ATOLON – CONCRET (CD by Intonema) *
IG HENNEMAN SEXTET – LIVE @ THE IRONWORKS VANCOUVER (CD by Wig)
DIFFERENT STATE – THE FRIGID CONDITION (CD by Zoharum) *
MAEROR TRI – EMOTIONAL ENGRAMM (CD by Zoharum) *
CHRIS ABRAHAMS & SABINE VOGEL – KOPFUBERWELLE (CD by Absinth Records) *
KALLISTA (CD compilation by Kvitnu)
TENSIONS AT THE VANGUARD: NEW MUSIC FROM PERU (1948-1979) (2CD compilation by Pogus)
CONTAGIOUS ORGASM & BABYLONE CHAOS – ALTERED BEATS (CD by Steelwork Maschine) *
][|][ – [__] (CD by Steelwork Maschine) *
DEATH IN JUNE – LIVES AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (DVD by Steelwork Maschine)
JOACHIM BADENHORST – THE JUNGLE HE TOLD ME (LP by Smeraldina-Rima) *
VISITORS (CDR, private) *
ALLAN ZANE & TONY STIRNER – SHEEP MENTALITY (CDR by Quagga Curious Sounds) *
SULT – BARK (CDR by Bug Incision) *
ALAIN LEFEBVRE – OBJECTS & ELECTRONICS (CDR by Les Encodages De L’Oubli) *
COMPOUNDEAD – CUTTING YOUR CERTAINITY (CDR by Sincope) *
NODOLBY – DERANGED/UNLACED (cassette by Sincope)
BRUITAL ORGASME (cassette by Sincope)
SLR016 (cassette by Second Language Records)
LEEDIAN – LIGHT (cassette by Blue Tapes) *
MATT COLLINS – THE GRIN WITHOUT THE CAT OR THE CAT WITHOUT AN OUTLINE (cassette by Blue Tapes) *
ATOLON – CONCRET (CD by Intonema)
Back in Vital Weekly 450 we reviewed a trio CD by Ferran Fages (acoustic turntable, objects), Alfredo Costa Monteiro (accordion, objects) and Ruth Barberan (trumpet, objects) called ‘Atolon’, now, so many moons later, they adopted that as the name of their trio, and offer a new recording, from January 15, 2011. This is from the active part of the world of improvisation: Monteiro and Fages have new releases out, almost every week (and by the way: sorry that I called Angharad Davies a man in Vital Weekly 859 – she’s not!) and usually deliver high standard music. In the thirty-four minutes this pieces lasts, we notice a few things. Firstly the build up is quite slow. Up to nineteen or so minutes the three players move around, each other, their own minimal approach of exploring the specific sound characteristics of their own instrument, but also to opt to stay close to each other, sound wise. Then there is a big loud bang and they remain ‘noisy’ for a good few minutes, in which there is a more mechanical sound ringing around until the accordion takes over. Throughout there is a fine sense of sound possibilities of their instruments on one hand and the way these instruments do actually sound when played ‘properly’ (whatever that might be of course). Thirty-four minutes of total concentration, playing around with such notions as ‘acoustic drone’ music, musique concrete and such alike. Dense yet relaxing. (FdW)
Address: http://www.intonema.org
IG HENNEMAN SEXTET – LIVE @ THE IRONWORKS VANCOUVER (CD by Wig)
A new work by Dutch veteran and self-taught improvisor and composer Ig Henneman. Members of the crew are: her partner Ab Baars (tenorsax, clarinet, shakuhachi), Axel Dörner (trumpet), Lori Freedman (bass clarinet, clarinet), Wilbert de Joode (bass), Marilyn Lerner (piano) and Henneman herself on viola. The cd offers a collection of six new compositions by Henneman performed on a night in Vancouver during their Canada tour this year. A concert where everything ended in its right place. Concentrated and expressive playing throughout. Fine coloring and phrasing. Dissonant chords, etc. A music that defies all territories but that is also typical Dutch, comparing it with other music from Dutch musicians that emerged from the post-free improv phase. Often her music is a bit too academic for my tastes, but also very outspoken, and in the case of this recording brought to life through a passionate performance. The playing moves within well defined structures, that however do not listen to compositional conventions as we know them. The sense for extremes may come from her love for the Russian composers Galina Ustvolskaya en Sofia Gubaidulina. Everything is functional and to the point, with well integrated use of extended techniques. (DM)
