VICE (CD by Infrastition) *
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INDUSTRIAL MUSIC VOL. 3 (book & CD compilation by Impulsy Stetoskopu)
RITORNELL – AQUARIUM EYES (CD by Karaoke Kalk) *
BOT – COMPOSITIONS CONTINUUMS DES MACHINES (CD by Fibrr) *
NANTES IS NOISE (CD compilation by Fibrr)
TOURETTE – BRÛLE MON AME, BROIE MON CORPS; REMODÈLE-MOI A L’IMAGE D’UN CHIEN (CD by Skeleton Dust Records)
FREDERICK GALIAY – MISSING TIME (CD by Inversus Doxa) *
HUMAN FLESH – THE 35TH HUMAN ATTEMPT (CD by EE Tapes)
SOUND-IN 2012 (2CD by Estampa)
PARA – LIGO (CD by Creative Sources)
FABIO ORSI – MEMORY OF A SAFE PLACE (LP by Silentes/13)
GRISHA SHAKHNES – LEAVE/TRACE (LP by Glistening Examples)
SAM HAMILTON – INTEGRIFOLIA (LP by Tumblingstrain) *
WEISSER WESTEN (2LP by Apparent Extent Records)
TABATA – UPRISING/SKY LANTERN (7″ by Fourth Dimension)
BRUNK – MUDSKIPPER (CDR, private)
PARANOIZ – THE RULES OF FREE IMPROVISATION (CDR by State of Paranoiz)
OTOMO HAVA – TOTAL OF DISASTROUS ACTS (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
REJET – UNTITLED (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
TAKLAMAKAN & EZKATON – MORBUS DISSIDENTIAE PHRENETICAE (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
MARIO GABOLA – MAY SOLO (CDR by Suoni Grezzi/Viande) *
WHITE GIMP MASK/VOLKSMORG – CUM IS NOTHING WHEN YOU ENTER THROUGH THE BACK DOOR (split cassette by Terror)
DELCHIA / TROLIS & THE GIBERLINGERS (split cassette by Terror)
RORO – FREEDRUM TAPE (cassette by Toztizok)
VICE (CD by Infrastition)
The early 80s saw the explosion of a very vital music scene in the Netherlands. With so many people unemployed it seemed everyone had plenty of time to be creative. Combined with the legacy of the punk scene – we don’t need major labels or expensive studios! – the early 80s gave birth to the DIY scene (also known as “ultra” in the Netherlands). And what a scene it was: exiting new bands seemed to pop up everywhere, independent labels, distributors and shops flourished and the live scene brought us plenty of fresh and new music. Being a resident of the city of Arnhem at the time, I spent most of my days (being still at school, so too young to be unemployed yet) at Ding Dong records and tapes. Ding Dong was a typical example of the DIY scene: they were a label, had a store where they also sold releases by other labels and they even formed their own little musical unit: Van Kaye and Ignit. I remember seeing vinyl, by Dutch DIY poppers Vice, on sale at Ding Dong’s. I also remember Ignit van Kasteren (chief Ding Donger) playing Vice on Dutch national radio. Still, I have to admit didn’t own any Vice releases until now. I’m not sure why – still, this annoying gap is now filled in one go with this compilation album on Infrastition that combines Vice (their 1982 12 inch for Torso records), A Plain Reprise (their 1984 album for independent Akzidanz records), a live radio show from 1982 and a live demo from 1981. That’s seventy-plus minutes of sheer independent quality! The informative liner notes by Frans de Waard will tell you the Vice story in detail, but for the sake of information we’ll repeat the vital stuff here. Vice was formed in Nijmegen (a city very nearby Arnhem) from the ashes of post-punkers U-Tang by Ties van der Linden, Ineke de Bruijn and Pieter Guyt. They played live with like-minded bands such as Das Wesen, Bazooka and Mekanik Kommando, who secured them a record deal with Torso. Their first release dates from 1982 and features 6 tracks. Combining sparse instrumentation (a jangly guitar, a bass, a rhythm box and a Korg MS10), an ear for melody and clever vocals in fine English, the 12 inch shows us Vice probably at their best. It’s all very cleverly done, up tempo and bright, but retains that rather naïve element so typical of early 80s music. I find it reminds me of Van Kaye and Ignit. The promise shown in that 12 inch led to an invitation from Dutch national radio VPRO for Vice to appear live on radio that very same year. The three songs (making their debut on this CD) mirror their by now road-worn experience. The sound, as you would expect from a radio show, is perfect and crisp. Their only full length album A Plain Reprise, was released in 1984 by Dutch independent label Akzidanz (who also released music by Bazooka, Das Wesen and Mekanik Kommando). Oddly enough, and even though it sold OK at the time, it didn’t make an impression on a wider audience or, for that matter, the charts. Maybe Vice had missed their momentum. By 1984 many of the bands from the first wave had ceased to exist or moved on to pastures more green. And that is a shame, as A Plain Reprise has matured well. At times it reminds me a bit of a demo album for Depeche Mode’s A Broken Frame with its bass synth lines, down beat feeling and thoughtful lyrics. Infrastition, known for its re-releases of 80s independent music, has struck gold with this release. Listen to this and wonder, with me and Frans, why the hell Vice wasn’t as big as they should have been at the time (FK).
