ASMUS TIETCHENS – FAST OHNE TITLE, KORROSION (CD by Black Rose Recordings) *
XENIA PESTOVA – SHADOW PIANO (CD by Innova) *
ARVE HENRIKSEN – PLACES OF WORSHIP (CD by Rune Gramofon)
M.B. + SOSTRAH TINNITUS – CONCREDRONES (CD by Korm Plastics)
STEREOCILIA – MURMURATIONS (CDR by Echoic Memory) *
CARL LINDH – DRAGONFLY (CDR by Cordial Handshake) *
CE FRANCOIS COUTURE & ROCHLO – DUO (CDR, private) *
CE FRANCOIS COUTURE – DEVANT (cassette by La Cohu)
THANIEL ION LEE – VINTAGE YOUTH (3″CDR by Kimberly Dawn)
SUMMONS OF THE SHINING RUINS – THE SKY SINGS TO US (3″CDR by Kimberly Dawn)
CLEARING – THREAT (3″CDR by Kimberly Dawn)
CERNLAB – ATOMHERZ (3″CDR by Electroton) *
UIJF_NOTFOUND – ANEUCH (3″CDR by Electroton) *
IDEA FIRE COMPANY – E.1027 (cassette by Orila/Noise Below) *
DEVELOPER – SELF-TITLED (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
LA COUNTY MORGUE – THAT MAGGOTS SHD / EAT THE DEAD BULLOCK (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
VON EINEM – IMAGINED INFRACTIONS (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
VERTONEN – CAPILLAIRES MECANIQUES (cassette by Fluxus Montana)
VERTONEN – FLOODED (cassette by Readymades Tapes – Quality Since 1893)
MINOY – TREATMENT RESISTANT/THE YEAR OF THE DOG (double cassette by Impulsy Stetoskopu)
MATT SHOEMAKER – THE LATE DAY SPECTRUM (cassette by Masters Chemical Society)
CHRISTOPHER DELAURENTI – PHONOPOLIS: URBAN FIELD RECORDINGS VOL. 1 (cassette by Masters Chemical Society)
NERVE NET NOISE – MAGNETIC BREATH (cassette by Masters Chemical Society)
ASMUS TIETCHENS – FAST OHNE TITLE, KORROSION (CD by Black Rose Recordings)
In my spare time I listen to pop music, usually, but then, in 2013, I asked myself: why do I still have so many CDs? Isn’t it about time to listen to those again, and see what you have, which are keepers and which are goers. In a random fashion I pick a bunch of CDs of the shelf and play them until the end, because, when not played to the end, what’s the reason for keeping them? From some artists I stayed away for a while. I can safely say I have almost all of the works by Asmus Tietchens, but I was afraid of going there. I feared I would not find enough concentration to examine each and everyone properly and make the wrong decision and see them go. But once I started to play them I was totally immersed. I am nearly done with all of them, and then much to my surprise, here’s a new work by Tietchens. The titles poke fun with the notion of ‘ernste musik’, the German term to create a distinction between serious music and entertainment music. Maybe its a comment, Black Rose asks, on ‘the current state of noise music, serious music or both’? An interesting question, perhaps, but much to my surprise I notice something else. In the past ten years Tietchens explored the quiet areas of electronic music, with some highly refined music, not unlike the work of say Richard Chartier. Here he seems to return to some of his earlier electronic music, from the late 80s, early 90s, but perhaps generated with the means he uses these days. This results in a piece like ‘Kaum Noch Ernste Musik’, with a pulsating click beat (think Pan Sonic or Goem), and the well-know Tietchens tricks on oscillators. It’s something entirely different than what you would expect. Maybe it’s a bit long this piece which clocks in at over ten minutes. Throughout the pieces on this album, eight in total, do not have strong rhythm sounds, but they surely sound louder than we are used from him in recent times. It takes the ‘serious’ electronic music from the sixties, with it’s sustaining sounds fading in loud and about. It’s heavy music, but it’s great music. Only in a few pieces, aptly called for instance ‘Sehr Ernste Musik’, Tietchens shows some of his more quiet side, but in the other pieces he sounds like his tape manipulation work ‘Daseinsverfehlung’, bursting about, such as in ‘Eingeschränkt Ernste Musik’. And then there is also the humorous Tietchens with a vinyl loop in ‘Keine Ernste Musik’ or ‘Im Ernst? (Für H.K.)’, which sees him playing something that sounds like Trautonium. This, ladies and gentleman, is an excellent CD. If you are keen to hear new musical movements by this man, but not every move, then this is one of those releases you should surely hear. (FdW)
Address: <srmeixner@yahoo.co.uk>