Address: http://www.stichtingwig.com
DIFFERENT STATE – THE FRIGID CONDITION (CD by Zoharum)
MAEROR TRI – EMOTIONAL ENGRAMM (CD by Zoharum)
From these two new releases on Zoharum, one is a re-issue from something I long cherish and the other one is a band I never heard of, so obviously I start with that. Different State is a band with Marek Marchoff on ‘analogue fields and tools needed’ and Vera Beren on a vocals and harmony on a few tracks and MJ Caroline Rider who does the poems. Very much a solo project I should think. Of interest, not to me but perhaps to others, is that the engineer of the album is John Kilgore, who worked with Frank Zappa. A professional band who even list a phone number/direct line any time on the cover. The band claims to be playing alchembient, which is a term I never heard of before, but hey, why not? Lots of illbient rhythms, dark moods, atmospherics, psychedelics, trippy rhythms and very few industrialized electrical currants: this is very much the music of ‘now’, eclectic, sampling around in many different music styles and then coming up with something that we could call ‘dark pop’, perhaps perhaps. I am not sure what to make of it, though. While the instrumental part of this is not bad most of the times, I am not particularly blown away by the singing, which made those vocal songs a bit too gothic for me. Slick, commercial stuff going on here, which in itself is not bad of course, but whoever this band is targeting, I don’t think it’s me. It’s more for the crowd that dress in black with mascara, I guess. While I can enjoy the craftsmanship that went into these songs, it also left me a bit distant.
Some weeks ago, on a sunday afternoon, I played various old albums by Maeror Tri, as part of my private sunday afternoon tradition of playing a lot of music by one artist/band, and I must say I still quite enjoy their music, perhaps more than the bands that came after that, Troum and 1000Schoen, although I am not sure why that is. One of the albums I actually didn’t play that afternoon was ‘Emotional Engramm’, but that one is now re-issued by Zoharum (and interesting to see how many of their recordings made it to CD, but also how many have been re-issued). It’s a CD that was reviewed before in Vital Weekly, number 99 to be precise: “What a bummer it is listening to this CD! Not that it is bad CD – au contraire! This CD has the final studio recordings by this most promising German trio who split up about a year ago for personal reasons. This CD shows their most mature studio recordings to date. It leaves us guessing were they could have gone if they wouldn’t have stopped the show… If you are a newcomer to this: Maeror Tri produce music for the creative part of the brain. Hugh walls of droning sounds, processed guitar and gongs, never getting below the audible range (like other gong players sometimes did), drenched in a bath of effects. This music which simulates you while working through your day. This music is like a drug: it will have a great impact on the mind. But in a much more positive way. Cherish the Maeror Tri’s available. And don’t be sad.” Of course history brought us the like wise great Troum and 1000Schoen, plus all the re-issues of Maeror Tri albums, so there is hardly a reason to be sad, and now this one becomes available again, it’s been tapping into their great history again. Remastered and granted a much nice cover than the original one on Iris Light, this is one hell of a fine band. Maybe I should devote my next sunday afternoon listening to their remaining CDs which I didn’t play a few weeks ago. This is one of the best band for mid-90s dark ambient music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zoharum.com
CHRIS ABRAHAMS & SABINE VOGEL – KOPFUBERWELLE (CD by Absinth Records)
