DAN ARMSTRONG & RADBOUD MENS – FITNESS LANDSCAPE (CD by Takashi Mobile) *
BLOATER RADIAC (CD by Bloater)
AUTOPSIA – WELTUNTERGANG (CD by Illuminating Technologies) *
KOJI ASANO – POLAR PARLIAMENT (CD by Solstice) *
S.E.T.I. – BAIKAL (CD by Loki) *
JAMES MCDOUGALL & HIROKI SASAJIMA – INJYA (CD by Unfathomless) *
MAROW – + – 0 (CD by Force Inc) *
1982 – PINTURA (CD by Hubro) *
VITOR JOAQUIM – FILAMENT (CD by Kvitnu) *
DAVID BRYNJAR FRANZSON/ENSEMBLE ADAPTER – A GUIDE FOR THE DEAD THROUGH THE UNDERWORLD (CD by Carrier Records) *
JOACHIM IRMLER & CHRISTIAN WOLFARTH – ILLUMINATION (LP by Klangbad)
JAMES RUSHFORD & JOE TALIA – PAPER FAULT LINE (LP by Bocian Records)
MATTHEW SHAW – LANREATH (CDR by Apollolaan) *
PJE – UNTIL THERE’S NOTHING LEFT (CDR by Ephre Imprint) *
FORMER_AIRLINE – SLEEPING IN THE DEAD POOL (CDR by Ephre Imprint) *
A CLUTCH OF EGGS (CDR, private)
VEYOU – SWAMP HAG (CDR by Pilgrim Talk) *
GRAHAM STEPHENSON – DEFIANTLY NOT (CDR by Pilgrim Talk) *
RICHARD KAMERMAN – I’M SICK OF COMING UP WITH TITLES (cassette by Pilgrim Talk)
BACK MAGIC – DREAM LOVER (cassette by Pilgrim Talk)
MARTIN & THEODOR – AESTHETIC THEORY (cassette by Social Drift)
HUSNAAN – READING (cassette by Hasana Press)
HUSNAAN – IN THE CAVE SO THAT THEY HEARD NOT (cassette by Hasana Press)
HUSNAAN – METURO (cassette by Hasana Press)
BEN OWEN – BIRDS AND WATER, 1 (cassette by Notice Recordings)
ROEL MEELKOP & MACHINEFABRIEK – AETHER II (Flac by Ear Labs) *
DAN ARMSTRONG & RADBOUD MENS – FITNESS LANDSCAPE (CD by Takashi Mobile)
Now here are two men who know eachother for many years, who have played together on many occasions, ran a label together (ERS Records), yet never released a CD together. Maybe its due to the nature of their work together, live music rather than studio based composition, that it took twelve years of playing together to do this CD. Dan Amstrong is a man to play the guitar, connected to a bunch of sound effects (all listed on the cover), whereas Mens is a computer wizard, who has mastered the finer depths of Ableton Live, in combination with midi-controllers. You can guess where this leads to: Armstrong playing the guitar, Mens picking up that signal and modifying it inside the computer. Now the guitar playing is hardly conventional strumming, but it is a stream of endless, sustaining sounds, played with e-bows and this multitude of sound effects, before it reaches the computer. Here something interesting is happening: instead of using plug-ins that make even more masses of sound, Mens uses plug ins to atomize the guitar playing (which of course we hear too), into small particles, using also a multitude – it seems – of variations of these small sounds. It adds a strong rhythmic component to the music, without leaping into any sort of dance music. More glitch like music with an ambient background – or vice versa even: ambient music with a glitchy component. That is either way not really the case, as both players remain on a similar level, not pushing himself to the foreground. Quite a fine release: six great pieces (although occasionally something of repetition leaps in, in the approaches of guitar/computer) of intelligent ambient music, with a excellent amount of experimentation to it. A rarity these days. Greatly refined music. (FdW)
Address: <info@takashi.nl>
BLOATER RADIAC (CD by Bloater)
I’ve had this disc for sometime, and apart from the problem it presents, like any attempt at communication, there are some who might be reading this or deliberately not who have not helped. The disk itself comes in a card slipcase with a chest x-ray on the front, two guys out of focus on the back, inside a sheet which documents various environmental acts of pollution by commercial companies in the New York area. The work is made by Steve Smith, Guitar and Ken B, electronics, with “no overdubs”- well I’m not going there! Or am I going to either attack the idea of agit prop noise – or ‘industrial’ in this case- guitar feedback’ noise and oscillator hum… or defend it. My confusion is totalizing… I’ve been told that noise or art has nothing to do with philosophy, or politics, whist others berate the financial crisis and make art in protest. Do they see the current financial crisis as a bad thing that their music should be marshaled against, just as pollution and