Address: http://www.infrastition.com
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INDUSTRIAL MUSIC VOL. 3 (book & CD compilation by Impulsy Stetoskopu)
Due to new postal rates the latest issues of Zelphabet will most likely not reach this desk, which is very sad, as I love encyclopedia’s. Certainly when they are about music. I can even be happy with an encyclopedia on metal music, providing I don’t have to produce a review of it. The downside of the great ‘Encyclopedia Of Industrial Music’ is the fact that we have to wait so long before another arrives. Here we have the third volume, spanning the letters J to N, which makes up an excellent read. From Jack Or Jive to Nyodene D, it covers it all. And what seems to be the curious case here: there are is quite a lot of Dutch musicians in here, not just Kapotte Muziek, Meelkop (Roel), Machinefabriek and Machinist, but also more unlikely such as Mission Papua Holland, Meer Staal and Joe The Prang’d, who ran Zimbo Tapes in the 80s. I need to go back to the earlier volumes and check wether this kind of older and somehow forgotten musicians were also part of them. The other thing I noted was an excellent range of topics of those who influenced industrial music – people as well as movements – and what their influence was. Just in case you were wondering about Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Anon LeVey or L’autremont and what their contribution to industrial music was all about. I read encyclopedia’s back to back – my autistic failure I guess – which may take weeks. I can pick it up, read a bit, put it aside and come back a day later. I spotted a bunch of minor mistakes – Ilhan Mimaroglu did die last year, Peter Duimelinks was born in 1962, not 1969 – but again, that’s what a printed encyclopedia should be like. Fuck wikipedia and everybody contributing, let one guy – Rafal Kohan in this case – sort it all out and present it. And again we have here a compilation with a selection of fifteen artists we have just read about (or going to be reading about, whatever works for you) and it includes erikM, Flexible Response (well, that’s Joe The Prang’d under a different guise), Job Karma, Joe The Prang’d, Kaiser Nietzsche, Zbigniew Karkowski, Katharsis, Knurl, Lieutenant Caramel, Maeror Tri, Murderous Vision, naj, Nature Morte, Nomex and Yann Novak, which of course make up another diverse digest of whatever ‘industrial music’ could be. The book has some great categories, like ‘art noise’, ‘experimental post industrial’, ‘noise industrial’ etc, and all of these drop in here to let themselves be heard. It’s great that even some of the older, no longer active groups have unreleased pieces here, such as Katharsis, Kaiser Nietzsche and Joe The Prang’d. Only Maeror Tri’s contribution was previously released, but that’s hardly a surprise: I can’t imagine there is anything unreleased by them left. Another wet dream comes true: great music, an excellent read. And seeing all those names makes me want to play a lot of that again, just when should I being this? Tonight, however, it will be Kwajongens In Bloei. I have a cassette somewhere and would have never believed I would come across their name in an encyclopedia in 2013, not even an encyclopedia of forgotten bands. (FdW)
Address: http://www.impulsystetoskopu.pl
RITORNELL – AQUARIUM EYES (CD by Karaoke Kalk)
This Ritornell has nothing to do with the former label of the same name, but is an Austrian duo, Richard Eigner and Roman Gerold, who wrote all of the music, but use a lot of people to have it played. Guest instruments include clarinet, vibraphone, dulcimer, double bass, drums & percussion, vocal (always female it seems), trumpet, cello, violin etc. Yet there is still an electronic component to this music. This is another fine Karaoke Kalk release, which means it’s somehow, somewhere pop music and such is the case here too, but it’s pop music of a rather refined nature. The bass is plucked in a best jazz manner, the vocals like Bjork or Portishead, the drums are also jazzy, and underpinning are highly obscured drones, field recordings, but all pushed away in the mix. They are there, but it’s like we are not supposed to know this. Then these occasional instruments drop in, a violin here, an accordion there. It all makes up for some great laid back music. Trip hop like, night club textured atmospherics going on. Their take on Roxy Music’s ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ renders the original to a new level and it’s hard to recognize it, beyond the lyrics of course. Brian Ferry would have been proud of this night club version. A strange album, delicate and vulnerable, with it’s own internal dynamics and estranged atmospheres, which sound at the same time intimate, like a good song near the fireplace, with a fine goblet of wine within reach. An excellent album! (FdW)
Address: http://www.karaokekalk.de
BOT – COMPOSITIONS CONTINUUMS DES MACHINES (CD by Fibrr)