Here we find Abrahams playing organ, recorded in two different churches in Berlin, so let’s safely assume it’s a church organ. Vogel plays ‘flutes’ – plural, but perhaps not more than two at the same time, if at all? Of the six pieces, five were recorded in 2010 and one in 2009. As I am a bit sleepy today, my senses might be low, or perhaps I am hearing things a bit differently right now in this half sleep, half awake state. Whatever it is, this is a release that I thought was very good. Maybe it’s because the church organ isn’t really known as an instrument for improvised music, or perhaps it’s the sustaining qualities of it’s sound that made me enjoy this very much. Either in continuous blocks of sound, such as in the opening piece ‘Roadless’ or more scattered in smaller blocks in ‘Handwriting’ or ‘Auftachend’, the organ has a great dream like quality to it. But there is of course also the flute(s) of Vogel, which sometimes follow the sustaining qualities of the organ, but more usually whistles like a bird in a church – even when there is not much of the reverb like qualities of the space it’s recorded in. An excellent meditative trip, no, a journey in a spacious country of endless sonorous beauty. But like I said, I must be dreaming. Yet, how could I have written this? Hardly the work of improvised music, and precise therefore it may seem exactly just like that. Great one, which should appeal to lovers of improvised music as well as drone heads! (FdW)
Address: http://www.absinthrecords.com
KALLISTA (CD compilation by Kvitnu)
From the Ukraine hail three artists, Kotra, Zavoloka and Dunaewsky69 who went early 2012 to Krakow in Poland ‘with the aim to create music about this city’. They made field recordings in the streets of Krakow, but also worked at the Studio of Electroacoustic Music of the Krakow Music Academy, using old analogue synthesizers, modular systems and sound processors. This is the homage to the city that is an ‘old city of new art and technology, place of imminent comfort and lazy silence, convenient space for breeding bizarre and radical ideas’. Twenty-four pieces here in just over an hour, of which Kotra has the most but also the shortest. His pieces are more like sketches of noise, loops and rhythm, whereas Zavoloka has more interest in longer pieces which have head and tail. Here we detect a fine love for the rhythmic boundaries of computer treatments, normally inhabited by Ikeda and Noto, but Zavoloka is a bit more chaotic than those two but likes to show us the buzz and ring of what could happen on an adventurous dance floor. Dunaewsky69 we find somewhere in between, although perhaps less concerned with the dance floor as such, but takes more pleasure out of sampling light entertainment music found on the streets of Krakow. None of these bands have more than a single track behind one another, which helps the variation on this CD, which is good. After a while you sort of know who does what here, just by listening. Maybe occasionally you confuse Kotra with Dunaewsky69, but even that is hardly a problem as such. Quite a nice compilation I should think! (FdW)
Address: http://www.kvitnu.com
TENSIONS AT THE VANGUARD: NEW MUSIC FROM PERU (1948-1979) (2CD compilation by Pogus)
This is definitely a) one of the stranger releases to review lately and b) something that I, for one, am perhaps least qualified to say anything about. So perhaps this is not really a review of some kind, but more a introduction of another kind. Peru is perhaps not a country we would think of easily in terms of any new music, electronic, classical or, to stay on our turf, experimental, noise etc. Yet there have been composers active in Peru, always of course, but after the second world war, embracing new techniques, say anything from Anton Webern to Pierre Schaeffer. This double CD contains thirteen pieces, eight of which are instrumental works, for orchestra, violin or