XENIA PESTOVA – SHADOW PIANO (CD by Innova)
The piano is an instrument I always enjoy, from the moody, ambient perspective as well as the more modern classical perspective. Here we have a CD from Xenia Pestova who plays piano as well as toy piano. The latter instrument I always associated with John Cage and his ‘Cheap Imitation’ piece, but never heard many other pieces for this instrument. Pestova, who also performs works by Stockhausen and Cage, plays here six pieces by six different composers, all friends of her. Besides the piano and toy piano she also electronics in some of these pieces. Not every piece blew my mind, but in every piece I heard something of interest. In the piece, for instance, by Scott Wilson I thought it was all a bit too regular modern, but some of the computer processed parts made this quite interesting. Lou Bunk’s ‘Being And Becoming’ started with the toy piano and that metallic sound being processed in a very quiet, zen like manner, with the addition of extra sounds (or not? I’m not sure), makes this a great piece. In Andrew Lewis’ piece the computer part is very moderate and only seems to add a new layer. Derek Hurst returns to the toy piano with ‘An Wem: Notes From Underground’, which doesn’t seem to be a Sema cover. In John Young’s piece the computer is almost on par with the heavy computer processing and it makes up a fine piece, while Katharine Norman’s piece also has spoken word, but is also more conventional. But throughout, as said, six fine pieces, one more than the other, but no weak pieces around here. Anyone who likes modern classical music and who has heard enough of “Mantra” should seek out this release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.innova.mu
ARVE HENRIKSEN – PLACES OF WORSHIP (CD by Rune Gramofon)
Recently I spoke here of the interesting duo album of Henriksen and Belgian drummer Teun Verbruggen. With ’Places of Worship’ we have at last another true solo effort by Henriksen himself. For Henriksen, a freelance musician since 1989, it really started with Supersilent. But he has also several solo albums out, the last one dating from 2008: ‘Cartography‘. So it took him a long time for a new step. Over the years Henriksen developed his very own playing technique of the trumpet, with a strong emphasis on sound, tone and color. Henriksen is clearly inspired by Miles Davis and Jon Hassell concerning his trumpet playing. As a composer, Henriksen is inspired by very different sorts of (world) music, in his painting of ambient sound structures. His new album is once more prove of this. I really like to dwell in ambient soundscapes, so, a new solo cd by Henriksen is something I was looking forward to. As a hardcore Popol Vuh-fan who is far from allergic of music with spiritual connotations, this new album had my special interest, as Henriksen takes inspiration here from religious and spiritual traditions. But already very soon I started asking myself what I was missing. Hard to identify, I must say. There is too much of the same on this record in a way. Constantly the same reflective moods and spaced out textures, with the characteristic sound and playing by Henriksen. No surprises, but on the other hand tastefully designed and played sound structures. I really enjoy the rich, sensitive tone of Henriksen, but it turned out not to be enough for me this time. The music needs to be enriched with other ingredients in order to stay interesting (DM)
Address: http://www.runegramofon.com
M.B. + SOSTRAH TINNITUS – CONCREDRONES (CD by Korm Plastics)
Glancing at the title, I knew a drone album on Frans de Waard’s loooong-running Korm Plastics label was likely to sate my appetite for held tones, and industrial legend M.B. (Maurizio Bianchi) and relative noob Sostrah Tinnitus bring an hour’s worth of the goodness. Using an assembly of electronics and other accumulated shit (the standard ply of “metal objects, bronze rattles, and tin toys”), the duo zero in on unobtrusive but compelling timbres which tickle the thalamus without disturbing the cortex. The formula is simple: smears of digital sound backdrop the loose clinks and rattles of MB and ST’s makeshift instruments. The CD’s central chunk captures this blueprint at its most sublime, its pinnacle reached on “Solenoidi,” which begins with the crisp bristle of alloy on alloy then slides into a mournful stretch of empty-factory ambiance. Sounds like it should be playing during the final scene of a post-apocalyptic horror film, the lone, blood-caked survivor standing catatonic as the camera gradually recedes to reveal a landscape of carcasses. Well, that’s what I hear. (MT)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl
STEREOCILIA – MURMURATIONS (CDR by Echoic Memory)
Behind Stereocilia we find guitarist and composer John Scott from London. He spend ten years refining his guitar sound and now releases his solo debut ‘Murmurations’. The only other thing I know about him, is that he plays in Rhys Chatham’s guitar Orchestra. The cover notes for instruments ‘guitar, synths and sampler’ and it’s not rocket science to see where that would bring us. Music that is best described in such often used words as ‘ambient’ and ‘atmospheric’. Scott lets his guitar run free in an endless set of delay and loop pedals and takes a lot of them to meander about. Which is of course a fine thing. It’s his own tribute I’d say to Fripp and mobile unit. I quite enjoyed these locked down. I thought ‘FWD>>’ (maybe I got the Fripp connection from this title, linking it to Fripp’s work with The Orb?) was a bit long, but ‘Dilute’ had a fine sense of lingering menace. In ‘Bright Light’ he brings a rhythm machine to the table which sounds odd, but with the highly repetitive guitar a nice take on shoegazing, but without the drama and a fine light touch. I liked it, but I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, or spectacular new. (FdW)
Address: http://www.stereociliamusic.com
CARL LINDH – DRAGONFLY (CDR by Cordial Handshake)
“Dragonfly” is the first release by Carl Lindh from Malmo. Since 2000 he has been playing improvisations in Sweden, Norwaym, Denmark, Germany, UK, Japan and China and since 2008 he works with musician and poet Pär Thörn. Besides this he also organizes concerts. On this first release he works with hearing-aid devices, paper, controlled feedback, record player (spinning ‘Sounds From Insects’ from the 1960), effect pedals and PA. No editing was done later on. I am not sure if that bit of information was necessary, because a piece is a piece, right? These twenty-seven minutes are quite alright with a building up of sounds in a linear way with outbursts half way through – uncontrolled feedback I was thinking – but working towards a nice droning coda in the final eight minutes of the piece. The record provides spoken word at varying times and throughout the piece maintains an interesting tension. The feedback is indeed – most of the times – under control and provides a nice backdrop for the record. It feeds through effects in order to further thicken the droney soundscape. I thought this was a rather fine improvisation of some well-balanced nature and not wandering off into some mindless sound journey. This is something I wouldn’t have minded to see it in real concert. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cordialhandshake.wordpress.com
CE FRANCOIS COUTURE & ROCHLO – DUO (CDR, private)
CE FRANCOIS COUTURE – DEVANT (cassette by La Cohu)
CE in the name CE Francois Couture means This, so it’s This Francois Couture. In Quebec, where he is from, there are many people called Francois Couture. Here are two of his releases. I started with the CDR with is a duo with Stephane Rocheleau from Compton – straight outta Quebec – who works as Rochlo – in which the R and C have circled around them. He plays mixing board, objects and voice, while Couture plays theremin, piano, organ, drawdio (whatever that may be), objects and voice. This is the work of improvisation and it’s a mixed bag. In ‘L’arbre, l’oiseau, le nid’ it leads to a bit of feedback and voice that might be sustain as sound poetry, but it doesn’t work very well there. When they opt for more instruments, they extend their working methods and it becomes more interesting I think, but these moments are sparse. I am not blown away by this release. It’s quite noisy, but not really in a total over the top way, but rather polite. The vocalizations didn’t do much for me either, in terms of voice abuse, sound poetry or otherwise. It’s not bad either, but this is perhaps one of things that work in a concert situation pretty well, but not on a CDR release.