NANTES IS NOISE (CD compilation by Fibrr)
The concept of Bot is not entirely clear to me: “BOT make up a virtual community with a view to assemble a collection of entities in one location in order to diffuse their production to many more places. They stand for a new approach to digital phenomena: networks, multi motionless geolocation, interconnection of on-line produced or processed data, automation in the treatment of reality and, especially in the case of BOTs, sites for experiments, always accessible, and from anywhere. […] Those recordings have been realized between September 2012 and January 2013, taken from the most stable BOTs: Nantes, St Naziare and St Sebastien in France. The transformed and reconstructed soundscapes originated from places such as private garden, garages, offices, studios and housing environnements [sic]”. So, yes, I have no idea what this is all about, really. In the forty-five some minutes of music here we have mostly a loud sound, computer manipulation of field recordings, no doubt of various places mixed together. Bird calls can be heard a lot, and I was thinking, maybe a bunch of unnamed composers stuck microphones out their window for any given amount of time, and feed whatever was happening through computer plug ins, and another unnamed composers compiled all of these recordings together and mixed them, most of the time using a multitude of sound sources running at the same time. Maybe I am all wrong. As said it’s usually quite loud, and sometimes a bit annoying, but most of it sounds alright. Sturdy, heavy, experimental music. Not the best I ever heard, but fine enough in itself.
The Bot CD has connections to Apo33, which is an organization from Nantes, busy with all sorts of experimental music, promotion and releasing thereof. Obviously there is the great venue in a former biscuit factory (as far as I can remember that) and there is a compilation with the city’s finest in this area. Keith Rowe of AMM fame lives there, and we recognize such names as Formanex, Luc Kerleo, Mathias Delplanque, Julien Ottavi and Thomas Tilly, but there is also many new names to be discovered here, Wehwalt, Jerome Joy, Anthony Tailard, Jenny Pickett, Clinch, Semantik, Morosphynx and Dominique Leroy. Improvised music, noise, electronics, ambient, field recordings and all such like are presented here and while none of the tracks really stand out, there are no really weak brothers either. A fine collection. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fibrrrecords.net
TOURETTE – BRÛLE MON AME, BROIE MON CORPS; REMODÈLE-MOI A L’IMAGE D’UN CHIEN (CD by Skeleton Dust Records)
Benjamin Clement’s Tourette project retools bits and pieces of his previous cassettes for this superb ‘Brûle Mon Ame…’ CD, a co-release between Skeleton Dust and the mountainously prolific Phage Tapes. Befitting a record whose title translates as “burn my soul, crush my body, reshape me in the image of a dog,” the noise housed within brandishes an overt masochistic streak. A recurrent theme is the zealous destruction of beauty; on both tracks, angelic orchestral samples are flayed by Clement’s apoplectic noise impulse. The first track begins with a pristine choral refrain which is summarily obliterated by the spastic whims of Clement’s windmill of terror. Far from a noise wall, this slab of abrasive sound spurts and writhes and does its best to afford you no comfort whatsoever. Only when the pandemonium recedes for a moment or two is the decimated drone of eunuch voices faintly heard below. Somehow the second track seems even crueler than the first, the juxtaposition between the immaculate background and the malevolent foreground pulled even wider. But it really is those instances when the static temporarily scabs up and falls away, briefly allowing the drone of the to surface through the murk, that catch the listener . As the album reaches its terminus, the chaos tapers off to a nearly five minute stretch of melancholic purity, allowing a necessary reprieve from Clement’s self-flagellating circus of hate. (MT)
Address: http://skeletondust.blogspot.com
FREDERICK GALIAY – MISSING TIME (CD by Inversus Doxa)
The only previous time I heard the music of Frederick Galiay was in Vital Weekly 790, when I reviewed his release with Jean-Sebastien Mariage, their duo Reset, involving guitar and bass. Here Galiay has a solo disc, which, judging by the list of releases, might be his first real solo release. Galiay is also a member of Chamaeleo Vulgaris, Big, Tempsion and 69, which are all unknown to me, but I assume all in the field of improvisation. ‘Missing Time is a composition for a soloist playing an electric bass and two amplifiers n interaction with a device of active sound recording, The bass, placed on the ground, is played with different objects (bows, metals, resonators…). The electric signal is divided into two independent circuits and modulated by the instrumentalist. Both