exploitation? But the financial crisis means that “growth” is either slowing or stopped, and growth is what powers the oil and mineral companies and bank loans (now in short supply) allow the construction of chemical plants etc. So I should address just the ‘music’ – that’s all that matters – certainly not my ego. Here then are two performers improvising non-tonal abstract free form or formless works, should I ignore the context of pollution or not? Do those who make ‘industrial’ work see it as a protest against mans inhumanity to man – (hope someone’s counting the clichÈs here) or do they indulge in it- is the nazi / porn / black magic iconography for or against – the acts they portray? Do they know the difference between amorality and immorality? On the face of it this disk offers a moral indictment – unless its being ironic? Though Zizek argues such charitable acts do more harm than good- but now I’m just name dropping. Surely a recession will do good for the environment but bad for humanity- bankers who cause a collapse in the worlds economies will slow or even stop growth- is this good or bad?. Again what has this to do with music, should it? I’ve no idea, but the makers of Bloater have instigated a musical response to an issue of pollution in NY and so have they opened up the topic of art as communication/propaganda? Should I eschew this and simply describe the music – the improvisation of guitar and electronics, whining, screeching, droning.. I dare not even address the fact that the production of a CD is a ‘manufacturing’ process… absolutely not – this is justified protest?… so in the clamor of the justified mob(s), what am I to do? Well the whole thing turns out not to be amoral at all but immoral, and by that I mean not this CD but *this* reviewer and so *this* review. (jliat)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/bloaternyc
AUTOPSIA – WELTUNTERGANG (CD by Illuminating Technologies)
There are various reasons why I shouldn’t like Autopsia. The ‘Laibach lite’ aspect, the slogans, the somewhat gothic music (orchestral samples), the ‘death is our goal’ thing. Yet, and I said this before, I do like Autopsia. Not only because I released a cassette back in the old days, but their ‘Death Is The Mother Of Beauty’ is still one of my favorite works by them – an all-time private classic. So new works always have my sympathy. Here we have an oversized envelope with print works in basic red/white/black, stamped and with their usual social-realistic artwork – very much like a product of the old days I think – and the music is built from tape loops from the Autopsia Archives from 1982 to 2010, but entirely remixed and re-mastered. I hear sounds that I am quite familiar with, from old releases, but in an entirely new context – sample/loop heavy of course, with lots orchestral sounds, but also mechanical/industrial sounds (perhaps derived from the same sources), and some creepy spoken word piece at the end. Its no longer the same experience as it was so many years ago and I wonder what I would make of this had I not have this extensive background with this band. Maybe I would be much more skeptical about it, no doubt. Now, I think this is not their best album, but yet another fine addition to a catalogue of works, which I happen to like quite a bit. (FdW)
Address: http://www.illuminating-technologies.com
KOJI ASANO – POLAR PARLIAMENT (CD by Solstice)
This CD comes with a handkerchief, the previous one ‘Solstice Eclipse’ (see Vital Weekly 789) with a pen, which I still use actually, so with the autumn coldness a welcome gifted. But what about the music, I wonder? Koji Asano never ceases to amaze me: you never know what to expect (electronic music, classical music, field recordings. The previous one seemed to be using organ sounds and hiss of tapes, this new one has two pieces (27:34 and 39:26 minutes in length) of what is electronic music. The first piece, part 1 I assume, is a mechanic rhythm without much variation, and comes across to me as a bit too minimal. The second part is more interesting, even when its hard to guess what is going on here. It seems like the sound of a machine, but then muffled, far away, starting up, doing ‘things’, winding down – like a dishwasher. It has that same minimal quality as the first part, but it also has more stages which it passes through, some returning, some disappearing forever. I thought this was quite an interesting piece and could have settled for just this one on this CD. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kojiasano.com
S.E.T.I. – BAIKAL (CD by Loki)
