FEDERICO DURAND – EL ESTANQUE ESMERALDA (CD by Spekk) *
MELODIA – SAUDADES (CD by Kacio) *
ANNE CHRIS BAKKER – REMINISCENCES (CD by Dronarivm) *
SEIJI MORIMOTO – SHORT SUMMER (CD by Emitter Micro) *
THE EBERTBROTHERS – ENGINE EYES EP (CD by Mindwaves Music)
COIL / NINE INCH NAILS – RECOILED (CD by Cold Spring)
ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE – GARIG GUNAK BARLU (CD by Unfathomless) *
DAVID NEWLYN – DISINTEGRATING SUBURBAN DREAM (CD by Hibernate Recordings) *
ISNAJ DUI – SECONDARY PROJECTIONS (3″CDR by Hibernate Recordings) *
NO:CARRIER – WISDOM & FAILURE (CD by Counter Communications)
SCHLEIMER K (CD by Infrastition) *
HAMITIC MYTH – DIVIDED HISTORY (CDR by Under Platform) *
MATS GUSTAFSSON & LASSE MARHAUG – THE OSLO TAPES (12″ by Bocian Records)
STEFAN THUT & MITSUTERU TAKEUCHI – EQUINOX/SOLSTICE (CDR by Rhizomes) *
JAY-DEA LOPEZ – TERRAFORM (3″CDR by Kaon) *
ANDRE BORGEN – GUITAR PIECES (Norweirdian Tapes)
LASSE MARHAUG – BURMA/CAMBODIA (Norweirdian Tapes)
FEDERICO DURAND – EL ESTANQUE ESMERALDA (CD by Spekk)
MELODIA – SAUDADES (CD by Kacio)
Two times Argentinian born musician Federico Durand, first on a solo disc and then in a duet with Tomoyoshi Date, of Opiote fame under the guise of Melodia. Durand has had releases on Home Normal and Own Records and Desire Path, but it seems we only reviewed his debut album ‘La Siesta Del Cipres’ (see Vital Weekly 734). This new album is inspired by childhood memories, flue ridden but well enough for a visit to a pond, which invoked some crazy dream like state. That’s something he likes to find in his music too, something dreamlike. There is no list of instruments on the cover, but it’s most likely there is lots of acoustic instruments in use here, such guitar, xylophone/glockenspiel and maybe piano, and then added to this we have field recordings and maybe some sort of electronic processing. This makes this music very ambient, obviously, but it runs the fear of getting to clean cut and going down to a road, in to what we would call maybe new age. This music, while not yet entirely, is very kind and very sweet and at times I was thinking, perhaps, maybe, a bit too sweet? It gets very close I think. It seems to lack a bittersweet touch, a bit of grainy edge, something that is uneven… That is surely something that I miss in this music. That is a pity.
The album with Date was recorded on an European tour (in 2012) together, mastered by Stephan Mathieu and previously released as a vinyl only, but for the Japanese market now also on CD with four extra, previously unreleased tracks. Here Durand takes credit for Valetin’s guitar, bell from Hölderlin’s land, field recording, endless tape, Sony TCM-200 DV, cassettes, microbrute and electronics while Date plays also ‘Valentin’s guitar, old zither and trumpet from Belgium, my great-aunt’s piano (DIAPASON), holly pump organ from church, Faderboard by Vestax, TC-101 from kyoto and electronics from nature’. So perhaps not the most clearest of lists, but you get the drift: they like guitars and field recordings and something more lo-fi when it comes to (pre-) recorded sounds. There is little difference in this music and the kind that Duran plays solo. It’s all very harmonic, very quiet, and yet also very musical; it’s never anywhere static or drone like. It’s almost like sitting in a field and somewhere in the not too far distance someone is playing guitar while a small speaker amplifies the sound of a small synthesizers and birds twitter around this and winds blows down the tree; in the more further afield people talk. Excellent mood music for a sun filled lazy Sunday afternoon on the balcony with a good book and good coffee at hand. Or perhaps some wine later on. Spacious. And is perhaps what one can say for both of these releases as well as that both of these releases don’t walk exactly new paths, but are carefully building on what we already know. (FdW)
Address: http://www.spekk.net
Address: http://kaicojapan.tumblr.com
ANNE CHRIS BAKKER – REMINISCENCES (CD by Dronarivm)