bass amplifiers are recorded through several microphones distributed in the space of the studio’, it says on the cover, and I half-half understand what it means, although seeing such a set-up would be something better. The composition has eight parts of what seems to me improvised bass guitar music, whereas the level of abstraction is pretty high, and besides a low bass rumble sound, we may not recognize the bass all the time. Sometimes it erupts into mild noise, sometimes louder, sometimes it stays on an earth shaking bass level of deep ambience. I must say I am not entirely convinced by this release, but I am not sure what exactly it is that I think is missing – if indeed it is something that I am missing of course. Maybe I miss out on the visual aspect of this and would I appreciate it more if I would see this being made on the spot? I am not sure. Maybe it’s fatigue on my side, maybe it’s just not for me? Maybe it’s all too distant for me this time. I guess that’s it. (FdW)
Address: http://inversus-doxa.nl
HUMAN FLESH – THE 35TH HUMAN ATTEMPT (CD by EE Tapes)
EE Tapes is a legendary Belgian label founded in 1987 with focus on experimental, ambient, noise and other kinds of adventurous music. Present album “35th human attempt” is a re-issue of Belgian project Human Flesh originally released in 1985. Brainman behind Human Flesh is Alain Neffe, who is also responsible for a number of other groundbreaking projects Pseudo Code, Subject, BeNe GeSSeRiT, Cortex, I Scream. “35th human attempt” is an album that is very hard to pigeonhole, however the expression moves somewhere between rock, industrial, modern classical and electronic avantgarde. The music are heavily driven by processed voice samples giving a superb dreamlike overall atmosphere to the album. Sometimes echoed distant voices other times choirs adding an almost nightmarish feeling to the music. Acoustic instruments, first of all saxophones, guitars and string organs. Human Flesh is Alain Neffe most intimate musical project dealing with many demons and ghosts, according to the label itself. Unquestionably there are so much emotional impact throughout this album and judged by the compositional creativity this could easily have been a work of today. In all aspects work way ahead of its time. (NM)
Address: http://www.eetapes.be/
SOUND-IN 2012 (2CD by Estampa)
In an ideal world perhaps contemporary experimental music (amongst which i would also count most of the releases reviewed at Vital Weekly) would need no recommendation to gain access to a large and willing audience. But this is not such a world, so there is the “Feria de Arte Múltiple Contemporáneo” (Contemporary Multiple [=Multi-media] Art Fair) ESTAMPA, a Spanish initiative organized with the intent to market contemporary spanish art & artists. A sub-division of this is the Sound-In, which is the segment of the fair dedicated to the contemporary experimental music of Spain. This included amongst other events a music-festival. The double-cd “Sound-In 2012” presents parts of the music either heard or conceived during the music-festival itself, by artists involved with the festival as either tutors for workshops and mater classes or participants thereof.
The first cd contains pieces by artists which one can regard as well-known names within the larger contemporary music scene of Spain. And perhaps also a bit further beyond that boundary, with names as Eduardo Polonio and Llorenç Barber (as well as the aforementioned Wade Matthews, which might be the best known name on this release to Vital audiences). The music contained on this cd is culled from various dates (but mostly recorded in 2012) and localities, and has a strong anthological character. Although presenting a mix of more and less academic composers, there is less differentiation between the pieces on the surface than one might have expected.
The second cd contains ten pieces by ten artists who have been selected on the base of various criteria (one criterium being that the artist not be older than 35) to create – supervised and facilitated by the festival – in the weeks following the festival the pieces heard on this cd. The lack of homogeneity on this disc is quite striking in comparison to disc one. On this disc there is, in comparison to the first cd, much more differentiation in stylistic approaches between the different pieces. Especially in the use of rhythmic elements there is much variation, from crunchy overdriven power-tectonics to arpeggiated cosmic synth-swaths to submerged jazz-inflected percussion (the latter slightly reminiscent of Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer’s masterful Re_Ecm of 2011, making this track – by Lucas Bolanõ – my favorite of the batch). In between there are more sound-scapist works which too appear more dynamic than the works on the first disc, with elements as volume, panning, and sound-manipulation much more pronouncedly present.
