Editorial news: we have decided to stop reviewing MP3 releases. Please do not send any discs with MP3 releases. Just send me an e-mail with a link and a short description, so people can download it. The amount of releases pile up every week and I can no longer devote time to MP3s. Whatever you see coming in the next few weeks are the last ones. Please do not send anymore. Also: releases that do not contain the original artwork will most likely be no longer reviewed. The real thing is necessary for a real judgment. If you wish to send us not the real thing, please contact us first. <vital@vitalweekly.net>
BAZOOKA – 1980-1984 PLUS (2CD by Infrastition) *
COITUS INT – 1980-1982 (CD by Infrastation) *
SRMEIXNER – TEN THOUSAND WAYS TO DIE (CD by Segerhuva) *
ORKIESTRA ORCHESTRA (CD by TPG) *
LE TRIOMPHE DANS L’ENDROIT DE LA DUPERIE (CD by Ambiente H)
SKALPELL – NOTHING TO TELL SO FAR (CD by Audiophob)
2000 AND SPACE – THE MISSION CONTINUES VOL 1 (2CD by Elux Records)
DAVE PHILLIPS & CORNELIA HESSE-HONEGGER – MUTATIONS (LP by Ini.Itu)
D’INCISE – RIVAGES SUR L’ANTIPODE (LP by Ini.Itu)
ELEKTRISCH KAFE (LP by Lomechanik/Shipwrec)
WHOTE – ALIGN (LP by The Seventh Media)
EZRAMO & GINO ROBAIR & DAVID FENECH & WENDELIN BUCHLER & ARGO ULVA –
POPEWAFFEN (LP by Corvo Records)
YELLOW6 – IN TIME THIS TOO WILL FADE (LP by Tonefloat Records)
STEVEN WILSON – TAPE EXPERIMENTS 1985/1986 (LP by Tonefloat Records)
DIRK SERRIES – MICROPHONICS XIV – LIVE IN GHENT (LP by Tonefloat)
FEAR FALLS BURNING – DEAD OF NIGHT (7″ by Dot Dot Dot)
O.R.D.U.C. – IRON JUBILEE (7″ by New Bulwark Records & Tapes)
KEVIN DRUMM & MICHEAL ESPOSITO – THE ICY ECHOER (7″ by Fragment Factory)
SURFACE HOAR – STREETWALKER (CDR by Eleseproduct) *
TERTIUM QUID (CDR by Finite Material Context) *
MAURIZIO BIANCHI – NH/HN (CDR by R.O.N.F. Records) *
OIER I.A. – IZENBURURIK GABE/UNTITLED (CDR, private) *
SPHERICAL DISRUPTED – NATURE LIMITED (CDR by Le Petit Machiniste)
COLIN ANDREW SHEFFIELD – SLOWLY (CDR by Mystery Sea) *
PALI MEURSAULT – O PAIVA (3″CDR by Kaon)
VIDEOTRAGE – SIGNALTURES (cassette by Obscurex)
BAZOOKA – 1980-1984 PLUS (2CD by Infrastition)
COITUS INT – 1980-1982 (CD by Infrastation)
Following the two great re-issues of local heroes Mekanik Kommando, here is another one, or two. But one of them is a local hero too. Bazooka, together with Vice (who is putting their catalogue on CD?), Das Wesen (already received their CD on the same Infrastition label) and Mekanik Kommando, had a relationship with the other bands, running their own label to avoid being cut on welfare and taxes. We are talking here the ever so great 80s. That is of course if you would avoid cliche’s about cold war, nuclear arms and other doomsday thinking. The 80s were great. Nobody had money and everybody made music. Some still do. Bazooka started out of the Vloojentheater, recorded quickly a 12″ single with six pieces. All sung in dutch, although not easy to understand (thank God I thought back then and still do so), the music was remarkable. Free form new wave/rock music with a great drive. A good and strange point of departure, since Theo Hoek, the main man behind Bazooka, wanted to experiment with form. Their second 12″ was called ‘A Igor S’, meaning of course dedicated to Igor Stravinsky, experimenting with poly rhythms, like Igor, but then as performed by rock band. The great power of Bazooka however are the two LPs they made afterwards, ‘Zwevende Vlakken’ and ‘De Platte Pet’, which don’t sound like anything you may have heard before. Still in rock line up but singing like Gregorian monks did, solemnly, multi-layered voices. Complex