Effectively his second release – the first was a digital only release last year – is a cassette and download and is all about no input mixing. Here too we have the inescapable amount of feedback and noise, but it all stays neatly in one place. Maybe not the place you want, or perhaps you’d like to see some change, but these improvised doodles are quite nice. Especially when Couture holds back and explores what is going on, rather than seemingly mindless going on with whatever is bursting about. Not entirely my cup of tea these releases, as all a bit too brutally primitive for my taste and could use most certainly some editing. (FdW)
Address: http://cefrancoiscouture.bandcamp.com
THANIEL ION LEE – VINTAGE YOUTH (3″CDR by Kimberly Dawn)
SUMMONS OF THE SHINING RUINS – THE SKY SINGS TO US (3″CDR by Kimberly Dawn)
CLEARING – THREAT (3″CDR by Kimberly Dawn)
Three new three-inch CDRs from the ever-expanding Kimberly Dawn label, a drone/new-age/what’s-it imprint that’s wisely picked up on the fact that twenty-two minutes is more than enough canvas for most sound-shillers to work with.
Thaniel Ion Lee arrived at the drone show following years of service on the art and photography scene. And while he’s accumulated a hefty CV in the visual realm, he’s a relative newbie to the audio dimension. ‘Vintage Youth,’ which he’s decorated himself, features the typical set of gradually evolving synth-and-guitar patterns. This three-tracker includes a lengthy centrepiece that revolves around a Southern-tinged ball of guitar-char. It sounds something like a scaled-back Birchville Cat Motel track, if you can imagine that. Meanwhile, glistening opener “Overmorrow” rides a dark ambient texture into a wormhole of X-Files synths. But it’s the binaural piano loop of “For JLL” that best conveys the faint dysthymia of the CDR’s title, edging gently towards sepia-tinged emotions like longing and regret.
Somehow guitarist Shinobu Nemoto has evaded my radar, despite the fact that he’s put out around forty thousand CDRs both on his own label, Moufu – Rokuon, and on a handful of other sound-conglomerates. His Summons of Shining Ruins project is devoted to understated ambient blurs of a Peter Wright mold, and ‘The Sky Sings to Us’ houses one such composition. Here a melancholic haze of guitar is gently dabbed over the sound surface, sinewing itself through dreamy chord-fogs of varying dimensions. Of course infinite iterations of this shebang have been committed to tape and CDR over the past ten years, drone music being more a ritual of folk-art than a platform for invention at this point. But Nemoto endows his work with a Robert Rich-ian drowsiness that cradles the listener in its somnolent glow. As far as the ritual goes, this is one of the more sublime outings.
Joseph Volmer’s Clearing tag, meanwhile,churns out a similar sound-mound but buffers the serrated edges, instead mining the glowing-orb end of the drone canon. At twenty-two minutes, you get all the neuron-purging bliss you could want at the length of a Seinfeld episode. Its regal bliss evokes a phrase Harold Budd used to describe his landmark ‘Pavilion of Dreams’ album: “existential prettiness.” But tugging at the heart of ‘Threat’ is a latent nervous tension – it is called ‘Threat,’ after all. Like a Lynchian utopia soured by life’s intrinsic disquietude, the chord pillars that make up the track sway into one another, little swaths of dissonance at the margins. (MT)
Address: http://kimdawn.blogspot.com/
CERNLAB – ATOMHERZ (3″CDR by Electroton)
UIJF_NOTFOUND – ANEUCH (3″CDR by Electroton)
It’s been quite a while since I last heard releases by Electroton. Their image hasn’t changed: it’s still transparent covers, with stylish modern writing and still looks strikingly similar to the first releases on Raster Noton. The music, I must say, also didn’t change that much. First we have Cernlab, also known as Marek Slipek, and ‘Atomherz’ is his second release. Maybe he works at Cern and at evening fiddles on his laptop with the blessings of Ableton? Clear beats, synth lines, and not always dance like, such as in ‘Vietnamsugar’, but besides a bit of rhythm and a bit of synth, it’s not easy to see much composition in here. Once the wheels are in motion in a track, it seems stuck in a loop. A few sounds run, one drops out, the other back in and then simultaneously again. It’s indeed fun software, but does it bring great results that are in need of a release?