So far I heard the name Anne Chris Bakker in relation to collaborations he did with others, such as Machinefabriek and Peter Broderick as part of Mort Aux Vaches (see Vital Weekly 770) and the Kleefstra brothers, poet Jan and guitarist Romke (see Vital Weekly 824). Maybe that’s an indication where his solo music can be found (although what surprise it could have been if this was a country & western sing-along work?): that of the ambient, drone inspired, atmospheric musician. To that end Anne Chris Bakker plays guitar, mostly with a bow, but also with his hands and adding a fine bunch of electronics to create that endless sustain on the music he produces; sometimes he adds a bit of field recordings to the table. As such there isn’t a lot of difference with the works of the people has worked with. Any moment here you can imagine hearing the voice of Jan Kleefstra and one his Frisian poems. It has the same desolated feeling as the works various people conducted him. There is a difference, at least on these six pieces, with say Machinefabriek, which is that the latter puts in more experiment within the particular form of music they play, and Bakker’s pieces are more single-minded: very drone like, very few changes, dark/greyish, and without much new views on the matter at hand. That is of course not really a problem. Bakker just explores what others are exploring too and while there are endlessly more people trying to emulate pop-stars, it’s not bad a few people in some niche may have similar ideas about atmospheric music. Bakker does a really fine job and if he explores this road further he may find more of a voice for his own. (FdW)
Address: http://dronarivm.com
SEIJI MORIMOTO – SHORT SUMMER (CD by Emitter Micro)
Three pieces here, more or less of equal length: twenty minutes, all recorded in 2011. ‘A characteristic resonance investigation, which is generated between the vibrating objects (buzzer: 400hz) and different materials’, it says in the press release. Morimoto studied musicology and started to play the electronics pieces by John Cage in 1996 and also his own pieces. Since 2003 he lives in Berlin. In his work he ‘focuses on the unstable acoustic phenomena between everyday objects such as water and stones and the technological medium. His work consists of a search for small and differentiated structures, and the attempt to discover this random phenomena through and within the technological medium’. I am not sure how that works but these three pieces are radical. His places one or more buzzers onto objects (wooden box, tin can, plastic tray) to make a heavy resonating sound and by slowly moving his hands and/or the objects there is a gradual change in these resonances. ‘Wooden Box’ and ‘Plastic Tray’ are quite loud exercises, while ‘Tin Can’ is much ‘softer’ but no less radical. A highly minimal sound, and surely one that can easily be dismissed as annoying, even for those who are trained in hearing experimental music, noise or whatever you call it. A study in minimalism, but also a study in the innovation of minimalism, through the use of non musical elements – wooden box, tin can, plastic tray and a buzzer – but very consistently executed in a very human way. Not some buzzers on an object but manually held to generate these small changes. As said, I think this is a highly radical release that could easily appeal to those who like noise, those who like to hear something new and it will leave nobody untouched. I needed a break afterwards. (FdW)
Address: http://emittermicro.com
THE EBERTBROTHERS – ENGINE EYES EP (CD by Mindwaves Music)
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of reviewing the first album released on a label by the Berlin-based act The Ebertbrothers. It was the album “Susten pass” released on the Mindwaves Music label in 2011. Behind The Ebertbrothers you find the two brothers Axel and Michael Ebert both residing in Berlin. Originally they started back in 2006 with focus on video art only. Later they started integrating sound arts to the visual performance. Now The Ebertbrothers are ready with an Ep out on the Mindwaves Music label. The 36 minutes running album “Engine eyes EP” is a combination of new produced tracks and remixes from interesting artists such as Finnish artist Lackluster and the two Danish acts Karsten Pflum and Badun. The three remixes are based on tracks from the aforementioned album “Susten Pass” adding some new angles to the original IDM-based tracks from the debut. Apart from the three remixes, the “Engine Eyes Ep” presents four new pieces from the Ebertbrothers. The music from the two brothers combines ambient textures with rhythm textures spanning from complex IDM-structures to structures sounding like tribal handpercussions. There is a nice dreamlike atmosphere upon the album, that stylishly could sound a bit like the style of early Warp Records. Thanks to the combination of remixes and new materials from the two brothers, “Engine Eyes Ep” is a very pleasant album that beautifully balances between catchiness and experimentalism. (NM)