in rhythm, and, no doubt in composition, these two albums contain some remarkable music. The rock band playing complex, almost classical music, but not in some fast math rock like manner, but slow, with lots of changes and solemn singing, wordless or, perhaps, just words. Hardly popular music then and now, not the average post punk/cold wave band, but one of true importance (I might be biased here). And that was the end? Not yet. In 2002 Bazooka reformed to play a concert, in an extended line-up (in which I recognized my old class mate Pieter Klaassen, and in fact the only time I saw Bazooka live), with the addition of sax, trombone, marimba, trombone besides the usual rock line up. They performed the ‘Bazooka Suite’, taking the original songs and present them in a more classical context. The recording could have been better, I thought, certainly when compared to the rest of this set, but then who knew that the gods would have been merciful and present this lovely gift of the entire back catalogue on a double CD with this as a bonus? Who am I to complain? This re-issue is perfect, as its complete (something I miss out in some of re-issues of Les Temps Modernes for instance) and sheds a great light on a remarkable band, who went complete besides fashion and style. Not greatly understood in the past, but hopefully these days a lot better. Theo Hoek still is a composer, but of serious classical music – in case you wonder. If you buy this from the label directly – and that’s something I always strongly recommend – you can get a DVD with video clips and an excellent documentary by Bas Andriessen about Bazooka from this year.
In those very early days of record buying, I acquired a fair amount of independently Dutch punk records, and would collect label catalogues. One of those labels was from Utrecht and called Rock Against Records, with such great bands as The Nixe and the Lullabies. Back then I thought ‘Dead Excitement’ of Coitus Int as a great one, but hardly ‘real punk’ (whatever that may be). Coitus Int sounded more like Joy Division, era Warsaw, but slower and more intense. I as curious enough to also get their debut LP. Both the first 7″ and the first LP are gathered here on this CD, along with their side of a split tape I never, with local punk band Local Negatives. You could think I made this up, but in fact their first LP I once transferred to a scratchy MP3 for my Ipod, so its hardly a surprise I still know most of the songs (shamefully I must admit I never did this for the Bazooka records), and the sheer desolation of the music still stands firmly. The 7″ sounds, in retrospect
perhaps the most punk like, whereas on the LP the influence of Warsaw/Joy Division (especially in the garage like production, this band had no Martin Hannett) and early Gang Of Four is more apparent, and shows a quick maturing. Oh those days of despair. Beautiful suffering. The three tracks from the cassette, dating post-LP, shows them in an even more mature form, better control of instruments (although their older work has a great charm, just because of that precious lack) and a promise for the future. But that future wasn’t fulfilled. Coitus Int made two more records which involved lots of saxophone playing on ‘Sex For The Wealthy’, and unfortunately don’t stand up to their early standard. I am not sure if Infrastition will touch those, but for me its not necessary. This collection, greatly remastered and sounding afresh is just perfect too. Excellent work on both accounts, long live the French and shame on the Dutch for ignoring such excellent pieces of musical histoire.
