + Mira Calix + Autobam which shows us church windows and manipulations thereof, like shattering of glass, immediately followed by Skif++ with a play of lines that follow the dynamics of the music. The third variation comes from Evelina Domnitch + Dmitry Gelfand + Richard Chartier, who show ‘acoustic elevation’. The variation put on by Skiff++ is however exemplary of the most pieces of this DVD. In a way it reminds you of the live visuals of Pan Sonic (not included here, oddly enough), and also in many cases the music of Pan Sonic. Tracks are always between three and ten minutes, which tends to be long I think. The fine exception is Pe Lang + Zimoun, who have all there is too say in forty-seven seconds. That seems to me short, but it avoids the feeling I had with some of these pieces, which looked and sounded like a demonstration of possibilities rather than fixed compositions of images and sound. Its however quite a nice compilation with even for lazy viewers, just like me, interesting pieces to hear. I didn’t watch the entire with great concentration I must admit: as a music man I should stick to my core business: hearing music. And there is some nice one in here. Included are also Frank Bretschneider, telcosystemns, Bas van Koolwijk, Domenico Scianjno, Otolab, Kim Cascone, Scanner and others. Great extended presentation here too. (FdW)
Address: http://www.12k.com

PURE NOISE / ART ZOYD STUDIO EXPÉRIENCES DE VOL # 7 (CD by Art Zoyd /
In-possible Records)
The 69 prog rock band Art Zoyd has collaborated from 2000 with Musiques Nouvelles in a long term project entitled Expériences de Vol, which on this CD has 3 pieces by Ulrich Krieger, Kasper T. Toeplitz and Dror Feiler. All three have very respectable CVs- (check out the address) both academic and in collaborators/ions so in the first instance despite the academic gravitas one might make a trivial critique of the first two, especially Toeplitz’s gently evolving layers of abstract sounds, and the Krieger piece still orbits albeit at a great distance the saxophone. Both fail to engage with TTII (the thing in itself- i.e. noise)- an obvious impossibility and prohibition for Kantian and Neo-Kantian “music”/music-theory etc. of which the two cannot fully reduce. It’s the final piece of Feiler’s (an ontic masterpiece) which opens up the space of discourse for a truly non-musical performance / affect that in the Laruellean sense could be translated as a ‘non-philosophical’ or ‘non-decisional’ materialism – OON (object oriented noise) and provides a non-musicological solution to the problematic in music of its failure qua “concept” to produce – as here instanced as a “phenomenon-without logos” and importantly identified by
Brassier as a reversal of thoughts foreclosure to decision. “That is to say, a transcendental theory of the phenomenon, licensing limitless phenomenological plasticity, unconstrained by the apparatus of eidetic intuition or any horizon of apophantic disclosure;- but one which is simultaneously a transcendental theory of matter, uncontaminated by the bounds of empirical perception and free of all phenomenological circumscription.” Well that is interesting because Ousia (obviously) exists/exhibits an empirical hyle which therefore demonstrates the distance between music / musicology and the plasticity (political as well as
material) of non-music, non-decisional musicology – OON. We have at last
(maybe I’m a latecomer) a “theoretical” – tool – a means of axiomatics for
describing in performative terms noise which is non-music – without recourse
to clichéd “sound art”, “sonic art” etc. A piece which even within itself
has an idealizing synthesis and Reality. (jliat)
Address http://www.artzoyd.com/

MARINA ROSENFELD – PLASTIC MATERIALS (CD by Room40)
AUS – LIGHT IN AUGUST, LATER (CD by Someone Good)
Despite her decade long career, I must admit I missed out the releases Marina Rosenfeld made. I don’t know why. So Room40 informs me that she produces music for ‘large scale performances’ as well as she being a turntablist. She made her own dub plates, with static, conversations, electronic noise. She uses these here, along with piano, voice and ‘deconstructed language’. Some pieces used here are from her ‘cover version’ of Ligeti’s ‘Lontano’ piece, for teenage choir. Although it has nine tracks, some of the choir like sounds seem to return in various pieces, with the other pieces playing the electronic bits. It sounds like a very academic work of serious composed (and perhaps it is, actually), but unlike some of the other ‘serious’ electronic music reviewed in these pages, I must say that this is some great music. Quite densely layered, with small, surprising elements, strange singing which add a more lyrical side to the music, poetic even. Delicate, intimate and warm music. Great release.
On Room40’s ‘pop’ (??) division Someone Good we find Yasuhiko Fukuzono, better known as Aus, whose ‘After All’ album on Flau was reviewed in Vital Weekly 662. His music didn’t see much change since then. Soft, not too outspoken with nice female voices, tinkling guitars, some loose piano notes, clicky but warm sweet rhythms. I am not sure if those lyrics are supposed to have any meaning, my Japanese still not that good, but its great quality dream pop again. This is where microsound meets popmusic. Like the previous this has eight tracks, no remixes here, and makes one damn record. Nothing new, just a damn fine record. That’s all there is, and that’s the best thing.
Address: http://www.room40.org
Address: http://www.someonegood.org