To produce a great, classic work, that is what we dream about, every day, right? But a great, classic work hangs a weight on your shoulders too, as every time you have something new people will always refer to that classic work. In S.E.T.I.’s case it must be ‘Knowledge’, already released in 1994, but still a landmark release in the world of dark ambient, with its great spoken word, rhythm and textures. Since then Andrew Lagowski produced more fine CDs, but somehow never matched that 1994 release. This new CD point the telescope (S.E.T.I. is the name for a research project for extra terrestrial life) not to the sky but below the sea, the Baikal life and it images the examination of old and sunken crafts, in a generally abandoned area. One of the pieces however has a short spoken word about an UFO… That may bring down a bit the concept of the album a bit. This album, like so many after ‘Knowledge’ sees all the good things about Lagwoski/S.E.T.I. – deep bass sounds, deep atmospheric ambient music, lots of spacious synths, but also, and that perhaps is one of the few things I didn’t like that much, the digitized, time stretching effects he employs. That always sounds a bit too digital for me. But throughout this is a most enjoyable album, but maybe, after all those years, I personally also would have hoped things would have been on the move a bit more? (FdW)
Address: http://www.loki-found.de
JAMES MCDOUGALL & HIROKI SASAJIMA – INJYA (CD by Unfathomless)
Both of these artists can be regarded as ‘new kids’ on the block of field recordings, coming to the foreground in recent years with a plethora of releases on labels as Sentient Recognition Archive, U-Cover, Dataobscura, Test Tube, Resting Bell and Mystery Sea – the latter doing a solo release by both of them. On their subdivision Unfathomless they have a collaborative disc of music, based on field recordings made in their own locale (the Akigawa Valley/Otake Limestone Caves, Japan in Sasajima’s case and The D’Aguilar Mountain Range, North West of Brisbane, Australia in McDougall’s case) and then ‘equally developed’. ‘The sensitive issue of not occupying the same token sites was acknowledged and it was opted instead for a common geologic context’ – whatever that means. Its a release that has some questions: for instance: is there any processing and if so to which extent? How does this collaboration work anyway? Are recordings from both locations simply played together, or has there been any kind of mixing going on? Its all not easy to say. I think there has been some form of processing, mainly just EQ-ing, bringing out more high or low end frequencies, especially in the third and fourth pieces. Also I think that in all four pieces they have searched for specific characteristics of the provided sounds and set them together, with some extent of mixing. I also kept thinking: why should I bother thinking of what they did or didn’t do: these four pieces are very good, a culmination of field recordings that, once together, make great sense. Not minimal, hardly changing music, but vibrant, always on the move, full of tension, evocative and beautiful. Excellent, if not always the most original, but that is perhaps quite hard. (FdW)
Address: http://www.unfathomless.net
MAROW – + – 0 (CD by Force Inc)
Of course you know Mille Plateaux, once at the forefront of experimental electronic (dance) music. Less known, perhaps in these pages, were the sister labels Force Inc and Force Intel, for even more dance music. Not always reviewed here, but I fond memories of the releases by Akufen and Uusalito. All of that went under in bankruptcy, but Mille Plateaux rose like a phoenix and now its also the turn for Force Inc with an album by Marcus Rehmet, also known as Marow. Now its never easy to say why one thing is on one label and the other on its sub-division, as the music of Marow could have as easily fitted on Mille Plateaux, maybe save for the occasional soft touch synth sounds – the ambient side of this album; the beats are all dubby techno based, highly minimal, glitchy at times. Its music that if you sit back and actually listen very closely, say because you have to write a review, may sound a bit boring. I am not sure how well this would do on the dance floor either, but thank heavens I am not a DJ so I don’t have to ponder over that, but this music works best, as tested, when you have a small party in your house, a few drinks, talk and then this music is a great ‘small party’ enhancer. Melodic synths, fine beats: it all goes down easily and you’ll have a good time. Plus, the next day, when cleaning up the house, this music makes your work a bit more smoother. Excellent all around. Brings a smile to my face. (FdW)
Address: http://www.force-inc.com
1982 – PINTURA (CD by Hubro)