On the whole, a release that combines various artists, aims and intentions, and with all that still succeeding in creating a meaningful cohesion. The most important connection that seems to be present between the first and the second discs is that the artists represented on the first are the supervisors/tutors for the artists presented on the second. It would perhaps have been interesting to have more information on exactly who counseled who, and from there to be able to try and unravel the influences. Interesting too perhaps as a document of the differences between musical generations. But in the end this release could be most interesting for the local perspective that it opens on a spanish contemporary music-scene to me largely unknown. (MP)
Address: http://www.estampa.org
PARA – LIGO (CD by Creative Sources)
There is often a fruitful interplay between the worlds of composed and improvised musics, with musical strategies and techniques of the one obliquely forming and informing the other. No one is surprised any more to find musicians eking out through extended techniques some of the most unconventional sonicalities from the most classical of instruments. In fact, such techniques have now themselves become almost ‘canonical’, part of the conventional musicianship, both within the context of contemporary improvisation (this field that the label Creative Sources has been so tirelessly propagating for the last 10+ years) as well as within the field of modern composition. The trio ‘Para’ contains within itself these two worlds, with hornist Elena Kakaliagou more part of the world of composed musical practice, pianist Ingrid Schmoliner more at home in the world of improvised music, and double-bassist & composer Thomas Skempowski himself a man of both worlds. This release, ‘Ligo’ is itself definitely a hybrid of sorts, undefinable as to its generic constitution and unfathomable as to its intentions. And that, i assume, is exactly what it wants to be. Strikingly the implementation of traditional, conventional musical techniques sets the stage for a magical sequence of events. Apart from this use of conventional musical techniques there is also a more traditional narrativity in play here, with the pieces successively unfolding some kind of absurd and definitely unconceivable drama. Although extended techniques abound on this release as well, the choice for such techniques too is here apparently not solely musically defined but also theatrical in nature, as can be made up from the press release. Both the utilization of mixed techniques and mixed styles make for a sense of ‘artificiality’ that employs all the different meanings of the word: craft, cunning, invention, deception, contrivance, machination, deftness – all characteristics that might evoke a sideshow at the carnival but are just as well suited to characterize the oblique and unimposing, but quite masterful artistry of this work and of this trio. (MP)
Address: http://www.creativesourcesrec.com
FABIO ORSI – MEMORY OF A SAFE PLACE (LP by Silentes/13)
Following a small tidal wave of releases, things became quiet for Silent at the end of 2012, it seems. Maybe there is only room for as many CDs? Or maybe there is a need to break away from easy to copy/download CDs and create something that is perhaps more unique, more desirable? Hence, the birth of ’13’, which takes here the shape of 12″ record with 16 A4 page booklet of photography, in an edition of 250 copies. It could have been 50 copies, with different shaped photos or even smaller editions with unique prints. Either way, the photographic aspect is of an equal importance as the music. The series kicks off with Fabio Orsi, doing both music and photography here. Orsi’s career started on A Silent Place and Smallvoices, and further developed with releases on labels such as Last Visible Dog, Porter Records, Boring Machines but above all Silentes. Orsi is an ambient composer and uses synthetic and natural sounds to create his music, that fits the black and white photography quite well. Lots of pictures of nature, and with a sound that seems to stem straight from nature this is music that is probably best enjoyed outside – be it that taking a record player into nature is a bit difficult. That’s the only downside of such a release I guess, which is otherwise filled with some great music. In ‘Part 1’, I believe to hear a mass of voice material, cascading freely but seemingly becoming more of a tidal wave, whereas in ‘Part 2’ it seems to be revolving around a looped guitar of some kind, locked into an eternal hum. Both sides are of course highly minimal with some very slow developments, placed in all the right places, preventing both parts from being just a single minded drone piece, but more a free floating experience in sound. Very sober in execution, both sound and image, but very nice altogether. (FdW)
Address: http://13.silentes.it
GRISHA SHAKHNES – LEAVE/TRACE (LP by Glistening Examples)
