SAM HAMILTON & JAN ANDERZEN – BROMBRON 24: TIME BANKING (CD by Korm Plastics) *
JOS SMOLDERS & YIORGIS SAKELLARIOU – BROMBRON 25: AB-A-B (CD by Korm Plastics) *
DAVID A JAYCOCK – TEN SONGS (CD by Static Caravan) *
YVES REICHMUTH QUARTET – FINGERTONGUE (CD by Veto)
CHRISTOPH ERB & JIM BAKER – BOTTERVAGL (CD by Veto)
JENNY HVAL – INNOCENCE IS KINKY (CD by RRune Grammofon)
DAVID ROTHENBERG – BUG MUSIC (CD by Gruenrekorder)
YANNIS KYRIAKIDES – RESORTS & RUINS (CD by Unsounds)
LORD TANG – LORD TANG (LP by Alarm)
CACTUS TRUCK – LIVE IN USA (CD by Cactus Truck/Public Eyesore)
DUO BAARS-HENNEMAN – AUTUMN SONGS (CD by Wig)
FRED VAN DUIJNHOVEN – BREUK (CD SINGLE by Pjj)
HOPEK QUIRIN & ANTON MOBIN & KRIS LIMBACH (CD by Emitter Micros)
DMITRIY KROTEVICH – OLGOI-KHORKHOI (CD by Intonema) *
ILIA BELORUKOV – TOMSK, 2012 04 20 (LIVE) (CD by Intonema) *
KASSEL JAEGER – RITUEL DE LA MORT DU SOLEIL (CD by Unfathomless) *
FIRE ROOM – SECOND BREATH (CD by Bocian Records) *
NOISE OF COLOGNE 2 (CD by Mark e.V.)
LISE-LOTTE NORELIUS – EXISTENTIELL TREMOR (CD by Firework Edition Records) *
LIGHTS PEOPLE & CM VON HAUSWOLFF (CDR by Firework Edition Records) *
LOBSTER PRIEST – CRUCIAL TRADING (LP by Fuckin Amateurs)
RSS BOYS – TH TOOTH OF TH FTR (CDR by Mik Musik) *
ANDREW TUTTLE – 4064 (CDR, private) *
Addendum
SAM HAMILTON & JAN ANDERZEN – BROMBRON 24: TIME BANKING (CD by Korm Plastics)
JOS SMOLDERS & YIORGIS SAKELLARIOU – BROMBRON 25: AB-A-B (CD by Korm Plastics)
Two new releases in the ongoing Brombron series. The series documents the meeting of two artists who in the natural order of things often would never have worked together were it not for the machinations of ‘deus ex machina’ Frans de Waard in organizing a concert and a week in the studio for the artists involved to get acquainted with one another and within this timespan co-create a new edition in the Brombron series. To start with the release by New Zealander Sam Hamilton – releasing music for about seven years now under his own name, besides creating and organizing multi-media events and festivals – and the Fin Jan Anderzen – one of the key-figures in the finnish musical underground with his deeply psychedelic musical heritage in amongst others Kemialisset Ystavat and Tomutonttu, besides being a visual artist (creating the video’s to his music himself as well as the covers and packaging for his own and other’s releases). Immediate points of contact would be the psychedelic strain that is imbibed within their music together with a tendency for the ecstatic, as well as a history in the visual arts. There is definitely a logic in the coupling of both artists involved, both representing geographically and culturally quite divergent perspectives on the universal phenomenon of shamanism. Still, It is not easy to imagine this collaboration to have evolved out of naturalistic causality, as the resultant work is completely stripped of anything representing the natural order of things. The music is both a highly psychedelic affair ñ evoking wool-clad aliens wave-surfing the reliefs on the bottom of the Baltic Sea – as well as a coherently structured and balanced work channeling both Baltic and Pacific currents in harmonious patterns of well curved and warm-blooded ambiance. It swirls, it beats, it pops, it echoes, it twinkles, it buzzes – it would make a very long list indeed to describe all the musical events taking place within even a minimal time span. Were this collaboration to be described in terms of two entities impacting one another, this would be a highly viscous affair, with protuberances from both entities deeply immersing the other’s bodies unto each other’s gene-patterns. If this sounds like a description of a sexual act, this is just coincidental. But even if Darwinism would never condone it, this is definitely a perfect marriage of two very distinct and prominent musical voices.