Now here is quite an odd release. 1982 is a trio of Norwegian’s finest musicians, in an odd combination. We have Nils Okland on the Hardanger fiddle, Sigbjorn Apeland on harmonium and Oyvind Skarbo on drums. They have their ties into folk music, improvised music, jazz and some of them releases on ECM. Now that all seems hardly to be music we would have in Vital Weekly, but like with so many releases on Hubro I am pleasantly surprised. This is all highly improvised music that is in seven of the eight pieces quite small and introvert, though not exclusively. Only in the third (untitled, as are all) piece things erupt and don’t work very well. In the other pieces they play quite freely, with each player seemingly having their own role, or sometimes, such as in the fourth piece, within a fixed rhythm and a crazy play on the keyboards, with the fiddle holding back. At times I thought it all had a bit too much reverb (maybe a left-over from their ECM days?) on some of these instruments, fiddle mainly. Quite a strange release I’d say. Very unlike Vital Weekly, but then perhaps very much unlike anything else also. (FdW)
Address: http://www.hubromusic.com
VITOR JOAQUIM – FILAMENT (CD by Kvitnu)
Maybe the world of Vital Weekly, Portuguese composer and improviser Vitor Joaquim is perhaps best known as one half of the duo @C, but having also worked with Scanner, Stephan Mathieu, Phill Niblock, Ran Slavin and O.Blaat. His new album we must see as a work against our daily life, in which everything seems to fast and short. Short sentences, lots of information, you know the drill, I gather. Maybe its just some intelligent coup by Joaquim to explain the more ambient nature of his work. Five extended pieces of music, slow music actually. Joaquim is a man to use computer, software, plug ins and all of that to create a fine work. Its, as with most of his work, somewhere between composition and improvisation. My guess is that he does long sessions where he toys around with electro-acoustic sounds, field recordings perhaps but also recordings of acoustic object and such like, and then takes these sessions as building blocks for a composition. All is quite digital here, with a vague notion of rhythm in such pieces as ‘Filaments Of Conformity’ and ‘Filaments Of Devotion’, slowly bouncing, like an electro-acoustic version of dub music. The slowness of the music is quite nice on this sunday afternoon – sun shining, but cold, inside with a nice book. Not perhaps his best work, I think, and maybe all just a bit too digital, but actually quite alright. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kvitnu.com
DAVID BRYNJAR FRANZSON/ENSEMBLE ADAPTER – A GUIDE FOR THE DEAD THROUGH THE UNDERWORLD (CD by Carrier Records)
With excuses to the composer: I can’t type his name properly with this keyboard, so I made into David Brynjar Franzson, which is very close: just the David part is spelled a bit differently. Its that I read the text that came along this CD, otherwise I would have gotten things entirely the wrong way. Now apparently this composition was made by translating sounds from the composers environment (‘the ticking sound of a red toy duck, through the squealing brakes of large trucks as they grind to a halt on Amsterdam Avenue, to the low rumble of the boiler in the basement of his apartment’) into small pieces of music for the Ensemble Adapter (piccolo/bass flute, bass clarinet, harp, piano/harmonium and percussion). I wouldn’t have guessed from such titles as ‘The Failure Of Surface’, ‘The Principles Of Order’ or ‘The Elimination Of Metaphysics’. The music sounds to me highly improvised – reminding me of a small scale version of Zeitkratzer. I am not sure if I like this a lot. It sounds all a bit too random for me, or maybe I was thinking about those street noises which I didn’t exactly hear back. Or perhaps it all smells too much of official modern classical music, which I just also find very hard to get. (FdW)
Address: http://carrierrecords.com/
JOACHIM IRMLER & CHRISTIAN WOLFARTH – ILLUMINATION (LP by Klangbad)
An album of duo pieces by one of my favorite improvisation drummers Christian Wolfarth with Faust organist Joachim Irmler. Recorded over a two year period in the Faust Studio this is a remarkable pairing. Hard to say what one can expect from such a thing. Wolfarth I know best for his solo percussion pieces which sound hardly like percussion most of the time, but it has a fragile and sensitive nature. Irmler plays lengthy pieces of sustaining organ sounds. How would that fit together? Uneasy I’d say. The record has two sides (of course) but also in the music. I thought it was quite hard to hear any sort of percussion of the first side, the side-long title piece. Lots of organ sounds for sure, and maybe Wolfarth succeeded in making his kit sound like an organ too, but it wasn’t easy to detect in this densely orchestrated piece. The b-side has five shorter pieces, in which it is somewhat more easy to recognize the percussion kit, but its played with considerable more force than we are used from Wolfarth: more like a krautrock injection, perhaps to keep in spirit with organ playing by Irmler. The best bit here is ‘Hold Am Goldammer’, which turned out to be quite an introspective piece of music. Throughout I thought this was a pretty good record, but more Irmler’s record than Wolfarth’s. On an equally pairing is what I like to have seen more I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://www.klangbad.de