Address: http://www.infrastition.com
SRMEIXNER – TEN THOUSAND WAYS TO DIE (CD by Segerhuva)
Best known, still, after all these years for his work with Contrastate, SR (Stephen for friends) Meixner has already some interesting solo works to his name. If it was, I missed it, but apparently Meixner likes his spaghetti westerns. Which is good, but I’m not a big lover. I sort of vaguely know what the deal is with that kind of films, but ‘while the Italo-western genre is often focused on violent dynamics, Meixner’s music focuses on haunting and sparse atmospherics yet keeping with the films genre’s tendency to always keep things interesting by throwing in both unexpected and unsettling elements”. Meixner uses field recordings, samples and digital manipulation, which hardly counts as ‘unexpected’, me thinks. But its in the way its worked out, that we should perceive this I guess. I must say I liked the music as such. I’m not sure about the spaghetti elements thrown in (a harmonica somewhere, some slide guitar, speaky saloon door sample), but throughout it works quite nice in terms of ‘radioplay’, ‘soundscape’ or ‘soundtrack like’. Meixner uses the idea of sound collage and as such he does a nice job. However I must also say that its hardly ‘unexpected’ nor ‘unsettling’, and of course there is nothing wrong with suggesting that, but its not. Maybe this kind of music is too much a common place for the reviewer? But let me stress that I thought this is some absolutely great music, put together in some great, imaginative way that should even appeal to those who don’t like spaghetti westerns. I know, I did. (FdW)
Address: http://www.segerhuva.se
ORKIESTRA ORCHESTRA (CD by TPG)
A workshop for disabled people, ‘mostly blind people or people with eyesight disfunction took part in these workshops, connected with the Activity Therapy Workshop associated with Society for help given to the Deaf Blind’, it reads on the cover. The workshop was an idea of Krysztof Topolski, also known as Arszyn. That perhaps helps to know when listening to the results – spread out over twenty-four minutes. Lots of improvised sounds from acoustic objects being rambled about, but even more dealing with voice based material, singing together, chanting, speaking. The music is all very loosely organized as you can imagine – assuming none of the participants had much experience in creating this kind of music. As I have been involved with workshops every now and then myself, I thought this was all pretty interesting, but I have my doubts as to who will actually want to hear all of this, other then perhaps the participants of the workshop. But who knows, this might appeal to those who like art-brut and sound poetry? (FdW)
Address: http://www.tpg.org.pl
LE TRIOMPHE DANS L’ENDROIT DE LA DUPERIE (CD by Ambiente H)
A neatly printed catalogue for an exhibition called ‘Percosi Mentali’, curated by one Massimo Indellicati for BN Chora and Ambiente H. But I only flipped through as it contained a lot of text and some images, but unfortunately, despite the French title, its all in Italian. The music on the CD was created for the project and consists of three long pieces by Maurizio Bianchi, Andrea Marutti and Lost Shelter. Bianchi opens up with ‘Electrorules’, a piece for industrialized electronics, which seems to be on the move constantly. Its not as heavy as the piece by Andrea Marutti, who does something I hear him rarely do. It takes some time, but then when things finally explode, they explode for real. A heavy electric storm. Lost Shelter explores a somewhat more musical edge in his piece, with cosmic synthesizers and a deep rhythm, slowly exploring the infinite sky. Quite a nice piece indeed, after all the abstract and noisy doodling of the previous two. A fairly decent compilation I’d say, not the greatest I ever heard, but throughout well enjoyable. The three pieces transport the listener through a variety textured musics. (FdW)
Address: <eicoolsat@ailce.it>
SKALPELL – NOTHING TO TELL SO FAR (CD by Audiophob)
audiophob is a small label from Germany and they release industrial ambient music. Skalpell is a duo from Switzerland and consists of Harald Weissen and Henry Favretto. They have been active since 1995 and for five years ago Skalpell released their last music. The CD “Nothing to tell so far” contains seven compositions with a diversity of styles. The album starts with a dark ambient piece of music with open sounds. A nice entrance of the dark moods of Skalpell. The second one is also ambient, but has more industrial elements in the music by the use of metals and tribal beats. The album becomes more dark and abstract until the strong heartbeat become a dominant part of music. Ebola 3 starts with the sound of a humming cat and develops into a noisy track. Outbound is real noisy floorfiller with heavy beats and high pitched tones with some white noise. The album ends with some electronic noise and become more and more quiet and minimal. Skalpell takes five years to create a new album and it is worth waiting. (JKH)
Address: http://www.audiophob.de