Quite a daring move, I’d say, to start a new label, or rather properly start a label after a few starts, in a time of economic crisis and with the US upping postal rates to another sky high limit. Plus to release something by someone who isn’t exactly well-known. That’s what Jason Lescalleet does here on his label Glistening Examples. Shakhnes may not be that known, but perhaps you heard of his previous work as Mites on Mystery Sea (Vital Weekly 802), Copy For Your Records (Vital Weekly 843) or Alamut Records (not reviewed). Shakhnes hails from Tel Aviv, probably a more unlikely place to find someone working with field recordings and electronics (but then also: why not?). What I liked about his Mystery Sea release, and which seems to be a feature here too, is a certain roughness in the way he treats sounds, without great care or style, but Shakhnes doesn’t fall easily in a noise gap, and manages to keep things nicely under control – perhaps not too dissimilar to his label boss Lescalleet (even when he’s occasionally much louder). A lo-fi treatment of sound here, with the hiss of cassettes, low resolution samples, loops, buzz, hiss and field recordings which can’t be easily traced back to whatever home they left this morning. Shakhnes is perhaps less ‘fresh’ then he used to be, as it seems to me that his material has matured now from his earlier work and easily fits the elsewhere reviewed Jason Zeh for example, with whom Shakhnes shares a similar esthetic, but perhaps not always a noisy side. Shakhnes’ material is darker, probably, and maybe more minimal, being locked occasionally in a few sounds bouncing around for a while, before unlocking and moving on. Great album, on bloody red vinyl (if you care to buy direct from the label, which is something I always recommend) (FdW)
Address: http://glisteningexamples.com/
SAM HAMILTON – INTEGRIFOLIA (LP by Tumblingstrain)
Always on tour – currently residing in Portland, Oregon, is Sam hamilton, although, sadly, not always touring his own music. Following ‘Pala’, reviewed in Vital Weekly 747, Hamilton, who has a background in more experimental music, continues his road into pop music. ‘I can’t really claim to be making it. I can claim to have tried, but only as an admission of failing’. Again the live drums are provided by Chris O’Connor and there is occasional keyboards and guitar by others, but throughout Hamilton plays everything himself. I am no expert on the subject of pop music of course, probably just like Hamilton can’t claim to be making it, but if it sounds like this, I am all for it. The nine pieces here are bouncing again up and down, in a just too fast mode, with Hamilton’s vocals multi-layered and processed but also pushed to the background. Something tells me this is not like regular pop music. Along with drums we have bouncing keyboards, sequences and odd ball instruments, like steel drums. There is a great west coast psychedelic feel on some of these pieces, maybe because those vocals sound so far away and processed, or maybe it’s that sun blazing atmosphere that seems to be running along each piece here. Great, vivid music, imaginative pop music, if that is indeed the word we could use. Who cares, really? Not me. Like the Piotrowicz record reviewed elsewhere, this is the record I played most last week. Almost every day twice! (FdW)
Address: http://samhamilton.bandcamp.com/
WEISSER WESTEN (2LP by Apparent Extent Records)
Highly recommended is studying the website mentioned below this review and check the manifesto by Weisser Westen (whiter west) from Germany, since that may shed some light on what this is. No expenses were spared on this: a double gate fold sleeve, booklet with text, CD with the complete music, and all of this by a band doing their debut album. Weisser Westen is a duo from Dusseldorf of Angela Fette and Phillip Schulze, the first responsible for lyrics and voice, the latter the musician (these things never seem vice versa, do they?), and both are inspired by ‘classical avant-garde – embracing painting, costume design, poetry and performance art’, not unlike Dada or Constructivism. I have not really an idea what to make of this record. The music is pretty much alright. Techno based, but more structured like a song, rather than an ongoing 4/4 rhythm. Problems I have with the lyrics and the way they are sung, or rather not sung. Fette is more speaking her lyrics than singing them. If you remember Ester Brinkmann, Thomas Brinkmann’s earliest brainchild with texts by Cioran and the way those were spoken, then you know what to expect, except with some wilder music here, less minimally based than Brinkmann. Many of these pieces are in German, which probably makes it quite difficult to understand what these lyrics are about, so perhaps there is a limited appeal anyway? It’s vocals like this, which makes it hard for me to enjoy the music that much. The whole thing is a beauty to see and the music is dark EBM/techno like and nice, but there is a great deal in its way; for me that is. (FdW)
Address: http://weisserwesten.com/
TABATA – UPRISING/SKY LANTERN (7″ by Fourth Dimension)
Mitsuru Tabata is a guitarist who played in Zeni Geva, The Boredoms, Acid Mothers Temple and Monster DVD – the latter being on of my favorites – and Leningrad Blues Machine, and who has also an extensive discography of solo material. Here he has two recent shorter pieces of guitar and electronics playing. I wasn’t too pleased with his ‘Mankind Spree’ CD (see Vital Weekly 733), which I thought was ‘tedious, boring and pointless’, just like the CD before that. But, and perhaps it’s because today is one of those early great sunny spring days, these two pieces sound quite nice. Open chords, strumming away freely and electronics bursting along with them, popping up, disappearing, or in ‘Sky Lantern’ guiding the way through the dark galaxy. Thoroughly pleasant stuff here. Maybe it helps if there is only two tracks and that both pieces have a song like structure, rather than being cut from a bigger part, which is sadly often the case with more experimental music on this format. Very nice! (FdW)