JAMES RUSHFORD & JOE TALIA – PAPER FAULT LINE (LP by Bocian Records)
Its that we know that Bocian Records is from Poland, but if we would just look at the roster of artists they release, it could seem that they are from Australia. Here we have two more musicians from down under, James Rushford and Joe Talia, who have collaborated before with Jon Rose and Oren Ambarchi. Armed with a whole bunch of instruments they recorded their work in different places (Melbourne and Rotterdam, The Netherlands). These instruments include viola, piano, ARP 2600, polystrene, megaphone, cardboard, church organ, chamber organ, brake drums, steel drums, ocarinas, voice (all credited to Rushford), drumkit, spring reverb, Roland System 700, Revox B77, brake drums, steel drums, bass drum, tam tam and crotales (Talia) with Anthony Pateras on Doepfer A-100). I assume these recordings from four different places were all done in a sort of improvised way, which was later collated into the two pieces that are now on the record. I think this is an amazing record – right up the street where I like it most. It combines various things, such as improvisation, electro-acoustic music and composition. Massive blocks of sound are cut with sparse electronics, collage like but never chaotic or out of control. If anything, this reminded me of the old work of Mnemonist and Biota who worked from with similar ideas of improvisation and studio techniques, perhaps sometimes from a more rock context, whereas Rushford and Talia seem to have a more musique concrete like background. Two sides, perhaps only fifteen minutes per side, which is surely not enough. Bring on a CD with bonus material, please. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bocianrecords.com
MATTHEW SHAW – LANREATH (CDR by Apollolaan)
Apollolaan label owner Matthew Shaw plays guitar and phonography according to the cover. He does that in a piece that is just over forty-seven minutes and it deals with recordings of single place: one with a lot of birds, the village of Lanreath, with old buildings, a pub and a small community shop. These recordings are melted together with the guitar and electronics of Shaw into this single-minded piece of drone music, which he also recorded in Lanreath. Its a very fine piece of drone music, although I have two minor points of critic. Firstly its all a bit too single-minded for me, and therefore a bit too long. Secondly there, however fine this release sounds, not much news under the drone sun here. Now that is of course no big deal if you do not want this music to change and this is surely something to get. I, unlike Shaw no doubt, on the other hand think music should change a little bit every now and then and that its not necessary to keep on doing the same work for a long time. Having said, I thought these forty-seven minutes were actually quite nice! (FdW)
Address: http://www.apollolaan.co.uk
PJE – UNTIL THERE’S NOTHING LEFT (CDR by Ephre Imprint)
FORMER_AIRLINE – SLEEPING IN THE DEAD POOL (CDR by Ephre Imprint)
On Nigel Samways Ephre Imprint two new releases. First we have PJE, also known as Phil Edwards (don’t know what the ‘J’ stands for), of whom I never heard despite his releases on U-Cover, Patpong, October Man and Twisted Tree Line. Apparently he has ‘covered a variety of ambient and electronica influenced musical terrain’, but this new release seems to be something different. He plays here the guitar and electronics (or perhaps computer processing). Two pieces, one lasting eighteen minutes and one eight. PJE plays the guitar and inside the computer he stretches the material a bit and adds a bit of computer plug ins. The result is certainly not bad, but not particularly great either. It sounds like one of those ‘easy’ pieces of music, which can happen if someone explains you a bit how things work on the computer. In terms of drone music its quite alright, I gather, but just not the best thing around.