string quartets and five of them are pieces for magnetic tape. Obviously I am most interested in these five pieces, as I am not really that much a lover of modern classical music. These pieces are quite interesting, as they sound pretty raw and unrefined, no doubt due to equipment restrictions, even when they are all recorded outside Peru (in New York, London and Buenos Aires), but Alejandro Nunez Allauca’s ‘Gravitacion Humana’ is an excellent piece, with its chirping insect like sounds and it’s slowed down voices which add a ceremonial character to the piece. Of the instrumental pieces I particularly enjoyed Pedro Seiji Aasato’s ‘Quasar IV’ for two pianos and contrabass, with its strong dynamics, of black hole like silence and bouncing star explosions. So, while not entirely my cup of tea, I thought this was a pretty interesting release. The package comes with a fine introductionairy booklet on music life in Peru and how that changed over the years, with changing political climate. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pogus.com
CONTAGIOUS ORGASM & BABYLONE CHAOS – ALTERED BEATS (CD by Steelwork Maschine)
][|][ – [__] (CD by Steelwork Maschine)
DEATH IN JUNE – LIVES AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (DVD by Steelwork Maschine)
Over the years, so I must admit, I had a hard time thinking what to make of the music of Contagious Orgasm. Sometimes I would think its quite noise based, but more accurate would be to link this to sample-mania. Now, of course, a lot of the music reviewed in Vital Weekly is sample/loop based, so it’s perhaps too vague of a term, but in the case of Contagious Orgasm, bending all sorts of samples at the same time, using them in a not always easy time signature, it becomes a form of plunderphonic without any socio-political undercurrents. Here he teams up with Babylone Chaos, a ‘renown French project’ according to the label, but I never heard of it/them. It’s not easy to make out who does what here, which I guess is a good thing, as it makes the music much stronger, being a homogenic thing. Elements of noise are used, feedback and distortion never seem far away, but it’s always twisted in some way. Sometimes it creates a heavy rhythm, sometimes a dense mass of sounds, swirling around each other. There is rhythm machines, voices from films, a synth, field recordings and making up a nice cinematographic piece of music in ‘Two Chambers’, or the aptly titled ‘Junkie Jazz’ when it comes to employing a drum kit: this is all over the place and would at times make up for a good soundtrack. I thought this was all quite good – intelligent noise!
Of course I know there are bands/projects out there with odd names, found at the edges of your keyboard, but I don’t think many were reviewed in Vital Weekly. I have no idea who is behind ][|][, who took his inspiration from the labyrinth. According to the label the five pieces here were all improvised on using organs, although hardly specified what kind of organs – bon-tempi? Cathedral? ‘They were recorded during summer 2011 and afterwards were corrupted, reversed, kneaded, and destroyed. Then they were rebuilt, mixed together, arranged and erected as an amazing and unhealthy monument of sounds”. Now you may think this is perhaps some kind of noise record, but these five pieces are quite dark and bleak. These organs mingle, hiss and sound at times if they were recorded outside the church, with the door open and he however holds the microphone walking slowly back into the church. This is the kind of dark ambient that fits neatly on such labels Malignant, and have that vague aura of magick. Maybe I am all wrong, but then, besides the music, there is not an awful lot to go by. Scary music, that’s for sure. A bit unfocussed perhaps, like a subconsciousness mixing process is behind all of this. Not something we haven’t heard before, but I thought it sounded all quite nice.