The next album is a very different beast altogether. Hybrid, half animal and half machine, half nature and half artifact. After a previous collaboration with Roel Meelkop in 2011, Yiorgis Sakellariou – who has a background in greek folk-music but has been using computers and field recordings to create music as Mecha/Orga since 2003 – returns to the Netherlands, this time to collaborate with Meelkop’s one time musical compatriot in THU20, Jos Smolders – one of the Netherlands favorite non-academic composer[s] of the academic scene according to Tokafi’s Tobias Fischer, but born from the diy-tape culture of the mid 80s. Smolders and Sakellariou share a certain common footing in the ‘field recording section’. In their respective oeuvres both artists predominantly use modified (prepared) recordings, although overall there might be more differences in the respective artists working method than correspondences. In the case of Sakellariou these are always self-made field-recordings; as for Smolders, the sound matter which he works with as his basic material is much more diverse, also including recordings of concrete events or even pre-recorded materials (like cassettes). More importantly, Smolders work is very much composed or structurally designed, often quite theoretically underpinned (even conceptual in nature) and can take on quite diverse forms and formats. Sakelloriou on his part appears to have mainly one aim with his music: to place the spectator/auditor in the midst of an overwhelming, dionysan experience; in this, his method and his esthetic is much more constant (as can also be inferred from the consequent habit of titling his releases by their lengths). So how to characterize this event of these specific entities impacting? The two working styles seem here to be more juxtaposed and at the same time more complementary than Hamilton/Anderzen. The resultant architecture is subject to many tensions, both internal and external. Perhaps the work itself is even constituted by these tensions; in this both the background in tape-collage and a closer vicinity to the compositional methods of musique concrete that Smolders brings in might manifest itself. For his part it might be surmised that the overwhelming intensity of Sakelloriu’s esthetics has even enhanced the radicalness with which these tensions reveal themselves. Over the course of the three tracks (especially the near half hour of the first track) there appear – like beads on a rosary – nodes of pure tension in which the works structure literally groans under the stress; likewise there occur moments of lapse or relapse, wherein what was apparently in the process of occurring or which appeared to have been created is abruptly cut off and turned around on itself. Also here the genetic building blocks of both artists involved have been swapped around in full, although the process through which this occurs in this instance appears to be more related to the effects of raw material torsion and friction rather than the effects of a psychedelic wedding. So just go and get both these releases, for keeping yourself and the Mind-Body in balance. (MP)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl
DAVID A JAYCOCK – TEN SONGS (CD by Static Caravan)
Various releases this week have pictures of the musicians on the cover, and normally I wouldn’t say anything about such thing, but here’s a good opportunity to get something off my chest: why is that young man who play moody pop music with lots of acoustic guitars have beards (which is a different question than: why would you want to have a beard at all – also valid question). David A Jaycock looks like George Harrison at his mansion, less the hat, but plus the beard. It seems part and parcel of the young pop musician to have a beard. What I am complaining? Maybe the kids like serious young men with beards? Enough about the image, what about the music? ‘Ten Songs’ is the fifth album by Jaycock, and I don’t think I heard the others by him. There are lots of guitar sounds, and vocals, but also banjo, piano, toy piano, glock (-enspiel I think, rather than the gun) and ‘synthesizers used (1976-83): arp solina, yamaha cs 10, jen 1000, jen 2000, casiotone 405 and casio vl tone’, but I’ll spare you my rant about that, and it was recorded on a tascam 388, but oh wee, there is also Cubase and Logic used. There is only so much retro-ness you can bear, I think. It’s music that easily belongs to the current day, Mumford & Sons et all, but could as easily be coming from a privately pressed LP in the early 70s. Too weird to be main stream folk, thanks to vintage electronics I’d say – neh, saved by vintage electronics – but no doubt an album of folk music. Introspective music, sung darkly, sung melancholic and rather sweet indeed. It’s maybe something that is a bit too ‘normal’ for my wacky pop taste, maybe too folky too, despite some of the weirder elements thrown in here. It’s surely nice enough for a darker spring day. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staticcaravan.org
YVES REICHMUTH QUARTET – FINGERTONGUE (CD by Veto)
CHRISTOPH ERB & JIM BAKER – BOTTERVAGL (CD by Veto)
The meeting of Erb and Baker is another chapter in the exchange between improvisers from Luzern and Chicago. Erb plays tenor sax and bass clarinet, Baker piano. Baker is around on the Chicago-scene for about two decades, mainly as a pianist, keyboard and synthesizer player. Together they explore their possibilities in five improvisations, all them recorded on april 15th 2012 in Chicago. The opening piece is pure joy. Both players have a rich vocabulary and technique, and are very focused in their playing. Very communicative and musical. This album is especially a good opportunity to enjoy the playing by Veto boss Christoph Erb.