Address: http://www.fourth-dimension.net
BRUNK – MUDSKIPPER (CDR, private)
In Vital Weekly 877 Bert Vanden Berghe first popped up, and called himself Invertrebrata. Now he sends me a release under the guise of Brunk. An older release if you will, as this was already available in 2009 on bandcamp and CDR and now is re-issued ‘digital (itunes, spotify, amazon)’ and CDR. The music is a bit different too. As Invertrebrata he played a very free form of acoustic guitar music, solo as such, except when he allowed some sounds of TV into his music. Here, as Brunk, he plays much more electronics, along with guitar and field recordings, and as a result things are far more organized than on that more recent release. A piece like ‘Plankton’ is a right tour de force of ambient/drone music, while in ‘Item 6095363’, he plays more fingerpicking like, bringing it to a noise level and in ‘Rustig LieDJe’ he feeds similar picking through a bunch of echo machines. Unlike his recent Invertrebrata project this is all more ‘musical’, in whatever conventional sense of the word – but surely conventional by any Vital Weekly standard that is – and while some of this might surely based on improvisations, it’s all more organized. Quite a diverse release overall, I thought and most enjoyable. Perhaps two sides of the same coin: working out quite diverse tunes on the guitar. Very nice indeed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.brunk.be
PARANOIZ – THE RULES OF FREE IMPROVISATION (CDR by State of Paranoiz)
For those who do not know, there are six rules for free improvisation. ParaNoiz from Hungary played this rules musical and recorded them at the Chimera Studio in Budapest. Strangely enough, the number six stands for harmony and love and that is hard to find at this album. Anyway, the three members of The ParaNoiZ band experimenting a storm with drums, percussion, laptop and live electronics. The trio consists of Krisztian Bartha, Kalman Pongracz and Gabor Toth. Kalman Pongracz also plays in Rovar 17, in which he cooperates with other musicians and artists to create live performances. Gabor Toth is a musician, performer, poet and video artist. Since the 70s he has been active in making his art and inform themselves on non-conformist. The noise in the six improvisations have a strong presence without being a harsh wall of noise. There is enough variety to give the ears some rest. The drums and percussion give the noise an extra dimension to the rhythm and give the passing sounds more power. The electronic sounds appeals to different layers of the eardrum and the free acoustic sounds of the drums make that you can focus on different dimensions in music. But as listener this album is not an easy one and takes all your concentration if you listened to the album. In this sense, the freedom that the musicians are appropriating is paid dearly. (JKH)
Address: https://www.facebook.com/paranoise.H/app_178091127385#!/paranoise.H
OTOMO HAVA – TOTAL OF DISASTROUS ACTS (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
REJET – UNTITLED (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
TAKLAMAKAN & EZKATON – MORBUS DISSIDENTIAE PHRENETICAE (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
Greece’s Otomo Hava (né Thomas Havales) has dropped a respectable spate of CDR releases over the past three years. I’ve always found it interesting how random noise artists materialize from nowhere and extend their Discogs entries so rapidly – though many end up closing up shop with equal suddenness. Moving on from my cynicism, ‘Total of Disastrous Acts’ adds another block of noise to the growing canon, this one just a little too wiggly to be classified as a pure HNW. Over thirty-seven minutes, a thick mass of mid-range noise scrubs those tympanic membranes clean with steel wool as little squirts of high-pitched malevolence froth away at the margins. For a spell in the middle, the bristles are filed down and the crumbly architecture of noise is allowed to shimmy on its own, and it’s a welcome respite, but soon enough Havales brings his feverish ire back into the fold.
Rejet is another example of one of these fly-by-night noise customers, also appearing out of the ether in 2011. In this case, Rejet has already closed shop, calling it quits in December of last year, although his releases continue to trickle out of the gory heaps of noise labels. ‘Untitled’ is one such surviving artifact. This is a hefty album that clocks in at over an hour, its course characterized by gradual evolutions of timbre and haphazard pedal manipulations. The bulk of this isn’t all that grating, its sharp teeth blunted by a fog of lo-fi blur. As its internal mechanics throb and churn under the surface, one is reminded of the fuzzy home-brewed noise tapes of the eighties and early nineties, each one a whimsical, grimy world grafted onto recycled cassette.
