TECHNOISE – NOISE:QUENT (2×12″ by Irecords)
Watch this coming name. Started a side-project of Hyware, but now a full
time occupation. As a contraction of the words ‘techno’ and ‘noise’, it is
a most apt description of what it is. As minimal as most that is sold under
the tag ‘minimal techno’, but sound wise not as austere as say Panasonic or
the like. Technoise puts on a loop and through filtering and through the
extensive use of effects, the colour and texture of each piece is changed
throughout. The cover states: playable at any speed (but needles to say any
record can be played at any speed), but the labels indicate 33 rpm, so I
stuck to that. One 12″ has 8 shorter tracks, all entitled ‘Break’ (except
one is called ‘Feedback’). Just to make it perfect one could wish each
track would end in a lockgroove. The hyppnotic minimal character works best
however on the other 12″ with only 1 track per side, of which ‘Spiral’ is
the high light.
Excellent stuff this new Technoise, an improvement to his previous 2 CD set
with more depth and variation throghout. With the right promotion team, he
could be a big time DJ and remixer: the potential is there. (FdW)
Address: <irec@cheltd.demon.co.uk>
TERRY RILEY – POPPY NOGOOD VOL. 1 (CD by Cortical Foundation)
Terry Riley… I just assume you all know at least something about him.
Once founding father of minimal music (together with Glass, Reich, La Monte
Young and Palestine), through his ‘In C’, he still puts out new work.
Thanks to the archival work of Gary Todd, of the Cortical Foundation, we
have here the first of 10 CD’s, covering historical recordings of Riley.
Recorded in 1968 as Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band, this shows the
beautiful droning qualities of Riley’s work. Riley plays here soprana
saxophone, organ and time-lag accumulator. The latter being a system of
tape recorder delays, which loops the sounds fed into throughout, and
phrases are repeated over and over. The resulting piece (as I believe these
5 fragments form one piece) is a long flow of saxophones laying over
eachother, with some odd interruptions in the first fragment (tape getting
wrapped in the machine? – the effect is great anyway). A swirling massive
wall of sound, minimal but constantly changing throughout is the result.
Can’t wait to see those other nine CD’s to be released. If you had interest
in Charlemange Palestine’s re-surfacing last year, then this release is not
be ignored. (FdW)
Address: <corti@cortical.org>
FUXA – GREEN FIELD (12″ by Che Records)
Fuxa stands among those post-rock bands you keep hearing about all the
time, bringing 70s krautrock to the 90s. Fuxa need no singer, and include
in their line up guitars, moog, bass and drums. The opening track is ‘Green
Field’, which starts out like Durutti Column with more drums, but turning
more electric towards the end. ‘What If A Taxpayer Died?’ is a bleepy
bloopy affair played on the Moog. If we turn the record over, we have
‘Third Abductions’ with shortwave sounds against a noisy looping
background. In complete contrast we find ‘Project Radiate’, which is a
rather joyful tune for guitar and drums. The 12″ closes with ‘Silent
Industry’ which is again entirely a moog affair. Fuxa display their quality
to combine a poppy tune with the more experimental side of music very well
on this 12″, so if you still don’t know what post-rock is all about, let
this be your introduction. (FdW)
Address: <irec@cheltd.demon.co.uk>
GENERAL MAGIC – FRANTZ (CD on Mego)
Everybody who hears the first track on this CD either falls foul of
epileptic convulsions or the need to applause. It is an excellent, fresh
and unique exploration of mashed-up digital riddim noise which is only a
precursor to what follows. And what is it, indeed, that follows. A bunch
more, all full of the sweetest, scratchiest sounds that fall about the
spines of the tracks like angular hail. This invigorating ride through
sonic wonderland races about pell-mell all of a scurry ditting and dotting
in a search for new language. On the down-side, the density of the material
sadly thins the closer we get to the end…for me this CD could have ended
by about track 8, at the most 9. It would have been much more
uncompromising and dealt a stronger blow. Now I have to get up to turn the
bloody thing off. Still a precious jewel amongst this years musical
discharges, and certainly the best I have heard so far on this
ground-breaking label. Limited so geddit. (MP)
Address: <pita@mego.co.at>
CHRISTOPH HEEMAN – DAYS OF THE ECLIPSE (CD on Barooni)
Second half of a pair, the first being ‘Aftersolstice’ also on Barooni,
which came out about two years ago. Not much has changed in Heeman’s
technique and he uses many devices long abandoned by his contemporaries.