Masaki Kubo’s Former_airline project I only know from a collaborative work with Zero Centrigrade (see Vital Weekly 734), which wasn’t very successful to my ears. Kubo was credited for tape-loops and computer. So this is my first proper introduction to the work of this man. The music seems to me a bit of an odd-ball in the catalogue of Ephre Imprint, which I know mainly for their music with field recordings and electronics. This is all a bit more noise based, with gritty, somewhat distorted sounds from radio, lo-fi electronics, synthesizers and such like. Occasionally loud, such as in ‘Airway To Your Skull’, but interestingly enough also contemplative, such as in ‘The Day Of Forever’ and ‘Music From The Death Lounge’ – which may even been taking the piss out of the glitch ambient movement, with somewhat up-speed tapes. Quite a varied disc, this one, with some interesting thoughts about noise music, through eight varied pieces, loud and a bit more quiet. (FdW)
Address: http://www.ephreimprint.eu
A CLUTCH OF EGGS (CDR, private)
This is what we call a private release, I gather. Three bands delivering each some twenty minutes of music, someone burning 75 copies, a rather lo-fi cover. All three ‘bands’ are from the Newcastle area. Hapsburg Braganza is Phil Begg and his ‘Hatchling’ CDR was already reviewed in Vital Weekly 691. He plays electronic guitar, harmonium and laptop here on two tracks. The first one is not unlike his ‘Hatchling’ release: beautifully sustaining sounds, drone like and intimate. Very nice. ‘An English Murder’ the second piece is a piece of voice cut-ups, a bit like Nurse With Wound sometimes did, but rather without head or tail. Trancers II named themselves after ‘a terrible’ sci-fi film and is the brainchild of Cameron Sked (also involved with Lobster Priest, Imperial Crosby, Totem Recall, Brothers Yemen). His piece lasts eighteen minutes and is called ‘Neon Dead/Zen Spiders/Greasy Leather/Identical Stairways Descending/Dead Neon’. I can’t say I particularly this piece; it wasn’t bad in a sort of lo-fi noisy electronic way, but quite formless also, without much composition. The CDR was sent to me by Joe, also known as Posset, who closes this release, and perhaps the man to contact if you want a copy. He recently toured the UK with Bill Orcutt and Jessica Rylan and he uses ‘pretty much exclusively dictaphones’. He has two parts of ‘King Of The Kickboxers’, of which the first is dealing with loops of dictaphone sounds, on top of which he improvises more dictaphones. It has a nice minimal feel to it, but then somewhere it gets a bit lost, unless we call this a long fade-out. The second part seems a bit more noisier than the first with a similar fade out. Also without much head or tail, but then perhaps such is the nature of improvisation of such lo-fi instruments? Not the best of compilations, but serving as a fine introduction. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/iamposset
VEYOU – SWAMP HAG (CDR by Pilgrim Talk)
GRAHAM STEPHENSON – DEFIANTLY NOT (CDR by Pilgrim Talk)
RICHARD KAMERMAN – I’M SICK OF COMING UP WITH TITLES (cassette by Pilgrim Talk)
BACK MAGIC – DREAM LOVER (cassette by Pilgrim Talk)
On Nick Hoffman’s label Pilgrim Talk we start with a release by him and Stephen Holliger. Together they are Veyou, who had a very short cassette on the same label, reviewed in Vital Weekly 780. This new release is a bit longer, clocking in at just under thirty minutes and is one piece of lo-fi sonic rumble on a bunch of ancient technology. Improvised and noise based, with loops, cheap electronics, stomp boxes and throughout quite a New-Zealand feel to it. Slowly developing, but going through a bunch of stages this is actually quite a nice release, just like the previous tape, but in what seems a bit of a different direction.
Of a more radical nature is the release by one Graham Stephenson, who is a trumpet player from Chicago and has played with Richard Kamerman, Aaron Zarzutzki, Michael Hartman and Sandy Gordon. The label calls his first solo a ‘strange new offering in the world of trumpet solos’, but I beg to offer. None of this playing is strictly of the kind of a trumpet you’d normally expect, but this fits very well in the whole scene of ‘instrument as a sound object’. It starts out in the first piece with feedback like sounds, but no doubt that has to do with the close amplification/microphone setting, which goes for pretty much everything else on this disc. Stephenson uses a variety of techniques to play, occasionally leaping into noise like patterns. Maybe Axel Dorner’s young nephew using similar techniques, but all of it unmistakably louder. The trumpet as a noise box: it happens here.
Richard Kamerman was already present with various releases in Vital Weekly, mainly with a more improvised angle, although there has been also the odd noise release (see Vital Weekly 786). He is a percussionist, but we rarely hear him bang the drums. This tape has two pieces, each lasting five minutes. The a-side ‘When I Hear That Song “There Is A LIght That Never Goes” I Cry Like A Little Bitch, Man’ is quite a noise excursion, split out in two channels. Distorted, but with rapid changes and indeed it has a percussive feel to it. The other side, ‘This Wooden Ridge (for Robert Tyler, Travis, Margaret and Mozz)’ (keep in mind the title of this release!), is a much more contemplative piece of layered voice material, with a sort of sound poetry like quality to it. Maybe too short to make up my mind?