2000 AND SPACE – THE MISSION CONTINUES VOL 1 (2CD by Elux Records)
Elektrolux exists five years and the label releases ambient, electro to dub, but also styles like house, downbeat, broken beats and drum ‘n’ bass. The aim of the label is to release music with an unity of sound and vision with high quality music and pretentious cover artwork. Alex Azary has compiled the 2 CD’s with music of electronic artists and producers. Alex Azary did already projects with Elux Records and did a lot of shows on German TV, film and other kinds of massmedia. 2000 and Space is his last project with this label. The double CD has 28 tracks of 28 different musicians and producers. The music flows from track to track as music for a restaurant or fancy cafe. Just lay back and listen to this chilly music. The label pretends that this CD will save us from the jazzyloungychill-mess for the last years of Ibiza compilations. Honesty I do not like this kind of music and I can hear that the quality of the music is much better than the mainstream chilly music. But still, it cannot catch me because of the lack of adventure and experiment. (JKH)
Address: http://www.eluxrecords.com
DAVE PHILLIPS & CORNELIA HESSE-HONEGGER – MUTATIONS (LP by Ini.Itu)
D’INCISE – RIVAGES SUR L’ANTIPODE (LP by Ini.Itu)
Belgium’s Ini.Itu label slowly builds a small catalogue of LP sized vinyl, always in an edition of 250 copies and always dealing with sounds from the far East, usually Indonesia, but in the case of Dave Phillips, field recordings from Thailand and Vietnam. Hesse-Honegger is a visual artist who did the cover and the insert that comes with the record. Phillips created the music solely from field recordings and has crafted two pieces, one per side, of great beauty. Somehow I think its a bit unlike his previous work. The sound is still quite upfront and present, like in much of his work, but there is not sense of rapid sound collaging and montage. The collage happens in the form of using many layers of sound, in which sounds are moved in and out of the mix. Lots of animal sounds, but also, perhaps, those of human activity. To that it seems Phillips also a bit of electronics, to juxtapose certain elements or to craft a drone like element that occurs at irregular intervals. An excellent, well crafted album of nicely treated field recordings.
On an entirely different nature is the album by Laurent Peter, finally we have a name for D’Incise from Switzerland, who received slighty similar sound material as Francisco Lopez did for his album for this label (see Vital Weekly 711), but Peter does something completely different with it. His main method is sampling the hell out of anything. It perhaps also reveals a bit more what Lopez used, as that was rather a mystery back then. Percussive sounds from Indonesia for instance, which D’Incise explores these for the lowest, grainy textures, chopped up to form new rhythms, cut from ‘real’ sound and the hiss between. Ini.itu compares this with some of the older and more experimental releases on Mille Plateaux/Ritornell, and I can see that. It shares that somewhat crude approach to sampling, the click ‘n cut approach musicians like Random Inc and Kid606 had back then, but D’Incise never comes close to playing any ‘dance’ related music. The textures are sometimes pretty ‘vague’, shimmering perhaps, but I think that kind of adds nicely to the record. Its probably the best record by D’Incise I heard so far. The compositions are worked out better, and never seem to take more time than necessary. Very nice. Two entirely different records, twice good. (FdW)
Address: http://www.iniitu.net
ELEKTRISCH KAFE (LP by Lomechanik/Shipwrec)
Ok, so I so should ignore this, being send on a CDR, and not as a LP. If you dare or care not to read how Vital Weekly, why should we care about you? Two reasons: Bertin is on here and its a local initiative. Like Kraftwerk would say: in the future we all pop down to the Electric Cafe, and the future started already in Nijmegen: inside the Paraplu fabriek you can enjoy music, video art and performances (‘for free’) during something that is called ‘Elektrisch Cafe’. Some of the artists from the previous six editions are gathered on this LP, a joint release by two local labels, Shipwrec Records and Lomechanik Records. I must admit, shamefully perhaps, I didn’t see or hear any of the six previous editions. The music very electronic obviously and in a good Kraftwerk sense, although the first thing you hear is a guitar but throughout this is moody, melancholic synthesizer based music, with a dance beat to it. Not every track is great, Bertin’s ‘003 Poptracktremix’ is even a bit disappointing, and some stay to close by the first experiments (or at least have that impression), but its no doubt a fine showcase of local talent, with music by Modder, Tapage, Julian Edwardes, db, Jonas The Plugexpert, Terugklap, Stijn Koek, and Julien Mier, with some having two tracks, with the final track by Terugklap and the final one by Bertin being the most ‘different’ ones from the album, and also those I enjoyed best. Nice one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.elektrischkafe.nl