The quartet of Yves Reichmuth is a completely Swiss undertaking. Reichmuth is a Swiss guitar player, composer and improviser. He worked with bands and projects ranging from jazz, free improvisation and rock. His quartet is completed by Lucien Dubuis (bass clarinet), Silvan Jeger (bass) and Lionel Friedli (drums), all of them Swiss musicians. Their second – live recorded – release makes room for three suites that strongly focus on the possibilities of the collective. The opening piece starts in a jumpy and rhythmic complex way. To be followed by a silent and very modest section where they lost my attention. At the end they again show their extravert face. The second piece opens with a bluesy guitar, soon to be accompanied by sax and later the drummer sets in, again for what one thinks will be a wild ride. But further on in this same suite they also prove to feel at home in more lyrical, open and slow passages. This quartet wakes up memories of downtown N.Y. avant rock groups. Their playing is tight and together. But their combination of up tempo avant rock, and fragile passages and open sound-structures didn’t always work for me. I missed an underlying unity that holds everything together (DM)
Address: http://www.veto-records.ch
JENNY HVAL – INNOCENCE IS KINKY (CD by RRune Grammofon)
A record that moves between very different genres, styles and formats. At the centre is the voice Jenny Hval, sometimes singing, screaming, declamation, etc. Hval works as writer, journalist, recording artist and sound artist. Hval studied Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne and Literature at the University of Oslo. For Trust Me Records she recorded ‘To sing you apple trees’(2006) and ‘Medea’ (2008) as Rockettothesky. ‘Viscera’ followed in 2011 for Rune Grammofon under her own name. With her band Nude on Sand she released a debut album in 2012. Besides she published books, wrote contributions for magazines, etc. And in 2011 she created the sound installation ENTER/Flesh. A multidisciplinary artist, who with ‘Innocence is Kinky’ releases her fourth album. Some pieces are just plain songs, others are audio plays, sound collages and often bits of both. Her extraordinary voice is always at the center and constantly surprising in her techniques and expression. The songs are sparsely orchestrated with keyboards, guitars, drums in carefully designed textures and arrangements. Lemon Kittens-like weirdness. Folk is in the neighborhood, avant garde gestures as well, etc. Her texts and vocal performance concentrate on poetic evocations of (sexual) desires. With each piece she creates a very own universe from some childlike mentality, like Kate Bush did. Produced by John Parish, known for his work with PJHarvey. ‘Innocence is kinky’ is the provocative title of this excellent album. In combination with the close up of her (?) face on the cover it is clear what she intends with title. (DM)
Address: http://www.runegrammofon.com
DAVID ROTHENBERG – BUG MUSIC (CD by Gruenrekorder)
Rothenberg is a man with many talents. His main subject is the relationship between humanity and nature. The explores the relationship between humans and other species under the aspect of music. Especially as a writer of books like ‘Why birds sing’, ‘Thousand Mile Song’, etc. His newest book ‘Bug Music’ is accompanied with a cd. The same was the case with some of his earlier books. This implies he is not only a writer, but also a composer and musician. For his earlier cd releases he worked with people like Ben Neill, Robert Rich, Lukas Ligeti and DJ Spooky. In 2010 ECM released an album by him with Marilyn Crispell on piano. For his new work ‘Bug Music’ he is joined by guitarist Robert Jurgendal, who worked with Fripp and Eno, plus Timothy Hill of the Harmonic Choir and Umru Rothenberg on iPad. And above all by thousands of bugs. Long before mankind started making music, all kinds of animals produced sounds that later became aspects of the music created by man like for instance beat and rhythm. Rothenberg formulates it as a thesis that “most likely human music evolved out of the millions of years of listening to the sounds of bugs that filled the soundscape of our ancestors.” Prove is hard to get I’m afraid, but it makes sense and it is an inspiring thought. It Rothenberg to create music based on the sounds by bugs. In each piece we hear insect or insect-like sounds. He tries to arrange a dialogue with these animal sounds, and respond to the unusual structures that are hidden in them. In most pieces the insects provide some rhythmic base like in ‘Listen outside the ear’ with a Norwegian flute in the lead, or ‘Chirped to death’ that has the overtone singing by Hill on the forefront. Or in ‘Riding Bugz’ that has pastoral patterns by sax and electric guitar. Some of them are recorded live in the open field. For example ‘Glynwood Nights’ where overtone singing Timothy Hill seeks the company of an immense choir of insects. The three pieces that make up the ‘Insect Drummers’ suite, I found the most intriguing. Sensitive sax playing by Rothenberg over incredible insect sounds mixed with sound of electronic origin. Unheard abstract miniatures are the result. (DM)