FREIBAND / BASS COMMUNION – HEADWIND / TAILWIND (3″CD by My Own Little Label)
“My Own Little Label” was established by Dutch sound artist Frans De Waard with the aim of launching works of his many aliases plus a number of other interesting sound artists. Last year My Own Little Label released the piece “Haze shrapnel” by Bass Communion on a 3″CDR that also included by Freiband. Following a great reception of the “Haze shrapnel”-release, it was agreed that there should also be released a work by Freiband with a remix by Bass Communion. So here we are. “Headwind” was recorded the summer of 2009 by Freiband. It is a spacious ambient-piece based on the guitar playing of Martin Luiten; a beautiful trance-inducing piece running 10 minutes, with many layers of sound including distant field recordings sounding like bubbling water drifting underneath some atmospheric guitar-drones. Bass Communion has chosen the obvious name “Tailwind” for his remix of the aforementioned “Headwind”-piece. Bass Communion is the alias of Steven Wilson also known as member of U.K.-band Porcupine Tree and as collaborator with composers like Vidna Obmana, Muslimgauze and Robert Fripp. Bass Communion takes the original into new sound worlds with the help of his laptop. The remix is even more spacious and subtle in expression. Whistling drones drifts along suppressed buzzing noise drones to create another alluring sound experience. Otherwordly! (NM)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl/moll.html

NURSE WITH WOUND – FLAWED EXISTENCE (BOXSET by Vinyl On Demand)
Christmas comes early this year; the velvet, the gold foil, the pleasure and surprise of opening the supra-de-luxe 600 copies only box and taking out album after album and surprise little gadgets. Sometimes, reviewing records can be such fun! So what do we have; nearly 5 hours of early to mid 80’s Nurse With Wound music taken from cassette releases on one 10 inch, one LP, one double LP, one 5 inch single and a soundcard. All these are packed in sturdy carton sleeves featuring red velvet with golden foil covers. The whole thing looks great. Unfortunately this doesn’t feel great; somehow the material doesn’t suit my fingertips, sending shivers down my spine, but maybe that suits the music as well. Add to the box a numbered insert, a poster and a T-shirt and you have a bonanza of goodies. There can be no discussion about the fact that this ranks high as the most luxurious release of this year. With such abundance, it would be easy to forget about the music, which is, in the end, what it’s all about. Let’s start by saying that this sounds great; you wouldn’t know this was taken from ancient cassettes at all. This box contains the original cassettes Scrag (a C30 from 1981), Mi-Mort (a tape with Current 93 from 1983), N.L. Centrum, Amsterdam, 8.12.1984 (a live recording, withdrawn immediately after release when NWW was spelt Nurse With Wount), Nylon Coverin’ Body Smotherin’ (another tape with Current 93 from 1984), a 10 inch album featuring (and sounding like) destroyed piano music (unreleased material from 1984), and a 5 inch single Big Muff And Hawtrey (also on the soundcard). As said, the music dates from when NWW were in their collage-period (as opposed to their later ambient period), so we get lots of squeeks, screetches, noise, weird surrealistic bloops and bleep with gorgeous titles such as Pleasant Banjo Intro With Irritating Squeak (exactly what it says, a personal favorite of mine), Dream Of A Butterfly Inside A Skull Of A Horse, Sinan Sings For Her Chums (another favorite – incidentally much of the Scrag material incidentally was also re-released as the A Sucked Orange LP), Fashioned To A Device Behind A Tree and, perhaps my favorite of all, The Cockroach Of Del Monte. Needless to say that if you enjoy NWW’s music in the mid 80’s you need this in your collection. If you are curious what the fuss about NWW in those days was all about; you need this perhaps even more. I spent a most wonderful weekend with this box, discovering so much new material and reliving the music I already knew. To add a surrealistic footnote to the proceedings: when I opened this box a centipede crawled out of the box onto my hand! It is now living a happy centipede life in our back garden. Stranger things have happened, but not a lot. (FK)
Address: http://www.vinyl-on-demand.com