WHOTE – ALIGN (LP by The Seventh Media)
Who Whote you may ask yourself? You may remember Thomas Watkiss and his electronic music from his two CDs releases (see Vital Weekly 623 and 705), which dealt with purely electronic music. As Whote he shuts down the electronic environment in favor of the guitar and stomp boxes. Whereas before we were dealing with dark ambient par excellence, Whote goes out in the field of heavy orchestrated nightmares. When we hear a drone it is to set off a series of events that will burst and explode into a heavy wall of sound type of guitar music (with the exception perhaps of the closing statement ‘Asleep In The Last Years Of Light’. It fits the current (?) trend of shifting from dark ambient, textured and atmospheric music into loud dark metal music (see Nadja for instance). I must admit its not the kind of music I like very much, but then I was never a metal head anyway. It seems to me however that Watkiss does a nice job at creating such music – of which I hasten to admit I am no expert – but I think I prefer his ‘other’ music better. (FdW)
Address: http://www.thomaswatkiss.net
EZRAMO & GINO ROBAIR & DAVID FENECH & WENDELIN BUCHLER & ARGO ULVA –
POPEWAFFEN (LP by Corvo Records)
The world of hardcore improvisation, or as the cover says ‘no additional overdubs on this record”. A group of five people, all of whom I don’t think I ever heard of: Ezramo (vocals, prepared zither, sampler, melodica), Gino Robair (blippobox, percussion), David Fenech (guitar, walkman), Wendelin Buchler (prepared guitar, theremin) and Argo Ulva (trumpet, electronics). The recordings were made in concert earlier this year, but since they were mixed and edited, I assume a multi-track recording of the best bits and pieces and that is, I guess, a good thing. Chopped down to seven pieces of improvisation music, in which at times it seems that the musicians intend to play as much as one could possible do at the same thing, without noting any of the other players that much, which at times gives exciting bursts of concentrated music, but also can lead to an endless search for the right moment, but the best is when these five people actually start to listen and respond to the others, such as in the mellow ‘Crepare Di Maggio’. A rather mixed bag that will perhaps attract those who follow this kind of music in a similar hardcore way, but not necessarily will bring new fans. (FdW)
Address: http://www.corvorecords.de
YELLOW6 – IN TIME THIS TOO WILL FADE (LP by Tonefloat Records)
STEVEN WILSON – TAPE EXPERIMENTS 1985/1986 (LP by Tonefloat Records)
So I haven’t following Jon Attwood’s music as Yellow6 for ever, but whenever I hear it I must I quite like it. And I couldn’t say where we find this particular album in the light of his career. I do know what is pressed here in clear vinyl (but with an excellent sound) is great. The guitar is the main instrument and the first half of side A is spend in a slow build up. A tinkling guitar gets doubled, tripped and so on, until it then moves into a more heavy weight guitar drone. Folk at the beginning
meets metal at the end, or something like that. Think Fear Falls Burning I guess – if I wouldn’t be looking at the cover, I would perhaps all too easily think its Fear Falls Burning actually. The b-side starts out with a more rock like strumming – sans drums of course, but with a shimmering loop of some kind – but it stays on a gentle minimalist way. The second track starts out a bit more darker than the previous and stays there. Shimmering tones of a dark solo guitar, playing carefully a few notes and covered with a decent amount of reverb. Great twilight music. The b-side is darker and gentle, the a-side a bit more heavy weight. Excellent.
Likewise I must admit I didn’t keep up with the entire of Steven Wilson, or rather I try to keep up with just one aspect, his solo outing Bass Communion. I know he’s famous for his work with Porcupine Tree but perhaps that is not so much my cup of tea. And then there are tons of other things he does (I once glanced at his discography, but the 500+ pages made me a bit dizzy). But just as everybody he also started one day, and since I am not ‘there’ from the early days, but I know he started to play around with a four track recorder build by his father. Some of these early experiments are now released on LP (which I guess is another advantage of being famous). The inner cover details every track, as for instruments and when these tracks were further used in later work and such like. But without any or much anyway knowledge of later work of Steven Wilson, I must admit these early works are great. Wilson is not a noise kid banging around, but even in these earliest works he displays a great musical sense. Harmonic pieces on guitars and Farfisa organs, a short collage piece in the best tradition of musique concrete and a piece for multi-layered voices. All in quite an experimental vein, and one hardly could think this as ‘simple’ two or four track recordings. These pieces already show the great musicianship of Wilson, an excellent archival release.