Address: http://www.gruenrekorder.de
YANNIS KYRIAKIDES – RESORTS & RUINS (CD by Unsounds)
Roots of Yannis Kyriakides are in Cyprus. He studied first in England and later in Holland (Louis Andriessen, Dick Raaijmaakers). Nowadays Amsterdam is the base for this composer and sound artist. He has realized over 90 compositions for a diversity of formats. He teaches at the Royal Conservatory of Music in the Hague and runs the Unsounds label together with Andy Moor and Isabelle Vigier. His newest release ‘Resorts & Ruins’ presents three recent sound works. The cd comes with a set of vintage tourist postcards of desolated beaches and hotels, designed by Vigier. “All the pieces use source material that highlight specific vocal traditions, namely Turkish pop music, Cypriot epic song, and Baroque opera, but they also all make extensive use of other forms of speech and vocal acts.” The composition ‘Varosha’ refers to a suburb of Famagusta that had a tourist destination, until the Turkish invasion in 1974. Nowadays it is ghost town. As a 5 year old boy, Kyriakides was on holiday here when the conflict began. The piece is built from Turkish pop music, most of the time treated beyond recognition, but not always. Spoken and sung voices are by Ayelet Harpaz. The idea for ‘The One Hundred Words’ originated from a Cypriot folk idiom called the ‘Ekatologia’ (one hundred words). For this piece Kyriakides used a sample of a traditional song that was probably a wedding song. Kyriakides treats and uses this material extensively, and builds an very conceptual sound work from it. It was created at the GRM studios in Paris, and performed at the Presence Electronique festival in 2012. By far the piece I liked most of this collection. ‘Covertures’ is a work in three parts. Again another musical work serves as the material for his work. This time it is Monteverdi’s opera ‘L’incoronazione di Popped’, added with sounds of crowds. The work sounds as a thick and multilayered stream with interruptions from time to time. One hears all the ingredients and sounds that are used, but they move along in the same stream that is moving linearly forward. Although this is a carefully designed production, as with many conceptual art, the emotional appeal is low in my experience. (DM)
Address: http://www.unsounds.com
LORD TANG – LORD TANG (LP by Alarm)
Lord Tang is the newest incarnation of Dominic Cramp, who released also under the names of Evangelista, Vulcanus 68, Borful Tang, Qulfus etc. Also he runs his Oakland-based label Gigante. His new solo effort contains eight dub-based, analogue pieces, and it is my first encounter with this artist. Most tracks are rhythm-based dub constructions, using environmental sounds, spoken voice. Foggy dub excursions, sinister and dark atmospheres are his thing. Nowhere reminding old traditional dub a la Lee Perry. All compositions move along with a slow pace that heightens the mysterious and uncomfortable character of this music. His works are very tasty and show well-chosen ingredients and combinations. A well-crafted and convincing work. There is not much more to say here, I guess. (DM)
Address: http://alarm.bandcamp.com/album/lord-tang
CACTUS TRUCK – LIVE IN USA (CD by Cactus Truck/Public Eyesore)
This Dutch power unit is made up of Jasper Stadhouders, Onno Govaert and spearheaded by John Dikeman of US-origin. They propped 71 minutes on this release from their 2012 tour in the US, that had them doing some 37 (!) concerts. Tracks come from three different concerts. For their concert at Squidco Records they were joined by Jeb Bishop on trombone. At Jack in NYC they were joined by trumpeter Roy Campbell. On the third location, Astra Black Records they were on their own. This is a super powerful and aggressive free improve unit that know no mercy. On a continuous high level of energy they hit whatever they can. So be sure you are in good shape when you are ready for this meeting. Most attention may go to sax player Dikeman, but the activity of Govaert (drums) and Stadhouders (guitar, bass) is not to be neglected. Bishop successfully conquers a place between the three and even manages to bring some rest in the music, like in ‘Prairie Oyster’. Also Roy Campbell is 100% into the battle in ‘Ninja’. From start to finish their music is furious, aggressive, raw and punky. That’s their face and their only one. In each track they seek to maximize volume, speed, noise, intensity and interaction. The recording is a bit lo-fi, but very acceptable. You better like it. (DM)
Address: http://www.cactustruck.com/ http://www.publiceyesore.com
DUO BAARS-HENNEMAN – AUTUMN SONGS (CD by Wig)