PANICSVILLE/FRANKIE & THE S.E.M.M. – STUNTS/BRAIN IN THE CAT (LP by Nihilist/TQR&R)
Quite a heavy bunch of stuff here. There is a split LP, a bonus CDR with remixes/reworkings of eachother and a MP3 with the source material for the side by Frankie & The S.E.M.M. That source material was recorded at ‘the luxurious hotel Auburn in San Francisco Soma district’, which apparently isn’t the nicest neighborhood in town. In 1999, in the middle of the night two guys start an argument, which explodes in a lot of ‘fuck you’ and the word ‘stunt’ can be picked up. Frankie & The S.E.M.M. add lofi synthesizer or suppressed feedback to the material. I actually enjoyed hearing it as I thought it was hilarous (though I am glad not have been present that night), but I am not sure if its the kind of stuff I would play a lot. I can imagine this to be a great side for unaware guests. The Panicsville side has three pieces that were originally released as a cassette, and an unreleased piece. Its been a while that we associated Panicsville with pure noise and that is also not the case here. Even when the cassettes from 2005, this material already forecasts his interest in musique concrete and analogue synths and these four pieces are quite nice experimental music pieces. Roughly shaped musique concrete mixed with likewise rough edges of cosmic music.
Panicsville rework Frankie into a silly ‘dance’ piece with those obscured sounds from the sources, which is actually quite nice. And silly. In return Frankie deconstructs Panicsville into 96 small pieces of sound, which sound actually like one piece, being cut into 96 tracks, but I’m sure were are supposed to play this in a random order. The material is even more low graded resolution than the original. Nice, but a bit long – almost fifty minutes. The source stuff is nice too, but perhaps to listen once or use in your DJ mix. (FdW)
Address: http://www.topqualityrockandroll.com

KONATUS – BARUCH (CDR by Disorder)
If something involves saxophone player Dror Feiler you know you are not in some easy listening, and I thought this would be another one for Jliat, but, like always actually, I listened to it also. For a while I kept thinking ‘yes, definitely Jliat type of noise’, but then no, its not. Its noise band indeed, but all embedded in the world of free jazz and improvisation. Konatus was at first of duo of David Linnros (on saxophone and electronics) and Niklas Korssell (drums), with sometimes Benjamin Quigley on bass, but these days (well actually in June 2007 when this was recorded at the lovely Fylkingen place) it had expanded into a quartet including Ida Lunden on piano and electronics and Feiler on saxophones and electronics. Two pieces here. ‘Kon 1’ is the heavy beast here, a crash course collision of analogue and electronics, at the highest volume and the fastest speed. Totally free, totally uncontrolled – or so it seems. In ‘Kon 2’ things are forceful too, to say the least, but here they keep things well under control. There is room to breath, for the players no doubt and for the listener. Even when not exactly ‘spacious’ – noise is an important feature here too – this is a controlled space. If you like Borbetomagus, then I’m sure you like Konatus too. Its that angle of free jazz/noise, if you are looking for a reference. (FdW)
Address: http://www.disorder.se

BARRY CHABALA – AN UNRHYMED CHORD (FOR 25 GUITARS) (CDR by Confront)
The ‘An Unrhymed Chord’ is a composition by Micheal Pisaro, which has a few instructions and time constraints. “The performer can makes any sound they like, sustained for between one and fifteen minutes in each thirty minute half of the piece, placed anywhere they choose and the longer the duration, the lower the amplitude.” There have been various versions, but Barry Chabala, of whom I never heard, thought of doing it on a guitar. He uses an acoustic archtop guitar, a microphone and various techniques to play the strings. That’s what I read on the website of the label, and thus I have no idea where that addition (for 25 guitars) comes from. Maybe its twenty five short pieces? It doesn’t sound like that. Its a sixty-five minute, single, piece of music, divided in various parts, but not twenty-five. He places ebows on strings, uses motorized objects on strings and towards the end there is some plucking of strings. One of the things I don’t understand is why this CD is so soft. Is there are point to that? Since I have to transform any CD for the podcast to the computer, I ‘normalized’ it (the loudest spot becoming 0db) and it sounds much better like that. What, if anything at all, is Chabala hiding, save perhaps for some hiss that is apparent now? Its a nice work for sure, but also not something of a real surprise. Its a fine work of drone like guitar sounds, that is perhaps a bit long (with a serious gap of ‘nothing’ in the middle) and could have been half the length. Still alright I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sound323.com