Address: http://tonefloatrecords.blogspot.com
DIRK SERRIES – MICROPHONICS XIV – LIVE IN GHENT (LP by Tonefloat)
FEAR FALLS BURNING – DEAD OF NIGHT (7″ by Dot Dot Dot)
Two releases by Dirk Serries. One as himself, his most recent incarnation and as Fear Falls Burning. I must admit its not easy to pin down the differences between the two names. Perhaps we can say that Fear Falls Burning is a bit more heavy when it comes to concluding a musical piece, and as Serries the pieces are gentle throughout. That’s at least what I gather from the various times I saw him play live, both as Fear Falls Burning and as Dirk Serries. On ‘Microphonics XIV’, a live recording made in Ghent, Belgium, shows his excellent feel to play a fine piece of weightless, textured, atmospheric music. On his guitar he plays a few notes, which get locked into a looping device, and every now and then Serries adds a slight new stroke of sound paint to the canvas, and by doing so he also removes one, so that the canvas is never ‘full’. A dreamlike sound, meditative, solemn and gentle music. Maybe one could say also: hovering damn close the world of new age. Its not that far (yet), but I can imagine one day Serries’ music will. In his ‘Microphonics’ series Serries comes close to the music of Robert Fripp (solo), and its probably too dark (still?) to be fully accepted as new age music. Its however excellent music, and the label is right: “only hearing serries play live comes closer to the microphonics experience than this lp”.
The 7″, I must admit, doesn’t strike me as the right format Fear Falls Burning. The compositions Serries plays (in any old or new guise) need their time to develop, and two times, say, five minutes is just not enough. But for the occasion Serries dug up two short recordings of him playing guitar, more loud than on ‘Microphonics’ series (which proofs my point I guess about the differences), of multi-layered, sligthy distorted guitar playing. The vinyl – transparent with red splatters – isn’t of the best quality, but it adds surely a bit of extra distortion to the process. Surely nice enough, but I rather have a complete, longer, piece. (FdW)
Address: http://tonefloatrecords.blogspot.com
Address: http://www.dotdotdotmusic.com
O.R.D.U.C. – IRON JUBILEE (7″ by New Bulwark Records & Tapes)
In April 1982 Dutch magazine Vinyl (about ‘modern music’) ran a long article on cassettes in The Netherlands, including a catalogue of all the labels working with them. Under New Bulwark Records & Tapes we read that the first anniversary will be celebrated with a release called ‘Iron Jubilee’: a poster, a C60 cassette, a book, a button and a series of stickers. It never materialized for some obscure reason. But now it did, albeit in a slightly different form: ‘just’ a 7″. Six tracks, all recorded in the first year and released on three albums: ‘Pink & Purple’ (LP), Fast Forward (a cassette compilation from Australia) and ‘New Cubism’ (cassette). From the ‘Pink & Purple’ LP the two tracks were remixed and sound ‘fuller’ than I remember. Nico Selen will never be a great singer, but there is a charming naivety to these songs. The other four songs are instrumental and have a nice, likewise charming naivety to them. Guitars, rhythm machines and synthesizers make up a poppy cosmic sound, krautrock like. I must admit I am quite a sucker for this kind of music. As a 7″ perhaps way too short, but I hear of plans to release LP versions of some of the older cassettes. I can’t wait. (FdW)
Address: http://www.motok.org
KEVIN DRUMM & MICHEAL ESPOSITO – THE ICY ECHOER (7″ by Fragment Factory)
An interesting 7″ of six short collaborative tracks by one Micheal Esposito (whom we remember from a CD on Firework Records) and Kevin Drumm, who seems to have been quiet for some time. The music deals with field recordings made in St. John – St. Joseph cemetery, Hammond, IN, along with found noise and guitars. Not a heavy onslaught of noise bursts, but carefully constructed lo-fi electronics floating around, gathered around in small loops, hissy electronics and a bunch of guitar sounds. There is also some Electronic Voice Phenomenon gathered here to add that creepy, late night cemetery feeling. An excellent 7″, but albeit too short. This should have been a 10″ at least! (FdW)