Baars and Henneman offer a suite of freely improvised pieces, inspired on poems from several poets (W.Blake, W.B. Yeats, G. Apollinaire, I. Bachmann, H. Gelèns). Baars plays tenorsax, clarinet, shakuhachi, and Henneman viola. Both musicians are around in the Dutch new music and improve scene for several decades now. Baars you may know from own his own trio and quartet. Besides he is a member of the ICP Orchestra of Misha Mengelberg for many years now. Henneman is a viola player and a composer. She leads her own groups in which she works with musicians from various areas of music, like radical free improvisation, jazz, contemporary music and punk. As a duo they operate since their performance at the Festival “ControIndicazioni” in 1999 in Rome. ‘Autumn Songs’ was developed for their US tour in the autumn of 2012. Back in Amsterdam they made a recording of this program in the Bimhuis. Ten well-proportioned improvisations, often of a lyrical nature. Delicate, touching improvisations, with Baars en Henneman taking different roles in each piece. Full-grown music that does not want to impress, but invites the listener to discover its beauty. (DM)
Address: http://www.stichtingwig.com
FRED VAN DUIJNHOVEN – BREUK (CD SINGLE by Pjj)
Fred van Duijnhoven started somewhere in the mid-70s as drummer and improvisor. He can be heard on many Dutch improv and jazz albums, for example as a member of Bo van de Graaf’s I Compani. In the 90s he started to record solo albums every now and then: ‘Bellbird’ (1996), ‘Bird’s Nest’ (2003) and now ‘Breuk’. On all of them, van Duijnhoven takes his inspiration from bird songs and behaviour. ‘Breuk’ is however not a completely solo effort. Three of the five pieces have van Duijnhoven solo. The title track has a duo of van Duijnhoven with Eugène Flören on marimba. Because of the lines played by Flören this improvisation has a bluesy flavor. ‘Close to you’ is a song by Burt Bacharach, beautifully sung by Amber van Nieuwburg, and again Eugène Flören on marimba. A unusual arrangement for this song I suppose, but it really works, and the singing by the breakable voice of van Nieuwburg is impressive. From the text it is clear what this songs links to the four other pieces: ‘Why do birds suddenly appear?’ The solo pieces by van Duijnhoven are however of a totally other kind. Three short but fascinating paintings on drums, that are seemingly repeated and opposed to other patterns. An fine and enjoyable little gem! (DM)
Address: <fredvanduijnhoven@planet.nl>
HOPEK QUIRIN & ANTON MOBIN & KRIS LIMBACH (CD by Emitter Micros)
A disc of improvised music, but with some curious ideas and instruments. I am not sure if any of these three players ever was in Vital Weekly, but here we have Hopek Quirin (bass, efekts, diktaphone), Kris Limbach (drums, rotors and microphones) and Anton Mobin (prepared chamber, cassettes). Especially the ‘prepared chamber’ gave me some thinking. What is that? The music was recorded on January 27th 2012 at Emitter19, but then the cover says: ‘mixed separatly by Anton Mobin and Hopek Quirin & Kris Limbach’, which is also something that left me a bit puzzled. How am I to envisage this ‘mixed separately’ exactly. I honestly couldn’t tell. There are seven pieces from these sessions on this disc, and these are all quite interesting mixtures of the instruments, bass and drums, on one side and whatever else, more electronic, goes on. Sometimes it all seems be put together in a rather random fashion, but then some of these pieces sound strangely (?) coherent, such as ‘Ymalspium’, with its rhythm provided by ‘rotors’ on the cymbals, or the deep drones from diktaphone rumble on ‘Adioscoper’. It seems that the pieces which are a bit longer, are also the ones which are a bit more chaotic. There is a curious lo-fi element in this music, which works quite well, but which is hard to pin down. Hardly any post processing is used, and the bass and drums sound usually as god intended, but there is so much other stuff going on, in the area of electro-acoustics which mingle very nicely with exactly that kind of free play of those instruments that it sounds like processed. A very refined raw diamond. (FdW)
Address: http://emittermicro.wordpress.com/releases/
DMITRIY KROTEVICH – OLGOI-KHORKHOI (CD by Intonema)
ILIA BELORUKOV – TOMSK, 2012 04 20 (LIVE) (CD by Intonema)
Two discs of music from Russia, and unlike some of the other music we receive from that country, which is somehow all a bit doom and gloom, these are firmly rooted in the world of improvisation and noise. I am not sure, but I don’t think I heard of Dmitriy Krotevich before. he plays turntables, no-input mixer and does his own recording and mastering. He has four tracks here on his CD, all dedicated to ‘the Mongolian death worm’, a freakish creature. Maybe some of that is resembled inside the music. The element of noise literally rings through in this music. Each of the four pieces may start out in a relatively quiet place, they are bound to explode into some heavy slab of noise, save perhaps for the last piece which stays on the level it started on. However, and this is important, Krotevich is not about aimless, meaningless walls of distortion, but puts on a rather loud form of electro-acoustic music. Everything is set to loud and we are dealing here with something that is actually pretty nice in terms of noise/improvisation. Perhaps not the most original voice in the noise scene, but I thought all of it was done with great care and style.