Address: http://www.mindwaves-music.com
COIL / NINE INCH NAILS – RECOILED (CD by Cold Spring)
Present album is the result of Industrial rock-legend Trent Reznor’s admiration of another of the 90’s industrial-music related giants of the 90’s – Coil. As Trent Reznor sent the original materials from his studio straight to the magikal territories of COIL-member Peter Christopherson and the producer of the sound of many of the Coil-works, Danny Hyde, the result circulated in the underground until British label Cold Spring decided to collect the materials into this Ep-album titled “Recoiled”. The album includes tracks from the industrial rock milestone from 1994 “The Downward Spiral” and from the second NIN-release “”Broken” (1992). Owners of the CD and vinyl versions of “Recoiled” will also have a previously unheard remix of the song “Eraser” included on the disc. The album opens with a remix of the industrial-metal track titled “Gave up (open my eyes)” from “Broken Ep”. From the harsh metal-world of the original version, the track has been transformed into a intense beat-driven version dominated by a pretty aggressive guitarriffs and processed recordings of the vocals of Trent Reznor. Second track is a remix that was originally created for the opening credits of David Fincher’s classic thriller “Se7en”, however on this album you get the full version running approx. 8 minutes. The original version of “Closer” was taken from “The Downward Spiral”-album. This is also the case with the next two tracks. The opening of third track “The Downward Spiral (A Gilded Sickness)” has reminiscences to the style of Skinny Puppy-side-project Download thanks to its chaotic mixture of processed voices and collaged noise-drones. A very nice piece full of dreamful eerie atmospheres in the best thinkable Coil’ish style. Two remixes of the track titled “Eraser” closes the album. First the remix-version titled “Reduction” – a non-rhythmic piece based on collaged noise and looped samples adding a nice ritual feel to the track. Closing piece is the so-called “Baby alarm mix”-version of Eraser where the original beat textures are converted into distortedly harsh industrial rhythms adding a great energy to the track further intensified by riff-samples and spooky sounds. “Recoiled” will unquestionably satisfy listeners of both NIN and Coil. Thanks to Cold Spring for bringing this interesting Ep from the underground into the limelight of present industrial scene after the slipping away of both of the Coil-members Peter Christopherson and John Balance. (NM)
Address: http://www.coldspring.co.uk
ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE – GARIG GUNAK BARLU (CD by Unfathomless)
It seems as if Slavek Kwi is on a mission to release a lot of music in a short time frame. In recent months we already saw a bunch of his releases and here’s another one, the first part of a series of works based on field recordings based from down under, conducted in the Garig Gunak Barlu national park and Cobourg Peninsula – Arafura sea, Arnhem land, northern territory, Australia. All of which can be found at the most northern end of Australia and not something commoners like us will easily travel too. Kwi builds up his pieces quite nicely. It’s a long curve, seventy-five minutes, in three long pieces, with a linear story. In the first piece (thirty minutes) we hear lots of bird’s sounds and seemingly they are untreated, but it’s put together in some collage form, slowly changing, although it seems throughout to remain untreated. In ‘Coralreef’ it all seems to be dealing with sea side sounds, including dolphins, washing upon the shores, and towards the end bird calls. Here it seems as if minor treatment has been applied. In the third piece ‘Nocturnabyss’ there are ‘ultrasonic insects sliding across the time-grid meets hypnotic chorus sprinkled by sonar of bats and barking geckos’ as we read on the cover, which gives the piece a highly (computer?) treated effect, which, come to think of it, might not be the case. Maybe, other than putting a few sounds on top of each other, there is nothing computer treated about this. Maybe it’s just the nature of recording that makes that this sound highly electronic? In any case, we go from the straightforward birds in the first to a more or less quite abstract electronic sounding piece in the third. I liked this piece, I must admit, but throughout I also enjoyed the narrative aspect of the entire release. Another damn fine release by one of the best composers in this field. (FdW)