For one reason or another, which obviously I no longer recall, I read the wikipedia entry on Death In June only last week. I wish I recall why I got there, but knowing myself, and endless reading upon wikipedia, it was a matter of time before reading that. While doing that I thought it to be odd that following my (part-) time in a well-known underground record store, I was hardly familiar with the music of Death In June, but somehow in the back of my mind I know it wasn’t my kind of music. You can imagine my surprise to get a DVD with three live shows of Death In June, all in the French city of Brest, from 2011, from 2005 and from 2002, the latter with guest musician Boyd Rice. Forty-five different songs, from a total of eighty-one; I am not an expert, but after watching close to four hours of Death In June live, I may know a bit. I know for one, I don’t like concerts to be released on DVD, not even from bands I like a lot. I still haven’t watched New Order at Reading, which is the only official concert I have on DVD I think. For whom exactly are these made for? The die hard fans perhaps, who probably saw the band play before and want a fine souvenir. Here we have Douglas Pearce on drums, acoustic guitar and vocals and John Murphy on all three concerts playing percussion, Boyd Rice on one concert. I must admit I am quite amazed by all of this. Perhaps because it’s so much, but it seems also a lot without any different approach to songs. Pseudo military drumming, the strumming of an acoustic guitar and the similar delivery of all the songs. Each concert starts with the duo drumming and singing, with some taped sounds (which sounds like stemming from nazi germany, but perhaps I’m hearing what is not there) and hen drums/guitar/voice. Ninety minutes per concert (2005 and 2011) is certainly value for money for the true fans, who, I must admit listen quietly. Did I like this? Not particularly. I don’t like singing the way Pearce does (and which reminded me of that other loved cult hero, David Tibet), I don’t like the simplicity of the songs, the military setting of the musicians. I just couldn’t be bothered with any of this. It confirms sadly what I already assumed, and although I tried hard to find something of value in here for me, I couldn’t find it. No doubt, nobody cares. The fans know better, and the others don’t care either. (FdW)
Address: http://www.steelwork-maschine.com
JOACHIM BADENHORST – THE JUNGLE HE TOLD ME (LP by Smeraldina-Rima)
From Belgium a reed player I never heard of, presenting his first release on a label which is also new to me. Joachim Badenhorst (1981) who works in Belgium and New York and he has played with Baloni, Han Bennink Trio, Rawfishboys, Taro, Tony Malaby’s Novela, Thomas Heberer’s Clarino, Mogil, Polylemma, Os Meus Shorts, International Trio, Red Rocket and Equilibrium – and I must admit I don’t know all these names either. Badenhorst plays here clarinet, bass clarinet and tenor saxophone. He is a player of a more traditional kind I’d say, playing an endless stream of notes from these instruments. He doesn’t belong to those players who explore their instrument as a resonating box with various sound qualities. While I am not really an expert of this kind of music, I am at times reminded of Lol Coxhill, and at other times of no one, simply because I am not really an expert of this kind of music, and perhaps not always of the instrument either, especially when it’s played ‘normally’. However some of these pieces are quite nice, such as the circular movements of ‘Djilatendo’ and the opening ‘Klarinet’, or the chaotic gestures of ‘Ek Stamel Ek Sterwe’. When it’s jazz like such as in ‘X (For Joe McPhee)’, I must admit it’s not really my cup of tea. Throughout however I liked what I heard, but it didn’t win me over either the wind instruments as such or jazz… (FdW)
Address: http://smeraldina-rima.bandcamp.com/
VISITORS (CDR, private)
Probably I am the least one to review this. Not because I have anything to do with this, but I happen to know Bertin van Vliet pretty well and from one of the songs I know the lyrics almost by heart now, since I was asked to play-back them as a grumpy alien in the supporting video clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMP8D0ZItwk). Actually I am quite biased about this, but perhaps also a bit angry about it. Not about the music or Bertin, but gdmt, why oh why is still on a CDR, supported by four more than excellent fresh video clips on youtube, and not on some bigger label, supporting this with a tour, a vinyl version and get this absolutely lovely music out there. Visitors is all about robots and aliens, about electronic music and vocoders, the retro futurism, how we looked upon the future thirty years ago. Songs about the grumpy alien leaving the earth, a friendly robot song, the love relationship alien and human (great video there too), supported by some excellent robot like music – minimal synth as some call this, in the best 80s underground tradition. Not a big fat electro mix, but more rather the sweeter version of it, with a nice set of robotic vocoder voices. The almost perfect pop record, which simply screams to be released ‘properly’. On vinyl. So any takers out there? Or would you rather wait twenty years and discover this as a lost great tune from the past? (FdW)