SEASONS (PRE-DIN) (CDR by Mystery Sea)
That’s an odd name I thought Seasons (pre-din), which is a project by someone from the UK, who had a couple of releases on his own Thy Rec, all highly limited and handmade, which caught the attention of Boomkat and Type Records. Mystery Sea tells me, and since I didn’t hear Seasons (pre-din) before, that he uses “forest-tinted field recordings with dissolved instrumental passages (dulcimer, singing bowl)’ but ‘recent developments saw his sound getting sparser and more vivid as it is now centered on piano and guitar infused orchestral loops with environmental sounds still percolating, but more subsidiary’. It starts out with some sounds, which could be piano, guitar or orchestral loops, highly filtered cutting all the bass and mid end, but those return later on in the piece. I must say that this release sounded a bit ‘muffled’, everything seems to be ‘pushed’ together, with not much room to breath, or add space to the individual sounds. What I don’t understand is why Seasons (pre-din) wants to this to be one piece, since its clearly a bunch of pieces stuck together? Why not the ‘song’ approach? Now it suggests a composition of one thing, but if you hear the piece than you know its built from several smaller ones crossfading into eachother. The music is alright, not very ‘sea’ like (if you know the nature of this label), but not outstanding good or surprisingly new. Not good, not bad, dark and pleasant. The drone field world. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net

AKOS GARAI – PILIS (CDR by 3Leaves)
I do remember the name Akos Garai, but not exactly the kind of music he did in the past – must be the problem of hearing too much music, no doubt some of you will say. The fifty minute work here was derived from a walk at Pilis, a nature reservation north of Budapest, with the highest peak being at 756 meters, and then Akai’s journey starts there, walking down along the small rivers. He does recorded the stream at various points, and back home he also created some computerized processed bits of these field recordings. From these two elements – the pure field recordings and the processed transformations comes this work. It’s not bad, I must say, but I also have my doubts about it. The early part sees some rapid changing in the field recording, before settling in on longer parts. The work is clearly divided into various sections of ‘pure’ field recordings and sections of processed material, which didn’t entirely convince me – the latter bit that is. A bit too easy in terms of sonic overload and also doesn’t seem to make sense in relation to the other bits. The best part I’d say is the second half of the work, which seems to be more coherent. I think this work could have been trimmed to half its length and be much stronger than the total which is what it is now. (FdW)
Address: http://www.akosgarai.com/label.html

EMERGE – EMANCIPATION (CDR by Verato Project)
One of the recurring problems with CDR (and sometimes CD) releases is that those releases tend to be long, and while perhaps the composer has a good reason for it, the release itself might not always benefit from it. Emerge recorded these ‘sounds’ in 2005, but for whatever unknown reason its now released. Two tracks, both well into thirty minutes. The first one seems to be using a lot of acoustic sounds, some with lots of reverb, and some without that much reverb. Atmospheric music that is that tries to evoke some creepy environment, but it lacks also variety to be fully interesting. As background music it works well. The second, also untitled, piece has that same dark ambient feeling of rumbling with a variety of objects, and sound a little more coherent, less discarded elements, with a bit of feedback lingering in the background, which makes for me the second piece the better of the two. That piece by itself would have made a fine release I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://www.verato-project.de

OLEKRANON – IDENTI (CDR by Inam Records)
SUJO – MORTE E DESCIDA (3″CDR by Inam Records)
Back in Vital Weekly 687 I reviewed ‘Recycle Human Lung’ by Ryan Huber, also known as Olekranon and said it was his third and final release for 2009. That is not true, as it turns out, although it is said that ‘Identi’ was to come out in 2010. Huber plays guitar, drum machine and sound effects and creates a heavy type of music. Even more heavy it seems that on his previous three releases. At least when things get heavy, they are more nastier than before. But Olekranon knows how to pull back gear and create some introspective moments too, and that’s where his power lies. The sheer variety in his music here makes this for me his best release yet. There is some fierce noise, some nice ‘soft’ bits, all which create a fine album that is pleasant to hear throughout. It comes with a design for a cover (velum sheet and sturdy stock in full color), so it me wonder why it wasn’t released as a proper CD. If there is one who would fit that, it would be this one.
I still didn’t find out who is behind Sujo, but I suspect this is another name for Ryan Huber. The music is somehow related to Olekranon, but altogether of a more heavy type. One piece, nineteen minutes, of very slow rhythms, bounced off, drenched in actually, in sound effects, with guitar(s) grinding away. Slow grindcore perhaps (I am not too familiar with these sort of things), which sinks away into a large pool of noise, fuzz and distortion. Top heavy music at work here. No fun, but essential. (FdW)
Address: <inamrecs@yahoo.com>