From the Ukraine comes Gregory Potopalsky, also known as Uijf_notfound. He’s part of the scene around the Kvitnu label and uses max/msp/jitter in his audio and video work. The Kvitnu scene seems to me Pan Sonic inspired and Uijf_notfound is not different. On the title piece, the longest of the three here, he combines the strong, steady pulse beat with some nice atmospheric synth sounds, which form an interesting contrast to each other. In ‘Hadaway’ the rhythm is build from a looped hiss/white noise block and doesn’t come across as particular strong. ‘Pain When’, also clocking in over eight minutes is more like the first piece except here both beats and synths are quite mellow and like the first piece with a great amount of tension. This I thought was a fine release indeed, and easily something I wouldn’t mind hearing some more from. (FdW)
Address: http://www.electroton.net
IDEA FIRE COMPANY – E.1027 (cassette by Orila/Noise Below)
“So what do you like?”, someone asked me yesterday when I complaining/discussing the fact that I don’t like seas and boats and such like. “Music”, I answered. Just to hear and sometimes not at all, when it comes to ‘music being work’, such as writing a review. However, in awaiting of a new Zoviet*France CD, today is a lucky day. Not just the new Asmus Tietchens arrives, but also this cassette by Idea Fire Company. Both of whom I collect everything I can get (all three if you count Zoviet*France). This cassette contains live recordings, which is the preferred format by the company to release them. Here we find rougher versions of pieces from LPs – old or forthcoming. As far as I understand ‘The Perati Bridge’ will be released later on, on LP. I am not sure about the other two pieces on this release. Here Idea Fire Company consists of the core duo Karla Borecky (keyboards) and Scott Foust (trumpet, radio on the first piece, synth on the other two) and Matt Krefting (keyboards), who has been a member for quite some time. In the two pieces that make up side A, from June 2012, Foust plays trumpet and radio over a deceivingly simple keyboard loop with a nice melodic touch to it. This is at the beginning and the end of the piece, with some radio in the middle. ‘Symptoms/Signals’ is a more moody and abstract piece of ambient like synthesizers and keyboards with not a lot of melodic touches, but makes up in atmosphere. On the other side we have one long track ‘Breakthrough In Grey Room’, which may or may not have references to William Burroughs and starts out as an attack on the cosmic music, a bit brutal but also very spacious, when moving in real outer space it is a true cosmic winner. Light hearted spacious keyboards and below is the bass rumble of the space ship transporting us through the heavenly constellation. Why isn’t stuff like this available on LP on Spectrum Spools? One thing I know for sure: I don’t understand this world. (FdW)
Address: http://orila.nethttp://noise-below.org
DEVELOPER – SELF-TITLED (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
LA COUNTY MORGUE – THAT MAGGOTS SHD / EAT THE DEAD BULLOCK (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
VON EINEM – IMAGINED INFRACTIONS (cassette by Mazurka Editions)
The first three tapes from Mazurka Editions’ latest batch perpetuate curator Jarrod Skene’s monochrome vision, reveling in the colorless & toneless abstract. As I’ve discussed in the past, his label’s sounds reflect the obscured black-and-white visuals of the tape inserts themselves, altogether evoking an unsettling vagueness: things not understood but distinctly feared.
Factotum Tapes head Matthew Reis operates his Developer project as an outlet for assembled junk and pungent noise-salvos. His twenty minutes of malevolence carries on Mazurka’s grey and craggy tradition but falls on the more prickly end, dropping in abrupt huffs of sour pedal noise at brief intervals. It serves as a heady gut-check, pummeling the naïve observer with buzz-saws of abrasion at different frequency-strata. Reis has been at this for awhile now, so his antics are certainly convincing. He even knows how to (ab)use the element of surprise to menacing ends: side B kicks off with a shocking sandpaper-surface of roughage, and the tape’s assiduously programmed binaural canvas uses the stereo spectrum to skewer you from both sides. This tape is one of Mazurka’s harshest products thus far, but its dissonant clatter fits right in.
LA County Morgue, Skene’s own solo project, extracts two acrid sides from a mound of recycled tape, stressed mics, and liberally-applied effects pedal nonsense. At the base of side A we encounter what sounds like a few ominous piano keys looped ad nauseum, above which audio-cable fuzz and clamorous sorcery gradually crowd the frame. It locks on to a burbling balefulness that befits the tape’s title – not to mention its cover art, which wields a grainy photo of a newlywed with their faces scratched out. Meanwhile Side B scrapes forth with considerable aplomb, a slow-moving cycle of noise like a merry-go-round on which all the customers hold their severed heads in their hands, the unicorns and ponies swapped with awful grotesques of goblins and ill-tempered manatees. It’s zestfully devoid of joy and effortlessly nihilistic.