Address: http://visitors.bandcamp.com
ALLAN ZANE & TONY STIRNER – SHEEP MENTALITY (CDR by Quagga Curious Sounds)
Normally the music created by Tony Stirner we leave with Jliat, as his work as Doodshoofd is always very, very noisy. He also seems to be doing music as Ike Stirner which he describes as “lofi tekno/experimental electro”, but here however under his own name he works with Allan Zane, who apparently has worked as ” Le Scrambled Debutante (1988-present), Arcanum (1996-1999), WYRM–the project Zane is best known for (2000-2011), and currently Solumenata with Liz Lang (aka Auracene) and PBK”, but also did collaborations with Rapoon, Val Denham and Nocturnal Emissions. This release comes in a nice ‘natural cotton drawstring bag’ with the CDR in a ‘hand-made die cut hexagonal chipboard envelope’ and cedar wood chips, and dried aromatic lavender buds. It looks great. The music is cut as one long piece of sixty-seven minutes. There is mentioning on the cover of any instruments, except that ‘recordings made at various times at various locations on Terra Firma 2011’, which of course made me think that much of this is ‘just’ that: field recordings being fed through a set of sound effects, kaos pads and some such. According to Stirner some people told him it sounded like The Hafler Trio, but it’s not, really. It doesn’t have the depth of the old trio, nor the drone of the recent work. In stead it sounds more like of improvisation to me. We have all this sound and keep feeding that to the sound processors, like an endless subconsciousness stream, which sometimes works out in the realms of noise but most of the time is much more alike densely layered ambient scores of at times intense electronics. Me personally I wouldn’t have minded some more editing in this material, perhaps make it less like ‘stream’ and more a collage of various sounds, or even a more composed thing, but that may just very well be against the idea of this release. (FdW)
Address: http://quaggacurious.wordpress.com/
SULT – BARK (CDR by Bug Incision)
A quartet of musicians from the world of improvisation. Tony Dryer and Guro Skumsnes Moe, both on contrabass, Havard Skaset on acoustic guitar and Jacob Felix Heule on percussion. In Vital Weekly 852 we already reviewed a release by them, and this new one is hardly much different. Playing together is one of their stronger elements and at that, they play some wicked free jazz sort of thing, or at least, perhaps due to the double bass thing, it sounds a bit jazz like at times, but there is also room for silence and contemplation. Lots of plucking, scraping, hitting of these instruments and it sounds a bit more weird than their previous release. More of an exploration of sounds, ideas and possibilities buried inside their instruments, as well as playing them oddly in a traditional manner. Quite a fine release, but as I said before: “Nothing we haven’t heard elsewhere, but that’s not a problem”. (FdW)
Address: http://bugincision.com/
ALAIN LEFEBVRE – OBJECTS & ELECTRONICS (CDR by Les Encodages De L’Oubli)
Formerly Alain Lefebvre worked as Total Music, and now under his own name, and the main difference, so I read, this is all live. Well, it’s no longer live, its captured on tape and released on a CDR, but you get his drift. As the title already indicates, Lefebvre plays ‘electronics and objects’, and he does that in five tracks, two of which are considerably short (just under five minutes) and the other three are quite long, up to twenty-two in the longest. One track, ‘Duo’, is a mixdown of two separate performances. Just what kind of objects he plays is not told, just that he likes to capture them “as they break down, feed back onto themselves, malfunction, or just plain behave strangely. From a 115 volt aquarium pump to a sundry collection of dysfunctional tape recorders, some of Lefebvre’s instrumentations sort of defy easy musical classification” and it’s called by the label as “110% non-conformist music – continually experimental”, which is perhaps true if you never heard such music