There are three tracks on this CD…the first starts with excellently
manipulated orchestral (loops ?) sequences that fall foul of low-flying
kamikaze planes which jeer and smash the violins to a silent pile of wood,
fibre and gut…the planes are swallowed up in a trademark (and by now
sadly predictable) Heeman punch-out. And so the record goes…There are the
string drones, the rainstorms – both real and created, the bursts of noise,
the field recordings, the fade-ups and the fade-downs…in fact everything
you’ve heard before on a Heeman release…the cook keeps recombining the
ingredients, perhaps in search of the finest stew. Track two wades about in
the gravy for a while before building up to a big climax full of monstrous
strings and threatening drones. Track 3 occurs.
I do detect more clarity, economy of sound, tighter arrangements and much
more attention paid to dynamics and the shifting of things plus fine detail
to resonant harmonics and a subtle layering of filigree sounds,
but…compared to ‘Invisible Barriers’ (Extreme), this release remains a
meandering flow, following the lie of the land, rather than carving out new
topographies with strong, uncompromising currents filled with fresh
life-supporting oxygen and constantly ready to swirl, swirl, swirl. Better
than a lot, but not the best. (MP)
Address: <staal@euronet.nl>
PIANO MAGIC – WINTERSPORT (12″ by Che Records)
Sorry, don’t have a clue who they are, nor can I tell much about them
anyway. Piano Magic have an electronic touch, which seems to be dating back
ten years ago. A simple electronic tune, with female vocalist. The track
‘Wintersport’ is crossfaded to ‘Cross-country’ by the use of bird calls and
the ticking of a clock. This instrumental track, with its arepigated synths
is even more 80s synthie like. The first track on the other side is also
with a female vocalist (although a different one), with again a dreamy
song. The most experimental (maybe I ought to use the word ‘daring’) on
this 12″ is the track ‘Magnetic North’ with piano playing and some sort of
saxophone playing. Maybe as a whole too sweet and poppy for my taste, but
then again welcome on my recordplayer for the sake of being something
different. (FdW)
Address <irec@cheltd.demon.co.uk>
SUBLIME MUSING – SYMMETRICAL SODOMY (CD by Clockwork)
More unknown and more nothing to tell. That’s right: no crap stories, let
the music do all the work. The horrible CD title, is also the title of the
first piece and opens with hectical rhythimcal high pitched sounds, which
after 3 and half minutes are faded over in synth washes and later the
bleeps return. It seems like a blueprint of this CD. Many of these five
pieces have an ambient backdrop to which bleepy rhythms are added. But none
of these compositions seem to go anywhere, and it seems as if they were put
on a multi-track without taking notion of the structure a piece could have.
Having said that, it is not a bad CD, but more could have been done with
it. (FdW)
Address: <jonas.aneheim@swipnet.se>
SOCIAL INTERIORS – TRACES OF MERCURY (CD by Extreme)
Social Interiors is a trio with Rik Rue (digital and analogue tape
manipulation), Shane Fahey (analogue tapes) and Julian Knowles (samplers,
synth and digital processing). This is their second CD, and I am sure I
heard the first CD too, but I forgot everything about that one, so I can’t
relate to that one, describing this new one. But this new one is stuck in
my head. S.I. use location recordings, various sorts of ‘sound location
transducers’ and sound processing. The five resulting pieces are just
excellent: ambient-like soundscapes through the use of concrete sound
elements. Slowly moving fields, in which sounds rise and fall and elements
are placed with great care. I was reminded of the Square Root Of Sub LP
that came out a while ago, having the same quality of sampled sounds.
Excellent stuff. (FdW)
Address: <100653.1334@compuserve.com>