Alto saxophonist Ilia Belorukov played in Tomsk on April 20th 2012 and besides his wind machine, he also uses preparations. In his previous releases we have learned that his music can be quite loud, sitting right next to very quiet, but in this particular recording everything seems to be on the quiet side of things. Maybe it’s also because this is ‘laptop-less’, and everything has to be played in ‘real-time’. I am not sure. Sometimes Belorukov hits upon a few harsher notes or the preparations take the form of shrieking noise, but throughout the music seems rather contemplative, introspect. What can I say? The mood is great on this disc, and as a break from his previous releases, I can easily see why Belorukov would want to release a live CD. I wasn’t always blown away with his more noisy side, but this new direction is excellent. Take this road for some time, please. (FdW)
Address: http://www.intomena.org
KASSEL JAEGER – RITUEL DE LA MORT DU SOLEIL (CD by Unfathomless)
The place visited by Kassel Jaeger is Pellechevent, France and together with one Jan Minuit he performed a ritual there, which included ‘dusk, pond, wood, bones & plants, arch, nuit d’encre’. Whatever that means, and whatever that may have looked like. But between sunset and dark night they made this recording and from that ritual, this piece – forty two minutes – was made. Kassel Jaeger is one of the newer names from an already crowded field of people working with ‘sound processing’ and ‘field recording’, but what I heard so far from him, I actually quite enjoyed. This new one, his second on Unfanthomless actually, doesn’t disappoint either. Its hard to tell to what extend he has processed his original sounds. I could take a guess here and there, but most of the times it’s actually not easy to guess. To some extent a lot, and to another perhaps nothing at all? The insects around the thirty minute break for instance, seem pretty ‘natural’ to me. Of course none of this should bother me, as i should sit back and listen to what is on offer here, the music as it is. We have here something that works like a small nocturnal journey. If you go out into the woods at night and you hear all these sounds, it may give you a creepy feeling. That perhaps is something that we hear on this work. As a true boy-scout I know these outdoor, nocturnal sounds pretty well, but Jaeger presents them in rather sophisticated composition. Quite dark, but not in a drone like sense of the word, but just ‘dark’ in an evening, twilight sense. Maybe I am hearing things here which are not there? I quite enjoyed this release, but didn’t think it was his best work yet. His previous releases were equally good, if not a touch better. (FdW)
Address: http://www.unfathomless.net
FIRE ROOM – SECOND BREATH (CD by Bocian Records)
This might be the first release on Bocian Records which has a full color cover. I am not sure why there is a change in the esthetic, as i quite enjoyed those distinct black and white covers so far. Bocian is not breaking new musical ground with this release, as the trio of Ken Vandermark on saxophone, Paal Nilssen-Love on drums and Lasse Marhaug on electronics do everything that you expect them to do and Bocian to release. This is some heavy free jazz freak out. Did I say, like I expected? Everything is very wild here, especially Nilssen-Love and Marhaug do a bit noise god treatment here and there, playing along together very nicely, whereas Vandermark stays more on traditional free jazz side, offering many, many notes on his saxophone. Maybe this is a bit of a disappointment, I was thinking. The somewhat fairly traditional free jazz saxophone of Vandermark versus the more daring noise of his two mates. But the more I was listening to this, the more I liked it. The free jazz saxophone made an interesting counterpoint with the noise and did his own version of it. Vandermark asks for his own room in these two pieces and gets it, even when he has to put up quite a fight for it. But he does fight and he gets an equal share in this wild music. Maybe it’s all a bit much to be taken in at once, but it’s a great release in the end! Still not convinced by the full color cover though. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bocianrecords.com
NOISE OF COLOGNE 2 (CD by Mark e.V.)