Address: http://www.unfathomless.net
DAVID NEWLYN – DISINTEGRATING SUBURBAN DREAM (CD by Hibernate Recordings)
ISNAJ DUI – SECONDARY PROJECTIONS (3″CDR by Hibernate Recordings)
It’s been a while since I last heard something by David Newlyn, whose earlier releases where reviewed in Vital Weekly 5457, 600 and 730). His earliest works was dealing with rhythm, more than it does now, but somewhere along the lines he moved into a more abstract ambient sound, using field recordings, keyboards, computers, guitar and fretless bass. Brian Eno is perhaps a name that is used a lot when it comes to comparing music – and perhaps only (?) because we expect Eno to be a household name – but listening to the twelve pieces on ‘Disintegrating Suburban Dream’, ranging from a mere minute to six minutes, it struck me that many of the pieces have a nice musical touch to them. This is not the very abstract variation of ambient, in which x-amount plug-ins are used to create amorphous soundscapes, but rather with its emphasis on piano sounds, guitar and lush keyboard textures, the music gets just very musical, like Eno did on ‘On Land’ for instance. It paints watercolour pictures of places, maybe deserted suburban places, but no less: clear pictures. Beautifully slow evolving music. While I was playing this, I was thinking: how would Erik Satie compose music if he would be alive today? My guess would be that it’s probably something as close to David Newlyn on this album. I was out of touch with his music for some time, but now it’s time to catch up, I think. Great atmospheric tunes, which offer not much news; just in case you were looking for that.
On a postcard size cover and CDR on 3″, we find Katie English and her project Isnaj Dui. She was given some recordings of a super 8mm projector by the Hibernate boss and started to with that, adding flutes, cello, guitar, gangsa pemade and Yamaha organ. The projector recordings were used treated and untouched. I think these recordings consist of the actual projector and whatever was on the film. The piece consists of three different sections. Many of the releases in the Postcard series are slightly more experimental than what appears on the mother ship label and this release is no different. The music is rather soft, and seems to be made with the use of loops of sound, from the projector, from the instruments and in the final section also children talking. It has its own internal peace, especially the middle section, which has a vaguely percussive, feel to it, with the rattling of the projector and the longer, sustaining loops of the instruments. Slow and peaceful, but also a bit more rough; like watching an old grainy 8mm home movie, and no doubt that’s the idea behind this piece. This is the kind of ambient music I like: with a nice experimental twist, not too heavy, not too much. (FdW)
Address: http://www.hibernate-recs.co.uk
NO:CARRIER – WISDOM & FAILURE (CD by Counter Communications)
SCHLEIMER K (CD by Infrastition)
HAMITIC MYTH – DIVIDED HISTORY (CDR by Under Platform)
Three releases with rhythm, and all somehow owing to, maybe, the world of pop. I started with No:carrier, perhaps because I didn’t like the cover of their release very much and I was warned off by ‘electro noire pop’. I like synth pop, I like Depeche Mode in their earlier days more than in their latter days, but this duo from Germany/USA – I don’t know, but somehow it seems more German than US, god knows why I am thinking this – is just not my thing. Not really at all. It seems very cliché, very commercial and I assume they will do well. They don’t need any write up in this rag, and should be better off with some e-zine in the world of dark wave pop electro noire. Another case of mistaken mail: this is not really the place.