Last up is the ‘Imagined Infractions’ C20 from Mark Groves’ Von Einem project, which borrows its name from one of Australia’s most notorious murderers. You guessed it: grim stuff yet again. Opening fragment “Silence and Brush Fences” revels in the dulcet tones of a contact mic being sloshed against a low-end synth pulse – it’s a strong intro for twenty minutes worth of bad-natured fun. A similar effect is achieved on morose “White Holden Sedan / Noctec Vista,” which is practically a club track by Mazurka’s standards (though its booty-bass is scoured into a de-fleshed post-punk track, and its title – which references one of the drugs Von Einem used to sedate his victim – scrubs out any potential overtures towards pleasantness). On “Mummified Rather Than Dissolved,” whose title is exquisitely evocative, a desiccated voice is entombed in a seething tide of hissing cassette grime. “Number One Beat” continues the theme but ratchets up the tape-scum quotient. With synths and spoken-word in its armament, ‘Imagined Infractions’ is one of the more variegated tapes Skene’s put out. It may also be the most absorbing. (MT)
Address: http://mazurkaeditions.blogspot.com
VERTONEN – CAPILLAIRES MECANIQUES (cassette by Fluxus Montana)
VERTONEN – FLOODED (cassette by Readymades Tapes – Quality Since 1893)
There are various incarnations of Vertonen. Over the years we have encountered the turntablist, the noise maker, the drone maker, the musique concrete composer and the man who loves machine sounds. I understand this to be a sort of homage to people who work with machines, like Matt Heckert (of Survival Research Laboratories) and Vivenza; especially the latter seems to have a big influence on Blake Edwards. He already released some works in this direction (see Vital Weekly 805 and 808). This new cassette forecasts a 12″ picture disc and CDR which are almost released, and the music deals with the “bloodlines of machines – engines, pistons, drive belts”. I noted before, Vivenza never used actual recordings of machines, but the Putney synth, but he managed to make it sound like real life machines. I assume Vertonen uses real machine recordings, although I might be wrong. The recordings sound a bit muffled, slightly distorted and have a grainy, vague, industrial atmosphere to them. Probably no doubt as intended by Vertonen. It’s quite unclear what to what extend Vertonen uses any sound processing on this material as a further transformation. I can’t believe it’s entirely without as the delay machine is a eminent feature on the second side. As a teaser for a forthcoming release in a similar vein, this is actually quite a nice release. I enjoyed the good old Vivenza (more than the one Heckert release I know off), and Vertonen pays a nice tribute to the man by not just imitating him, but adding his own decaying flavor.
On the highly curious named label Readymades Tapes – Quality Since 1893 we find Vertonen disguised as someone who loves to manipulate magnetic tape material. Maybe we meet here a version of Vertonen which is open to various inspirations. We have a drone like sound, culled from looping tapes on rusty and dusty reel to reel recorders, making this perhaps also a spin round from his love of machine sounds and maybe a bit musique concrete like. It’s inspired by the likes of Jason Zeh, but it’s without the surprise element of collage/demontage. Instead we have a fine continuous mass of layered sounds in which sand gets captured to make it more grainy with each new turn. Not literally perhaps but come to think of it, it could very well be. This tape-erosion works pretty well and this could easily fit among the best drone works Vertonen recorded. Music wise, this was the one I preferred, but perhaps that’s because I like a fine work of drone anytime. (FdW)
Address: http://fluxusmontana.blogspot.com
Address: http://readymadestapes-qualitysince1893.com
MINOY – TREATMENT RESISTANT/THE YEAR OF THE DOG (double cassette by Impulsy Stetoskopu)
Oddly enough in my active cassette years I was never in contact with Minoy; at least I am pretty sure I wasn’t. I am not sure why this was. Minoy, real name Stanley Keith Bowsza, died in 2010, at the age of 59, but he already stopped doing music in the early 90s. These days the archive of his works are in the hands of PBK who remasters his music and seeks out labels to reach them. In this box of two tapes we find material from right at the end of his musical career, from April 23, 1993 and March 27, 1994 – the latter being his last ever recording. Minoy’s music was very much the product of the 80s noise scene: using a multitude of layered recordings and subsequent tape hiss of putting all of these cassette recordings together. Minoy seems to have relatively