Another compilation, another review. Another common thread, all of these people coming from Cologne, once the birthplace (one of them actually) of electronic music. In Vital Weekly 746 we had the first bunch of musicians from Cologne, now its time for the second bunch, and here I recognized Merzouga and Harald Sack Ziegler, but none of the fourteen others (well, I think. I want to avoid to be called a ‘bad journalist’). Noise is here a notion that we can bend many ways. Do not except a whole bunch of feedback or distortion – in fact it’s rarely present on this release. There is lots of lots electronics, analog as well as digital, field recordings, sound processing of all sorts, and it ranges from quite ambient (maybe the majority of the pieces here), to improvised, and very occasional something that is a bit louder (Lu Katavist for instance, but its also one of the shortest pieces). None of the pieces really leaps out, and we probably learn something we already know: Cologne is a great city for modern music. A pity none of the Kompakt artists seem represented here. Music here by Andreas Wagner, Titanoboa, Nils Quak, Anthony Moore, Natalie Bewernitz/Marek Goldowski, Echo Ho, Gregor Schwellenbach, Volker Zander, Achim Mohne, Bettina Wenzel, TreeSpeedMusic, Therapeutische Horgruppe Koln and Hannes Hoelzl. (FdW)
Address: http://www.reihe-m.de
LISE-LOTTE NORELIUS – EXISTENTIELL TREMOR (CD by Firework Edition Records)
LIGHTS PEOPLE & CM VON HAUSWOLFF (CDR by Firework Edition Records)
The website of Firework Edition is not entirely forthcoming with information about Lise-Lotte Norelius, but her own website shows us the various projects she has been involved, like Vfo, Ludd, Unsk, Smullotron, Anitas and currently Syntjuntan, whose two releases so far didn’t do much for me. There have been solo releases, but this is the first I hear her solo music. The cover lists as sound sources “alarm clocks, vibrators, piezo oscillation, thermos, babusjka doll and other stuff, processed with max/msp and various effect boxes”. In her solo music she continues to explore routes which she also explores in her various collaborations, which is that of electro-acoustic sound manipulation and noise. Here occasionally more than in her collaborations. A piece like ‘Thermos’ (no prizes to win if you guess the sound source) is such a piece, which explores at first the sounds of a thermos, and then, press a few buttons, and eh presto, we have a lot of noise going on. Maybe that is a somewhat simplified way of putting things, but it seems to me this is somehow the extend of the way Norelius works. Sometimes the noise elements are kept at some distance, such as in ‘Jdk532’, which makes the music much more interesting than just plain noise like. Sometimes she waves in rhythmic particles, as in ‘Flock’ (making it Pan Sonic/Goem like) and ‘Sentimental Babusjka’, which moves it to something else. I guess it’s this mixture of electro-acoustic manipulation, noise and rhythm that makes that I quite enjoyed this release. Not the best in it’s field, but nevertheless highly enjoyable.
The other new releases on Firework Edition Records is a curious one. No title for this thirty-nine minute piece of music and I assume Lights People are Sune T.B. Nielsen, Toke Tietze Mortensen and TR Kirstein, as mentioned on the cover. On September 22, 2010 they recorded this untitled piece of music to an 8-track, and the only other thing the cover tells us is that this is part of ‘the dream invasion series’. As a ‘difficult’ sleeper myself, I wonder what these dream invasions should be, since the thick, fat, loud analogue synth hum – maybe they used some of that Bucla or Serge synths at EMS in Stockholm? But for all we know this might be the sound of eight monotron synthesizers humming in and out sync with each other. Whatever the case, they make a rather nice soundtrack for either sleep deprivation or a subliminal nightmare of any kind. It’s a heavy release, devoid of any sweet dreams. I quite enjoyed it, for as long as I was awake that is. Quite minimal, quite raw. I assume eight tracks were filled with random improvisations of whatever analogue beast, and then mixed together in an ever changing composition of raw untamed power. I wanted to use the word beauty, but maybe I thought that to be less appropriate. Nice one. Very un-delicate. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fireworkeditionrecords.com
LOBSTER PRIEST – CRUCIAL TRADING (LP by Fuckin Amateurs)