Is it a small or a big step from No:carrier and their dark synth pop to the music of Schleimer K? If it is a small one, then logic dictates that I am not like this either. However it’s, at least for me, something different. Schleimer K is an old band, with Michael Wolfen on vocals, Kevin Allison on bass and Dominique Brethes on keyboards. They were from London and their first LP – which now is this CD – was released in 1981. This has very little to do, in my opinion, with the world of commercial synth pop, of it’s day by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode or Human League. Schleimer K is much more a raw diamond, they play dark wave with an experimental, post-punk twist and is nowhere near of the clean polished music of No:carrier. If in ‘Hang-Ups’ the lyrics are that the future is uncertain, it’s more trustworthy than anything No:carrier sings about. The 80s in full glory, with its entire nuclear treat, no jobs and no future. This is melodic, poppy perhaps, but maybe the true dark wave, angst pop, even when there is a nice twist in a cover of Traffic’s ‘On The Road Again’. These boys are uncertain about the future, but know their classics. Infrastition already released their ‘Wounded Wood’, their second LP with is a bit more postpunk than this more electronic version of their original sound (see Vital Weekly 774); I always preferred this one over ‘Wounded Wood’: more stripped down to its core, more real pain, more angst. It’s great to have this on CD, so you can get hear it in full re-mastered glory and not through a scratchy low-resolution download.
And back to the present day with a rather short release by Hamitic Myth, a duo of Pol Vanlaer and Giel Bils – I assume from Belgium. Four pieces only, sixteen minutes, but copied on a 5″CDR with a regular jewel case. They don’t use any vocals in these pieces, but plenty of rhythm of a darker nature and synthesizers of a likewise darker nature. A pretty straight forward rhythm, supporting by a nice sequence, nicely bouncing but not exactly of the variety that fills dance floors, I should think (how would I know, I rarely see a dance floor), but it fits this trio of dark wavers. A lot less, thank god, polished than No:carrier but with an excellent rough edge around it. These are surely nice pieces that could do well on a dark party or perhaps find their way to a label like Ant-Zen (maybe), but I was wondering: why these four? Why not wait a bit longer, create some more pieces, and do a bit of a longer release, so we have a better idea of what Hamitic Myth is all about. Now it’s a bit difficult to say what this is all about. Nice but too short. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nocarriermusic.com
Address: http://www.infrastition.com
Address: http://www.under-label.be
MATS GUSTAFSSON & LASSE MARHAUG – THE OSLO TAPES (12″ by Bocian Records)
The classic 12″ at 45 rpm: this seems like the good ol’ 80s again. A duo-tone cover (gold and black) sporting the image of a broken cassette. This might very well be not recorded on a cassette at all, but who cares, I think? The record was taped at The Best Studio on August 15 2013 and we find Gustafsson on saxophones and Marhaug on electronics, and perhaps, indeed, tapes. It certainly sounds like that with speeding up of sounds being thrown randomly about in the mix. Just as randomly as perhaps anything else on this record. The saxophone plays random, the electronics burst the big bass bin, and occasional feedback is in here somewhere. Maybe, just maybe, Marhaug picks up the sound from Gustafsson and works alternations and altercations into the music, but that too is something we can’t be sure about. A record that is powerful, in all it’s confused and confusing state, I think. It bounces into the world of free noise, free jazz and electro-acoustic composition/improvisation. The b-side adds guitar, in a likewise random fashion, while the saxophone takes more of a lead here. One hell of a racket, this record. Not something that would leave any listener untouched. Maybe fourteen minutes per side but quite a tour de force. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bocianrecords.com
STEFAN THUT & MITSUTERU TAKEUCHI – EQUINOX/SOLSTICE (CDR by Rhizomes)
Another highly conceptual release by the Rhizome-s from France, and this time dealing with the changing of seasons, based on the four solstices and equinoxes of 2012. On the right channel we hear Stefan Thut and on the left we hear Mitsuteru Takeuchi, and the only credit they get is ‘recording’. Thut recorded in his home in Solothurn and Takeuchi in Kobe. I am not sure if that ‘recording’ extends to anything beyond sticking a microphone out of the window. Oddly, the release has three tracks, each exactly twenty-five minutes, and not four – I recall four equinoxes/solstices a year – but they were recorded at exactly the same time, and, again odd, each recording lasted an hour. So, what happened with these pieces from the four hours of recordings to the three