The final release is by Back Magic, a ‘trance punk’ band from Normal, IL. Now I have no idea why this founds its way on to Pilgrim Talk, but perhaps the ‘Nick H aka Hair EXP (guitar/voice) is the same as Nick Hoffman, of the label. Neil H aka Terror is drums and this is the fourth album, recorded at the Opium Den ‘on their grandfather’s tape machine. They are influenced by simple shapes such as circle, square, triangle and some others’. Its hardly punk, and probably not very trance like either. The tape has quite an amount of hiss, but one can hear the reverb on the guitar, and quite simplistic drumming. Rather ‘simple’ music without much depth, both in playing skills and recording technique. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pilgrimtalk.com
MARTIN & THEODOR – AESTHETIC THEORY (cassette by Social Drift)
More confusion from the house of Jliat. Maybe I get it right: Social Drift is a duo of Martin and Theodor, a.k.a. Jliat and [name removed upon request – 22-10-2024]. Each side is named after one or the other, referring to Theodor Adorno (and dialectical double reconstruction) and Martin Heidegger (aesthetic theories of destruction). Maybe Jliat and Emmett are each responsible for mixing one side of this? The Martin (=Jliat) side is a piece of ‘noise as noise’, made with hard- and software. Loud chunks of distorted sound, but interestingly enough not as noisy as one should expect from Jliat (especially keeping in mind his ‘Now That’s What I Call Noise’ CDR series). [name removed upon request – 22-10-2024] is more interested in time stretching and in general applies a more collage like approach to his music. Looping around heavy blocks of rhythmic sounds, along with distorted sounds, bits of spoken word, and, perhaps, indeed time stretched larger segments of noise. Musically perhaps the more interesting side, whereas Jliat delivers his own unique insight in the world of noise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.socialdrift.co.uk
HUSNAAN – READING (cassette by Hasana Press)
HUSNAAN – IN THE CAVE SO THAT THEY HEARD NOT (cassette by Hasana Press)
HUSNAAN – METURO (cassette by Hasana Press)
Usually the cassettes reviewed in Vital Weekly are pretty standard sort of looking: box, J-card (xeroxed, printed), cassette. In that sense the current wave of cassettes doesn’t exactly reflect the 80s, when a lot more was done with packaging (milk carton, pyramids, oversized print work, sponge). These three tapes (ignoring the six month rule) hail from Indonesia and look great. Two of them in a small carton box or as the website for the first: ‘hand-numbered edition of 37, hand-stamped gold natural resin wax seal, pro-dubbed gray tapes in handmade recycled paper boxes with mixed shredded atlas map & newspaper inside’, or ‘ hand-stamped starry black natural resin wax seal, pro-dubbed kelly green tapes in handmade corrugated paper boxes with hemp rope & hidden hermit crab shells inside’ – now that’s more like it. The music, all from 2010 and 2011, is all made with a Korg MS-10, electronics and tapes. Now one could easily think that all of these sound similar given these limitations, but its not. ‘Reading’ is can be found more in an ambient/cosmic corner of the musical spectrum, as well as ‘Meturo’, but the latter has also some field recordings and is less static, more with small arpeggio’s. The ‘in between’ release of ‘In The Cave’ is on the other hand more an old fashioned industrial release, with a grittier sound and louder sustaining music. Here I was reminded of Maurizio Bianchi in his earlier, ‘Plain Truth’, years. A bit more industrial sounding, but done in a very delicate way. No harsh noise walls here, but a cold clinical mechanical sound, producing some hypnotic trance like music. Three excellent tapes – a great surprise. (FdW)
Address: http://hasanapress.org/
BEN OWEN – BIRDS AND WATER, 1 (cassette by Notice Recordings)