It’s a bit of puzzle this package. Apparently ten copies are made which include a review copy of the LP and a CDR of the same thing with a bonus piece. My copy of the CDR however seems to be blank, so nothing for the podcast. Lobster Priest has among it’s members Cameron Sked, whom we also came across on ‘A Clutch Of Eggs’ compilation (see Vital Weekly 804). Lobster Priest seems to be a ‘real’ band of some kind with four members (Mike V, Mike S, Cara and Cameron), with drums, guitars, wordless vocals, bass and maybe keyboards. The music is psychedelic, spaced out but all recorded in a rather lower then lo mode, but exactly with that intention not to be the best sounding psychedelic crazed group in the world. Just the crazed group is fine enough. The a-side of this record find the band in a particular noisier area of the psychedelic music range, with a space jam that reminded me – but I’m sure there are countless others – of F/i and Vocokesh, two particular private favorites of the space noise rock genre here. This piece is right up there with the best. ‘Live In Harran/Free Radio’, the piece on the other side, is much more mellow, right up there in the stars, which is also a bit cruder than you would expect, but it uses a lot of delay effects, which makes this altogether a more moving record, bouncing in between the rock machine and the radio controlled weirdness that is sometimes part of this jam along. A bit different than the other side, more psyched, more spaced and more paced out. I liked both sides of this heavy black coin. Loud and clear, and sometimes just loud. (FdW)
Address: <thinkpinkfairies@aol.com>
RSS BOYS – TH TOOTH OF TH FTR (CDR by Mik Musik)
A duo of anonymous musicians, who met in Benin – if we are to believe that story, and they have released two records, ‘W Dont Blv N Hyp’ and this new one ‘Th Tooth Of Th Ftr’. Like much of what Mik Musik releases as part of this ‘Even More Secret Series’, the RSS Boys also deal with a kind of techno inspired music. But, again also like many of their fellow label mates, this is not the kind of techno that you hear in a glossy, hi-tech disco but in a concrete basement, barely lit and filled with smoke. Not smoothly worked out, but raw to the bone, highly minimalist and not always changing enough. Maybe the RSS boys are drugged out too, too stoned at times to get their compositions in order? I doubt that, although you never know, but I should think it’s rather an intentional thing, an esthetic approach to their music. At home, I must admit, this doesn’t work in a similar way. You could of course bounce around on say Tuesday morning thinking its Saturday night while hovering the carpet, but its not the same thing. I think live and loud is the best way of hearing this (not always possible where I hang out), but at home it works on that ‘nice’ level. Not great, not bad, but ‘nice’, and perhaps that is sometimes all I want. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mikmusik.org
ANDREW TUTTLE – 4064 (CDR, private)
According to the press release, ‘4064 is the debut EP release by Andrew Tuttle’, but maybe I thought he already had releases by his own name, following the abandoning of his Anonymeye moniker in late 2012. Maybe I am just wrong. The previous release I reviewed was ‘Six Improvisations For Computer and Guitar’, a 3″CDR by Twice Removed (see Vital Weekly 867), which was actually as Anonymeye (so I must be mistaken), of which ‘4064’ seems to be a logical successor. Tuttle plays mostly banjo, synthesizer and organ here, and perhaps there is a bit of computer processing in here somewhere, but maybe not. The mid range frequency of the banjo bursts in the title piece and even more heavy in ‘Rain Transplant’, but the farfisa with computer of the opening piece ‘Porch Life’ is very nice. ‘Fallen Powerlines’ is the shortest piece around here and too brief to be noted, but it could have been a great synth piece, if it perhaps would have a similar length of ‘Back Deck Sunset’, which is also a duet for sparse cosmic synthesizers, but which perhaps doesn’t have the entire sensitivity that cosmic music has. Tuttle plays around with the notion of something cosmic but it quite isn’t. The end conclusion is that this is quite a varied EP, that I am less enamored by the banjo pieces, but throughout this is most enjoyable EP. Why not somewhat longer and have some more of those farfisa/synth/computer pieces, I wondered. (FdW)
Address: http://www.andrewtuttle.com.au
Addendum: it has been pointed out, quite correctly, that in last week’s review of ‘Transfer’ by Anne-James Chaton and Andy Moor, not a lot of attention is put forward to the music. The first eight tracks on the CD were previously released on 7″, and deal with various methods of transport, like the reciting of train times, a recount of methods of transport of Princess Di, airplanes, all recited with a sonorous voice of Chaton, spoken word-like rather than sung to which Andy Moor plays his guitar, with a remarkable role for rhythm occasionally. Sometimes ‘rock’ like, such as ‘Princess In A Rover P6 3500S V8’, but the rhythm points towards dub at times, such as in ‘Not Guilty’. In the bonus tracks we find the ship journals for Melville and of a shipwreck and have a great nautic feel to the music. The final bonus piece is the USA version of Metro, now with USA metro stations mentioned with fine rhythm guitar and what seems an Alva Noto rhythm – almost. Three bonus pieces to anotherwise great CD.