before, but this harks back to Moslang & Guhl’s experiments with cracked everyday electronics, Cage’s ‘Catridge Music’, or Kapotte Muziek object based music. So while not entirely non-conformist, the music is actually quite alright, even when it lasts an hour, so it’s perhaps also a bit long. Lefebvre could have used the razor blade and cut down some of these pieces, especially the longer ‘The Reason We Struggle With Insecurity Is Because We Compare Our Behind-The-Scenes With Highlight Reel’. The pieces he recorded with other such as with Erin Sexton, and using a broken down drum machines are among the more interesting around here. Lefebvre takes quite an amount of time to explore his objects and electronics, and while this may work in concert, it doesn’t translate 1:1 on to a release, but this would be something I wouldn’t mind seeing in an actual concert. (FdW)
Address: http://encodagesdeloubli.com/
COMPOUNDEAD – CUTTING YOUR CERTAINITY (CDR by Sincope)
NODOLBY – DERANGED/UNLACED (cassette by Sincope)
BRUITAL ORGASME (cassette by Sincope)
Compoundead is a ‘noise drone experimental duo from Italy’, being Mara and Truculentboy, and no instruments are mentioned on the cover of this release. Lots of electronics no doubt, a bunch of effects on the side, and maybe no instruments, but for all I know there is a guitar or two lying around, or even some sort of synthesizer. But it’s all a bit shady, I think, and also it may not matter than much I think. The sound of Compoundead is in ‘Aftermath’, the final piece, quite distorted, blown down by its weight, but in the other two pieces, which are lengthier, we have a more New Zealand like influence in their sound: gritty lo-fi rumbling on electronics, not the best of recordings, but certainly add an extra quality to their sound. It’s all in these two somewhat longer pieces that we have this great lo-fi psychedelic sound which meanders about, in the finest tradition of say Sandoz Lab Technicians or Omit. This is what I like a lot!
On cassette we have Dokuro label boss Michele Scariot, also known as Nodolby, who has two pieces of music here, each about eleven minutes. On ‘Deranged’ he arranges some crude lo-fi sounds from magnetic tapes in combination with a bunch of delay machines, crossing easily from noise to uber noise, and as such doesn’t seem to have head or tail. This could last five minutes and as easily fifty minutes, and so, eleven seems arbitrary. This is never the sort of thing to be thoroughly composed. The other side has a more interesting aspect to it, which is more about acoustic noise. Amplified though, it seems, but not necessarily drowning in sound effects. There is fine intense quality in these improvised metallic rumbles and scratching of various surfaces. This is definitely a road that needs more exploration.
From Brussels hail Bruital Orgasme, also a duo, who cram eight short pieces in fifteen minutes on one side and one long on the other. It’s been a while since we last saw a tied up, naked woman on the cover of a release, but actually this music was quite nice, especially those eight short tracks which had to offer an excellent variation of harsh (radio-) noise, improvised electronics and perhaps even real instruments, a bit of drone, a bit of ambient and sometimes reminding me of the Etat Brut CD that recently got released by Sub Rosa. The long piece on the other side is also very nice, more concentrated in it’s efforts, even showing a love to organise the noise at their disposal, in a tidy piece of drone noise, which works in a curious sort of atmospheric way. Despite the band name and the cover quite a surprise. I wouldn’t mind hearing some more of them. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sincoperec.altervista.org
SLR016 (cassette by Second Language Records)
A compilation from Australia with four bands, two of them clocking in at ten minutes and two at just under fifteen. Dark Monolith I don’t think ever made it to these pages, the other bands did. Constant Light open up here with a fine piece of darker than life ambience, of humming analogue synthesizers and likewise old sound processing devices. Cosmic music anyone? No, not really. This is just black hole music. Very nice. On this side we also find Peter James and Zac Keiller, also known as Dark Monolith, who one afternoon last year recorded ‘field recordings and drones’ of a more lo-fi nature. This reminded me very much of older New Zealand music, rusty drones captured by a microcassette, cleaned up on the computer. A particular fruitful afternoon that was. Seaworthy are perhaps the best known band from this lot, from a Vital Weekly perspective, for he had releases on 12K. Maybe it’s because it’s on a cassette, but it seems to me that he’s in a bit more noisier mood than usual, and could perhaps easily be lumped in with Dark Monolith with some almost violent ambient drone onslaught. Excellent change-over! Scattered Order might be the most well-known band here, but no doubt of a different generation, and here team up with a band called Breathing Shrine, whom I actually don’t know. The loud drone mood is continued here, and doesn’t that much like Scattered Order (as far as I know them!), but it’s in turn the heaviest slab on this fine cassette. I normally don’t like compilations but with such lengthy pieces its always easier I guess, including the nice music. Obviously. (FdW)