Address: http://www.fragmentfactory.com
SURFACE HOAR – STREETWALKER (CDR by Eleseproduct)
Back in Vital Weekly 593 I first heard the music by Surface Hoar and I didn’t know much about the project. Now I’ve learned that its the one man project of Matthew Amundsen, who played back in Athens, Georgia with bands as The Lost Man, Audiophonix and The Marble Index. Now he lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. Its now clear which instrument he played but as Surface Hoar, I guess its the sampler along with various types of tape manipulations. Thematically, ‘Streetwalker’ deals with ‘haunted locals and ghostly events in historic Charleston, South Carolina. Sampled voices, which mumble texts we no longer comprehend, which could be lifted from horror movies for all I know, along with creepy textured music of a likewise unknown origin. Six tracks in total of indeed a nocturnal quality. Perhaps its because I know now, but indeed a nineteenth century dark alley, with a few gaslamps showing the face of a Yorkshire ripper like killer being chased by the good cop. Quite raw in the way the music is worked, but not in a noise sense, more in terms of composition. Very nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.esleproduct.com
TERTIUM QUID (CDR by Finite Material Context)
From what I gather from the cover is that Tertium
Quid is a trio of guitarist Bill Horist, percussion (as well as radio and objects) player Dave Abramson and the guitar and laptop of Daniel Burke, the latter of course best known for his work with Illusion Of Safety. Since starting to play in 2007 they played two gigs together. I am not sure if the recording here, realized on February 1st and 2nd 2008 at Gravelvoice Studio in Seattle is one of them, but no doubt its an example recording of what they do. While Ambramson is the unknown one for me in this lot, the improvisational skills of both Horist and Burke are well known. This trio plays some excellent improvised music, with great attention for small details, as well as small objects and small sounds, but also more traditional percussive and guitar bits, musique concrete/electro-acoustic bits, microsound and electronics. It even leads to a spacious rock song called ‘Kilter’. These three men know what they are doing and know how to make a damn varied disc of exciting improvised music with influences from other areas. An excellent disc. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com.tertiumquidtrio
MAURIZIO BIANCHI – NH/HN (CDR by R.O.N.F. Records)
OIER I.A. – IZENBURURIK GABE/UNTITLED (CDR, private)
In this day and age its hard to believe that things can go wrong in the process of duplicating sound. Everything being zeroes and ones, but in the old days you would (could?) put music on a reel to reel tape and then it was copied to vinyl or tape and in that particular process things could go wrong, wrong speed, reversed etc. That happened to ‘NH/HN’, an early work by Maurizio Bianchi, but this CDR promises us its the one and only real ‘NH/HN’, as released on cassette in 1980. This is how we know Maurizio Bianchi best: totally not committed to any sort of compositional structure, an endless stream of sound, radio waves, rhythm machine, synthesizers and vinyl being manually spun forwards and backwards. Maybe you could say that these two twenty minute pieces are too long, drag on a bit too much or such things like, but I must admit I very much enjoyed this. Maybe because it reminded me of my early days spending all day with tapes like this, music that was too long and dragged on too much, but also fondly remember as a late teen favorite in music.