Perhaps best known for his label with neatly printed covers, Winds Measure Recordings that is, Ben Owen also produces some fine music. Here he has two long, unedited, pieces of work created at the Experimental Television Centre in Owego, NY. Owen uses an ‘image processing system’, developed by one David Jones in the mid seventies. I am not sure what these are, but it has, apparently, a ‘set of keyers, a multi-input syncable sequencer and a bank of oscillators’. These two pieces last over 45 minutes each, and of the one on the b-side I can be short: its a monolithic wash of sound that doesn’t seem to have much variation from the entire duration. The a-side however, uses a similar thing, but then shorter and in an interesting sequence of variations, feeding the sustaining, amp-noise like sounds through a variety of filters. These form blocks of sounds, which fade away into near silence, which can last for quite some time, all a bit in the old Lopezian way. This is a very interesting piece, one which could have as easily been released on a CD-{R} for a full dynamic impact. Maybe some day when the cassette is sold out? (FdW)
Address: http://noticerecordings.blogspot.com
ROEL MEELKOP & MACHINEFABRIEK – AETHER II (Flac by Ear Labs)
The three men who are behind this happen to be three men whom I know very well, and two for a very, very long time. Its the musicians behind this, Roel Meelkop and Rutger Zuydervelt (better known as Machinefabriek) and the man who mastered and post produced this for his Ear Labs Hi-Fi online label, Jos Smolders. That is, sometimes, reason enough to review an online release (the exception to the rule, I gather). Meelkop and Machinefabriek on september 9th as part of a series of lovely evenings called Aether in Rotterdam, and while it may seem odd, this pairing, it makes great sense. Zuydervelt is a master of more drone oriented music, using guitar, zither and his various loop stations, while Meelkop is more the kind of man to chop up sound, collages and electro-acoustics. Together however they know how to create some intense music that is perhaps more drone like than what we usually know from Meelkop, but he ‘forces’ Zuydervelt on a more swiftly changing course than in his usual solo mode. Zuydervelt plays a bit more acoustic objects and radio sounds (check pictures on the website below) and it all works wonderfully well in this recording. Maybe it could have been edited a bit more, weeding a bit of the weaker spots out, and it would have made a great CD. As far as documentation goes, this is great. Lovely 24-bit sound quality! (FdW)
Address: http://earlabs.org/?page_id=3417
1. From: “Sascha” <dependenz@web.de>
NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS
SUSTAINED DEVELOPMENT + EMERGE
17.11.11
start: 19:00
Euro 7,00
Die Ganze B”ckerei
Reitmayrg”þchen 4
86152 Augsburg
Germany
http://www.wix.com/attenuationcircuit/attenuation-circuit#!__concert
2. From: ILIOS <ilios@siteilios.gr>
Some activities coming up in November:
03, 04: Lucena, Spain workshop at Sensxperiment festival
04 Lucena, Spain live performance at Sensxperiment festival
http://www.sensxperiment.es/
tour with Mohammad (ILIOS / Veliotis / Coti)
11 N.K, Berlin, Germany (also solo ILIOS)
12 Oberdeck, Hannover, Germany
13 Studio 672/Stadtgarten, Cologne, Germany
15 Mayhem, Copenhagen, Denmark
16 MS Stubnitz, Rostock, Germany
17 KUB Galerie, Leipzig, Germany
18 Knot Arts, Athens, Greece
3. From: Pocket Fields <pocketfields@gmail.com>
[PF010] Jeph Jerman – Qualia
Label: Pocket Fields
Release date: October 2011
1. Jeph Jerman – Qualia (43:25)
“Qualia” is recorded during the period since january 2007 to june 2011 at:
The chapel, Seattle WA.
The stone, New York City
Chris Wolf’s kitchen, New York City
Additional recording and assembly at estudio sonor, cottonwood az.
Shortwave receiver, metals, field and performance recordings.
Analog cassette and micro-cassette decks and digital four track.
Image by Jeph Jerman. Eco-dyed fabric by Julie Schubert.
http://pocketfields.tumblr.com/post/11993320681/pf010-jeph-jerman-qualia
4. From: Joe Stevens <joe@51degreesnorth.net>
My latest field recordings taken from locations near to my home, is now available to hear at: http://51degreesnorth.bandcamp.com/album/windy-autumn-day
This work is from a series where I aim to capture my local environment and then release as a series of soundcape albums, that will come out monthly. Within this restricted territory I expect to find inspiration in the diverse corners and objects i come across. Moreover it will focus me to reflect on the changing landscape and weather patterns as we shift through the year. In this part of the world, West Dorset, tourism is a vital economy and the influx of people into the landscape and the extra events, businesses, etc that go on, fundamentally changes this place. I‚m also surrounding with agriculture business with their ever-changing routines.
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