times twenty-five minutes I am now hearing? That is hard to say, but once I open up a piece in my sound editor (to rip one for the podcast, not playback) I noticed that each piece has four parts – one per solstice I think, but how they were selected is not very clear. The music seems to be nothing more than sticking a microphone out of the window indeed, and while this is not very loud, it mixes nicely with the sounds leaking in from outside here at the Vital HQ – no solstice, but definitely a most delightful spring day. So I hear birds here on the CDR, along with some church bells, a plane and such like and essentially it’s not much different than what I hear with my balcony doors wide-open balcony. That works quite nice actually. Three different sources and always changing it seems. It all works together very well. Like said, another highly conceptual release, but quite a fascinating one. (FdW)
Address: http://rhizome-s.blogspot.fr
JAY-DEA LOPEZ – TERRAFORM (3″CDR by Kaon)
In Kaon’s series of pieces of music which are all based on river sounds recorded by label boss Cedric Peyronnet we have seen many composers with some reputation, but also some new names of people you may not have heard of, or perhaps not a lot, such as Pierre Juillard and now Jay-Dea Lopez, who is from Australia. He has had a training in classical performance and composition but he prefers to be using field recordings, and some of these have been used in film, radio, theatre, festivals and installations. All of this information doesn’t tell us how Lopez works, but judging by what I hear I assume he feeds the original river recordings into a synthesizer (audio external input) and starts with some filtering which makes that this sound like an electronic work. The piece is divided in distinct parts which are a bit similar but different. First there is a percussive bit with a slow deep tick (think Pan Sonic/Noto/Goem) and river sounds that become white noise – or vice versa of course. This then moves over into a more ambient pattern in which we hear birds and gradually more white noise/river and then the next section which starts again with percussive sounds, but then all a bit different. The next section takes a bit longer, around seven minutes and is split in two, to end with the percussive bit/white noise again. The whole composition – twenty-one minutes – has very much it’s own peace and slowness. It’s again a wonderful, fine addition to this great series, and again, something that is not easily compared to any another release in this series. An endless stream of fine releases. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kaon.org/
ANDRE BORGEN – GUITAR PIECES (Norweirdian Tapes)
LASSE MARHAUG – BURMA/CAMBODIA (Norweirdian Tapes)
Two new releases on Andre Borgen’s label Norwedian Tapes. I am not sure if I heard from him before, but he has released two albums before, ‘Staying Old’ and ‘Todays’, and apparently those were more an one man ‘rock, folk, psych-spirit, with no limits on instrumentation and number of tracks’, so I am told. On ‘Guitar Pieces’ he just plays guitar, an acoustic one, and records it using cheap recorders. I am no expert but also apparently he is using alternate tunings. These are improvisations and, sometimes, small tunes. Once he is interrupted by the telephone, which was quite funny. I could say something about the fact that downstairs there is somebody rehearsing classical acoustic guitar every now and then (he doesn’t live there, but visits) which takes hours and hours, so you can imagine I am a bit sceptical about the whole nature of guitar playing at the moment, but he’s not there now, or yesterday or the rest of the past week. Which makes that I can actually enjoy Borgen’s intimate strumming much better. Careful, delightful, in whatever tuning he is using – maybe I am tone deaf I was thinking – he plays these pieces, thoughtful and meditative. Maybe I like guitar playing after all?
Lasse Marhaug we mostly know for his noise music – see also elsewhere – but he’s also known to play something quieter: some of his works with Jazzkammer spring to mind. In the autumn of 2013 he made a travel (or was it a tour?) in Burma and Cambodia and did some field recordings over there. Unlike many others in the sector ‘field recordings’, Marhaug plays around with them, adds stuff, or perhaps processes these recordings, and while there is a low bass sound repeated on ‘Full Moon Day’, the overall sound is very low, with minimal extra sounds; more like glitches and hiss, rather than some musical backing. For ‘Holidays In Cambodia’ (no prize if you know where he got that title) the musical action is derived from the loops of the material in a more clear way, while longer events are placed underneath. Its great to hear Marhaug doing things like this – it reminded me of ‘Pancakes’, my favourite Jazzkammer album (even when I didn’t hear them all). Great field recording music turned into something bigger. (FdW)
Address: <norweirdian@gmail.com>