The last disc, ‘Morbus Dissidentiae Phreneticae’ (translated from Latin: “disease differences frenetic”), pools the efforts of Croatian noisester Taklamakan (aka Harold Gojani) and Italy’s Ezkaton (Danilo Montagna). This one comes donned in sepulchral black-and-white artwork, its innards a set of continually transitioning segments of noise. Gojani and Montagna aren’t afraid of the higher frequencies, meaning a good bulk of this is fervently rough on the sound-holes… but would you really expect anything different from a record by these two dudes on a label like Vomit Bucket? Like the morbid cover, the proceedings hint at an inner nihilism, and in the midst of “Coscienza Meccanica,” when some rail-gunned vocals make their frenzied entry into the chaos, it’s hard to stifle the impression that the world is a toxic sort of place. (MT)
Address: http://vomitbucketproductions.blogspot.com
MARIO GABOLA – MAY SOLO (CDR by Suoni Grezzi/Viande)
A member of A Spirale and Aspec(t), Mario Gabola is an improvisor with a strong love for all things heavy and loud. He plays the saxophone, along with feedback, resonance, mixer and mini-tape. His ‘May Solo’ doesn’t refer to the upcoming month of May, but rather to the fact that some of these pieces may not be solo, but recorded with his musical friends. This is surely no easy listening improvisation, and certainly nothing too careful on this release. Gabola plays with great energy and total freedom, letting his saxophone howl and buzz around, bouncing off and on against a wall of feedback, with sound cutting in and out too, like a real time created collage of sound. It’s not always easy to know the difference between the real solo tracks and the ones with his friends (which are Sarkazein, A Spirale, SEC_ and Friendly Imploded). I thought ‘Radio T.S.O.’ would be with SEC_, with all its radio sounds chopped up, but it was really a solo piece. Some of these pieces are a bit too long, like that ‘Radio T.S.O.’, which could have as easily been five minutes, instead of eight, which would have added to the punk spirit of this free jazz. Otherwise a very fine release of raw untamed energy. (FdW)
Address: http://www.viande.it
WHITE GIMP MASK/VOLKSMORG – CUM IS NOTHING WHEN YOU ENTER THROUGH THE BACK DOOR (split cassette by Terror)
DELCHIA / TROLIS & THE GIBERLINGERS (split cassette by Terror)
I need not describe the veritable fountain of filth that decorates the White Gimp Mask/Volksmorg split’s full-color, fold-out cover. Needless to say, they’ve designed a more-than-appropriate counterpart to the title ‘Cum is Nothing When You Enter Through the Back Opening.’ Unsurprisingly, purulent noise perv White Gimp Mask lands the entirety of his malodorous side in the far red, chugging out a vortex of scrubby harsh-noise-spray and low-end bluster. It’s a wall in the sense that its beginning and ending are separated by a single block of unyielding noise, though the maniacal writhing and throbbing of the guts of this triumphant mo’fo give it more jiggle than your run-of-the-mill HNW. Potent stuff from a guy whose past credits include ‘Take Her to the Woods,’ ‘Just the Tip,’ and ‘Rotten Toes.’ Volksmorg’s side features a clip of former children’s TV host Melanie Martinez singing the praises of anal sex (“One thing I’m not planning on is getting pregnant. That’s why I choose anal sex.”), set to a gloomy wallpaper of industrial-calibre pedal-feedback muck. It’s the tidbit that links this tape to its juvenile title. The juxtaposition between Martinez’s cheery demeanour and the wretched grumble of electric noise-crud makes for gripping listening, while Volksmorg’s subdued and nuanced architecture of bass-heavy sound lures the ear into a befuddled calm until jagged spurts of harsh noise begin to invade the sound-field near tape’s end.
On the other hand, the Delchia/Trolis & the Giberlingers split comes out of leftfield from a label like Terror. Delchia, a tag-team of Nikas D on axe and Levas on vocals, employs dysphoric guitar intonations to build miniature opuses of melancholy. These aren’t particularly explosive expositions, but they do convey a generalized disillusionment with the world – not unlike the many similar insinuations fondled out by sullen post-rock acts in years past. Trolis & the Giberlingers, meanwhile, round up five tracks worth of minimal techno, exuding a passion for hypnotic, scaled-down rhythms that recalls the work of Richie Hawtin and Robert Hood. His tracks don’t shy entirely away from melody, as evidenced by the immaculate synths of “Mirror Gaze.” Other tracks test out the intimidating clutch of industrial techno and EBM, but a lot of this seems rooted in the Detroit sound. The tape as a whole is an odd pairing, and it’s even stranger that’s it’s been issued by a label best known for gleefully scouring its constituents’ eardrums. (MT)
Address: http://www.terror.lt
RORO – FREEDRUM TAPE (cassette by Toztizok)
Earlier this year I saw Roro play a concert. I wrote about that in Vital Weekly 869, since I got a bunch of his releases. Last week he was in Nijmegen and I arrived too late to see his set, but no doubt it was along similar lines. Rogier Smal – being Roro – handed me his latest tape recordings which he privately released as ‘Freedrum Tape’. What attracted me to his concert in February was the fact he doesn’t just rumble about with some percussion instruments and a bunch of sticks, but that he actually uses the space in which plays, by moving about with his instruments, and his moving about was part of the concert. Very direct action music going on here, which of course is not easily captured on any medium, let alone cassette. But Smal uses his kit in various rooms of the house, including the shower (!), which is very funny of course. The title says it all, this is very free drum based music, nothing to do with consecutive rhythms or jazz or anything such like, but rather the exploration of sound generated by hitting something else on top. Or rubbing them together, or scraping them together. Whatever it is, as long as it’s nothing ‘regular drum music’. I think it’s about time Roro would set up in a great studio, with great microphones and played in there: moving about and let those microphones pick up his playing, as well as his moving about. That would be the next big step, I guess. This one-sided tape should be regarded as a progress report in the mean time. (FdW)
Address: http://rogiersmal.blogspot.com