I know, I shouldn’t lump things together, but the release by Oier I.A. is very much along similar lines, yet with differences. Firstly its one piece, that lasts forty-two minutes and is more minimal. Whereas Bianchi bounces around with his sound, Oier I.A. stays very much in one area. Magnetic fields like sounds, of motorized objects being amplified and some loops of crackling sound. It builds very slowly over the course of the entire length of this,but never gets really loud. When its over, you hardly noticed things went up in volume that much. Like Bianchi this seems to be more like a flow of sound, than a rather defined composition of some kind. On the other hand, Oier I.A.’s music seems more like made as part of an exhibition or sound installation of some kind, and Bianchi more like ‘just’ two pieces of music. I liked both: Bianchi for the remembrance of days past, and Oier I.A. for his sheer minimalism. (FdW)-
Address: http://www.romfrecords.com
Address” <oeira@gmail.com>
SPHERICAL DISRUPTED – NATURE LIMITED (CDR by Le Petit Machiniste)
Le Petit Machiniste is a D.i.Y. label from Dusseldorf – Germany and is specialized in rhythmic noise and electronic music. Nature Limited is the first full CD -R release of Spherical Distrupted after three years. Mirko Hentrich is the man behind the band and the owner of the label audiophob. The first part of the CD-R is filled with a recording of a conceptual concert of the band in Brause at 27 februar 2010. The music was composed for the movie Nature Limited, what deals about how nature is changed and restricted by buildings, bridges and so on. The music is a combination of synthesizers, electronics and field-recordings. The musician uses melancholic and ambient atmospheres to tell his stories about how people deal with nature. The music speaks for it selves and the listener can make his own statement. A strong registration of this concert with a concept what still needs attention. The five other tracks are more dance-related. Methone is also a live-registration and has slow development and fades away in ambient sounds. The track has a nice combination of sounds like Tangerine Dream, fieldrecordings and industrial sounds. The four other tracks are two remixes of Spherical Disrupted of music of Blumen 100 and of Contaminant and both projects remix a track of Spherical Disrupted. Blumen 100 is a project of the man behind Le Petit Machiniste. The five last tracks have a complete atmosphere and attitude. They tracks are more brutal, industrial and will fit well for an underground dance-party. Well done, but what is the connection with the conceptual concert of the band. At the other hand this CD-R gives a wide view how Mirko Hentrich can deal with electronic music in different ways. (JKH)
Address: http://www.le-petit-machiniste.org
COLIN ANDREW SHEFFIELD – SLOWLY (CDR by Mystery Sea)
Best known as the owner of the excellent Elevator Bath label, Colin Andrew Sheffield also produced a fair amount of releases, mainly on his own label, exploring microtonal drone music. This is what he does here too, via four lengthy excursions. Its hard to say what goes into the machines (which machines? synthesizers? computers?), but no doubt, seeing this released on Mystery Sea, there is no doubt some aquatic, nautical origin to the material. But its not to be heard. The outcome is however like slow, tidal waves banging on nocturnal shores. Highly atmospheric, in various shades of grey and black, but mostly grey. In the first part its all gentle, but it seems to me that towards the fourth piece, things get a bit more louder and chillier. Maybe we hit upon an ice-berg or we sunk down into the vast, depths of the Atlantic? Here a metallic ringing appears in the sound, admits a deep wash of nautical drones. Maybe I just hear things that are not there, really. Maybe I am just interpreting the music towards the labels’ aesthetic. I am not entirely sure either. But these slow pieces are indeed great. Suitable relax music for a grey winter’s day. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
PALI MEURSAULT – O PAIVA (3″CDR by Kaon)
This time a 3″CDR on Kaon which doesn’t deal with the Thaurion river recordings made by Cedric Peyronnet, but sound material recorded in Nodar, Portugal. I heard the name Pali Mersault before, but I don’t think his music was ever reviewed in Vital Weekly, although I might be wrong. Its not easy to say what it is that his microphone captured – perhaps the wind blowing around the house? The crackle of leaves somewhere? The material captured as being processed, mainly through extensive equalization it seems and then put together in the form of a seventeen minute piece of music, although clearly cut in two pieces. Of the two I like the second one better as it seems more constructed and works better in this strict linear way. But for both pieces I must admit that I couldn’t resist thinking that this kind of sound processing is something I heard well enough. Meursalt does a fine job, let there be no doubt about that, but not necessarily adds something new to the world of field recordings. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kaon.org
VIDEOTRAGE – SIGNALTURES (cassette by Obscurex)
From Finland hails Mika Ihanamaki and Sami
Kettunen, who work together as Videotrage. ‘Signaltures’ is their second release. Not much is forthcoming about them, but my best guess is that they love the synthesizers to be old and analogue. They buzz around nicely in the three tracks on side A and the side long trip on side B. Here even an old good vocoder is used for that spacious robot effect (I am reminded, rather fondly, of old Dutch masters Ende Shneafliet, although Videotrage use less rhythmmachines). You’re on the air and we’re floating into space, that sort of thing. The b-side has deep rhythm to somewhere like a space ship gentle crossing the sky and those computer game sounds (maybe that lovely Korg Monotron which are now so en vogue) to simulate the cosmic war. That’s the direction we find these boys in. Heavy styled cosmic music, with some gentle moments, some mean ones and throughout well thought out. Science fiction music for the ‘now’ moment. (FdW)
Address: http://www.obscurex.org