Address: http://secondlanguagerecords.bandcamp.com/album/slr016
LEEDIAN – LIGHT (cassette by Blue Tapes)
MATT COLLINS – THE GRIN WITHOUT THE CAT OR THE CAT WITHOUT AN OUTLINE (cassette by Blue Tapes)
Two tapes on a new label Blue Tapes, and they are indeed ‘blue’! Behind Leedian we find Hitoshi Asaumi from Japan who starts out with some old fashioned jap-noise. I almost though this would be something for Jliat, but as the music progressed other things happened and it turned out to be less jap-noise than I at first thought. Just what it is? That’s something I am not entirely sure about. Here I think we have someone who likes his computer very much and has all sorts of software appliances which bend, twist, shape and colors tones and sounds. Twisted rhythms play a part here, and the label recalls Autechre, but that’s perhaps a bit too much honor for Leedian. Unorganized rambling of sounds in two pieces, at least that’s what we are told, but it could be as easily thirty super small pieces. I am not sure why I should care about all of this.
Something else, and something better, is the release by Matt Collins, erstwhile leader of Ninja High School, who released an album on Tomlab in 2005, their only album ever. I never heard that one. I am told that was ‘positive hardcore dance-rap’, but his own solo music is something different. Not easy to describe this, but sampling plays an important part here, and so does mood and atmosphere, but it’s not y’r next ambient release. First of all, because everything is recorded quite loudly, which doesn’t always justify the music. And secondly because Collins cuts his music every now and then a bit too abruptly and thirdly because he uses loud beats at a certain place. All of which makes this an anomaly in the world of more moody electronics. I think the volume/over compression of the music wasn’t the most clever move on this tape. The ideas here are pretty much alright though, nice raw computerized ambient spiced up with some nice beats. (FdW)
Address: http://bluetapes.co.uk
Vital Weekly is published by Frans de Waard and submitted for free to anybody with an e-mail address. If you don’t wish to receive this, then let us know. Any feedback is welcome <vital@vitalweekly.net>. Forward to your allies.
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All written by Frans de Waard (FdW), Dolf Mulder (DM) <dolf.mulder@hetnet.nl>, Niels Mark (NM), Jliat (Jliat), Freek Kinkelaar (FK), Jan-Kees Helms (JKH) and others on a less regular basis.
This is copyright free publication, except where indicated, in which case permission has to be obtained from the respective author before reprinting any, or all of the desired text. The author has to be credited, and Vital Weekly has to be acknowledged at all times if any texts are used from it.
Announcements can be shortened by the editor. Please do NOT send any attachments/jpeg’s, we will trash them without viewing.
There is no point in directing us to MP3 sites, as we will not go there.
Some people think it’s perhaps ‘cool’, ‘fun’, ‘art’ or otherwise to send something to Vital Weekly that has no information. Don’t bother doing this: anything that is too hard to decipher will be thrown away. Also we have set this new policy: Vital Weekly only concerns itself with new releases. We usually act quick, so sending us something new means probably the first review you will see. If we start reviewing older material we will not be able to maintain this. Please do not send any thing that is older than six months. Anything older will not be reviewed. In both cases: you can save your money and spend it otherwise.
Lastly we have decided to remove the announcement section of Vital Weekly that is archived on our website that is older than five weeks. Since they 95% deal with concerts that have been, it’s gentle to remove the announcement and more important the e-mail addresses coming with that.
the complete archive of Vital Weekly including search possibilities:
http://www.vitalweekly.net