easy set up of sounds – field recordings perhaps – stored on cassettes, shortwave radio, microphones and sound effects and much of what you is how it was put together, in a live fashion. The music of Minoy is an interesting mixture of psychedelic soundscapes, which meander towards ambient (side a of Treatment Resistant) or bit more industrialized noise in the b-side of Treatment Resistant. The music is very spacious and perhaps a bit long at times, but it’s the duration that is the main attraction in this music; oddly enough perhaps. Because it moves on and on and on, it’s gets all in trance like state here, which is the psychedelic element I guess. Both these hour long pieces are symphonies in their own right – ominous walls of sound, banging beyond and below, harsh and soft and ultimately lift you up. I heard in the 80s some of Minoy’s collaborations, such as Domaine Poetique, but somehow I missed out his solo work. It’s good to finally hear it and, more important, to appreciate it. (FdW)
Address: http://www.impulsystetoskopu.pl
MATT SHOEMAKER – THE LATE DAY SPECTRUM (cassette by Masters Chemical Society)
CHRISTOPHER DELAURENTI – PHONOPOLIS: URBAN FIELD RECORDINGS VOL. 1 (cassette by Masters Chemical Society)
NERVE NET NOISE – MAGNETIC BREATH (cassette by Masters Chemical Society)
Three neatly, professionally duplicated tapes and fine printed covers. It’s almost like a pro-label from the 80s poking its face around the corner, but it’s 2013. That’s a great thing. Also the three musicians here nosed out quality, as they all have had CD releases before. First there is Matt Shoemaker, of whom it has been quite a while since I last heard something from. The four pieces here are all a bit older, from 2004 to 2008, and recorded in/around Seattle, as the cover says, which made me think that it’s either processed field recordings, or perhaps something that was played outdoors even. Shoemaker is a minimalist and that shows in these four pieces. He feeds his field recordings through some computer manipulation thing and let the sound take minimal routes and sees what’s happening. Sometimes these sounds connect and sometimes they don’t. Shoemaker uses very similar lines of processing, but as before he likes things to be lively at the same time. It’s all not very strictly composed, but to say it’s improvised might also be not the truth. The music has a relaxing tune to it, which is something I quite enjoyed. Ambient like, but not walking well-walked drone paths, not even in the title piece which goes out for something more noisy, if you get my drift. Excellent tape.
Christoph DeLaurenti is a member of the Seattle Phonographers Union and released a CD on Locust/Met-Life, which I was sure I reviewed but I can’t find anymore. His pieces here are highly obscure(d) field recordings, usually of a very low volume, especially on side A. I think I heard more field recordings coming from outside the house than from the tape, even after I put up the volume a bit more. It’s hard to say wether something was done with these recordings or wether they are presented as they were made. I assume the latter. It has a mysterious feel to it, these pieces of urban activities. Only in ‘Two Rave Tents’ and ‘Hong Kong Supermarket’ we recognized human activity, but say ‘Orchad Street Laundromat’ stayed safe and abstract away. I wish it was presented all a bit louder and perhaps I would have enjoyed this more? It’s not bad at all, just very soft.
Also from Nerve Net Noise I haven’t heard something in quite some time – in fact I can’t remember at all. Their music, I seem to remember, was always quite noisy, quite improvised and it seemed always somehow conceptual. This cassette with eight pieces may be something of a normal release? Kumax still plays ‘original synthesizer, alto sax’ and Tagomago (I assume we are not dealing with real names here) plys ‘mix, effect, treatment’. Besides some thank you’s and track titles, there is no other information here, such as when this was recorded. The addition of the alto-saxophone is, however, something new. It adds a more musical element to the music, and I must say I rather enjoyed this odd mixture of jazz like saxophone playing identical sounds over and over again (or perhaps they are looped somehow?) and likewise odd electronic sounds, which may or may form off beat rhythm material. The noise from before is gone, and so is the endless repeating which was the conceptual edge to the earlier music. This too was weird and musical at the same time, and that was the nicest thing about it. It was good to hear from them again, and it was even better to hear them do something new, something out of their ordinary self. (FdW)
Address: http://masterschemicalsociety.bandcamp.com/